Storm Alert by Daria Karpova

Daria Karpova writes in a variety of styles, including urban fantasy, adventure and dark fantasy, with an occasional foray into the horror genre. Her first book Loose Diamonds, a supernatural action/adventure, was published in 2004. Her short stories appeared in several e-zines, including Dream People Magazine and The Harrow. For more information, visit Daria's blog at http://dariakarpova.livejournal.com.

She was cursed.

Deirdre had raged about the unfairness of it, grown used to the bitterness of it, and at the end, accepted it.

What a lie, she thought, squinting against the heated glare of the sun. But she was a show-girl, after all. It meant she was very good at lying. Especially to herself.

The dry, hot quiet of the New Orleans' cemetery calmed her frayed nerves. She stepped off the path. The battered gravestone and old grave stood behind the short iron fence. Dry dust had settled in the cracks running across the white stone. It had seen no rain for a very long time.

A flash of memory hit her, caught her breath in her throat.

The sky, black like the heart of night despite the high noon. The shining fork of lightning tearing through the air. Patrick's eyes widening in horror as the window broke into a thousand tiny glass knives. He had screamed then. Those screams, oh merciful God, those screams.

Deirdre cried, kneeling in the yellow dust at the fence, clutching at the iron rods so hard her fingers ached. But she welcomed the pain like she welcomed anything that could lead her thoughts away. Deep down, she knew curses had nothing to do with it. She had been born different. Now she had to be alone.

Distant thunder sent shivers creeping along her spine. She looked up. The sky shone clear and blue, not a wispy cloud marring it. No storm. She rubbed her hands up and down her suddenly cold arms. She had tried to avoid the tragedies. Nobody could say she hadn't. When Kevin died, she thought it a coincidence. No, she tried to convince herself it'd been a co-incidence. That's why she had allowed Patrick to die, too.

The thunder sounded again, almost softly, like a great winged cat purring in the sky. Maybe it was a truck on a nearby road.

The golden glare of sunlight died down. Deirdre peered up, and there it was, the dark cloud slithering across the shining body of the sun. No. Please, no. She didn't want it.

And that's a lie, too, and you know it.

Shaking her head against her own thoughts, she rose.

"You should have brought a pillow," a low, velvety voice said behind her.

Deirdre spun to see a tall man standing on the path weaving between the graves.

He smiled, his eyes hidden behind cool mirrored shades. The curling ends of his dark hair reached the unbuttoned collar of his white shirt. He kept his hands in the pockets of a pair of finely tailored gray pants. His sleeves were rolled up, and he lacked the tie and the jacket. Despite the dark glasses, she knew he was handsome. The sculpted strength of his face promised that much. Then she wondered why she even bothered noticing all those details. He was a stranger, a passer-by. But she couldn't help watching him. Suddenly, she remembered she was supposed to say something.

"I… I just stopped for a moment."

He left the path, stepping closer to her. Close enough to touch. The darkness of his hair held the slightest hint of auburn. She wanted him to take his shades off. She wanted to see his eyes.

"It's quiet here, isn't it?" he said.

"I like it."

She clasped her hands behind her back. She wouldn't touch him. Not even to shake his hand. She had no right to.

He smiled, and that smile held a dangerous edge that made her heart flutter. Go away, Deirdre, she told herself. Go away before you start wanting him too much to be careful.

"Quiet… like right before a storm."

She shook her head and turned to the grave marker. Go away before he dies.

Another rumble, closer this time. Deirdre looked at the sky. Clear. Damn.

She turned to him, praying he would say what she wanted to hear.

"Have you heard it?"

"What?" He still smiled.

"Thunder," she whispered. Fear coiled in her stomach. It had never happened this way before. They hadn't even kissed. But she could already smell the rain.

"There was a storm alert," he said, glancing up. "But I don't see how that could be possible." His face turned to Deirdre again, and even despite his shades, she knew he was looking at her. "Unless there is a special occasion, of course. But I didn't bring my umbrella."

"You don't believe in warnings?"

"I believe in the forces of nature."

She gave him a smile, but the bitterness of it stung her tongue. "It would be a freak of nature, not a force."

That's what she was. A freak.

"It would be beautiful," he said. There were secrets in his smile, and she wanted to discover them all, and she was afraid to. Almost against her will, she reached for his shades, took them off-and froze.

His eyes were a deep, dark shade of gray tinted with purple. The color of storm clouds. The whites had a blue tint of the sun-starched midsummer sky.

As she watched, the purple darkness shifted, fading. She blinked, and his irises became blue-gray, surrounded by perfectly normal whites.

Insane. She was going insane.

