Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(82)

Fathom would probably think I was being weak, but I take it nonetheless, and together Riley and I leap out into nothing. When we hit the spout, my whole body locks up. The water is icy cold and it steals my breath, even as my gills appear to take over the job of breathing. We drop downward until we splash into the murky ocean unharmed. Riley is still holding my hand. The scales on his face and hands are silver and blue. He’s beautiful.

He says something to me, but it comes out as bubbles and nonsense. He’s grinning. I think he’s flirting with me. I think he’s telling me I’m beautiful too.

Arcade finds us and points us toward the others. Once we are gathered, I hand out the bombs. Arcade gestures for us to follow her and takes off swimming. Her speed is incredible. Like the rest of my team, I have to depend on the glove to propel me forward, but once we get going, we take off like a shot.

The team slices through the water using the dim light from the surface to keep us together. It isn’t long before Arcade comes to a halt. She points first at our concussion bombs, then just ahead of us. She makes a monster face. It’s ridiculous, but it gets the point across. The Rusalka are near.

I press the button on my canister, then use my glove to send it torpedoing in the direction Arcade has pointed. I watch it zip away into the darkness, then watch my team mimic my actions. Eight more bombs shoot ahead and vanish into the pitch-black. I turn to Riley to see if he might be able to tell me how long it will take before the explosion, only to be knocked backwards by an ear-shattering boom.

It jars every bone in my body and knocks me about. I spin in a dozen directions, so that I can’t tell which way is up. When I finally right myself, I search for my team. Most of them flailed out of control as well, but none of us have been injured.

Arcade waves at us frantically and swims furiously toward the explosion. The Rusalka are on the move, racing toward the shore. Kita’s plan is working! Arcade doesn’t hesitate. She charges after the creatures, slashing their backs and their legs with her blades. They scream in agony, and black blood pours out of them. It makes the water smell coppery, and I nearly gag knowing it is in my lungs. I shake it off. I can be sick about this later. Right now I have a job to do.

I wave to the team, showing them how to pull debris off the ocean floor. I mix it into sharp shapes, then fire it into the fleeing Rusalka. The children give chase, each one mimicking my trick, launching spears into the fleeing beasts.

Our attacks have ferocity. The children channel whatever it is they’ve bottled up since they were taken to Tempest. Most of what they still believe about their mothers and fathers is a lie, but they have a cause I will not steal from them. Whatever gives them the courage to fight is good enough today. I have my own passion to fuel me. I fire one deadly rocket after another, watching them cut the Rusalka down.

“Show me which ones have the gloves,” I beg the water.

Magically, I can sense them all, as if we are linked together. They are spread out so many miles away, but there are a hundred close enough to be targets. If I can destroy them, the soldiers and my team waiting on the beach might actually have a chance. I reach out, concentrating on what is in the water. There is so much debris at the bottom, remains of Coney Island dragged out when the water crushed it to death. There are nails and pieces of glass and car parts and jagged planks of wood. I stop and focus on it all, pulling up as much as I can. It swirls around me in a whirlpool of filth, and the water seizes each deadly piece, turning it toward the fleeing mob and shooting it in one massive assault.

I watch the pieces zip forward, catching monsters in the back. Bodies heave, then sink; and glowing blue gloves fall like stars into the deep. The kids are following my lead, creating their own shrapnel attacks. There’s too much agitation in the water to know how many we have killed.

Suddenly, the chase comes to a screeching halt. We’ve reached the beach. It’s up to the soldiers and Finn’s team to do their part.

Riley swims close and grabs my arm. He points toward the surface. There’s a rush, and suddenly he and I are soaring out of the water and into open air, riding the crest of a spout. The other children do the same, and soon we are all looking out over the battle zone. Despite the carnage we inflicted, there are still so many Rusalka that they have melted into a single black and purple mass tumbling onto the shore. The soldiers spray them with gunfire. Finn shouts orders at the children, and several rockets crash into the water, ripping dozens of our enemies apart in fiery explosions.

But in this grotesque mess are five Rusalka who survived my attacks and have gloves like mine. I can see their glow from high above, and each monster is slobbering with fury. Together they lift their gloves skyward, and I hear a sound like the earth has cracked in two. Riley and I turn to find a swell rising higher and higher in the distance. It grows into a tower of liquid that is ten feet, twenty feet, fifty feet. It’s twice as big as the one that destroyed my home, and it’s coming right for us. It will kill everything when it arrives, charging through our numbers and crushing our bodies. It’s an act of desperation. These creatures are willing to be torn limb from limb if they can take us with them.

“I will stop this,” Arcade shouts, leaping off of Harrison’s spout. He tries to hold on to her, but she wrenches free and leaps down into the throng of Rusalka in a falling arc, She swings wildly, dismembering everything nearby. I have never seen such violence. She is killing and killing and killing, moving closer and closer to the last five who can destroy us all. I hope the Great Abyss has answered her prayers today, but she may not reach them in time.