Petunia's Pandemonium

by Robyn Peterman

  “Good one, Delpenis,” Pirate Doug congratulated his sibling. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

  “I know who the others are,” Adara said with an evil little grin. “I’ve de-balled them and put them in bottles. They will not be causing you trouble ever again, Yummy Gummy Bear.”

  Shoving Botein back into the bottle, she dropped the glass prison back into her bag.

  “My work here is done,” she said, bestowing all with a blinding smile. “I’ll expect my son and his lovely ballsy Mermaid for dinner next Friday. Am I clear?”

  “You are,” I said with a smile as I held tight to Delphinus. “We will be there.”

  With that she disappeared in a blast of the shiniest glitter I’d ever witnessed. My body sagged with a relief so great, I almost dropped to the sand. Were the surprises finally over? Could Delphinus and I start our life together now? This had been one hell of a day so far and it wasn’t even noon.

  “Incoming,” Upton shouted with joy as he pointed out to the ocean. “Me cackle fruit is swimmin’ in! Yolanda loves me bean salad. Lucky fer me love, I have leftovers.”

  My exhaustion left me in a flash and I searched the horizon for my pretend mom with the orange braided beard. This was a surprise that I wanted. All the puzzle pieces of my life were about to be connected.

  As I scanned the water, my stomach clenched in terror. The sun slid behind darkening clouds and the waves in the sea grew choppy and dangerous. The crystal clear, teal-blue water turned gray and murky and the gentle ocean breeze was no longer gentle.

  The feeling of déjà vu was unnerving and dreadful.

  “NO, NO, NO,” Upton roared.

  We all watched in horror as Yolanda got pulled into a deadly whirlpool.

  Without a second thought, I sprinted to the ocean and dove in. I felt my tail form and I swam faster than I ever had in my life.

  Charybdis had taken the life of my mother. The was no way in hell she was going to take the life of my pretend mother.

  Today was the sea monster’s last.

  12

  Delphinus

  I’d never been so fucking scared in my two-thousand years. Watching my reason for breathing dive into the deadly water was enough to take centuries off my life. I’d just gotten my life back, there was no way in the Seven Seas I was going to watch it end.

  The mission was difficult. The outcome? Potentially deadly. It was time to go with my gut. With no time to lose, I rolled into action. Being part Genie and part god had to be good for something. I just prayed to my soused sire that it would be enough. Unintentionally, I’d failed Petunia before. That was not going to happen again.

  “Bean salad,” I roared. “Give me the damned bean salad.”

  “Seriously?” Pirate Doug asked, arming himself to the teeth. “It smells like arse.”

  “Yes,” I commanded, kicking off my combat boots and keeping my eye on my Mermaid. “Pirates, man your ship. Sail immediately. Everyone else, get your weapons and hit the water. We kill the beast TODAY!”

  “Delpenis,” Pirate Doug shouted as he tossed me the bean salad and then began swimming out to his ship. “If you bite it today, I want you to know that I’m proud to have a brother with such a large taco hammer. I will never forget you, my man.”

  There was no time to punch him in the head. I’d get to that later. Right now, I had more pressing business.

  “May Poseidon be with ye, fake son-in-law,” Upton said, touching my back. “We need to save me mate and our girl.”

  “I have every intention of doing so, sir,” I promised.

  “Yar a worthy scallywag,” Upton said as he took the form of a Sphinx.

  I was awed and flabbergasted at the enormous stone creature he became. Lumbering into the water the huge Sphinx began to search for his loves. I could only hope that I was indeed worthy of his trust.

  “What are you going to do?” Tallulah yelled as she dove into the water and began to swim.

  “Win,” I said as I ran so fast toward the ocean, I knew I couldn’t be seen by the human eye. “I’m going to fucking win.”

  “Delpenis and Pirate Dong forever,” my brother shouted into the wind as he set sail. “Two well-hung brothers who will WIN!”

