My stomach made a loud grumbling noise, which drew a half-amused, half-alarmed glance from Ida.

“Maybe eating five pounds of beans before sneaking onto an island full of murderers and warlocks wasn’t a hot idea,” I suggested.

We were towards the back of the ship, hiding in a little room used to store extra chairs. It was the final moments before we’d jump off and make our swim—once we were ready, we’d dash to deck two and make the leap. In preparation, we’d spent a good amount of our prep time trying to come up with a plan to save the passengers and crew (and slaves); the best we could come up with was to simply kill the warlocks so there’d be no one left to sacrifice them. Following that it was a “play it by ear” kind of situation, where Alice had floated the idea of arming the crew, holding a location on the island while she and I figured out a way to contact any mundane authorities. Ida had asked about a spell that would kill the pirates and guards en masse, which returned horrified looks from Alice and I so she dropped it. The lady was not a fan of these guys.

We had our bootleg amulets that Alice was “ninety-five percent” sure would work and allow us onto the island. I had prepared a few other one-use items that I kept in several zip-lock bags to protect them from the ocean. They were simple spells written on card stock that Alice had scrounged up. It’d allow me options so I could keep my spell casting to a minimum and reduce the risk of cooking my brain if things got hot. I’d rather keep myself fresh in case I had to fight Mr. Stabs and Forgettable again.

I’d also enchanted Alice’s last three charms with the mental protection spell I’d slapped on my neck during my panicked moments after the pirates initially boarded. I hadn’t been able to test it against Terrance’s ability, but I hoped it’d stop or at least blunt the psychic attack. Ida, Alice and I wore them under our shirts and kept them pressed against our skin.

I’d also spent a good hour fiddling with my tentacles. I discovered some neat things I could do with them that I hoped would give me a serious edge when I tangled with the warlocks again. The main thing I was happy with was I figured out how to call them out without my eyes turning into portals to the void; so that was nice. I wasn’t keen to figure out if water would flow into them when I went swimming.

After a bit our preparations started to slow, and we reached that point where you can only prepare so much before it becomes procrastination. Alice had finished enchanting the gym bag to be stronger and water tight, and had stuffed all of our weapons, supplies and even changes of clothes inside and sealed it.

“We ready?” Alice asked, standing up from the bag. She still wore her enchanted items but had changed into an athletic two-piece swimsuit that I was mostly succeeding at not staring at.

“Oui,” Ida said after a deep breath. She was in a sports bra and shorts with a sheathed knife strapped to her bicep. She was also distracting to look at but I kept myself as professional as I could. While Alice was smooth curves, Ida was hard lines and defined muscle. You could grate cheese on her abs. Not that I looked too hard, or anything.

“Almost,” I said. “Gotta put away my gloves.” I began to summon the interdimensional cubby I used to store the Limbs of the Other Side. After the throaty chant was done a sliver in reality slightly smaller than the one I used for my book appeared in the air before me.

“You can summon two cubbies?” Alice complained, incredulous.

“Shouldn’t you keep them on?” Ida asked.

“They’re slightly hydrophobic, and I don’t want them to interfere with my swimming,” I half-lied to Ida. I saw Alice frown at my comment, but she didn’t say anything. She probably picked up on the half-truth with her mind juju. Damned empaths.

The real reason I wanted to put away the LotOS is because after killing (Murdering(SHUTUP)) the pirate and injuring the Russian, I had noticed that the limbs absorbed other liquids as well. None as enthusiastically as blood, but I didn’t want to discover what would happen if I submerged them in the ocean.

“Alright, in you go,” I said to the gloves and socks, giving the mental nudge. Unlike when I had worn them before, the shadow-stuff seemed reluctant to leave—which was all sorts of worrying. After a hesitant moment, they slid off my limbs and into the tear in space.

“Jesus, Colm, your hands,” Alice breathed.

I looked down from where the Limbs had disappeared to and looked at my hands. Starting from midway into the palm and extending to the tips of my fingers, my skin turned ink black and seemed slightly light absorbent. I curled my fingers to look at my nails and they were long, thick—not quite claw-like but also very much not the way they normally are—and equally black as the rest of the effective area, if a bit reflective. Like polish had been applied.

I felt a trill of panic race through my abdomen and settle in my gut, but I quashed it down and continued with my examination. I rubbed my thumb and fingers together, relieved when I could feel no difference in the texture of the skin. The coiled panic in my stomach lessened as I ran my fingers over my forearm. It felt like fingers and didn’t leave a mark. I smelled them.

They smelled sweaty and stinky, like I’d been wearing gloves for a week. But otherwise they smelled like skin. I glanced down at my feet. The same discoloration started on the bridge of my foot to the tips of my toes. My toenails were similar to my fingernails; thicker, longer and with a slight sheen.

Now that I determined I wasn’t in immediate danger, the panic I had been holding back was battering at the door. My breathing quickened—coming in short, abortive breaths. My hands began to shake and I made a fist to try and still them. That turned out to be a mistake as it made my changed nails bite into my palm, sending a new wave of realization and panic up my spine.

