Ryann turned in my arms, her eyes wide. She held on to me, her fingernails digging into my shoulders. Slowly, she shook her head. No words necessary. I understood completely and felt the defeat crush my soul. The surface was too far, the water was too cold, and I was the only one with Air who was conscious. But my alertness was starting to slip, too. The chill seeped into my bones and my brain, fogging it over. It reminded me of being out in the snow for too long, where the cold turned to a weird warmth. That was when you knew you were in trouble.
We’re going to die. I leaned in and kissed Ryann, sharing what little breath I had with her while I still had some cognitive function. She clung tight to me, her body convulsing. No, no… please, no. Not now. Not like this. If I had to die, I wanted to be able to say, “I love you,” one last time. I tried, but it came out as nothing but a warbled noise.
In fairness, we should already have been dead at this kind of depth. I had no idea why we weren’t. Maybe some of Atlantis’s magic had seeped out to the periphery, keeping a bit more oxygen in the water itself and stopping the pressure from crushing us. Or perhaps that expulsion vortex had given us a temporary immunity to these treacherous waters. We knew Atlantis sent people out to capture Purge beasts in the same way we’d been booted out, and they’d need a couple of minutes after their exit from the bubble to make sure their breathing and pressure protection apparatus were fully functioning. But even if it lasted longer than a few minutes, we didn’t have enough oxygen to go around. It was only prolonging the inevitable.
Behind Ryann, Atlantis continued its meteoric rise, its glowing mass headed slowly but surely on a one-way trip to the surface. However, something else caught my eye: a darkness oozing out from beneath the city like squid ink. It spread into the ocean before contracting, and a shape emerged from the liquid shadow. I pulled Ryann closer to me as it darted toward our group, terrified that a sea beast had gotten loose from the Atlantean Bestiary. They had all sorts down there, and I doubted that humans were off the menu.
The shadow got closer, and two red eyes glinted at me. I’d have known them anywhere. Erebus?! Either that, or the nitrogen narcosis had set in, making me see things that weren’t there. I’d seen enough diving in movies to know that deep water could make folks crazy.
The inky shape spread out again, and I knew I’d imagined it. The ocean’s shadows were just toying with me. My eyelids fell as the water enveloped us all in a blanket of total darkness. As I held Ryann with everything I had and struggled to keep a Telekinetic grip on the others, everything faded to black. This was it. Game over. No one was coming to save us. At the end of it all, I’d go out the way I started—insane.
* * *
It came as a bit of a shock when I crashed onto solid ground. Harsh sunlight rained down on my frozen, wet face, and the salty scent of the ocean filled my nostrils. I peeked through stiff lids to find myself face-down on a rocky shoreline, heaving fresh air into my lungs. With shaky hands, I pushed myself to my knees and looked around. Luke knelt nearby, pounding on Melody’s chest to try and resuscitate her. I knew the rhythm—each pulse of the hands, moving to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive.” Painfully ironic, and even more painful to watch. Luke stared at her in desperation, saltwater dripping from his hair.
Huntress walked unsteadily to Nash, spewing up water every few seconds with a hacking cough that shuddered through her. He lay unconscious on the pebbled beach, his chest rising and falling faintly.
Ryann… My head twisted around. She lay on the rocks a few yards away, out cold, her lips a deathly shade of blue. I clawed my way across the uneven, jagged ground, forcing my muscles to cooperate. I didn’t stop until I reached her.
“Ryann?” I mumbled through frozen lips. “Ryann… wake up.”
She didn’t move. With my entire body shaking violently, I struggled to sit up. My hand stretched out beneath her nose, checking for the faint warmth of breath. Nothing puffed out.
“No, no, no, don’t you dare leave me. Don’t you dare!” I put my hands to her chest and started compressions, following the same rhythm as Luke. We were two men trying to save the women we loved. I ducked down to give her mouth-to-mouth, though I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to stop the compressions. I’d taken a basic first-aid class during my cult time. Odd but true, and the memory of it was pretty rusty. However, I knew that forcing too much Air into a person’s lungs could make said lungs explode. And I definitely didn’t want that, so my own breath would have to do. Honestly, this was all guesswork, at a time when guessing wouldn’t cut it. If Nash had been awake, he might’ve known more, but he was dealing with his own recovery.
