Chapter 17
Despite what Fian had said about dreams being real, to Kai, dreaming was a different thing, but here, by the shore, the waves were a constant, following him as he drifted off. Or calling him there. That dreamworld where he’d been embraced by a demon.
Mikano. Kai thought of the ocean, that place where he and Fian had spent a dream.
Mikano. He tried to remember that underwater world where no breathing was required, where he had met that other diver whom he had thought a figment of his imagination.
Mikano! Where are you?
Darkness came slow, but it came, and along with it, the sound of the waves dulled.
Wherever Kai was, it was dark. He felt weightless, that sense of disembodied dreaming that he only now connected to swimming in the ocean. As slow as a sunrise in winter, the darkness changed, shifted. Bubbles rising from the deep sparkled. I made it! I’m back again in that same dream!
“Mikano!”
He had a voice, even in the ocean, even underwater. That only made sense in a dream, and now that he was here, Kai felt the urgency again. Fian is alone with…with Nick. And Nick is vile.
“Hey! Mikano! Where are you!”
The water stirred, and Kai felt the current of it rushing past him, almost like wind on his skin, but not quite.
“Why are you shouting so much, and how do you know my name, little dreamer?”
A shadow swam past Kai, large and looming. It was a nightmare, a shark. The creature was teeth and fins sharp as a flensing knife. The shimmer of its gray body struck a primordial chord of fear deep in Kai’s very being.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Kai tried swimming away, but in this dream he moved slowly, stuck in place.
“Relax. I ate,” said the shark. “And you called me. I’m Mikano, and I never gave you my name.”
“Y-you’re Fian’s brother? I thought you’d have tentacles too.
Anyway, I need your help. Fian sent me. He’s been…
taken. There’s this guy, Nick, and he’s”—Kai shivered.
He didn’t want to tell a perfect stranger what exactly Nick had done to him.
He didn’t even know himself, not all of it, not the details of it.
But Fian needed help. “He used magic on me. Love magic, Fian said, and now he has Fian. He said they were going to eat his liver.”
The massive shark was circling Kai, and dark eyes watched him.
The eyes were intelligent, mystical, though the teeth really stole the show.
Kai couldn’t be sure, but a single tooth looked larger than his index finger, and it was difficult not to imagine what would happen if the shark decided to chomp down on him.
“You’re trembling like a pile of fall leaves, dreamer. I told you, I ate. Cake tasting actually, and we had to try the raspberry and the raspberry and lime twice. What’s your name?”
“Kai?”
The shark made a chortling sound, and it occurred to Kai that as far as he knew, sharks didn’t have the right voice box and muscles to allow them speech. Plus, they lived underwater.
“Are you asking me? You’re one of those people, the kind that have nightmares about sharks coming to get them. I swear, we have been stereotyped ever since that movie.”
“Sorry. Right. I’m Kai. Nice to meet you. Now, I need your fucking help, because Fian is in trouble!” Kai recalled those teeth. “Please.”
“You said he sent you. Hmm. Fian is tough, you know. If you bite off a tentacle, it will regrow. Ask me how I know.”
“No, thank you.”
The shark rounded Kai twice, dark eyes focused on him. “How did you two meet? Fian doesn’t normally meet people.”
“He walked into my store—not really mine, I think. Again, Nick did magic to me. But Fian walked in there, and I was upset. He was kind, I gave him a jar of jam, and he told me to get some rest, to take care of myself.”
“He met you in a dream as well, didn’t he?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“And that’s my answer right there. That human wants to eat my baby brother’s liver, you say?” The shark seemed a lot more menacing all of a sudden, and there was a chill in the water.
“That’s what he said.”
“And he forced himself on you by means of a love spell? Manipulated you into being his slave and working in a store for him?”
Kai opened his mouth to respond like a normal person. They were in a dream. No one could hear. No one would know. No one would judge him.
Still, he couldn’t speak.
He nodded, and the shark, with his cool attention, saw.
“Humans can be so very fucked up, as my fiancé likes to say. It’s like fin rot in them, and magic only makes it worse.
They can’t have Fian’s liver. I’m not sure that would grow back, and then how would Tickle impress you?
The best humans, I have learned, want to be impressed.
I’ll help, but you have to wake up first.”
“Okay. How do I do that?”
“Hmm. I wonder. Did my brother tell you how yummy you look, Kai? I did just eat, but it was all sugary stuff. You know how you want something savory after something sweet?” The shark changed course, its circles becoming tighter. “I’ll just take a bite out of you.”
Kai felt that massive tail beat the water not an arm’s length away from his face, saw the shark move.
Then, there were just teeth and that terrible maw, and Kai screamed.
Kai woke, but if his scream carried over to the waking world, the beating waves had swallowed it. While his heart was racing, he was cold all over from having slept in the wet sand outside without a jacket. And Fian worried about me being cold. Fian!
Kai scrambled to his feet, looked around. There was no sign of Nick or James, a relief.
“Then again, I almost got nibbled on by a dream shark. Weird family.”
Kai dusted off his new clothing and prepared to climb back out from his hiding spot in the rocks.
His limbs were stiff, and the rocks were slippery, maybe even more slippery than before.
It was getting colder too with darkness approaching, and it didn’t take long at all before Kai’s fingers went numb.
“Can’t help that. Can’t help it.”
Once he was out of the rocks, Kai felt exposed all over again.
They’d be able to see him if they came down from the road to go looking.
Kai wondered why they hadn’t. Then he considered that perhaps Nick and his buddies were busy with Fian.
He considered what they might be doing to him.
