Survival and other Scars (Mytho Collapse #3)

Chapter 1

Noah rolled around on the floor and cursed Pan. It was the first time Pan was glad there was no magic in this world; otherwise, he would’ve been turned into two different piles of shit, as well as being skinned alive and turned into a coat. None of which were things he wanted to experience.

“If I could take the coat off for you, I would.” There was literally nothing Pan could do. Even if he had magic, he wasn’t sure he could remove a selkie’s coat—more to the point, he’d never tried, as that would be rude even for a god to attempt. “Please stop barking at me and let me think.”

When selkies talked in seal form, it sounded much like a regular seal’s bark. They also barked in human form when they didn’t want others to understand their language. Yet when they sang, their voices were magnificent.

“Maybe you should’ve thought before you gave me the coat.”

“I wore it, and it didn’t turn me into a seal. Given that all the selkies are dead, and there’s no magic, I didn’t expect it to turn you into one.”

“Clearly, there was enough magic, you lying god-shaped turd.”

“I didn’t lie.” Though he had left out plenty of the truth. But not about the coat. “I wore the coat. You saw me wearing the coat.”

Noah flopped around like a dying fish. He crashed into a chair, and it fell over before Pan caught it. Someone knocked on the door that joined the palace to the pub.

Noah barked, even though no one out there would understand him. “Get in here and help me.”

The voices on the other side of the door were muffled. As tempting as it was to call out that everything was fine, everything was not fine. And Pan didn’t know where to start.

He tugged on both of his horns and stamped his foot, which was less satisfying than stamping a hoof. He cursed in a couple of different languages before ending with a very human, fuck. That at least rolled off the tongue in a manner that carried some of his frustration.

The door swung open, and Feryn and Linda peered in. Their gazes landed on him, and their eyebrows drew together. Before he had a chance to say anything, Noah barked.

“Help me get this stupid coat off. He turned me into a seal!” Noah got his flippers beneath him and humped his way over the floor as if he’d been a seal half his life.

Feryn opened his mouth, but all that came out was a soft, “Oh.”

Linda stared at her grandson. “Noah?”

“Of course it’s me. Who else is it going to be? No one else was dumb enough to get messed up with a selfish, lying fucking god.” Noah stopped in the doorway as if a vampire and a human grandmother would be able to assist.

Pan was very grateful that neither of them could understand what Noah was saying. “I gave him the coat…the one I arrived in.” Linda had seen him wearing it. “I did not know this would happen.”

Linda glanced at Noah and then at him. “Was it a magic coat?”

“No, it was a selkie coat.” Which was very valuable as it gave the owner control of the selkie, but it wasn’t magic.

Or at least he hadn’t thought it was. He’d never known a coat to bestow the ability to shift onto someone…

other than a selkie. But perhaps the old rules of magic no longer applied.

And perhaps Noah had enough innate magic that the coat had latched onto him.

“He collects magical objects, so I thought he’d like it. This shouldn’t have happened.”

None of this should have happened. His world should never have collapsed.

“Stop saying it shouldn’t have happened when it clearly did and get it off me!” Noah resumed rolling around on the floor like a worm, like it was going to help.

“Can we ask the selkies for help?” Linda asked.

Pan cut her a glare. As if he hadn’t already thought of that.

“They all died in the collapse.” And he didn’t really want to think about it.

It was bad enough that he dreamed about the bloody beach, especially since he needed more sleep because he didn’t have magic, which gave him more time to dream.

“Don’t selkies just take their coat off?” Feryn said finally.

Pan had seen them come out of the ocean and take off their coats many times, but he didn’t actually know how it was done, only that no one else could do it. “They do. And maybe if Noah stops rolling around and panicking, he can find the opening.”

At least then he’d stop looking like some kind of deranged furry fish taking its last gasps. He might also stop cursing him.

“You find the fucking opening since you gave me the coat,” Noah snapped his teeth rather too close to Pan’s ankle.

Having been bitten once by a selkie over a misunderstanding, Pan was not in a hurry to repeat the experience. Especially since he wouldn’t be able to use magic to heal. “Only you can find the opening. Where were the buttons when you slipped it on?”

