by Ann Gimpel
Recco activated his fledgling telepathic skills, one of the many things he’d worked on the previous day. “Daide. Get out here. I think I saw a sea serpent.”
After a long pause, a garbled, “Where are you?” met his request.
“Deck Three. Bow.”
Daide must have been on his way while sorting out how to initiate a telepathic query because the sound of boots pounded toward Recco.
“What did it look like?” Daide demanded as he chugged up next to Recco.
Recco moved his gaze from the ocean’s surface to his friend. “The Loch Ness monster.”
Daide screwed his face into a frown. “Come on. Give me details.”
“Blackish-gray. Shiny. Scales. Amber eyes. Head like a trowel. The skull was maybe two feet across with a long snout. Double rows of teeth—sharp, not blunt—and an undulating, snakelike body. I didn’t see all of it, but at least six coils flashed past me after it dove. I know how crazy this sounds. The thing looked at me as if it actually saw me.”
“Mmph. Where was it?”
Recco pointed a few degrees off the bow. “It was moving pretty fast, so where it is now is anyone’s guess. Did my description ring any bells?” Intellectual curiosity sparred with concern. Daide’s specialty had been marine life, and Recco silently urged him to come up with a rational explanation. Something beyond sea serpent.
“If anyone except you had seen it,” Daide said in a slow, thoughtful tone, “I’d be convinced it was a lungfish, an oarfish, a whale, a shark, or maybe a relict plesiosaur, or a mosasaur, or some other Mesozoic reptile.”
“It wasn’t a whale or a shark or anything like that.”
Daide drew his dark brows together. “I said if it was anyone but you. You never did listen very well.”
“Spare me.”
“Amigo. I don’t want to fight with you.” Daide scanned the ocean’s surface, clearly hoping for a sighting.
Two sets of eyes were always better, so Recco focused on the other side of the bow. “Men have reported sea serpent sightings as far back as we have written records.”
“Indeed they have,” Daide agreed. “Never in these waters, though. At least not that I’m aware of. Closest they came was off the southern Chilean coast. I always figured they preferred warmer water. Think about it. Reptiles are cold-blooded—”
“Dinosaurs weren’t,” Recco cut in. “Didn’t a 2014 study postulate they were closer to mammals than anything else.”
“Yes. Good memory. I was talking about reptiles, not dinosaurs, though. Hey! Is that what you saw?” Daide plastered himself against the rail and stared out to sea.
Recco joined him. Sure enough. The familiar head cut through the waves. This time it didn’t look at him. “Yes. That’s it.”
“Son of a bitch. Not that I don’t trust your powers of observation, but I was certain you were wrong.”
Recco bit back a tart rejoinder. “Do you know what it is?”
Daide whipped a pair of binoculars out of a pocket and focused on the serpent’s head. The creature seemed to be keeping pace with the ship, although it was unlikely.
Recco waited for it to veer off. “Can I look?”
“When I’m done.”
“It will be gone by then,” Recco protested.
“I don’t think so. We’ve disturbed its hunting grounds, which likely means we’re stuck with it until we leave here.”
“What is it?” Recco separated the words for emphasis.
Daide handed the binoculars over. “A genuine sea serpent. My guess is it’s a leftover from the Mesozoic era. It might have been trapped in ice or stuck in some kind of stasis. The Cataclysm freed it.”
Recco dialed in the binoculars to take a more detailed look at the back of the thing’s head. It didn’t make him feel any better. Barnacles clung to the scales, and it was even more menacing when he had the benefit of a closer view. “I’ve seen enough.” He gave the binoculars back. “Your Cataclysm theory doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?” Clearly fascinated, Daide stared at the serpent again.
“I understand beasts entering stasis and their metabolism slowing to nothing, but what’s it been eating these last three months since we blew up the Cataclysm?”
“Krill? Plankton? Fish?” Daide shrugged. “It looks healthy enough. If it were starving, it might be up on deck, trying to eat us.”
