Page 29 of Caroled
“Fair enough.”
“But I’m not a patient man,” Abe continued. “Please can we do story time now?”
Well, Charles owed him that much at least, and he was eager to hear Tenrael’s side of the story. “All right. If I can get down the stairs so Thomas can hear too.”
“I will carry you,” Tenrael offered.
In the end, Charles didn’t have to suffer that indignity, although he leaned heavily on Tenrael and their descent was slow. Ten and Abe got him settled in a comfortable armchair with a blanket over his lap and a cup of hot lemon water at hand. Charles and Thomas exchanged sour looks.
“It’s like a bloody infirmary in here,” Thomas muttered.
Abe tsked. “But nobody’s dying—kein eyin hara—so stop grousing. Besides, have you ever seen an infirmary with a nurse like that?” He gestured at Tenrael, kneeling naked with wings furled beside Charles.
“You should have seen some of the nurses of His Majesty’s Armed Forces. I’d sooner cross a demon.”
Snorting, Abe arranged himself on the couch with Thomas’s legs lying across his lap and then poured himself several ounces of something that smelled like plums. “Nu? How did you end up chewed to bits?”
Since Abe and Thomas already knew about the missing soldiers and Collins’s disappearance, Charles brought them up to date. “Bertha’s nephew vanished too. We knew Collins had been nosing around the bars at the wharf, so that seemed like a reasonable place to look. I started at the Sea Dog because I was also a little concerned about the boy they’d had singing there. I figured I’d go in, ask a few questions, and move on if I didn’t find anything. Meanwhile, Tenrael was doing aerial reconnaissance.”
“Flying!” Abe exclaimed. “I can only guess how exhilarating it must be. To see the world from so high, and—” He grunted when Thomas kicked him with his good leg.
“Shut up, Avi.”
Abe cheerfully shot back something in Hungarian and then clamped his mouth shut.
Charles twisted the ring on his finger for a moment before continuing. “I had to drink some whiskey while I was in there—I’d look suspicious otherwise. And you know booze… doesn’t agree with me. The boy—Fish, they called him—was singing, and I… I forgot….” That wasn’t quite the right word for it, but how was he to describe the fog that had settled over his mind?
He huffed impatiently at himself. “I thought he was singing to me. It was all I could think about. So when he went out the back door, I followed him. I almost followed him right into the goddamn Bay.” Charles looked at Tenrael. “I’m so sorry, Ten. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get caught up with him.”
Tenrael looked serene. “It is what merfolk do. They enchant with their singing and lure people to their death. I should have suspected them to begin with, but I thought they were extinct. I have not heard of any in over three hundred years. But Master, you said youalmostfollowed him into the water. Why was his spell not successful?”
“It was. I told you, he got me out of the bar and to the edge of the dock.”
“Yes.” Tenrael sounded pointedly patient, like an annoyed parent trying to explain something to an especially dim child. “To the edge of the dock but not over it. I saw you fighting him. Why?”
Charles thought back to those moments. He remembered Fish’s song wafting into his ears, the dock planks slippery under his shoes, the whiskey roiling in his stomach, the smells of salt and fish. The merman had reached for him, and Charles had very nearly taken his hand. Until….
“I remembered you.”
“Me?”
“How important you are to me. How much I love you.” Charles had never pictured himself making this declaration, much less in front of an audience, but it was worth seeing the way Ten’s eyes glowed.
“Your love for me broke the enchantment,” Tenrael said softly.
Charles thought how remarkable it was that an ancient being’s face could fill with such wonder. And then, silently cursing the stinging of his eyes, he swallowed some tea. “Yes. But not soon enough. Fish was strong, and the whiskey didn’t help my reactions. He pushed me into the Bay, and his buddies….” He shivered at the memory of their grips and their bites. “That’s all I know. This is where you come in.”
“I was flying.” Tenrael’s wings fluttered a bit as if to echo his words. Charles smoothed a few feathers and they stilled. “I saw you enter the Sea Dog and then I went away for a few minutes to assess the situation elsewhere. I should not have left you.”
“You were doing what I told you. Doing your job.”
“I thought I would return before you left, but I waited some time—circling above—and you did not appear. I wondered if I might have missed your departure. So I searched along the wharf and then inland, near where you said we would meet.”
“Behind the cannery,” Charles informed Abe and Thomas, who nodded in unison. “But I wasn’t there either.”
“I grew concerned. I considered donning the ring and the rest of my clothing so I might enter the Sea Dog, but I decided to fly back instead. I arrived just in time to see you fall.”
“Just in time to save me.”
