Marcela nodded.
The witch squinted her eyes. “Ah, yes, I see it now. Lot of magic that took. You’re covered in it. Might not have recognized you without the voice. Payment, I suppose?”
Patricio clenched his teeth. “Payment?”
The witch didn’t spare him a look. “Well you don’t think this sort of magic is done for free, do you?”
“I don’t remember,” Marcela answered. Her voice creaked, a confirmation for what the witch had said about payment.
Patricio stepped forward, getting closer to Marcela and keeping his eye on the witch. “She’s in shock. She’s been this way since I pulled her out of the ocean. She was drowning.” He glared at the witch, letting her know exactly who he blamed for that. The miserable old woman didn’t even flinch.
“Come with me, dear,” the witch told Marcela. She turned and paraded back to her cottage, the human baby drooling on her shoulder and giggling.
Marcela followed her, but Patricio grasped her shoulder. The mermaid glanced back at him, a question on her face.
“Say what you have to say out here,” he told the witch. “You don’t need to invite her into your little shop of horrors.”
The witch ignored him and continued into her hut. Marcela tried to follow her and Patricio had no choice but to let her. He flexed his hand, missing the weight of his sword, and followed. He should have sent for the witch, forced her to come to the palace.
“Don’t come in,” the witch told him, looking back through the doorway after Marcela had entered.
“If you think I’m going to abandon her to you, you’re out of your mind,” Patricio snarled. He took a defiant step onto the porch. “She’s under my protection.”
The witch shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Patricio glared as she stalked across the room and tucked the infant into a small bassinet. She tickled the child under her chin, pretending to talk sweetly to her as she settled her in.
She has everyone fooled. No one knows how she harbored a mass murderer.
He ducked and stepped through the doorway, gritting his teeth as the blasted thing seemed to shrink, yanking his wings back. He stumbled the rest of the way inside and froze.
Everything swirled around him. The floor lurched and heaved. One moment he was staring inside a simple peasant’s hut, surrounded by plain, solid wooden chairs, a table, and bushels upon bushels of drying herbs. Lavender, rosemary, and sage tickled his nose, making him sneeze. Then reality shifted, slid over itself. He was in some sort of shop, trinkets hanging in the windows, books stacked to the ceiling, and all manner of potions, charms, and scrolls covering every available surface. He blinked as an orange tabby cat yawned and rolled over to face him where it was lying on a table next to a cake under glass. A bright yellow Post It stuck to its side read Cat? in neatly scrawled script.
“You don’t look so good,” it observed.
Patricio opened his mouth and the room changed again. A shiver ran down his spine as the smell of blood filled his senses. Bones, skins—some animal some…not—and a giant black iron stove in the center. An owl hooted from outside the small open window and he could see a bone fence dotted with human skulls, their eyes glowing with hellfire. There was a scuttling sound like that made by an insect. Only much too loud to be a normal insect.
“Marcela, are you all right?” Patricio drew his sword, head swiveling around to find the source of the danger he could feel prickling along his spine.
He blinked and for a moment he was back in the original hut, surrounded by cozy furniture, potted plants, and the rocking baby cradle. The air once again full of the scent of drying herbs and some sort of brew that smelled of meat and potatoes simmering in a cauldron over the fire.
“Yes. What’s wrong with you?” Marcela’s rough voice held confusion, not a trace of fear.
“He came in even though he wasn’t welcome.” The witch patted the baby’s blanket. “My house doesn’t want him here.”
“Shut up and get on with it.” Patricio closed his eyes in an attempt to stop the chaos heaving around him. He kept his sword out, just in case.
Again, the witch ignored him. She bustled around, clanging pots and pans and grating ceramic. Finally, she spoke to Marcela.
“Drink this, sea maid. It will help calm your psyche so the memories can return.” There was silence for a while and then, “Oh, my. Melusine. I haven’t seen that wench in a goblin’s age. Still as bitter as ever, I see. I’m so sorry you had to bare the fury of her misery. Never would have gone through all that chaos if she’d only listened to me. Men peek, that’s what I told her, and there isn’t a man in this world who won’t.”
“You can read my mind?”
“I can take a peek. Nothing too involved, but Melusine’s magic is easy enough to read. Tell me, dear, do you remember why you went to see the old dragon?”
“No. I remember talking with my sisters about—”
There was silence for a second and Patricio gave in and cracked one eye open. He could barely make out Marcela and the witch standing less than a meter away from him in the rolling reality of the witch’s magic.
“No need to say it, your face speaks perfectly clear.” The witch sighed. “What a mess. And you being such a responsible young woman, too.”
“It’s your fault, witch.” Patricio clenched his hands into fists. “You and your twisted revenge brought this down on an innocent’s head.”
