Zeb kept to the side of the inlet, close enough to see emerald green moss clinging to the rockface. An arbutus tree grew horizontally out of the cliff far above them and Corrie wondered how it retrieved nutrients or water from the inhospitable rock. It seemed impossible to survive, and yet, the tree thrived.
Corrie scanned the inlet in front of them. When a dwelling met her eye, she hissed in shock.
“There’s a house!” she called back. “Is that it?”
“Must be,” Krista said. Her eyes narrowed when she spotted it. “It’s the only habitation on this section of the inlet. Careful, Zeb.”
“What do you want me to do?” Zeb said with an exasperated tone. “Row more quietly?”
“The Defiance is there, too,” Jules said. His voice was subdued. Corrie glanced at his pale face in concern. “Matt must be at home.”
Krista swore. Then she looked thoughtful.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” she said. “If we meet him, we can show that bastard what we really think of him.”
“Or not,” Corrie squeaked. She cleared her throat. “Let’s keep trying the sneaky way, okay? Maybe he’s sleeping. Or he went for a walk.”
“On all those hiking trails?” Krista said with an eyebrow raised at Corrie’s suggestion. Corrie looked again.
The cabin was a tiny affair, made of rough-hewn logs and a corrugated metal roof. It sat right on the edge of the water on a tiny peninsula of land. The cabin almost filled the entire shelf of exposed rock, which ended at the cliff face. Unless Matt liked to rock climb or swim, there was nowhere to go. Corrie started to sweat.
“Row to the cave,” Jules said to Zeb. “We can keep the dinghy out of sight there. Assuming he isn’t watching us right now.”
Zeb nodded and kept rowing. The muscles of his arms tightened his shirt sleeves with the motion. Slowly, so slowly, they floated toward the cave on the left side of the cabin. It was no more than a dark gash in the side of the cliff, but the Defiance was tied up to a small dock inside it.
Somehow, they glided into the cave with no movement from the cabin. Corrie let out a sigh of relief when the dinghy nudged against the dock.
“Do you have your grenades?” she whispered to Jules. He nodded tightly.
“Don’t mess up, doofus,” Krista said. “But we probably won’t need you, anyway. You just relax here and let the adults do the dirty work.”
Zeb shot Krista a look, then he turned to Jules.
“Remember, only use the grenades as a last resort. We don’t know what Sucker will do when it’s called. Only if you think we really need the distraction, okay? But we might need it if Matt is here, so keep a close eye.”
Jules gave his friend a wan smile and waved them off.
“Go rescue your salty damsels in distress.”
Zeb led the way up the rocky path. The cabin’s few windows were grimy, and they could see no movement in them. Zeb held a finger to his lips and waved them forward. Krista huffed in annoyance and pushed past Zeb to walk toward the cabin. Corrie gulped then followed. There was a difference between brave and foolish, and Krista was veering toward the foolish side. Would it hurt her to be a little more cautious?
Zeb clearly thought the same, for he exchanged a resigned look with Corrie as they followed his sister on silent footfalls. Krista flattened herself against the wall beside a window and peered inside. Corrie’s fingernails bit into her palms, but she joined Krista at the window.
Nobody was inside. Corrie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Now that immediate danger was out of the way, she allowed herself to look around with astonishment. A large table dominated the middle of the room. It was covered in a haphazard array of equipment. Corrie recognized some bottles of chemicals, hydrochloric acid and ethanol among them. There was a fridge, a specialized container full of what Corrie knew to be liquid nitrogen, and a small oven. But what really drew Corrie’s attention was the row of six large aquarium tanks lined up against the far wall. In four of them swam four unicorn fish of varying sizes. They moved in slow circles, and some showed clear signs of damage on their flanks.
“What is he doing to them?” Krista hissed. “Look at them. They’re all mangled.”
“He’s collecting slime,” Zeb said calmly from behind them. “It’s probably freshest if he scrapes it off their bodies.”
Corrie turned to look at Zeb in horror. Although his voice was calm, his eyes showed dangerous emotion below the surface. He met her gaze and nodded.
