DAMAGED - A Bad Boy Romance (46 page)

Chapter 6

Standing barefoot, dripping wet with water pouring over the floor, and still in her yellow bikini, stood Dirce the water elemental. She was alone and her black hair was plastered down her back. Her green eyes were in flames and she stood facing them with her hands on her hips.

Dion didn’t know what to say. His experience with water elementals hadn’t prepared him for this. He knew they’d be very aggressive toward the person they were attached to, but he didn’t think she would come out here right away. It just wasn’t in their nature.

“Get away from him!” she shouted across the hall outside the pool store.

Dion’s friends, still sitting by Dennis looked to him with incomprehension. What happened to the playful water sprite from a few minutes ago? Had she been replaced by something else? His brother was even more confused. For years, he’d tried to get him to quit grumbling about the girls who wouldn’t give him the time of day. Now he had a girl straight out of a TV show concerned about his brother’s well-being. Something was very much wrong with this picture.

“Pardon me, missy,” he snarled at the girl in the bikini, “but I happen to be his brother. I don’t even know who you are.”

Sean and Emily exchanged glances. They’d been in close proximity with the air elementals the other day and knew about what each other thought. They’d seen the inside of each other’s inner souls and it bound them together. They’d spent the ride home in the back of Dion’s van in a state of euphoria because they finally had someone else on the planet who understood them. They had some idea what an encounter with an elemental could do to a person. They weren’t surprised about Dennis, but an elemental in the picture. This was something unexpected.

“Dirce!” Dennis said as she sat up. “Please don’t leave me. Don’t let them take me away!” He stared up at her in total worship.

The water elemental walked up to Doug and glared directly in his face. She had to be six inches shorter and half his weight, but at that minute, she appeared to grow to a height of eight feet. Doug sat back down as their eyes locked. He saw sharks, stingrays and all manner of dangerous creatures under the sea. Had he been three inches from an electric eel, Doug would’ve felt less fear inside him.

She sat down next to Dennis and placed one wet arm around him. Dennis became calm and serene, as if he’d entered a state of total relaxation. Dirce leaned on him and made a purring sound. People in the mall did their best not to stare at the strange tableaux before them as the little scene played out. His brother, on the other side of her, attempted to say something, but Dirce whirled around to give him another look and he was silent. He promptly shut his mouth and leaned back on the bench.

“Wasn’t there another girl in the pool with you?” Doug managed to say.

“Her name is Appias,” Dirce snapped back at him. “And she’s not the least bit interested in you!”

“Which is a good thing for him,” Dion said. He didn’t want to disturb the tow. They were close together in each other’s arms, even with the water dripping off Dirce. The appearance of the nymph had an effect on Sean and Emily too. They were on the end of the same bench, but hugging.

“Dirce,” Dion said to the water elemental, “do you have any idea what you’ve done to Dennis? You’ve put a glamor on him and he’ll never be happy until you release him. You have to let him go because it’s not good for either of you.”

“What do you know,
Master Dion
?” she snarled at him. “You think your ability to manipulate elements entitles you to know what goes on in our world? You think your quest to free your parents overrides everything else?” She returned to Dennis who was now calmed down and in control of himself.

The effect she had on Dennis was uncanny. He was calmed and held onto the wet form next to him. The young man was at peace with himself and the hurried look of someone not sure about their future was gone from his face. Dion faced two couples affected by the power of the elementals. But this time half of one couple was an elemental. He only needed to wait until Salacia Delphi showed up, then he could make Dirce leave Dennis alone.

A very easy solution, but what about Dennis? Would he ever recover from this encounter? And Dirce would hate Dion forever. The rest of her water elemental clan would hate him as well. It would make using them for anything difficult, as they would have to be bound to do any task. They would despise him and jeopardize anything he needed done when the opportunity arose.

“You can’t be together for long, Dirce,” Dion tried to explain. “He’s mortal, you aren’t. It’s as simple as that. You don’t do very well out of the water. You’ll need to go back into the pool soon unless you want to feel sick. He can’t stay in the water very long. He can’t stay underwater at all unless he has breathing equipment.”

And then something else struck him. “Dirce,” Dion asked. “Have you ever been attracted to a human before?”

“No,” she said. The elemental began to sob too, her tears flowing over her face. “This is the first time for me.”

It was hard to tell when water elementals cried because they were wet most of the time.

So this was it. Both Dennis and Dirce had fallen in love for the first time and to each other. Dion ran his hand through his hair and tried to figure out what to do about this. Now he was close to the boundaries of his code if he kept Dirce away from Dennis. It would be much worse than the usual binding to keep a nymph away from a human. He wasn’t sure either of them would survive the separation. Dirce wasn’t mortal, but she could still be hurt.

He tried to think if this had happened in the past. It might have and perhaps the Water Grandmaster would know what to do, but how would it look to her if he couldn’t straighten this out? Why should she grant him full powers if he dumped these love seals in her lap? Probably not right away and it might take years for her to make her mind up again. Indeed, his uncle had set all of them up by sending the nymphs into this part of the mall. Small wonder the security guards were absent. They didn’t need to be around when Dion had this on his hands.

‘It’s not like he can take Dirce home and introduce her to mom,” Doug grumbled to the side. “She would have a fit if all that water was on the floor in the house.”

“Just be quiet,” Dion said before Dirce snapped at him again. “There has to be a way to resolve this. Let me think.”

Lilly stood next to Dion. She was in awe of his Solomonic wisdom on display. She didn’t even speculate on what he would do.

“You can stay with us, Dirce,” Dion said to her after he thought for a few minutes. “But you have to get some clothes on. As much as the male half of the shoppers might like it, you can’t go around wet and in a bikini.”

