Candy followed his gaze skyward. The zethek were less than ten yards from the boat now, swooping down over the twilight sea to begin their scavenging. Candy didn’t like the idea of trying to protect herself against them unarmed, so she grabbed hold of the wrench in Skebble’s left hand. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that!” she said, surprising even herself.
“Take it!” he said, and went to help the rest of the crew with the labor of closing the holds.
Candy headed for the ladder on the side of the wheelhouse. She put the wrench between her teeth (not a pleasant experience: it tasted of fish oil and Skebble’s sweat) and clambered up the ladder, turning to face the zethek once she reached the top. The sight of her standing on the wheelhouse, the wrench in her hand like a club, had put a little doubt in them. They were no longer swooping down on the Parroto Parroto but hovering ten or twelve feet above it.
“Come on down!” Candy yelled to them. “I dare you!”
“Are you crazy?” Charry hollered.
“Get down!” Malingo called to her. “Candy, get—”
Too late! The closest zethek took Candy’s bait and swooped down, its long, bone-bright fingers reaching to snatch at her head.
“Good boy!” she said. “Look what I’ve got for you.”
She swung the wrench in a wide arc. The tool was heavy, and in truth she had very little control over it, so it was more by accident than intention that she actually struck the creature. That said, it was quite a blow. The zethek dropped out of the sky as if shot, striking the boards of the wheelhouse so hard they cracked.
For a second he lay still.
“You killed him!” said Galatea. “Ha-ha! Good for you!”
“I…don’t think he’s dead…” Candy said.
What Galatea couldn’t hear, Candy could. The zethek was growling. Very slowly he raised his gargoylish head. Dark blood ran from his nose.
“You…hurt…me…”
“Well, come over here,” Candy said, beckoning to the beast across the fractured boards of the roof. “I’ll do it again.”
“The girl’s suicidal,” Mizzel remarked.
“Your friend is right,” the zethek said. “You are suicidal.”
Having spoken, the zethekaratchia opened his mouth and kept opening it, wider and wider, until it was literally large enough to bite off the top of Candy’s head. In fact, that seemed to be his intention, because he lunged forward, leaping across the hole in the roof and throwing Candy down on her back. Then he jumped on top of her. The wrench flew out of her hand; she had no time to pick it up. The zethek was upon her, his mouth vast—
She closed her eyes as a cloud of the beast’s breath broke against her face. She had seconds to live. And then suddenly Skebble was there, hammer in hand.
“Leave the girl alone,” he hollered, and brought the hammer down on the zethek’s skull, delivering it such a calamitous blow that he simply fell backward into the wheelhouse through the hole in the roof, dead.
“That was brave, girl,” he said, hauling Candy to her feet.
She patted the top of her head just to be sure it was still there. It was.
“One down,” said Candy. “Three to—”
“Help, somebody!” Mizzel yelled. “Help!”
Candy turned around to find that another of these wretched things had caught hold of Mizzel and was pinning him to the deck, preparing to make a meal of him.
“No, you don’t!” she yelled, and ran for the ladder.
Only when she was halfway down did she remember that she’d left the wrench on the roof. It was too late to go back for it.
The deck, when she reached it, was slick with fish oil and water, and instead of running she found herself sliding over it, completely out of control. She hollered for someone to stop her, but there was no one close enough. Straight ahead was the hold, its door already opened by one of the beasts. Her only hope of stopping herself was to reach out and grab the zethek that was assaulting Mizzel. But she’d have to be quick, before the opportunity slid by. She put out her hand and made a grab for the beast. The zethek saw her coming and turned to ward her off, but he wasn’t fast enough: she caught hold of his hair. He squawked like an enraged macaw and struggled to free himself, but Candy held on. Unfortunately, her momentum was too great to bring her to a halt. Quite the reverse. Instead, the creature came along with her, reaching up to try and untangle her fingers from his ratty locks even as they both slid toward the gaping hold.
Over the edge they went and down among the fish. Luckily it wasn’t a long fall; the hold was almost filled with smatterlings. But it wasn’t a pleasant landing, a thousand fish sliding beneath them, cold and wet and very dead.
Candy still had her grip on the zethek’s hair, so that when the creature stood up—which he did instantly—she was hauled to her feet too.
The creature wasn’t used to being held by anybody, especially some scrap of a girl. He writhed and raged, snapping at her with his over-sized mouth one moment, the next attempting to shrug her loose by shaking his body so violently that his bones clattered.
Finally, apparently despairing of escape, the zethek called to his surviving comrades: “Kud! Nattum! Here! In the hold! Now!”
A few seconds after the call had gone out, Kud and Nattum appeared over the edge of the hold.
“Methis!” Nattum said, grinning. “You have a girl for me!”
So saying, he opened his mouth and inhaled so powerfully that Candy had to fight to keep herself from being pulled straight into the maw.
Kud wasn’t interested in such tricks. He shoved Nattum aside. “I take her!” he said. “I’m hungry.”
Nattum shoved back.
“So am I!” he growled.
While she was being fought over, Candy took the opportunity to yell for help.
“Somebody! Malingo? Charry?”
“Too late,” said Kud, and leaning over the edge of the hold he caught hold of her and pulled her up. He was so quick and violent that Candy lost her grip on Methis. Her feet slid over the slimy fish for a moment; then she was in the air, being hauled toward Kud’s mouth, which now also opened like a toothed tunnel.
The next moment everything went dark. Her head—much to her horror—was in the mouth of the beast.
THOUGH HER ENTIRE SKULL was suddenly enclosed by the zethek’s mouth, Candy was still able to hear one thing from the outside world. Just one stupid thing. It was the squeaking voice of the Commexo Kid, singing his eternally optimistic little song.
“Happy! Happy! Happy!” it squealed.
She offered up a little prayer in that dark moment, to ask any God or Goddess, of Abarat or the Hereafter, who would listen. It was a very simple prayer. It simply said: Please don’t let that ridiculous Kid be the last thing I hear before I die—
And, thank the divinities, her prayer was answered.
There was a dull thud directly above her, and she felt the tension of Kud’s jaws relax. She instantly pulled her head out of his mouth. This time the slickness of the fish beneath her