“Maybe they are just stained?” Ida suggested, radiating calm besides Alice’s anxious worry. “Like how my fingers are red for a week after I pick cherries with my grand-mére?”

“I don’t think—“ Alice started speaking but I didn’t pick up what she was saying, as I had latched onto what Ida had said. I met her eyes and saw the understanding there. She knew this was potentially a very serious situation. Alice reacted with concern, but Ida knew I was concerned enough. I needed something to ground me.

It wasn’t the perfect thing to say in this situation, but it was close enough that it allowed me to shove aside the panic and shelve my worries for later. I can worry about Eldritch Skin Cancer after I saved several hundred people from a fate worse than death.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, cutting Alice off. “We have a job to do. I can worry about whatever the fuck this is after we’ve prevented mass murder.”

Alice looked like she wanted to say more but eventually nodded. I closed the rift to the cubby holding the LotOS with a dismissive wave of my hand took a deep breath.

“Alright,” I said, straightening my shoulders. I took the jury-rigged harness Ida had slapped together and tied it around my waist. “Let’s boogie.”

* * *

“This was a lot easier at night,” I said, pausing before jumping off the side of the ship. “It didn’t look so high back th—GAH!”

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Ida shoved me.

She didn’t do it hard enough to actually push me off the railing, but I got the message and jumped. We were on the far side of the ship, facing away from the island. (I know there’s a term for that, “lee” or something, but I’m now leaving the ship and all nautical terms behind.) The other side of the ship was a hive of pirate activity as they ferried prisoners from the ship to the island.

I hit the water and was shocked with how cold it was. How far south have we come? Now we really needed my plan to work, as we couldn’t spend more than fifteen to twenty minutes in this water or we’ll risk hypothermia.

I looked around and wasn’t impressed by the waters of Pirate Island. When I think of an island base, I guess my opinion has been shaped by Bond films or other media because I expected storm clouds and a skull fortress and roiling seas. Or maybe a tropical island with a volcano base or something. I didn’t expect… brown. Brown water. Because of my enhanced vision I could see for a few hundred feet but further than that everything was a brown haze. There was also a lot of trash in the water. Oh my God I’m going to get eye hepatitis or something in this shit.

Shoving my anxiety aside, I focused on my tentacles and shifted them. It was kinda like trying to find a station on an AM radio, only the dial was vast beyond measure and incredibly sensitive, with multiple dimensions it could move. I’d practiced when the girls were changing, which I was thankful for now as it took a bit to find just the right frequency.

My tentacles flowed into existence behind me, but they were different than before. Instead of ending in a slightly blunted point, the end of each black limb had a three foot fin. The girls had agreed to give me a few moments before they jumped after me to give me a some time to experiment, which is what I did.

It was awkward at first. Operating the limbs in water was very different. It made their lack of bones and structure much more apparent, as if the entire tentacle was just a series of woven muscles with no under structure. God, I had so much studying to do if I lived through this. How the hell do tentacles work in nature? Going to have to look up octopus vivisections and whatnot.

I was just figuring out a rhythm and really putting on some speed when I heard three splashes behind me. I banked awkwardly in the water and emerged a few feet away from the ladies, just as they surfaced. Surprisingly, the bag floated. Not like a buoy or a pool floatie, but it had enough buoyancy to have parts of it above the water. I had thought it’d sink for sure with all the metal in it. Must be enough air trapped inside to keep it afloat.

Ida was swearing in French. The only bits I caught were “cold” and a lot of “shit.” Alice was breathing fast, clutching her arms to her chest in a futile attempt to conserve warmth. I uncoiled the ropes from the harness on my waist and helped them hook themselves up to me, then did the same for the gym bag.

“I’m going to go out parallel with the boat for a bit,” I said, pointing where I had indicated. “They have a lot more eyes to keep watch now and I don’t want to be shot before we make it a hundred feet.”

I got nods from them. With that I awkwardly turned and reoriented, careful not to tangle myself or my tentacles up in the ropes tied to my waist. Once I was sure I wasn’t going to give myself rope burns or drown the ladies, I ducked my head under the water and began to swim with my new flippers.

It was awkward going at first. The drag of the two ladies and the bag took a lot of effort and I began to fear that my brilliant plan to tow everyone to the island was going to horribly fail. But after a bit I adjusted my rhythm and added a kind of twisting motion to my tentacles and we shot off like a rocket. We started going so fast that I actually had to slow down a bit as the water started to really sting my eyes.

I surfaced every now and then to allow us to breath, but tried to keep our surface time to a minimum to reduce the chance of being spotted. Which is probably the reason I saw the three big as fuck sharks heading our way.

“MAARGH!” I shouted bubbles under water, pointing to the left at the three shapes shooting toward us like self-guided missiles.

Ida and Alice turned to look but shot me looks of confusion. Oh, right, they hadn’t given themselves perfect underwater vision. Der. I pulled us up to the surface.

“There’s fucking three big ass sharks coming!” I stage shouted as their heads broke the surface, worried the sound might carry across the water. “Can you do your Jedi mind trick on them?” I asked Alice.

