“Can’t,” Eddy groaned. “We’re too busy checking out stuff back here.”
“The patrol boat?”
“Maybe we’re going to wish.” Eddy stepped over to the console, without the binoculars, which Daniel still trained on Sandy Point. “Those two porpoises swam to the beach where the seals are pulled out, and then a bunch of the seals dived into the water and came back up porpoises. They’re after us.”
Under his life vest, Sean wore the Windbreaker he’d brought from Arkham. With little wind for it to break, he’d started sweating. “Deep Ones?”
“Unless you think seals can shape-shift.”
“You’re sure they did?”
“We’ll find out when they get close enough for Daniel to read. Or else you could run for it on principle.”
Run for it where? They could go south along the coast, toward Arkham, or north along the ocean side of Plum Island, either way buzzing past Devil Reef as they left the bay. Too bad they had to actually land on the reef and hang around waiting for helpful Deep Ones to show.
Or had helpful Deep Ones already showed? They shouldn’t assume their pursuers were the bad guys.
Daniel either read Sean’s mind or had the same idea. “No use running. We want to meet Deep Ones. Slow down and let them catch up.”
Eddy looked dubious, but Sean cut speed. It was probably better to contact Deep Ones while they were in the boat, not sitting ducks on the rocks. He kept the Montauk putt-putting gently toward Devil Reef. Deprived of their bow waves, the real porpoises dived out of sight. The maybe-fake ones came on fast, their triangular dorsals slicing the water in a tight V-formation. Like the two fake porpoises off the Arkham jetty, these were bigger than usual. Sean itched to accelerate, but that would only make them look scared or guilty.
They’d covered half the distance between Plum Island and Devil Reef when the porpoises reached them. Instead of coming alongside the Montauk, they fell into single file and circled it at a few yards off. Daniel handed the binoculars back to Eddy and drifted from gunwale to gunwale, face blank, bending far over the railings to stare at their pursuers. His lips moved as if in soundless conversation. Then he said, “They’re Deep Ones. They’re talking to me.”
Eddy relayed the binoculars to Sean and went to Daniel. “What’re they saying?”
“Look!”
But “look” was what Daniel was saying. He also pointed at the surrounding swimmers. A few seconds before, they’d had the sleek gray backs and broad flukes of porpoises; now their backs were silvery green, armored with palm-sized scales or plates and sporting a single fixed fin that ran from their hairless heads all the way down their spines. And they had legs that frog-kicked, and arms that oared, and webbed hands and feet. Sean let the Montauk glide to a stop and stepped from the console to the railing opposite Daniel’s. Watching the Deep Ones, he began to notice differences in their coloration and unique notches or splits in their dorsal fins. Most distinctive was a swimmer with black scale-plates on one shoulder and a semicircular dip in the middle of the fin, scalloped like a giant shark bite. He counted from him (or her?) and got up to seven before Shark-Bit came back around.
“They’re getting closer,” Eddy said.
Slowly, spiraling inward. Metal glinted on their dorsal fins and their ankles and wrists. Deep Ones didn’t go absolutely naked, then. Some wore broad gold bracelets and anklets; all of them had piercings in their fins, stuck through with gold rings along the upper edge and gold beads or disks elsewhere. Shark-Bit rocked the heaviest cuffs and anklets and the most fin piercings, and he (or she?) was the one who first swam into the sphere of illumination thrown by the Montauk’s all-round light.
Sean went back to the console in case of trouble, but he could see Shark-Bit from there. She, not he, from the underbelly that appeared as she rolled in the water—white and scaleless with two small but obvious breasts. She dived briefly, and then her head broke the surface six feet from Daniel, giving them all a good look at her face.
The shocking thing was how unshocked Sean felt. Seeing Tom Marsh had prepared him. In fact, it had overprepared him, because Shark-Bit wasn’t half as nasty. Her Change was complete, and the human-fish-amphibian features of her face had blended into a whole that, however alien, made visual sense. From the top of her elliptical skull to her collarbones, she was covered with finer, more iridescent scales than the ones on her back and upper shoulders. The dorsal fin started at mid-forehead; dozens of gold rings and studs pierced it there, making it look more like a tiara than a part of her body. Well, if Shark-Bit was going to have any piercings, she had to put them in the fin—she had no ears, just two flat drumheads behind her frog-goggly eyes. No nose to speak of, either, just the two slitted nostrils that flared pink as she breathed air instead of water. Her lipless mouth was an upside-down U filled with serrated teeth, and her gills, five on either side of her thick neck, flared pink like her nostrils, then on closing made a soft wet sound like smacking lips.
