Tidal Moon

Xerxes

There’s nothing quite like the sea. Calm and welcoming at times; cruel and impetuous at others. It feels like an extension of myself, of the turmoil that's lived beneath my skin for the last century. I wasn’t born a wolf; I was made. It never changed my need to ride the tides. The very thirst that had led me to join the Marine Corps in my youth. It’s changed since I've served several terms, but I’ve reenlisted thrice. I’ll give it to humans; they have a knack for changing warfare and increasing body count. It differs from the creatures I packed with in the first decade.

Packs aren’t much different from a unit. You eat, sleep, and fight together. Unlike other branches of the military or packs, it didn’t limit me to land. There was no part of this world I couldn’t reach for, not that aviation ever held any appeal to me. I still remember the stench of the USS Truxtun on our journey to an archipelago near the Canary Islands. I'd been the furthest from home and fell in love. I became obsessed with the Atlantic and the edges of Europe. Perhaps it was an old love for Atlantis, knowing that if it existed, as many have claimed, it would rest in the depths of the dead center of the Northern Atlantic gyre.

It all feels like lifetimes ago as I peer over the deck of the latest ship, this time as a commanding officer. Bureaucracy always stays the same, or rather, it only becomes slightly more tedious. I’ve always been good at impressing the brass, and after so long, it’s not hard to fall in line. The more things change, the more they remain the same; at least, that’s what I’ve noted.

Besides a few men on deck, I’m alone, leaning over the banister. I tend to blend in at night. My skin’s dark in a way some might call swarthy or saturnine. They're just fancy words to avoid calling me black. Things have almost gotten better, but that's not really accurate. It doesn't matter; being a werewolf is worse. Probably for the best, I’ve dealt with discrimination my entire life. To the preternatural community, I might as well be some rabid beast that deserves to be put down.

Most think I’m keeping an eye out for pirates, but that’s not what I’m searching for. It’s silly. The seas often come with warnings of mermaids and pirates. Though I’ve dealt with my fair share of the latter, I’ve always wanted a glimpse of the former. Once, I swore I had, but my waking against a container with a bottle of bourbon in hand seemed to suggest otherwise. I’ve been sober for forty years. I haven’t touched a sip since.

It’s a good thing because I wouldn’t believe the sight gleaming beneath a waxing gibbous: a face as pale as a beam of moonlight, plump lips, and a gaze so blue it glows with fluorescence. And then she’s gone, but her face haunts me. I’ve seen it before. I’ve been drawing those high cheekbones and angular jaws in pen, charcoal, and even paint for decades back at my house in the woods. She’s haunted me.

There’s a slicing sound to the water, more subtle than the front of the ship cutting through the currents. It sounds like whales or dolphins, cetaceans schooling around us, but I don’t see dorsals. Something more delicate slices through the dark waters, and then that sound. A capriccio of bel canto. The tune, a brilliant balance of hues like the moon’s rays dancing against the darkened ocean beneath. I hear a single voice and many. They lull, and they lure. I imagine Odysseus chained to a mast to resist them, and wonder why they covered their ears and went to such lengths. The melancholy might be worthy of such an endeavor, and yet, I feel no need to jump ship, nor do my men seem to.

The ship itself is the problem. It sways and dips as the waves grow higher. The stronger their voices unifying in their crescendo, the darker the skies grow, smothered by thick rolling clouds that obliterate the brightness the moon had offered nearing completion. There’s a groan in the air, one I first attribute to the growing mass of tails and feminine bodies surrounding us in the water. It takes a moment to realize the ship is the one crying out in despair, bending and tensing under the mounting pressure. Despite the size and weight of the vessel, it makes a volta with the ease of a dancer. We might have come eons from the Titanic, but no big vessel can produce such a feat. A complete one-eighty at the height of something I can only consider a sustained pure note.

Our gazes meet across the raging tide, and as my knees falter, I swear her voice does, too. A tremor in her lips matches the sway of my body. Our ship is ripping itself in half; men are rushing overboard. I hesitate a moment longer before gripping a harpoon and aiming it at her. I don’t care how wickedly stunning she is; I won’t be bones bleached in the depths just shy of the gyre, forgotten between Africa and Europe. When I run out of metal harpoons to launch their way, I reach for the gun at my side. Screams make me miss the next shot and the one after that until I’m so close to the water I can barely call it jumping. I hit the water knife in hand.

Within a minute, I’m overrun. I might be stronger and faster on land, but in the water, my talents only go so far—not as far as predatory creatures designed to speed towards their prey to tear them apart. I brace myself for the three rows of fangs aimed at me, but they never come. A grip seizes my neck, and a hiss has others displaying discontent while finding other of my peers to feast on.

For a sliver of an arm keeping me in a chokehold, it's strong. I kick as I fight for a taste of oxygen. We go underwater, and she brings me to the ship as though ready to force me into the tomb that should have been. My hands are on her arm, prying her hold as best I can, but she's slick like a fish, and there’s no purchase to be made as we go down down down.