“Was I… too late?” a disembodied voice whispered, as a black mass spiraled down to the rocky shore. I looked up distractedly, continuing the steady rhythm. This time, I knew I wasn’t seeing things. Erebus swirled and crackled wildly, fighting to keep his shapeless black fronds from escaping into the air. He’d given up his body… probably to save us all. But the terrible truth was—he might’ve been too late.
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” I shot back desperately, lowering my head to give Ryann my breath again. “I don’t know what to do, Erebus! Please, do something! Do something to save her!”
Erebus’s wispy form floated closer for a second, a single frond brushing my shoulder. “I am sorry, Finch. There is nothing I can do. I can’t intervene.”
“You just did!” I yelled, tears brimming.
“I could because it helped you, and you are bound to me. Your friends—they were close to you. I could not have rescued you without rescuing all of them.” Erebus sounded uncharacteristically sad. “But I can’t do the same for her now.”
I shook my head in despair. “Please… please help her…”
“I can’t. I can’t stay in this world… Chaos is already pulling me away.” Erebus drifted back to a safe distance. A moment later, his form imploded, disappearing from the bitterly cold beach with a snap of black sparks.
I couldn’t think about him now. I turned back to Ryann, pounding on her chest with everything I had. Even when I heard the faint sound of voices, I didn’t stop. Behind me, I heard Nash sputter, followed by Huntress’s relieved bark. But that didn’t sway me, either. I kept right on with the compressions and the breaths, willing my life into the woman I loved.
“Melody! Thank goodness!” Luke shouted. More sputters ricocheted through my breaking heart, this time coming from the Librarian. I glanced back, my shoulders rising and falling as I kept the rhythm. Luke scooped a dazed Melody into his arms and kissed her all over her sodden face, holding her tight.
“I thought we were goners,” Melody murmured, stopping him in his trail of kisses so she could land one on his mouth.
Luke smoothed the wet hair out of her face. “So did I, little one. So did I. But you’re alive! You’re alive, and I’m never letting anything happen to you again!” He ducked back in for another kiss, the two of them so content in their embrace that they hadn’t noticed that one of our party hadn’t woken up.
“Come on,” I begged. “Ryann, please! Please, wake up! Don’t leave me. Please, please, please don’t leave me.” I pushed on her chest until my arms burned. Tears streamed down my cheeks, flowing faster with every breath I gave her that did nothing. And all the while, that stupid song played in my head so I could do the CPR. I hated the words. I wanted them to shut up unless they could bring her back.
“I can’t lose you, Ryann.” I leaned into a compression, delirious. “I love you. I love you so much. Please, don’t go. Stay. Stay here with me. I don’t want you to have to wait for me, and I don’t want to have to wait for you. Come back, Ryann—just come back!”
My heart shattered into a million pieces, the sobs heaving out of my chest as I sagged forward, burying my face in her neck and shaking her hopelessly. I didn’t know what else to do, but I knew I didn’t want to exist without her. My heart had survived the death of one woman I loved, but if I lost Ryann, I’d lose myself. I could already feel my g
rip on reality sliding away into a pit of devastation that I’d never claw my way out of.
A hand seized me roughly by the shirt and hauled me off Ryann. I writhed feverishly, my hands battling to get back to her, but the ocean had weakened me. And Ryann’s icy, still features had all but finished me off. I didn’t have the strength left to fight whoever was trying to drag me away.
“No! Get off me! I have to save her!” I howled. “Get off me! I need to help her!”
A figure walked by me and knelt beside Ryann. I scrunched up my eyes, unable to believe what I was seeing. The good doctor, Krieger, set down a huge bag and took out an oxygen mask. Another figure darted past and joined him, taking hold of a portable oxygen tank and twisting the knob that got the flow going.
“Jacob?” I whispered.
He lifted his head, brushing floppy dark hair out of his face. “You hang in there, Finch. We’ve got this.”
Either I was stuck in some kind of hideous dream… or the cavalry had arrived.
