Page 53 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
“The race is nearly done,” said Baz, his freckled face tense. “The beasties will be next, if beasties there be. That, or we’ll be done in by the Prime Captain.”
Flay snorted. “We don’t call Feral the ‘Prime Captain’ among my crew, remember?”
“Aye, Captain.” But Baz swallowed hard, with a nervous look at theSparrow.
As they drew closer, a whining sound made Rake’s ears twitch. “Down!” he cried, and dropped to the floor of theKestrel, while the other sailors did the same. Flay crouched just in time—a dart struck his hat, carrying it away before dropping into the sea.
“Rutting eels!” Flay shouted.
A few seconds later, another volley of darts rattled against theKestrel.
“Bones and bilgewater!” Flay said, rising a little to peer ahead. “How did they reload so quick?”
“They’ve got some contraption what shoots dozens at once, Captain!” replied Corklan, peering through a pocket telescope. He closed it and tucked it away. “Got some interesting weapons there.”
“Use ours to return fire,” Flay ordered.
“Why does the Magnate risk sailors’ lives like this?” Corklan asked. “It seems wasteful.”
“You have a point, mate—I was almost speared through the head just now,” Flay replied. “But the rewards and renown for the top three ships are considered worth the risk. And surprisingly few sailors actually die. Though this particular race seems to be the worst I’ve yet heard of. Father is becoming more savage and reckless than ever, I do believe.”
“All contests in the Realm Below were lethal,” Rake said calmly. “The winners often ate the bodies of the losers.”
Flay stared. “Good to know, Goldfish. Helpful, you might say.”
Corklan fired a series of bolts toward theSparrow, but before he could prepare another round, the sea exploded.
A massive armor-plated body launched itself upward in a great fountain of spray. A beaked mouth squalled and snapped, while tentacles slithered out of the surf, arching and coiling.
“Monster!” shrieked Baz.
All around theSparrowand theKestrel, the creatures from the lagoon erupted, scaly and thrashing, churning the ocean into a white foam. With the roar of the monsters, the screams of the onlookers ashore, the cries of the sailors from both ships, Rake thought his skull might split open.
A tentacle slammed across the bow of theKestral, curling, cinching tight. Flay shouted, almost gleefully. “Take the wheel, Corklan! I’ll dispatch this sucking asswipe.”
He whipped out his sword and slashed the tentacle, which flinched and recoiled at once. “Too easy,” Flay complained, but while he was still speaking, another tentacle began to descend. At the same moment, something surged up beneath theKestrel, bumping it hard, nearly knocking the ship on its side.
“Time to use Mai’s secret weapon!” Flay roared. “Graves, you’re on sails—Corklan, steering—I’ll handle the tentacles. Baz, the pressure cannon. Goldfish, we need to know where the monsters are. Be our eyes below!”
Rake tossed the physik’s coat aside and leaped into the water, still wearing his legs. Earlier, when he’d transformed, there had been no one close enough to see his tail before he leaped into the boat. But with Feral’s racer and the watchers on the coast nearby, he dared not change into mer-male form.
Plunging into the churning surf, he pulled off his goggles, letting them dangle from his neck. His gills flexed against the goggles’ strap, and he shifted it so he could suck in water through the slits while he scanned the murk.
The deep was alive with coiling shapes—writhing carapaces, slithering tentacles, beaks mouthing and burbling. The creatures were disturbed, frantic. Rake didn’t know how the Magnate’s men had lured the creatures from the lagoon out into the open water of the Race area, but it had obviously upset them. They seemed even more volatile than they had when he and Mai disturbed their nest in the lagoon.
Rake shot up to the surface again. “Two directly below us, more on the starboard side.” He pointed. “Shoot the cannon that way, and you’ll have a clear path to the right.”
Still slashing at tentacles, Flay shouted his thanks. Baz turned the wheel of the pressure cannon, and Rake ducked beneath the surface to watch it in action. The cannon hummed, winding up, and then emitted a powerful, focused blast of pressurized air. The pulse slammed into an oncoming monster, barreling into its plated underbelly and shoving it backward. The beast squealed and swam away, struggling in the temporary current generated by the blast.
Rake popped his head out. “Right!” he shouted, and Corklan turned the wheel obediently.
Before Rake dove again, he looked ahead at theSparrow. Mechanical arms had opened from its sides, and those arms were reaching through the surf, closing around the monsters’ tentacles, squeezing them to pulp, and throwing them aside. As Rake watched, one of the arms stretched out, metal spokes extending, and punched a monster right in the beak.
Something about the design of those arms felt sickeningly familiar to Rake. They were very close to the designs for Flay’s replacement hand, which he’d seen in Mai’s notebooks. Feral must have stolen her work and used it for his racer.
Shock and rage boiled through him, but he had no time to indulge it. He dove again, taking note of the monsters’ new positions, and came back up to tell Flay and Baz. With his help, and with pulses from the air cannon, they were able to get clear of the monsters just as the rest of the racers entered the area.
But there was no catching theSparrow. She was pulling far ahead, rounding the last promontory.
