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As the liquid churned, threatening to suck me under, I noticed something moving just beneath the surface. Great, what the fuck was next?
In the back of my mind, I was hoping for something to hold on to, like a piece of wood or maybe, if I was lucky, a life vest. No such luck. As I saw what was rising from the water, I kicked as hard as I could, making a sharp turn. Exit, stage left. Or any place that wasn’t here.
What looked like a giant matte black eyeball rose out of the water. It rippled with veins, and hundreds of writhing snakes were attached to it, like the tentacles on an octopus. I wasn’t sure how much of it remained underwater, but the eye was as big as a boulder and I didn’t want to stick around to find out how big the entire creature was.
Terrified, I launched myself through the water, kicking with long strokes. The ooze tried to suck me down, and my skirts were getting caught in my legs. Part of me wanted to ask, How can this be real? But the fear in my heart, and the fact that I was swimming away from some freakshow monster, overshadowed the side of me seeking a logical answer.
I struggled against the sloshing waves. The liquid was trickier than the actual ocean. As I fought to remain above the waves, they battered me. I frantically looked for some sign of land. In the distance, I could see what looked like a faint silvery shore, but it was a long way off—and I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t going to make it out of this one.
I glanced over my shoulder. The creature was rising high out of the water, its body visible, and I realized I’d seen it somewhere before. And then, I knew who it was, only here, he was a giant, and malformed.
As he reared up, I screamed, some of the murky liquid splashing into my mouth. It tasted like mold and mildew and I spit it out, trying not to gag. As I treaded water, trying to keep the roiling waves from crashing over me, the creature continued to rise, deep and dark and from the depths of the Netherworld. It stank of Demonkin, putrid and dripping with hunger and unquenched desire.
Gulakah.
The Lord of Ghosts.
And he senses you.
I let out a strangled cry as the god turned toward me, his eyeball retracting into his head, the snakes now writhing like hair. Medusa’s coils. As he leaned down, aiming toward me, I sucked in a deep breath and dove, deep into the water, letting it suck me down. Better to drown in the depths than let him catch hold of me.
My lungs burned as I began to drift downward, floating free, unable to see. There was no question about breaking the surface again. Gulakah was there, and I couldn’t fight him. There was no escape.
As my lungs tightened, I steeled myself, preparing for the rush of liquid into my body, for the end. I didn’t know how I’d gotten here, and all I could do was pray that they’d find me somehow. Smoky, Morio, and Trillian would feel the Soul Symbiont bond break—they’d know that I was dead. Resigning myself, I gave in, embraced the ocean of gray, and as I began to let out my breath, I tumbled forward, downward, and hit my head on something hard.
What the fuck?
“Ow.” I rubbed my head.
First realization: I could hear myself.
Second realization: I wasn’t drowning.
Third realization: I was sitting in front of a tombstone, on the ground, and Smoky was reaching down to grab me up in his arms.
“Camille, are you okay? We couldn’t snap you out of the trance.” He sounded frantic, my dragon did, and he held me tight as I clung to him, my arms around his shoulders. The sensation of drowning still echoed through my body, and I was confused and on the verge of panic.
Morio rubbed my back and said something to Smoky that I couldn’t catch. But I could hear Delilah ranting at Ivana—so not a good thing. I tried to get Smoky to put me down, but he wouldn’t—he just held on and refused to let go, long tendrils of his hair reaching up to give him a better hold on me. Not that he needed it, with his strength.
“What the hell did you do to her?” Delilah was screaming at Ivana.
“Shush the tongue, Puss in Boots. I did nothing to Witch Girl.”
Ivana’s voice rolled along the ground with a wave of command. She straightened to full height and—still a vision of dizzying beauty—her voice ricocheted through the yard, knocking over the tombstones that were still standing. A high-pitched keen shot straight through my head, stabbing my third eye as a migraine slammed me. Moaning, I slumped against Smoky, trying to hide my eyes from the light.
Ivana began to laugh. “The Witch cannot handle the pitch of my true voice? Then I will play nice for now.” Within seconds, Ivana the bag lady was back, and her voice was once again the sarcastic tone that grated but did not send me screaming for a quiet, dark place. The headache began to ease up immediately.
More confused than ever, I persuaded Smoky to set me down, still reeling from everything that had gone on. A little unsteady on my feet, I crossed to one of the fallen tombstones and gingerly sat down.
“So, I didn’t actually go anywhere? I didn’t disappear?”
Smoky shook his head. “No. We couldn’t drag you off the tombstone. It was as if it had a suction grip on you and you were gasping for air, like you were being suffocated.”
I cast a long look at the grave marker, but it looked perfectly normal. I didn’t really want to touch it again but leaned over and placed a light finger on it. Cold stone. Nothing more.
“Fuck me hard.”
“Gladly,” Morio spit out before he could stop himself. I gave him a faint grin as he backpedaled. “Sorry. Just habit. What happened?”
