Page 26 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

But an instant after I arrived, that changed. A silver sword almost magically materialized in his hand because the fey had lightning reflexes when they chose. But my reflexes were fast, too, thanks to Gertie’s relentless training, and with the aid of the Pythian power, I disappeared before he could slash at me.

And reappeared down the corridor at the end of a glittering train of people, also all in white and diamonds and with the same sneers on their faces, as if they smelled something and suspected it was me. They all turned my way, including their leader down the hall, who I belatedly noticed had long, silver-blond hair. Crap.

I dodged the sword the bastard threw a second later by catching it mid-air with my power and shifting it to the middle of the sea outside. And then stared around at the now shocked faces of his crew, searching for Tony. I didn’t see him, but I did see a hundred swords suddenly appear and lunge at me.

Crap!

I shifted back to the dining room because I must have missed him somehow. Although I didn’t see how, as he’d been in black, something that should have stood out against all that dazzling white. But all I found was a silver blur leaping for me, who I caught halfway through the motion and shifted him to the same place as his sword.

His crew gasped with surprise as their champion reappeared on the water side of the ward, facing the other way. He spun to boggle us for a second with all that otherworldly hair floating around his head. And then I was almost trampled by his retinue bolting down the stairs, with several already trying to take down the ward on the run.

Since that would flood the dining hall, they were immediately countered by some of what I guessed were the old royal guards. Nimue hadn’t been about to let her people be outshone by overdressed guests, which was why they were wearing peacock-colored armor that started as dark blue in the midsection and radiated outward in every color of blue, green, gold, and, on the very outer bits, flashes of red. It looked less like dragon scale and more like the fish variety, with tiny, overlapping platelets that hugged their bodies like a second skin, but I guessed it did the trick.

Because they stopped the throng, being determined that the ward wasn’t going down. Unfortunately, the other side was just as determined that it was and pulled weapons. The two forces met with a clash of metal on metal that clanged horribly in the room’s excellent acoustics.

I was with the guards on this one. If Silver Hair was coming to compete, presumably, he knew how to swim. I was more concerned about Tony but still didn’t see him.

“Cassie!” Pritkin was fighting to get to me, but the room was suddenly full of standing, jostling, unhappy people.

Some of the latter were a bunch of newly arrived guards, flooding through the door behind me and looking around in confusion. Others were the diners, many of whom were staring at the ward in what looked like terror, why I didn’t know. They were members of Nimue’s court; even if the worst happened, they could handle it, right?

Only they didn’t seem to think so. One woman pointed at something and started screaming something that my translator didn’t know, and then everybody broke and ran. And I do mean everybody.

It was like the starting gun at a race track had just been fired. They were all coming and coming fast, leaping over tables, clawing at each other to get to the exits, and clogging the stairs. And one—

Was Tony.

“There!” I screamed at Alphonse, who was almost on top of the bastard.

I tried to shift him to me this time, as there were so many fleeing people that I couldn’t get a good landing spot beside him. But grabbing him in the chaos proved difficult, and my spell caught several other richly dressed diners instead, who went utterly ape-shit when they suddenly appeared beside me on the stairs. And now I couldn’t hear anything, with them screaming bloody murder.

Including whatever Alphonse was saying because he’d heard me but hadn’t seen the fat man. And neither did I anymore, as Tony was a good foot and a half shorter than the average for the room and was as dark-haired as most of the court. I lost him in the throng, and shifting bunches of people to the peripheries and out of the way didn’t help.

In fact, it did the opposite, as suddenly I was the problem instead of the murderous bastard they’d been hiding at their court. The guards must have gotten a message from someone because they stopped looking around cluelessly and started fighting their way toward me. That didn’t work so well, as the doorway was now clogged with partygoers, all desperate to escape the ongoing fight through the same doors the guards had used.

I figured I had a few seconds.

So, I shifted more people off the dais, clearing a path around Alphonse and hunting for the bastard that had to be there somewhere. Until my power abruptly cut out thanks to that infernal portal, and I still didn’t see him. It was like he’d vanished into thin air!

And I guessed that Alphonse couldn’t track his scent, which he damned well should have been able to as a vamp who had known Tony for a couple of centuries. But instead, he was shouting and pointing, only not at him. At the guards, I realized, who were almost on top of me, and now I couldn’t shift!

But Pritkin saw the problem from halfway across the ballroom and came up with a solution that hadn’t occurred to me. The next moment, he flung a hand at the straining ward, where a soaked and furious fey was about halfway through the spurting hole some of his people had managed to make while others held off the guards. His finery was a lot less fine now, and there was murder on his face.

Which was quickly replaced by shock when he was suddenly all the way through, along with thousands of gallons of water, as that entire section of the ward abruptly gave way.

A wall of ocean fell in, swamping that half of the hall and quickly washing across the great space. That would have been more of a problem anywhere else, but here. . . Well, look at that, I thought in amazement, as mermaid tails suddenly flashed everywhere.

It looked like maybe one in ten of the guests were shifters, with their scales gleaming brightly under the lights still spinning above us. That included antler-head, who morphed and slipped out of his clothes through the expansive neck hole. I was starting to understand the fashions here, I thought, as he flaunted a heavily muscled tail before surging off into the deep.

The guests with brighter hair colors were all doing the same, their lower bodies flooding with blue, turquoise, or silver-green scales and a few pale lavenders. The tails usually matched their hair, the latter of which should have clued me into the fact that Nimue’s court wasn’t as homogenous as it seemed, even among the elite. And now it looked like the world’s craziest disco, as water frothed and bubbled around the fleeing merfolk, as their legged counterparts thrashed and flailed, and as the sea continued to rise and rise fast.

And as Tony got away, because there was no way I could find him in all that.

Damn it!

If you’d stayed calm, you could have had him, I thought, furious at myself. I was supposed to be better than this; I’d been taught to be better! Gertie would be chewing my ass out right now, and she’d be right.

And then someone grabbed me from behind because the guards had kept their eyes on the prize while I’d been daydreaming.

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