Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Crystal - By Deacon Blues

   Eight - Marcus and the Giant Secret

   After we watched a couple of afternoon schmaltz programs, the doorbell
rang.  "Ah, shit." I said.  "I forgot all about Marcus coming over to swill
brew with me." I looked at Crystal's upturned face.  "I guess something
blew it out of my mind."

   Crystal giggled, and stood up.  She bolted to the door, while I went
upstairs to make sure I was presentable.  I heard Crystal squeal with
delight at Marcus' arrival and the protests of Marcus as he was mercilessly
hugged into submission.

   As I came back down, Marcus was just putting the case of Ice House in
the fridge.  Crystal was standing behind the door of the refrigerator,
peering over it as he loaded the beer.  He kept two bottles and handed one
to me as I walked up.

   Marcus is a mixed breed, half black and half white, and half oriental,
or so he says.  He's a good looking fellow, if a bit skinny.  His mocha
colored skin is smooth and his face angular and handsome, if he'd get rid
of that silly damn goatee.  He wears his hair cut close to his scalp. 
Jennifer always liked his eyes.  They were light brown, almost hazel.  She
told me more than once she wanted to scoop them out and stick them in my
head.  He was dressed in sweats and a tee shirt that declared that he was
indeed a `Geek.' As if to reinforce that fact, he had a small holster on
his belt that held a oversized PDA.

   As he handed over the beer, Crystal sideswiped him again with another
bone-snapping hug.  Marcus has been around since long before I met
Jennifer, and he's sort of her unofficial Godfather.  He usually spoils her
with small gifts, and this time was no exception.  As he wriggled in her
most recent display of her affection for him, he managed to pull a small
box from his pocket.  He held it out at a distance, forcing her to
disengage her arms from his ribs to get it.  When she loosened, he bolted,
and tossed the box to her.  Smiling the whole time.

   Crystal deftly fielded the throw and looked at the tiny box.  It was
only about four inches to a side.  On it was printed in crisp letters. 
"For Crystal."

   She cooed over the box for a moment, then started to open it.  Marcus
said "Now, you can only have this if you promise to wear it."

   Crystal giggled at that, and her face lit up at the prospect of jewelry.
Her eyes twinkled as she looked into the open box.  A bracelet was lying in
a little nest of crushed tissue paper.  It was silver and consisted of
dozens of complicated little interlinking sections.  I peered closer to get
a better look at it.  It appeared to be tiny mermaids frolicking in various
poses.  The linking was done through tiny rings set behind the main casting
of the mermaids.  The largest mermaid was maybe just over a quarter inch
long.  The `cloth' of the bracelet was very soft and supple, considering it
was made of metal.

   Crystal set out an ear-shattering squeal as she looked at it.  Marcus
flinched and I just cringed a bit.  His face became a mask of mock horror
as he saw Crystal prepare for another rib-snapping hug.  She grabbed him
and cooed and bubbled over the `beautiful bracelet.' My face, however was
masked in a little concern.  Why had he chosen mermaids on the bracelet?

   He looked helplessly at me while Crystal put on the bracelet while still
firmly attached to his chest.  It glittered and sparkled almost like water,
the links and pieces were so flexible.  She finally released him, allowing
him to suck air into his lungs again.  "I take it you don't want me to take
it back?" He asked.

   Crystal giggled.  "No way." She looked at it at arm's length and moved
her wrist to make it sparkle.  "It's one of the most beautiful things I've
ever seen." Her face took on a look of concern.  "I hope you didn't spend a
lot on it." She said, sounding like she was lecturing.

   Marcus scoffed.  "It's mine to spend, Crystal." He grinned, adding,
"Besides, someone with a name like Crystal should sparkle."

   She cooed some more and giggled her way into the living room.  I put my
hand on his shoulder and gave him a little nudge in that direction.  We
both entered to see Crystal putting on her shoes.  "Going out again?" I
asked her.

   She gave me a sly look.  "I've gotta show this to Marcie." She said,
tying her shoe.  I'll be back in about an hour, probably."

   She gave Marcus another massive hug then kissed me on the cheek and
bounded out the door.

   After a couple of moments, I gave Marcus the honor of the EZ chair, and
took a seat on the couch.  We bantered about work and such for a little
bit. Finally I asked Marcus.  "You know she's one, don't you?"

   Marcus sat down his beer.  "Yeah, I figured it out as soon as I saw some
of the footage some of my German friends came up with." He looked at me. 
"They're built just like her, and even have some of the same facial
features, and I have seen her swim like them, and I've never seen anyone
else do it." Marcus shrugged, then took a pull from his beer.  "Her mother
was pretty much the same build, too, just more mature.  I always hated that
she latched onto you first, Jennifer was smoking hot." He said.