A first breath becomes me as I’m brought to a pocket of air within the ship. I’ve been trained to survive against all odds, and this…this is something else. She circles me, a blur beneath the water. I only have seconds to catch my breath again. The pressure is building uncomfortably, and she emerges with a book in hand, holding out one of my portraits. We’re in the rec room; I guess I left my journal there.

“Can’t draw you like a French girl if you drown me,” I wink. At least I'll have the last word. She moves to leave, and I latch onto her tail, gripping her like she’s a lifeboat and I’m a drowning man. To an extent, she is.

That pressure builds faster this time. The speed with which she moves would kill me if I were human. It's a good thing the wolf in me is strong. She takes me forward and upward. My lungs demand air; they ache and contract. I can barely keep my final breath in. I’m empty, on the verge of passing out again, and then there’s a gulp of water. Salt that sears through me and makes me suck in a breath to exhale a scream. I expect to die in the thickness of the Atlantic Ocean, away from the shores I loved as much as the sea. When I open my mouth again, I expect it to be for a final time, but the sound reaches my ears.

“Stop it. They’ll hear you,” her staccato voice exclaims, detaching every syllable in a manner that contradicts the lull of her earlier song. She’s mad, angry at me for fighting to breathe and survive. I suppose it goes against her attempts to leave me at the bottom of the ocean with the wreck of the ship I came on.

My throat closes to cough and rid my lungs of the saline droplets as she drags me towards the stoney shores. I can see it, but I’m in no shape to swim. The outline of steep rocky ledges and pebbled beaches is in my focus, coming in and out. Lights twinkling over the top like fireflies. The warmth of orange roofs and pale building facades spark recognition.

Every sound I make seems to upset her just as much. She's yanked back before she can berate me some more, three other fish women gripping her. Mostly, I note splashing and that screeching sound between a whale’s call and a series of hisses when they reach above the water. I’m treading as water splashes. I claw down in the water at the blonde holding my savior hostage. Blood spreads, and one of her attackers launches toward me with a screech I translate as a war cry.

I pull on the moon, allowing my teeth to sharpen and my nails to turn into claws. Partial shifts took half a century to master, and if the moon wasn’t so close to full, I’m not sure I would have managed. My arm pulls back to meet her, but she’s yanked back. With an economy of motion, my brown-haired siren emerges, but I’m incapable of fighting, much less keeping my head above the spray.

Still, I feel movement in the edges of the darkness. My head lulls and rolls and hits the hard edges of the shore. Her top half slides out to join me, her head on my chest. She’s cold to the touch, slippery as though covered in oil. I see the marks of my claws on her scaled sides. Her hands shove down on my chest, and her fishy breath latches onto my lips, forcing breath into me.

When I cough up water, she doesn’t scold me. Instead, she smiles. A soft expression I recall despite the three rows of fangs that would make most men quiver in their boots. It’s a good thing I’m lying down. I can’t get any lower than this. For a spell, I descant there, staying in the last rays of the moon. I feel my body healing; if I'd adequately eaten, I might have already recovered.

After some time, I look down at my side. I don’t see the blood in the dark waves, but I smell it. I reach down and drag her to my body on the rocky beach. Am I killing her by taking her out of the tide? She doesn’t fight me, and I see the tear down the left flank of her tail well into her back fin. I strip the jacket of my utility uniform and start compression. I don't have anything else. No med kit, no supplies, and exposure can’t be good for this.

“Stay with me,” I growl, but her eyes are already closing. I pull onto my wolf to survive, leaving me rough around the edges. There’s a reason I make such a good jarhead.

Beneath my hands, I feel a gap. Worry starts to grip me; it coils in my gut like a snake ready to strike. Then I see what my jacket’s been covering. Her tail has split into two thin, pale limbs. The left one is ghastly. I can practically see her bone. She’s shorter and lighter now. I scoop her into my large arms, clutching her to my chest. I’m broad, but she makes me feel as massive as an alpha. For the first time, it feels much more appropriate. I have time to consider building a pack in my retirement. I’ve already found paradise.

I’ve lost everyone again, much sooner than I’d anticipated. My plan had been to fade away slowly, but this cruel angel spared me. I need to know why, but I can't know that unless I get her to a medic or a healer. Stabilize her until I can access my funds and bring us to the home I had built overlooking the sea. This should have been my last voyage in this life. Being thirty-six again was pushing it. If I weren’t black, they'd definitely question my lack of aging. The youthful glow I’ve maintained. I’ve been stuck at twenty-eight for over a century and have seen more wars than I care to admit.

Her body is fragile as I carry her up the darkened beach to the walkway. It’s a while before I reach the stairs that lead to the orange-roofed village overhead. Of all the islands in the world, at least I have hope I can make a difference here. I’m home, and apparently, I have my first guest.