DAMAGED - A Bad Boy Romance (45 page)

“You’re just jealous, little brother,” Doug sniped at him. “You spend all the time with the books; you’re never going to meet any girls. He’s mad because I dragged him over here to see if we could meet some of these babes. I’ve got the car keys and he’s stuck with me.”

“I really wouldn’t try too hard when it comes to these girls,” Sean tried to tell him.

“Why?” Doug countered. “You not had any luck?”

“It’s not that.” Sean groped for a word. “They’re not what you assume they are.”

“You’re going to have to explain yourself.”

Sean caught a collective look from Lilly and Emily. “I think they’re from some foreign country. They don’t seem to understand English.”

“Where?” Dennis said to him. “If any of them are from Europe I’d expect them to speak our language as it’s widely understood over there. I speak Spanish and German, maybe I could interpret.”

“See?” Doug said. “You just put him in the right situation and he comes around. I knew all he’d have to do is get out of the library for a few hours.”

Doug turned and looked at the girls. “So are you all double dating or something?”

“Something like that,” Emily said to him and moved closer to Sean.

“Never could see it,” he told her. “Prefer one-on-one myself. This has to be the first time I’ve ever seen you with a girl, Sean. Dion, it doesn’t surprise me. You have more attention from them than you know what to do about.”

Dion ignored him and turned from the sight of the splashing nymphs. “We’re here to meet the store owner,” he told him. “But she had to leave and it looks like we’re stuck in the mall for the next few hours.

“Come on, little brother,” Doug said to his twin. “Let’s see if we can go out there and make some connections.” The two went off in search of the nymphs who were frolicking in the pools. The two clerks still stood and watched them, unsure of what to do.

“I really should have warned them,” Dion said to his friends, “but I don’t know how to do it without making it impossible to find the Grandmaster.”

“What do they have to be afraid about?” Lilly said to Dion. “They seem harmless enough. At least they’re not trying to kidnap us like the last groups of elementals tried to do.”

“They have to be here because someone hired them,” Dion explained. “You saw them arrive on that bus. Someone, probably my uncle, paid for their arrival. These are not your normal lake and river water elementals. They have abilities I can only speculate. My uncle wants to keep me away from the Grandmaster so I don’t obtain any further powers that might threaten him. He’s brought this group in to carry out his plans. Keep in mind they may appear to be normal girls, but they are elementals.”

“What harm can they do?” Emily said. “I would think we’d be alright so long as we don’t get pulled into one of the pools.”

“They’ll find a way to work their power. All they need is a source of water to cause a flood or worse. And those two have no idea what they’re walking into.”

They watched Doug, with Dennis in tow; stroll over to the nearest pool that was set-up in the back lot. They walked over to the side of the pool and called to the two women who were swimming in it. The women ignored Doug as he continued to call out to them. Finally, one of them swam over to his side to see what he wanted.

“The problem with water elementals,” Dion told them. “Is that they are attracted to humans every now and then. You see, some of them were human at one time. I don’t know how it works, but sometimes an elemental starts out as a human. Sometimes a human ends up an elemental. It all depends on how they find their place in the universe. It’s really bad for a nymph to become infatuated with a human. They don’t do very well outside water and few people live close enough to large bodies of water. So what happens if a sailor should have a nymph fall for him? He has to stay constantly around a source of water or she will sicken and breakdown. It creates all kinds of problems for both of them.”

“You mean she could die?” asked Emily.

“There is no death in elementals,” Dion said. “At least not any death we would recognize. They can dissolve after a long time, but the process takes centuries. If they are out of their environment, they go into a form of hibernation and no one knows how long it can last. There are stories of water elementals that became normal again after they’d spent generations in a desert. The other problem of a water elemental falling for a human is what it can do to him. If she tries to keep him under the water, he’ll drown. Most elementals understand why humans can’t live under the sea, but some of the lower ones don’t understand why. Those elementals are very strong, so I assume they know better than to mess with humans.”

