Why don’t they pass out? Abel wondered from his floating vantage, but he knew: they were not human. They were comets, and could take tremendous punishment. They would carve themselves down to nothing if that was what Asterias desired. He tried to move, to change his viewpoint, but he couldn’t seem to alter anything, and even his desire to do so drained away after a moment. He was detached, disassociated, his true self with all its fears and worries and desires located some distance away at the end of a long, long tether.

  The monstrosity in the pool grew larger, from several inches across to several feet, its seven arms thickening and rippling and reaching out for the edges of the pool. Asterias was purplish-black, its flesh warty and pebbled, and dotted all over with eyes. The eyes grew, too, as the body of the monster did, expanding from the size of shirt buttons to the size of human orbs, and then even larger. Some of the eyes had whites and pupils and irises in colors you might see in any person’s face, but other eyes were red, or black, or yellow, and some had horizontal pupils, and some vertical, and some were shaped like barbells or S-curves. It has the eyes of everything it’s ever eaten, Abel thought, and knew it was true: an insight granted him by the touch of the amulet. The eyes of devoured humans, and Deep Ones, and every sort of sea creature unlucky enough to stray close to the maw, or to be tossed into it.

  That meant Abel’s eyes would look out from that hideous pebbled hide, in time. The thought should have brought horror, but he considered it with the same detachment he did the rest of the vision. Asterias had etherized his fear. In its place there was only curiosity: would some part of Abel himself remain after he was devoured, his mind alive inside, seeing what Asterias saw? The amulet did not give him an answer to that, and Abel understood that Asterias wanted him to wonder about the possibility instead. He knew the idea would torment him later.

  A slit formed in the center of the monster’s mass, then opened into a ragged circle filled with teeth and waving tendrils that unfurled like a score of prehensile tongues to pull the last few floating bits of cultist-flesh into the Ravening Deep’s maw. The mouth widened. It widened further. It widened… enough.

  “It is time,” Cain intoned, and suddenly Abel’s vision went black. At the same time, all that detachment vanished, and the accumulated fear slammed into him like a breaking wave. Asterias had only held it back to toy with him. Abel would have screamed, if he’d had a mouth to scream with. He tried to swim back to consciousness, but it didn’t work, because the vision wasn’t over – his perspective shifted instead. Now, rather than being a bodiless observer, he felt like himself, kneeling on stone, arms bound roughly behind him, a sack of stinking canvas covering his head. The cloth was ripped away, and Abel blinked, seeing out of his own eyes now, looking up at Cain.

  The priest of the Ravening Deep had given up his pretense of humanity, his face wide open, revealing his maw-in-miniature to match the larger one in the pool. His sliced-off fingers had already regrown, each one now a rope composed of dozens of intertwined tendrils. He reached down, seizing Abel under the armpits, and dragged him to his feet.

  “No, no,” Abel whimpered. In the past he’d hidden his terror of Cain behind a façade of courage and contempt, but now those bulwarks crumbled. He tried to tear himself away, but Cain was too strong, here in the heart of the temple, wearing the amulet – his power was growing with that of his god, and he could not be resisted.

  Cain dragged Abel to the edge of the pool, the bleeding and maimed zealots moving aside to open a path. He shoved Abel forward, then grabbed onto his arms, still tied behind his back. Cain let Abel dangle, leaning over the pool, his arms screaming in their sockets from the agony of the position. Cain lowered him slowly, slowly, until Abel was looking directly down into the open maw. All of the Ravening Deep’s dozens of eyes were fixed on his face. Abel imagined Asterias growing, spreading, expanding beyond the pool, covering yards, and acres, and everything.

  “You could have been the one feeding the god,” Cain said. “Instead, you are the food.”

  “No,” Abel said again, and then a hundred tendrils burst forth from the revived god’s maw and broke the surface of the water. The slimy appendages wrapped around Abel’s body, his neck, his face – every tendril a burning line of acid – and yanked him out of Cain’s grip, down into the waiting mouth of the Ravening Deep–

  Abel screamed and rolled away, breaking contact with the amulet. He thrashed in his ropes, bucking wildly on the floor of the hold, sobbing and whimpering.