The other six Deep Ones had stopped spiraling inward, but they still swam a circle around the boat: a guard picket to keep the Montauk from advancing or retreating while their leader parleyed with Daniel. At least it looked like they were parleying, eyes locked, her mouth quivering, his forming silent words.
Eddy eased along the railing to Daniel’s side and casually slipped a hand through the back of his belt. It was a good move, because it wouldn’t take much to turn his precarious lean into a dive overboard. If Daniel started tipping, Sean would grab him by the life vest. They’d keep him as high and dry as Geldman had ordered, even though Shark-Bit had swum close enough to hang on the gunwale with her face only a couple of feet from Daniel’s.
She smelled nothing like a Changer. What odor Sean caught was salty, oceanic. That made sense. Fresh live fish didn’t stink, after all. Another thing, now that he could see her hands clearly: She didn’t have fingernails but rather claws, black hooks two inches long. Eddy had to have noticed them, too, what with one set gripping the rail right beside her left hip. Though she shifted the hip away, she kept her grip on Daniel’s belt. “Is it her?” she whispered.
Daniel didn’t answer.
“Daniel. Is this your mother?”
Sean hadn’t thought of that, but if Marsh had headed straight to the reef to tell Aster about her son’s homecoming, she might already be up looking for him.
Daniel backed to the console, Eddy retreating with him. As for Shark-Bit, she hoisted herself so she could peer at them over the railing; the turrets of her eyes swiveled from Eddy to Sean, then back to Daniel.
“Is she your mom?” Sean muttered in Daniel’s ear.
Daniel rubbed his head as if it ached like a bitch. “No. She’s Elspeth Marsh. Tom’s mother. My aunt.”
“Aster’s sister?”
“Right. We’re all related, though. People from Innsmouth. People from Y’ha-nthlei.”
“Dude, reminder, you’re from New York.”
Daniel’s laugh was ragged. “That’s where my father’s from. But I’m Innsmouth through my mother. The Innsmouth is what counts.”
“That’s not true,” Eddy said sharply. “I know you’re mad at him, but your father’s as important as your mother. Your human side, I mean.”
“The Deep One side is stronger. It takes over.”
“Is that what your aunt’s been telling you?”
Shark-Bit—Elspeth—blew out air in a watery snort, but it was Daniel who attacked Eddy. “She didn’t have to. I’ve known it since the Change started for me. I’m the one’s been cut and had my teeth pulled. I’m the one Geldman’s experimenting on. Because that’s what he’s doing, Eddy. He’s never tried treating the Change before.”
Seeing Eddy’s lips turn white, Sean shoved in: “Come on, chill. You want it, don’t you, the treatment?”
“I don’t know.”
Eddy had flashed from white to scarlet. “You wanted it before you came here.”
“I thought his cure could last. My grandfather s
ays no, Tom says no, they all say no.” Daniel swept his hand in a circle that included Elspeth and the swimming Deep Ones. “Even Geldman doesn’t know. He admitted it at that meeting.”
“So what do you want now? You still want to see your mother?” Eddy jerked her chin at Elspeth. “Will she go down and tell Aster you’re here?”
Elspeth snorted again, which sounded more like no way than yes.
“That’s not what they came for.” As if his telepathic conversation with Elspeth had left him too tired to stand, Daniel slid down the side of the console, butt to deck, knees to chest. “They think it’s blasphemous, trying to stop the Change, but they’re not mad at me. I didn’t know any better. It’s my father’s fault, it’s the Order’s fault. It’s even my grandfather’s fault, because he didn’t keep me from leaving his house this afternoon. They—” Another comprehensive sweep of Daniel’s hand. “—they feel sorry for me. I can feel it. They want to help.”
Not just tired, Daniel sounded drugged, like Elspeth might be one of the Deep Ones who’d studied up on mind manipulation. Sean closed his eyes. His skin prickled to magic that enveloped the boat, but he could pinpoint no particular surge. “Then they should go get your mom,” he said. He scooted a foot over to nudge Eddy’s. “Right?”