“If they were dogs, maybe!” Alice said, her voice shrill. “Animals don’t react to emotions like we do! I’m not even sure if sharks have emotion!”

Ida had her knife in her hand and was squinting in the direction I had indicated. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Okay, so—I needed to do something. I started undoing the makeshift harness around my waste but the water had gotten into the knot and it wouldn’t undo. Frustrated I gripped it in my hands and just tried to slip it down my waist. It got caught on my shorts and wasn’t budging—

There was a loud snap as the harness snapped apart in my hands.

Okay. So. I’m a lot stronger than I normally am. Keep that in mind, Colm.

“I’m going to head them off,” I said, dropping the harness. “Keep swimming for shore.”

I got nods from them both. As they turned to swim away I kicked a bit to get elevation and saw we had traveled maybe half the distance. Okay. Okay, okay. I took a deep breath and dove into the water.

The sharks had covered a lot of ground (water?) since I last spotted them and they were only a few hundred feet away. I berated myself for putting away my LotOS at that moment. I don’t know what protection they would give against shark teen but it had to be better than my bare skin.

I began to swim toward them, taking off like a rocket (or jet ski, I guess) without the drag of the two girls and our gear. If the sharks were surprised by the sudden advance of a man-shaped rocket, they didn’t show it in their dead eyes or body language. They seemed to be swimming in formation, which they broke as I approached. The two on the outside broke off, I assume to either flank me or to pursue my friends. I didn’t want them to surround me in any case, so I banked after the one to my right, putting on speed despite the discomfort to my eyes.

The shark immediately oriented on me as I approached and attempted to take a bite out of me, moving surprisingly fast. I flailed out of the way, spoiling most of my speed in the process, but avoided having a chunk of my shoulder torn off. I went to claw it as it passed, only remembering I didn’t have my claws when my fingers scrapped alongside the rough skin of the shark. I’d gotten so used to having them over the last week or so that as soon as I was in danger my reflexes took over.

I took a moment to mentally call myself a moron and spun around. If I was a shark, I’d attack when my prey was distracted. Sure enough, as soon as I turned I saw a gaping maw and rows of triangular teeth coming for me. I punched it.

If you had asked me what I expected to happen before I threw the punch, I would have said something along the lines of “making it break off” or “hurting its sensitive nose so it missed.” I didn’t expect the extremely loud crunch or the cloud of blood as I created a fist sized crater into the sharks face.

The sharks momentum kept it moving forward and it pushed against my fist and we both kind of pivoted on my shoulder and slapped our bodies together in the water, like an impromptu chest bump. It was still moving, but it was moving in short, spasmodic jerks of either extreme pain or brain damage. I stared in dumbfounded surprise until my lungs reminded me I needed to breath air, which also reminded me there were two more sharks that could be eating my friends.

Now much more comfortable moving in the water, I shot away from the dying shark and broke the surface. I had enough momentum to get a bit of air, but not enough to turn my fall into a dive and I almost lost the lungful of air I gulped as I belly-flopped back into the ocean. I groaned in pain, hoped no one saw that and dove back down.

One shark was chasing me but I saw the other one closing in on the girls. I used my tentacles for all they were worth, squinting my eyes tight against the rush of water as I closed in on the shark. It sensed me coming and turned toward me with alarming dexterity, almost doubling over itself. Learning my lesson from my first encounter I dove away from its bite, spun back on myself much like it had just done and came up under it, fist extended in the classic Street Fighter Shoryuken pose.

It didn’t deliver as much power as a straight punch would have, but it definitely hurt the thing. It arced its body away from me and tried to get away, but I wasn’t having that. My follow-up left punch caught it just as it was leaving my reach, in an area I strongly suspected its genitals were. It writhed a bit as it swam away, strangely silent. There was something wrong with its movement, and I assumed it wouldn’t resume pursuit anytime soon.

I turned to try and locate the final one, to find it fleeing. Good. Even if I had been pretty effective against them, it’d just take one mistake on my part to lose an arm or worse.

I surfaced, breathing heavily. “Jesus,” I muttered as I floated on my back for a moment. “I just punched out a shark.”

I rested a bit, thinking of the bragging rights I’d have for the rest of my life if I lived through this ordeal. When my breathing calmed down I shook my head to clear out the thoughts and swam after my friends, easily catching up with them. I caught the broken harness that was trailing behind them in my hands and surfaced in front of them.

“I’m pretty sure I killed one,” I said, glancing back in the direction the sharks had fled. “And the other two are running.”

I was secretly hoping they’d ask how I killed it, but I was disappointing. “Thank God,” Alice said. “Can you still drag us with that?” She pointed at the broken harness in my hands. I noticed she was shivering. Ida was looking around for threats, keeping her knife between her teeth so she could swim with her hands. Some of her hair had come out of her tail and was clinging to the side of her face, giving her a wild aspect. It was a good look for her.

“Yeah,” I replied to Alice. “I don’t actually use my hands to swim when I got these,” I waved a tentacle above the water to illustrate. “Deep breaths, everyone.”

We all inhaled and dropped under the water.

There were no more surprises on the way to the island, thankfully.