Girl Enchanted (Book 2 of The Girl Trilogy) (15 page)

I rolled my eyes when he
turned away. I was one of his creations and I didn’t like the idea.
Something about it just didn’t seem right. “I guess I see what you
mean,” I managed to say.

He turned back to me.
“Think about it, wild child.” His expression was serious. “It’s a
great life. I’d like the life of a mer for myself!”

“You would?” I was
surprised by his statement because I thought he must find pleasure
in controlling populations for his own power.

“Of course—that’s why
Shaul and I, with the help of the other serpents, implemented it.
We thought about what we would want and Azkelon is it. Azkelon is a
life of pure bliss. Who wouldn’t want that?”

“I guess you have a point
there.” Actually, the more I started thinking about what he had
said, the more it made sense. I would have to give his philosophies
further thought, but at least in some ways he was right. “I sure
hated hiding away for my life on the island off the Los Angeles
Coast after the U.S. downfall. And even before that, life wasn’t so
great going to city school and living in an apartment with my
mother. A life of fun sure beats any of that.”

“That’s my point exactly.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “We played God in creating
these crossbreeds and now we’re playing God in giving them a
perfect world.”

Though I feigned
satisfaction, I was still uncomfortable with his philosophies. It
seemed like he had robbed all these creatures of their freedom.
Though they were happy, essentially they were slaves at the core.
Happy slaves. Something about that just didn’t seem right to
me.

My body tensed suddenly.
“What was that?” I asked with a start. “Did you hear
that?”

I heard screams and then
laughter. Frightened, I moved toward Aver. Suddenly, four mers swam
through the entrance into the coral cave where we were. Their
abrupt presence startled me, so I rushed behind Aver.

15

Aver laughed as I hid
behind him. At once, he turned around to look at me. “You don’t
need to be afraid, Cordellia. These are my friends.”

Now I was embarrassed. I
must have looked infantile hiding behind Aver like he was my mommy.
The idea of something as normal as hanging out with friends had
been entirely out of my realm for years. Even before the United
States downfall, I never had many friends. And these four were all
unusually attractive and confident. They were all about my
age.

“Hi, there,” one of the
mers said cheerily. She was gorgeous with long red hair and light
blue eyes.

I swam out from behind
Aver and forced myself to be somewhat friendly. “I’m Cordellia,” I
said hesitantly. It had been so long since I had done anything
normal like this. Since the Economy Crash, people weren’t polite
and social. The survivors were just looking out for themselves and
were more cautious than friendly. This was surprisingly refreshing,
but altogether foreign.

“Wild child, this is
Renena,” Aver said merrily as he gestured toward the red headed
beauty. “She’s like a sister to me.”

Then he motioned toward
the boy with her. “Hey there, chief,” Aver said to Renena’s
boyfriend, as he slapped him on the back. He was thin with wide
green eyes and brown short hair. He looked like a model from a
flashboard with such extreme good looks.

“Welcome back, friend,”
the mer said to Aver in his low, but friendly voice and then he
looked at me. “I’m Hark.”

“Hi,” I
responded awkwardly.

“And this is Amdathan.”
Aver took the gorgeous, shapely blonde with blue eyes by the hand
and brought her over to me. I had never seen anyone so
beautiful.

“Hello, Cordellia,” she
said in a soft voice that had a slight sultry resonance to it.
Though she was more aloof than Renena, she was polite. “This is my
boyfriend, Ailey.”

The way she introduced him
to me, I felt like she was hinting that I should keep my hands off
him. But, she had nothing to worry about—a guy as breathtaking as
Ailey would never be interested in me when stunning perfection was
beside him.

“It’s nice to meet you,
Amdathan and Ailey.” Ailey was even taller than Hark. His shoulders
were broad like a football player and he had short dark curly hair
and dark eyes.

“Pleasure,” Ailey said in
a brief, but polite voice.

For a moment, I just
looked at these four spectacles as they chatted with Aver. They
were all so charismatic and visually beautiful. Renena with her
flowing red hair, Amadathan with her long blonde curls, Hark and
his wide, deep eyes, and Ailey and his enormous muscular frame and
grand presence looked like impressive Greek gods. They were so
appealing that they hardly seemed real.

Aver clapped his hand
once. “Well, let’s go have some fun!”

They all chatted amongst
themselves in agreement and we were on our way out through the hole
of the coral cave. I hardly had time to think about whether or not
I even wanted to join them. Aver just whisked me off and away with
him, holding my hand all the while.

How could I deny him with
the erotic music pounding in my head, edging me on? “What about
Shaul?” I whispered to him so the others could not hear as we swam
through the golden field.

“We’ll keep an eye out for
him. If he is in Azkelon like I expect, we are sure to run into him
tonight. No better way to find him than to go with the
crowds.”

We arrived at the dance
club. Nobody had to show IDs here which was something I wasn’t used
to. In Los Angeles, before the bars burnt down from looting fires,
the bouncers used to scan our arm implants for age information and
criminal records.

The dance floor in the
club looked like it was made of pure silver. It was shiny and
slick. I think it was designed more for appearance than function
though because the mers didn’t have any use for it without feet or
legs. They simply danced above it with the lights from above
flashing upon them.

I was pleased to discover
that the same music that was playing in my mind was playing in the
club. Apparently, all the public music in Azkelon was from the same
siren orchestra we saw earlier. The interesting thing was that it
was affected by everyone’s emotions.

I noticed that when
another teen mermaid got vehemently angry at her friend, the
rhythms of the music varied slightly and the vocals changed course
apparently reflecting her thoughts. It seemed as if whoever had the
most intense feeling, his or her emotions were projected the
strongest. Everyone’s thoughts and feelings were combined in the
music, but the most passionate became the most apparent.