  Cain laughed. “You see? You see, Abel, apostate, heretic, blasphemer? Our god knows the future. He knows what will be. He knows what you will be.” Cain crawled across the deck, his face opening up to reveal that horrible gaping gnashing hunger at the center. His voice still emerged, somehow unchanged. “And what you will be is breakfast.” Cain stood up. “You asked about Diana and Ruby. They’ll be lunch and dinner. Sanford will be dessert. We want to make copies of them first, though, so they’ll have to wait. Being fed to the Ravening Deep by better versions of themselves will be particularly humiliating… as you’ll soon experience yourself.”

  Abel closed his eyes and rolled away, shuddering. He could still feel every line of those burning tendrils. He could still feel the cold of the water when he was pulled in.

  He could still feel the first bite.

  Cain went back up the stairs, laughing all the way, leaving Abel to the darkness.

  Eventually the phantom pains from the vision faded. Abel tried to wriggle out of his ropes, but they were too secure – he could tie knots well, and Cain could do anything he could do, and more.

  His attempt to escape was more a salve to his pride than anything else. Even if he did get free, what would he do? He was on a boat, doubtless miles out to sea. The best he could do would be to leap over the side, and without the power of Asterias to lend him strength, he would drown. Of course, a death in the merciless sea would be preferable to a death in the guts of a monster, but either way, his death wouldn’t do any good. Maybe he’d find a moment in the temple to make a move – in the vision only his arms had been tied, and he knew Cain would follow the dictates of that vision like scripture, sure he was fulfilling a prophecy. If he could run away… free his hands… get the amulet away from Cain… snatch the fragment of Asterias before it could be fed with blood and quickened… If, if, if.

  At least Abel’s friends were still alive – Cain had no reason to lie about that. But how long before Diana and Ruby found themselves in the same position he was in, tied up in the hold of a boat, heading for certain doom? Perhaps they could escape. They were resourceful and quick-thinking – both had proven that more than once. Sanford was with them, too, and there was no telling what secrets he had hidden up his well-tailored sleeves.

  “There’s still hope,” he murmured. His friends might make it out. They might even help. He needed to believe they would.

  And because he believed, he would do everything he could to distract and delay Cain, to give his friends more time to save him.

  By the time the priest came back down into the hold, his face was folded up again, and Abel had wriggled up into a sitting position with his back against the wall. He regarded Cain placidly. “Come for another chat?” he said. “The first one was so enjoyable for both of us.”

  Two acolytes, both unknown to Abel, came down the ladder too, and dragged him to his feet. “We’re almost there,” Cain said. “We thought you’d like to see landfall.”

  The acolytes untied his legs and prodded him up the ladder, which was hard going without his hands to help. Two more cultists waited at the top to drag him up onto the deck and march him to the railing. They were on a single-masted fishing boat, the boards gray and the metalwork scuffed and tarnished. “You couldn’t get your hands on a yacht?” Abel said when Cain emerged from the hold. “This seems a bit beneath you.”

  Cain ignored him. “Bring him to the bow. I want him to see his fate approach.”

  It was after dawn, the sun low off the starboard side, and the sky was almost cloudless. Light blue above, darker blue below, and they were riding the line between. I can’t believe there was a time I truly loved the ocean, Abel thought.

  The acolytes led him up front and then stepped back, leaving him to stand beside Cain. Being so close to the priest made Abel’s skin crawl. The temple was there on the horizon, an unlovely spire of rock like a crooked finger emerging from the waves. “The ledge and entrance to the temple proper are on the far side,” Cain said to the comet manning the helm. “Take us around.” The captain obliged, and the boat began a slow curve to loop around the spire.

  “It’s just a bit of rock covered in guano,” Abel said. “To think there was a time it looked like salvation to me.”

  “It was your salvation, heretic. Soon it will be your doom.” Cain leaned on the railing, radiating eagerness. Abel was surprised he didn’t jump over the railing and start swimming toward the temple. The boat made its way around to the far side and Cain swore.

