Another shriek made me wince as an eggplant-colored appendage burst from the water. Hundreds of feet long, it whipped through the air and slammed against the cracked earth. The ground buckled under my knees. Fist-sized suction cups speckled the underside of its slimy flesh, but there was nothing for them to grip but loose dirt. The thing couldn’t haul itself out to escape the magically electrified water. Seeming to realize that a heartbeat later, it dove, yanking Flipper under with it.

My nails raked over the crumbling soil. “No.”

“We should have nipped this in the bud years ago,” I heard Thierry say to someone.

“Thierry, no.” The rumble of Shaw’s voice was unmistakable.

“We can’t leave it here,” she argued. “More people will die, and I don’t want those deaths on my conscience.”

“It’s too dangerous,” he growled. “We need to regroup and call for backup.”

“There’s no time.” Her tone rang with finality.

He sighed the words “Be careful” and didn’t try to change her mind again.

Thierry breezed past me and dove into the water. Butterfly strokes carried her toward the center of the sink where she vanished beneath the frothing waves.

A fierce growl poured over my shoulder. A glance back at the incubus dried the spit in my mouth. His skin had gone pale. His fingers elongated into claws that curved with killing edges. The warmth in his copper eyes had faded to a desolate white, and the soulless weight of his gaze made me believe if my actions had just gotten Thierry killed, I had signed my own death warrant.

A full minute lapsed. Shaw exhaled the seconds under his breath.

Eight tentacles as thick around as my torso exploded from the water. The one cinched around Flipper’s midsection was the dark band I’d noticed earlier, and she hung limp in its grip. Thierry dangled from another, spluttering for air. The others hammered the ground, creating new fissures. Limbs swept out, knocking marshals onto their asses and pounding the dried earth to dust.

I ducked as one of the foul-smelling arms whistled over my head. I whirled to check on Shaw and found him sawing through the flesh with his razor-sharp claws. Ichor wept from the wound, but the creature didn’t give up, and neither did the pissed-off incubus.

The threat to their own roused the other marshals into action. The uninjured ones rallied around Shaw. He abandoned the severed tentacle and took a running leap that ended in a splash. He swam for Thierry and began climbing the arm shaking her like dice in a dealer’s cup, as if whatever was down there wanted to get its Yahtzee on.