   I didn't bother enlightening him as to a very distinct probability of
why she latched onto me.  I just said.  "I asked you to stop that digging,
man." I shook my head.  "I mean it.  There are people that you don't want
to mess with involved."

   Marcus shrugged.  "I've dealt with bad people before, Nathaniel." He
said, his face growing stern.  "Even the Mafia."

   I blinked a couple of times.  "The Mafia?" I asked, "What the hell do
they have to do with anything?" I gave my own beer a good draining at that
bit of commentary.

   "Apparently everything." Marcus said quietly.  "They're the ones holding
Crystal's people in captivity, or white slavery, or whatever you want to
call it."

   I blinked again.  "They're what?" I asked, incredulous.

   "Nathaniel, the Mafia is taking those little girls, and selling them."
He said, giving me an earnest look.  "I found some dope on it online,
buried deep." He started to explain.  "They go around gene-typing rich
dudes, especially rich dudes with a penchant for young girls." He drank a
sip of beer.  "When they find one that matches a girl's `markers,' they get
in touch with him and make him an offer."

   "The offer is that for about ten million dollars, they will hook him up
with a girl that not only will be his sex slave, which a rich dude can buy
pretty much off the shelf, if he wants." Marcus glared at his beer, then
gave me a look of dismay.  "But she'll be his eager and willing sex slave,
something that you can't just buy off the shelf."

   "According to what I found, these Nereids are naturally affectionate and
driven quite a bit by their desire to reproduce." He smiled a bit.  "Not,
in and of themselves, bad things." He stood up, headed for the kitchen and
another beer.  "But, also, when they first mate, they're locked to that
mate for life, apparently, no other guy can make them pregnant after that."
She shook his head as he emerged with another beer.  "So, once one of these
rich boys buys his little mermaid, after he bangs her once, she's committed
to being his from there on out, so she transfers her affection and lust to
him, since it won't do any good anywhere else."

   "Ten million dollars." I said.  "Is one really worth that?"

   "Of course they are." Marcus answered.  "A girl who for all intents and
purposes loves you, and will be almost psychotically loyal to and quite
expressive with her love and passion." Ne nodded.  "Yeah, some guys would
pay that, gladly, for a Nereid.  Most of them perverts, but some would,
indeed, and have."

   So that's what Crystal was getting at when she talked about how lucky
she was, and how Chimeras would kill for a guy like me.  I wasn't chosen
and I wasn't seeking kiddie sex.

   Marcus' eyes narrowed slightly.  "My question has to be, Nate, why
haven't they pawned Crystal off already?" He looked at the empty box on the
coffee table.  "She's got to be of age, and she's probably going out of her
mind wanting a compatible mate."

   I just sat there a moment, my mind frozen up with what to say.  Marcus
studied my expression for a moment.  "How long have you two been together?"
He asked me.  "That's the only way she wouldn't be `up for sale.'

   I just locked completely up.  It was one thing for another Chimera to
know about Crystal and mine's relationship, but this was my old buddy
Marcus.  If he disapproved of it, it would now break my heart, and I'd
loose my best friend.

   "Don't worry." He said.  "I understand that she's not human, man.  Well,
not strictly human." Marcus amended.  He shrugged a little, then smiled. 
"So the `normal' rules kinda get bent a little."

   I finished off the beer, then said, "If I had any choice, I would have
done it differently." I was staring into space, not meeting my friend's
eyes.  "I'm not proud of it, or even feeling like I made some sort of taboo
conquest, I hope you realize that."

   "I do." Marcus said.  "I suppose you've made the best of a bad
situation, is all." He chuckled dryly.  "It doesn't bother her in the
least, does it?" He asked.

   "Nope." I confirmed, rising to get another beer.  From the kitchen I
said.  "She actually started it, from what I can tell." I came back in with
my fresh bottle.  "The seduction was methodical, meticulous, and precise."
I sat back down and met his eyes.  "The Nereids can bring a lot to bear
against a man, my friend."

   Marcus nodded to me.  "I bet they can." He got a look of apology on his
face.  "I'm not quite twisted enough to go after little girls myself, and I
wouldn't have been able to pass up Crystal, to tell you the truth, man. 
She's starting to be a hottie like her mom was."

   I gave him a sardonic look.  "I would have rather it been you, Marcus."
I said with sincerity.  "At least you're not her father." I could feel
tears welling in my eyes.