“I’m glad you approve of me,” Dirce said to him coldly. Dion noticed that Sean and Emily were also inseparable. Great, now he had two couples to contend with in order to finish his quest.

“I’ll have to talk to the Water Elemental Grandmaster when she arrives,” Dion said. “It might cost me ability, but I can’t risk the damage it would do to Dennis right now if I send you away.”

He took his wallet out and handed Lilly a credit card. “This is in my aunt and Uncle Rich’s name. If any of the stores give you a hard time about using it, come and get me. Go back and get her something to drink too.”

“Aren’t your sisters going to want to know where you are?” he asked Dirce.

“They already do,” Dirce said and nodded to the front.

Dion turned to the front of the store and saw a crowd of elemental nymphs gathered at the front. All of them still were wet and in their swimming suits. The nymph who’d been in the same pool walked up to them with Dirce’s tracksuit in her hands. Now there would be a lot of water on the floor.

“She’ll need this,” the nymph said to Dion as she handed him the tracksuit. She went over to Dirce and gave her a hug, then rejoined the others who watched from the entrance to the pool shop.

“What will the rest of you be up to?” Dion asked the one who walked back to the door.

“Waiting,” she said. “The owner is on her way back here and she told the clerks to let us continue to use the pools. They don’t seem to mind because they’ve already sold two pools since we’ve been inside them.” She padded back to the others who soon left the entrance of the store and returned to the outside.

None of it changed the problems Dennis and Dirce would face if their relationship went forward. She needed a constant body of water around her and if Dennis planned to get into a major college, he had better major in marine biology. And there was the problem of him aging, but not she. However, he still had to admit, they made a nice couple curled up on the bench with Sean and Emily next to them. Anyone else would think them another high school boy and girlfriend out for a date.

“I need to go home,” his brother said. “Dennis, call me from a pay phone if you need someone to pick you up. I’m outta here.” He stood up and walked out the corridor that connected to the main concourse.

“So as long as I am here,” Dirce said while she put her tracksuit on, “you can at least ask me some questions, because I know that’s what you want to do.”

“You can start by telling me why you and your sisters are here,” he said and sat down on a bench next to theirs to lessen the impact of his words. Dirce slipped her flip-flops on and sat back down next to Dennis.

“We were hired to keep you from the Water Grandmaster. The man who owns the mall
specifically
wants us to keep you away from her.”

“I suspected it. I suppose you can start from the beginning and tell me how he found you?”

“We live in a cave near the coast of Okinawa,” she said. “I know you guessed my location from the way I look. We take our form from the humans we’re around, so nobody says anything. I’ve been there with my sisters a long time. I remember when the Emperor of Japan visited us six hundred years ago. I remember when the first people showed up on the island. But this is the first time I have ever been attracted to a boy.”

“All these years and it’s the first time?” Lilly asked.

“We don’t have the same sense of time you do. We think of time on a vast scale and don’t get concerned if we’re caught in the middle of it. I know humans don’t have the same perspective.” She hugged Dennis again. “But I hope there might be a way to fix that.”

Dion didn’t have the guts to tell her he didn’t know of any way to extend the human life much beyond a hundred years, but medical science always found ways to make improvements. He let her continue to speak.

“We spend most of our days on the rocks outside the cave singing. It’s something we like to do. It passes the time and the fish seem to like it. The dolphins come to hear us too.”

“Do you eat?” Emily asked her. She’d wondered about it ever since the ghouls captured her.

“Not us. Some water elementals, as you call us, do, but we don’t have to.”

“You sing?” Sean asked. “I’ve heard about mermaids who sing to sailors, is that who you are?”

“Distant cousins. And yes we do. Anyway, last month a boat pulled up right outside our cave and….”

“Could you sing for us?” Sean asked her. “I’d love to hear you.”

“Unless your singing could hurt,” Emily added. She was thinking of the sirens from the Odyssey.

“If you want me to and no it won’t hurt you,” Dirce explained and leaned her head back.

It was a voice which emerged from her throat, but one that used no words. Her song flowed through the corridor and caused a few shoppers to turn and listen to her. It was a song of the waves and surf pounding on the beach. Many of the people who stopped to hear had never been near the sea and were mesmerized by what they heard from Dirce. The small girl with the wet, black hair sang about the sun over the ocean and the mists that rose from the sea. She sang about the moonrise over the waves and the sound of the storms. She sang about the fish leaping through the air and the sunrise on the open sea. It was a song of loneliness and yet was all about the splendor of nature. It was a song she’d sung for thousands of years.

When Dirce finished and lowered her head, the entire corridor outside the mall was silent. And then it began. Sporadic claps that echoed throughout the hall until everyone was applauding her. The applause died out and she looked at everyone. Confused, as if she didn’t understand what they were doing. A man walked up to Dirce and thanked her for reminding him of his years in the navy. Several families expressed gratitude for her for the performance and wanted to know where they could buy her album. Soon, everyone went back to walking and continued on their way.

“That was so wonderful,” Dennis said, his eyes full of joy.

“Do you want me to continue with my story?” she asked Dion.

“Yes.” It was easy to see how men were attracted to water nymphs; they were stunning to look at and to listen.

“It was a big boat,” she continued, “bigger than we’d seen in over a hundred years. Our island doesn’t get a lot of human visitors and we like it that way. It avoids problems with mortals.”

“Anyway, the boat came right up to our rock and dropped its anchor. The captain of the boat had an elemental worker on board. He managed to coax us out of the water and back onto the rocks. It was sunset, so we didn’t mind talking with him for a while.”