To Ocean's End (41 page)

Go find others attacking the town and stop them from killing more people and destroying Newport.
She pictured the destruction and sent waves of sadness, then pictures of corpses coupled with anger, and finally envisioned the serpent killing the other monsters and a sense of gratification.
Now go!

The serpent turned around and slithered down the road. A dozen nereids bounded out of a ruined building. The serpent dived on them, jaws wide, and killed them with strike after strike. Blood dripped from its mouth. A second water serpent slithered into the fray and the commanded serpent attacked the newcomer. The two began biting and coiling around each other, entering death rolls and flattening the town further. Jessie’s heart sank lower.

Kill the others but stop destroying the town.
She resent pictures of the rubble coupled with sadness. She felt indifference in response. Her eyes stung with tears and she turned back to Mido for solace she wouldn’t find.

He was unconscious, still breathing, heart still beating. One of his knees was bent at an odd angle. What could she do now? All her attempts to thwart the monsters attacking Newport hand’t made a difference, and she didn’t know anything about medicine. “
Cancer
!” She doubted he was anywhere within earshot but she wouldn’t know, unless he showed up or not. People were searching the pile that used to be a hospital. They pulled out crying children, injured adults, and inert bodies. Two of the helpers looked up when she cried out, then broke from their search and ran to her.

Once they hit the dirt road, one said, “It
is
Jessie!” They sprinted over and knelt beside her and Mido. Ed and Ted, both of them bleeding all over and covered in dirt.

“Are you two gonna be alright?” Jessie said, soaking in their injuries. She couldn’t bring herself to ask them for help if they were in dire need of it as well.

“Better than Mido,” Ed said, looking at the cook’s broken legs and bite marks. He gingerly tugged at the cement block and looked at the metal rod buried in Mido’s back, then sucked in air through his teeth. “That looks bad, but I’ve seen worse. Lemme see if I can salvage a gurney.” He leaned over and kissed Jessie on the forehead. “Hang in there, hun.” He ran off.

“Where’s everyone else?” Jessie said.

“I wish I knew,” Ted said. He wrapped an arm around her and placed a hand on top of theirs. “Don’t worry about everyone else right now. Just stay strong for Mido.”

More tears welled and spilled down her cheeks. “I’m trying. I’m scared. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

“No amount of worrying is going to change the outcome.”

“I know, but I tried to get the monsters to stop attacking while he protected me, but there were too many. This is all unfolding so horribly. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Just stay alive and stay strong. That’s all we can do right now.”

*     *     *

It felt like we’d been fighting for ages. The milieu of injuries didn’t help. I was as in bad shape as the day I’d escaped, and so was Tethys. Our attacks were slowing, and time between bursts stretched out. I sent my thoughts out to Jessie after our latest stalemate of an outburst, both of us standing in the crashing surf.

How’s everyone and the town holding up? I’m trying to get back to all of you but I’m still stuck fighting Tethys.

Not good at all. Mido’s unconscious and badly hurt. Ed and Ted are beat up and we have no idea where the rest of the crew is, and Newport looks like a bomb went off. I don’t know what to do.

Just stay alive. Please.

We’re trying.

I needed to end this and salvage what I could of Newport and crew. I pulled my mind back to the fight at hand. Tethys still managed to look smug, even with one eye, and despite how much he was bleeding all over. “Tell me one thing,” I said, “how did you get cursed like me?”

His smirk broadened into a grin. “I’m not cursed; just reanimated. Pretty crazy stuff, but she came to the right person for the job. I’m here to bend you so you’ll break when she delivers the final blow.”

I began circling him so I could take in Newport’s destruction. We stood offshore of the southwestern tip of town, on the beach from my nightmare. Fires rose from various neighbor-hoods. The tallest things were rubble piles and trees for miles, my house somewhere in there. I badly wanted to run in and slaughter the monsters destroying everything. Tethys knew I wanted that, had to know. It had to be obvious, even with my draconic face. “What, you don’t get honors of the final blow?”

“To be brought back from death with power like this and a purpose so sweet and simple... she can have the final blow. You’re gonna have to try harder to get under my skin.”

“Was worth a shot, dickless.” The story pertaining to what Jessie did to Tethys’s male member had reached me shortly after my recovery from getting shot in the head. I circled back to shore, not wanting to watch my hometown burn.

Tethys’s smile waned. “That’s more like it,” he said humorlessly, lunging with pure ferocity. He was coming in for the kill. He wanted to send me back to that place where cursed souls go to get tortured between deaths.