  I took the briefest of seconds to smile at the proclamation of my idiot brother. He was an imbecile, but he was my imbecile. Maybe I wouldn’t punch him too hard in the head when we were done.

  Nah, I’d nail him.

  Petunia

  The sea had grown so dark, I couldn’t see anything in front of me. I didn’t care. I swam with a determination borne of love for a person I’d never met. The raw agony in Upton’s voice empowered me. I was so furious that I hadn’t found and killed the sea monster yet. If I’d been more diligent this wouldn’t be happening.

  Popping my head above the waves, I searched for signs of my pretend mom. I’d baked ten dozen chocolate chip seaweed cookies for Yolanda. I had no intention of those damned cookies going to waste.

  “Yolanda,” I screamed over the roar of the crashing waves. “Where are you?”

  No answer.

  “I’ll save you, Fake Mom,” I snarled. “I promise.”

  Diving back under, I felt something grab my tail. Before I turned and blew it up, I felt Delphinus’ familiar hand on my back. Shit, he was a Genie. He couldn’t swim like I could. Flipping over and preparing to drop-kick his beloved ass back to shore, I gasped.

  My Genie wasn’t just a Genie.

  The top half of my lover was as I expected, but the bottom half… not so much. Where his legs should have been was the most magnificent tail I’d ever seen. It shimmered like a star even in the murky and now black ocean. Delphinus was the son of the Sea God. The proof swam right next to me.

  “Have you seen her?” he asked, taking my hand and diving deep.

  “You can talk underwater?” I asked, surprised.

  “Apparently,” he said with a shocked laugh. “What does Yolanda look like?”

  “Umm… a Yeti,” I said, not knowing much else. “But her beard is braided and dyed orange to match my hair.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Delphinus said without an ounce of sarcasm in his voice.

  Gods, I couldn’t love the man more.

  The ocean churned and tossed us around like sand in a windstorm. We kept swimming. I was surprised and so grateful that my Genie was as strong a swimmer as me—maybe even stronger.

  “Whirlpool ahead,” Delphinus growled.

  “I’m going in,” I said, picking up speed.

  “Going with you,” he yelled, shooting ahead of me.

  “You could die,” I told him, catching up.

  “I’d rather die with you than live without you.”

  Well, that was certainly romantic. He was totally getting laid tonight if we made it out in one piece.

  “I love you,” I said as we headed into a watery hell.

  “I love you too, Mermaid. Let’s kill some shit.”

  Shit was the operative word. Charybdis was a piece of shit—murderous shit. She’d taken out my parents a century ago and now she was going to try to take out everyone I loved.

  Not gonna happen.

  At least I hoped not.

  Today was not a good day to die.

  Delphinus

  Chunks of colorful coral zoomed past us as we swam in a zigzag line to avoid being taken out by flying debris. I’d seen my share of shitshows in my time, but this was epic.

  “Oh gods, no,” Petunia cried out as an unattached orange braid floated by.

  She grabbed it, kissed it and tucked it into her bikini top. Even underwater I could see she was crying.

  “On three we go in,” I yelled, swatting away a school of terrified fish.

  My Mermaid nodded and her orange eyes lit with a fire I’d never seen. It was scary, hot and damned impressive. My gal was now Petunia the Sea Monster Slayer and I was Delphinus the Slaughtering Son of the Sea God.

  “Should I blow it up?” she asked. “
Might be easier to get in.”

  While my Mermaid was correct, she was also incorrect. “No, if Yolanda’s alive, she’s probably weak. An explosion could end her,” I said, not liking the potential truth of my statement. But sugarcoating anything right now was counterproductive.

  Petunia nodded curtly and prepared herself.

  “One. Two. Three.” I finished the count and we exploded into action.

  Going through the outer wall of the whirlpool caused searing pain like I’d never felt—like hot knives ripping through my skin. Glancing over in concern at my partner, I watched in awe as she gritted her teeth and kept going. Holding on to Petunia’s hand, I swam as hard as I could. My gal was a work of deadly art in the ocean. I’d never been so proud of her.