She nudged back. “Right. Ask her, Daniel. Who better to talk to you than your mother?”
Daniel shook his head. “I already asked. They don’t need her to talk to me. Talk’s not the point.”
“Well, what is?”
“Keeping me away from people who are hurting me and holding me back. They can’t take me to Y’ha-nthlei yet, I’m not ready. But they’ve got other safe places where I could Change.”
“Where they could make you Change,” Eddy said.
No reaction. Then Daniel bobbed a single nod.
“Drive, Sean,” Eddy said. She sidestepped to the aft bench and pulled a fish gaff out of stowage.
Elspeth didn’t miss the move. She hissed, and Sean had to agree with her about the escalation. “Hey, we don’t want to start a war here.”
Eddy reversed the gaff so the wicked hook pointed away from Elspeth, but that was as far as she was willing to go toward peaceful negotiations. “It’s up to them whether it starts or not. I’m going to be ready, that’s all. Now, get us out of here.”
“To the reef?”
“Forget the reef. They’ll have reinforcements there. South, Arkham.”
Daniel didn’t protest the flight plan. He’d again locked eyes with Elspeth and sunk into telepathic chat, or brainwashing. Sean eased the Montauk into motion, hoping that would make Elspeth drop off the gunwale and that he’d be able to nudge through the circling Deep Ones. Yeah, right. That would have been too easy. Elspeth hung on tight, and the swimmers only broke their circle to converge on the boat. As two hauled themselves up beside Elspeth, the Montauk yawed.
Sean spun the wheel to compensate and punched the throttle wide. As the bow lifted, a fourth Deep One peeled off it. The other three hung on, Elspeth flinging a leg over the railing. Eddy gave her knee a crack with the gaff pole, and she jerked the leg back. Another Deep One nearly clambered on board before Eddy rammed it in the chest. It dropped into the churning wake through which the other Deep Ones frantically butterflied. That left two boarders to get rid of. Sean put the Montauk through some ripping swerves, but while he managed to fling Eddy to the deck, Elspeth and her buddy clung as tight as ticks. Daniel slid away from the console, tried to get up, fell across Eddy’s legs, and that was pretty much it for her. She managed to swing the hook end of the gaff as Elspeth twisted eel-like into the boat, but Elspeth caught the shaft and wrenched it from Eddy’s hands. With the same arm swing, she hurled it overboard. Elspeth’s buddy also slithered aboard and lunged at Sean. It was like getting tackled by a giant toad, an iron-pumping toad, with slick hide and underneath it two hundred pounds of solid muscle. Sean went down between the console and the port hull.
Left hip smarting, he dragged himself into the bow. Buddy ignored his retreat—unimpaired by his claws and webbing, he’d taken over the console and brought the Montauk to a smooth stop. Damn, that meant the others would catch up and join the party, if it wasn’t over by then. Eddy was raging in the stern: “No! He doesn’t want to! Let go!” And Elspeth was hissing back at her like a mixed grill of cats and cobras. And Daniel? Passed out? Gagged?
Silent.
Not silent. The wordless gasps were his.
Sean had to get up. And do what, exactly? From the bow, he couldn’t get at the remaining gaff, so his only weapons were the binoculars Eddy had handed off to him. They’d have made a decent bola, if they hadn’t flown off his neck somewhere. What sat on his chest now was a wispy aether-newt, Raphael, which prodded with its barely tangible snout at something under Sean’s shirt.
That would be Orne’s whistle.
Sean reached through Raphael and fumbled it out. Buddy didn’t notice—he’d gone to help Elspeth. Whistle clenched in his left hand, the newt whisking away, Sean staggered to his feet. In the stern, the worst-case scenario was under way: Elspeth had wrestled Eddy away from Daniel, and Buddy was trying to wrestle Daniel off Elspeth’s back, but yeah, Daniel had some Deep One strength, no budging him. Not, at least, until the other five swimmers arrived, and they’d closed to within a hundred yards.
