One Soul To Share (9 page)

“Bled her and ingested some of her magic,”
the kelpie replied, but Sarina could tell talking with her was
making the creature nervous. It shook its head, nudging her with
its nose. “Go to the dragon.”

“But my sister—”

“Her soul is safe.” The kelpie whinnied then
and reared up on its hind legs. As one, the herd began to move, and
Sarina was swept along with them. Afraid of being crushed or left
behind, she grabbed hold of the nearest kelpie’s mane and hung on.
A few yards away, Allera did the same.

The kelpies cut through the water faster than
the fastest ship or even the fastest mermaid. Sarina closed her
eyes and hung on, praying she was doing the right thing, praying
the kelpies weren’t leading her astray.

o0o

Outside a massive sea cave, still within the
sea hag’s realm, the kelpies slowed.

Sarina loosened her hold on the mane she’d
held and floated to a stop.

“The dragon,” the kelpie who had spoken to
her said, then whinnied to the others, and as a herd, they
left.

Allera swam up to her, looking dazed and
uncertain. “What happened?” she asked.

Sarina shook her head. “I don’t know. One
kelpie told me—” She broke off her response. She hadn’t told her
sister about Nolan. “One told me the sea hag had bound them so they
can’t shift or speak.”

“But they took us away from her.”

“And she won’t be happy.” Sarina hoped the
kelpies could handle Melusine, but the creatures had given her and
Allera their assistance of their own free will. She had to believe
they knew what they were doing. And now she had other issues.

She turned to Allera. “I have to tell you
something.”

“Do you?” Her sister’s eye brows lifted.

“There’s a man. A vampire. I traded him to
Melusine to get your soul. And now I have to get him back.”

“A vampire? They’re real?”

“Yes.” Sarina was surprised Allera knew of
vampires, but, she realized, she hadn’t seen her sister in a very
long time. They hardly knew each other anymore.

“And you’re risking yourself to save
him?”

There was no censure in the question, just
curiosity, but still Sarina looked away. “I have to.”

“I see.”

And maybe Allera did. The young mermaid she’d
been when the pirates stole her soul couldn’t possibly have
understood, but this Allera was older… changed.

And so was Sarina.

She placed a grateful hand on her sister’s
arm and swam into the cave.

The place was dark, darker even than the
deeper part of the ocean where Melusine’s cages had been. Sarina
sensed the rock formations that jutted from all sides of the cave.
She swam around them instinctively while her other senses stayed
alert for living presences.

She quickly sensed one. A large one. The
dragon.

It was curled into a spiral at the back of
the cave.

“Mermaid,” he said. “You’ve come for my
treasure.”

“Treasure?” Sarina paused. “No. The kelpies
said you have the vampire.” Her gaze roamed the area around the
dragon, but there was no sign of Nolan, no sense of him either.

“Treasure.” The dragon lifted one loop of his
body. Nolan lay tucked against him like a baby. “He’s dead.”

“Dead? No. That can’t be.” Sarina rushed
forward.

The dragon’s tongue darted out of his mouth,
brushing against her chest. “He gave me the strength to swim
away.”

“You too?” Sarina edged sideways, wondering
if she could call Allera, wondering more what good it would do. Two
mermaids against a dragon that equaled fifty of their kind in
weight.

“But I’m not free, not completely. I thought
if I brought him here, I could save him—so he could finish what he
began.”

“Finish?” Sarina paused. The dragon didn’t
want Nolan dead. It wanted the vampire alive. She moved forward a
foot. The tongue pressed against her chest again.

“I can save him.” Her hand moved to her
vial.

Nolan wanted a soul. She couldn’t give him
Allera’s because it wasn’t hers to give, but she could give her
own.

“A mermaid soul,” the dragon muttered,
causing Sarina to hesitate. Dragons were dumb creatures motivated
by base needs and greed. They didn’t know about souls or
mermaids.

This dragon wasn’t what it appeared.

Before she could ponder the thought more and
think of how she might use the realization, a voice called out
behind her.

“Stop!”

Allera stood in the opening of the cave.
Realizing her sister had figured out her plan, Sarina spun.

“You can’t understand. I have to save
him.”

