Salt Shaken

by Winnie Winkle

  “Read their thoughts. Try not to die.”

  “Man, if I had a hundred bucks for every time I’ve heard that this week, it’d be a fat paycheck.” He closed his eyes, went pale and opened them. “The mer want death, Patra. They believe Gaia promised them the reset and greater power.”

  “Life is full of little wrinkles.”

  Ballard’s gun cracked, and a human woman ran screaming from a mer blown back by the shot.

  “Get off the beach! Find shelter,” Ballard roared, running toward the next mer.

  Along this stretch of sand, at least 40 humans lay injured or dead. It’s a long coastline, and I knew many parts had dense populations. Chelsea’s covens of witches, spread out from Ponce Inlet to Ormond Beach, rained spells, and the human cries intersected with the howls of the mer. Loboli materialized beside me with his entire pack, forty bears, a few big cats, and to my surprise, a herd of fairies.

  OK then. Whatever. Let’s flit them to death.

  “Pair into groups of two so you can protect each other, and she,” I nodded to the witch, “will pop you along the coastline.”

  Parker blenched, but walked into the group of shifters. “I can feel you,” he told Loboli. “If you need reinforcements, send the word.”

  “No idea who the hell you are, human, but understood.” Loboli stared at the group. “Pair up and kill the mer only. No humans. Are we in accord?”

  Amber eyes glinted in assent as the witch moved the pairs out.

  “Keep us together,” a gleaming fairy I didn’t know, but assumed was the queen, admonished. “Place my herd where the battle is the worst.”

  Um, OK.

  “At Her Majesty’s request,” I nodded at the witch and the fairies vanished.

  “I need a radio,” Ballard yelled, shot vanishing into the forehead of an advancing mer. One materialized in his hand and he listened intently, toggled, and responded.

  “Patra, I’m connected to tactical. The police effort is focused on the Daytona Pier, and there are lots of casualties.”

  “Clep, are you willing?”

  “I’ll take a look, Keeper.” He shimmered and vanished.

  Time marched, a blur as we cleared mer from the area surrounding The Boogie. Streams of bikers poured out of the bar, cheering as I cracked a mer over the head with my staff.

  What the hell? I’m closed.

  From the neighboring condo balconies, more cheers rained.

  “Do they even understand what they’re seeing?” I muttered to Parker. “Can I use this?”

  “They sense who is good and bad, but I don’t think they see the magic,” Parker replied. “The book holds an entry from long ago. That Keeper felt they were shielded.”

  “Because it wasn’t time.” Deep in my bones, I knew this was correct. “But now it is.”

  My arm lit up with the familiar gold lettering.

  Get into my sea. NOW. Bring Ballsy.

  “I didn’t think you were ever going to get it,” Poseidon groused, yanking us into the surf, as my skin grew transparent and the gold writing faded, then etched anew.

  Grow.

  I tapped my navel, shooting skyward as Ballard enlarged alongside me, keeping pace with Poseidon as we filled the sky with watery bodies of a myriad of blues that pulled other colors from the light spectrum, coloring up in a three-dimensional liquid spectacle. Ballard’s side eye said volumes.

  The entire beach went silent; even the mer stopped, curious.

  “Creatures of the earth and sea, heed my call,” Poseidon’s tone sounded normal. Not hollering or grandstanding, but his voice carried. And I suspected that across the entire planet, everyone could hear.

  Condo and hotel balconies filled, and some humans wept, while others stood, gaping. Immortal power covered the coast and inland. Below us, a news crew lifted cameras, and I saw one cameraman cross himself as he filmed.

  One mer lunged, snarling, and swiped at a bear.

  “Enough,” Poseidon said, tone mild, and waved his hand.

  Along the beach, the mer turned into enormous fish, and they fell in awkward skids on the bloody sand. The bear licked his chops, then looked at Poseidon and stepped away from the helpless mer. A cameraman eased closer, filming the flopping mer, the odd-looking bear, and the wicked shell blade. The latter he gave a wide berth.

  “The fighting is over,” Poseidon’s voice flowed. “But the questions filling your hearts and minds deserve answers. This,” a long finger pointed to me, “is your Keeper, the most powerful entity on the planet, and the liaison between the worlds. Heed her words.”