“Very funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be. Sea serpents aren’t like fish. They can survive out of water. Maybe floating the rafts isn’t such a good idea, though. If we sailed Arkady in close enough to discourage whatever’s out there, we’d risk grounding the hull.”
Recco sucked air through his teeth, embarrassed he hadn’t connected the dots first. The Zodiacs might have multiple air chambers, even so, they’d scarcely be a deterrent for the three-inch-long teeth he’d seen.
“I’m going to the bridge. Maybe Viktor or Juan know about this thing? They sailed these waters for a long time.”
“I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Daide settled in, leaning his elbows against the rail as he sighted the serpent through the binoculars. Recco recognized his erstwhile partner’s body language. He’d shifted to full research mode and would be perfectly happy remaining where he was for hours. Or until he got so cold he had to come inside.
Recco took the outside stairways and worked his way to the bridge. Like as not, whoever had the helm had noticed them staring out to sea with binoculars. They might even have sighted the Mesozoic holdover.
He pushed open the door and unzipped his parka. Juan stood at the helm and nodded Recco’s way. “I figured one of you would show up here. Do either of you know what that thing is?”
“Daide thinks it’s a prehistoric sea serpent.”
Juan looked askance at him. “Really? Didn’t most of them die out with one of the last ice ages?”
Recco shrugged out of his coat and hung it over a hook. “I presume your question means you’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Of course I have. Not here, though.”
A tightly wound spot inside Recco relaxed, but only a little. Despite Daide’s assessment, he’d been worried the serpent fell into a magical category. “Have they ever caused you problems?”
“No. They’ve never hung around like this one’s doing, either.” Juan angled his chin at the windows. Daide was still hanging over the rail, and the sea serpent had moved closer. Rather than swimming ahead, it was definitely keeping pace with Arkady.
“Maybe it’s lonely,” Recco ventured. He knew less than nothing about this variety of ocean dweller, but many animals were happiest in packs.
“Or hungry.” Juan’s words held a sour note. “The couple of times I’ve seen them before, they were alone.”
“Where’s Viktor?”
“Asleep. He had the helm until six this morning.”
A glance at the clock told Recco it was ten thirty. “Daide and I were concerned about floating Zodiacs with the predator swimming around. How long before we drop anchor?”
“Maybe half an hour. I’m worried the rafts would be vulnerable too. We could take the Ruger Guide gun and blow the serpent out of our way.” He dusted his palms together. “Problem solved. Unless it has a mate hiding in some underwater grotto.”
Recco winced. He’d been in the business of saving animals, not murdering ones that hadn’t done anyone any harm.
“Didn’t care much for my idea, eh?” Juan tapped keys, feeding course adjustments into the ship’s computer.
“I’d rather wait until it poses a problem.”
Juan shook his head. “We wouldn’t have any kind of time to mount a defense. Those snake things are fast. If it rushed a raft, we’d barely have an opportunity to shoulder the rifle. Even if we got off a couple shots—unless we were extraordinarily fortunate and hit something vital—the sea serpent would have plenty of time to sink the raft before it died.
Recco couldn’t argue the fact. Most a
nimals took a long time to die. “Besides shooting it outright, do you have other ideas?”
“Damn straight I do. I never wanted to stop here in the first place. I’m going to revisit this whole thing once Vik is—”
A crackling sound snapped Recco’s head around. “What was that?”
Juan stared at a bank of instruments, one of which held a blinking red light. “Son of a bitch, it’s the shortwave.” He trotted to the radio and snatched it out of its cradle. Depressing a switch, he said, “Arkady.”
“You are the ship, correct?” a woman with a clipped German accent asked.
“We are a ship,” Juan replied in a cautious tone.
“Do not play games with me, young man. My name is Etta Achter. I was a general surgeon when this base was still operative. I demand asylum for myself and those remaining here under the terms of the second of the Geneva conventions.”
