The process of ringing doorbells at random was at least moderately more effective than Rhonda might have expected. They could very easily tell which apartments were entirely unoccupied based on whether or not the ringing or knocking was followed by come-hither moans, the sort designed to lure whoever was outside into joining the woman or women undulating in pleasure inside. Thus far, they hadn't actually gone inside any of the units, Sofia's gut feeling telling her that each one was not what they were looking for.
Just as Rhonda was getting exasperated, that gut feeling seemed to finally have some payoff. Several stories up, their knocks on one door were not met with the customary moans and cries of pleasure, nor the singing that tried to drag them inside. Instead, there was a sound of water splashing, a grunt, and several hurried footsteps before the door flew open. On the other side stood a woman, looking to be in her early 20s, with ruby-red hair that clung to her skin. A bath towel barely covered any part of her considerable chest, and the rainbow-haired woman who quickly followed her didn't even bother with such modesty.
The woman who'd answered the door looked them over for a moment, before shaking her head and sighing. "Look, I appreciate all the offers, but we're not interested, okay? We just... we're fine with monogamy here."
Rhonda began opening her mouth to object, but Sofia got there first. "No no no no no! We're not here for that!" She put up both hands. "Look, ah... this is going to sound a bit odd..."
"Compared to the last twenty-four hours, I really doubt that."
"Okay fair." The blonde sighed, deciding that this was a situation where all her vows of secrecy, all the rules about not letting the mortal world at large find out about the existence of the supernatural, could all shove off. "I'm Sofia, and this is Rhonda - I'm a witch, and she's my partner in crime, and we're trying to track down where this freaky magic pandemic star-"
She was cut off by shouting from the woman with the multicolored hair. "I didn't know it would cause this, okay?! I just wanted to share the gift with my girlfriend, I wasn't... trying... to..." She trailed off as the redhead turned to glare at her. "...oops."
"Well, now that it's been blurted out..." She sighed and stepped off to the side. "Come on in, I guess." Sofia and Rhonda both nodded, quietly scurrying inside the apartment and over to a couch as their hostess locked the door. It was a fairly decent unit, quite spacious enough for two people, and cleaner drier than most dwellings probably were at the moment. "So," the redhead began as she tossed aside the towel and sat on one of the chairs, "I'm Emma, this is Millie. You're a witch, huh?"
Sofia nodded. "Yeah. We came down here from El Cajon to see if we could figure out where this all started... and I guess we found it." She glanced over to Millie, already splayed out on another chair and reverted back into her mermaid form. She had to admit, the pride-colored tail was awfully pretty. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you haven't always had that thing?"
"Well... no... it was kinda recent." Millie blushed. "I just heard this beautiful singing yesterday, out on the beach.... and it made me into this... and I couldn't help but share it with the woman I love!" She gestured to Emma, the other woman having also taken on her fishy form, albeit with silky-smooth skin rather than scales covering her tail. "I guess.... I didn't really think about, y'know... the rest of the building..."
The teenagers glanced between each other, both of them able to put two and two together. This time, it was Rhonda's turn to ask a further question. "So you just... heard it out on the beach? Did you see where it came from at all?" Millie shook her head, causing the latina to sigh and turned back towards Sofia. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"That if the singing was supposed to be a lure, then everyone in this building would be human?" She nodded grimly. "Mermaids usually draw in women with their songs to bolster their undersea ranks. They're not supposed to just spread their curse like that and leave people to deal with it on land - specifically because it causes things like this." She made a motion to the TV, where a sultry reporter was currently detailing the latest waves of transformations to be sweeping the world.
"So, what... my girlfriend got targeted by some kind of magic criminal."
"More like magic terrorist." Sofia groaned. "They shouldn't have been able to in the first place, though. San Diego of all places is loaded with beachside warding to prevent that kind of thing. If some mermaid was able to sneak up and do this to you... then something shady is going on here."
She pondered it for just a moment longer before standing up, waving her wand around to cause a few sets of clothes to appear on the coffee table. "Come on - I need you two to get dressed, so we can go see where this started. Even if your mystery singer is gone, some fucky things happened out there, and we need to know exactly what they were."
Though she didn't need to get dressed, Rhonda stood up, giggling slightly. "You sound real cute when you say fucky."
"Rhonnie, please, this is serious."
"Sorry. Had to say it."