Clarissa, not quite willing to stand all the way up, knelt beside the waist-tall wall of the roof deck and followed Simon’s gaze. Below, they could see people gathering, clustering in groups before walking downtown and continuing to the shore.
“They look like they’re headed to a party,” Clarissa said. She wasn’t wrong. Simon could see people hugging each other, grasping hands excitedly, leaning in to talk. They look like they’re on their way to Christmas Mass, he thought.
But they also knew they were up to something, he could tell. None of the people gathering carried flashlights or candles, any light source at all. They left their homes and businesses dark. Whatever they were doing, they didn’t want any sign of their presence. He checked his watch. Three a.m. Most of the town remained asleep. He watched curiously as several police cruisers left the station near town hall and head toward the hilly main drag out of town, where they split up. Curious what they were up to, he picked one cruiser, its white paint job easy to spot even in the distance, and saw it turn and park perpendicular to the street leading up a main road to the highway.
“They’re blocking the roads into town,” Simon said.
“Or out of town. They’re locking everyone in,” Clarissa said. “We’re going to be fish food. Literally fish food. Oh, man, Simon, I am a morbid person and I have thought a lot about how I don’t want to die, and being eaten by fish-men didn’t even cross my mind as one to put on the ‘nope’ list.”
“I was going to tell you to take my car and get out of town, but…”
“Well, you missed that opportunity to be chivalrous,” Clarissa said.
“There’s got to be something we could do,” Simon said.
“Run through the woods?”
“I mean save the people here who aren’t volunteering to be worms on a hook.”
“We could go banging on doors and try to get everyone up and out,” Clarissa said. “I mean it’s inefficient, but maybe if we cause enough of a panic, at least some people will escape.”
“You really are morbid,” Simon said.
“Thank you,” Clarissa said.
Simon rubbed his forehead just above his eyebrows, trying to drive off the makings of a massive tension headache.
“The town does have that automated calling system, where they call every house in town that’s signed up for alerts,” he said.
“The ones for school closings and snow emergencies,” Clarissa said. “I mean, that might not get everyone, but it could get to a lot.”
“It’ll also alert whoever is in the cult that we’re onto them, but at this point, anything we can do to save people helps,” Simon said. “It’s worth the risk.”
“Except,” Clarissa said, pointing toward town hall.
Gathered in front of the tall, church-like structure, they could see a swarm of people, wearing what appeared to be the same style of cultist robes they’d seen on others in town. Maybe two dozen citizens, gathered in a semicircle, as if in prayer.
“Is that the town administrator standing on the steps?” Clarissa said.
Simon felt his heart sink. He’d met the town administrator and the man had seemed remarkably level-headed. Now he wore a robe and, as Simon watched, pulled on a cap or hood that looked like a poorly stitched squid.
“He’s bought the funny farm too,” Simon said. “Maybe if we...”
“Simon,” Clarissa said, softly, her voice taking on a heavy tension far beyond the anxiety and fear it held before. She looked out over the water, past the bonfires, at the open ocean.
Simon trained his eyes to what Clarissa had seen and he felt his guts turn to hot acid.
“That can’t be possible,” he said.
But Simon had seen strange things in his role with the Department. He had a normal human’s capacity for fear, but he was not inclined to hallucination or exaggeration. He tended, for better or for worse, to see things for what they were.
Rising out of the water was a head the size of a moving van, mounted on massive, sloping shoulders. Thirteen eyes blinked, never in unison, each a uniform glowing red and gold, but different sizes, like a child’s drawing. Some sort of beard hung from its face, masking its features, everything a gleaming, wet green-black in the moonlight. It was impossible to judge the size of the thing, not from here, but Simon guessed its shoulders had to be the length of two city buses end to end.
And it was headed straight for Fogarty’s Folly.
“Tell me you’re seeing this, too,” Clarissa said. “I need to know I haven’t lost my mind.”
“I see it,” Simon said.
“What are we going to do, Simon?” Clarissa said.
