Rising (15 page)

Xanthus
walked up to Slink as he flailed about. Grabbing him by the throat, he jerked the trident from the trunk. “Let’s take a walk, human.”

***

Xanthus simmered in lethal anger as he held Slink several feet above the ground. He was skinny for a human, and reeked of drugs, alcohol, and body odor. Xanthus forced himself not to crush the human’s windpipe. Just the thought of this vile creature putting his hands on Sara had Xanthus feeling murderous.

“Please, don’t kill me
,” Slink said.

“
I would love nothing more than to kill you. But I won’t. If you had succeeded in your plans tonight, I would have killed you without hesitation. Instead, I’m sending you to a place where you can never harm or threaten another innocent, and if you knew what fate awaited you, you would be pleading for death.”

Xanthus
stepped to the edge of a rocky overhang and pointed his trident toward the water lapping below. Slowly, he lowered Slink into the water. “I send you to the Panthon Prison human cell block to answer for your crimes.” Xanthus knew the prison would accept humans without question.

Small shoots of seaweed
sprouted from the sand and slid over Slink’s feet. They slithered up and over his skin like a hundred thin, green snakes, cocooning him as they moved up his body. His eyes bulged as he opened his mouth and gave an ear-piercing wail.

Xanthus
had also wondered if the screams came more from fear or pain. Triton had explained how the Heitach worked and had given Xanthus the power to command them. They required water to call them forth, and when they came, they not only covered their victims, but also poisoned them, causing an excruciating amount of pain before temporarily shutting down all bodily function. Miraculously, the cocoon would keep the human alive for transport to any place Xanthus commanded.

These
were resourceful creatures. They could get through any barrier, travel any distance around the world, and they instinctively knew the exact place you ordered them to go. If he wanted to, Xanthus could send this man to the United States president’s oval office and the secret service would be powerless to stop them.

Sli
nk drifted away from shore. His wails were cut off as the Heitach covered his face just before he slipped under the surface.

Xanthus made his way back to the grove of trees.
There, encircled in darkness, he found Sara. She was curled up, weeping, her body trembling.

Xanthus
felt tormented, guilty. He’d known that she wasn’t safe among the humans. But he’d left her anyway, to complete his mission. Well, his mission was nearly complete. Only one guilty person remained to be sent to Triton. Regardless of his duty, Xanthus should never have left Sara unprotected. The humans were dangerous beings. Of course, Xanthus knew she wouldn’t be any safer among Dagonians. What in Hades was he to do with her?

What he wanted to do was carry her off to his home and lock her up
safe, where no one could hurt her again. In those long moments tonight when he had been unsure whether she was dead or alive, he’d been frantic. Then it struck him.

H
e loved her.

He loved her with his whole heart, soul
, and being. Xanthus knelt down next to her small form on the hard ground. For the first time, he saw with his eyes the evidence of what she really was—a true daughter of Calypso. Her perfect tail fin shone pale against the dark sand.

***

A whispered breath against Sara’s face let her know that someone was very close.

“Sara
. You’re safe now.” Xanthus’s voice, so terrifying just a moment ago, was now feathery soft.

Against her bett
er judgment, Sara’s fear turned to relief. A sob shook her chest as Xanthus’s arms surrounded her. Her hands clawed their way around his neck as she clung to him and cried.

“Shh
. It’s all right. You’re safe.” He stroked her hair.

What
was she thinking? This man was dangerous, a murderer. Still, she couldn’t seem to help herself. Even though he’d just killed three men, in his arms she felt safe, protected.

S
ara was obviously just as crazy as he was.

“
Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” Xanthus slipped his hand underneath her and lifted her off the rocky ground. She kept her arms tight around his neck and tucked her head in the crook of his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to protect you
,” he said. “I never should have left you. I won’t make that mistake again. Tonight you’ll stay at my place and rest. Then I’ll decide what’s to be done.”

“Your place?
” Sara’s head shot up. “Please, Xanthus, I want to go home. I’d just like to climb under my blankets and try to forget what happened here.”

“
Sara.” Xanthus frowned. “Since I found you, I’ve spent day and night watching you, worried about you. And if you think I’d take you home and leave you unprotected after you were nearly murdered… Great gods of Olympus. I leave you for a short assignment and look what happened.”

“I’m sorry,
” she said, “but you have to see this from… wait a minute. You went on an assignment? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were angry with me, that you weren’t talking to me.”

“You thought I was angry with
you
?”

“
Yes. Well, if you weren’t angry, why didn’t you call me? Or tell me where you were going?”

“I
… I didn’t think of it. I’m sorry if you were upset.”

“I didn’t say I was upset
. If you want to leave without a word, it doesn’t mean a thing to me. I mean, it’s not like we’re in a relationship.” Sara felt as if she might start crying again.

“Oh Sara, I wasn’t angry with you, I was angry with myself. And I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”

“Wait a minute.” She whipped her head around. “We passed my wheelchair.”

“I’ll come back for it
later.” He shrugged, heading in the direction of the parking lot.

“Oh
, no you won’t. I can’t leave it out here. Someone will steal it.”