  Jeez. Here we go.

  “Earth, since the beginning, contained three distinct worlds.” Taking a cue from Poseidon, I spoke in a normal tone. “The human world is one of them. Humans,” I gestured to Ballard, “share the earth with magicals, and with the Vapors. We have stories, tales, and fables, throughout the ages, of the magical world. Witches, shifters, fairies, the Greek gods, mermaids, and mermen and many more are real, and they walk among you, work beside you, and cohabit this earth with you. The Vapors are bodiless, but they are the peacekeepers. Imprisoned early in the creation, the newly freed Vapors will help us craft a life of equality and acceptance.”

  Based on the glazed expressions everywhere I looked, I wasn’t getting through to them.

  “Can you supersize Loboli, but in his human form?” I whispered to Poseidon, hoping for privacy.

  “Loboli, step forward,” Poseidon called in a quiet tone. “Shift.”

  The wolf paused for the tiniest of moments, then shifted as cameras swung and captured his transition. Mer flopped in anger and the few remaining humans backed away from him.

  “That… that’s the Mayor!” one shouted.

  As his feet touched the sea, Loboli grew, rising to my height, although in reality he topped me by a good six inches.

  Keep us equal, I suppose. Big Red, of course, is bigger than all of us.

  “You’re correct,” I said. “This is former Mayor Loboli. He leads a large group of magicals who can shift their shapes and who now battle on our beaches to protect you. He interacted with humanity in the past and is a key part as we change and grow. As we move forward, we are Triune. Human, magical and Vapor,” I waved my arms, and a mist rose from the sea and the sands, swirling in symbolic welcome.

  Their effect on everyone, including the mer, was immediate. Stress melted away and the sense of doom siphoned off into the peaceful mist. Fingers entwining with Ballard’s, my body, absorbing the emotional shift, glowed; a rose gold aura emanating, beginning at my head in a halo, before moving outward, surrounding Ballard, Loboli, and to my wonder, Poseidon. The breeze, clean scented and healing, advanced the aura toward the shoreline.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” wafted a voice from the beach. “Magic isn’t real.”

  With a smile at Ballard, I released his hand and held both of mine up in an elaborate shrug. “Yet a human police officer and a wolf in human form stand on the sea, in bodies made of water. Magic is a genuine piece of our planet, and we can build a new life with unlimited potential.”

  I gestured toward Poseidon. “This is Poseidon. He is as real as you or I, and is immortal, akin to the myths you read in school.”

  Behind us, clouds separated, and one by one, gods flowed into the line next to Poseidon as the aura blanketed them.

  “This is Zeus. This is Hades.” The humans gasped as I continued. “Aphrodite, Ares, Apollo, Dionysis, and Athena. There are additional gods, but these observed the Triune’s creation, curious if reforging a united world was possible.”

  Upturned faces, a sea of ‘O’ shaped mouths, blinked at us as the rose gold advanced, covering the warriors in universal aura armor, connecting witch to shifter, shifter to fairy, before blanketing the humans they protected. I sensed this shift occurred across the globe, and the impact squeezed my heart with a profound sense of joy and hope.

  “At the day’s end, this happens only when you join the effort. We
succeed or perish as a whole. The era of deck stacking ends today.”

  The aura of love advanced, changing every soul, expanding without boundaries. Eros. We are full circle once more.

  Chapter 35

  Seated at the human bar between Charlie and Gloria, the footage of the fairies exploding mer replayed on the TV, each shrieking fairy flying through a mer’s chest and blasting out the other side, wings covered in viscera and teeth bared.

  Time to research, and take a deep, methodical dive into the fae. I wasn’t expecting the gore, let alone their glee in battle.

  “Here you are again, Patra,” Charlie murmured, with zero flirtatious overtones.

  I guess the idea that your hot boss was a gigantic aquatic badass was an erection killer. Which made my life simpler. I grunted and stood, moving behind the bar to pour us three more bourbons. It was after midnight, we’re closed, and Chelsea had The Boogey while I dealt with my staff.