“Let’s get them,” he said. “It’s time.”
“All right,” Krista said. “I’m first.”
She marched around the corner. Corrie followed with her heart in her throat. Fear pounded in her chest like an animal clawing its way out, but indignation for what Matt was doing spurred her forward. Not only was he capturing never-before-studied animals for his own gain, he was abusing them. They had to stop it. She thought fleetingly of the police but couldn’t even begin to imagine how that would work. Besides, her secret of the unicorn fish would escape. Not that the fish weren’t more important, of course they were, but if they could solve it on their own without alerting the authorities, then everyone would benefit. Except Matt, of course. That bastard could rot in hell, for all Corrie cared. She smiled to herself at channeling her inner Krista.
Krista eased the door open. It creaked loudly and they all froze. When nothing moved, Krista slipped inside the gap and Zeb and Corrie followed. Eight fish eyes gazed at them. A strange, chemical smell permeated the air, and aquarium pumps hummed and bubbled. They were in.
Corrie whipped out three pairs of gloves from one of her makeshift pouches and passed them around.
“Here. Put these on and grab yourself a fish.”
“Just toss them outside into the water?” Zeb said.
“Unless you have a better idea,” said Krista. She peered through the glass of the nearest tank and her expression softened. “Poor little guys. Let’s get them out of here.”
“You’re not touching anything,” said a voice behind them. Corrie’s entire body stiffened, and her heart nearly stopped. Krista jumped and Zeb’s eyes grew wide. They turned toward the voice.
Matt stood at a doorway that had been closed at the back of the cabin. His face was puffy and his hair tousled as if he had been sleeping, but his narrowed eyes were alert.
“Back away from the fish and get out of my cabin. I don’t know how you found this place, and I don’t care. Leave now before I make you.”
Krista planted her feet apart and crossed her arms. The thin white gloves she wore should have been comical, but Corrie found nothing to laugh at.
“We’re releasing the fish, and you’re stopping this druggie shit. Right now.”
“You have nothing on me,” Matt sneered. “You think you can make me do anything?”
“Three of us and one of you,” Zeb pointed out, in a tone he might use for announcing the weather forecast. Matt laughed loudly.
“Yeah, pretty terrifying.”
“Does your girlfriend know?” Krista said with a tilt to her head. Corrie was amazed by her poise. Krista might be prickly, but she shone in confrontation. Jules had mentioned that she was a lawyer—Corrie hoped she never had to be on the opposite side of her in court. Matt grimaced, then his face purpled.
“You leave Bianca out of this,” he growled.
“Oh, we will.” Krista waved to Corrie to scoop out a fish. Corrie put her hand over the tank. “As soon as we release the fish.”
“Like hell you will.” Matt lunged toward them, and the room went mad.
Zeb leaped at him. Matt swung a punch at Zeb’s face, which he dodged. Krista kicked Matt in the side of the knee, and he went down in a grunt of pain only to lumber back up toward Zeb.
“Krista!” Corrie screamed. “Get the fish, then we can get out of here!”
Krista plunged her hands into the tank nearest the door and gripped a fish between her hands
. She stumbled toward the door. Corrie dodged the grappling men and headed for a tank of her own. There was a splash, and Krista stumbled back in. Her face was white.
“Corrie,” she gasped. “Gloves aren’t enough. My arms got wet, and I rubbed my face by accident—oh, no—get away!”
Krista sank to her knees and scrabbled away from something that only she could see. Corrie’s heart sunk. Slime must have entered her mouth, and now she was having visions. Krista was out of the running, and only she and Zeb were left to defend the fish—and themselves.
Zeb was on the floor gasping, with Matt pinning him from above. Corrie didn’t think. Her hand fumbled in a tube on her belt and extracted five long pipettes, glass tubes for measuring solutions. She banged them against the table edge and the ends shattered, leaving five jagged tips. Before she could overthink her actions, she plunged them into Matt’s back.
They didn’t go in far, but it was enough. Matt arched backward in pain, and Zeb wriggled free. He and Corrie ran behind the table to regroup.
