Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(94)

One of which waved slowly in the air and still held her father.

With a scream she could only feel, not hear, Ariel threw herself at Ursula. The ampoule slipped surprisingly easily into the mermaid’s hands—suckers didn’t work very well on dry land. Ariel tumbled to the ground, rolling, her father cradled in her arms.

More shots were fired over her head. Max whimpered and growled; her hearing was slowly returning.

People screamed. Some tried to run away, some huddled, some rushed the soldiers, some rushed the dais. In the back of her distracted mind Ariel noticed that there were some soldiers who didn’t side with the palace guards—they were challenging them and trying to get to Ursula’s side.

“The sea witch!” a familiar old woman’s voice roared. “Get her! She’s got Prince Eric!”

A mad scramble ensued as people rushed the dais. Some soldiers seemed to align themselves against the would-be saviors, aiming their muskets at them. Ariel curled up on the ground, protecting the delicate housing her father was in, like a shell wrapped around a nautilus. Spirals and spirals…

Max and Vareet came to her side and tried to defend her against the chaotic stampede.

“I’m fine! Go help Eric!” Ariel begged. “Where is—oh!”

The prince was struggling, Ursula’s tentacles around his neck. Flotsam was sneaking up behind him, dagger raised.

Suddenly, with a final bit of strength, Eric hurled himself to the side, trying to smash Ursula’s head into the base of the fountain.

Flotsam threw himself into the melee, dagger still at the ready.

“Don’t let her touch the water!” Ariel screamed.

But it was too late. Grabbing the stone basin with her tentacles, Ursula dragged all three of them into the water, where they sank to the bottom.

Ariel leapt up and ran over…but all was still.

A single bubble rose to the surface and then popped.

And then a cloud of blood swirled up through the water, dark and ugly.





“No…” she sobbed.

Flounder leapt up out of the water, which flew from his body in viscous, sparkling red and black drops.

“Eric is all right! Help him out—he’s all tangled and trapped under her body!”

Ariel stumbled over to the fountain, her father still clutched in her arms. In the blurry depths she could see Ursula’s massive body…and Flotsam’s dagger somehow buried in her chest. The witch’s face was growing pale, and her mouth hung open slackly. Her servant was stunned, entangled around her in eel form. Underneath the two of them Eric struggled weakly.

“Here!” she commanded, thrusting her father into Vareet’s hands. “Guard him with your life!”

Trying not to choke on water polluted with the sea witch’s foul ichor, Ariel dove in, reverting to her real body immediately. Tentacles and arms and legs were everywhere. She wrestled with the slick cecaelia body, heaving it aside. Grabbing the front of Eric’s shirt, she pulled him away from Ursula, wedging her tail against the dead woman’s midriff.

All the years she had thought about what she would do when she finally defeated Ursula, what she would say or experience…and now the sea witch was just an object, a blunt obstacle that was keeping her from saving Eric.

With a mighty heave Ariel managed to fling Eric out onto the side of the fountain, his chest cracking against the marble. He coughed and water came streaming out of his mouth.

“She did it! She defeated the terrible sea monster!” the apple seller cried.

The crowd screamed and cheered and clapped and went berserk.

Eric was a mess, all broken and bloody and barely upright, legs still dragging under the water. But he was alive. Flounder kept his distance, not wanting to breathe in any more blood.

Everything around them was bruised and broken but the confusion seemed to be slowly clearing up. There was a pile of mostly unconscious soldier bodies on the dais—ones with tiny black octopus insignia on their sleeves. A triumphant ragtag crew stood above them: Argent with her stained and cracked walking stick, which she now held like a club; Grimsby, who had somehow managed to acquire a musket and was holding it quite steadily; two seagulls; several loyal soldiers and their captain; a soprano and two bass clarinetists.

Vareet stood by the fountain, Triton cradled safely in her small arms.

“So this is what winning feels like,” Ariel said. “I think I like it.”

Eric groaned and would have slipped back underwater if she hadn’t grabbed him.





If it had been up to the prince, there would have been happily ever afters right then. The bad guy had been defeated, the love of his life was holding him, she had just said something funny, the crowd was cheering—the perfect place for an opera to end.

Alas, real life was a little more complicated than that.

And real blood, not stage blood, was continuing to leak out his nose.

The captain and the remaining loyal guards—who would all be rewarded richly later—scanned the situation and reacted appropriately, placing themselves between the prince and the confused, curious, adoring crowd. “You, Decard,” he said weakly. “Send two men to go find Carlotta in the castle….In the basement…”

“Yes, Your Highness, immediately.” The captain saluted and spun off.

With that last order given, Eric succumbed to a wave of weakness and began to slip back into the water.