Sploosh.
The gooey substance closes over my head, and I don’t feel anything resembling a floor under my feet. The sewer must be really deep. Don’t think about flesh-eating bacteria and the open wound in my neck. Or brain-eating amoebas. Or the people-eating monster that’s made these sewers a home. Or where the monster goes to the bathroom. Or—
Survival instinct wrenches my hands away from my face, and I begin to flail. My head emerges, and I suck in a breath. The stench is unbearable, as if someone had formulated the worst odor that could exist in nature. What the hell is this stuff?
I’d rather not know. That way lies insanity.
Everything around me is dark, but there’s a faint light in the far distance. I swim toward it. No one jumps into the sewer behind me. That’s good. I guess Hekima can’t maintain the illusion without joining Ariel, and he isn’t willing to follow me here. He doesn’t want his earlier lie of being eaten by Nessie to become reality.
Speaking of the monster, I haven’t been eaten by her either. Not yet, anyway.
I keep on swimming.
The horrific liquid is thick and viscous, and I’d rather not think about why that is. At least that makes floating here easier than in the lakes from the black windows in Nina’s dreams. Now that I’m out of immediate mortal danger, the grossness of what I’m doing is overwhelming. Is it possible to die from disgust? Desperate, I remind myself that even when I’m clean, there are more microbes in and on me than cells with my own DNA.
Nope, that doesn’t help at all. Better not think, period.
I focus on the movement of my arms. Upstroke. Downstroke. Upstroke. Downstroke. The light is nearer. It’s daylight outside the castle’s mountain.
My foot bumps against something mushy, and I’m able to stand and rest. Best not to think about what I’m standing on.
In the direction I came from, the muck ripples. Has Ariel finally jumped in? Hekima? I pull out the knife, unfolding it frantically—not that it’ll help much. Defending myself with this knife will be like trying to put out a forest fire with a water gun.
The ripples intensify, and a head emerges from the mucky water.
My stomach drops to my feet.
There’s no mistaking the long neck and the maw full of dagger-like teeth.
It’s Nessie, and she’s here to eat me.
Chapter Forty-Three
I squeeze the knife so hard my knuckles whiten.
“Go away!” I shout at the creature.
She doesn’t even blink. Her head rises from the muck atop a neck like an anaconda.
“I’m not a pucking goat,” I shout, waving the knife. “Last warning.”
Nessie strikes. Her maw opens as her head flashes toward me. It takes all my martial arts training to stay still and wait for my moment. When the teeth are ready to close around me, I strike.
My blade sinks into her squishy tongue. Yes!
Nessie jerks her head back, ripping the knife from my hand. I dive for the sewer exit and swim for all I’m worth.
Behind me, Nessie roars.
My arms windmill with insane speed, and the light draws nearer. I might be beating a world record of some kind—assuming some sadist keeps track of sewer swim times.
The beast roars again. She’s gaining on me. I impossibly speed up, the proximity of the exit urging me on.
When I finally burst into the light, my eyes take a second to adjust. I’m in the moat in front of the castle, just outside the mountain. The shore is nearby, filled with monks carrying a goat.
Just my luck—Nessie has come across me at lunch time. The good news is that if I hurry, she might eat the goat instead of me.
Fresh air gives my muscles a much-needed boost, and I close the distance in seconds. The stunned monks help me stumble out of the water.
“Nessie,” I pant. “I think she—”
Before I can finish, two monks seize the poor goat and heave it into the moat.
A familiar head appears above the water. Nessie opens her maw again. There’s no sign of the knife I left there, or a wound of any kind. I guess it makes sense that she has some super-healing ability. She’s an incredibly long-lived creature; the legends about her go way back.
A blink later, the goat is gone. So is Nessie.
Whew.
I fish my hand sanitizer out of my soaked pocket and use it all up on my face and hands. “I need to see someone on the Council.”
The tallest of the monks eyes me like I’m crazy. “You can’t. They’re in a meeting and—”
“Does this sound like a normal request?” I growl. “They’re going to want to know what just happened, why I just emerged from the sewer with Nessie on my tail, trying to tell them the truth about who’s kill—”
He holds up a hand. “I’ll take you there.”