   "Nate, you can't look at it that way." He said, growing concerned.  "She
your daughter, yes, but she's not a normal child.  She's doing exactly what
she was designed to do." Marcus sighed, "You're just going to have to come
to grips with that." He gave me a sly look.  "If you had a normal daughter,
I'd say you were a twisted freak, but she's wired to go for you, or anyone
with your markers."

   I laughed, not a totally level-headed laugh either.  "Yeah," I agreed,
"Give me a lemon and I'll make my daughter into my fuck bunny." I said.  I
felt my mind fill with disgust for myself again.  Knowing I was doing
something like that was one thing, to have a man I knew and respected, or
even loved, know it, was quite another thing.  The knowledge that Marcus
knew I was banging my own daughter was distressing in the extreme.

   Marcus shook his head slowly.  "Man, its not at all like that." He said.
"You can't afford the luxury of being so self-centered." Marcus stood and
paced the floor.  "You're daughter," he paused, "and now your lover needs
you.  She needs you to be stable and all that you were before, and be her
mate and lover." He paused a long moment, then said.  "If you don't get
your shit together about it, you and her, and I will probably die."

   "What!" I said, loudly, his words snapping me out of my self-pity. 
"Die? From what?"

   He gave me an earnest look.  "From a terminal case of lead poisoning."
Marcus gave me a look that spoke volumes.  "They know that I didn't stop
looking, and I know they know, but they don't know I know that they know."

   My head spun a little.  "And you let her go out?" I said, growing angry.
"Knowing the mob was coming after you, and probably me, and her?"

   "They won't move that fast, they like to cross the `t's and dot the
`i's." He said.  "They will figure out exactly how to deal with it, then
they will move, and that movement will probably be quick and decisive." He
slid his index finger across his throat slowly.

   "What the fuck are we going to do?" I was almost yelling.  "They're not
killing my angel.  Not without a fight."

   Marcus chuckled humorlessly.  "I figured that much, that's why I took
the liberty of transferring most of your money to a new bank account." He
held out a small envelope.  "I also got you these." He held another,
matching envelope in his other hand.  "These are mine." He said, grinning.

   I took the envelope and tore it open.  It had a driver's license with my
face on it, but the name was Robert Murray.  There was also a state-issued
ID card with Crystal's smiling countenance, that read Sylvia Murray. 
Behind that was a new bank card, and a half dozen folded documents.  "Those
are birth certificates and other stuff, a diploma for you and business
degree." He pointed at Crystal's ID.  "Notice I made her fourteen on there,
to throw off people searching for ages, and you're thirty-five."

   I looked at my picture closer.  "I'm not blonde." I said.

   "You will be shortly." Marcus said, and produced a box of hair bleach
from his small knapsack.  "And you're also blue eyed." He pulled a small
plastic case from his pocket.  "Crystal's gonna be a redhead soon." He
said, peering into his knapsack and chuckled.  "And have quite a rack." He
held up a heavily padded bra.

   I couldn't help but laugh at that, too.  "What about the car?  Surely
they know what I drive, and you, too for that matter."

   Marcus looked confused.  "What car?" He asked.  "You own a beat to
shit-looking but incredibly good-running old Jeep Cherokee." He said, as if
it were a fact forever.  "You should really check your title paper closer."
He shook his head, mourning the loss of my memory.  "I would advise moving
out tonight, about two.  You left your Jeep over in the Super Wall Mart's
parking lot, so you'll have to drive that car in your garage to there."

   I held up my hand.  "What about you?" I asked.  "If you're in deep, too,
aren't you coming?"

   "Yup." he said, agreeably.  "I'll be in the beat to shit, but incredibly
good-running pickup behind you at the Wally World."

   "Is all this really necessary?" I asked.

   He looked at me seriously.  "I think it is." Marcus stood up leaving the
knapsack on the coffee table.  "I've fucked with people before, like the
Feds and even big business, but they play mostly by the rules." His face
darkened.  "These Mafia fucks don't.  Once they clue in on what I'm doing
right now, they'll move fast and it won't be pretty." He gave a minuscule
smile.  "I've got them chasing their own tail for now, but that won't hold
for more than another four or five hours." He headed to my office.  I
followed.

   Inside, he unceremoniously kicked the side in on my computer.  Sparks
flew, and he yanked the cord from the wall.  He proceeded to gut the
machine, wrenching the hard drive out trailing wires.  He threw that into
another knapsack he had pulled from the first.  He also tossed the DVD into
its Jewel box and the two into the knapsack.  "Um." I said.  "I liked my
computer."

   "Buy another, we got its memory." He said.  He folded my laptop and
shoved it into its own carrying case.  "We're traveling light tonight, my
friend." He looked at me with wide eyes.  I knew the look.

