Page 109 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“Cassie. I need to know what happened. Can you tell me what happened?”

I licked dirt-covered lips and tried to speak, but my whole throat was coated in dust, and nothing but a vague wheeze emerged.

“Move,” Bodil said, pushing through the small group of people surrounding me and crouching on my other side. She held something out, which my dust-filled eyes finally identified as a globule of what appeared to be pure water. It was the size of a softball and just sitting there, wobbling on her palm.

It was suddenly all I could concentrate on.

I grabbed it clumsily, only to have it fall apart as soon as it left her hand, soaking me everywhere except for my throat. I mewled in distress, and she sighed and magicked up another one. And it was magic; I saw her that time, looking like she plucked it out of thin air.

That was probably exactly what she had done, drawing together the surrounding water in the air and merging it into drinkable form. Something that I finally managed to get down with her help, letting her hold the ball to my parched lips before attempting to swallow. It was warm and slightly dirty from the dust in the air, and I’d never tasted anything so perfect in my life!

God, that was wonderful!

After a moment, I lay back gasping, and Bodil gave the rest to Enid. The kitchen maid was still staring at me out of a dirt mask, with only her long, dust-covered hair and hazel eyes allowing me to recognize her. I probably looked just as bad, if not worse, but I didn’t care.

I was just grateful to be alive.

“Cassie,” Pritkin said again.

“It was Tony,” I gasped, finally answering his question. “I saw him . . . in the pool . . . for a second.”

“Tony?”

“He appeared . . . right beside me. Did a time spell—”

“A time spell?” That was Bodil, although why she sounded shocked, I didn’t know. After what she saw outside, what did she think had happened?

“That wasn’t you?” Pritkin sounded disturbed, and for good reason. Tony couldn’t do spells of any kind, which was why he had dark mages working for him. And he sure as hell couldn’t use the Pythian power!

“It’s true,” Alphonse backed me up. “He appeared out of nowhere, right beside Cass. I saw him through the waves—”

“How?” Bodil demanded. “I was there and couldn’t see anything through all the water being splashed around!”

“’Cause I was looking for him,” Alphonse said heavily. “I been haunting Cassie’s steps since she got here. I knew he’d come for her, and that was the perfect moment to strike. She’d just towed that one,” he hiked a thumb at a filthy looking Æsubrand, whose previously shiny armor was caked with mud and whose face was set on a thousand-yard stare, “back from the finish line—”

“Alphonse,” I said, sitting up and backing off a little because I didn’t want to get stabbed by an enraged fey. Only Æsubrand didn’t even blink.

He must have seen his fair share of battles, but that one seemed to have knocked some of the stuffing out of him. Know the feeling, I thought grimly. And he didn’t even flinch when he looked at me, only not with anger, for a change, but with bewilderment.

“What . . . were those things?” he whispered.

“Demons,” Pritkin answered for me.

“Demons?” Æsubrand looked like that didn’t compute. “Like the ones the two of you brought?”

“No. Not like them.”

“Old ones,” I croaked. “Bad ones.” It wasn’t much as explanations went, but it was all I could manage, or he would likely understand. If the fey knew little about Earth, it was nothing to the gaping void of knowledge they held about the hells.

And I wasn’t up to a lesson.

Although he looked like he could use one because his face scrunched up in disbelief. “Demons . . . in Faerie?”

Bodil didn’t say anything, but she looked grim. And poked Alphonse to continue, even though one doesn’t poke a master vampire. But after what he’d just seen of her power, he didn’t object.

“I leaped for him from the side of the lake,” he said, his lips drawing back into a snarl in memory. “It was what I’d been expecting, so I had the stake and knife all ready. It wouldn’t have taken but a sec—”

“Then why didn’t it?” Enid asked.

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