In the fragrant darkness of the Velvet Cave, Deirdre was drowning in music, her eyes closed against the strangers in the crowd. Her song spilled over the small club, her voice rich and sultry, as if it were making love to the honeyed tunes of the sax and the flirty runs of the piano.

She thought of the man from the cemetery. Desire whispered across her skin, sweet and burning. The faint smell of ozone assaulted her nostrils. Too early. It was too early. Usually, she felt the storm approaching only after they kissed, touched, caressed. But she had never been so excited before, her every nerve tingling, every emotion magnified and dangerous.

Sliding towards the last refrain, Deirdre smiled without opening her eyes and curled her hand around the cool stem of the mike in a caress meant to set the audience on fire. She didn't need her sight to sense their effervescence crackling above the tables like a tingle of electricity that rides the air just before a storm.

Her fancy summoned his face from her memory, set it shimmering in front of her. His beautiful eyes smiled at her.

Thunder exploded over the tiny stage.

Deirdre's eyes snapped open, but neither the sax, nor the piano had missed a beat. They hadn't heard it.

Please, she thought, not now. Please. Inhaling deeply, she sang out the next lines, semi-pleased with the smoothness of her voice. The rhythm lured her into imagining the man again. If only she could-

A brilliant arc of lightning cut through the darkness at the back of the room. Deirdre gasped. For the briefest instant, in the white light spilling over the tables, she saw his face.

She peered at the back tables, but the room had once again gone gloomy, and all she could see were silhouettes shifting among shadows.

She finished the song. Smiled. Bowed. Waited. Finally, the lights went on.

There was no one.

Later, sitting in front of the mirror in her make-up room, Deirdre still couldn't decide whether she was disappointed or relieved. She could never have him. She could never have any man. But others seemed unimportant at that moment.

Why couldn't she be normal? Be perfectly ordinary? She'd be able to flirt with him, laugh with him. She would let him kiss her, and then they'd make love. Sharing sunny days and sultry nights for years and years to come.

Squeezing her eyes shut against the salty burn of tears, Deirdre grabbed the hairbrush with grim determination. It was no use to ask why. She had asked. Oh yes, she had asked until her throat was raw and her voice rasped like an old record. Noone answered.

A cool breeze slipped through the open window to tease her with the scent of rain. Resting her head against the high back of the chair, she watched the dark tree branches dance outside. Somewhere in the distance, a thunderstorm brewed. She could feel the play of energies up in the night sky, the first charges of electricity running through the heavy clouds, the wet velvet of air streaked by the colder stratums arriving on the wings of a monsoon. She longed to join them.

There was a quiet knock on the door. Deirdre snapped out of her trance. With a sigh, she muttered permission to enter, preparing to endure the excited chatter of a fan, or worse, sneakily careful questions of a journalist.

The door swung open. The man from the cemetery stood in the doorway.

Joy pushed her out of her chair, whirled her around to face him. But it was fear that stopped her cold in her tracks.

Don't touch him. You can't risk his life.

She gripped the back of her chair to resist the temptation.

"What do you want?" There was forced, icy politeness in her voice. But not in her smile.

He smiled, too, sending butterflies dance under her skin. "Should I be direct, or should I be polite?"

"Go away," she said. "Please."

His eyebrow rose, but she had the impression he wasn't too surprised. "Just like that?"

"I'm tired." Seeing him keep his position, she added, "You can give me the photograph, or whatever it is that you brought. I'll sign it and have it mailed to you."

His eyebrow arched in mock surprise. "Are you always so generous?"

"Only when I'm trying to get rid of someone."

"Earnest, too." He laughed, tempting her to smile.

She had to get rid of him, but couldn't she do it just a heartbeat later? She wanted to hear him laugh again. To feast her eyes on him before saying good-bye.

She wanted to remember him.

He crossed to the window, never taking his eyes off her. His gaze slid across her skin like the silky touch of a cloud. She went over to him, hiding her hands behind her back so that she wouldn't touch him. He smelled like a night wind flying above the ocean.

The leaves rustled outside. The light blinked and went out with a tiny sizzle. It didn't matter to her, but it didn't seem to bother him, either, even though it had to be almost pitch black for him. He watched her intently, and she longed to kiss him. She'd give ten years of her life to be able to kiss him.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a purple shadow seemed to veil the blue of his eyes. A trick of the wind playing with moonlight, she told herself, enjoying the silence between them. People needed words, but she didn't, unless they were coupled with music, melting into a kind of music in its own right. She had to let him go, but wait, please, wait…

For an instant, the world froze in perfect harmony, and then he moved to her with a slow, dangerous grace, arms rising to embrace her. Winds whispered across her skin.

She stepped back, and the illusion shattered.

"Go away. Please."

"You could have thrown me out ten minutes ago."

Ten minutes? She hadn't noticed a single one passing.