“Because you used him to save me.”

Sarina shook her head. Her hair streamed up
and outward. “Because… because I love him.”

“Love?” Shock was clear on Allera’s face.

Sarina bit her lip and turned back to the
dragon. Allera could judge her, would judge her, but it didn’t
matter, because soon, without her soul, Sarina would be like every
other soulless mermaid—an unfeeling shell devoured by hunger and
knowing nothing else.

Again, Sarina reached for her soul.

Allera raced forward. Arms outstretched, she
knocked into Sarina, sending the mermaid flying into the cave’s
wall.

“Allera, I—”

Allera stood in front of her, her hand raised
palm out. “You’ll kill him.”

“No, I….” Sarina glanced from her sister to
Nolan.

“You said he’s a vampire. Vampires are
immortal or close to it. If you give him a soul in the state he’s
in, he will be human. He will die.”

Sarina rose onto her arms, then slowly,
pushed herself upright. She swam forward, closer to the dragon.
This time, the creature, its attention shifting between the two
sisters, allowed her to approach. She knelt and placed her hand on
Nolan’s chest. No heart beat, but there was something else…

“He’s alive,” she murmured, to the dragon,
her sister, herself. She needed to say the words, but she couldn’t
keep from admitting the truth either. “Barely.”

Allera blew air out of rounded lips. “He
needs land. Just surviving here has to be draining him—too much for
him to heal.”

Land
. It was an idea. Nolan wasn’t a
creature of the sea, and, despite the fact that he’d been able to
tolerate staying so long beneath the water’s surface, it made sense
that he would fare better on land.

She looked at the dragon.

The creature’s tail closed back over Nolan,
hiding him.

Holding very still, Sarina waited. The dragon
had said he wanted to save Nolan, but he had also called him a
treasure. Dragons didn’t hand over their treasures lightly.

“Let me try,” she murmured.

The dragon stared at her. His tongue flicked
out again but this time didn’t touch her. “You’ll bring him back to
me?”

Sarina couldn’t promise that. She froze, but
Allera saved her. She swam forward and placed her hand on Sarina’s
shoulder. “If he won’t come, I will, and I’ll bring the mermaids.
We’ll figure a way out of your enchantment.”

Sarina’s eyes widened. Allera seemed to have
knowledge and instinct that Sarina lacked.

“Enchantment?” she asked.

“He’s a merman,” Allera replied. “The sea hag
trapped him six decades ago. Whatever your vampire did broke the
bonds but not the enchantment. He’s still stuck in this realm and
this state.”

The dragon lifted his head. “If Melusine
finds me before you return…”

Allera folded her arms over her chest. “I
know, but I won’t forget or forsake my promise.”

The two had lost Sarina, but that didn’t
matter. What did was getting Nolan to land. While the dragon stared
at her sister, Sarina leaned forward and carefully pulled Nolan
free from the dragon’s grip.

Then, with his body wedged under her arm, she
swam for the surface.

o0o

Days later…

Nolan gagged and began to cough. Rolling
over, his body began to heave until the contents of his stomach,
nothing it seemed but seawater, flooded onto the ground beside
him.

Ground. He was on solid ground.

He coughed some more, his hands gripping the
rough wooden dock he lay on. His fingernails dug into the planks,
tearing them to the quick. His skin felt shriveled, and his clothes
were heavy and wet.

He coughed again, expelling more seawater
until his throat burned and his stomach ached.

A foot nudged him in the side, shoving him
onto his back. “What are you that you survived her tricks?”

He looked up.

The bartender stood above him. The moon shone
at his back, clearly illuminating the pistol in his hand.

“Are you part fish? A witch?” The bartender
cocked the gun and held it up, his hands and the weapon
shaking.

“Where is she?” Nolan rasped. His voice was
rough, and it hurt to speak.

“Gone. She dumped you here and left. With
luck, she won’t be coming back.”

But she had to come back. Nolan had to get
her back. He pushed his body to a sit. The world shifted as he
moved, and his head ached. He clasped it in his hands.

“I should ignore her threats and kill you
now,” the man beside him muttered.

Nolan glanced at him again. “Threats?”