  “There,” she shouted, pointing to a bizarrely calm part of the sea in the middle of the watery melee. “I see her.”

  It was if we’d entered the eye of the storm in a hurricane. No crashing waves. No flying debris. And unfortunately, no Charybdis in sight. Surrounding the serene area we’d entered was a raging tempest. The eerie quiet was unsettling and didn’t bode well for a happy ending.

  However, Petunia was right. Yolanda was lying on a large rock, battered and bloody. I just hoped she was alive.

  “Grab her,” I said tersely. “I’ll keep watch for the monster.”

  “Will she make it back through the wall?” Petunia asked frantically, speeding toward her fake mom.

  “Don’t know,” I answered truthfully as I scanned the area for the piece of shit I had come to kill. “But she certainly won’t make it if she stays here.”

  “Roger that,” Petunia said.

  “Oh fuck,” I yelled as a horror I hadn’t expected caught my eye.

  “What?” Petunia shouted back as she gently took Yolanda into her arms.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was sick and so inhumane, I had to tamp back my need to incinerate the entire ocean. There were five emaciated and chained immortals at the bottom of the whirlpool. Their eyes looked dead and defeated. And their bodies? Horrifying—near skeletal and beaten terribly.

  “There are more,” I snarled as I headed to the bottom of the whirlpool. “We have to save them.”

  The poor souls most likely wouldn’t make it out alive, but they were immortal. At the very least they had a chance of surviving. I was going to make sure they had that chance.

  Petunia

  I didn’t know what Delphinus meant. How could there be more?

  “I’ll be back for you,” I whispered to an unconscious Yolanda, laying her gently back on the rock and kissing her forehead.

  She was every bit as beautiful as I’d imagined—and every bit as hairy. Her beard was a bloody mess, but I could see the dyed orange part through the blood. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow. I hadn’t known that Yetis could breathe underwater, but I didn’t know much about my fake mom’s kind. I was just wildly grateful for any favor right now.

  “I promise I’ll be right back.”

  Time was of the essence. Charybdis was nowhere to be found, but I was sure she’d be back. Swimming like my life depended on it—which it actually did—to the bottom of the whirlpool, I froze. Closing my eyes tight and then opening them again, I tried to understand what I was seeing. It made no sense.

  My skin felt icy, but a fiery rage burned in my chest making it hard to breathe.

  “We have to save them,” Delphinus ground out as he tore through the chains with his bare hands.

  Glancing back over his shoulder, he stared at me.

  “Help me, Petunia. We don’t have much time,” he insisted and went back to work.

  I couldn’t move. I simply stared. The scene was like a dream come true combined with the worst nightmare I’d ever had in my life. They were here—all this time they’d been here. Chained and tortured. Death would have been kinder.

  Was this real? Were my eyes playing tricks on me?

  “Petunia, NOW,” Delphinus roared as he freed my mother and father from what had to have been hell underwater for a century.

  Snapping to attention, I swam to the man and woman who bore me and wondered if they would recognize me. I knew them the moment I saw them even though they were a mere shell of who they’d been.

  “I’ve got you,” I choked out through my tears, gently taking my parents’ hands and leading them to relative safety.

  Nothing was safe right now. Nothing at all.

  Delphinus led the other three to the rock where Yolanda lay barely alive. I was almost in a state of shock. I didn’t have any clue what to do with myself. I vacillated between a happiness that seemed to swallow me whole and a fury that consumed me with a rage I was unaware I was capable of.

  “Petunia,” Delphinus said, looking at me with worry. “You have to stay with me. We need to get these people out of here. Now.”

  “My parents,” I whispered in a voice that sounded far away even to my own ears. “These are my parents.”

  “What?” Delphinus asked, staring at the gaunt man and woman whose hands I held. “Your parents?”

  I nodded and gave the man I loved a watery smile. “You saved my parents.”

  Delphinus closed his eyes for a moment and then bowed to my parents. “We aren’t safe yet,” he said flatly. “We have to get them to shore. The sooner the better.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Can you swim with Yolanda? She’s out and needs help.”