“Geneva what?” Recco murmured.
Juan waved him to silence. “Look. Dr. Achter, there’s scarcely enough of the world left for Geneva to come into play. Why are you requesting asylum? What threats do you face? How many of you are there?”
When Juan switched the radio to receive, a long sibilant hiss threaded its way between crackles. “We are ten, including me. Everyone else is either dead or deranged.”
Recco exchanged glances with Juan, not liking the sound of deranged. Dead was easy enough to understand, but what had driven men and women to madness? Further, what were the deranged doing that made the doctor want to run fast and far from them? The radio fell silent.
“Are you still there?” Juan asked after a couple of minutes slid by.
“Ja. I am waiting for your response to my request.”
“And I’m waiting for you to answer the rest of my questions. We’ve had major issues with everything from demons to Vampires to Sirens. You’ll forgive me if I don’t jump because you snapped your fingers. My ship’s safety is my first priority.”
Recco grabbed the radio and keyed it. “What he didn’t tell you is a sea serpent is keeping track of us. It may not be safe to launch the Zodiacs.”
Juan extended his hand and Recco slapped the radio back into his palm, activating its receive function.
“Of course it would not want you to land,” the woman muttered, followed by, “If you do not help us, we will all be dead before the next winter is done.”
“Maybe they could use their own rafts,” Recco suggested. “One trip across the bay is safer than two if we went to pick them up.”
“It would address their problems without undue risk to us,” Juan replied. “So long as they’re human and not some magical monstrosity with ulterior motives that wants to take over the ship.”
Recco didn’t say anything. Ten was a big enough number, he and the others would never make it through a pitched battle without sustaining casualties.
“We’d shift.” His wolf sounded positively feral. “I’d welcome a good scrap. It’s been too long.”
Juan keyed the radio. “My associate had a good suggestion. Last time I sailed through here, McMurdo had a small fleet of motorboats. They’d do better against an attack from the sea serpent than a rubber raft. I need a list of names of who you’re requesting asylum for. And if you coming to us would be acceptable.”
“I will get back to you before the night is out.”
The radio crackled to silence, and Juan tucked it back into its slot. “She left a whole lot out,” he said.
“She certainly did,” Recco concurred.
“Who left what out?” A sleepy-looking Viktor with tousled hair trotted into the bridge. “I heard the last bit of your conversation. It didn’t make much sense.”
“We heard from McMurdo.” Juan sketched out what Dr. Achter had said.
Viktor dropped onto a stool and dragged his hair into a sloppy queue, securing it with a length of leather cord. “She really quoted the Geneva Convention?” At Recco’s nod, Viktor shook his head. “She must be old as Croesus, or a good historian.”
“She wouldn’t have to be either,” Recco said. “She’s had years with not much to do except troll through the library I figure they have at the base.” He directed his next words at Juan. “What do you suppose she meant by ‘Of course it would not want you to land’?”
Viktor looked from one to the other of them. “What wouldn’t want us to land? Would one of you back up so I understand what’s going on?”
“Remember the beached sea serpent we found above the Arctic Circle in Norway?” Juan asked.
“Sure. It had been dead for a long time. Why?”
“There’s a live one, and it took a fancy to the ship.” Juan waved an arm at the windows. “See Daide out there with his binoculars trained on the water? He’s keeping an eye on it.”
“Nah,” Recco cut in. “It fascinates him. He’ll watch it until he’s skirting hypothermia.”
Viktor got to his feet and strode to the radio, staring at it as if it had grown two heads. “Crap. Why can’t anything ever be straightforward? We can’t launch rafts with something as likely to eat us as bid us good day, patrolling the bay. It’s good you asked them to show up in their own boats. At least they have metal hulls.”
“Won’t matter,” Juan cut in, “if the thing swims beneath their boat and upends it.”
