Jill passed it to her as the water lapped their calves.
“Tell my boys that I love them.” Una flashed a smile at Jill. “Maybe one day, you’ll write about me. Because you can be anything you want, Jill Scott. Anything at all.”
And then, Mrs. Smith’s head broke the surface. She lunged at Una, her jaw stretching impossibly wide, her teeth flashing white.
Balancing on her knees as the dinghy crumpled under her, Una crossed the harpoon and boat hook over her chest.
When Mrs. Smith bit down, the points of both weapons went straight through the roof of her mouth and into her brain.
Her powerful body went limp, and she fell back into the water, taking Una with her as she sank.
Jill saw Una’s silver hair spread out like the spikes of a star. A sequin on her dress gave a final wink.
After that, there was nothing but darkness.
29
Mrs. Smith
As Mrs. Smith sank, her brain was flooded with memories.
The sublime ecstasy of biting into the Pure Ones. The sheer joy of sinking her teeth and claws into their fragile tissue. Their blood filling her mouth. The shock waves of power surging through her body after swallowing the flesh of the ninth Pure One. The long-awaited feeling of satiation.
Her blissful stupor hadn’t lasted long. The orb of red light from the man’s gun had jolted her awake. The humans on the rubber boat had cut her.
The images in her head faded. All that was left was rage. And the sharp, stabbing pain in her skull.
The pain.
She’d never felt anything like it. Had never been wounded in this way. Not in all her centuries.
The pain swelled like a wave. Hot, searing, clawing.
She wanted to crawl out of her own body like a crab seeking a new shell. She wanted to drift weightlessly in the current. She was tired. So very tired.
She was dying.
Her world was dying.
For a moment, the pain loosened its grip and memories rushed in like a breaking wave. A kaleidoscope of shifting images from a thousand years of life. Long-extinct creatures swimming through unspoiled oceans. The images swirled around and around like a whirlpool until they became shapeless blurs.
As Mrs. Smith sank, and the blackness closed in, a single thought sparked in her brain.
Survive.
The thought was a pinprick of light. Not the glaring light of the sun, but the ethereal blue of the light that existed miles below the surface. The light of the ocean’s heart.
The will to endure pushed the darkness back. It burned through Mrs. Smith’s newly rejuvenated body, directing her synapses to fire. Her limbs, acting autonomously, pulled out the spikes lodged in her flesh.
The pain was a supernova inside her skull. She was completely blinded by it. Blood streamed out of her mouth.
She kept sinking.
When her back came to rest on the sandy bottom, the eels gathered around her. They grazed her skin with theirs, agitated by her stillness and by the blood ribboning from her mouth. In an effort to rouse her, they nipped her arms, wound themselves through her snakelike hair, and nuzzled her ruined face.
They felt the Mother’s life ebbing away.
They also felt the vibrations of many engines above them. They saw lights trying to penetrate the water. They smelled the taint of gasoline.