The witch’s back straightened like a metal rod had been shoved up her spine. Slowly, she turned. “You killed my brother.” Her hands trembled and she curled them into fists. “What—”
“Your brother was evil,” Patricio said evenly, ignoring the confusion on Marcela’s face. “He was sacrificing people to gain more power. He—”
“I know what he did. I don’t argue his crimes. But he was still my brother, my blood. I knew him before he was that person, before he committed those heinous acts. I loved him, and you mocked my tears as I mourned him.”
Out of nowhere, an image of Adonis leapt to Patricio’s mind. The incubus hopped from one bed to another, insinuating himself between the thighs of countless innocent maids and not one of them sought vengeance on him for it. Everyone accepted it was his nature, everyone laughed and waved him off. And yet every time he, Patricio, a harbinger of justice, executed his sacred duty, he was harangued for it. Insulted, berated, and railed at. His hands tightened into fists.
“You sobbed and moaned over him as if I had done a great wrong, as if the very sight of my work horrified you. I did your brother a great service. His soul was thick with sin, blacker than the sooty wing of a raven. I cleansed that sin from his soul, I sent him into the next life with a clean slate. He will have a fresh start the next time he takes his first breath instead of being weighed down with the countless savage acts he committed in this one.” Patricio squeezed his sword, desperation flaring inside of him, wanting to make them understand. “Think of the life he would have had with the karma he incurred in this life. I saved him from that.”
“Poor Patricio, doing us all such a favor at great cost to himself.” The witch’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Still haven’t had enough gratitude then?”
Patricio shoved the dig away, not rising to her bait. Gritting his teeth, he gave up defending himself. Again. “Marcela had nothing to do with anything. She doesn’t deserve to suffer.”
The witch put a bony hand to her chest. “Oh, my. Is it possible that you actually care about this young lady? That you are concerned for someone other than yourself?”
“I am merely a decent being who doesn’t want to see an innocent woman suffer.”
“Sometimes suffering has nothing to do with one’s own actions.” The witch brushed at an invisible piece of lint on her skirt. “Sometimes, when one person behaves foolishly, their loved ones also suffer.” She met Patricio’s eyes. “For instance, if someone commits a horrible crime and is punished for that crime, their loved ones can also suffer as a result of that p
unishment.”
“I did not commit a crime,” Patricio shouted. “I carried out my duty. Your brother was a murderer, on a massive scale. It was my responsibility to see that reign of terror come to an end.”
The witch snorted. “You really don’t see it do you? It’s right in front of your face and you still don’t understand.”
Frustrated nearly to the point of losing his mind, Patricio shoved a hand through his hair, tugging on it until the pain in his scalp helped center his thoughts. “All I know is that there is a young woman suffering because of your spell. If you have even a shred of decency, you’ll help her.”
The witch pinched the bridge of her nose. Finally she faced him. “My spell would not make her love you or desire you. It is hero worship. Unless you told her you wanted her to have legs…” She paused, waiting until Patricio shook his head. She shrugged. “If you did not tell her you wanted her to have legs, then her decision was not my doing. My spell merely magnified what was already there.”
“If your spell magnified her feelings, then it is your fault and it is still your responsibility to fix it.” Patricio’s heart pounded in his ears. Damn her eyes, why can’t she see her fault in this?
“So what you’re saying is, I—the punisher who was right to do what I did—should have sympathy for Marcela—your friend who is suffering as a result of your punishment?”
“You were not right to do what you did, I did not do anything wrong.” Patricio’s wings beat the air as his temper boiled over. “You are a wretched woman who cares for no one but yourself! I will help Marcela without you. If you’re lucky, then one day I will return and wipe this sin from your miserable soul.”
The witch didn’t respond, only peered at him with something suspiciously like pity in her eyes. Patricio ripped his gaze from that strange look and lifted Marcela into his arms. She stood there like a bystander observing a fight in a pub. With one last snarl, Patricio stormed out of the hut and leapt into the air.
As he flew away, he heard the witch’s voice calling out behind him.
“I don’t envy you when her shock wears off!”
Chapter Seven
“So, you’ve fallen in love with the angelic prince…Are you certain you are willing to risk losing everything?”
A hushed, feminine voice, more of a whine than the clear, ringing tones of her people. It curled around Marcela like an unwanted embrace, rolling her stomach with unease and making her senses scream at her to get away. Flee. Danger is coming.
Another voice, masculine and as cold as the ice floating in the North seas. “I don’t know how you did this to yourself. But you will undo it immediately. Whatever you might think, you are not staying here.”
“Thanks to your curse, she traded her fins for legs and now she’s so traumatized she hardly reacts to anything at all.” A heated male tone, smooth as polished stone warmed by the sun. The heat in the voice not aimed at her.
“Poor Patricio, doing us all such a favor at great cost to himself. Still haven’t had enough gratitude then?” This voice was feminine too, but older, earthier. The voice held a myriad of emotions, each one adding to the complexity of the words echoing back at her. Pain cloaked in mocking anger. “Is it possible that you actually care about this young lady? That you are concerned for someone other than yourself?”
