Chapter Twenty-six
As plans went, this probably ranked as the dumbest. Felipe heard the broad—who was apparently related to his boss—claim they needed to kill Jenny, and Felipe lost his furry mind. It was the only explanation for why he dove into the whirling maelstrom forming in the sea.
Why he chose that spot he couldn’t have quite said. Instinct drew him—oh, and the whisper from Gaia and ghostly shove saying, “Go, she’s down there. Only you can help her now.” How Mother Nature accomplished that when she stood at the prow arms outstretched, laughing in the wind and sea spray he didn’t care to wonder about, not when he was caught in an epic swirly.
Around and around he spun, soaked and yet miraculously not drowning, even if he was plenty dizzy. A funnel formed, leading him down. Much like a bobbing piece of flotsam, he let the current take him. He didn’t bother to fight the suctioning whirlpool. He saved his strength because it soon became evident it was taking him where he needed to be—the bottom of the ocean where a water-free clearing formed a sandy-based amphitheater. Standing alone and bedraggled in the center, Jenny sang. Tone-deaf or not, it didn’t take a music connoisseur to recognize the magic forming.
Whether this Muriel chick liked it or not, and good or bad for Hell, whatever she feared had already begun, and Felipe chose his side. There was never any question actually. He chose Jenny.
In spite of the roaring water, the distant sound of cannon fire, and even the screams, Felipe couldn’t help but hear as Jenny’s voice weaved a spell. A mighty one. A terrible one. And yet, the most captivating sound he’d ever heard. Even he could appreciate the haunting beauty of each powerful note. He could practically see them float past him, colorful swirls of esoteric force pulled up the vortex of the whirlpool to a grey sky full of whirling clouds.
When he hit the sandy bottom, littered with the twitching sea life left behind, he lay there gasping for air, trying to regain his wits. However, much like a king cobra, the music held him in thrall, as did the woman uttering the notes.
In the center of the whirlpool’s eye, Jenny stood, hair whipping around, the tendrils dancing as if alive. Her toga, a shredded rag barely covering her flesh, fluttered, offering teasing glimpses of her flesh. In her eyes, the wild blue waves danced, and from her mouth, the terrible, beautiful melody poured, growing in sound, expanding in volume. The spell reached its peak.
He staggered to his four furry feet. A part of him recognized he should stop the music. But he didn’t need to kill her to do so, just silence her before she could finish. As he went to move in her direction, arms reached from the wall of water ringing the space and grasped at him.
The scrabbling fingers missed. Whirling, he noted the milling school of mermaids, their seaweed hair trailing around them as they thrashed back and forth in the water, their black orbs challenging him to enter their oceanic domain. As if. He snarled at them, inviting them instead to meet him on solid ground, yet none dared cross the watery threshold. He batted at their feeble flails and, when he realized they posed no threat, turned to face Jenny.
Except an obstacle stood in his way. It seemed not all the mermaids feared meeting him. One stood with her seaweed hair streaming down her back, her lips peeled back over gums revealing a vicious snarl. Forget the cute cartoons of mermaids. This aquatic hybrid was the stuff monster legends were made of, and she apparently wanted to kill him.
It wasn’t just the long knife she stabbed his way but the uttered, “Die, feline spawn!” that tipped him off. He dodged her first lunge and swiped at her leg, his claws leaving bloody furrows in her skin.
It didn’t slow her down. With a scream of rage, she came at him again. However, in her mad dash, she left herself open, and he took full advantage, his teeth ripping through flesh and tearing a major artery. Down to the sand, she slumped, limbs twitching but still spouting vitriol.
“You are too late to stop the abomination. At last my shame will be my triumph. My body and soul will be cleansed of the foul thing done to it.”
Too late? Shit. Felipe ignored the dying mermaid to refocus on Jenny and maybe still manage to stop the song.
But he was too late.
Everyone was too late.
The last note rang with a clarity that raised every hair on his body. Up rose the last clarion treble of the spell, a mote of light so stark against the dark sky. It hit the swirling clouds and flashed, leaving in its spot a hole, no, make that a portal, a portal that widened and widened…
Would no one stop it? Jenny had fallen to her knees, panting. Felipe did not have the skills to close it. But what of the others, those who rode the waves?
At the lip of the whirlpool, so far above his head, Felipe could see Lucifer’s battleship, a tiny toy tossed and rocked not only by the tempestuous sea but by tentacles. Big tentacles. Holy fuck, were those kraken attacking the ship?
Even at a distance, he could see the zaps of power as the magic users on board shot at their foes. Specks of bodies leapt from the vessel and drove matchsticks into the limbs, the Viking berserkers having a grand old time. However, while everyone was engaged with the danger at hand, no one was paying attention to the massive hole in the sky. And something approached. Something big. Bad. Powerful.
He held his breath. The whole realm probably did. Time seemed almost to stop for a moment, or at least slow down, for he could see everything with such clarity. The ugly rip in the sky, the ringing storm clouds, the blinding flash of light.
He blinked, just for a second, and when he opened his eyes again, the hole in the sky was gone. Vanished without a cloud to be seen. Not a monster in sight. Nothing except the lingering sense the world had changed, but in a way he could not immediately perceive.
His fur stood on end as if electrified. When a hand brushed it down, he whirled with a snarl and snapping jaws.
Jenny snatched back her hand. He immediately calmed down and changed shapes. He crushed her to him. “Thank all the souls in Hell you’re safe,” he murmured against the top of her head.
“You came for me,” she whispered against the bare skin of his chest.
“I will always come for you.”
“But you hate the water. You said you’d never sail again.”
“Yeah, well, love makes a man do stupid things.”
She froze in his arms. “What did you say?”
Too much. “So, I hear your singing is supposed to bring about some kind of apocalypse.”
The twitch of her lips was probably a smile against his chest as he less than deftly changed the subject. “I wasn’t given much choice. They had my aunt. It was either sing as the mermaids ordered, or they would have killed her. I would rather die than see any of my aunts come to harm.”
“You know Lucifer hates altruism.”
“You think he’ll be mad?”
“Nah. Because, lucky for you, he loves a good war. If you ask me, he wanted this to happen.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Just a funny feeling.”
She tilted her head back and peered at him, anxiety clear in her expression. “But what just happened? Where’s the big baddie? Did I miss its arrival?”
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a girl, and it changed its mind.” Jenny stepped on his toes, and he grinned through his wince. “Or the doorway closed before it got through. I don’t know. All I know is we’re both still alive. And I, for one, am totally good with that.”
“So what happens next?”
The whirling waves slowed their circular motion, and the circle of sand drew smaller and smaller, much like the hangman’s noose, except instead of snapping their necks, they’d drown. Not a better alternative if you asked him. “I don’t suppose you know how to fly?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Got any scuba gear hiding around here?”
“Nope, and there’s no way we can swim that far up before we both run out of air.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. Then I guess we’d better pray.”
“To who?”
“To me, I hope,” boomed a voice.
What the hell was it lately with fucking people sneaking up on him! Felipe whirled to face the newcomer, some big, muscled surfer dude wearing a crown and sporting, of all things, a trident.
“Who the hell are you?” he snapped, not at all pleased at the tiny loincloth the tanned jerk wore.
“Most know me as Neptune, but Jenny can call me father.”