Page 145 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

Yeah, sure, I thought, staring at the ranks of his army, which were fanning out to encircle us better. And I do mean encircle, as we weren’t on land, where an army would only have four directions to come at us. We were in the water, and they were taking full advantage of that, trapping us in an ugly, snarling, savage ball of hate.

In seconds, we found ourselves in a 360-degree Thunderdome, and I didn’t see a gap big enough for a mouse to slip through unnoticed.

Nobody was getting out of here.

“Give myself up?” Pritkin repeated, and again, there was no emotion in his voice, just vague curiosity. While behind him, something sparked in the water.

I wasn’t sure I’d even seen it because it was so faint. But it was dark down here except for the glowing eyes of some of the creatures and Æsubrand’s pale moonlight. And Pritkin’s body blocked most of that.

Then it came again, and I was looking right at it. Blue sparks lit the darkness for a moment, dim and barely staining the water, like the ones that had briefly appeared up top when he was summoning his mother’s old spell. He was still trying to get us out of here while keeping the madman talking.

It made me feel a surge of something powerful, gratitude maybe, or affection because Pritkin would struggle to the end. But not hope because, just as before, it wasn’t working. And the fact that Pritkin knew that and was still trying said everything about how much trouble we were in.

As if I needed it, I thought, staring at the growling, hissing, and screeching mob. The sounds echoed horribly underwater, to the point that I thought the sheer vibrations, hitting us from all sides, might tear us apart before their claws could. But then Feltin raised a hand, and they suddenly quieted down.

“Why?” Pritkin said. “Aren’t we past all that? The challenge is over. You won—”

“Won!” Feltin choked on what might have been a laugh or a snarl. “Won!” he repeated, raising his arms and staring around. “Yes, it looks like it, doesn’t it? Behold my glorious victory!”

“Be that as it may, the contest has ended, and we lost. Why go through all this to pursue us?”

“I have orders!” Feltin spat. “Zeus wants you. He said ‘at whatever cost’ and would have come himself, but he doesn’t dare. That so-called goddess haunts this place, and he’s afraid of her.”

“So he sent his lackey boy instead?” Alphonse said, and shit.

Alphonse didn’t seem to understand that this wasn’t a conversation. This was Feltin trying to extricate Pritkin without risking the horde tearing him apart while they savaged us. Anything could happen in battle, and he didn’t want to further jeopardize his god’s prize.

But why was he a prize? I suddenly wondered. And why was Zeus afraid of Faerie if he already had Pritkin’s ability in his arsenal? Pritkin glanced at me, and I stared back, my eyes huge.

He isn’t dead, I mouthed, thinking of Pritkin’s incubus. But he also wasn’t here, so what had happened to him after we left? I didn’t know and didn’t ask because shock after shock kept hitting me before I could absorb the last, the way Faerie always did.

Only this latest one . . . was literal.

Something shivered across the world, something deep and foundational and coming from all around us. It could have been anything. It could have been a mild earthquake or even my imagination, but if it was the latter, Bodil was imagining things, too.

She looked at me wildly, both of us having been there to hear Faerie’s last words. And while I doubted that the Horrors had heard her or understood if they had, they didn’t like that feeling. They didn’t like it at all.

Pandemonium broke out without warning, to the point that they were screeching and fighting again, and some were about to make a break for it. Before Feltin gave a roar, fisted his hands in reins he wasn’t holding, and pulled them back. And it worked.

It looked like he had a mental grip on the creatures the same way he probably had the Kraken when he sent it to attack us. A gift from the gods to their servant or part of his natural mental gifts, I didn’t know, but he and the horde were acting almost as one entity. And it didn’t seem that the Horrors could break his grip because they stayed in place, although the agitation factor had ramped up to eleven.

“Make your choice, demon!” Feltin shouted, still battling with them.

“What choice?” Pritkin bellowed back. “Zeus wants me badly enough to spare all these?” he spread his hands and looked around at us. “That sounds . . . unlikely.”

The last word dripped with sarcasm, but Feltin didn’t react to it, maybe because he was already reacting to something else.

“He always has,” the gorgeous blond all but spat it. “I gave him everything—Nimue, a kingdom, an army—everything! Yet he wanted more. Wouldn’t let me just kill you both and be done with it. Oh, no. He must have his prize.”

“You betrayed her,” that was Bodil, who I guessed hadn’t figured things out until now. “You betrayed Nimue to her death!”

“Not her death,” Feltin scowled. “They didn’t send enough people for that. Even after I told them—but it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter?” Bodil’s eyes were flames and bright enough that Feltin saw them across the murky water.

“Oh, don’t act so grief-ridden,” he sneered. “I was there for the shouting matches you two had. You and she never got on—”

“But I didn’t kill her!”

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