“I did,” Orithyia said.
“Why didn’t you… You just went on with your life. You became their general. You led their armies. You never said anything, or did anything about it.”
“Where else would I go?” Orithyia said.
Artem’s mind flashed to the Island of Unwanted Things. Somehow, Orithyia read his thoughts.
“You see now why I sent you away,” Orithyia said. “I stayed behind to maintain order, and to hold the walls from crumbling. I sent you away so you wouldn’t be like me, trapped in a place you couldn’t leave. I stayed to make sure you could leave.”
“Unlike my father,” Artem said.
“Yes,” Orithyia said. “I stayed as a promise. To give you the freedom to leave.”
“Do the others know?” Artem asked.
“As far as I know, only Lampedo and I know the whole story. Marpesia would have been furious with her sister. But she was content to leave your father locked in a cage for the rest of his life. For our safety. There was no right answer. Not for me.”
Artem threw up his hands, frustrated and confused.
“I don’t know what to do with any of this, mother,” he said.
“Then do nothing,” Orithyia said. “But you have it now. And it was unfair and unkind of me to keep it from you all this time. I’m sorry.”
Mother and son locked eyes for a moment, neither sure of the other, both filled with dread and regret. Orithyia nodded and walked away, returning to the deck.
Artem sat in silence alone, reassessing his place in the universe, and what to do with all he’d learned.
Chapter 46: As old as time
The creature, plodding slowly and relentlessly across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, had been called by many names. The Sleeper. The Hungerer. He Who Walks. The Great One. The Father of Monsters. The Change-Bringer. The Star-Child.
It had been important to a great many people, a great many societies. Cults that knew nothing of each other worshipped the creature as a god, as a devil, as a thing to scare children, as the bringer of the afterlife, or the end of the world. Madmen saw it in their dreams. Fishermen saw it in their nightmares. These things still happened, even now, despite that the creature, He Who Walks, the Great One, whatever name they chose for it, had not been seen by mortal eyes for millennia. The power of story was part of that immortality, the shared madness of folklore and whispered traditions. But it also emanated madness like sonar, pinging off weaker minds. It shared its dreams, to any who would listen, and those dreams were all the creature had to communicate. It had no words, after all, none that a mortal mind could hear, comprehend, and survive intact hearing.
And so mortals, as they are wont to do with things they do not and cannot understand, they projected their own desires onto the creature. Their hates, their fears, their dreams, their hopes. He became a symbol of absolute power, of destruction, of the end of the world, of the beginning of the next world.
Some of those worshippers followed the creature like lampreys, like parasites. They devolved from thinking, rational beings—or, at least, as rational and thinking as such unquestioning worshippers could be—into degenerate cannibals, more fish than human, hunched and bulbous, hungry and blind with rage. They were, perhaps, the truest of his followers, the closest to the truth of what the creature meant, what its purpose was.
In truth, no one would ever know what this great beast shuffled toward, what it wanted, what it needed. It ate if something was placed in front of it, but hungered for nothing. It walked toward where it was wanted, preternaturally sensing when the mad and the hungry called to it, whatever name they might have chosen to believe in, and that, perhaps, is why so many worshipped it as a god. For the simple reason that the monster came when called.
What few talk about, because few survive, is that the creature walks where it is called, and it eats what is put in front of it, and many of its would-be worshippers over the centuries had called this great beast down upon themselves, to their own ruin, and to the ruin of those around them.
And that, the dead soon learned, was what the creature wanted.
To be called, to be loved, and to be fed.
Long ago, an immortal berserker, an Atlantean magician, an Amazon queen, and a child made of fire and sunlight drove the monster back into the sea. They harried it, burning its skin with magic and flame, and the waters ran black with the creature’s hot, muddy blood. The fishlike followers hounded them, threw themselves onto the heroes’ blades like sacrifices, until the trench that was Poseidon’s Scar opened beneath them. With the Needle of the Moon and the Eye of Dreams, they weakened the creature, who was not, they knew, a god at all, but something else, something darker, something that could be driven off and stopped, if not destroyed.
The creature was mortally wounded, and descended into the Scar, digging out a nest above the comforting warmth of elemental lava.
The heroes did not know, of course, that they’d driven the monster home. They couldn’t. No one knew what went on within the inscrutable mind of this beast, where it came from, or why.
But there, in the darkness, the creature could dream. It could dream forever, its mind expanding through the cosmos, corrupting the thoughts of mortals for hundreds of years. It was never without followers, even when it had not been witnessed for generations upon generations, never without worshippers, and they gave it strength, gave it reason to dream. It slept within earshot of a tear in reality, and listened to the wail of mad gods across the planes existence. Its followers devolved further and further, living, eating, surviving in the darkness, passing into the veil beyond.
There they would have remained, until the end of the world, until the end of time itself. Until a weapon of war fell down upon the sleeping bulk of the monster, radiation and flame awakening it, sending out shockwaves through the psychic realm, becoming dreams in the minds of willing worshippers, ready to die for the monster.
