Peril From Beneath

October 14, 8:59 p.m.

Oahu, Hawaii

Lindsey could hardly believe she was actually here. After two years of saving and planning, coming in to work with a fever just to save days, bringing in cans of tuna fish and stale crackers for lunch, and putting up with the jeers of her friends and family, she was here. Hawaii. Lindsey Meade had never done anything adventurous in her life… never gone rock-climbing, never eaten anything exotic, never ridden a jet ski, and certainly never had a mad night of passion with a total stranger. She was determined to do all that – and more – before her two weeks in paradise ended and she returned to the dreary paper supply office in Utica, where the fluorescent lights washed out her soul with each flicker. She was here to get it back.

It was her first night here, and she’d gone off without a plan. She just got into her rental car and drove – off into the night, taking any turn that looked interesting, until she found herself on an empty beach. The sand here wasn’t as fine as that at her hotel, probably the reason it wasn’t swamped with tourists even this evening, and as she walked across it to the water line, she wondered if it was even strictly legal to be here. The waves lapped against her feet and she smiled. If it wasn’t legal, to hell with it. She was standing in the warm tide of the Pacific Ocean for the first time in her life, and she wouldn’t let anyone ruin that. There was no one around, anyway. In fact, she thought, as the reflection of the moon danced across the waves, there would be no one to see anything she did… not even if she shed her sundress and the lacy undergarments beneath (bought specifically in the hopes of being seen by that hypothetical stranger on this trip) and went for a completely “natural” moonlight swim.

She blushed at even the thought of such a thing, but her hands had gone so far as to reach back and grab the strands of the cinch that tightened the dress around her waist when a hot wave lapped against her calf. This wasn’t just warm, like the water she was standing in, this hit her like the initial burst of a hot shower, and the next wave was hotter still. When the third nearly scalded her, she shrieked and hopped out of the water and on to the grainy sand. The reflection of the moon in the sea had changed. It was trembling, quaking, as the water beneath it bubbled and churned. Suddenly, a spire burst from the water and jutted into the sky. It was fifty feet tall, if not more, with a point like a needle that looked like it was puncturing the moon. The spire thickened as the eye followed it downward, and at the bottom it was about as wide across as a cargo elevator – an apt metaphor, as it turned out, because that’s exactly what it looked like when the rock wall slid open and the man stepped out of the spire.

He was huge – seven, maybe eight feet tall – and built like a martial arts champion. His skin was the midnight black of obsidian, and his strong face looked as though it had been literally chiseled from the stone. His eyes glowed magma-red, and the same red as the gem in the staff he clutched with his left hand. He wore only two articles of clothing – a beaded stone swatch tied around him like a loincloth, and upon his head, what looked like a magnificent crown of white gold.

“I am Magmus!” he bellowed. “Tremble before me, humans, for I have come to claim your surface world for my Kingdom of Stone!” He glanced around, looking surprised. “Er… where are all the humans?”

Lindsey shrugged. “It’s just me here.”

“Oh. I expected more.” Then, making the most of it, he pointed his staff at Lindsey and repeated his command. “You! Human! Tremble before me!”

For a moment, Lindsey nibbled her lower lip – an old habit in times of stress. Then she smiled. She wanted an adventure, after all. Her hands returned to the work of uncinching her dress as she stopped into the hot water.

Advertisement