First thing, then, was to get some distance between the Montauk and the swimmers. Sean swung around to the console controls and—
Elspeth’s buddy had either taken the key or, more likely, tossed it into the ocean. Until Sean could get at the spare in the locker, now blocked by wrestlers, the Montauk wasn’t going anywhere. Without magic, neither was Sean.
But he had magic, and Orne had given him a way to wield it, if he could stop panicking and concentrate. Fast: A Deep One was clambering up the transom.
Sean shoved the whistle mouthpiece between his lips. Instinct screamed to watch the fight and be ready for any move in his direction, but to gather magic he had to close his eyes. He could still hear Eddy’s yells and the Deep Ones’ ululant calls. He ignored them, pulled his darkness close around him, a black sphere, a black egg with Sean as the yolk. The sphere-egg seethed with magic, because waves of it pulsed from Daniel and the Deep Ones as if the audible noise they made was nothing to their telepathic tumult. Screw the waves. Ambient energy also crisscrossed the darkness, spiderweb, silk lightning. Sean didn’t have the key for the Montauk, but he had his access image, the Ben Franklin antique, and he poked its crowning knob from his fist. Lightning arced to the brass, and he pinched the knob with his free fingers to take it into himself.
His first puff into the whistle was air that escaped around the mouthpiece. On his second try, magical energy burst out the business end of the hieroglyphed tube in that shrill bleating note that seemed to be Sean’s signature tune.
The Deep Ones bleated, too. Sean opened his eyes. Elspeth had released Eddy. Daniel was a hammock slung between Buddy and Transom Swarmer, who clutched his ankles and wrists in their claws. It looked like they’d been about to swing him overboard, but now they stood frozen while he dangled and groaned.
Eddy, who wouldn’t have heard the bleat of the whistle, crab-scrabbled away from Elspeth. Over a shoulder, she looked at Sean. She saw the whistle. Do it again, she mouthed.
When he closed his eyes a second time, his sphere-egg was there and ready. He key-captured lightning and intended it through the whistle one silken strand of energy at a time. Each strand emerged as a tone shrill in itself but chording with the others; each tone lingered in the air, and the Deep Ones stood with eyes swiveled skyward, their huge eardrums visibly vibrating in sync with the music. Daniel groaned again. Eddy, magic-deaf, pointed behind Sean, and he turned to see the remaining four Deep Ones hanging on the bow rails, as attentive as the ones on board. After the last tone faded, Buddy and Transom lowered Daniel to the deck. Eddy tried to crawl to him, but Elspeth stepped between them. She touched her slash of a mouth, swept her hand toward Sean, th
en swept it down toward Daniel.
Daniel knelt up between Buddy and Transom. Their claws had made a scratched mess of his arms and legs, as Elspeth’s had made of Eddy’s, but none of the wounds looked deep. “She says I should speak for her,” Daniel said shakily.
Maybe if she’d done that in the first place, they’d have avoided the fight. Or maybe Sean could have used the whistle sooner, proving he deserved her attention. Never mind. Like Orne had said, half his job now was to believe in himself. That might be guidance-counselor-speak when dealing with other humans, but when dealing with empaths? Crucial tactic, baby.
Sean let his left arm fall casually across the console wheel. He kept his right hand high, displaying the whistle. Not twirling it or anything. Just letting the Deep Ones see he was ready to use it. Really confident guys didn’t have to get all cocky about themselves, at least not in the movies. “Ah, okay. That’s fine.”
“She says she greets you, a fellow magician, in the names of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra.”
Did he have any names to drop in return? Nyarlathotep would be impressive, but Sean hadn’t actually signed on with him, and since their aborted interview, he’d left Sean strictly alone. Mostly, that was super. At this particular moment, an appearance by one of his flashier avatars would be welcome. “I greet her—,” he began. “I mean, I greet you—” Then he ran out of steam. With respect? With all due respect?
“In whose name?” Daniel said.
“I don’t have any gods in particular.”
“Your pipe is of the Master of Magic’s making, but if you won’t name the Master, tell me who your mentor is.”
In a way he did have one of those. “Redemption Orne,” Sean said.
Daniel blinked. Eddy, too. But they both stayed cool with the half truth, and Daniel said for Elspeth, “We know Reverend Orne; the Master is his lord. It’s the strongest allegiance, but dark. We’d think members of the Order of Alhazred would have nothing to do with it.”
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