“I can’t see any buttons…” Linda took a step closer and peered at Noah’s belly, as if she could help.

Pan held up his hand. “There is nothing for you to find or do. You can’t force a selkie to shed their skin.” His stomach rolled at the memory of the way the collapse had stripped them of their human skin, leaving them raw and bloody and broken.

Noah’s front flippers scrabbled at his belly. He was still panicking, as his movements weren’t calm, but at least he was focusing on the problem now. Noah paused, then he flicked his flipper, and the coat opened. Noah, in human form, sat up.

He drew in a breath and put his hand to his chest, then immediately pulled it away. “Ewww. What the fuck?” He plucked at his wet and sticky clothing. “What am I covered in?”

That, Pan could explain. “You were wearing clothes when you put the coat on, and your body was trying to absorb them.”

Noah turned, his eyes wide with horror. “I’m sorry, what now?”

“It’s really not a good idea to put the coat on while you’re wearing clothes.” Everyone knew that selkies didn’t wear clothes beneath their coats.

“You didn’t say that when I put it on.” Noah’s eyes narrowed.

“I didn’t think it was going to do anything.”

Noah stood. He bundled up the coat and thrust it into Pan’s arms. Feryn sucked in a breath.

Pan gave Noah a small smile. “As much as I appreciate the gesture, I am going to refuse because you don’t understand that handing over your coat is a marriage proposal.”

Noah snatched the coat out of his hands and took a step back. “Shit, now I have goo on it.”

“The goo won’t affect the fur.” In Noah’s hand, the fur gleamed in the soft light. It no longer looked old and ratty the way it had on him.

“You need to take good care of that coat, Noah. If all the selkie myths are true, it’s an extension of you. If someone were to cut it up or burn it…” Linda gave Pan a worried glance.

Pan nodded. “Those parts are true.” He didn’t know the rest of the human myths, so he couldn’t judge.

“This isn’t a gift, it’s a curse,” Noah snapped.

“I’m sorry you feel that way; that was not my intent.” Pan glanced away, not wanting to see the fury and hurt in Noah’s eyes. The coat was meant to be a thank you, a magical object from Tariko to delight him, not harm him. Without Noah, he wouldn’t have been able to reunite the dragons.

He needed Noah, and not only because Noah had magic. Noah understood this world.

Noah plucked at his clothes. “Ugh. I need a bath.”

“The palace has no running water at the moment, but I can arrange for hot water to be brought to your room,” Feryn said. “Though if I may ask a favor, I would very much like to keep your clothes.”

Noah wrinkled his nose. “First, why? And what am I going to wear?”

“If a selkie transforms while wearing clothes, those clothes become imbued with a healing power. I don’t know if that is true here. But if it is, people with open wounds and burns could benefit.” Feryn inclined his head as if begging for a boon from a selkie was something he had done before.

“A word of warning: if you transform wearing clothes and remain as a seal too long, the clothes will bind to you. They will become a part of your skin. I have seen it once, and it is bad because a seal is a very different shape from a human.” It had been a grim punishment.

It also marked the selkie as an outcast. No matter how badly Noah cursed him, it was not a fate he wished for Noah.

“So you’ve given me a very dangerous magical item, something that changed who I am. You have cursed me,” Noah said.

“Some might view it as a blessing.” Pan forced a hopeful smile.

“I regret the day I agreed to help you.”

“Noah…it’s very late and this has been…unexpected.” The look Linda gave Pan was entirely expected, and he resisted the urge to step back. She was pissed with him, even though it wasn’t his fault.

“Unexpected.” Noah nodded. “Sure. Yeah. There are dragons in the parking lot, a vampire standing next to you, and a god gave me a cursed coat. Everything has been unexpected from the moment this palace appeared.”

“I can assure you we feel the same,” Feryn said. “You are not the only one hurting from the inconvenience of the destruction of our world.”

Noah bit his lip as if to contain whatever had been on his tongue.

