The shift from the wind-swept crest to the inside of the deep-sea plume was not gradual. It was like stepping off a cliff into the mouth of a working clouded eye.
Nessa Vale stood with her knees bent, her cowhide boots planted firmly against the boiler-plate floor of the cage. Her hands, clad in fingerless wool gloves lined with thin pigskin, gripped the upper angle-iron rail.
The cage dropped past the lower coping of the dam. Then, the level gale from the Inland Sea was instantly cut off, replaced by an updraft so violent that it lifted the heavy steel frame like a leaf. The cage lurched sideways, swung through an arc of ten feet. Then he slammed against the upright dark rock face of Pier Twelve with a bone-shaking CLANG that sent shakes ringing up through her shins.
Nessa didn’t cry out. She absorbed the shock through her knees, keeping her balance point low.
Through the viewing slit in the greased canvas wrap, the world was a blinding, choking storm of white foam, gray stone, and roaring darkness. The water was everywhere. Not falling, but hurtling upward from the spillway chute at forty miles an hour, atomized into an icy spray that struck her face with the sharpness of fine gravel.