“The good doctor said she’d get back to us before the night is out,” Recco said. “We can’t sail past until we hear from her. What if her story is true? She sounded afraid. I could be off by a few hundred, but this base used to hold something like fifteen hundred people. It’s hard to wrap my mind around their numbers being reduced to ten.”
“She never did say how many were deranged.” Juan blew out a tired breath. “It could be part of the problem. Maybe they’re contained in some way, and require constant oversight. I’ve been at McMurdo, and it’s far from a secure facility.”
“She might not have wanted to say much because she was afraid of being overheard,” Recco suggested.
Viktor made a fist and pounded it into his other hand. “Too many mights and maybes for my taste. We need their list of names, and I need more information before even one of them sets foot on my ship. I’ll be goddamned if I bring someone on board who morphs into those hybrid animal nightmares we faced at Arctowski.
“Gosh, I kind of liked the Gila monster with the sea serpent’s head.” Recco tried for humor to lighten the mood, but Viktor glared at him.
“Yeah, you liked it so well you killed it.” Juan stalked to the windows and stared out, clearly thinking.
Recco joined him and eyeballed Daide. His posture hadn’t altered by so much as a finger twitch since Recco left him. Something didn’t seem quite right. He wasn’t sure what was bothering him since Daide frequently spent long hours observing marine life. Why did this feel different?
Zoe, Karin, Ketha, and Aura walked out a side door and joined Daide. Recco couldn’t hear, but it appeared the women were talking to him. Worried looks bloomed on all their faces, and they each grabbed a part of Daide and dragged him away from the rail. He flailed against their hold, shouting something, except it was unintelligible from so far away.
The area around the five developed the iridescent aspect Recco associated with Shifter magic as spells bubbled around them.
“What the fuck?” Juan splayed his palms against the glass.
Recco didn’t wait around to answer. He grabbed his parka and ran out of the bridge, taking the outer stairs since they provided a direct line to the broad open deck below. The cold snatched breath from his lungs; he zipped up to his chin and buried his head in the insulated hood.
Worry warred with guilt. Recco moved as fast as he could and not fall ass over teakettle down the metal risers. He never should have left. Not with the thing in the water.
Yeah. Twenty-twenty hindsight is always a boot in the backside.
By the time he got to where the women had Daide spread faceup on the deck, he was moaning and thrashing from side to side. At least he
wasn’t trying to get away.
“What’s wrong?” Recco fell to his knees next to his friend and grasped a gloved hand. “Talk to me, amigo.”
“He’ll be fine,” Karin said in her best doctor voice.
“If he’s not in immediate danger, let’s at least move him inside.” Recco started to heft Daide into his arms.
“I can walk,” Daide said in a gravelly voice that sounded like he’d been asleep for a hundred years.
Recco rocked back on his heels and pulled Daide to his knees. From there, he helped him to his feet. The women hovered, talking to one another in hushed tones, but Recco wasn’t paying any attention.
“What happened to you?” he asked as he half dragged Daide through the closest door before letting go of him.
Daide’s drained expression developed rueful edges. “No one to blame except myself. My coyote did its damnedest to dissuade me. You know how I am once I fall into observation mode.”
“Yeah. I know. You still haven’t told us what happened.”
“The sea serpent—and I was correct, it’s a plesiosaur—has ways of communicating. I was talking with it. Or rather, listening while it recounted its life story.”
“How is talking with a sea serpent even possible?” Recco fell back a pace, dumbfounded.
“And why not?” Zoe demanded, her brogue in full bloom. “Ye talk with the bond animals. Why would conversation with any magical animal be so surprising? I’d take the whole life story presentation with a few grains of salt, though.”
“Daide isn’t bonded to the plesiosaur,” Recco protested. “Why would it talk with him?”
“Not for lack of effort on the serpent’s fault,” Zoe retorted. “Hence my grain of salt cautionary note.”
Understanding kicked Recco full in the guts, and he grabbed Daide’s arm. “Christ. I never should have left you alone.”