They looked again across the lot and saw Doug in a deep conversation with one of the nymphs. She had long blond hair, which was plastered across her head from swimming in the water. Her friend was Asian and had black hair, also trailing down her back. She was swimming across the pool as Dennis made eye contact with her.

“So what you’re saying,” Emily said, “is that a relationship with a water element always turns out bad.”

“Not necessarily. But neither the human nor the nymphs seem to realize what they are up against until it’s too late. She ends up a pile of salt until he can resurrect her or he ends up sick from spending too much time in the sea. The environment for one isn’t always the best one for the other. And eventually, if they are always close to each other, it will happen. Nymphs always appear to be the most beautiful women in the world to the human.”

Now both of the water elementals were on the side of the pool talking with the brothers. It wasn’t hard to see, even from this distance, the two guys were more than casually interested in the nymphs. Doug had removed his glasses and Dennis his hat while they had deep conversations with the two water elementals that appeared to be human.

“Sometimes the elemental doesn’t even know it is one,” Dion continued.

“How is that possible?” Sean asked. “Are you telling me some people who are walking around are elemental and are unaware? I would think the first time they caused a log to catch on fire, they’d figure it out.”

“But they might consider it lighting or spontaneous combustion. No one knows where elementals originate. They have always been here before, as I heard someone say. Every now and then, someone just remembers they’re supposed to be in the water all the time and they’re gone. Some people say these strange reports of people who combust happen because someone was supposed to be a salamander and then remembered one day.”

“So do you think we should at least warn them about the water elementals?” Sean asked.

Right now, the two men were busy talking to the nymphs. They didn’t seem to be lucky that day as the women were busy swimming back and forth while talking to them. They seemed to be playing games with the two young men.

“Right now they don’t appear to be making much progress,” Emily said as she starred out the back window of the store.

Dennis was still busy at the side of the pool. He’d learned the name of the girl swimming in the pool with the straight black hair: Dirce.

“Dirce?” he called back to her. “Is that anything like Circe?”

“No!” she cried, splashing water at him. “You’re thinking of someone else. She’s a distant cousin of mine.”

Dennis had never seen a girl so beautiful before. Her skin was flawless and colored a deep tan that could only come from steady exposure to the sun on a beach. Her eyes were a deep green and he could see the entire world inside them. She wore a yellow bikini and swam across the pool as if she was born in it.

“Where did you learn to swim so well?” Dennis asked her.

“Where did you learn to walk?” she returned. “I don’t worry about things like that. I’ve always been able to swim. Have you always been able to walk?”

“Well, no, I had to learn, but we all do.”

“You can swim a few weeks after you’re born, did you know that? If you’d been taught, you might have been swimming earlier than walking.”

The girl swam across to the other side of the pool and pulled herself up on the edge. As she sat there, the rays of the sun fell down upon her illuminating her body a bright gold. She leaned back and her hair became instantly dry. Dennis couldn’t figure out how she managed to do that one, he decided it had to have something to do with the angle of the sun. She looked across the pool at her with her big green eyes and smiled at him.

“I like you,” she said and jumped back into the water.

His brother wasn’t having much luck with the blond near him. She kept swimming back across the pool, trying to avoid conversation. However, he continued to push himself on her.

“What school are you from?” he asked. “If you’re on a team it has to be one of the local ones? Montfair? St. Barbara? You can tell me, come on.”

“Why don’t you guess some more?” she sighed, as the girl paddled back.

Dion watched the girl with the black hair swim back across the pool toward Dennis. She stopped when she was right at the edge where he was standing and put her hands on the edge of the pool. As he watched, the girl reached one hand out to Dennis and touched his.

Dennis felt as close to heaven as he would ever be in this life. Ever since he was a small kid, he’d believed the only way to succeed in life was by pure reason. It had lifted humanity out of the pit and created civilization. To that end, he applied himself with his studies and tried to get ahead as much as he could. It wasn’t easy; the school where they went was full of professor and military officer kids, all of whom wanted the open slots at the major colleges. He would spend endless hours at night studying for exams. Dennis spent more time on science fair projects than most scientists did on grant proposals.