Xanthus sighed, tu
rned back, and stepped toward the chair. Blue lights flashed through the trees.

“Is that the police?”
Sara asked.

“Looks like it.”

“Of all the times for them to show up in this neighborhood. They never have before. Oh no, they’re going to arrest you for murder, aren’t they? I mean when they find the bodies.”

“There
are
no bodies.” Xanthus said.

“Then you didn’t kill them?”

“No, I didn’t.” He sighed.

Sara was elated.
“Then where are they? Maybe Slink called the police. But that’d be stupid. They were the ones trying to kidnap me.”

“Sara, as much as I’d
love to continue this conversation, I think we’d better get out of here. I’m supposed to keep a low profile.”

Xanthus sat
her down in the wheelchair, lifted both her and her chair off the ground, and headed back toward the beach. “Hey, where are we going?”

“We need to get out of here.”

“But this path leads to the ocean.” Sara’s heart started pounding.

“Exactly
.” Xanthus’s eyes focused on her, his voice firm. “I’m a very strong swimmer. And I’m sure you’ll find you are too.”

“Oh no,
I am not. Listen, I don’t know what you
think
I am, but I definitely don’t swim.” Sara looked down at her fin in shock. She curled it under the chair, trying to hide it.

“I know exactly what you are and you are built to swim.”

“
No, I am not. I have a deformity…”

Xanthus’s
growl stopped Sara mid-sentence. “Don’t ever say that again. You are perfectly formed.”

The man was insane. He really was.

Xanthus and Sara reached the shore. Sara’s eyes were wide as she gulped in gasps of air. The surf looked like a great beast that threatened to devour her. Xanthus strode toward it, fearless.

Sara’s chest squeezed the breath right out of her as panic set in. Xanthus lowered her and her chair down to the sand. He stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the lapping water. It was a testament to how terrified she was that she didn’t give his amazing body a thought as she sucked in air and tried to wheel through the thick sand, attempting to escape.

T
he water began to churn and bubble. “You might want to close your eyes. You don’t want to see this.”

Somewhere in
the back of her mind, she heard what he said, but she didn’t pay much attention to it. She was too busy trying to get away. All she could think about was the thundering sound of the surf and the giant, threatening waves. Sara started to sob as her chair refused to budge. In desperation, her eyes locked onto Xanthus as she sat, petrified.

Xanthus
bent forward, groaning in agony, and squeezed his arms around his chest. His growl increased in volume and then turned into a shriek as the skin on his legs ripped open, peeling back to expose slick, red muscles and white tendons.

Sara
gasped in horror at the grotesque sight, the ocean waves suddenly forgotten. Each of Xanthus’s muscles pulsed and throbbed as they grew and morphed. Muscles and tendons snaked around Xanthus’s exposed legs, wrapping them from front to back as if they were tying his legs together.

G
ray skin rippled down from his waist, covering the exposed flesh all the way to his ankles. Below his ankles, the white bones of his feet had torn through his skin and stretched like skeletal branches. The bones were soon connected with white elongating tendons and then covered by the advancing grey skin forming a great fin.

When the transformation
was complete, Xanthus’s head flew back as he shouted in triumphant. Shock-driven adrenaline jolted Sara’s body. Xanthus looked magnificent and ferocious. It was like coming face to face with a vicious shark.

Sara
opened her mouth to scream but the scream choked off when the recognition hit her. She sat frozen, her mouth agape. Xanthus’s fin was much like her own deformed legs—the same shape, the same form. The only difference was that hers was flesh colored and his was grey. He must be… a merman? And if that were true, was she really a mermaid?

Sara
sat stunned.

S
he’d never known a merman could look so deadly. Sara’s eyes rose to his face. Xanthus looked apprehensive, as if he sensed her alarm. When she saw his trepidation, her fear melted away. This was Xanthus, the man who had been watching over and protecting her since the moment they’d met. He might look lethal, but he would never hurt
her
.

S
ara shut her mouth and swallowed. Her eyes, burning with curiosity, brushed over his body in a careful examination. Xanthus was amazing. The skin on his upper body was tanned, muscled, smooth, and hairless. His lower body was dark grey, almost black. His fin looked long and muscular. It fanned out darkly in the sandy surf. He was wearing a wide, gold belt at the waist that matched the gold armbands around his biceps. However incredible his form may have been, what was even more amazing was the fact that he was suspended in the air.

This merman
could fly.

“Are you a
…?” Sara licked her parched lips.

“
Dagonian. We’re both Dagonians. Well, you’re half. But you’re the perfect image of one, except for your blue eyes. Dagonians only have dark brown eyes.” 

“So I’m not a mermaid?”

“
No, you’re not. The children of Triton are extinct—killed off two thousand years ago at the command of Poseidon, Triton’s own father and King of the Greek sea gods. You’re a descendant of the unlikely union of the gods Dagon and Calypso. Dagon is a sea god in the Sumerian pantheon. Calypso is a sea goddess of the Greek pantheon.”

“Oh
, well that that clears everything up,” she said.