Thirty-Three
Finch
More bodies swarmed the pebbled beach, emerging from the wreckage of what looked like an old whaling port. Crumbling wooden winches sagged like sad giraffes, and rusting hooks and metalwork clanged in the icy breeze. Closer to the water, a pile of debris gave the impression that whoever had lived here had just thrown everything in a heap and run off. Up ahead lay a decrepit building which might’ve been a warehouse, with white-walled houses tucked behind it, giving way to the snowy peaks of small mountains. At my back, a half-sunken ship, its hull red with decay, took up most of the inlet where Erebus had dumped us.
South Georgia Island… I remembered it from the map-making excursion where Casper-Finch had flown right over those peaks and the husks of a bygone industry.
“Finch?” Saskia, Tatyana’s pesky sister, crouched beside me. It took me a moment to realize it was her, with her face half concealed by a furred hood.
“W-what are you d-doing here?” I shivered violently, looking back at Ryann. The doc had her now, and all I could do was wait… and hope.
Saskia slipped another padded coat over my shoulders, the furry edges of the hood tickling my frozen face. “I’m not normally one to give away the glory, but I’ll let your sister explain.” She smiled and ducked away, leaving another figure to take her place. In fact, a lot more figures: Wade, Santana and Raffe, Dylan and Tatyana, even Kenzie. And more were appearing. I spotted O’Halloran and a few dozen security magicals picking their way across the rocks before stopping on an outcrop. O’Halloran raised a hand to his brow to block out the sunlight, his eyes fixed on the horizon. And, perched on his shoulder, the tiny leprechaun of terror reentered my life.
“D-did you b-bring the e-entire SDC? D-do you h-have the k-kitchen sink in there s-somewhere?” I fumbled for the edges of the jacket and pulled it tighter around myself.
Santana gave a sad laugh. “At least we don’t have to ask if it’s really you. Only you would make a joke when you’re on the edge of hypothermia.”
A loud gasp split the air like a gunshot. My head twisted in Ryann’s direction. Krieger snatched away the oxygen mask as she sat up with a start, coughing up water onto the rocks. Jacob moved to support her back while Krieger sat poised with the mask, ready to put it back on her as soon as she stopped spewing up ocean.
“Oh G-God… she’s alive. She’s alive.” I crumpled, my shoulders shaking as I sobbed into the coat. “Thank C-Chaos, she’s alive… I-I thought I’d l-lost her. I thought I’d l-lost her.” At that moment, I lost it. Relief washed over me, rendering me inconsolable. I sat there and wept like a baby, thinking of how close I’d come to never seeing her, or speaking to her, or touching her again.
Huntress padded up and laid her head on my lap, offering up a whine of sympathy. I bent forward and buried my face in her fur. I didn’t have to worry about getting it wet with my tears—the sea had done that for me.
Next thing I knew, Krieger brought Ryann over to me. He sat her down gently at my side, where she swayed unsteadily. Krieger kept one hand on her back to keep her from toppling over. I gazed at her, relieved beyond words that she’d survived. Even if she still looked like death. Her lips were so blue, I couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss them to bring warmth back into them.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I murmured, putting my arms around her. I hugged her close, giving her all the body heat I had left. Huntress helped by wedging her furry self between us, but not so much that we couldn’t hold each other.
“I thought I’d lost you, too. I thought I was going to… somewhere else.” Ryann gripped me back twice as hard.
Just then, a third body wrapped her arms around us. Harley descended on us two hopeless cases, squeezing us tight. “And I thought I’d lost you both.” She grasped me so hard I thought my ribcage might disintegrate.
“I should get Ryann back on oxygen,” Krieger interrupted. “I just wanted to… give you two a moment.” He picked Ryann up and took her away. I reached out after for her, but I had no desire to fight the doctor on this one, not if it would interfere with Ryann’s recovery.
“How d-did y-you find us?” I peered up at my sister.
She ruffled my hair, getting rid of a spray of water. “When we didn’t hear from you, we feared the worst. We used tracking spells, divination, just about everything to try and find you, but it was like you’d… vanished off the face of the earth.”