The man’s lips thinned, and his hand moved to
a pocket. “If I give it to you, will you leave? Never come
back?”

“Give me what?” Nolan couldn’t imagine what
the bartender could have for him.

“I wouldn’t… but she was different this time.
Hard. Cold. I could see she didn’t care, meant every word she
spoke. She’d have eaten my liver and fed my brains to the birds,
then sent her sisters to hunt down all I’ve loved.” The man’s thumb
caressed the gun’s hammer. “I ain’t got much, but I’ve fought for
what I have. I don’t fancy losing it to the mermaids.”

Nolan staggered to his feet and threw his
body against the bartender. His hands, still stiff from their time
under water, gripped the man by his shirt. “What did she leave for
me?”

For a moment, the bartender hesitated, and
Nolan could see the decision revolving behind his eyes. Then he
pulled his hand from his pocket and shoved it toward Nolan. “This.
She left you this. Take it and leave!”

The vial Sarina had worn around her neck fell
from his fingers and onto Nolan’s palm. With a harried glance, the
man shoved his gun into his pants and scurried for the safety of
his bar.

Nolan didn’t watch him leave; he barely
noticed that he had. He just stared at the vial and wondered what
it meant.

A soul. Sarina had given him a soul. Elation
and warmth shot through him. Then he closed his fingers around the
glass, and his emotion changed.

Not a soul.
Her
soul.

Sarina had sacrificed her soul for him.

o0o

Six days later, Nolan stared out over the
water.

Dawn was approaching. This sunrise would mark
his seventh on board the dilapidated boat that he’d stolen for this
mission to insanity.

His eyes burned from sleeping on deck in the
day, and his skin itched from the salt still coating his body after
his time under the sea with Sarina.

After he’d realized what the mermaid had
given him, he had forced his body to stand and follow the
bartender. Then he’d used his built-up hunger and exhaustion to
show the man how intimidating a preternatural creature could
be.

The bartender hadn’t even reached for his
gun. Instead, eyes wide and face pale, he’d babbled every bit of
trivia and lore he’d collected about mermaids, including how to
find them.

In the distance, silhouetted by the rising
sun, Nolan could see the island he sought. The bit of land was
covered in rocks, no sign of a sandy beach or a tree, but jutting
from the water around it were hulls and masts of ships long ago
wrecked and their sailors taken.

Taken by mermaids, harvested, according to
the bartender, in the mermaids’ never-ending quest for souls.

Sarina’s soul safe in a silver box, Nolan
walked to the front of his small vessel and waited.

Slowly, as he approached, the mermaids came.
Only a few at first, brunettes and blondes, redheads and a few with
silver or green hair that glistened like some exotic precious metal
in the gathering light.

All were attractive, but none were as
beautiful as Sarina.

The mermaids circled his boat, confused, he
guessed, by his presence but obvious lack of a soul.

As more mermaids appeared, the water beneath
the boat shifted. Nolan widened his stance to maintain his balance
and continued to scan the growing group of mermaids.

According to the bartender, the mermaids
couldn’t touch him or his vessel. Like vampires, they had to be
invited aboard—more than that—invited to touch him. And there was
only one mermaid he would give that permission.

Another half hour, he waited. The sun was up
now and strong enough Nolan was forced to pull sunglasses and a hat
from a duffel.

She wasn’t coming. His presence alone wasn’t
enough. A bit of him died, but he wouldn’t give up hope; he
couldn’t.

Kneeling, he dug into the duffel again and,
following Odysseus’ lead, he pulled two softened chunks of wax from
inside and placed them into his ears.

Then he opened the box.

Immediately, the mermaids began to rise out
of the water and sing. They bared their breasts, held out their
arms and tossed their hair. It was enough to get any male of any
species to step off the boat and into the water, to give up his
life… his soul… for just the brush of one mermaid’s finger.

Enough, that was, for most, but not Nolan.
With his ears plugged and his heart taken, he looked over the
alluring bodies with the cold, clinical eye of a computer tech
searching for a missing piece of code.

And then he saw her.

She rose out of the water like the others,
her hair flowing over her shoulders and her lips curved in a
smile.