No one spoke, but the air vibrated with unspoken pain and anger.

Pan tried again to reassure Noah. “On Tariko, the coat would not have changed you. I do not wish you harm.”

Noah’s eyes remained hard, but he did not speak.

“Noah, why don’t you go with Feryn and see about that wash?” Linda said as if that was the biggest problem they had.

Pan wished that was the biggest problem. If the list could only contain the one hundred and one most pressing problems, Noah being covered in goo didn’t make the cut.

Feryn nodded, as if he didn’t care that a human was bossing him around in his own palace.

He was no vampire lord. That was a bigger problem.

Along with the lack of Strega, the dragons out the back of the pub, the debt he now owed to the centaurs, and the promise he made to Feryn to assist the people of this city-state.

So far, he’d done precious little to help the people and have them worship him so he could get his magic back.

Now, Noah was angry and hurt and would probably never worship him again. He watched Noah trail after Feryn, disappearing deeper into the vampire palace, probably to the room they were supposed to be sharing.

Linda considered him for several seconds. “You really didn’t expect that to happen?”

Pan shook his head. “It was meant to be something to add to his collection. He’s drawn to magical objects, or they are drawn to him.” And he was no different. If Noah were a magnet, then he was simply a piece of iron bound to obey.

“And you are sure there are no selkies left?”

Pan nodded. “I was with them on the night of the collapse. I saw…” He closed his eyes, not wanting to remember, or see, or even think about that night.

“It’s okay. We will research selkie lore, you can tell us what you know, and we will piece it together.”

“He has to guard the coat.” The coat was now part of Noah. He should’ve left it stuffed in the back of Feryn’s closet.

“I understand that. So what kind of god are you?”

“The kind without magic. If I had any kind of power, I would fix all of this.”

“So you lied about what you are.”

“I have no magic. I can’t help anyone. And if they realize I am a useless lying turd,” he echoed one of Noah’s phrases. “They will never worship me again. I will never have magic again.”

Linda held him pinned with her steady gaze. “When I thought you were an incubus, I thought you were using Noah for food. But you aren’t, so why him?”

Pan considered lying, but he couldn’t think of one fast enough, and the truth—as much as he hated it—it was so much easier.

“He has magic. Not much, not enough for me to use to do anything useful, but enough that I no longer feel the loss of my connection to magic, the universe…the very fabric of life.”

His fingers curled, and he let his hand fall to his side.

Without Noah, he was cut off from the very thing that made him who he was.

The thought of never touching magic again was almost too much.

Maybe he needed some transformation goo to heal the wound left by the loss of magic, except it wasn’t a physical wound.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone. ”

“It is not my place to tell. Though I don’t think any god is powerful enough to separate both worlds and put things back how they were. Silas isn’t your real name?”

“It is one I have used on occasion, though even your people know me by many.”

“And you aren’t the only one?”

“I am not, and I suspect my brothers and sisters fare no better.”

Linda sighed. “All the selkies died, all the vampires lost their looks, and all the gods lost their power.”

“Werewolves are stuck midshift, and I’m sure there are dozens of other impacts we haven’t even realized.” And his people would still be praying to the gods and hoping for a miracle, and when none came, their belief would waver.

“We can only clean up the mess we see, and we can’t do it all at once or on our own.” She paused and considered him. ‘I’m going to give you a pass for lying about who you are.”

“Why? You never trusted me.”

“Because I knew something was off, I just didn’t know what. I prefer my grandson hanging around a god with no magic than an incubus who only wants him for one thing.”

Now wasn’t the time to be too truthful and tell her exactly how he worshipped Noah to get a taste of magic.

“I’m going to close the bar. You should probably make sure the vampires aren’t sinking their teeth into him.”

“They wouldn’t do that without permission.”

“They didn’t on your world, but you aren’t there anymore. How long will those old rules remain in effect?”

His stomach tightened at the thought of Feryn biting Noah. Until that moment, Pan had believed the old rules would always apply. That somehow his world and the human world would become like a patchwork blanket, separate yet united.

What if they swirled together in an unrecognizable mess?