“We d-did, in a way.” I put my shaking arms around her and let her support my weight, just glad to have my sister close and my girlfriend alive. Even if Krieger had taken the latter away for further treatment.
“Then, Raffe gets word from Kadar that the djinn have a message for us… from you!” Harley sat back and held my face in her hands, kissing my forehead with a mix of happiness and bubbling frustration. “They tell us that Atlantis is rising, and we need to rally the magical world. Kadar had the smart idea to ask them to use one of their tracking spells, to trace the message back to you. It led us here, but this was as far as the spell could take us. So we’ve been here for days, trying to figure out what to do next.”
I peered up at her. “You d-did rally the m-magical world, right?”
“With some convincing from O’Halloran, Remington, and the Crowleys.” She nodded. “Some of the military leaders around the world are still dragging their feet, saying we’re afraid of a fairytale, but they’ve set global magical security to Defcon 1. Remington saw to that—I guess it’s useful to have an old friend as the head of a Mage Council, with ties to the president. Anyway, they’re ready to mobilize the moment it turns out we aren’t panicking over a myth. I think the Katherine debacle taught them a lesson. They might not believe us, but they’re prepared for the worst-case scenario.”
“G-good. That’s g-good.” I clenched my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering.
Harley smiled. “Now tell us what happened. If Atlantis really is rising, then O’Halloran needs to send word to Remington ASAP, to inform the top brass.”
“Then he should do that n-now. It’s already s-started,” I urged, looking toward the ocean. No sign of it yet, but it was coming.
“I’ve got this.” Saskia grinned and hurried off to O’Halloran, a little too pleased to be delivering dire news.
Harley stared down at me with far less cheerful eyes. “What are we facing, Finch?”
Taking an unsteady breath, I opened the floodgates. From start to finish, I let the entire tale pour out to my horrified audience. Nash, Luke, and Melody interjected here and there, and Huntress added a bark or two, as we told them just about everything. Finally, we delivered the biggest blow: how Kaya was under the love spell’s influence, and that had prompted her to complete the spell to raise Atlantis, and what that meant. In short, a city with a million or more supercharged descendants of the Primus Anglicus inside, obeying the orders of King Davin and his zombie queen.
“Which brings us here.” I sighed, my lungs hurting. “Kaya expelled us into the ocean. We�
��d have died there if Erebus hadn’t saved us.”
“Erebus?” Melody sounded confused.
I nodded. “You were out cold, but he rescued us all, then he dumped us on this island and vamoosed. You know what he’s like. He never likes to stay long at a party.” I fixed a tense look on my sister. “Atlantis is on its way.”
As if summoned, the ocean to my left grew agitated. Ripples raced to the shore, coming from an unknown epicenter. The gulls overhead squawked a warning, trying to swoop their way to safety through a gale that began to screech around us.
A couple miles from shore, the surface gave way. I waited to see the glinting sheen of Atlantis and its interdimensional bubble, but it didn’t come. The ocean parted, and gigantic cascades of water plummeted down from the edge of an unseen entity. A deafening splash like an explosion followed as the invisible city crashed back down onto the sea’s churning surface. And beneath that, another sound—a throb that vibrated my eardrums, skimming past me and into the mountains beyond, and continuing on to who knew where. I figured it was part of the blood spell—the whir of the magical engine that had brought this behemoth up. The powerful landing disturbed everything in its wake, as far as the eye could see, sending up an enormous wave… headed right for us.
Everyone scrambled to put up a defensive wall between us and the tidal wave, while I sat and stared in utter shock and awe. It certainly made an impact. Davin would be loving this.
I was so distracted by the advancing wave that I didn’t notice O’Halloran sprinting toward us, until he skidded to a stop right beside me. He gasped, holding up a radio. A voice crackled through the speaker, frantic and fuzzy.
“The SDC! It’s… out! The interdimensional bubble has failed! It fell apart, and now we are out in the open!” the voice hissed. “The Fleet Science Center… burst apart when the… shield fell! The SDC… was too big, and it pushed the… Center out. We don’t know how many casualties… It’s out, Director O’Halloran… The SDC is… for everyone to see!”
Harley Merlin 16: Finch Merlin and the Blood Tie Page 29