   "Road Trip!" We yelled in unison.

   I was scared, don't get me wrong.  But the prospect of adventure, even
life-threatening adventure, does get the blood to pumping.  Tossed in some
rather random-seeming disks from my desk and other electronic widgets, but
dropped my cell phone on the floor, and gave it a good smashing with his
heel.  "You've a new on in the Jeep." He explained, smiling.  "You know,
there's something therapeutic about smashing stuff." He said,
conversationally.

   I agreed, but added.  "Especially someone else's stuff, it seems."

   He seemed satisfied and headed down the hall to my room.  Upon seeing
the bed he paused.  "Uh.  Dude?" He said, pointing at the still utterly
destroyed mattress and headboard.  "Little accident?" He asked.

   I nodded.  "I was cleaning my piece and it went off." I said, managing
to keep a straight face.

   Marcus nodded soberly.  "Hate it when that happens." he said.  He told
me to pack some clothes, but nothing really distinctive, just jeans and tee
shirts and stuff like that.  He also told me to have Crystal do the same.
With that, he slipped out the window of the `our' room and was gone.  He
left his car parked on the street in front of my house, apparently hoofing
it.

   I heard my daughter coming into the living room shortly after that.  I
called for her to come upstairs.  She gasped when she saw my office.  "Dad?
Is everything okay?"

   I came out of my room, lugging a middling-sized suitcase.  "Not really
hon." I said.  "Marcus, I'm afraid, didn't listen well." I put a slightly
smaller suitcase into her hand.  She had a dazed look.

   "What's going on?" She asked, as I herded her into her room.  "Are we
leaving?"

   "Yep, going on a road trip." I said, forcing a smile to my face.  "Pack
some normal-looking stuff, nothing fancy." I instructed and she began
loading the suitcase.  I went to the bathroom and started a shower, reading
the instructions on the box of hair bleach.  I began to follow them, and
was almost done when Crystal came into the bathroom.

   "What stink..." She looked at me coming out of the shower, with new
blonde hair and blue eyes.  She gaped for a minute, then smiled.  "You look
pretty good as a Aryan, daddy." She said.

   "Not funny, angel." I muttered.  I handed her the bottle of red dye. 
"You know how to use this stuff?" She giggled and said she did, that she
had given both Sarah and Marcie dye jobs on occasion.  I put her to it
while I explained.  "Your buddies, the secretive ones, have gotten smart to
my buddy, Marcus' nosing about.  He is convinced that they may wish to do
us harm."

   Crystal gasped.  "Oh, shit." She got immediately very frightened
looking. That was enough for me, she knew who we were dealing with, and if
she was scared, so was I.  "The gun is under my bed, in a shoe box." She
said without hesitation.  She then added.  "The bullets and magazines are
in my closet in one of my boots."

   I went to the bed and looked underneath it, the handgun was there, as
advertised.  Likewise the bullets and the two magazines that I owned for
the gun.  I heard her in the shower and smelled the strong odor of the dye.
She emerged a few minutes later as a dark auburn haired girl, with a
clean-shaven body, totally clean shaven.  I raised an eyebrow.  "You really
think they're gonna check that?" I asked.

   She gave me a evil grin and said, "No, but you will, and I wanted to do
it." She rand her hand down her belly and over the newly shaved area, and
slid a finger into her slit.  "You should feel it, its neat."

   "I'd like to, but we need to be getting stuff to the car." I said, and
meant it, I wanted to put something over or into that smooth skin.  I
smacked her ass as she slinked by and she yelped and started dressing,
smiling the whole time.  I guess, like me, this was scary, but also it was
an adventure, too, and the blood does like it, even if the mind doesn't.

   By midnight, we had finished packing, and loaded up the car.  Crystal
eyed her ID dubiously.  "I'm fourteen now?" She asked me.  "I liked being
twelve."

   I laughed.  "Don't feel bad, Marcus made me older, too." I showed her my
license.  "And at risk of sounding just a bit of a pervert.  I liked you
being twelve, too." I gave her a quick kiss, and went to give the house a
last look over.  I began putting the house in shut down.  Turning off
lights and electronics, except, of course, my computer.  Marcus had seen to
its final turning off.  Crystal was putting a small boot knife in her,
well, boot when I came back down.  She pulled the cuff of her pants over
it. "Where'd you get that?" I asked.

   "It was a gift, from one of mom's old friends." She said, acting a bit
guilty.

