Page 20 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

One minute, we were in the hallway, beautifully decorated with flowing, water-themed mosaics on both sides, studded here and there with what looked like genuine pearls for bubbles, gemstone scales on some of the fish, and a gigantic jade tortoise in 3-D that looked like it was coming out of the wall at you because part of it was.

And the next, we were through an archway and onto a landing with a balcony looking over an expansive room. Two impressive stairs were going down, one on either side of the landing. The stairs were terrazzo, with little shells and shiny bits of mother of pearl in the mix, and the handrails were massive pieces of driftwood, bleached in the sun to appear white and polished to bring out their full beauty, yet I barely noticed because the rest of the room was . . . was . . .

Yeah.

It was definitely yeah. And some uh huh and a bunch of oh, wow, and maybe a little damn. And then I lost words entirely because it hit like a blinged-out fist to the face, with all the mind-blowing colors and textures and people—

I decided to start with them because the rest of the place was making my head swim. So, I ignored the masses of hovering balls of light roaming around the high arched ceiling, suspended on nothing and constantly changing their patterns and orientation because static chandeliers were for peasants; and the lack of walls because the whole place was surrounded by a seascape, like the “windows” in our room, only these weren’t windows, they were huge expanses with nothing but powerful wards keeping back all that water; and the black stone floor that made the white draped, circular tables seem to float like rafts on the sea, surrounded by hundreds of laughing, talking, entirely crazy-looking people. And I belatedly realized that the overdressed flunkies hadn’t been overdressed after all.

And that neither was Pritkin. He was practically spartan by comparison because conspicuous consumption was very definitely the order of the day. My God, it was!

A guy at a nearby table had a headpiece made out of a complete set of antlers, only these must have been from some mutant kind of deer. Because they were so big that his neck should have buckled under the sheer weight. Particularly as the headdress was also decked out like a crazy Christmas tree, with dangling shells, jewels, ropes of pearls—of course—and bunches of fresh flowers on each antler.

His chest was bare, too—there was a lot of that going around—although a filmy piece of the nothingness the fey called cloth was draped about his shoulders like a frame. Probably so that his nipple piercing—dripping with a huge, teardrop-shaped pearl—would have something to set it off. He also had a full face of makeup, with seed pearls so thickly encrusted around his oversized eyes that he looked like he was wearing wild, Elton John-type glasses with wave-like flourishes that reached into his hairline, and skin that looked like it had iridescent scale-like tattoos on it when the light hit it just right.

And he was not remotely out of place. If anything, the men outdid the women, the latter of whom were content to show off their perfect, lithe bodies in dozens of layers of diaphanous nothing while seeing how many jeweled belts and pearl necklaces they could pile on top. Fortunately, it was enough to save their modesty most of the time.

And since nobody had on shoes, except for a few wearing backless, jeweled sandals, the whole thing gave off party-at-the-poolside vibes from some deranged club. But I wasn’t feeling it. The glare of all those jewels, silks, precious metals, and gleaming furs made me dizzy.

Pritkin wasn’t fazed, maybe because he’d seen it before or because he’d seen stranger things in the hells. But I had to work hard to keep from tripping over my own two feet as we slowly descended the stairs. I kept glancing away at the serene coolness of the water, deep and dark and restful to the eyes.

That was how I noticed: not everyone was so ridiculously overdressed. Some of what I guessed were waiters were lined up by the wards and barely dressed at all in short, plain tunics in dark shades that almost matched the water. I might not have noticed them, except that they had their own sort of bling, only I was pretty sure that theirs was all natural.

“Servants,” Pritkin confirmed, noticing my interest. “Part human and part fey—of all kinds. That’s where the variety comes from. You remember Wales?”

As if I’d forget. He’d had a problem for a while with the Demon High Council, who had cursed his soul backward through time, skipping across past iterations of himself like a stone on a pond. The idea had been to have him snuffed out of existence when he arrived at his birth and to kill him by basically erasing him from ever having lived in the first place. And while that would have solved their problem, it would have exponentially increased mine.

Not only would it have screwed up the timeline, as Pritkin had played a not-insignificant part in it, but it would have resulted in my death. Without him, I would never have made it past the first month of this job. But the demons didn’t like the gods, either, so offing the daughter of Artemis, even if she was on their side in the war, didn’t appear to worry them too much.

Or maybe they figured I’d survive alone if I had no choice. I severely doubted that, but nobody had asked me. So, I hadn’t asked them when I went pelting back through time after him.

I’d made it—barely—catching up to the fleeing soul when he was a young man in Wales, where he’d been born in the 6th century and known by a different name. There, I’d met many other mixed-species kids since Wales was the sight of one of the Green Fey’s portals to Earth. They’d used it to kidnap human women to breed with their fey and create hybrids to act as cannon fodder in their constant wars.

They’d also used it as a dumping ground for the kids who didn’t have enough magic to be useful or had been born with other defects that made them unsuitable to fight or to raise the next generation to do so. Those were returned to Earth to fend for themselves as best they could or to die trying. I didn’t get the impression that the fey cared much either way.

Yet women continued to go through that portal, some by force, others willingly, to escape the war and deprivation back home. The Green Fey, therefore, had more part humans wandering around their lands than any of the other great houses. And I guessed that not everybody had been dumped who wouldn’t make good soldiers because there were a lot of mixed-race servants.

“Why are they so . . . colorful?” I asked Pritkin, gazing at the lineup.

“Same reason that some of those in Wales were. A sizeable group has built up here through the years, but marriage is forbidden with the Alorestri—”

“But I thought that was the point.”

Pritkin cocked an eyebrow at me. “Breeding, yes; marriage, no.”

I scowled.

“They don’t want to ‘pollute the bloodline,’ which is how they view those of us who aren’t pure enough for their standards,” he added. “The half-castes have to intermarry with each other or the dark fey, who aren’t so particular. The result is what you see.”

What I saw were skin tones in vibrant yellow, true green, pale lavender, or puce. And a few plain old human shades, but with hair the color of newly mown grass, vivid purple, or Crayola orange. I assumed that some of those shades might have come out of a bottle, but not all, maybe not even most, as they didn’t have any other sign of having spent money on their looks.

“They’re called Abrovs, named after the first village the fey established for them,” Pritkin said. “Well, that’s one name. Derebesh is another, meaning contaminated, and others are even less nice.”

“Why hate them? They made them,” I pointed out. “Those witches I saw in Wales didn’t look like they were going willingly!”

He shook his head. “They weren’t. The fey prefer magic users for their slaves, as human magic sometimes boosts their own, resulting in stronger soldiers. But coven witches could protect themselves from the era’s wars and did not wish to serve the fey.”

“But they were taken anyway,” I said, remembering my rage at the sight and at the knowledge that I couldn’t help them without massively screwing up the timeline. Those women had lived their lives in Faerie, influencing the history of this place, or else had escaped back to Earth and influenced ours. Either way, I’d had to leave them, something that still caused a bitter taste in my mouth.

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