I turned and marched down the hallway toward the light.
I went through another red arch—unwarded this time—and paused in its shadow, just before the doorway. The hallway opened into a large room, lit up with clusters of feylanterns arranged into eight-rayed, layered snowflakes on the ceiling. The light was so bright, it looked like the middle of the day, and I stayed just on the edge of it.
This must’ve been a nightclub or some sort of concert venue with a dance floor and a raised stage at the far end of the room. The dance floor was now in front of me, the floor itself made of plastic or glass tiles, transparent and shimmering with embedded glitter. The ocean had flooded the section of the ship below this room. I could see the salt water under my feet.
On the left, a stairway led to a balcony that curved along the room, filled with tables and padded chairs. On the right, a massive, ragged hole gaped in the hull, big enough to drive a semi through sideways. It had carved off a chunk of the ship all the way to the bottom. The sea was just below the floor, and whatever lay on the other side of that hole wasn’t the Figure Eight beach. In fact, it wasn’t even America’s Atlantic coast.
Huge crags jutted from the waters in the distance. The same rocky boulders continued under water, stretching to the ship in stone reefs. Jewel-colored anemones sheathed the stone, glowing with yellow-green, orange, electric blue, and neon pink among patches of dark mussels. Mollusks, sea slugs in every color of the rainbow, and ringed jellyfish flashing with bright lights swam and hovered among the reefs. A huge brown skate glided by, slipped under the glass tiles, backlit by the reef, and floated right under my feet. The magic was so thick, you could cut it with a knife and spread it on bread.
Most of North Carolina’s coastal bottom was sand. There were artificial reefs and oyster sanctuaries, built pre-Shift, but none of them were here, in this spot. And those cliffs in the distance looked like something from Oregon or Washington…Except there were no trees. The Pacific Northwest was heavily wooded along the coast, and I couldn’t see a single tree.
Thomas’ source was right. The Emerald Wave did have a hole that could only be seen from the inside.
This was a tear in the fabric of reality, and I had no idea where it led. A pocket realm, built by some cosmically powerful being? A portal leading somewhere else? None of the options were good.
More importantly, maintaining this hole would require a ton of magic. Usually you saw these junctions in place of wild, very concentrated magic, because their creators used the environmental magic to power them. This didn’t feel like that. It felt like there was a definite focal point, some kind of magic generator right off the ship, that kept this portal going.
I leaned a bit to the right, trying to get a better view of the room.
Nine people sat on the floor by the far end of the hole, huddled together, each of them chained by their ankle. Three adults: a skinny woman in her thirties with scars on her pale arms and defiant eyes; a man about Thomas’ age, gaunt and beaten down, his hair a dark curtain over his bronze face; and a young woman, barely in her twenties, with bright red gills that stood out against the dark brown skin of her throat. The rest were children, all sizes and ages. The youngest looked about ten.
The chains stretched into the hole and vanished into the water.
Okay. Haven’t seen that before.
As I watched, the gaunt man leaned forward, and I saw the boy behind him. Darin. Alive. Wet and looking desperate, but alive.
I looked past the prisoners to the four-foot-high stage, where a big golden throne rose in the center, shaped like some mutant conch shell and gilded. Where did they even find that thing? It looked like a prop pulled out of some over-the-top opera.
A man in his thirties sat on the throne. Tan, with light brown hair, he slumped forward, his elbow on the armrest, his forehead resting on his hand. He wore a blue linen robe, and his feet were bare.
Hello, Aaron. Got you out of bed there, buddy, with my ward breaking? So sorry. No worries, I’m coming to help you with that migraine.
Next to the throne, a much older man hovered, anxiously rubbing his bony, weather-browned hands. His wispy white hair hung limp over the back of his neck. He wore a wrinkled garment that might have been a chasuble with the Catholic embroidery replaced by an appliqué patch with wave symbols on it.
A teenage girl sat on the stage, dangling her feet off it. Thin and dark-haired, with an odd bluish tint to her pale skin, she wore a tank top and a pair of shorts. She couldn’t have been older than 16. Her stomach was bloated. I would’ve guessed she was pregnant, but the shape didn’t look quite right. She looked…lumpy.
Behind the throne, on the wall, a two-foot-long white feather hung off two chains. Brown splashes stained the white barbs. Dried blood.
White feather, freaky ocean, cold water sponges that only grew in the depths, cliffs…
Oh, you dumb fuck.
I walked out into the open.
A thin female prisoner saw me first and elbowed the man next to her. The lot of them stared at me. On the left, a boy about Conlan’s age walked through a small doorway, carrying a platter with a pill bottle and a glass of water on it. He noticed me and froze.
The teenage girl saw me. A shiver ran through her. She hopped off the stage and bounced in place, whining in a high-pitched voice, like a toddler on the edge of a tantrum. “Mine, mine, mine, mine…”
The man on the throne waved his hand at her without bothering to look up.
She grinned. Her smile stretched from ear to ear, literally. Her head split, and the top half of it went up, her mouth wet and red, lined with conical teeth. Her thick, pink tongue wiggled in the sea of teeth like some weird worm. She was like a Muppet from an ancient kids’ show, except this wasn’t cute, it was horrifying.
She slammed her jaw shut, her teeth making a loud, bone-scraping click, and charged me.
I unsheathed my sword.
She was hellishly fast.
I dodged, and she swiped at me with her hands, each finger tipped with a sharp, blue claw. I backed away, blocking her swipes with Sarrat. Her claws rang on the metal, like pebbles flicked at the blade. She caught my left forearm and gripped it, throwing her weight into it. Her mouth gaped open, and she tried to pull me forward, toward her snapping teeth.
I rammed the pommel of Sarrat into her temple.
The blow knocked her back. She stumbled to the side, her eyes wild, and I took a step and kicked her in that bulging stomach. The front kick took her off her feet. She flew a couple of yards backward, fell, and vomited up an undigested human forearm, the hand still attached. A very small hand.
“Kill her!” the female prisoner with the angry eyes screeched. “She eats children!”
The thing on the floor grabbed the arm and stuffed it back into her mouth. Her neck expanded, she gulped it down, and then I was on her. She’d managed to come up from the crouch in time to meet me straight-on. Sarrat’s blade slid into her chest with a soft whisper and cut into her heart.
Her pale blue eyes stared at me, shocked.
I twisted the sword in her heart, ripping it, and withdrew.
She whimpered, “Mine…” and collapsed on the floor.
I stabbed her through the left eye, driving Sarrat into her brain in case she decided to regenerate, freed the sword with a sharp tug, and looked at the man on the throne. “Cute opening act. Can’t wait to see the headliner.”
The old man peered at me with watery eyes, anxiously rubbing his hands. The man on the throne looked up, his face slack with annoyance. He looked to be somewhere around 30, maybe 35. He had the worn-out complexion of a naturally pale person who’d gone through too many sunburns, with tired skin creased by premature lines. Stubble hugged his jaw, the result of neglect and apathy. His light brown eyes, however, were sharp.