I ducked out of his swipe and shifted to my aquatic form, then feinted darting behind him and let him spin in place for me. I clamped my arms around his torso, barely able to grab my own wrists. If I’d been as barrel-chested as him, this maneuver would’ve backfired. He tried to wrench free but I buried my teeth in the meat of his shoulder. He roared and reached for my face. I coiled my tail around his waist and twisted with all my demon might. Flesh ripped and bone snapped. The sensation of severing his spine sent a shiver up my own.

I reformed my legs as he began toppling over. His lower body bounced off mine, then fell over and began gushing blood all over the sand. I chucked his upper body farther down the beach, then grabbed his thighs in each hand and tore them apart like pulling a leg off a cooked chicken. The gore sickened me but I didn’t want to take chances. I blocked out what I just did, then chucked the separate legs onto the beach.

Tethys used his arms to flop his torso onto his back, then lay there with his arms splayed out, chest heaving, and spine and guts hanging out as he stained the shore with a stream of blood. He looked skyward and let out a weak laugh.

“So much for bending me,” I said emotionlessly. I didn’t care that I’d finally beat him. It hadn’t undone the devastation to Newport.

He laughed again, a little louder. “Oh, I have.” He gestured northward. “Just look at what happened to your home while I kept you busy.” His hand flopped back onto the reddening beach as a wave clawed at his pooling blood.

I tensed with rage. The reason I’d come here... I wanted to scream, cry, and have Tethys get up so I could beat him some more. I started towards the destruction, deciding to let the bastard bleed to death while I salvaged what I could.

“I wouldn’t bother. The final blow comes.” He pointed behind me, at the ocean, but like I was going to fall for that.

I stomped over and gripped his thick neck with both hands. He didn’t even try to fight; just smiled as my claws dug into his throat. I avoided making eye contact as I twisted and snapped his neck. His corpse ceased rasping for breath. I flipped him over and pushed him facedown in the sand, then turned around, curious but not quite sure I wanted to know what final blow was.

Far out in the water, barreling towards Newport, was...

Oh, god. A tsunami.

Chapter 32

The Final Blow

Jessie, find the rest of the crew and get everyone to higher ground! There’s a tsunami coming.
I ran out into the water up to my waist.

She gasped.
How long do we have?

I don’t know. Maybe minutes. Go!

Dyne, we have Mido on a gurney. It’s just him, me, Ed, and Ted. We have no clue where the others went.

Then start shouting for everyone to head to higher ground. I have to try to stop it from making landfall.

You can do that?

I held out my arms like I was bracing to catch the wall of water barreling towards me.
I don’t know. I have to try. This is my home. I have to save it. It’s all I have left.

I understand. I don’t want you to experience what I felt when I saw Paphos. But, if you can’t stop it, please come for the others and bring them to safety. There’s so much debris to search.

I will. I promise. Stay alive.

I pulled my mind away from hers, the last thing I felt from her a fearful yearning for everything to turn out okay. The tsunami was barely visible on the horizon but it was moving with purpose. With my powers I felt out the size and shape of the thing. It was wide enough to take out Newport. Just Newport. It was maybe a three-foot swell stretching for miles, but it was steadily growing as the seabed sloped upwards. However, it didn’t need to be a tall wave to cause destruction; just a lot of momentum, which it had. One huge mass of water sent with the sole purpose of wiping my home off the map. I was so furious and desperate that I could barely focus on using my command over water.

I lowered into a fighting stance to better keep my balance, then threw everything I had at the tsunami. If I couldn’t stop it, the wave would collect all the rubble and pull it out to sea, just swallow up all of Newport and leave behind nothing but foundations full of water. My home was probably leveled already. I wanted to at least pick through the pieces for salvageable parts of my past once this was all over.

I threw every last ounce of will at the tsunami. I forced myself to tune out my desperation and instead focus on intent. Desperation made me tense up and want to beg the wave to stop. In a battle of wills, that kind of approach would guarantee my loss. I focused on the task at hand, the size of the wave, its mass, its velocity, and how to neutralize all that. A little voice in my head told me it couldn’t be done, a little voice right from my gut. Only a god could conjure a tsunami at will. Only a god could stop it.

A piece of the argumentative conversation with Amphitrite in the cave popped into my mind, the part where she’d explained that actions weren’t simply undone. There was only forward action, growth from choices made. She’d made the decision to create the tsunami. Now the consequences would be endured. I could try all I wanted to stop the wave, but it would be a vain effort.

I just couldn’t accept that. Not with my home on the line.

