Chapter 79

Vincent slowly hunkered down in awe as he watched the astonishing transformation take place before his eyes. Even the Bishop's eyes widened in disbelief and he craned his neck to see more from where he was. Ewatomi magnificent tail lazily rose out of the water and gently slapped the surface, causing a little splash. 

"God, you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen." Vincent couldn't help but utter softly.

"I'll take that as a compliment." She swam around in circles to test if she was still as good at swimming as she once was. "Give me a minute!" She lifted one webbed finger then dove underwater before he could say a word. Flattening her arms at her side, she swam deeper and deeper towards the bed of the river, stayed there for more than fifteen minutes then resurfaced when she had confirmed that she could breathe longer than before underwater, without having a need to surface for oxygen.

Shaking her hair and splashing water on him, she began to swim backward in circles, giggling happily.  "How I've missed this!" She said excitedly. "Come on, come join me."

"You want me to come all the way there?" He asked, skeptical about entering the water. "I can't swim." She beckoned.

"I don't think you should worry when you are with me. There's no way I'll let you drown. Come on." She insisted and Vincent swallowed hard, hesitating. Then he briefly closed his eyes, took a deep breath and braced himself for what he was about to do. Taking off his slippers on the bank of the river, he tentatively stepped into the water, paused then shivered. "It's cold..." He wrapped his arms around himself.

"Don't let that deter you. We can return home and dry up in the kitchen by lighting some firewood." She answered.

"Good idea." He said then nervously proceeded further until he was waist-deep in the water. "I think this is the farther I can dare myself to go." He finally said, warily looking around him. "You'll have to come over to me. I'm terribly afraid of drowning."

She slowly sunk into the water until she was submerged then slowly emerged right in front of him, startling him a bit. They floated in the water now, the tips of their noses almost touching and they both silently stared at each other. Her hair created a black floating mass around her and he swallowed hard when he saw how beautiful she looked up-close; even more beautiful than she was in her human form.

"You have the most beautiful eyes that I've ever seen." He told her softly, letting his eyes stray down to her lips.

"Thank you." She whispered and a short awkward silence ensued between them before he broke it.

"I don't know if this is the right time to say it, but I've held it back for too long and I think it's best if I let it out now or I might never be bold enough to say it."

She swallowed hard, anticipating what he was going to say but she said nothing, and instead, waited.

Vincent dipped his hand into his front-left pocket and pulled out something then he brought it up to the surface and took her hand. "First, I want you to have this back." He slipped the bead bracelet which his late mother had given him, around her wrist then dipped his hand into his other pocket and held out a ring between them, making her eyes go round.

"It's beautiful but what are you doing?" She asked, not understanding while he had a ring.

"I really shouldn't be doing this until I've been officially dismissed from priesthood, but I'll rather do this here and now than later." He said while she stared at the ring with glassy eyes caused by tears. The first drops of rain began to pour on them from the sky and they both lifted their faces to see that they had been too caught up in each other's presence that they had been oblivious to the gathering clouds which had obscured the moon and the sound of a distant rumbling of thunder could be heard. Lowering their gazes again at each other, Vincent found more courage. "Abeni, Ebunoluwa, Ewatomi, will you do me the honor of being my wife? Of course, if you say no, I'll understand; besides we are two worlds apart, but I'm willing to give up everything just to be with you. Though, if you'll not take this ring, I'll be fine, knowing that you'll always be my best friend and confidant."

Ewatomi stared at Vincent in tears. "You don't even know if I feel anything for you and yet you are taking the leap."

"As long as it's not repulsion, I'm fine...besides, I don't need to think twice about what I'm doing because I feel deep inside me that it's right." He said, rainwater running over his face and completely drenching him.

"What if I'm already betrothed?" She asked, searching his eyes.

He swallowed hard and tried not to cringe. "I'm forever going to envy the lucky bastard; pardon my words... But are you really engaged?" He asked in dread.

