Page 1 of Hijack the Seas: Tsunami

Chapter One

Itumbled through the portal with a half-crazed mermaid and what felt like an ocean of water.We shot across a large open space, falling, flailing, and, in my case, half-drowning.And hit what might have been a wall, or a mountain, or basically anything else, because I couldn’t see!

Or breathe, I realized.Or move, with a giant firehose of liquid slamming into me from behind, smashing me into the pale golden stone in front of me like a bug on a pin.And hard enough that I probably would have the pock-marked imprint of the rock permanently embedded into my cheek if I survived this.

I finally took a breath because it was either that or pass out, and it was half water, half air, which did not improve things.But the mermaid was determined and fierce and currently cursing, and I don’t just mean audibly.She was cursing the water out of our way as she hauled me off the stone, and even stranger, it worked.

The waves curled back on themselves as if offended or as if Moses had arrived to part them.Only it wasn’t Moses who stumbled out of the wash a moment later.It was two bedraggled-looking women, both on two feet because this mermaid could transform.

Of course, I’d learned that many, if not all, of the Margygr could.But I’d learned so much lately and had yet to really categorize or absorb any of it that I had just started accepting things.Which was why I didn’t react when a huge vampire grabbed me, spun me around, and planted a fang-filled kiss on my cheek.

I’d spatially shifted him through the portal a minute ago and thus saved his life, and he seemed appreciative.And so was a fey prince who usually hated my guts but was now clapping me on the back almost hard enough to force me to my knees.I’d saved him, too, by absorbing a bunch of power that some other merpeople had cast in a flooded, quickly collapsing room in another world.

The power had been intended for a spell to hold the ceiling up, or what was left of it, but hadn’t worked because it wasn’t just the room collapsing.It had been the whole world breaking apart and imploding or exploding; I wasn’t sure, as things had been pretty confused there at the end.All I knew was that the Margygr had been killed before they could direct their magic anywhere, and the rest of us had been about to follow suit until I grabbed all that power and stuffed it down.

I could do that, as my mother had been the goddess Artemis, and while I hadn’t gotten much from the godly side of the family tree, I could consume magical energy the same way she had.I couldn’t drag it out of someone like her, but had to wait until they coughed it up.Fortunately, the Margygr had, in preparation for a spell they’d never had a chance to cast.

Unfortunately, I’d used their energy up during our escape, and I currently thought that passing out sounded like a good idea.But I didn’t, as it would destroy whatever tiny shreds of dignity I had left.Which, as usual lately, wasn’t much.

My name is Cassie Palmer, and not so long ago, I was Pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world.But then Faerie happened, and I found myself a refugee washed up on Time’s shore somewhere I didn’t recognize.Because who could recognize this?

I stared around and didn’t understand anything.But then I was grabbed by the rest of our party, including a water-logged demigoddess named Bodil and a man named Pritkin, AKA my other half, my partner in crime, and the guy I was gonna drag to an altar if we ever got out of here, wherever here was.Because it was supposed to be Earth, but...

It didn’t look like it.

But before I could point that out, the water, which had been spewing out of the portal with enthusiasm, hitting the wall where it had tossed us and flooding the floor up to our knees, abruptly cut out.Our little knot stopped grabbing and hugging each other to stare at it, with what was probably varying levels of shock.Bodil, the oldest of us, abruptly sat down in the flood and went blank.

I sat beside her because it was either that or fall down, and I couldn’t get any wetter.Enid, the aforementioned mermaid, joined us.The men continued standing, maybe thinking it was more manly or because they were looking a little lost, too.

Fair enough.

It wasn’t every day you experienced the death of an entire world.

Or maybe, like me, they just had no idea where the heck we were.That was even more of a problem when the portal disappeared as abruptly as the water had.I guessed its energy had allowed it to persist for another few seconds after the destruction, but it was gone now, and with it went most of our light.

Most but not all, I thought, staring upward.

It was hard to see past the portal’s swirling red aftereffects, but I could tell we were in some kind of building.And while the little I could see was mostly sand-covered, it was man-made.Or parts of it were.

It looked more like a cavern that somebody had reinforced with a framework of heavy timber beams and reminded me of something I’d seen once, but I couldn’t think well enough to name it.But that was a ceiling high up there that sunlight was illuminating through a hole.There wasn’t much light compared to the portal’s previously blinding variety, but it was enough for Pritkin to decide to take a look.

“Take care of her,” he told Bodil, and could have been referring to either Enid or me.But considering who was weaving about like she would collapse any second, even while sitting down, I was pretty sure he meant me.I tried to stop, as it was embarrassing, but nothing happened.

So I just sat there, swaying gently, as he and Alphonse, the big vamp, and Æsubrand, the silver-haired fey prince, climbed up a sand drift that must have been three stories high to peer out of the hole in the roof.

Alphonse made it first, which seemed to piss off Æsubrand, who was right on his tail.Pritkin, whose wet blond hair was shining like a beacon in the spill of sunlight and who wasn’t part of the other two’s dick-measuring contest, brought up the rear.Leaving us three girls alone, although a demigoddess older than the pyramids probably didn’t qualify for that term.

Neither did I, although I was only twenty-four.My blond hair held no gray, and my blue eyes were unlined, but as Indiana Jones once said, it wasn’t the years; it was the mileage.And mine was...kind of a lot.

Enid, though, was a fresh-faced teenager and wasn’t looking like someone who had just lost her entire world.The sunlight turned her wet red hair to flame and gleamed in her wide hazel eyes.She’d been wearing a servant’s tunic when she transformed and had managed to keep it on despite hauling my exhausted ass through the portal, so she was dressed, if badly.

But damn, she made it look good.

Especially now, with her hand out, palm up, to catch the glistening rays of a foreign sun.Only...it wasn’t entirely foreign, was it?She was part fey but part human, too, and right now, she had a look of intense hunger on those stunning features.

A second later, she was back on her feet and running up the slope after the guys with an almost feral intensity.

“She’s wanted to go to Earth for years but stayed back to help others,” Bodil told me.“Her skills with glamourie are impressive and were useful when we needed to hide someone.”

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