It helped him be noticed by some important colleges when he began to apply to schools. The endless hours he spent on prep work for his college entrance exams helped too. But what it didn’t help was get him noticed by the opposite sex. It wasn’t that he had trouble with attention from the girls… they considered him invisible. He had that in common with Sean, but at least his parents understood. His parents felt their children should leave the house and make their way in the world when they turned eighteen and no money would come from them for college. This was another reason Dennis spent all his time pouring over books in the library.

So when he found that a beautiful girl swimming in a pool wearing a bikini paid attention to him, Dennis was overjoyed. His brother had dragged him into the pool store after they saw the swim team go inside it. Dennis wanted to get back home. There were more applications for financial aid to fill out and letters to write. Wasting time on some trivial girl chase was beneath him. However, his brother had the car keys, so he was forced to follow along.

And now a gorgeous girl, easily the loveliest one he’d ever laid eyes on was touching his hand.

“I need to get down there,” Dion said, “or something bad is going to happen.” He made his way out the door to the exterior lot where the pools were on display and the swim team elementals were frolicking. He didn’t have a lot of time and needed to act quickly.

The two sales clerks where still in the lot starring at the sight of twelve stunning girls swimming in the pools. No one was supposed to enter those them without the owner’s permission. She didn’t like anyone using the pools; they were supposed to be there just for display. On some special occasions, she would allow select customers to use them, but this was rare.

“I guess the boss hired them to come out and promote the pools?” one clerk said.

“I guess,” the other added. “But you’d think she would have called and told us first. What do we do?”

“Let them swim,” the other said. “The boss will be here in a few hours. She can tell us what to do then. You know how she doesn’t like it when we call her at the office.” He turned and looked at the growing crowd assembled at the windows, as they looked into the exterior lot from the main store. “Seems to be attracting potential customers, so it must be her doing.”

Dion was almost down the aisle between the pool models when he saw the elemental’s hand touch the one that belonged to Dennis.

Dennis felt her fingers make contact with his and looked at the fine white hand over his own. He looked up into the eyes of Dirce as she smiled at him.

“I really like you,” she told him.

The pool and entire lot vanished.

Chapter 5

Dennis was at the bottom of the ocean. At least it appeared to be the bottom of the ocean.

Don’t starfish live on the bottom of the sea
, he thought.
That’s funny; I didn’t realize so many fish were around here
. He looked at the soil where he stood and realized his feet were sunk into a layer of sand, which lined the floor. He looked up and saw the surface of the water from the other side. There was a creature floating down to his level. Was it a dolphin?

It turned out to be Dirce; she was covered with her long black hair. It had to be her because the green eyes were the same. She swam around him and lightly touched his face.

“I like you very much,” he heard her say. She didn’t say it as much as think it because her mouth never opened.

He watched her swim around him without effort. She was right; it was so much easier to swim than walk. He stood there and wondered why it had never hit him before that life on the bottom of the sea was so much better than life on land. He felt warm in the water and it was very quiet, as sound in the ocean didn’t travel very far.

Dirce came closer and took his hand. He felt himself begin to fly over the floor of the ocean. She held onto him as she swam to an outcropping of coral on the floor. Once she found it, Dirce sat her and Dennis down on it and continued to look at him.

At that moment, he forgot about the mall, college, his brother, the family and everything else in his life. All he wanted to do was sit there and stare at the most beautiful woman in the world. She sat there with the long black hair drifting about her and stroked his face. Dennis was beyond care. It didn’t matter if he was in a dream or not. This was the only place he wanted to be. The sun drifted down to their level through the hazy underwater world and he felt at peace for the first time in his life.

“Do you like me?” Dirce said without speaking to him. She had her legs folded underneath her golden body, but the long black hair clothed her better than any gown could.