He started shaking, and the cold had nothing to do with it.
I can’t help him. All his stupid brother did was try to eat me. And I’m no good to Fian. Nick caught me once already. But I can’t just leave him there.
And yet, Kai stood rooted to the spot, his shoes so deep in the sand the small grains had invaded them and would be poking him until he was walking on blisters. He didn’t know magic, had no weapons, didn’t know where to go. He contemplated calling the cops.
Yeah, right. I’ll tell them about self-moving cars and octopus demons. Also witches. And then they’ll ask how I know Nick, and that’ll be it. They’ll laugh about me and my relationship troubles and send me on my merry way.
Thinking about the police made Kai feel as if he’d been forced to swallow one of the rocks he’d just clambered over.
There would be no justice there, only people laughing behind his back.
Even if they took him seriously, it would go to the courts, and there was no real evidence for anything other than that he and Nick had been on one date, had then moved in together.
That way, there was only pain and hurt. In some corner of his mind, Kai had known that, and all he’d wanted was to leave Salt Harbor behind, put it in his past. Justice or even just revenge—those were dreams he couldn’t have.
He looked out toward the ocean, trying to find the courage to go back up those rickety wooden stairs to at least do something to help the only person he currently felt safe with.
Out there, far out, he spotted something.
A fin shining like a scalpel as it sliced the water.
It disappeared again, but after a moment, the blade popped up once more, too close to shore for comfort.
Then it went under, and yet closer to shore, a person broke the water’s surface, the waves breaking around him without appearing to bother him.
The man came out of the water. His silhouette said he was powerful, would be good at sports with those wide shoulders.
He was bulkier than Fian, but they looked similar around the eyes and mouth, and even their noses looked alike.
He didn’t have the wavy hair or those calm ocean eyes Fian had.
This man’s eyes were dark, and he had the look of someone who knew exactly how hot he was and how to use it.
On top of all of that, he wore a suit, a black or dark blue business suit. And the clothes were dry, no water sticking to him when the man stepped onto the sandy beach.
“Hello, little dreamer. We met. I’m Mikano. Apologies for waking you.”
Kai took a step back. “You’re here to eat me.”
Mikano chuckled. “No. I don’t eat humans.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I try to avoid eating humans.
” He smiled as if he wanted a pat on the head for that.
Kai took another step back. “Oh, don’t be like that.
I really only needed you to wake up. And I didn’t have hands at the time to pinch you, so teeth seemed the best solution. ”
“You could’ve just pinched me?”
Mikano smiled. “Oh, did I say that out loud?”
Kai crossed his arms. “I need your help. For Fian.”
Mikano sighed. “Pearls and plankton, I hope you like dicks made out of driftwood. Either way, you said there was magic, and my baby brother was taken. Could you show me where, please?”
He pulled out a phone from his pocket. The device had a shiny black and gray case that shimmered metallic and depicted a shark on the back, its eyes black, its teeth shimmering in pearly white. He started tapping on there, then looked up and inland.
Kai pointed. “The stairs are there.”
“You want me to go first in case I change my mind and decide to eat you, don’t you?”
“Yup. I fell for a charmer once before.”
Mikano’s face darkened. “If you are talking about that human who used magic on you, he’s not that. He’s not anything. He’ll learn that very soon. Come on then. Tickle will be glad to see you.”
Mikano put his phone away and started walking.
“Tickle?”
“Oh, we call him that. Because of his arms. You’ve seen them, I assume? His octopus arms.”
“I have.”
“That’s good. That’s very good.” Mikano started up the stairs, holding on to the handrail as if he were just a regular human who could fall and get hurt. Kai wasn’t sure that was true at all. “So tell me, Kai, how do you feel about my brother’s many, many appendages? Good, neutral? Not your thing?”
“I really don’t think that should be your concern.
” With evening rolling in, the wind picked up.
Clouds were coming in over the ocean too.
It all looked much too ominous for Kai’s taste, and he just wanted Fian back, wanted all those tentacles around him and…
maybe more. Maybe he could actually handle more.
“That’s an answer. It makes me hopeful. Oh, tides, he hasn’t been giving you a soliloquy about why mushrooms are the best food, has he? If he did, I swear that’s never happened before.”
“I like mushrooms too.”
Mikano stopped, and because there was no room on the stairs, so did Kai. The sometimes-shark turned and looked over his shoulder. “You gave him jam, you said? Did he ask for that?”
“What?”
“When you dreamed earlier. You said he came into that store and that you gave him jam. Did he ask for that?”
“No? It was a freebie. As a thank-you because he was nice.”
“A freebie.” Mikano huffed. “Oh, he got lucky, I can tell.” The shark reached for Kai’s hand faster than Kai could follow.
Mikano squeezed Kai’s fingers. “I like you. If you ever need anything—anything—you let me know. My brother is, well. He’s that one fish who doesn’t swim with the school, but I do care about him and—”
Kai pulled his hand back. “So go and save him instead of making small talk, okay?”
Mikano raised his eyebrows. “Oh? Okay. But before we go, let me free you from these tattered remnants of a ruined spell.”
With his demonic speed, he reached for Kai once again, took his head into his hands. Mikano looked deep into Kai’s eyes, and before he knew what was happening, Kai felt warm and light. The cold from the beach was still nipping at him, but now it wasn’t as bad as it had been.
After a few moments, Mikano let go. “There. That should do it.”
Before Kai could ask him what the fuck that had been about, Mikano sped up his steps, and this time, Kai had trouble keeping up.
Fian, your brother is coming to save you!