Casual believers woke with fear in their hearts. The truly faithful knew their time had come. Madmen rose raving, and those who had not quite been mad found themselves falling rapidly over the edge of sanity. All across the world, eyes turned toward the ocean, looking out across the deep black seas, looking for the One Who Walks, the Hungerer, the Great One, the Father of Monsters, the Star-Child, the Change-Bringer.
Some had waited all their lives for this. Some had been brought up hearing stories of this day on their grandfather’s knee. Some had found tell of this creature in a book and longed for the renewal his return would bring.
None doubted their conviction. None were afraid. Their time had come.
The people of Fogarty’s Folly were not the monster’s only worshippers, nor his most fervent, nor even the most plentiful.
They had the terrible misfortune of simply being the closest.
The creature, as old as time, strode on squat, bent legs across the Atlantic. It tore the guts from a transport ship loaded with new cars, which spilled into the ocean like playing cards. With an errant shoulder, it tipped over a cruise ship, sending a meal of thousands of people—some of whom woke the night before with the strangest dreams, of a many-eyed creature moving slowly toward them—to the waiting jaws of the creature’s followers.
It left destruction in its wake, a mindless, sleepy, slovenly path.
But the closer it drew to Fogarty’s Folly, the more its sleep-numbed mind began to wake. And the more it knew what it wanted, and what it was put here to do.
Chapter 47: Red water
I hope this never gets old, Yuri thought as he cut through the water like a knife.
He had grown more and more accustomed to his man-shark hybrid form, the transformation more natural, the massive bulk and strength it gave him less intimidating and awkward. But still, slicing through the ocean as if born to it gave him the same thrill it had the first time he’d done it without fear. He was growing to love these new powers, even if they made him a monster, even if they made him feel like an alien among the people he used
to be just like.
Yuri darted forward, faster than the Amazon attack ship, tireless and strong, feeling more at home in the deep, lightless ocean than anywhere he’d been in a very long time.
Ever since he lost his father, Yuri had been intimidated by the sea. Not afraid, exactly. Maybe a little fearful, but it was a healthy respect, the sort of respect one learns through tragedy and loss. His mother had tried to make him truly afraid, and she had a good and honest reason for it. Yuri didn’t hold it against her. She’d lost the love of her life to the ocean after all, and did not want to lose her son.
He wondered what his mother would think of him now, like this. Horrified, certainly. He was her only baby, and now he transformed into a monster of teeth and muscle and fin, a nightmare on legs. But at the same time, he thought, I’ve become something the sea can’t kill. Yes, there are bigger, more terrifying monsters than me in the ocean, but the sea itself welcomes me with open arms. It calls me home. I’m a part of it in a way no ordinary person can ever truly be.
He thought about the lessons Whitetip had taught him, the way being a were-shark had opened his senses in superhuman ways. He could sense the Amazon ship easily behind him, the way it sent ripples through the water, disturbing the surface. He heard whale calls, miles upon miles away. Somewhere in the distance, a creature splashed in the water, at play or hunting he couldn’t tell, but he knew it was there, and he could feel its vibration, its heartbeat. It was a profoundly magical experience, Yuri knew, a way of being a part of a world that once threatened him. It felt almost spiritual. No, not nearly. It is spiritual. Nearly dying to the were-shark bite and surviving had become a spiritual experience. He felt like a part of something greater, and he sensed that his role in it was not that of a monster, but of a protector. This is my world now, and I must defend it. That’s my job.
And I like my job.
He plunged ahead, in his element, arms at his side to allow his powerful shark tail to propel him forward. That had taken some getting used to, Yuri remembered, as hours in the water with Whitetip flashed through his mind. His human mind wanted to kick, or to paddle with his arms. I mean, I never had a tail before, right? How was I supposed to know?
But once he became accustomed to it, he wondered how he ever lived without a tail.
Yuri’s reverie was broken when one of his superhuman senses picked up on something instantly recognizable: he smelled blood in the water.
He couldn’t rely on sight much in this form—it was fine, but no better or worse than his human sight, which wasn’t great to begin with. But his sense of smell was overpoweringly strong in this shape, especially in the water. And blood was something his nature wanted him to find. He slowed his pace, determining which direction the blood was coming from, and with more caution than before, he turned his path toward it.
It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.
The water ran dark with blood, an overlay of the vile tang of man-made chemicals and fuel in the water as well, turning Yuri’s stomach even more than the gore. Bodies, in various states of destruction, littered the water, floating like ghosts in the darkness. He didn’t have to get close to be able to tell what they looked like. Eaten, he knew. Torn apart. If I get close enough, Yuri thought, I’d see those needle teeth marks all over them. No question about it.
The whole scene created a macabre dance of corpses and debris. The ship—what looked to be a cruise liner, Yuri guessed, though he’d never been on a cruise in his life—hung in the background like a ghostly upside-down painting. Like every other time they’d encountered victims of the swarm of fish-men, Yuri found he was shockingly unconcerned about an attack—the creatures seemed to devour and run, never remaining to gorge themselves on their handiwork.
