Nicholas Smith - Wolves

The king spoke to him, and the man faced Magnolia. In near-perfect English, he said, “My name is Imulah. I am a scribe serving King Pulpo in all his glory. Our lord speaks only a bit of English, so I will assist in translation. To start, he wants to know your name and where you came from.”

Her eyes met the servant’s. There was empathy there, and a subtle nod as if to say, Do as you’re told, and it will go better for you. His eyes dropped to the floor, and he lowered his shiny pate in obeisance.

“My name is Magnolia,” she said, standing as tall as she could despite her injuries. “I am from the sky, and I’m here to kill your king.”

The servant glanced up and slowly shook his head, as if he didn’t want to relay her words.

“Go ahead, tell him,” Magnolia said.

The man swallowed and looked to el Pulpo, who was scrutinizing him with a deep gaze from his single eye. They exchanged several words, and el Pulpo reared his head back, laughing uproariously. His deep voice echoed off the metal castle walls.

The other servants all stared at the floor, but the two guards behind her chuckled.

Magnolia remained stone-faced. She crossed her arms over her torn shirt.

El Pulpo laughed for another few moments and then ran a hand over the strip of hair on his head.

Walking forward, he came within inches of her face and then clamped his teeth together. She turned her head slightly, holding the air in her lungs to keep his rotten breath at bay.

He leaned in, his eye roving back and forth as he studied her face, neck, chest, and body. She closed her eyes, shivering when his cold tongue ran up and down her cheek.

“ Tu eres guapa , he said. “You muy beautiful.” Then he pulled back and gave the small robed man another order.

“He wants me to tell you that he needs a new queen.” The man paused, then added. “He said his other ten wives will be jealous at first, but he will protect you. Your dog, however…”

Magnolia looked down at Miles, then back to the man. “You tell your king that if he hurts Miles, I will bite his tiny pecker off and throw it to the fish. I’ll fit right in with you sick cannibal pricks.”

The servant’s eyes widened, and he quickly shook his head.

“Tell him.”

Again el Pulpo laughed at her words. This time he put a hand on his chest armor, directly on the engraving of the octopus.

“ Me gusta ,” he said, chuckling. “ Me gusta mucho .”

His grin remained, showing off a wedge of pink stuck between his two front teeth. It looked a lot like flesh.

Was that the smell on his breath? Was she breathing the scent of roasted human flesh?

Her stomach churned at the thought. She suddenly didn’t feel so strong anymore. Her shoulders sagged, and her knees started to buckle.

Imulah looked at her with the saddest gaze she had ever seen—the gaze of a man who had lost everything, including his soul. She wondered about his life, where he was from, how he had come to live here with these people.

She pictured herself standing in his place.

No , she thought. I will not become a slave. I will never give myself to this maniac.

Magnolia exhaled and straightened her back. Then she did what she had been wanting to do for a while. She spat in el Pulpo’s face.

He reared back, the spit dripping from his chin. To her amazement, his smile remained.

At the distant crack of gunfire, he looked over her shoulder to the water beyond. He directed one of his soldiers toward the railing and then turned back to Imulah.

Apparently, gunfire wasn’t all that big a deal on the Metal Islands.

Miles nudged her leg, his muscles shivering.

“El Pulpo wants to know how you found us,” the servant said.

Magnolia remained silent.

“You’re only hurting yourself if you don’t talk,” he said.

El Pulpo wiped the rest of the spittle off his face and tasted it with his long tongue. Magnolia’s stomach churned again.

As he licked his finger clean, the gunfire returned, this time followed by a raucous explosion.

She turned back to the view of the ocean and the oil rigs.

Flames licked the horizon, where one of the platforms had exploded. A massive blast suddenly flared, and the entire structure seemed to go up in a small mushroom cloud. El Pulpo shoved her out of the way and ran after his two guards for a better view.

“I’m not the only one who came to kill you!” Magnolia shouted after him. “The man who took your eye is here, and this time he will finish the job.”

El Pulpo halted and looked back to Imulah, who quickly translated her words. The smile on the king’s face was gone now. He snorted at her like one of the armored hogs on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

“That’s right, you lump of Siren shit. The devil’s coming, and he won’t show you any mercy. Xavier Rodriguez is the king of the surface—not you,” she said, wagging a purple-painted fingernail.

El Pulpo raised one pierced brow while the robed servant explained her words. The next thing happened with such speed, she had no chance to react.

He smacked her in the head with the crown of his head, blocking out the sunlight in a sudden blow. She collapsed to the floor, feeling the wet fur of the dog beneath her crumpled body.

The C4 had done the trick.

X sped away from the oil rig. He had selected it because it appeared to be just a warehouse with floors and floors of stacked junk—nothing vital to his own people’s future needs.

Another explosion rocked the structure, enveloping the entire rig. Flames licked the sky. In a few hours, the entire skyline would be obscured in smoke.

His plan wasn’t perfect, but it could work. It had to.

Creating chaos was his only way to save Magnolia and Miles. If he could give the impression that there were more hostiles than one out here, he might have a chance to follow his friends’ beacons while they remained alive.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw Cazadores in flames, jumping off the platforms into the water. Others were flailing in the ocean.

Some of them had made it to boats anchored beneath the structure. X hadn’t seen any children or women before detonating the C4—another reason he had selected the warehouse, even though part of him considered all these people enemies, just like the Sirens.

Anyone who wants to eat me, I’m happy to kill.

Still, he couldn’t help but have qualms about killing kids and women. They were still human, unlike the Sirens, which had developed into an entirely new species.

He felt a faint pang of remorse, but nothing he couldn’t get over.

He hadn’t come here to make peace. He came for revenge.

And now they had his friend and his dog.

If it meant saving two of the most important beings in his life, he would kill every last one of them.

So far, his plan was working.

None of the bastards back on the platform had seemed to recognize him before he detonated the C4. The drivers of boats and WaveRunners that passed him didn’t seem to pay him any mind, either.

Dozens of the vessels zoomed away from the clusters of oil rigs in the distance. They were too enraged to pay close enough attention. Cazador soldiers raised weapons and screamed in Spanish.

And they didn’t seem to have a way of communicating over distance, which gave him another advantage. No radios to connect them and help them sort out what was going on. He would use that to his advantage.

X steadied his breathing and rode the waves as fast as he could, heading for the beacon on his wrist monitor. Timothy was still active on the Sea Wolf and was feeding him information via his headset under the baseball cap and goggles X had taken off the dead Cazador soldier.