Simon took a sharp breath and looked down at the town. He pulled his phone from his pocket, wondering if Sam Barren, head of the Department, was deploying help right now. The last piece of his Department training kicked in.
Don’t die in a fight you can’t win. You are the watcher. Escape if you can to warn the others. Don’t let what you know die with you if you can.
“We’re going to run for it,” he said.
Chapter 49: Fight for your life
Artem danced across the deck of the ship, his blades never lacking a target.
The fish creatures—long limbs, sharp claws, infinite rows of teeth—were everywhere, and for each one he cut down, another climbed over the rails and onto the ship. Artem didn’t bother with the niceties of civilized combat. Each swing of his words was meant to kill with maximum efficiency, his only goal to avoid hitting a friendly target.
The Amazons fought like hell as well, each with her weapon of choice, be it spear or sword, axe or bow. One Amazon had climbed the main mast and was, sniper-like, driving arrow after arrow through the skulls of the monsters, one shot, one kill, over and over again.
Another, spinning a spear like a baton, found her weapon trapped in the guts of one creature, and before she could draw the daggers at her hip another fish-man set upon her, sinking needle-like teeth into her shoulder. She cried out, more in anger than in pain, but Artem saw crimson blood splatter to the deck, brighter and thinner than the brackish sludge that poured from the creatures’ bodies. He wove his way to her side, beheading the attacking monster while its jaws were still clamped on the Amazon’s shoulder, and Artem stood over her until she could climb to her feet. Her right arm hung useless at her side, but she slashed at onrushing beasts with her left, a dagger held in a reverse grip.
Another monster grabbed the wounded warrior from behind, but fell aside as a violent clang rang out. Artem’s mother, a spray of fish blood across her face, bashed the monster back on its heels with her shield and ran it through.
“We need to get into formation,” she said. “We can’t keep fighting them from all sides.”
Orithyia was right—the attack had happened so fast, and the ship was so narrow, that the Amazons had found themselves cut off from each other. With only a half-dozen warriors in addition to Orithyia and Artem, fighting off the ever-growing horde seemed impossible.
Then Artem heard a roar.
When the fish men first attacked, Yuri had disappeared, knocked from the deck by several charging creatures. That didn’t last long, though. Now in full-on were-shark form, Yuri became a force of nature. He fought without discipline, without skill, without grace, but those long arms, tipped with dagger-like claws at the end of each hand, tore the fish men to ribbons effortlessly. No skill was needed, Artem thought, when you were an unstoppable killing machine. He watched half in horror and half in pride as the once-fearful, once jokester of a man grabbed a fish creature in his jaws, crunched down on it without a blink of hesitation, then threw the creature into the ocean, a flopping, limp carcass. Yuri’s tail—so ridiculous here out of the water, became a battering ram, knocking a row of attackers off the deck with such force Artem heard bones snap like twigs.
Artem saw a particularly large fish-man climb on board just behind one of the other Amazons, a golden-haired fighter with a scar down one cheek whose name he
never learned. He went to help her but knew even with his speed he’d never get there in time.
“Yuri!” Artem said, pointing to the creature with one of his swords. Yuri didn’t hesitate for a second. The shark-man barreled through a dozen fish-men, stomping several to death just by striding on them, snapping another’s neck with a backhand. The blonde Amazon cried out as the fish-man’s claws raked down her back, but before the beast could strike a killing blow, his head went soaring into the ocean like a ball, skipping several times, as Yuri decapitated it with a swing of his mighty, clawed hand.
The Amazon, despite the pain of the injury, despite the battle going on around her, favored Yuri with a radiant smile, the sort of gleeful grin Artem only saw in combat. It was the grin of a survivor running on adrenaline.
The water churned pink with blood, and the deck was slick and slimy with it as well. Artem gutted a fish-man who ran at him with a quick slice of both swords like inverted scissors, and another he impaled through the heart. Yuri helped the injured Amazon join Artem and the others in the center of the deck, where they formed a protective circle. Someone, one of the Amazons Artem regretted, in the heat of battle, never learning the name of, handed her quiver of arrows up to her fellow fighter on the mast so she could continue to take out fish-men at a distance.