  There was another boat, a small motorcraft not suited for oceangoing, bobbing nearby. He burst out laughing, his first thought that Diana and Ruby had somehow beaten him here, but that didn’t make sense. Cain glared at him, then began shouting at his acolytes. “Prepare for landing! Someone got here before us, and we must–”

  A gunshot cracked the air, and Cain spun around, blood flying from his left side. Abel dropped to the deck, flattening himself as best he could. Was it Ruby and Diana after all? No, they wouldn’t have fired a gun while Abel was so close to their target. Sanford would, though, or people who worked for him, dispatched here to stand guard?

  Cain sat up, clutching his left arm. “Who’s shooting at us?” he shouted. “Start shooting back!”

  The comet called Altman crawled toward them across the deck, expression more determined than afraid. Once he was close enough to speak to them, he said, “We don’t have a clear shot, Cain. He’s got the spire for cover. What I propose is, I’ll slip into the water, swim over, climb up the side, and see if I can get the drop on him.”

  “Go, go!” Cain snarled.

  Altman crawled to the side of the deck and slithered over the side, disappearing from view.

  “Didn’t see this in your visions, did you?” Abel said. “If he’d been a better shot, he’d have splattered your brains all over the deck. I don’t think even Asterias could heal that. I guess Altman would take up the amulet, in that case, and continue the great work–”

  “Shut up,” Cain hissed, and then dropped to the deck as another shot fired.

  “Go away!” a reedy voice shouted. “This is sacred land, and I claim sanctuary!” Another gunshot, this one wild.

  “Who the hell is that?” Cain said.

  Abel laughed. “You have all my memories, and you don’t recognize that voice?”

  Cain stared at him for a long moment. “No. The professor?”

  “We thought he drowned himself,” Abel said. “But I guess he just swam away, and found a boat, and made his own pilgrimage.”

  “He’s defending the temple.” Cain shouted, “Stillwater, you idiot, it’s us!”

  A moment later, there was another shot, and then Altman’s voice, booming: “It’s safe. Bring in the boat.”

  After an interminable period – for Cain; Abel relished every moment of delay – they moored their boat alongside Stillwater’s smaller craft. They used his motorboat as a stepping stone to reach the temple, and soon the broad, flat ledge was crowded with acolytes, and Abel, still with his arms tied.

  Professor Stillwater was sitting on the stony floor, blood running down his face, one arm hanging at a terrible angle. Altman stood over the comet, holding an old hunting rifle. “I came to pledge myself,” Stillwater mumbled. “I made obeisances at the altar. I made sacrifices.” He held up one hand, short a few fingers. “I have been loyal, I have been devoted, I am sorry, I did not know, I did not know you were also the faithful–”

  “Stillwater,” Cain said. “Look.” He snapped his fingers, and one of his acolytes reached into a leather bag and drew out a familiar jar. “Look what we’ve brought.”

  He held up the jar, and Stillwater gasped. “You brought Asterias home!” He struggled upright, and Altman shifted the gun, but Cain shook his head, stepped forward, and embraced the professor.

  “We should never have doubted your faith,” the priest said. Stillwater sobbed tears of joy. “Let us make our way below, and restore our god.”

  Abel took advantage of everyone’s distraction and kicked the nearest cultist in the knee, making him collapse – and slide right off the slimy rock into the sea. Altman lifted his rifle again, but Cain said, “No, we need him alive!”

  “In that case,” Abel said, and kicked another cultist, this one between the legs, causing him to clutch himself and howl. Before Abel could do any further damage, two other acolytes pushed him down to his knees.

  Altman stepped before him, rifle in hands. “Should I smash him over the head, and let him nap until he’s needed?”

  “No,” Cain said. “Just put the sack over his head. He won’t be able to lash out if he can’t see.” A cultist handed Altman a canvas bag, and the comet grinned as he tugged it down over Abel’s head, cutting off his vision.

  “Let’s get started,” Cain said. “First we go up, and then we go down.”

