Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
“Take us farther out to sea, away from any other ship,” she instructed. She was used to giving orders to her family when they simulated demon attacks. She did so now without thinking.
The ship began to move at once. She stood on the edge of the deck and began a singsong chant, calling to the giant sea centipede, enticing it to follow them. Her hair was unbound, flying like so much silk in the wind. She gathered information that way, the long strands of hair receptors of every detail the wind gathered for her. She was aware of the precise moment the sea centipede locked onto them and changed course.
From her bag she pulled a wicked-looking three-pronged fork. The handle sprang up tall and spiraled.
Petru drew closer to look at it. “A trident?”
She nodded. “You are probably aware the trident was forged in fire and given to the sea. But the prongs represent fire, water and metal, all of the earth. This weapon was developed for warriors of the earth who keep evil from spilling into the world. The sea centipede walks on land and swims in water. The crystal sword burns the small ones from the inside out, but the giant one requires far more to destroy it.”
Petru’s eyes went from liquid mercury to pure silver. He regarded her coolly. She felt a shiver go down her spine. He could be very intimidating, more so even than a giant sea centipede.
“Far more? What is far more?”
“That is what you’re with me to find out,” she retaliated. She was the defender. This was her field of expertise, and she wasn’t going to allow this man, who had a claim on her, to stop her from doing her job.
Petru continued to study her for a few more moments, and then he nodded abruptly and stepped away from her. Safia turned back to the dark water, her mind already dismissing Petru and the others. She was immediately consumed with her task.
The demon was coming toward them at a high rate of speed. He swam on the surface, propelling himself along with his many fins. At night, there was no burning the way there was during the day, so he took advantage by staying on top of the water, just as she’d known he would.
She turned the three prongs upward to face the stars and shifting clouds, setting the long spiraled staff in her palm. Balancing it, she spun the trident so that it whirled fast. It came alive. The prongs each began to glow a different color. One end took on a brilliant shade of lavender. The opposite end was deep dark purple. The middle prong was royal purple.
As Safia spun the trident, the colors deepened and climbed higher and higher into the night sky. The colors reached a cloud and began to tangle together, forming a hollow, round net of shades of purple. The purples were shimmering as if made of millions of stars. The net seemed to have tangled with the cloud itself, infusing the white with darker colors. Immediately, low flashes of lightning began to fork through the cloud as if the trident had awakened an angry dragon.
Safia wasn’t looking up at the colors or cloud; she was looking down at the fast-approaching sea centipede. She needed to turn his approach by a few degrees to ensure his claws didn’t touch the fishing boat. It took concentration to keep her trap in the air precisely where she wanted it and steer the massive demon off course by slowly fouling his sense of direction just enough to put him where she wanted him.
The net descended, opening wider and wider as it did so. It looked as if it were made of fragile filaments as it blossomed open. The centipede was as big as a whale, but when the net dropped, it completely surrounded the centipede without touching it until Safia snapped the trident closed. The net pulled tight beneath the centipede, trapping it inside.
The demon threw its head from side to side and shrieked its rage and hatred. It tried to leap out of the water and cut the net with its lethal pincers. Lightning forked in the dark purple-filled cloud and then traveled down the streaming bright strands of the net to slam again and again into the creature. The jagged bolts of lightning didn’t stop but continued to rain down on the pointed armor of the hapless creature. The centipede smoldered from dozens of places throughout its enormous body.
Safia deftly pulled the crystal sword from the tool belt she had fashioned around her waist and pointed it at the demon’s open mouth. The blue flames began to lick inside along the jaws and tongue. The flames leapt, the wind catching them and spreading them throughout the centipede, driven through the holes made by the lightning. Now the blue flames rolled as they burned the demon clean. She chanted, closing the sea and harbor to Lilith.