A quietness fills Seokga’s ears. A deadly calm before a storm.

“Stop,” he whispers. He’s heard enough from Hwanung, from her, to lay any doubts to rest. She can stop now. But Kisa isn’t done, the words flooding from her like a horrible tsunami, washing over him as he drowns.

“And all this talk about your father!” Kisa staggers back to the rail, where she points a trembling finger to the river beyond. The ship, to Seokga’s growing horror, has veered past its original course, toward the riotous waters where red waves crash over jagged rocks and a narrow pass between two towering black mountains is vaguely visible through a dark mist. Seokga’s blood turns to ice in his veins. He knows that gap. Bound God’s Pass. Beneath those waters in the gap, his father lies, imprisoned with skeletal shackles in an underwater cave. “She killed the captain to take control of the ship! She wants you to free the Mad God—”

“Kisa,” Seokga breathes in terror, eyes latching on the webbed hand gripping the rail behind her. “Kisa—BEHIND YOU!”

She lurches away just in time to avoid the cackling mermaid, who pulls herself up over the rail and falls onto the ship with a pike’s teeth smile. Ineo on Iseung never looked so monstrous, but they never swam in hell waters, either.

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” Hajun is screaming, half-hiding behind Somi, who’s shouting some panicked expletives as more and more ineo crawl onto the deck, and as another roar shakes the ship…

…and a white tiger bursts onto the deck with a ravenous snarl.

No, not a tiger.

The jangsan beom. It’s a hulking monster of bulging muscles underneath long, coarse black-and-white fur, and a dripping muzzle pulls back to reveal yellow, jagged teeth. The creature’s eyes are a pale, vicious gold stained red—from Hwanin’s light, Seokga realizes as he snaps his cane into a sword with his free hand. Dr. Jang had begun to wear sunglasses after that fateful night, sometimes even bumping into furniture, after Hwanin had panicked on the I-95 and released his divine, almost blinding, light. A low growl erupts from the jangsan beom’s throat as the hordes of ineo, crawling forth on their hands, shepherd Seokga and his companions closer together.

Somi chokes, her hand flying to Kisa’s. “You!” the gumiho cries, and Seokga has never heard Somi’s voice ripe with so much pain and terror.

He remembers her reaction to his list of four-clawed creatures in the trashed security room. That leaves a samjokgu, a bulgae, or a jangsan beom, he’d mused, and chalked up Somi’s subsequent show of fear to the fox-eating dog. But it was never the samjokgu she was afraid of.