“The ship must have only one captain,” Saiman said. “Russell is perfectly competent to handle any emergency, and I don’t want to undermine him with my presence.”

The shapeshifters spilled out onto the deck, Curran in the lead. Andrea brandished a crossbow. Raphael strode next to her, carrying knives. The boats headed straight for us. The Beast Lord braked next to me. “Are you planning to ram them?”

“That would be futile. Their boats are more maneuverable. They would simply scatter.”

A person dived into the ocean off the lead boat. That must’ve been a cue, because the pirates began dropping overboard like their boats were on fire.

“What the hell?” Eduardo muttered.

“As I said, we’re about to be boarded,” Saiman said with afflicted patience.

Above us on top of the brig, two sailors manned a polybolos, a siege engine that looked like a crossbow on steroids. An antipersonnel weapon, a polybolos fired large crossbow bolts with deadly accuracy, and just for fun, it was self-loading and repeating, like a machine gun.

Sleek shapes dashed through the water toward us.

“Do they have trained dolphins?” George asked.

“Not exactly,” Saiman backed away, toward the center of the deck.

The dolphins shot toward the Rush all but flying beneath the waves.

I pulled Slayer out.

“Form a perimeter,” Curran called. “Let them get on the deck, where it’s nice and dry. Don’t let them pull you into the water.”

We made a ring in the center of the deck.

“This is utterly ridiculous,” Aunt B said.

Keira stretched. “Fun, fun, fun . . .”

Something smashed into the side of the hull. A deformed gray hand clutched the top edge of the deck and a creature leaped over the railing and landed, dripping water. Nude except for a leather harness, it stood on short muscular legs, hunched over but upright, the sun glistening on its thick, shiny hide. Its body was all chest with a smooth, wide trunk of a waist. Broad shoulders supported two massive arms with surprisingly small hands. Its neck, disproportionately thick, with a hump on the back, anchored a head armed with long, narrow dolphin jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth. Two human eyes stared at us from the thickly fleshed face. A big bastard. At least four hundred pounds.

A weredolphin. Pinch me, somebody.

Greek legends spoke of some pirates who’d captured the god Dionysus. They were planning to rape him and sell him into slavery. Furious, he transformed them into dolphins. Apparently, their descendants were alive and well and still in the family business.

The pirate glared at us. Hell of a neck. Strikes to the throat were right out.

Other pirates leaped over the railing. One, two . . . seven . . . thirteen. A baker’s dozen. Wait, fifteen. Eighteen . . . Twenty-one. The odds weren’t in our favor.

“Maybe they just came over to borrow a cup of sugar,” I said.