"Please," she repeated helplessly. She couldn't bring herself to summon the bouncer.

"I want to love you," he said. "It sounds awfully sugary, but I'm afraid the only choice we've got is between sugary and naughty."

She almost laughed. "I'd prefer naughty."

A boyish smile played on his lips. "Then should we-"

He took a small step forward, and she shifted to avoid the contact.

"Just one kiss. One wee tiny chaste kiss."

"You don't know what you are asking."

A silent flash of lightning behind him made her jump.

"What if I do?" he asked, advancing slowly, until she turned and he shifted direction so that soon Deirdre found herself pressed against the windowsill. The wind slipped in to play with her hair. Above the building, she felt the clouds float, moist and heavy, shuddering in delight as charges thrust through their hazy dampness.

He was so close that the warmth rolling off his body washed over Deirdre. The heat in his eyes entranced her. Electricity surged through her veins, answering to him and the storm alike.

"The very first moment I saw you there between the graves, I knew I had to find you. Or to be exact, the moment you broke into run."

"Sorry," she said. "It wasn't very polite."

Afraid, she'd been so afraid then. Afraid he'd imprint his image on the deepest layer of her memory and her heart would never let him go. And now he had come and done exactly that.

He leaned towards her, and she shook her head furiously, not daring to touch him, not even just to push him away.

"It's dangerous for you," she said.

He laughed so carelessly, her heart squeezed up inside her.

Patrick had laughed, too, when she had run her hands up his chest and prickled him with a tiny electric flash. "Charged my girl pretty high, didn't I?" he had said then, smiling. She had begged him to stop, but he wouldn't have it, not until thunder tore the air and her body arched in a white lance of lightning. His charred body slid to the floor, and she cried as the siren call of electricity carried her out the window and up into the damp, fragrant thickness of storm clouds. She'd cried and raged, ripping through the shining ropes of lightning, and the rain cried with her in a thousand voices. That storm had torn the roof off the biggest covered stadium in the country. The cars had been tossed across the streets to slam into walls. The trees had lost half their foliage. And she had lost Patrick.

"I will kill you," she blurted out, then added in a small, painful whisper, "I can't help it."

He grasped her arms, bringing her against him. She started, but nothing happened, only the wind howled outside, crushing the leafy branches against the walls of the building. She clung to him as if she were drowning. His mouth was just a few inches from her face, so that she could kiss him if she went up on tiptoe, and that wasn't nearly close enough and yet still way too close.

"You don't understand," she said.

"What if I do?"

Strangely enough, he didn't seem surprised by her words. He didn't even ask questions. But the oddness of his awareness sunk into the heated whirlwind of his touch and dissipated. He pulled her closer, and as her breasts pushed against his chest, thunder exploded over the roof with a deafening roar.

"What if I'm ready to pay the price?" he asked.

His eyes glittered in the darkness like twin flashes of blue lightning, and Deirdre averted her gaze. She didn't want to observe his madness. It would ruin the perfect fantasy of him that was going to warm her through the frigid winter of heart for years to come.

"I'm not ready," she whispered, lifting her hands to push him away before she would have to see that handsome face twist in a burning agony. She watched her hands move in slow motion. Time crawled like a dying snake. The purple clouds above beckoned her through the layers of steel, wood and concrete. The storm was strong and beautiful like a lover she could never have.

The tips of her fingers brushed the black cotton of his shirt. The sharp vibrancy of ozone washed over her, and she moaned in pleasure. His mouth claimed hers in a hard kiss that sent sparks through her nerves. Electricity shimmered along her spine-no!

He caught her wrists before she pushed him away, and sparks leaped onto his arms, weaving an icy blue net around his black sleeves. A scream froze in her throat.

The man smiled. His eyes darkened, and Deirdre watched, mesmerized, as a barbed silver line streaked across his left pupil. Lightning cut the dark sky behind him in half. Rain was like the taste of the sweetest wine on her tongue when he leaned to kiss her again.

"I sensed you," he said when their lips parted. "I called out to you and you heard me."

The sudden urge to come here, born on a night filled with storm…

"Yes."

"Are you the one?" she asked. "Are you my love? For always?"

His body shimmered in her embrace, and she only had time to feel the wetness on her skin before her own flesh joined his in a mist of clouds streaked by energy.

A fierce lightning blossomed in the room, scorching the wallpaper and the trees peeking into the windows. Then the cloud-veiled wind rushed through the falling water up into the sky. Wrapped in the heavy silk of rain, they danced across the horizon. He was brilliant and forceful, and she answered him with a white glare of her own. She called out his name in a crash of thunder-the name no human mouth could have spoken. He whispered to her in a language that had neither words nor letters.

For always.

© 2009 by Daria Karpova