Pain. Pain unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Scalding heat tearing her in two, ripping apart her flesh and bones. Laughter. Burning in her chest. I can’t breathe.
Marcela’s eyes shot open. White marble. Thick red material hanging all around her. Algae? No. No, something—
Air. Air, not water. I’m not in the water. Her heart beat in a bruising tempo against her chest. Labored breathing rushed in her ears and she realized it was her. Every breath adding to the growing ache in her lungs, a reminder that she wasn’t where she should be, deep in the sea with water filtering through her gills as she slept. She raised a hand to her forehead.
Her arm didn’t move. Tension, pressure, something holding her arm to her side. A net? Panicking, Marcela’s heart leapt into her throat as she thrashed around, trying to free herself. Get out, get out, get out, must get out.
Shooting into a sitting position, Marcela realized she was entangled in a nest of blankets. Not the thick, colorful quilts that Benita often brought on her visits to the shore, but something thinner, something pure white. They were twisted around her body, wrapped around her arms and tangled around her—
Legs. A scream tore from her throat. Legs, there were legs in the bed, legs coming from her body. Her tail was gone, her fins were gone, she wasn’t in the water.
Her voice. Her voice broke, rasping and grating against her vocal cords as if they’d been dragged over barnacles and were bleeding in tatters inside her body. Squeaks and shrieks escaped her as she kept screaming, kept trying to scream, all the while unable to tear her gaze away from the hideous limbs extending from her lower half.
“What in name of Zeus is going on in here?”
The voice boomed into the cavern around her, a deafening crash of thunder. It battered against her senses, but she still couldn’t look away, couldn’t tear her attention away from the macabre sight of the strange limbs sticking out from where her tail used to be.
“Marcela, calm down.”
A weight settled next to her and the surface she was sitting on dipped. Hands closed around her arms, but still she didn’t look up, couldn’t look up. A horrible, soul-sucking void had opened up inside her. Like the gaping maw of a leviathan, it threatened to swallow her whole, send her writhing and screaming into the blackness. The person speaking to her shook her, gently, but firmly.
“Marcela, stop screaming. Calm down.”
She hadn’t realized she was still screaming. That gasping, wheezing, blood-curdling sound was coming from her. Something dripped off her chin and she blinked, shocked to find she was crying. Hot tears streamed down her face. Her body trembled, shaking her even more than the hands still grasping her arms. She moved, choking as the limbs moved too. They were hers. Her legs.
The cavern tilted around her and she was aware of her body rising. The person in the room with her had picked her up and was carrying her. She started to struggle, but the sight of those strange legs kicking in front of her seized her throat, making it even harder for her to breathe.
Strange images flashed through her peripheral vision. Fabrics and windows, torches with flickering flames. All reminders that she wasn’t where she should be. None of this seemed real.
The sound of the ocean roared in her ears. Like hearing her father’s voice, the sound drew her attention and she turned desperate eyes out to the world. Waves foamed and crashed down on the sand. She scrabbled in the man’s arms, responding to the comforting call of the sea, desperate to be close, to go to the wet, waiting arms of her home. Her stomach pitched as the arms holding her plummeted down.
Wings, white feathers, the rush of the wind through downy softness. Flying, air currents rocking her body back and forth, up and down.
Her brain stuttered, refusing to make sense of what was going on. It wasn’t until cold sand slid against her feet, waves lapped against her body, and she got a lungful of the sweet scent of saltwater that the world slowed down enough for her to catch her breath. One breath, two. Three and she could see, could concentrate on something other than the furious pounding of blood in her ears.
She dug her fingers into the earth, burrowing deep past bits of broken sea shells and smooth grains of sand to hold on for dear life. Wave after wave licked at her body, hiding her lower half so for a moment she could pretend it had all been a nightmare. If she didn’t move, didn’t slide her…toes through the sand, she could pretend everything was as it should be.
For what could have been a small eternity, she sat there, frazzled nerves spasming with every sound. Eventually, the tension eased. She could breathe without that horrible pressure sitting on her chest.
“Are you okay?”
Slowly, she turned her head to the side to face the source of the gruff voice, careful not to move her lower body. There, in the water beside her, stood an angel.
The waves lapped at his muscled calves as he towered over her, the moon behind him casting his strong, proud features in shadow. His blue eyes flickered like the rays of moonlight that pierced the water of her home. Billowing white wings towered behind him, downy feathers ruffled with every breeze. His broad chest was bare, save for a light dusting of hair. He wore only a plain swath of white material over his groin, the ends of the fabric hanging down to mid-thigh.
An image flew into her mind, painting a picture of the angel on a ship, muscles flexing as he raised a sword above his head, a glorious warrior from the skies. Lightning flashed, reflecting off his blade as he brought it down onto his enemy. The acrid bite of blood mingling with the ozone laden air.
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