DAMAGED - A Bad Boy Romance (47 page)

“All of you were out on the rocks?” Sean asked her.

“We always to outside in the evening to sing. It’s the best way to hear yourself. We go inside if there is someone we don’t know. We didn’t know these people and almost didn’t go outside, but they were insistent. Plus, one of them was an elemental worker, so he caught our attention.”

“When we went back to the rock,” she continued, “the captain of the boat wanted us to meet with someone he had on board. We don’t like to meet with more than one or two humans at a time because they stare at us.”

“Why do people stare at you?” Lilly asked. The small woman turned her head to face the human girl.

“You see what I have on now? This is more than I have worn in two hundred years. I didn’t mind the bikini because I’ve had men come by and beg me to wear it so they can take pictures of me in it. They pay me with shiny coins, which we like because they look pretty in the cave. We have many shiny coins in there going back hundreds of years. I’ve tried to tell them my picture will never come out, but they refuse to listen. Something about the light, our forms don’t register on a camera.”

“I like the way you look,” Dennis said. She gave him a little hug and kissed him on the cheek. “Of course you would, just as I like the way you look,” she told him.

“Anyway,” Dirce continued, “we made him promise not to bring any more men out on deck. He agreed and went to get the man who wanted to talk to use. When he came out, he introduced himself as Seth Bach.”

“My uncle.” Dion sat up straight.

“He told us that he wanted us to do a job for him and it involved travel. He said we would be far from the sea, but there would be places we could go to refresh once we were there. We wanted to know why he needed us and not some other group of water elementals. He didn’t say, but claimed we were the best he could afford. When we asked him why we should listen to his offer, he claimed there was going to be an oil exploration vessel in the vicinity of our rock in a few days.

Oil and exploration are two of the worst words you can say to a water elemental who lives in the ocean. I’ve had too many relatives forced to relocate because someone wanted to pump the black stuff out of where they lived. We can’t stand it when the men and their big machines start to work. We have to go because of the noise and smells. He promised to send the machines away if we would come and do a job for him. And he promised to bring us jewels, which we like to put in our caves too. It looks nice next to the shiny coins.

He told us he needed us to keep someone away from one of the water elemental grandmasters. He promised us whatever we would need to stay out of water for a long period of time. He even gave us some pretty stones to help us decide.

So we voted. In the end, we decided to take him up on his offer and go along for the job. He had some kind of tank on the ship to transport us, so it worked out without much trouble.”

There was only one thing which bothered us: he was some kind of elemental worker himself, we couldn’t tell which kind. Usually it’s easy to do that, we can feel it. He couldn’t bind us or force us if we didn’t want him to do it, but there was something odd about the way he felt. As if he’d earned something he wasn’t supposed to have.”

“That would describe my uncle,” Dion said. The six of them were sitting on the bench, with Lilly leaning on him. What Dirce had was contagious.

“He put us into some other kind of water tank when the boat docked on the shore,” she continued. “It was nice enough, just a bit restraining. He flew us into some special place where he told us what our cover was supposed to be and issued us the swimsuits and tracksuits. We didn’t like wearing them, but understood it was part of the job he wanted us to do. Today a bus brought us to this place and we’ve followed the script to the letter.

All up to where I noticed Dennis. Now I don’t know what will happen next because we were supposed to keep you away from the Grandmaster and now you know about everything. I don’t want to go back, because I would leave him behind.” She looked with her sea green eyes into that of Dennis. “Is there any way he could come with us if we go back?’

“Dirce,” Dion spoke softly. “This is difficult to say, but Dennis has to eat, you don’t. It would be easier to keep you here. I don’t know how it can be done, but if there is a method to do it, I’ll find the way.”

“I really don’t want to leave my sisters behind,” Dirce said as she looked at the door to the pool store. “I wish there was some way we could all stay here. I could convince them to stay if there was as quiet lake or pond somewhere.”

Dion sighed. With all the development in the area, one of those would be hard to find. And Dennis would have to see her every day or he would have problems. It was one of the reasons elementals and humans didn’t mix very well.

Dirce stood up, still holding onto Dennis’s hand. “I’m going back there and talk with them. I’ll make them understand everything is changed and I want to stay here.”

“Why don’t you let me do that?” Dion told her. “Look, I’m an elemental worker with all four abilities. I only have full power in earth and air, but I hope to have the third when the storeowner shows up today. Give me the chance to talk to them and I’m sure it can all be resolved.“ He hadn’t liked the sneer on the elemental who’d walked back through the door. At least the water on the floor was gone, mopped up by a grumbling ghoul cleaner.