  “I can,” he said, turning his attention to the other three people that had been chained. “Are there more?”

  “No,” my father said, touching my face in disbelief. “Charybdis only kept the five of us to torture. I don’t know why. She eats the humans she captures.”

  “Soon she won’t be eating anything,” I snarled, placing my hand over my father’s. “Soon she’ll be dead.”

  Delphinus broke in and suggested something different. “As much as I want her dead, we have to get everyone to safety. We’ll have to come back for the monster.”

  “You’re right,” I said, hoping that everyone made it through the outer wall of the whirlpool.

  “Well, fuck,” Delphinus growled. “Change of plans.”

  Unfortunately, my Genie was correct. There would be no time to get everyone to shore. Time was a luxury we no longer had.

  Charybdis had arrived.

  She was pissed and one of the most heinous beings I’d ever laid eyes on.

  However, the sea monster didn’t know pissed.

  Nope.

  But she was about to learn and it would be the last thing she ever did.

  Delphinus

  With a scream of anger that came from the most rage-filled part of my Mermaid, she jetted forward like a bullet out of a machine gun. Again, centuries of my life disappeared. With a quick glance to make sure Petunia’s parents, fake mom and the other three were out of the line of fire, I followed the love of my immortal life into the fray.

  Yes. We were immortal. However, beheading killed everyone.

  Charybdis had teeth that looked like razor-sharp tusks coming out of what I guessed was her stomach. It was hard to tell. I’d never seen anything like it. The body was a muddy color and shaped like a deformed octopus with hundreds of tentacles. The monster’s appendages shot streams of a noxious dark magic. On the very top of her bulbous body was a knob with eyes. They were narrowed to slits and oozing.

  This was fucking bad.

  “Stay here,” I instructed the group as I reached deep inside for magic I hoped I possessed. As a Genie, I was limited. As the son of Poseidon, I wasn’t. I was about to test those limits.

  “To your left,” Petunia shouted.

  I ducked a deadly stream of magic headed my way. “Petunia, go for the head.”

  “It’s one big head,” she shouted back throwing massive fireball after massive fireball.

  I was impressed that she was strong enough to keep fire alive underwater, but the time to admire my Mermaid wasn’t now.

  �
�On the top,” I grunted as I got hit by a stream of black magic. It burned right through my skin leaving the bone exposed. “Knob on the top.”

  “Blob on the slop?” she questioned, confused as the monster screamed with such anger, I was sure my eardrums would pop.

  “Close and kind of makes sense,” I yelled over the thrashing water. “KNOB ON THE TOP.”

  “Got it,” Petunia snarled and she swam so fast she disappeared.

  With a very heartfelt and quick prayer for Petunia’s safety sent to my intoxicated father, I went for it. There was no other choice.

  Petunia

  The feeling of rage was tangled with immortal fear for Delphinus’ life. He was helping me fight my battle and he could die. That was unacceptable. I was going for the knob on the top and only death could stop me.

  Of course, stopping me was Charybdis’ goal. Unfortunately, she was very good at getting what she wanted. She’d had my parents for a hundred years.

  “Die,” the monster hissed, shooting black magic now coupled with poisonous darts.

  It was a very good thing that I’d done Jazzercise for the last several decades. I wasn’t as limber as Upton, but I had moves. Weaving, flipping and dodging the darts, I got close enough to her tiny head to do my business.

  “I’ve got your back,” Delphinus roared as he swam up behind me.

  And that was the last thing I heard him say.

  With a bellow that would live in my nightmares for eternity, the disgusting piece of shit shot a massive poisonous dart that hit my Genie in his beautiful chest. Delphinus’ eyes grew wide for a brief moment before his battered and lifeless body began to sink to the ocean floor.

  My heart shattered permanently. I had nothing left. Silently, I begged Poseidon to send someone to save Yolanda, my parents and the others. I was sure that Upton was on his way. He would find them.