But they’re close, Yuri knew. He could smell them in the water. A thick cloud of old meat and spastic motions, the sniveling, snarling sound of their alien language. Very close. Terrifyingly close.
He tried to take in the whole scene, the pale light filtering in from above, highlighting how red the water truly was, the faceless bodies, the overturned ship listing at the surface like so much thrown-away garbage.
I don’t know how to stop them, he thought. They’re worse than me, eating machines working their way across the ocean, piranhas on legs, a relentless cloud of murder. I might survive, but the others? How do we fight something like this?
Maybe this is how the world ends after all, he thought. And then he raced back to the Amazon ship.
He transformed back to human form seconds before arriving, knowing that his were-shark form made the Amazons anxious and preferring to not risk being stabbed as he climbed on board. Several of the warriors still stared, making Yuri self-conscious as he scrambled to find his shirt and glasses. Artem trotted up from below, clearly hearing the splash of Yuri’s arrival.
“You don’t look happy,” Artem said.
“They murdered a cruise ship,” Yuri said.
“An entire cruise ship,” Artem said.
“Looks that way.”
“This needs to end,” Artem said. “This is obscene. The loss of life. We need to stop this.”
“Not arguing there,” Yuri said. “But if you have any suggestions about how to make that happen, I’m all ears, because dude, they ate a cruise ship.”
“You said that.”
“Usually cruise ships do the eating. This is some sort of horrific meta joke about human food consumption.”
“You look a little frazzled, Yuri,” Artem said. “Are you okay?”
“As okay as I can be considering I just swam through a sea of corpses,” Yuri said. “Artem, I… what are you looking at?”
Artem had stopped paying attention and was looking just past Yuri’s shoulder into the distance. Yuri turned to join him and released a string of swears.
“Tell me you see that,” Artem said.
“Is that island moving?” Yuri said.
In the uncomfortably close distance, a mound jutted out of the water. It was somewhat round, like a dome, dark, like stone, and covered in a greenish moss.
But it wasn’t an island. It was moving, steadily, away from them.
“That’s its gods-damned head,” Artem said.
“Pretend I’m clever enough to make a Jaws joke here,” Yuri said. “I’ve got nothing.”
“Its head is bigger than our ship,” one of the Amazon warriors said.
“Yuri, do you see…” Artem said.
“I see them,” Yuri said.
Artem drew both swords from his hips and shouted to the crew.
“Prepare to be boarded,” he said, pointing across the bow. “We have incoming fish-men.”
Orithyia joined them on the deck then as well, carrying a sword and buckler, wearing a lightweight armor. Yuri could tell by the way it was strapped on, much like the other Amazon warriors wore, that the armor could be cut lose if she fell into the water. Having seen what happened to the passengers of the cruise ship, Yuri had started to think that drowning might be a viable option to the other ways they could die today.
“Show no mercy, Amazons, for you shall be shown none,” Orithyia said. “Fight for your lives this day.”
She shot Yuri a shockingly warm smile, and then turned to her son.
“I’m proud we had the chance to fight side by side, at least once in this lifetime,” Orithyia said.
“Whatever our differences, mother,” Artem said, his eyes dark, his mouth a humorless line across his face. “I will fight today to make sure this is not our only battle together.”
And just before Yuri gave into his were-shark rage, transforming into the beast that would let him fight like hell unleashed, he had a single thought:
Hey, they talked to each other while I was gone, Yuri thought. I did one good deed at the end of the world, right?
Chapter 48: A town gone mad
“What do you mean, he’s indisposed?” Simon Yee hissed into his phone, resisting the urge to start yelling. “Sam Barren
is never indisposed. I swear there’s like three of him. How is he not available?”
“I can’t reach him right now,” the agent on the other end of the line, a guy named Rourke who Simon hadn’t met face to face before, said apologetically. “Can I take a message?”
“You can take a message and pass it up the chain of command right now,” Simon said.
“There’s really no reason to be nasty about this, man,” Rourke said.
“I’m in a town, alone, where we’ve now got a cult worshipping fish-people who I just watched eat one of their priests,” Simon said. “I think that constitutes an emergency.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Rourke said.
“It isn’t good. It’s really not good. It’s the opposite of good,” Simon said. “So if you could find it in your heart to somehow get this information to Barren or anyone else who can mobilize some assistance from the Department ASAP, that would be wonderful.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” Rourke said. “Just… stay safe, I guess?”
“That is the general plan,” Simon said, knowing that to be both unlikely and untrue. He hung up.
Simon and Clarissa had made their way to the apartment building’s rooftop to get a better view of what was happening in the town below. The bonfire had begun to burn with a new, greenish light, and the number of human-shaped shadows gathering there increased every few minutes. The town itself seemed mostly asleep, though, unaware of the growing danger.
“I swear all I wanted to do was not need to take a train to work in the morning,” Clarissa said. “That’s the only reason I volunteered to open a stupid chain coffee shop in this stupid town.”
“I really thought this was going to be a quiet assignment,” Simon said. He’d been crouching, trying to stay out of sight, but rose to his full height to get a better look at the town. What he saw turned his stomach.
“People are heading for the water,” he said.
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