"No, but my grandmother won't approve." She answered.

"I'll grovel at her feet until she has no choice but to give her consent. I can be very annoying when I set my mind to it."

She laughed a bit. "Is this love or are you just doing this because we have spent a lot of time together? This could be infatuation, you know?"

Vincent scratched his head as he contemplated. "I've never been in love with anyone before, so I can't really tell if it is. All I know is that I'm happy around you and I want to wake up seeing this face for the rest of my life. I feel very different whenever I'm around you and I won't trade how I feel about you for anything else in the world...does that sound good a reason enough?"

"Maybe, but what do you intend to do after you leave priesthood?" She asked.

"Start a church." He answered. "I've been having a reoccurring dream about starting my own church and I'm going to do just that...but honestly, it will be much easier with you on my side."

"Right..." She smiled then sighed. "Fine, I'll marry you-" Without letting her finish her words, he interrupted her by suddenly seizing her into a tight hug, then she whispered against his ear. "You might want to slip the ring on before I change my mind."

"Oh, yes, of course!" He cleared his throat, pulled away from her, took her left hand and was about slipping the ring into her finger when the bishop lifted his fist as a sign to a certain group of people who had been secretly watching out for it. And immediately the priest dropped his feet, several men quietly rose from their hiding spots, fully armed with harpoon guns and normal guns and they stealthily edged closer to the bank of the river, hiding in the bush and behind tree trunks as they closed in.

The ring was still at the tip of Ewatomi's finger when a harpoon suddenly fired out of nowhere and tore through her left shoulder, splattering blood against Vincent's face. It was so sudden and startling that he lost hold of the ring and it slipped off Ewatomi's fingernail and sank into the water. Blood poured out of Ewatomi's mouth as another harpoon was shot and it pierced her upper chest.

 As she slowly looked down at the weapons lodged in her body, still trying to understand what had just happened, suddenly the ropes attached to the harpoons that had pierced her flesh were tugged by the two men who had shot her. They pulled at the ropes with their might, yanking her away from Vincent and pulling her back towards the shallow part of the river and Vincent who was still in shock gaped and watched as Ewatomi thrashed around, screaming in a shrill voice. 

Suddenly, the hunters poured out of their hiding places in numbers and rushed towards the river and Vincent turned around to look towards the bank, surprised and perplexed as he saw several white men and other races racing towards Ewatomi, their weapons in hand. He tentatively touched his face to be sure that he was not imagining what was going on and when he saw blood on his fingers which the rain was slowly washing off, he knew that all this was real and had nothing to do with his imagination.

 When he heard Ewatomi scream again in a fierce non-human sound that was almost deafening, he returned his gaze to her and saw her struggling as whoever were pulling the ropes connected to the harpoon continued to pull harder, trying to force her out of the water to dry land. 

Who were these men and what the hell was going on? He wondered.

                                                                                       ★★★

"No! No!" Vincent began to rush through the water towards Ewatomi because he couldn't swim, and before he could get to her, Ewatomi swiped at the ropes with a sharp part of her tail and fell forward into the water when the lines suddenly snapped. Blood was seeping out of her wounds but the harpoons were still lodged in her shoulder and upper chest and prevented her from bleeding massively.

As Ewatomi started to swim towards Vincent, trying to meet him halfway and perhaps make an escape with him, another harpoon was fired into her ribs and she cried out in agony, arching her back and clenching her fingers in the air, baring her teeth in pain. Swinging around and trusting her body mid-air, she cut the rope attached to the harpoon too, then dove underwater, leaving a lot of blood at the surface since she knew that remaining in sight would only cause the men to harm her the more.

"She's trying to get away!" Mr. Smith suddenly yelled. "Go in after her!" He ordered his men, pointing towards the river above his head. "Make sure she doesn't get away!"

