Page 2 of Hijack the Seas: Tsunami

She was talking about Enid’s ability to conceal half a face full of scars, which had been given to her by a jealous fey who couldn’t handle that a little half-human mutt of a girl was better looking than her.I guessed that had encouraged Enid to work on one skill above all others, and starting so young, she had become amazing at it.Normally, the smooth perfection of her skin was flawless, even close up.

It had allowed her to help Bodil and a handful of others to free the most endangered slaves of the so-called Green Fey, the ones whose court we’d just escaped, and get them to Earth.They were the descendants of humans brought to Faerie centuries ago, whether by choice or not.And many, like Enid, had never seen their home world.

She wasn’t going to be seeing it at its best right now, I thought grimly, as the reason her adoptive world had just vanished from existence was operative here, too.And it looked like Bodil’s thoughts were traveling along the same lines.The beautiful ebony face under its impressive cascade of tiny black braids was no longer blank but almost fearful, if someone so formidable could be described that way.

It seemed unlikely, as I’d just seen her take on an army of elder demons, buying us time to escape a collapsing world, but there it was again.A furtive look, a widened eye, a downturned lip.Bodil was sensing something I wasn’t, and she didn’t like it.

“Get them back!”she said suddenly, gripping my arm.

“What?Who?”

“Everyone!Now!”

I didn’t know how she expected me to do that, but it didn’t matter.Because here they came, pouring back through the crack in the ceiling, looking like they’d seen a ghost.Or a god, I thought, as a great eye appeared in the crevasse a moment later, peering down into the darkness.

It was blue, the size of a car, and surrounded by pale blond lashes.But it wasn’t the size that had me reeling from a relief so palpable that, for a moment, it was more dizzying than my exhaustion.The creature I feared the most had blue eyes, but his made this color pale into insignificance.If it hadn’t, in my current state, he wouldn’t have needed to kill me; I’d have probably had a heart attack all on my own.

As it was, everyone froze, including Bodil and me, and then, without the need for discussion, we slowly sank into the tide still surging around us.

It wasn’t deep, even though we’d brought a massive amount of water with us.The room we were in was cavernous and had dispersed much of the flow.But the sand that had blown in through the ruined roof had piled around the space, leaving a concave depression where we lay and where some of the water had gathered, forming a pond.

But ponds were not frequently found in the desert, where we looked to be, something that seemed to have occurred to our visitor.He obviously couldn’t see very well, as the room was dark, and the sunlight outside probably made it seem more so.But some of that sun was playing off the water around us and had caught his great eye.He’d probably glimpsed motion from the guys and come to investigate, and now...

He was punching the ceiling with blows like a pile driver, causing cracks to spider everywhere and pieces of rock to cave in.

Shit, I thought but didn’t say, as I didn’t know how good a god’s hearing might be.I flipped over instead and started half crawling, half swimming, even as the first pieces of rock began splashing down around us.They hit with crashes in the shallow water, which wasn’t deep enough to cushion the blows, sending liquid flying, waves churning, and screams echoing in my head that I wouldn’t allow myself to utter.

Animals don’t scream, I reminded myself as shrapnel peppered my back.And that’s what I was if any of my movements were somehow heard above.Just some desert creature, having squirmed in here looking for a drink and now flailing around desperately.

Not a person, not a human, and certainly not an out-of-work clairvoyant because my job didn’t exist anymore since the gods had returned and laid waste to two worlds.Like my power, which...hadn’t come back, I realized abruptly.So abruptly that I stopped moving for a second because that wasn’t how this was supposed to work.

I was on Earth now, which my little band had desperately tried to reach because that was where my power was strongest.It should have allowed me to shift myself out of here and flee backward in time before all this destruction happened to try to stop it.That ability had been gifted to the Pythias by the god Apollo millennia ago, but he hadn’t trusted us with the unfettered use of it.

Which, considering that I’d recently helped to kill him, was fair.So, he’d tethered his energy to Earth, meaning it could only reach me in Faerie when a portal was open between the two worlds.But I wasn’tinFaerie anymore; I should have access to it!I should be able—

To pay attention for half a second before I was crushed to death!

Fortunately, I was jerked aside by Bodil right before a semi-truck-sized piece of ceiling hit down where I’d just been daydreaming and would have flattened me.As it was, it came close enough for my arm to be strafed by the edge, which would have probably taken it off, except that I was dressed in dragonscale armor.Because Faerie was a scary place, but not as much as Earth, apparently!

Bodil took a wild-eyed second to internalize just how close that had been and then jerked me into the darkness and out of the patch of sunlight.

However, we soon ran out of room to maneuver at a sand dune taller than us, which we could have scaled but didn’t dare, afraid that the movement would draw the creature’s eye.We settled for flattening ourselves against it instead, while a giant fist kept hammering away overhead.I stared up at the rest of our team, who were hiding in the shadows under the jagged lip of the roofline, having squeezed between its shattered remains and the top of the dunes, staying out of the way of the fist but unable to come down as they’d be spotted sure as hell.

They were staring back at us or at where we’d just been.I really hoped they couldn’t see us because if they could,itcould.And right on cue, my shiny silver armor went black.

Love you, Augustine, I thought fervently, remembering the designer who had crafted it for me.I wondered if he’d survived.I wondered if anyone had, with gods the size of skyscrapers prowling the damned landscape!

I wondered if I would ever have the chance to find out, as a massive arm reached into the sizeable hole and started feeling around the floor, searching...

For us.

And that tore it for Bodil, who had not spent her life skulking in the shadows, praying nobody noticed her.She was a warrior and wasn’t going out like this, accidentally smashed to death by a careless swipe from a divine hand.If she was going to die, she’d do it loudly and hurt her enemy as much as possible in the process.

I felt her tense beside me, saw the fire come literally back into her eyes as flames eclipsed their usual sharp black, heard her suddenly indrawn breath—

And threw myself at her, taking her down more from the surprise of my assault than anything else.We hit dirt and water both, with me fighting like a wildcat with the last of my strength and her staring at me as if I’d gone mad.And maybe I had.

The cumulative effect of the last few days—because boys and girls, that was all it had been, a COUPLE OF DAYS—would have done that to almost anyone.Especially since, in that period, I’d nearly been killed a few dozen times, been forced to fight creatures I’d never even known existed outside the pages of some warped mythology book, and then had a whole damned planet crash down around my head.And yet somehow,somehow, I was still alive, and she was not messing that up for me!

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