“Got to take him down before we do anything,” Zeb gasped. Corrie nodded frantically.
“Okay, there’s lots to work with here.” She glanced at the table in front of her, but they didn’t have any more time to consider their options. Matt came around the table with his hands outstretched. Corrie threw off the lid of the liquid nitrogen container, heaved the container in her arms, and sloshed it toward their attacker.
Clouds of nitrogen turned from liquid to gas and billowed to the floor. Matt shrieked in pain as the intensely cold liquid hit his skin and left red welts where his hands and neck were exposed. Quickly, before he could recover, Corrie tossed a handful of tiny glass beads onto the floor from a bag on her belt.
Matt took a step forward, directly onto the beads. With a swift, scrabbling motion, his foot slid out from under him and he landed on his bottom. Corrie took a length of tubing from her belt and handed it to Zeb, then grabbed a glass flask from the table and smashed it so that only the jagged neck was left.
“I always wanted to do that,” she said to Zeb. He was about to answer, then his face dropped in horror.
“Shit. Jules summoned Sucker.”
JULES
Jules had no desire to confront Matt. He was quite happy to guard the dinghy and throw slime grenades if need be, Krista’s snide comments aside. He wasn’t designed for rescue missions.
But when the other three disappeared into the cabin and there was a moment of complete silence, Jules’ conviction wavered. What was worse, confronting Matt and the dangers he embodied, or enduring the silence of waiting and not knowing?
A moment later, Jules realized that there was something worse than both those options. Shouts and banging erupted from the cabin. Jules gripped his makeshift slingshot in terror and indecision. What was happening? Was someone hurt? Jules remembered Matt’s muscled frame and pitiless face, and he shuddered. Maybe he should go and help.
But what could Jules really do, beside presenting himself as cannon fodder? He’d never fought anyone in his life, not even as a child. His easy words and placating manner always diffused situations. He had no real skills. He would probably just mess things up. It would be better for everyone if he stayed out of it.
There was a crash of glass and a scream. Krista flung open the door with a wriggling bundle in one arm. She rubbed her face with her free hand and ran two steps to the water’s edge. She stumbled, and the fish under her arm slid out of her hands and into a tiny tidepool, unconnected to the waters of the inlet. The horn of the unicorn fish shone in the dim light as it poked out of the water.
Krista’s body shook, and she stumbled back indoors as if blind. When another shriek echoed through the door, Jules stood. His hands trembled with fear, but he couldn’t sit inactive in the dinghy any longer. He glanced at the bucket of slime grenades at his feet. The crash of broken glass sounded again. Surely now they needed a distraction. Jules couldn’t do much, but he could do this.
Jules picked up a slime grenade with a gloved hand. The nori was delicate yet still dry, and he hoped it would stay intact during its flight. He fitted it into the egg cup and pulled the bungee cord of his slingshot taut. He aimed at the water in front of the cabin, let out a breath, and released.
ZEBALLOS
Corrie’s face paled before she whipped around to look through the front door, but Zeb only had eyes for what was outside. A lawn chair flew past the doorway and hit the cabin with a loud bang, and the sea frothed and roiled. Three massive tentacles reached through the white foam, writhing in fury. They felt blindly toward the cabin. One found the open door and wrapped itself around it. The suction cups gripped tightly.
The door ripped off its hinges with a shriek of bending metal and splintering wood.
“What the fuck is that?” Matt shouted behind Zeb. Zeb didn’t have any focus to spare for their opponent. He threw a panicked glance at Corrie.
“Now what?” he said as they backed away from the door.
“Is there another way out of here?” Corrie said. Her voice was high-pitched. “The front door appears to be out of commission.”
Another tentacle snaked around the doorframe and patted the ground, coming further and further into the cabin. Zeb nearly tripped on a chair in his hurry to escape.
Bang!
Gunshot deafened Zeb for a moment. He crouched down in fear and whirled around to find the source. Matt stood in the doorway of the bedroom with a hunting rifle in his hands. He looked wide-eyed but satisfied.
The tentacle slithered and flailed. Blood seeped out of a small wound in its flank. The tentacle retreated, and there was a moment’s peace.
