Page 32 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

The Andromeda jolted with an unexpected burst of speed. A boom shook the planks beneath their feet. Sailors shouted as the huge arm blew apart in a puff of smoke and disappeared. Black blood splattered across the deck.

The arm about to crash across the ship had simply vanished.

“Did you see that?” Isla said, jumping up and down and pointing. “Pearls and cannonballs, did you see that?”

A tentacle flanked in suckers spun out of the water on the ship’s aft, lashing out with powerful snaps.

The arm swept toward the deck. One of the sailors screamed and scrambled to avoid the plunging appendage, but he moved too slowly. The arm swept him clean off the deck and into the sea. His cutlass clattered to the deck.

“Man overboard!” Isla shouted, abandoning her post at Reva’s side and dashing to the railing.

Another tentacle shot out of the sea—rising up, up over the deck of the ship above Isla. Reva screamed and pushed against Jareth, but he refused to move, keeping her pinned in place.

“Isla!” she shouted in warning.

But Isla was too focused on finding the sailor who’d been swept overboard to notice the danger arching up behind her.

Chapter Ten

Reva shoved Jareth as hard as she could and dove across the deck, scrambling on all fours until her fingers brushed the hilt of the sailor’s discarded cutlass. She came up on one knee and swung the blade in an arc as the shadowy limb dropped straight toward her and Isla. Water rained down on her, and she screamed as she cut into the tentacle. Smoke, shadow, and inky black blood exploded around her.

A stench as foul as a rotting corpse forced its way into her nostrils and Reva coughed, gagging as she staggered to her feet. Jareth grabbed her wrist, yelling something into her face that she couldn’t understand. She batted her free hand in front of her nose to clear the foul air.

“Do you have a death wish?” Jareth’s voice finally cut through the fog of smoke and death.

“Not particularly. Why do you think I attacked the—the—what is this thing?”

She wrenched her wrist from his grasp and searched the deck for Isla, hoping against hope that she hadn’t also been knocked into the water. But the first mate still stood at the rail, splattered in black blood and sea spray but very much alive.

The Andromeda shuddered as two more tentacles sliced from the waves and slammed against the hull of the ship. The ship groaned, the timbers creaking against the force of the blow.

“Fire! Fire, you addlepated nincompoops!” Rency yelled over the din, his sailors ricocheting back and forth as if they hadn’t a clue what they should be doing. “Fire everything! Just—just shoot at something! Andromeda, get us out of here!”

As the canons boomed and more tentacles disintegrated into smoke and black liquid, the ship screeched and plunged eastward, plowing through the waves. Reva stepped backward to catch her balance but tripped on the too long hem of Rency’s ridiculous dress. She hit the deck hard on her rump and lost her grip on the cutlass.

“Reva! Are you hurt?”

Jareth bent to help her. One of his pockets writhed in frantic agitation, tiny pink arms spilling through the opening as Calix squelched out and dove for Reva. She caught him in both hands and let Jareth grab her by the elbows and tug her to her feet.

“I’m fine. I just tripped on this sea-forsaken dress—”

“Ahoy!” the sailor said from the crow’s nest. “There are more of the beasties, Captain! Scores of the blighters!”

Still cradling the baby kraken in her palms, Reva pressed alongside Jareth at the railing as she searched the sea for signs of more attacking monsters.

“Don’t shoot!” Jareth shouted. “They’re coming to help! They’re with me! Do not shoot!”

Calix wailed and wrapped his tentacles around Reva’s fingers, squeezing so hard she thought she might lose feeling in her fingertips.

Rency, from the forecastle, waved his spyglass at Jareth. “Are you sure those things are on our side?”

“I’m sure!” Jareth jabbed a finger toward a frothing disturbance in the water. “Do not shoot my krakens, Rency, or so help me!”

Rency jumped down to the lower deck and dashed toward them. He stopped on the other side of Isla, who shied away from him. Rency didn’t notice. “If you’re wrong, Magic Lips, no one will be alive to toss you overboard.” He pressed the spyglass to his eye.

“Well?” Isla demanded. “What’s happening? The monster has stopped attacking. For now.”

“Aye.” Rency squinted into the eye glass but didn’t answer her question.

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