Every last ton of water resisted my will, barreling through it like I wasn’t even there. The strain gave me a splitting headache. The water around me began to get sucked out to sea, pulling at my legs. I dug my clawed feet into the sand and it began to pile up behind my ankles. I held my hands over the ocean and leaned back as I pulled like I was playing tug-of-war with two ropes. I pulled at the receding water, hoping to rob the tsunami of more fuel. The line of water before me slowed to a standstill, but the rest of the few miles only slowed, until the strain was too much. One multi-ton water demon versus millions of tons of water didn’t stand a chance. I let go and started gasping for air as the water receded, leaving nothing but sand all around me.

I pulled my feet free, jerking them with a squelch, then reasserted a balanced stance and braced my hands against an invisible wall. It was time to change tactics. I had to find a way to stop the tsunami. It just couldn’t reach Newport. I flung every last ounce of will at it again, urging it to stop barreling to shore. The splitting headache returned but I accepted it and narrowed my eyes. The tsunami showed no signs of slowing, but I couldn’t give up. Just like Jessie had spent months kicking at her cell door on Tethys’s ship, until it finally broke, I would contend with the wave until it finally yielded to my will. It just had to yield if I kept at it long enough.

You are a stubborn one, Dyne Lavere.

Amphitrite’s voice made me do a full-body flinch. I pushed aside my surprise and reasserted my will against the tsunami.

You already know how this will end, yet you try anyway. You’re breaking my heart yet again.

I felt sorrow in her words. She was sincerely heartbroken, watching me fight, but I refused to accept it, couldn’t accept that she felt anything but hate and contempt for me.
You don’t have a heart.

If that’s what you wish to believe, then I won’t argue. I pity you and what I must do to break you, but break you must. I suggest saving your precious crew while you still can. I have spared them from my creatures, but I won’t save them from the coming tide.

The sorrow emanating from her lingered in my chest, even after I felt her consciousness peel away from mine. My heart was already heavy from Newport’s devastation. Her added weight made my knees buckle. And her words... I took a deep breath and focused my concentration on the wave. I pressed my will against the front of it, imagining my arms were long enough to block the whole thing, and I pushed against it, trying to catch it, cradle it, hold it still--anything but reach land. Between the excruciating pain from the battle of wills and my multitude of injuries, tears fell down my snout. My vision blurred as I pushed against the tsunami with everything I had.

The wave barreled towards shore without variation. I could hear it rumbling. It sounded like the roar of a waterfall and the chug of a train. The wave gained height and the leading edge spilled over into a frothing breaker, turning brown with sand. I pushed against the leading edge, sending it up like high winds blow whitecaps away, but more water kept rolling in. I pushed up from the bottom, willing the entire wave to go up, instead of towards land. For some crazy reason it started working on the patch of wave directly in front of me. I spread my will outwards and pushed more of the tsunami into the air, and soon I had a mile-wide dome reaching for the fog. It cast a shadow over me. The tsunami rose high overhead, roaring away, but the higher it rose, the heavier it weighed on my will. If I could just hang in there and keep forcing it to go up, until it lost all forward momentum, I might just be able to win this fight.

Never assume defeat.

I began to teeter backwards as the battle of wills physically pushed on my body, but I somehow managed to maintain concentration as I staggered and regained balance. I spread my will farther, trying to catch the entire width of the wave, but I couldn’t reach it all. The father I reached, the harder it was to keep hold of what was already under some control, and the worse my head hurt. My entire body began to throb. I didn’t want to know how badly I was bleeding.

The tidal wave spread into a semicircle as the edge farthest to my left made landfall. I wanted to catch it but I’d lose my hold on everything if I stretched my will any farther. The washing away of Newport began.

I detached myself from the heartache that cropped up. I couldn’t let the sight break my concentration. My spine felt like it was going to snap, and my arms felt like two cement blocks with insufficient blood pumping to my muscles. They began to tingle and my whole body began to shake. Panic began to creep in. The tsunami wasn’t anywhere near done rolling in.

My will began to crack. The truth of the matter began to sink in. I began to concede that I stood no chance against the force of a tsunami. The series of waves were piling up, driving the water higher and higher. Next thing I knew, I was on my knees with shaking hands level with my head. The wall of water I’d created dwarfed me. Even though it was morning, it looked dark enough to be evening.

