Triton (24 page)

No answer.

Jake lifted his own radio, which had stayed silent despite her broadcast. “You on channel one?”

She checked the knob and confirmed, “Channel one.”

Jake cranked the volume on his radio all the way up. “Try again.”

“Brynn, can you hear me?” she said.

Nothing. Not on her radio, not on his.

“The LED indicator lights are off,” Jake noted. “These radios are toast.”

“Out of batteries?”

“No. Something else.”

Naomi stared at him, the dark outlines of his face—and right then, she felt something through the deck that chilled her. Rather, the
absence
of something.

This low on the ship, you could always feel the vibration of the diesel engines. Instead, the cruise ship floated in eerie silence.

“We’ve lost engine power,” she said. Then louder, her voice laced with fear. “We’ve lost engine power. Look—” She pointed down at the water. Below their hull, the mass of the Triton was beginning to slide astern—meaning they were moving forward. “We need to get back to the bridge . . . we’re getting sucked toward the Triton.”

In a dark
office off the I-95 crew passageway on deck two, Cedar blindly groped through the contents of a supply cupboard. He could just see Sky’s slender silhouette against the doorway—backlit from an unseen source of bluish light.

“Feel anything?” she said.

His fingers wrapped around a plastic cylinder. “Got one.” He dragged the flashlight out of the closet and flipped the switch.

The bulb stayed dark.

“Damnit.” He popped out the battery—one of the big six volt lantern brands—and licked the two leads. The shock pricked his tongue and left a lingering sour taste. “Eugh . . . plenty of juice,” he announced, spitting out the taste. “It must’ve fried the flashlight bulbs.”

“What did?”

“The EMP. Come on,” he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the office. “There’s bound to be a steel trunk down here with more supplies . . . some kind of Faraday cage.”

“What’s E-M-P?”

“Electromagnetic pulse. Induces currents in circuits and melts them. Anything sealed inside a metal cage is protected, though.”

Cedar hurried her down the hallway and into another office, hyperaware that they were not alone down here. They had tracked the nephilim down to this deck—deck two—never glimpsing more than a shadow, a door shutting, a flicker. As far as they could tell, it was going to the bottom of the ship.

To be nearer the Triton.

“Here we go.” Protected inside a metal chest against the wall, Cedar found walkie-talkies and another flashlight. He took a deep breath and clicked on the flashlight.

It’s yellow cone lit up the office, flooding him with relief. He tossed his fried radio into the corner and clipped a fresh one to his belt, then swung the flashlight’s beam toward the door—and that’s when he heard footsteps.

Something was running up the hallway toward their office.
The nephilim
. Like a moth, it was drawn to light. He glanced at Sky, and raised a shaky finger to his lips. She nodded, her terror-streaked eyes resolute.

He killed the flashlight.

Just out of view beyond the office door, the footsteps slowed. The flashlight’s glare lingered in Cedar’s eyes, ruining his night vision, blinding him. In the pitch black office, he saw only the rectangular hint of blue.

Then a dark figure slunk into view.

Sinewy, powerfully built—just how he would imagine a fallen angel. It froze in the doorway, and slowly craned its neck, peering into the office . . . just as he and Sky peered out. Cedar held his breath and heard Sky stifle hers next to him, and the only sound came from the nephilim. A faint wheezing.

He felt Sky’s hand close around his, and he knew what he had to do. He let go of her hand, lowered himself into a crouch, and angled the flashlight straight into the eyes of their unearthly visitor. All at once, he lunged and flipped on the flashlight.

The glare illuminated the figure a split second before Cedar made his tackle—and he froze.

It wasn’t the nephilim.

It was Jake. Their very own Jake.

Jake stumbled backwards, terrified, shielding his eyes from the glare. “Who’s there?” he shouted. “What are you?”

“It’s us. Me and Sky.” Cedar angled the light at his own face, then Sky’s.

Jake exhaled loudly. “You scared the bejesus out of me,” he said, still panting. “I saw light at the end of the hallway and came to investigate. I thought you were the nephilim.”

“Likewise.” Cedar retreated into the office and grabbed another flashlight and walkie-talkies—which he tossed to Jake. “These still work.”

Jake caught them. “How? Everything’s fried.”

“They were sealed inside a metal container. It’s a Faraday cage, simple physics . . .” he began, but trailed off. “Hang on. What were
you
doing down here?”

“Naomi and I were trying to launch the minisub,” he said. “The Triton’s sinking.”

“Does the sub still work?”

“The winch got fried before we got it into the water. I don’t know.”

“It’s mostly metal, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wait—” Cedar felt a surge of uneasiness. “Both you and Naomi?”

“Yeah, she went straight back to the bridge.”

“You mean you left Brynn alone?”

“We couldn’t reach you. Someone needed to pilot the ship.”

Cedar’s eyebrow nudged upward. “You left Brynn?
Alone?
”

“You got a problem with that?”

“What do you think, you selfish prick? You left my sister alone . . .” As soon as he started, though, his accusation lost steam. What the hell was he talking about?

Jake never put other people in danger. He put himself in danger. Always. That was why he’d sent Naomi back to the bridge and shown up by himself to investigate Cedar’s flashlight. That was why he’d hurdled himself off deck fourteen with an axe in his hand and nothing but a rope around his waist while Cedar watched. That was why he’d left Brynn on the bridge.

Because she was safest there.

If the man could have, he would have volunteered himself to be taken in Sky’s place. Cedar was sure of it.