One of the Amazons cried out in surprise as she was yanked from her feet, landing on the deck with a bone-rattling bang. A wounded fish creature had her ankle and was trying, despite its own grievous wounds, to drag her into the ocean. Orithyia drove her sword through the creature’s skull and helped her sister-in-arms to her feet. The fallen Amazon winced, her leg bent in a way that told Artem she’d injured it in the fall.
He felt something trickle down from his forehead and reached up to touch his skin. He’d apparently taken a blow to the head somewhere in the fight, and blood ran from his scalp down to his eyebrow. He smeared it away and readied himself. There’d be time for injuries later. Now, he knew, it was question of survival.
“We can’t keep this up forever,” Artem said.
“Then we die on this ship together,” one of the Amazons said.
“I’d rather live to fight another day, thank you,” Artem said.
Even as they spoke, Artem heard a rhythmic thumping from below deck. He could hear wood splintering and snapping. The bastards are trying to sink us, he realized. That’s the sound of them battering the hull, trying to tear a hole in our ship.
Even as he said this, he felt the deck begin to tilt, just a bit, then more, the port side listing lower in the water. He rocked on his heels to keep his balance and watched as Yuri, with shocking gentleness, put a hand on an Amazon’s shoulder who was about to tip over until she could regain her footing. One of the injured Amazons went to one knee, giving up any attempt at remaining standing, her face a mask of pain. It was the one who had been bitten, Artem saw. Her skin was pale and clammy, her eyes sunken. She’s lost a lot of blood. We don’t have much time.
“There’s got to be a way to slow these things down,” Artem said. Maybe we take the fight to them below the water, he thought. “How damned many are there?”
Artem shot a look to Yuri.
“Did you get a count when you were underwater?”
Yuri shrugged his massive, silvery-gray shoulders.
“Math? When I’m like this?” he said, his voice comically low and garbled by the transformation. Artem realized how disconcerting it was to hear Yuri speak while in shark-man form and made a mental note to never ask him to do so again. It was, even in the heat of battle, skin-crawling.
“Then we fight until they stop coming, or until the last of us falls,” Artem said. He adjusted the grip on his swords as another wave of fish-men crawled aboard, hissing and showing their teeth.
The entire mass of fish-men exploded in a flash of blue electrical light, splattering Artem, Yuri, and several of the Amazons in gritty fish guts.
“Gods damn you, Barnabas,” Artem said, but he couldn’t help the rising joy in his heart as he saw the Endless, its bigger watercraft looking almost bulky compared to the Amazon attack ship, drift into view from the darkness. Barnabas stood on the deck, his ridiculous flintlock pistol magical focus held out dramatically, glittering with the aftereffects of his spell. The pistol-shaped wand flashed again, and for the second time, a row of fish-men were all but wiped from existence, a merciless magical energy tearing them apart.
Echo leapt from the deck of the Endless to the Amazon ship, now carrying a long, moon-white spear instead of her trident. She used it to end the lives of several fish creatures without missing a beat and then, with a strength that still shocked Artem despite having seen her do such things over and over again, pulled on a rope she’d tied to her belt, dragging the smaller ship closer to the Endless.
“We’re sinking,” Artem said.
“I noticed,” Echo said, grinning. She turned to Orithyia. “Get your injured to our ship. I don’t think we have the ability to stop this one from going under.”
Orithyia wordlessly ordered her warriors to carry the wounded as she herself stood ready to defend their escape. Artem joined her, as did Echo, and Barnabas’ magic flashed a third time, this time at the water, where the surface sprayed with an explosive force. Bodies of fish-men floated to the surface like the remnants of an uncared-for aquarium.
“Leave me,” the severely wounded Amazon said as her peers tried to find a way to move her to the taller ship. The archer, perched above, provided cover for her sisters as they crawled across the rope Echo brought with her, picking off monstrous amphibian arms as they reached up from the deep to grab at them.