“Come, let’s go to the bar
and get drinks,” Aver said to the group.

“Go on ahead,” Amadathan
said as she draped her long blonde curls over her shoulders. “I’ll
catch up with you all. I need to go to the ladies room.” She turned
and looked at me. “Why don’t you come with me,
Cordellia?”

I was more than surprised
that she chose me to go with her. In the past, I was always the
girl off to the side by myself. Girls were always doing things in
groups and though I wanted to be like that, I never knew how. I
looked at Aver.

“Sure, go with Amadathan.
You know where to find me.” He winked which made me
laugh.

“Come, come.” Amadathan
took my hand and we swam together to the bathroom.

The restroom was more like
a palace than toilet room. The walls were of rose colored brocade
and there were all sorts of the same color cushions and pillows
giving the room a luxurious feel.

“Here, come sit down.” She
took me over to a big intricately designed mirror and had me sit
upon a plush stool. “I want to do your makeup.”

I laughed. I wasn’t the
type to where makeup so the thought seemed absurd. “Oh, that’s Ok,”
I said. “I don’t really wear it.”

Now she laughed. “That’s
the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“What do you
mean?”

“All mermaids where
makeup. It’s their trademark, like wearing shells in their
hair.”

“Oh, I never really
thought about that.”

“You never really thought
about it?” She looked at me with a perplexed expression on her
face. “Where are you from?” Her beautiful blue eyes were filled
with shock.

Now that she was bringing
it to my attention, the mermaids I had seen in fairy tales were
often depicted holding hand mirrors and were very finely decorated
with jewels and shells. I decided I shouldn’t draw attention to
myself so I agreed. “It’s fine. You can put makeup on me. I just
didn’t have time to do it before we left.”

She smiled and her soft
demeanor came back. “This won’t take long. I’m very good.” Her
voice was like a lullaby. I just wanted to listen to her
talk.

Immediately she went to
work on me. The brushes tickled my face, but I tried not to laugh.
I didn’t want her to see how utterly inexperienced I was at this
sort of thing. After she had apparently finished decorating my
face, she started pulling jewels out of her satin purse.

She placed some blue
stones around my neck. “These sapphires really look beautiful in
contrast to your red tale. You’re so lucky to have a red tale. I
don’t think I’ve ever seen one.”

Her tale was a lovely
mixture of black, pink, and lavender. In my opinion it was much
more beautiful than mine, but what did I know about
fashion?

“Your whole look is so
different than other mermaids. You can use that to your
advantage.”

I didn’t know how to
respond so I just kept quiet. I enjoyed the personal attention
though. Thinking upon it, I realized I could get used to having
girl friends. I liked this female interaction.

If anything, Amadathan was
appealing to watch. Her movements were so languid like she was
entirely relaxed and at ease with herself and her
surroundings.

“Ok, I’m done,” she said
in her musical voice. At that, she spun me around to face the
mirror.

I couldn’t help it—I burst
out laughing.

“What?” she asked. Her
expression was more than confused.

“I can’t believe what I
look like.” I was in shock.

“Don’t you like it?”
Agitated, she fluffed my hair a little.

“I just can’t believe it’s
me.” I looked like some sort of goddess. My eyes must have been
playing tricks on me. There was no way I could look this good. “You
must be a supreme artist.” I really didn’t know what to say and
that was all that came out of my mouth.

She smiled now. “You do
look stunning. I’ve never seen anyone quite as beautiful as
you.”

I burst out
laughing.

She appeared confused.
“Maybe that is why you weren’t wearing makeup? You don’t want to
look better than everyone else?”

This time I started
laughing even harder. In my awkwardness, I fell out of my chair. I
looked up at her from the floor.

She was laughing now too.
“You’re so funny, Cordellia. I bet that’s why Aver likes you aside
from being beautiful.”

We continued laughing, but
eventually I got up off the floor and we made our way over to a
table near the bar where we joined the others.

Aver’s eyes nearly popped
out of his head when he saw me. “
Hello
wild child!” He was
blushing.

Amadathan and I laughed. I
actually felt uncomfortable drawing so much attention to myself. I
noticed mermen in the club looking at me now. It was a really weird
feeling, but I decided to just go with it for the night. Why not be
like a dome cinema star once in my life, right?!

“What would you like to
drink?” Aver asked as he grinned at me.

“Oh, I don’t get high,” I
said. Losing control of my senses seemed like the last thing I
wanted to do.

“Good for you.” A crooked
grin formed on his gorgeous face. And then he gulped down a whole
bottle of X. He shook his head side to side. His eyes were wide
with a flicker of madness in them. “Mmmn, mmmn. That was
good!”

The others laughed as we
watched him start on his next bottle. Nobody else in the group was
drinking anything very intoxicating. Renena ordered a vile of wine
and exotic appetizers that were served in beautiful abalone shells.
Amadathan nibbled on colorful sea plants and drank bubbly water.
Ailey had whale blubber with a spicy sauce that he said burned his
tongue with pleasurable sensations. And Hark ordered an individual
fountain of water to drink and then ate buckets of raw shrimp with
orange seaweed.

I was surprised at what a
great time I was having socializing with this new group. Everybody
was telling stories and even jokes. Sometimes the conversations got
metaphysical and even spiritual which elevated my senses further.
As I got to know them I was stunned how well I seemed to fit
in.

A merman with a striped
tie around his neck came by the table with a digitized ray box. He
was taking bets on the shark fights down stairs.

Aver got excited. “Hey,
everybody. Let’s go watch the fights.”