Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,109

noticed.

"Prmce Eric!" he cried, his thin voice barely carrying over the crowd. He thrust Max's leash mto Vareet's hands and tried to push his way to the stage. Max howled and barked and lunged forward, also trying to get to the Ariel put a hand up to cover and protect Sebastian and also started to move forward.

A gull called from overhead. Suddenly, Jona dove like a porpoise right mto Flotsam's face. (Or maybe it was Jetsam. Honestly, Ariel could never tell them apart.) She stabbed her beak mto his face like she was spearing an especially truculent fish.

Flotsam (or Jetsam) eerily did not scream—he merely put one hand up to protect his face and very-- methodically tried to pick the bird off with the other.

Scuttle followed close behmd, ripping at Jetsam's (or Flotsam's) nose. That eel also didn't scream; he just knocked the old gull aside with the back of his hand.

Eric threw himself forward, trying to push through.

One of the eels sucker-punched him in the stomach.

The prince doubled over, falling to the floor.

"No!" Ariel cried.

Vanessa was watching all this...and laughing...and then... Slowly, like a giant ship sinking, she fell over mto the fountain. The splash was enormous. There were shouts of confusion from the crowd.

"What happened? What happened? " Sebastian demanded from underneath Ariel's hand. The mermaid stood on the tips of her toes, trying to get a look.

There, standing at the edge of the platform, panting and exhausted, was Max. Also Vareet, with the empty leash in her hand and a look of triumph on her face. The dog growled once at the princess he had knocked into the fountain, then wagged his tail and barked happily back at Eric, who was just getting to his knees. "By the sea," Ariel whispered, grinning.

"He did it.f" Sebastian cried, thrusting a claw mto the air. "That little girl and the terrible shaggy dogfish did it!" Someone screamed.

The crowd grew silent. The Tirulians watched m horror as Ursula emerged from underneath the water, pulling herself up over the side of the fountain with slick black tentacles that glittered m the sun.

"Max!" he gasped. "Good boy. "

Breathing was hard. Jetsam had got him good, up and under his rib. Moving was also hard. The prmce gritted his teeth and forced himself upright anyway, leaning hard on his left leg with both his arms. The despicable henchmen had abandoned him to aid their mistress.

Eric gestured Vareet over and used her shoulder to help him the rest of the way up.

He took a deep, painful breath and addressed the crowd.

"Look! " he shouted. "Look at what your princess truly is. Lord Francese: do you see? Savho? Senor Aron? Do you see the creature before you? The one you gave promises to, and gold: and your loyalty? Look, people of Tirulia. Behold not Vanessa, but Ursula, witch of the sea!"

"It's real?"

"She's really the sea witch?" "The opera—it's all true?"

The opera singers and orchestra members drew back m horror. The crowd closest to the stage pushed and shuffled, some surging forward to see and others trying to get away. But except for confused murmurs, everyone was silent, as silent as a beach before a tsunami.

And yet.. .Ursula didn't seem nonplussed. She sort of floated m the water, her forearms resting on the marble rim of the fountain like a child at a pool. Her tentacles danced in a ring around her, splashing in the water as if they had minds of their own and were deliriously happy. She smiled and grimaced and leered at the people as Eric spoke. Vanessa's jacket hung m rags around her shoulders.

"Kill it!" someone in the crowd shouted m disgust.

"She's the spawn of the devil!"

"She is the devil!"

"Oh, you humans. So predictable, " Ursula purred loudly. Her voice resonated across the square m a way it never had in her tenure as a princess. "You know, not everything is about you and your Dry World gods." Her tentacles grabbed at the sides of the fountain harder, and looking neither fully octopus nor fully human, she pulled herself over the side, flowing like foul black ichor onto the dais. Flotsam and Jetsam, bloody but uncowed, grinned to see their mistress m her original form. They immediately put themselves between her and Eric, giving him venomous, threatening glares.

The castle guards and soldiers looked unsure of themselves. They kept their muskets trained on the crowd, which was roiling and growmg unpredictable. There, at least, was a threat they understood and could stop.... Yet some