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“No one stops chanting!” Bones shouted above the din.
Over his shoulder, I saw the waterspout part and then fall away like a discarded cape. In its place was a seven-foot-tall mostly humanoid woman. Frothy seafoam trailed from her head, reminding me of the Bible verse “it leaves a glistening wake behind, as if the deep had white hair.” Her skin was the color of moonlight on water; not blue, not silvery white, but changing between each color with every glance. And her face…I shuddered even as I fought the urge to kneel.
Her face was the very essence of the sea; in one moment stunningly beautiful, and the next pitilessly violent.
The witches’ chants grew until they were louder than the gunfire that had no effect on the sea goddess. Spade may as well have been firing his rounds into the deepest part of the ocean. When the gunfire stopped and all I heard was several futile clicking sounds, I knew Spade had run out of bullets.
He let out an anguished roar. Then, an assault rifle hurtled toward the sea goddess. It passed through her and disappeared over the cliff. Somehow, that got her attention better than all the bullets had because the swirling twin maelstroms in her face that marked her eyes now settled on Spade.
“No!” Denise shouted. “Leave, Spade. Hurry!”
“Like hell,” he snarled, his voice sounding closer. “Wherever you go, I go.” Then, “Crispin, you know what to do.”
The sea goddess came closer, flowing over the ground like a river rushing over stones. The markings on my forehead that denoted me as her sacrifice kept burning as if they’d been set on fire. I knew it was useless, but I tried to back away again and didn’t gain so much as an inch.
“Last chance!” Bones shouted, his power flashing out in rolling waves that made screams briefly interrupt the witches’ chants. Then, the witches began shouting a single word so loudly that my whole head rang from the sound.
“Ustap.”
The goddess looked away from Spade to focus her strange, swirling eyes on me. I shoved at Bones, begging him to leave. He only flared his power out again. The witches’ shouts grew louder, until the ground trembled from them. Still, the goddess didn’t look away from me. Then her arm rose, water falling from her fingers, as she reached for me—
“Ustap, ustap, ustap!”
The pain in my forehead stopped with the same abruptness that her arm dropped. Then, she recoiled from me as if I were foul. All of a sudden, I was moving, too, my surroundings blurring from speed as Bones flew us away.