  “What happened while I was gone?” I pushed the drinks and leaned against the till.

  “Lester kept showing up with shrimp,” Gloria said. “So I decided that, since I wasn’t dead, we might as well make money. So we opened just the bar and outside seating, served little buckets of steamed with the drink specials, and sold the fresh out every day. They dug how we fought off those… things… and were ready to party. I love bikers.”

  “The staff signed each bucket, we did six ounces of shrimp for the half pound price and they got to keep them as a commemorative,” Gloria continued. “Folks bought them three at a time. My sister has a shop and had cases of these tin buckets, and she donated them. The Boogie opened from noon to sundown, then we cleaned blood in the dining room. Take a peek.”

  I picked up my bourbon and headed through the double doors.

  “Wow!”

  “Yeah. I bleached, Charlie sanded, and then we sanitized one more time. Now it’s as clean as new wood.”

  “You can’t tell the fight ever happened, Boss,” Charlie added. “If you want to, we’re set to run full shifts tomorrow.”

  “Alright. After everything you did, I won’t say no. How’s tips?”

  “Massive,” Charlie grinned. “Gloria needs to rise from the dead every year. They loved that story.”

  “I’ll pass,” Gloria slugged her drink. “But I’m afraid to ask, how did that happen?”

  “A witch named Chelsea saved you. She’s the High Priestess of a nearby coven, and she cast a spell to seal your wound.”

  “So that stuff you said on the beach, and in the news conference afterward, that’s true?” skepticism colored Charlie’s tone.

  “Fraid so.”

  “Herzog wormed in and took the credit. Acted like he knew magic was real.”

  “He knew Loboli was a shifter, and while the Mayor is a political slug, he’s not a stupid man.”

  “I don’t get it. How come these, um, magics? Why not murder us and control the planet?”

  “Because that’s not what drives magicals. They have power; what they crave is knowledge. It’s only humans who think authority is the ultimate goal. Now, humanity is learning the strength they thought was theirs is nonexistent. When they grasp that the love defining humanity is theirs to harness, a greater power awaits.”

  Two pairs of eyebrows twisted. They weren’t buying it.

  “Consider this. Love is an energy, the same as magic or peace. Remember how the peaceful mist calmed the beach? A deliberate action. Then you saw how the spreading aura, the energetic manifestation of love, changed everything it touched. When your throat sealed, Glo, energy in the form of a spell had a specific outcome. Love’s energy waits for humanity to wield it as a force, and when they do, it too will have a result. A solid, tangible and positive one, similar to what you and every human on the planet felt yesterday. Love is the original power.”

  The brows dropped slightly. A start.

  “Hey Patra.”

  “Parker! Where have you been? Was hoping you didn’t decide to haul ass for Mexico.”

  “Oh, I’ve been in the woods with Loboli and company.”

  I shot him a look.

  “Voluntarily. Well, sorta. Loboli wanted to know how I could read their thoughts.”

  “Did you have an answer?”

  “I told him it’s a compartment of the record that’s only available to a Keeper if the book thinks they need it.”

  “I’m sure he loved hearing that.”

  “Not at first, no. They’re scary as shit, Boss. But, Loboli believes, in the overall stream of time, it’s not terrible. He said, as long as I hadn’t hidden it, they’d respect the record’s decision.”

  “Very shifter like. No one gets the leverage of surprise.”

  “Except them.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, Patra, when Gaia landed on Poseidon as a dragonfly, that wasn’t a friendly chat.”

  “Whoa, you understood them? Wow.”

  “Gaia said the reason the mer are fucking done is his fault because he treated them like servants and didn’t weigh their concerns with any sense of importance, so they won’t follow him. She isn’t interfering, but she refuses to help. Poseidon seemed, for him, kinda bummed. I don’t think he realized how the situation festered. From what I’ve seen, he’s a hedonist at heart.”

  “Well, yeah. He lives in a speedo, Parker.”

  “I decided on a name!”

  Aegeus’ blue eyes, wide with excitement, held the tiny cat toward Ballard, half asleep on the sectional.

  “W-what? OK, Kiddo, what did you pick?”

  “I’m going to call her Justice.”

