It’s the most disgusting and terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
“The Devouress,” Rasmus says in a raspy voice before continuing his chanting.
I stare at him in horror. “And you’re not going to do anything?”
He ignores me.
But The Devouress doesn’t.
Her mouth starts to spin like a vortex of teeth and she spits onto the deck of the boat, right in front of me. I barely have time to get over how gross that was before the hunk of saliva starts moving and shifting, dividing and dividing until it becomes hundreds of translucent snakes, all slithering toward me at increasing speed.
I scream again and start wielding my sword, chopping a few in half before they all overtake me and I’m being pushed back to the deck, failing, struggling beneath the slimy writhing bodies.
This is it. This is how it ends. Indiana Jones’ worst nightmare.
Then the snakes scatter and one thick strong tentacle grabs me by the waist, wrapping around me and lifting me high off the boat, squeezing my ribs like a python until I’m sure my bones are being pulverized. I drop the sword on the deck and open my mouth to scream, but air is choked out of my lungs and I can’t breathe, can’t get a single gulp of air in.
No, this is how it ends.
The Devouress lets out a high-pitched scream, it’s breath hot and smelling of decaying fish as it blasts me, and I manage to see Rasmus down below throw his arms out to the sides, as if he’s some sort of savior leading a church proceeding on the boat.
While The Devouress screeches, squeezing me to death the water behind her begins to whirl and stir, and just like that the tentacle lets me go as if it’s suddenly bored of me.
I scream again and fall straight down into the sea, the water shockingly cold as my body sinks fast below the surface. I try to keep my mouth shut, to stop from breathing in, and I know I have to get rid of my coat and my boots if I want to swim to the surface.
Suddenly hands wrap around my ankles, around my legs, my wrists and arms. I start flailing, kicking, trying to swim free, and it’s so black I can’t see a thing. I don’t know who or what’s holding me down, but I know they mean to drown me in these depths.
Oh god, oh god. Now I’m really going to die.
A strangely beautiful tone, similar to whale song, erupts all around me and through the black I see glowing bubbles rising to the surface all around me, and I realize I’ve been completely disoriented, thinking the hands were bringing me down to the inky depths when really they’re trying to pull me up.
The singing intensifies, vibrating in my bones, and the glowing bubbles grow brighter and brighter as if the water has come alive with phosphorescence. Once, in Cabo, I went swimming in the ocean at night, the water having come alive with it and glowing, but that experience doesn’t even hold a candle to what’s happening now.
And through the streams of glowing bubbles, I’m starting to see flashes of female faces, beautiful faces, then flowing hair, and iridescent scales that shine coral, pearl, and sky-blue.
Suddenly I’m breaking through the surface, gasping for air, the boat Norfinn a few yards away. I can’t see Rasmus, but I also can’t see The Devouress either. Instead there’s a bright white light coming from the bow.
The hands are still holding me up underwater, supporting me, and one by one five heads break the surface and smile at me. Five mesmerizingly beautiful women with hair the color of turquoise, and snow, of lilac, gold, and fire.
Mermaids. Fucking mermaids.
I’m not sure I even have the strength to be surprised anymore. If there are murder swans and lady lamprey serpents, why not mermaids? At least these ones seemed to have saved my life, contrary to all the legends and myths about them being man-killers.
They don’t say anything and their rueful singing has stopped but they swim me over to the side of the boat where I yell, “Rasmus! A little help!”
His head appears over the side, a wide smile breaking across his face.
“You’re alive!”
“Thanks to the mermaids,” I tell him. “Mermaids!”
“I was hoping they’d show,” he says, holding out his arms and leaning over, grabbing me by the elbows and pulling me up. The mermaids give me a bit of a boost, a pair of hands going to my butt and pushing me until I’m falling over the side, sprawled on my back on the deck.
I take in a deep breath and then move my head to the side to see a woman standing at the bow, glowing with incandescent light. Her skin is pale, ageless, while her eyes are bright blue and hint at eons past. She has a tall headdress on that resembles a bishop’s hat made of pearls and scales, and fishbones that flow over the rest of her body like a dress, with giant shimmering clamshells at her shoulders.