Chapter 21 #3
“Holy shit,” I murmur as William pulls a whip out of thin air and cracks it in Natalia’s direction. An arc of lightning travels across the arena from the end of it and hits her, and she screeches before running back out the way they came in.
Maxsim licks Echo’s wounds on his face while William finishes off the show with the other three cats.
“William is going to be pissed.” Eric sighs as he sits down. When I look at John, I can practically see the steam coming out of his ears, so I nudge his brother and nod to him.
“I don’t think he’s the only one.” I can’t help but feel sympathetic for him. All these changes are a lot to take in.
“If the Vilaxians even place one foot wrong during their performance, I am going to go ballistic,” John fumes quietly, his face turning a few shades of red. “I’ll fire everyone and hire a whole new lot of performers. There is no shortage of people who want to be involved with us.”
“They came down from the ship yesterday, didn’t they?” I ask them, trying to distract my furious grandpa.
“Yes. Hale assures me that they have their act worked out, but I know Radella and Estrella are particularly, how should I say this kindly… unhappy at the moment. I wouldn’t put it past them to cause problems.”
“I can’t wait to see it and all the other acts I missed the first night.”
The three of us sit through the next couple of acts, which I have already seen—Magenta and her silks, and the Nengh clowns—before we finally get to the part I haven’t seen yet.
Once the clowns clear the stage, a hush falls over the arena as smoke starts to drift across the audience.
Where it’s coming from, I really can’t tell.
I’m sure Xavier is working his mojo somehow.
“That’s Xavier’s mist. It has people getting a little foggy on the details regarding the pool’s arrival.
It’s convincing them they are watching the floor open up and a pool rise out of a hidden hatch underneath,” Eric whispers quietly as the three of us, unaffected by the mist, watch the pool beam down.
It’s huge, almost as big as the arena itself, and it rises just enough to be sticking up from the floor.
There are glass panels all around so we can see what’s going on under water and a platform in the middle of it.
Flashes of pastel-colored shapes swim back and forth too fast for the eye to see.
Standing in the middle of the platform is Nixie in her human form.
She’s wearing a wetsuit, but the skin we can see is still pastel blue.
She has on a headset, and she’s waving to the crowd.
“Hello,” she greets everyone with her musical voice, “and welcome to the wet portion of the show. If you are sitting in the first couple of rows, there are plastic ponchos under your seats. Now would be a good time to put them on if you would like to stay dry.”
She gives the crowd a few moments to do as she asked. I reach under mine, but there isn’t one. I look at John and Eric, and neither of them have one either, so I don’t stress about it.
Nixie continues to talk, weaving a magical story about mermaids, dolphins, and true love that mesmerizes the crowd as the five pastel-colored dolphins leap and spin and perform when given instructions from her.
They balance balls, tail walk, and launch Nixie into the air when she gets into the water with them.
She asks the crowd to again look under the chairs, and if they find a colored hoop, to stand and hold it up high. I play along, and sure enough, there’s a pastel green hoop under my seat. Picking it up, I stand and wave it high as requested.
“Now I’m going to send the dolphins to collect them. They need to get the one that matches their color.” She’s facing me when she says this, and when she winks, my heart drops in dread. Fuck, I have a feeling I should have looked harder for something to cover me.
Quick as a flash, the dolphins speed for their colored hoops.
All of them slow as they reach the person who has theirs—except mine.
Nope, it does the dolphin equivalent of drifting, and I watch as a wall of water comes flying toward me.
I get soaked, and the crowd around me starts to laugh as I glower at the stupid animal.
He nods his head up and down and even blows a couple of fountains of water, which also hits me.
Water drips down my back and into my underwear as I look at both my grandpas who are bone dry and grinning at me.
“What better way to get to know the show than by being a participant?” John remarks as Eric snickers. How the fuck did they stay dry? I bet they used some of their Skarrian magic. Assholes.
“Oh my goodness, are you okay?” Nixie calls to me, not even trying to hide her grin.
“I’m so sorry Nikos got a little enthusiastic.
He must like you very much. Why don’t you step closer, hand him his hoop, and give him a pat?
” she suggests, and I hear mischief in her voice, but it’s not like I can refuse in front of thousands of people.
So I step forward and lean over to drop the hoop over his nose, but before I can, he lunges.