“How could I not like you, Dirce?” he said. “You are gorgeous. I think I must be dead and in heaven. Are you some kind of angel?”

“No,” she laughed in a voice, which sounded of bells, “I’m a naiad, a water nymph, elemental; your kind call us many things. I have been around for a long time and I will continue to be here for much longer. Time has no meaning to us, not like it has to you, because you have so little of it.”

He continued to sit on the coral and admire the ocean. More fish swam by, some very big. He saw a shark in the distance circling around them and turned his attention back to her.

“Is that a shark?” he asked her in his head.

She cocked her head and watched it swim across their line of vision. “I think it is,” she responded.

“Should we be afraid of it?”

“No, it knows better than to come near me. Nothing in the sea will hurt you so long as I am here.”

They watched the shark swim away and she turned her attention back to him. “Would you like to come and live here with me forever?” she asked him.

“I can’t do that. I’ll drown. I’m human and I can’t breathe water.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. It’s too bad; I would so much like to have you with me. Is there some way we could always be together?”

“I’d love to be with you, Dirce. I’ll find a way, just give me time.”

Then he was back on the blacktop of the exterior part of the pool store. Dirce was still in the yellow bikini in the pool, but their hands no longer touched. He felt a hand on his shoulder pull him back as Dirce swam back to the other side of the pool with a frown on her face.

“That was close,” a voice said behind him. It was Dion. “You can thank me later.”

What had happened? It reminded him of a dream where he was in a place of perfect joy and happiness with all he ever wanted, only to be woke by the alarm clock because it was time for school. It happened repeatedly. He would wake and look at the ceiling with a sensation of great sadness. The real world had come back and pulled him out of the enchanted place where he’d been.

“Why did you do that?” he said to Dion as he pulled him away. His brother broke off contact with the girl in the pool he’d tried to converse with and walked over to them. Dion had him almost to the door of the pool store.

“Is something wrong?” Doug asked Dion and his brother. In truth, he’d sat there and noticed Dennis drift off into a coma the moment the girl’s hand made contact. He’d assumed it was from the shock of contact with a girl. As far as Doug knew, his brother had never been on a single date.

“Let me go back to her!” Dennis was crying out. “You can’t take me away from Dirce! I want to go back!” Dion shook his head and took him inside the pool store.

“What is wrong with him?” Doug asked when he caught up to Dion with his brother. Dennis was kneeling in the corner in tears. People in the pool store had stopped to watch him. It was obvious he was in the middle of a breakdown of some kind.

“He attracted the attention of the nymph in the water,” Dion explained to Doug. We need to get him out of here before she comes after him again.

Doug gave him a strange look. He walked Dennis outside the mall with the Dion and the other three. Once outside the store they found a bench and sat Dennis down where he continued to sob.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Doug exclaimed to Dion. “What happened in there?”

“I’ll go get him something to drink,” Lilly said.

“Take Emily and Sean with you,” Dion instructed her. “None of us should be alone with these elementals on the move. Get back here quick if you see the security guards.”

“We won’t go far,” Sean told him as he walked away with the girls.

“I won’t move until you get back here,” Dion reassured him.

Dennis placed his head in his hands and continued to weep, a little bit more in silence this time. He didn’t seem to understand Dion and his brother were with him as they tried to calm him down. Dennis was close to hysterical at this point and Dion couldn’t figure out what to do for him. He was told once that encounters with nymphs could do horrible things to the susceptible, but this kid was a wreck.

“So are you going to tell me what happened back there,” his brother began, “or do I have to go and ask that girl he was with? He can’t go home like this!”

“Sit down,” Dion told Doug and seated himself by Dennis. “Your brother has been through something traumatic. I don’t know any other way to tell you. He’s been touched by a water elemental. You are witnessing the effects of that contact.”

Doug sat down on the side of Dion opposite his brother. “Look, I don’t need a lot of mumbo jumbo; can you just tell me what happened out there? I was making progress with the other one when I saw you pulling him back from that brunette. Now what happened and tell me in Standard English?”