  Ballard winced. After the battle, Chelsea brought everyone to the balcony, only to find the entire expanse covered in dead mer. Peeking in at Aegeus, she’d waved at him with a huge grin. Behind her, an enormous cat, ears touching the ceiling, sat licking blue gore off its claws and fur. A few of the mer bodies were half eaten. The balcony, coated in flies, reeked.

  “Honey, how did Justice get so big?”

  “When Daddy goes away, the mermen guard and watch over me. A mer came into our home and I don’t remember what happened, but I ended up in a boat. Then a nice man with purple hair walked with me to a warm and sleepy place. When I woke up, Daddy was there, but so exciting! Mommy was too, and I never get to hang out with her, you know. I can see her, but the glass is one way.”

  “I was there, too.”

  “Yes! And we whirled and traveled across the human world with the little rainbow man. It’s different from the sea, but so amazing.”

  “But what happened here, after Glenna stayed with you and we left?”

  “Oh, it was scary! The mer howled and banged, trying to get in, but Witch Glenna promised they couldn’t. My heart felt scared, so I whispered to Justice that the mermen might hurt me, and Justice licked my nose. That tickles!” Aegeus giggled. “Then she jumped off my lap and grew super fast. Glenna laughed and said she thought the kitterling was special. Justice walked right through the glass and pounced on the mer. They kept climbing over the railing, but it didn’t matter, because Justice is fast, Ballsy. She even ate a couple for her dinner.”

  Ballard knelt in front of the couch and held Aegeus’ gaze. “Whenever you are here at Mommy’s, Justice stays with you. If we go outside, Justice comes with us. Wherever you go, except to your Dad’s, I want Justice with you. We’ll get a cute little bag she can ride in for our trips.”

  Aegeus clapped and Justice purred, a surprising rumble from such a tiny body.

  “Names are important, that’s why I wanted you to name Justice. Ballsy is your Dad’s name for me, but I’d prefer you call me Ballard. Could you do that for me?”

  “Sure, Ballard. Why?”

  “Because it’s who I am, and what your mother calls me. It feels right.”

  “OK. I’m hungry.”

  “Let’s peek in the kitchen and find a snack.”

  “Daddy!”

  Aegeus dropped her pizza slice and ran, leaping into Poseidon�
��s arms on the balcony.

  “Ballsy. May I enter?”

  “Come in, have you eaten?” Ballard pushed the pizza box toward the god.

  Poseidon pulled a slice and munched, setting Aegeus back on her stool before straddling the one next to her.

  “I have business under the sea that requires my attention, involving a span of human time. Aegeus needs to stay with her mother until I have these issues under control. The ocean remains unsafe for my daughter.”

  “I’ll safeguard her as my own,” Ballard replied, gaze steady. “And the cat will never leave her side.”

  “Good,” Poseidon grunted. “Aphrodite gave you the ability of communication with the world. That is hers to bestow; it remains with you based on her whims. Take nothing for granted and never build a plan to protect my daughter that relies on an impermanent gift. Keep her out of the sea until I send the message it’s safe for her to enter.”

  “Understood.”

  Poseidon lifted Aegeus’ chin. “Daddy must handle the mer uprising. You stay here with Mommy and Ballsy, and I’ll return when I’m finished. While I’m gone, read Mommy’s books. She’s built an excellent library.”

  “I’ve started one, Daddy. Witch Glenna picked out a stack for me. I’m learning about mammals. Justice is a mammal. That’s why she’s warm and fluffy.”

  “Justice is many things,” Poseidon laughed. “In the future, Aegeus, you’ll be able to visit the covens and learn from the witches. The world is a book unto itself.” Poseidon held his child close, then rose, eyeing Ballard. “I’m counting on you to protect the lives that matter to me. If things go to shit, tell the Keepers to send the Vapors. They can find me anywhere in the universe.”

  Ballard nodded, glancing down to help Aegeus pull apart another slice of pizza. When he looked up, the god was gone.

  Chapter 36

  No longer fish, but still possessing legs, the mer huddled in immobile groups on the sea bottom, staring at Poseidon’s infuriated face.

  “Bring me the murderer of my child, betrayer of my trust.”