“I’ll do it!” Dennis said as she stood next to Dirce. “Let me go back there and tell them to let her be here and not cause any problems.”

“Calm down,” Dion told him. “You’re new to all this and excited. I’ve seen this happen before. You’ll be the jarhead who runs across a field of grenades just to impress someone. Let me handle this, I’ve had the experience.”

“I’ll go.” It was Sean, also standing up. “You’re right. He’s new and I’ve already been zapped by elementals. They won’t have the same effect on me they would on him.”

Dion rubbed the back of his head. What had he walked into? Right now, he had an uncle who wanted to eliminate him, a Water Elemental Grandmaster he needed to meet, two lovesick guys, three lovesick girls if you counted Lilly and multiple swimming pools full of water elementals. And he still had to find a way to free his parents from the clock tower. Now he had two different guys who didn’t have a clue about how to negotiate with elementals who wanted to play heroes.

“You can both go back there with me,” Dion told them. “But we’ll do this
my
way. You don’t talk to any of them unless
I
say so. Is that understood?”

Both of them nodded their heads.

“How long do you think this will take?” Lilly asked him.

“Longer that it would if I could go back there alone. But they want to go along for the ride, so I’m not going to stop them. Just stay put and keep the rest of the girls calm until I get back. Try to find out more about Dirce, this is new to me, an elemental who wants to be with a human out of their environment.”

Dion turned back to Sean and Dennis. “Okay, let’s go, and remember, let
me
do the talking.”

They vanished through the door of the pool store.

Dirce sat back down on the bench and folded her legs under her. She watched the flow of traffic for a while down the hall. Eventually she turned to Lilly who sat next to her.

“They all move this way?” she asked her.

“What do you mean?” Lilly asked. Dirce’s green eyes focused on several women and men together as they walked.

“The people. I’ve never seen so many in one place at a time. They move different. Can’t they move up and down or just on one plane? It seems such a crowded way to get around.”

“We’re stuck on the ground,” Lilly said. “Unless you have a flying machine. No floating in thin air.”

“I guess I’ll have to get used to it,” Dirce sighed, playing with her hair. “They don’ even sing?”

“Some of us do. Not like you sing, but for different reasons.”

Lilly and Emily looked at Dirce and wondered how she would fit into human society. The small woman in a tracksuit got lucks of approval from the men in the hall. She didn’t even realize what they did and smiled back each time. Eventually, one of them would come over and try to engage her in a conversation. It was inevitable.

Chapter 7

Dion and his two companions emerged to the rear display area of the pool store to find the elementals out on the concrete sunning themselves. The sun wasn’t too strong this time of the year, but they didn’t need an excuse to enjoy its warmth. Somehow, all eleven of the remaining nymphs had found towels from the pool store. They were stretched out in a row.

A long row of young women in their bikinis and swimsuits was bound to attract attention. As the display area adjoined a parking lot, there were plenty of cars that slowed down as they passed the gate. The trio watched as one car almost rear-ended the one in front as it slowed down to admire the line of nymphs behind the fence.

The two sales clerks in the back of the lot where the display pools were situated continued to stare in wonder at the sight before them.

“We really should tell them to move,” one said.

“You first,” the other replied. “This has to be an idea from the boss. I think that family over by the new model wants to talk to you about it.”

“I’ll let you have that sale this time. Oh darn, there’s another customer who needs help.”

A little frustrated, both of them wandered off to sell pools.

“So where did you get the towels?” Dion asked the nymph called Appias as she lay in the sun. Her blond hair was dry and flowed with grace in the slight breeze that played across the back section of the pool store. Dion turned to watch a small air sylph glide over the parking lot and catch a draft as it sailed into the sky.

Right now Dion wished he were that air sylph element. It didn’t have one percent of his issues.

“The very nice men brought them to us,” she said. “I told them we needed some way to lie on this hard ground and not get dirty. They ran and got towels for us.”

Dion watched Sean and Dennis turn their heads and admire the row before them. Every single one of the girls possessed perfect skin, hair and teeth. Not a single one was made-up, but they didn’t have to be. These water elementals could adapt their form to whatever was the most useful. He had no idea if they’d kept this form for the past twenty years or twenty minutes. Most of them stuck with the same exterior when it worked out.

“I don’t believe any of us have been introduced,” he said to the row as they leaned back and caught some of the warming rays of the sun. “I’m Dion; these are my friends Sean and Dennis.”