Vincent dumbfoundedly glanced around him as the strange men, totally ignoring his presence as if he was not even there, rushed past him into the river in hot pursuit of Ewatomi. Vincent turned around in perplexed circles watching more men storm past him, and when his eyes finally settled on a face he recognized, he helplessly, he almost sighed in relief and he asked the bishop, hoping that he perhaps would have the answers to what was going on because it was clear that the men were not after him but Ewatomi. 

"Father, what's going on? Who are these people! Where did they come from?" Without replying, the bishop rushed into the water and helped him back to the bank of the river so that he stayed away from the line of fire. Vincent collapsed on the bank, trying to recover from the shock. He still couldn't believe what was happening and the last look of anguish on Ewatomi's face when the harpoon had been fired into her ribs would forever haunt him.

"Now, is not time to ask questions, sir. I'd advise that you go to your apartment and pack up, we are leaving this village tonight." The bishop frantically said.

"Why? These strange men just appear out of nowhere, hunting the woman I told you about and all you are concerned about is leaving the village tonight? What's going on, father? Tell me!" When he saw the men sporadically firing bullets into the water, perhaps to scare Ewatomi to emerge from underwater, Vincent tried to rush towards them to stop there but the bishop quickly grabbed him, holding him back. 

"Have you lost your mind?!" Asked the Bishop in a stern tone. "Do you want to lose your life?!"

"Then tell them to stop!" Vincent helplessly cried in a vehement tone. "What has she done to deserve this? They are hurting her! Tell them to leave her alone!" Vincent begged.

"Relax son, these men know what they are doing. They have come from far away to capture her and capture her they must and you must be smart enough not to get in their way and piss them off." Said the Bishop.

"What do you mean?" Vincent gave him a puzzled look, slowly rising to his feet now as it finally dawned on him that the bishop was involved. "Did you bring them here?" He slowly asked in a suspicious tone, eyes suspiciously narrowed at the bishop.

Bishop Joseph sighed and answered, "Yes I did, but you have to understand that I'm doing this for the good of humanity. Mermaids are evil. Their kind is an abomination on this Earth! They are offspring of the devil and have sexually ensnared many men who have been lured to early graves. These men are not as bad as they appear; they only want to take her away to somewhere safe, where they will never hurt anyone." He flimsily explained, trying to convince him and justify his actions.

"And who are you to judge?!" Vincent yelled. "Who the hell are you to judge?! You don't even know anything about them and you have already concluded that they are evil! Just how petty are you?! You betrayed me, father! You tricked me into believing that you cared about her well-being and that you were as curious about her as I was!" Then he grabbed the front of the bishop's shirt in both fists and shook the older man in anger. "You told me that all you wanted to confirm was to see her shape-shift from her human form, whereas, this was nothing but a trap! A trap! You used me! How can you do this to me, father! I trusted you! How can you betray me like this?!"

The bishop forcefully broke Vincent's grip on his shirt then smoothened where he had grabbed. "Get a grip on yourself, boy!" He retorted. "For Christ's sake, get a grip on yourself! She's just a mermaid! Why do you feel so pained for a mere mermaid?! A creature which is probably an offspring from the creature between a fallen angel and a human woman! What could you possibly want with her?! Marriage?! A happy after ever?" He scoffed.

 "Such things do not exist son! This is the real world so come back to reality and snap out of any spell you are under! The earlier you do that, the earlier that you realize that you don't even love her! You were probably under a spell or something, or probably just involved in an infatuation which you assumed to be love! 

These men are paying me a whooping sum of fifteen million dollars! Do you think that the church can ever give me such an amount even till my death?! I have served the church for more than thirty-five years and I've never even made as much as half a million dollars before! This is a lifetime opportunity that I'm not willing to miss, Vincent, and you have to understand that!

 I meant it when I said that I'd establish you! I've been paid seven point five million dollars, and I've long made up my mind that I'm also leaving priesthood for good after I get paid the other half of the money. So, you know, I intend to give you five million dollars because I won't have had such a jackpot if not for you! Do you know how much money that is when converted to naira?!