   I nodded brusquely.  "Oh." I said, and let it drop.  I wasn't keen on
Crystal having a weapon, but then again, I wasn't keen on being killed by
the mob, either.  I loaded the magazines up with bullets, and slotted one
into the pistol.  I didn't chamber a round, though.  I slid the gun into my
belt at the small of my back and pulled my shirt over it.  It didn't
produce too noticeable of a lump, at least to my eyes.

   It was now nearing one in the morning.  Everything was as ready as it
was going to get.  The house was dark, and we hoped anyone who looked would
think we were sleeping.  Apparently, they did.

   The only sound we heard as we sat at the kitchen table was breaking
glass, muffled breaking glass.  We both sat bolt upright.  I turned toward
Crystal and pointed to the garage door.  She got up and moved quietly
toward it.  I got up and moved toward the stairs to the upstairs, where the
sound had come from.  As I peered over the lip of the top stair I saw a
shape slink from the guest room toward my door.  He was dressed in black,
and there was the distinct gleam of metal in his hand.

   I moved quickly back through the kitchen when I heard the soft cough of
a silenced gun behind me, coming from my room.  I went through the door and
got into my car.  I fired up the engine and hit the door opener.  I drew
out the handgun and held it in my left hand.  As the door got almost high
enough to exit, the interior door opened, and the man was there, bringing
his own gun up.  I switched on the headlights, and flashed them to bright.
Crystal gasped and crouched down in her seat, "Mario." She said.  "He
killed Mr.  Nelson." I threw the car into reverse as he blinked against the
glare of the headlamps on his night-adjusted eyes.  He fired the gun.  The
glass of the windshield spiderwebbed in the upper center.  I slammed the
pedal to the floor and the poor Corolla shot out of the garage in reverse.
The gun fired again, but apparently he missed.  I got to the street and
turned, pointing the car down the street.  Crystal lunged across me and
grabbed the gun from me, so I could use both hands to control the car.  I
heard another shot hit the car, in the trunk.

   Crystal then did something that I will never forget.  She toggled the
moon roof's switch and when it finished retracting, as I was gunning the
car.  I heard my own gun fire.  I looked back to see the form of Mario spin
in place and fall.  Crystal had just shot at him, from almost a hundred
yards, from a moving car, with a handgun.  And she had apparently managed a
head shot at that.  As she sat back down she looked over at me.  "What?"
She asked at my gaping mouth.  "He was a prick." She explained.  "Nelson
was a freak, and a pervert, and a bit of a sadist, to boot, but didn't
deserve to be killed." It never even registered on her that what she had
just done was almost a miracle, and would have made any marksman weep with
envy.  Or perhaps collapse in a quivering mass from the orgasm they would
have had upon witnessing that marvelous shooting.

   She handed the handgun back to me, and I put it in the map pocket in the
driver's door.  I told her to reach back and bust out the rest of the glass
in the rear door window, else it'll be noticeable.  I rolled all the other
windows down as she crawled over the bench and into the back seat.  She
used the ice scraper to bust out the little hexagons of glass and then
crawled back over and sat beside me, in the middle of the seat.  "I hate to
say it, dad, but this is kinda fun."

   I nodded agreement.  "In a twisted, kill the gangster way, yes." I said.
I noted that she had absolutely no emotional response to having just likely
killed a man, even if a bad man.  We drove for a while, just burning time
and gas.  I wanted to give things a little to calm down in my own head.  We
decided to leave the car in the parking lot of a Waffle House, and took a
cab to the Wal-Mart that our Jeep was waiting in.  After by the time we
transferred our stuff to the Jeep it was after two.  Crystal was starting
to get sleepy, so was I.  I saw Marcus pull up in a ragged-looking Ford
pickup.  He grinned at us.  The pickup had a camper shell.  He handed me a
two-way radio.

   "I heard there's some activity at your house.  I was hoping you managed
to leave." He said.  I took the radio and handed it into the Jeep to
Crystal, who was trying to nest in the wide bench seat.

   I nodded to him.  "Yes, we ran into Guido the Killer Pimp." I said
simply.  "Crystal shot him, I think."

   Marcus looked into the Jeep and smiled.  "She did, huh?  Good job, kid."
He said.

   Crystal held a thumbs up but kept her eyes closed.

   We talked for about five minutes, then I followed him out of the parking
lot.  We headed up I-65 toward Chattanooga.  We made it as far as Dothan
before we had to stop.  I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.  We
found a small motel and pulled into it.  I managed to wrangle adjoining
rooms for us, and we went inside.  I carried Crystal into the room and put
her on one of the twin beds.  I then locked up the Jeep and fell in the
other bed, I barely managed to cover my angel up and get my pants off
before falling asleep myself.