“We are very pleased to meet you,” she said, “I’m known as Appias, next to me is Aginappe, followed by Myrtoessa, Sithndes, Bolbe, Limnae, Pallas, Tritonis, Arethusa, Castilia, Cynae, and Ismene. Of course, I see you already know Dirce.”

“Well met,” Dion said. “And I understand you were hired to keep me from reaching Salacia Delphi who owns this store.”

Appias turned to Aginappe and whispered something. They stayed in conversation for a few minutes until the three guys standing over them began to fidget. By now, they’d noticed each wore a very brief bikini of the same cut. Each one was colored fluorescent pink for maximum effect.

“They changed their suits,” Sean said to Dion, as he glanced back to make sure Emily wasn’t glaring at him from the window.

“They’re elementals,” Dion explained. “They can alter their forms if they want to do so.”

“Which means…” Dennis said as she looked too at the window. No sign of Dirce. “They could just get rid--”

“Calm down, tiger. They’re not human and spend most of their time around sea animals. The last thing you want to do is anger them and have the entire group turn into giant starfishes.”

Appias turned her blond head back to Dion. “We were hired and given pretty stones. Some of us think we’re not being fully compensated for the work he wants us to do. He didn’t tell us exactly why he wanted you blocked. Besides, the water in those pools is foul. It smells like a chemical freighter. It would take days for it to get acceptable to us. Then it would get stagnant and smell worse in a few days.”

“So what you’re telling me,” Dion said, “is that you’re open to a counter-offer.”

Back on the other side of the pool store, Emily and Lilly were busy with Dirce. She needed to be brought up to speed about humanity and the culture where she was right now. Dirce had little contact with humans in hundreds of years. The nymphs didn’t need to interact with them, as they preferred to stay away from humans, who were annoying, and fouled up the ocean. Every year brought more of them around her and her sisters, but they felt the ocean was big and there were plenty of places to move. The only thing they liked were the trinkets the human sometimes tossed away, which they used to decorate their cave. They liked coins the best as they could be cleaned and stuck to the walls with the polished stones they would find every now and then in sunken ships.

“We like the clear ones the best,” Dirce told her. “Sometimes we find them in rings. Right now, we have one entire wall lined with the clear ones. When the sun comes up, it makes them shine. We like to watch the patterns the sun makes on the opposite wall.”

“Diamonds.” Lilly said. “You have an entire wall covered with diamonds?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, just make sure you or your sisters never let anyone know about it. Those stones are expensive and people would try to get them.”

Emily decided after she watched the men bump into each other as they went past Dirce there had to be another reason for their allure. Dirce fit the average ideal for an attractive young girl, but styles and tastes did vary over the years. Would she be shorter if this took place fifty years ago? Somehow, these elemental knew how to bring out the desire in men.

“Anyway,” Dirce continued. “didn’t you tell me people keep rocks as pets around here?”

“Different kind of rock. These are just rocks people find on the ground.”

“So why would the clear ones have more value?”

Lilly started to explain the joke to her and decided it would be lost on Dirce. It was lost on most people and she just didn’t want to explain the concept of satire to the elemental nymph. It was difficult enough to make her understand why she needed to cover up at all times. If she planned to stay around Dennis long-term, there were many hurdles she would need to pass over.

“So, why should we help
you
instead of your uncle?” Appias said to Dion. “We don’t see much reason to do it. What can you give us that your uncle can’t? I don’t see you with vast wealth and resources. After all, isn’t your uncle an elemental worker too?”

“He’s the wrong kind of elemental worker. He went down the wrong path to earn his ability. He may have the fifth elemental power, but he never learned the ones before it.”

“So why should we care?”

“He’ll find a way to get out of any promise he makes. You go down the path he did and you think you’re a divine being without any responsibilities. Nothing of what he tells you is true. What did he tell you about me?”

“He said you would have power over us and every other water elemental on the planet,” Aginappe said. She was a little bit taller than her sister was and colored a deep black shade of coal. Years ago, Aginappe had found an African sailor stranded on a beach and fell in love with him. She matched his image of the perfect woman and decided to keep it forever after he died from malnutrition.

“Yes, I will be able to bind elementals,” Dion told her. “But it takes a tremendous amount of energy and concentration to do it just once. I have no interest in ruling over the sea or any other place where water elementals thrive.”

This provoked another long conversation as the rest of the elementals whispered to each other and sent messages down the line. After five minutes, they seemed to reach a decision. Meanwhile, a small crowd built up at the other side of the fence, not helped by the slow movements of cars and trucks who tried to get a close look at the young women relaxing in their bikinis as the sun reached its apex. By now, the two sales clerks were busy with all the customers who’d decided to come into the exterior of the pool store and look at the models on display. They were forced to pull extra help from the other side of the store.