“I don’t know what the hell that was, but it’s gone now,” Matt said. “Now, about you three. Are you still interested in fighting this mismatched bout?”
A tremendous thud shook the walls of the cabin. Zeb turned to the door. Five tentacles wrapped around the doorframe and pulled remorselessly at the wall. The cabin groaned with the strain. Logs splintered, ripped, and tore apart.
Corrie shrieked and ran toward Krista, who was huddled on the floor in the corner of the cabin. She dragged the muttering woman out of reach of the sagging roof. Gunfire sounded again.
Matt shot at the tentacles, but his aim was wild with his fear. One ricocheted off the wall and slammed into the nearest tank. The glass shattered and water poured out of the side. The unicorn fish flopped in panic.
“Stop, you idiot!” Zeb yelled. He turned and charged toward Matt. His only thought was to wrestle the gun out of Matt’s unruly grip. No good would come out of a stray bullet in someone’s leg.
He slammed into Matt’s side. The gun went off again, at the ceiling this time. Matt fell to the floor with Zeb on top of him, but a swift elbow to the face sent Zeb sprawling. Zeb kicked toward Matt in a desperate attempt to make contact, and his foot sent the gun skittering across the floor.
A sudden whoosh drew both their eyes. Corrie held an empty bottle of ethanol in one hand and backed away from a line of fire that crawled across the floor and up the splintered wall like an orange stain. Tentacles writhed in pain from the flames.
Zeb heaved himself up and chased after the gun while Matt stared dumbfounded at Corrie’s conflagration. When his fingers touched the cool metal, he hesitated. Should he try to threaten Matt with it? He remembered Krista’s advice after she had come home from a self-defense lesson when they were teenagers. “Don’t bother with a weapon if you’re more inexperienced. Your attacker can get the weapon from you easily, and then you’ll be facing a guy with a weapon instead of just a guy.”
Zeb raced around the table before Matt could get to his feet and opened a grimy window. There was just enough room to toss the rifle out the opening. Behind him, Matt growled with rage.
“Back off,” Corrie yelled. Zeb spun around. Corrie held out a bottle of something labeled hydrochloric acid. “Back off or I’ll douse you. Trust me, it will hurt.”
Krista stood beside Corrie now, her face pale but determined. The small amount of drug must have worn off quickly, although her eye still twitched involuntarily.
The tentacles had retreated in the face of the fire, but the flames were out now, the ethanol burned off. The brigar would be back. They couldn’t keep fighting a battle on two fronts. Now that Krista was recovered, she and Corrie could take on Matt. Krista could handle herself, he knew, and Corrie was proving resourceful. Zeb was their best chance at diverting the brigar. But how? Zeb’s eyes fell on the gasping unicorn fish in the broken tank.
“I’ll distract Sucker,” he shouted. “Keep Matt busy.”
“Zeb,” Krista yelled hoarsely. “Get back here!”
Zeb seized a plastic bag nearby, scooped the fish into it, and sprinted for the door.
The brigar was wounded, but not out of the fight. A piece of charred tentacle lay sizzling beside Zeb’s feet. Three more tentacles waved from the ocean, gathering speed, preparing to attack again. The brigar was infuriated now, and hellbent on taking back the strolias.
Zeb kicked off his sandals and dived into the water. It was an awkward dive with his plastic-wrapped bundle, but it got him in the water, and that was the important thing. His clothes chafed and hampered the flow of water across his skin. They prevented him gaining a full picture of his surroundings, but he didn’t have time nor hands to remove them.
The water of the inlet was clearer than he had expected—freshwater runoff must flow into the fjord—and the brigar was hard to miss. Zeb almost choked on seawater. The brigar was shaped like a bulbous, flaccid octopus, but monstrously huge. The body was twice the length of Zeb, and the tentacles reached through the water and far into the sky above. Its alien eye, bigger than Zeb’s head, looked angry and wild. The brigar was focused on the fight above and had little attention to spare Zeb. He was enormously thankful for that and wondered if this was the most sensible plan he could have thought of.
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