“Rasmus!” I yell at him. “I can’t do this alone! What the hell is this thing?”
The water in front of the bow of the ship begins to break up, waves sloshing, and I see a giant head begin to emerge from below the surface. At first I think it’s another snake head, but then I see white hair matted against a narrow skull and then the monster rises up and up and…
My screams echo off the iron hull.
This creature is about twenty-feet tall, maybe thirty, and at first glance I’m sure it’s like a giant woman, but I can’t be sure. She has the low-hanging breasts and torso of a woman, but her thighs taper off into something reptilian, splitting into tentacles and snakes. Her face is flat and gray, with snake eyes set off to the far sides, no nose, and in the middle is a wide circular mouth lined with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth that remind me of a giant lamprey. Black leeches cover her waxy skin and there’s a long flickering forked tongue sticking right out of her throat.
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.