“We’re willing to listen to anything you can offer,” Appias told him. “But you better make the offer quick because we were supposed to have a meeting with your uncle in two hours. He’ll want to know what progress we have made.”

Dion pulled his two friends back away from the elementals for a conference. “I think I know a way to get them on our side. Normally, I wouldn’t try what I’m about to do, but I think the situation warrants it.”

“Can you share it with us?” Dennis asked. He kept glancing in the direction of the nymphs.

“No, because if it doesn’t work out, I’ll need to come up with another plan. No matter, give me an hour or so and you’ll know what it is. Sean, stay out here and keep the girls in sight. I know that won’t be too hard. I might send Emily out here to help you.”

“Thanks,” Sean grumbled.

“You need to think long term,” he told him. “Emily is the future. These nymphs aren’t.” He turned and looked at Dennis. “Not for you either. You already have one.”

“Did I say anything?” Dennis asked.

“No, but I could tell you were thinking it. You have the bigger task. Dirce will need time to learn how to be around people. I don’t envy your challenge, but fate was set when you two made contact. Yes, I could eventually get her to leave you, but the best thing is to learn to live with her. Trust me, someday you’ll thank me.”

Dion walked back over to the elementals. “I need to go make a phone call. I’m going to leave one of my friends out here to watch after you in case you need anything. Don’t get too close; he has a girlfriend on the other side of the store. She’s with your sister, Dirce.”

“We’re fine right now,” the nymph told him. “We like the attention. Can we ask any of these nice men to get us anything?”

“No. Talk to Sean if you need anything.” He turned and walked back inside the pool store with Dennis.

Dirce was in a deep conversation with Lilly and Emily when they emerged. Dion and Dennis walked over to them and sat down. The hall seemed to have more people in it that when he left.

“I need to go to a pay phone and make a call,” Dion told his friends. “Sean is out there taking care of the other nymphs.” He saw Emily’s eyes flare. “Don’t worry, he’s just there to keep the men away from them and get them whatever they need.”

“I thought you said they were elementals and didn’t have to worry about what humans could do to them,” Emily said.

“They can’t be harmed by ordinary humans. But they still like the attention they get from them. I’m a little worried about what might happen if the wrong person attracts too much attention from a nymph.”

“Do you have a problem with me?” Dirce demanded. She started to get up off the bench.

“No, I don’t. Dennis is very lucky you were attracted to him. It might not seem so right away, because you’re both in unfamiliar territory, but in the end, he’ll be better off. The same can be said for Sean and Emily, for different reasons. I need your sister’s help against my uncle and I know only one way to do it. So please, excuse me.” Dion turned and walked down the corridor.

“Does he always talk so cryptically?” Dirce asked the others. “I didn’t understand a bit of what he said.”

“Dion tries to explain himself the best way he knows how,” Lilly said. “Sometimes he doesn’t have enough time to get it across. If he has a plan in mind, it will turn out all right. You just have to give him a chance. I’ve seen him turn a whirlwind around, so I think he knows what he’s doing.”

“If you say so,” Dirce said and slid up to Dennis. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” And he had. Separation from Dirce for even a few minutes was difficult. He could see Lilly as she watched Dion’s form move away. Even Emily looked forlorn as she stared at the door to the pool store.

“Is there a lake near your house?” Dirce asked Dennis. “I’ll need to get in the water by the end of the day.”

“There might be a pond. I’m not sure about a whole lake.”

“Does it have a cave at or below the water line?”

“I don’t think so. Wait… there’s a creek, which runs past the backyard. I know there was an old bridge over it. They replaced the creek with a corrugated pipe. Would that work?”

Dirce starred at him for a few moments. “I guess,” she sighed. “I’ll have to work with what I have. Does it get very many people back there? I don’t like to be disturbed unless they bring offerings.”

“Offerings?”

“Pretty stones, shiny coins. We like those. People want us to make it rain. We can’t do that, but sometimes we talk to the air sylphs who can.”

Dion made his way to the bank of payphones that were toward the other side of this section in the mall. He didn’t need the map to find them. Each section of the mall had an entire side room where people could make calls from the bulky black phones which were attached to the wall. Usually they were located next to the bathroom as the mall wanted to keep the idle noise limited to one part of the shopping center.

Of course, all four phones were in use. There wasn’t anything else he could do but look at his wristwatch and wait. He glanced around and looked for any security guards. None. Karanzen kept them back today. Once they were inside the mall, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do so long as Dion and his friends didn’t cause a problem.