Page 61 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“Then what are you?” the voice asked grumpily. As if someone had pulled a bait and switch on her, and I was not delivering on the promised wow factor.

What else is new? I wondered, shoving limp blonde hair out of my face and looking around for the first time.

It was a real disappointment.

The damp wall behind me was due to my being in a cave, like the one where Pritkin and I had first entered this crazy place. It was big and black and had a mostly smooth floor that rippled out in both directions, with what looked like more caves branching off from either side. I couldn’t see much, as I was in a depression with a rocky overhang, but the bits I could make out had clumps of stalactites hanging down menacingly from the shadows.

The cave also had a river or canal running through it a little way in front of me, which was where the voice was coming from. Only no. It wasn’t coming from the canal, but from what was floating in the canal, and that . . .

Wasn’t right. I blinked at it, and it blinked back out of a large, fishy eye. The eye was dark blue, like the fins on the highly arched, ridged neck and the ones wafting around a curled tail poking out of the water and. . .

And I just sat there for a moment, like a broken doll, staring at what appeared to be a gigantic seahorse bobbing nonchalantly along the side of the canal.

I did not know what to say to a giant seahorse. It didn’t say anything else, either. It just breathed at me, not out of its elongated face but out of the many small mouth-like things on its neck.

Gills?

They were probably gills. At least, they fluttered a lot. They didn’t help my confusion.

I couldn’t see the bottom of its body as it was hidden by the side of the canal, which was built up like a quay. But what I could see was enough. And considering that all the other oversized/mutated fish things I’d encountered since coming here had been lethal, I think I can be excused for the small mewl that escaped my mouth when my brain finally woke up enough to panic.

Where was Pritkin? Why had he left me on a damp quayside all alone? And what was that smell?

I got the answer to that last one when Pinkie muscled his way in front of me, not liking my sound of distress. Which was how I noticed belatedly that the horse-sized seahorse had a rider. A small, very non-threatening rider, who jumped off onto the quay looking pissed.

Pinkie made a small screech of defiance and blew up to about twice his usual size, obviously ready to throw down. It was somewhat like watching the hackles rise on a dog only it was slimy fat instead, which was why I took a stubby tentacle to the face. But I fought free of it, got my hands on the mass of gelatinous hide, and pushed.

And went nowhere because Pinkie wasn’t budging. That was a problem since his squashy backside had glorped into the slight depression in the rock that I had been stowed in and all but filled it up. Leaving me suffocating under a mass of stinky pink blubber that appeared to have forgotten that humans need to breathe.

“Come on, dude, I’m dying here,” I gasped and pushed some more. The small pissy creature, who I could vaguely see on the other side of Pinkie’s semi-transparent ass, was getting pissier by the moment, watching a “goddess” wrestle an overly protective demon for freedom.

And losing.

That wasn’t entirely my fault. Pinkie had gotten two good meals into him since we arrived and possibly more if he’d been snacking on a fey, and I would not put snacking on a fey beyond him. He did not appear to be picky. And it had given him additional strength.

I, on the other hand, felt like an elephant was sitting on me, and most of that wasn’t Pinkie’s fault.

After my recent forays into magical brinkmanship, I was going to be wiped out for who knew how long, and that meant I wasn’t going anywhere, regardless of whether my power came by to say hi or not.

I sighed and gave up, making myself a small pocket to breathe through by pushing away the nearest chub with my outstretched arms and resigning myself to looking at the world through a bunch of lard.

My conversation partner, however, did not. “You heard her,” she said, sounding less like the woman I’d initially taken her for and more like a girl. “Move!”

Pinkie did not move.

“He’s, uh, he’s kind of dangerous,” I said. “You should keep your distance.”

A snort of derision was all I received back. “I wrestle things far more dangerous than him every day,” she said and started pushing.

And to my surprise, this time, Pinkie went. Maybe because he’d gotten a good look at the kid and decided I wasn’t in danger after all. Or maybe because the seahorse took that moment to give a high-pitched shriek worthy of Pinkie himself, who got curious and headed over there. But anyway, I could breathe.

“Why does it still stink?” the girl demanded.

She was pretty and did not look like she belonged here except for the ears. She had a head full of cornrows as black as her eyes, a light brown face, and a slight grin as she watched me attempt to struggle to my feet, covered in goo. Put her in jeans, a t-shirt with some band’s name, and a knitted cap, and she could be a freshman at any high school.

Instead, she was wearing a tight-fitting, bluish-gray tunic and trousers, almost matching the color of her ride, and made from some material that looked like it had subtle glitter embedded in it. She’d accessorized with some scaley gauntlets and enough necklaces to make Mr. T jealous, although that counted as casual wear around here. She was also barefoot, but I was getting used to that.

I finally slimed my way to a more-or-less upright position, dripping, and tried to slough off some of what Pinkie had shed all over me, but mostly failed. Now, I had two forms of protection: dragonscale and a stench worthy of a large pile of rotten meat. Great.

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