Dion sighed. “There are things out there which don’t fall under rational explanation. I’m in touch with some of them. I’m here because I need to meet the owner of that pool store. She will give me the ability I need to bring them under control, but that is not the reason I need to find her. The swim team out there in the display pools isn’t real girls.”

“They looked real enough to me.”

“Because it’s what they want you to think. They’re water sprits, nymphs, naiads, and undines, whatever you want to call them. This whole section of the mall is under control of the water element. Okay, I don’t expect you to believe me, but it’s true.”

“Assuming any of what you just told me is true,” Doug replied. “How do my brother and her fit figure into all of this.”

“He attracted one of them. I don’t know why, sometimes they just take an interest in people. She was attracted to him and made contact. When that happens, the person who they like will become obsessed with the elemental. They won’t be able to go anywhere or think about anything until they’re with the nymph. I tried to get to him before she touched his hand, but I couldn’t do it. Now we have to figure out some way to get the glamor she put on him away.”

“Is this some sort of curse?” Doug asked. “Can we get a witch to remove it?”

“Wrong sort of affliction. But you have the right idea and you need an elemental worker to take it away from him. I just happen to be one, let me see what I can do.”

Dion kneeled down to Dennis level and looked into his eyes when he got him to hold his head up. He saw despair and pain. He saw the face of the nymph that Dennis had attracted. She wasn’t about to leave him without a drawn-out fight. This was severe. It meant he would have to go back to the pools in the rear and get the nymph elemental to release him. This was not easy to do and would involve all kinds of promises. Nymphs didn’t like to leave someone with they had them under their influence.

“We have a real problem here,” Dion said to Doug. Dennis brother had a look of concern on this face. “Did he ever have a girl?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did your brother ever go out with a girl or see one at any time?”

“No, as far as I know the only thing he cares about is his science textbooks and getting into the right college.”

“Wonderful,” Dion said as she slumped back to the wall. “At least it explains the wall of tears.”

“What are you talking about? Tell me what you mean!”

“This is your brother’s first real encounter with a woman. He’s been keeping himself hidden away so long he doesn’t know how to deal with it. He’s fallen in love. What’s really bad is that he’s fallen in love with a water elemental. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do until Ms. Delphi returns and grants me the power to bind water elementals.”

Doug stared at him in disbelief. “Are you trying to tell me my brother is in love with a mermaid?”

“If you want to put a name to it, yes. He’s attracted the attention of a water elemental and the only way to free him is make her let him go. If we don’t do that, he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to get to her.”

“This is insane. I can’t believe any of this.

“You don’t have to believe it. Whether you do or not won’t make any difference to your brother and his condition. If I don’t get back there and make that nymph take the glamor off him he’ll always be this way. And she’ll be lovesick too. Elementals who fall for humans don’t last long either. She can’t survive outside water for long.”

“She’ll dry up?”

“No, go into some kind of crystalline state until reconstituted. Look, it’s hard for me to explain and we don’t have time. I need to get back there and deal with this. Or we can wait it and I’ll make her release him by binding her. I don’t want to do that because when you force an elemental to do something they hate you for it. They might act all obedient, but there is always an aspect of defiance. They’ll look for any way they can to mess you up. I already have two sets of elementals who despise me and I don’t need more. Someone has turned them to keep me from obtaining full powers.”

Dion stood up from the bench when he saw his friends arrive with a bottle of soda. “Just keep him quiet for now and I’ll see what I can do. Give me a few minutes to find some way to solve this.”

“How is Dennis?” Lilly asked as she looked at his quivering form. “He doesn’t seem so good.”

“First love and it’s with an elemental. I need to make her release him. Just help his brother watch him until I come back.”

“Do we need to do anything in the meantime?” Sean asked him.

“Just keep him calm, I have to get back there and get him free from this nymph.”

“You will do no such thing!” a voice boomed from the entrance to the pool store.