I got one foot back under me and couldn’t move without losing concentration. I was fighting a losing battle but I didn’t want to believe I couldn’t protect my home. It couldn’t be possible for me to fail at this. The wall of water began to crest, and the edges spread inland. I pushed against it, but the mass in front of me slowly crept forward, and when it brushed up against my knee, I made the mistake of stretching my will to push it back. The sheer size and strength of the tsunami crushed me all at once. My will broke and I couldn’t hold my arms up anymore. I toppled backwards, my body getting driven into the sand, and my mind saying “no” over and over. This couldn’t be happening. I gasped for breath and let blood flow back into my aching arms as my brain refused to believe what it was seeing. Gravity pulled the water back to the ocean floor and the tsunami’s momentum heaved it inland.

This just couldn’t be. I raised my hands and threw my will at the water but one push on it and my head spun. Bile rose in my throat and my vision swam. I gave up and pushed to my feet, and just stared, taking in the impossible scenario my mind and heart didn’t want to accept.

As the base of the wave began washing over my feet, I shifted to my aquatic form and rolled forward onto my belly, then charged up the crashing wave like a surfer, then plowed through the crest. I turned around midair and sped down the wave, using my command over water to propel myself forward and carry a chunk of water with me. I had no choice but to make good on my promise to Jessie.

I threw water ahead of me and the tsunami, and used it like one massive feeler to locate my scattered crew. I poured water into one rubble pile after another, feeling for familiar faces and bodies. I found Jacobi huddled inside a demolished home. He panicked and cried out when water enveloped them. I pulled it away and scooped them into my arms.

Jacobi swung his sword at my arm but stopped in time. “Captain!”

“Where are the others?” I said urgently.

“I don’t know. We got scattered the minute that guy started attacking.”

I rode water to Sam’s home next, filling up a rubble pile and finding him, Scully, a wife, and two kids. All of them were beat up. I added them to my armload and bolted for the
Pertinacious
on a cushion of water. I didn’t see any other humans scrambling for cover; just monsters fleeing the incoming water. I grabbed the smaller creatures with water hands, yanked them into the roiling water, and ignored the bigger ones as I made my way to the wharf.  I also used my command over water to tote all living local I came across in attempt to save as many lives as possible. I deposited my three crew members and Sam’s family on the bow, along with the locals, then assessed their physical state real quick. They were all conscious and in one piece, but all of them were dinged up, covered in dirt, and soaked. Jacobi was coated in my blood.

“Stay here.” I swam off for more as the tsunami began to swallow the southern end of town. I found Ed, Ted, Mido, and Jessie, and dozens of survivors where the hospital used to be. I grabbed my crew and as many strangers as I could carry, despite their screams, and delivered them to my ship as well. I’d left behind more people than I wanted to put a number to. Guilt weighed me down as I swam off to find my last four crew members. As much as I wanted to keep the whole town alive, the safety of my crew took precedence over theirs. It was nothing personal. O’Toole was still alive and hiding in the cargo hold. I’d managed to not flush him out earlier.

The tsunami steadily swallowed Newport, filling the gaps between debris piles and slowly washing over them as it clawed inland. Thousands of people were about die or have their lives changed forever. I collected many more strangers who were fortunate to be close to my crew when I found them, but other than that, I couldn’t play the real hero. I had to return to my ship to keep it afloat, otherwise the tsunami would capsize it, hole in the hull or not.

I found Cancer, Sam, and Rammus together in the northeast. They were near where monsters were seeking shelter from the water thundering inland. I picked up a few dozen more survivors, then finally found Sauna way the hell north. He’d somehow climbed onto the wall guarding the naval base. I scooped him up and bolted for my ship, which wasn’t where I’d left it. The water was pushing it deeper into the harbor, along with every other vessel that’d been tied down. The entire wharf was underwater.

I added the rest of the crew and more locals to the deck, then shifted back to having legs and crouched over the bow, one hand held out to help me command water. “Everyone hang on!” I guided water out of the hold and rode out the tsunami as we continued to get sucked inland. I was dead tired, hurting all over, and having a hard time holding my arm up. Willing such a small amount of water to do my bidding made my head hurt anew. Still, I helped the ship stay afloat as Jessie, Ed, and Ted held Mido down, and Cancer limped from person to person in need of medical attention. Sam, Rammus, and Scully helped Cancer as they could, holding people down, tearing off chunks of shirt to create makeshift tourniquets, and speaking soothing words to frightened landies.

The tsunami rolled in, one wave after another, roaring in our ears and pushing us inland. Debris piled up everywhere, splashing over what remained underwater, until all eleven square miles of Newport looked like one massive network of rapids. Trees got uprooted and the ocean rocketed through the harbor from getting bottlenecked between two landmasses. A few landies got seasick all over the deck but I didn’t care. They were alive. They would hate me forever, but they were alive. My crew was alive, and they squeezed everyone on the stern since I was dripping blood all over them.