  Abel was dragged to his feet and yanked roughly forward. He tried to resist, flopping his body and becoming dead weight, but the comets were too strong. He slowed them down, though – free-climbing up that tower of rock to the cave entrance while carrying an unwilling body was difficult even for the preternaturally strong. Abel thought he could prevent their ascent entirely, until Cain finally barked orders and the cultists rigged a rope harness they secured around Abel’s chest and under his arms. They dragged him up the rocky spire, sharp edges of coral ripping into his flesh and making him bleed in two dozen places.

  Death by a thousand scrapes, he thought, and almost giggled. When they paused in their pulling, probably to adjust their grips on the rope, he planted his feet on the wall and pushed off as hard as he could. Someone above shouted, and Abel dropped a few precipitous feet, then banged into the stone tower. He did laugh then. “Careful up there!” he yelled. “Precious cargo here!”

  “Just get him up here!” Cain snarled.

  Soon after – too soon – they hauled Abel over a ledge and dragged him into the little cave. His sack slipped and tore half off his head in the process, and he caught a glimpse again of the altar, the star on the wall, and the hole in the floor. The place, which had once been so eerie and grand, looked like nothing special to him now. It was a ruin, and one best left to its slow work of decay.

  Then someone jammed the bag down on his head again, and the cultists manhandled him down a set of spiral stairs. The hole in the center of the chamber floor, the one he’d glanced into the first time, and only seen darkness – it was actually a passageway to the chambers below. Had there always been stairs in that hole? Surely he would have noticed them. Or had the stairs… grown, in response to the return of the temple’s god?

  Whatever their origin, the stairs went on and on, and Abel made the cultists fight for every step, and in return, they bashed him against the walls until his bones ached. Eventually the passage leveled out, and he heard the hiss of matches being lit. Someone forced him to his knees, down onto hard, damp stone. “You just wait here,” Altman whispered in his ear.

  It was the voice of hopelessness and despair.

  There were murmurings, and shufflings, and gasps, and chanting. Abel couldn’t see what was happening, but he didn’t need to. He’d seen it already. He’d seen it all in his vision.

  And he knew how it would end. Unless Ruby and Diana could somehow change his fate.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Ravening Deep

  Diana, Ruby, and Sanford crouched low as the Silver Key motored toward the temple spire and the two boats moored there. They were prepared for resistance. “My boat is bulletproof,” Sanford said. “Among its many other fine qualities. Alas, the two of you are not. Stay behind the windscreen, and keep those guns ready.”

  Diana watched the temple grow larger, a pistol clutched in her hand. The rocky island was just as Abel had described it, only without even a hint of majesty – it was just a finger of stone and coral pointed at the sky, the whole isle no bigger than the gazebo in Independence Square. She was tensed for a gunshot, or at least a shout, but no one seemed to take notice of their coming but the crying gulls.

  Sanford circled around the spire, approaching the side of the rock where the other boats were moored, one good-sized fishing vessel and one small motorboat. “You know, they might not have beaten us here by much, if that was their transport,” Sanford mused. “We’re a lot faster than they are. I will slightly revise my estimate of Abel’s chances of survival.”

  “Don’t ask him to put a number on that chance, Diana,” Ruby said. “I’m afraid it will still be depressing.” She rose a little, peering at the bobbing boats and the flat shelf of rock beyond. “Why isn’t anyone trying to kill us? Didn’t they leave any sentries?”

  “Perhaps not. Imagine that the god you adore above all else, even above the value of your own life, is about to be reborn downstairs. Would you agree to stay above on guard duty, and miss the blessed event? Cain could have insisted, and I’m sure his acolytes would have obeyed, however reluctantly, but…” He shook his head. “These priests of… eldritch faiths… have a tendency toward overconfidence.”

  “Because they believe their god is on their side,” Diana said.

  “Exactly,” Sanford said. “I know you can’t trust gods at all, and they’re best avoided entirely, unless you have considerable leverage over them.”

  “I love hubris.” Ruby checked her shotgun’s load. There was a pistol tucked into her purse, too, which she wore across her chest like a bandolier. “It always makes my job so much easier. What’s the plan?”