“No one is going to be left behind,” Artem said. He barely had the words out of his mouth when Yuri scooped the wounded Amazon up like a baby in one arm and jumped with shocking, almost comedic, grace from one ship to the other. He gently laid her down on the deck and jumped back, his weight causing the attack ship to tilt even more.
Artem and Orithyia covered for the archer as she dropped down to the deck and made her way to the Endless. Finally, mother and son made their escape, with Echo—also capable of the same superhuman leap Yuri had made, but far more grace—the last to leave. They watched in horror as the fish-men began to tear the smaller ship to splinters, looking for prey that was no longer there.
“Now, Muireann,” Barnabas said, and Artem felt something akin to a soft breeze blow through his hair. Everything around him took on a strange stillness, the sounds of battle distant and soft.
“What was that?” Artem said to Echo.
Before Echo could answer, Muireann, walking quickly down from the foredeck, spoke up.
“It’s an invisibility spell,” she said. “I can’t hold it up forever, but it’s strong enough to give us a chance to catch our breath.”
Artem put a hand warmly on Barnabas’ shoulder.
“She’s a better magician than you are, isn’t she?” Artem said, smirking.
“You’re really going to make fun of the guy who just blew up two dozen man-eating monsters to save your handsome arse?” Barnabas said, holstering his flintlock.
“Tell me you were successful,” Artem said. Beside him, Yuri let his shark-form drop, returning to his normal shape and size. Yuri spit on the deck.
“Tell me I didn’t eat one of those things,” Yuri said.
“You don’t remember?” Artem asked.
“Everything’s sort of a blur after I got knocked off the ship,” he said.
“That’s alarming,” Echo said, holding out the spear in her hand to Artem. “The Needle of the Moon.”
“So you have the Eye and the Needle,” Orithyia said.
“Yeah, but what do we do with them?” Yuri said, asking the question on everyone’s mind.
“I think… I think we have to kill that,” Echo said. Artem turned to where Echo was looking.
In the distance, a massive form, a bald, green-black head atop slopping, humanoid shoulders, was rising higher and higher from the oce
an. Water and seaweed poured from its skin, which even at this distance appeared wrinkled and thick, like an elephant’s. Just beyond the giant form, Artem could see electric lights. A small seaside town, right in its path.
“Well, then,” he said. “I think we need a plan.”
Chapter 50: But how do they work?
Echo crouched down on the deck, holding the Needle of the Moon upright in her left hand. She looked over the disaster that was her crew, covered in gore, exhausted, but not afraid. Yuri had transformed back into his normal self, but clearly had lost his glasses along the away, and it threw Echo off a bit to see him without his specs.
“So you’ve got the two MacGuffins,” Yuri said, tightening the strings on his pants as he tried to get comfortable in his own skin again. “But how do they work?”
“No idea,” Echo said.
“Actually,” Barnabas said, sitting down on the steps leading up to the foredeck. “I can shed some light on that.”
“Really,” Artem said, his tone teetering on droll. “And you’re choosing to enlighten us now?”
“Why tell you until we had the gear?” Barnabas said. “Besides, if I told you, I’d have to admit how I got the information.”
“Why am I afraid I’m not going to like how you got this?” Echo said, rubbing the bridge of her nose to stave off a headache.
Barnabas turned to Orithyia and gave her a sincerely apologetic look.
“I snuck into the Keepers’ library,” he said. “Sorry.”
“If we weren’t in the middle of the ocean fighting for our lives, I’d be angry with you,” the general said, her voice strained. “But just this once, I’ll let it go. Tell us what you know.”
Barnabas drew the Eye of Dreams from inside his coat, the amber-colored sphere seeming to look at each person on the deck in turn.
“This is called the Eye of Dreams for a reason,” Barnabas said. “It can be used, at a spellcaster’s direction, to force a being of great power into a slumber without end. To become caught in the Eye of Dreams. Which is what happened the first time this creature was defeated.”
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