He cleared his throat and changed tactics. “Well, Brynn does speak Hebrew,” he started lamely, “and we both know how persuasive she can be . . . so if the nephilim come for her, I don’t give them much chance.”

Jake studied him for a moment, his gaze cryptic, before clipping in his radio. “You guys go back to the bridge,” he said, “I’ll stay down here and check out the nephilim.”

“The hell you will,” said Cedar, sensing the pattern was about to repeat itself. “They need
you
on the bridge, asshole . . . and take Sky back with you.” His voice carried loads more bravado than he felt.

Jake held his gaze. “You’re not going down there alone.”

“Oh, but
you
are? Now you are just being selfish. Take Sky back with you . . . I’ll be up in a minute, I swear. You hear that, Sky?” He angled the beam back to Sky, who had been unusually silent—

The beam shone through empty air.

She was gone.

Down the hall, the door to the stairwell clacked shut—Sky, going after the nephilim on her own.

Was she
crazy?

Just then the ship lurched underneath them, tilted to the side, and they were thrown against the wall.

They exchanged a terrified glance.

“Find Sky,” said Jake. “I’ll get the others. We have to get off this ship.”

Cedar nodded, and they bolted toward the stairs. Jake went up.

Cedar went down—following Sky—and plunged into the humid maze of pitch black hallways that made up the crew quarters below the waterline.

The underworld of the nephilim.

Brynn stared out
the bridge windows at impending doom. The glowing tip of the sinking Triton loomed like an iceberg, dead ahead, its behemoth mass blotting out the entire horizon. No longer under power, the cruise ship had swung sideways in the current and was now listing heavily to port and picking up speed toward the pyramid’s chisel-sharp edges.

She peeled her eyes off the nightmare and scanned the instrument panel, tugged levers and throttled up and down in desperation.

Dead in the water.

Naomi sprinted on to the bridge and knelt to catch her breath, but the view out the bridge windows yanked her upright again.

“Throttle full astern. Bow thrusters hard to port,” she yelled, running to the captain’s chair.

“It’s all dead,” said Brynn. “Everything’s been fried.”

Naomi brushed her hand away from the controls and maneuvered the joysticks herself.

No response.

The ship quivered and rode up over a swell, then sank back again, still flying toward the Triton. On the pyramid’s sloping surface, waves crashed into sheets of foam before they were folded under by the suction. Around its base, the water churned angrily.

Trembling, Naomi stood up to watch the destruction. A moment later, Jake burst onto the bridge, also out of breath. He took one look out the windows and raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth. His voice trembled.

“Cedar and Sky, hit the stairs and get your asses to a higher deck. This ship’s about to crack open like an egg on a frying pan.”

Cedar’s radio crackled
with Jake’s message, then went silent. Jesus. They were going to slam into the Triton.

How much time did he have to find and save Sky? Minutes?
Seconds?

On the bottom deck of the
Cypress
, thirty feet underwater, Cedar could feel the pressure throbbing outside the hull. The steel bulkheads creaked and groaned, ready to burst in. The windowless blackness encroached like a plague.

He swung the flashlight and caught shadowy figures scampering away—his brain playing tricks. His heart echoed in the damp silence.

Sky was down here. So was
it
.

Brave, impulsive, electrifying Sky. Because she needed to face the beings that had taken her . . . to understand why. But why was he down here?

He couldn’t save her.

“Sky?” he called. “You down here?” The blackness swallowed his voice.

No answer.

His flashlight illuminated another branch in the maze. He angled the beam down the branching corridor—scarcely his shoulder width—and the flashlight gave the illusion of shining into deep, murky water. Not through air.

A hot, briny musk wafted out of the cave-like tunnel, and despite the heat, prickles crept down his spine.
She’s in there
.

He steadied his breathing and turned into the passageway. Doors hung open, swaying with the creaking ship. The flashlight revealed gloomy cabins, abandoned bunks—which scuttled out of view as the beam moved on.

His feet splashed in liquid.

A burst of moisture soaked his toes, and his light glinted off an inch of water pooling on the floor.

Because the pumps were offline. Water was beginning to leak into the rest of the vessel from the flooded watertight compartments.

He turned a corner, and the water deepened, its ripples sloshing gently between the bulkheads. His beam fell on a dark figure at the end of the hall, jolting adrenaline through his system.

Sky.

She stood in front of a cabin door, ankle-deep in water, her face set in rigid fear.

He ran to her, and the beam flashed across her face. She spun. “Turn it off!”

Cedar killed the flashlight’s switch, and blackness drowned them from all sides, and he realized—a chill penetrating his skin—why she had stopped at that particular cabin door. In the dark, it was easier to see.

A rectangle of orange light glowed along the outline of the door. Light . . . when the rest of the ship was in blackout.

She was right to warn him. If they could see light under the door, then whatever dwelled inside could see theirs.

Cedar pressed his ear to the door.

He heard noises inside . . . a hissing, like a fast whispering. The hairs on his neck bristled.

But how? The EMP had fried all the lights. There was no power, no electricity . . . so
how?

Suddenly, Cedar backed away, terror creeping up his throat. They needed to run; something wasn’t right about this.

They were trapped in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle on a ghost ship about to run aground on a submerged alien vessel—and they had just found something lurking inside a crew cabin on the bottom deck.

“Don’t touch that door,” he warned, grabbing Sky’s arm to drag her away.

But she yanked herself loose. “We need to do this,” she spat, “before the ship goes down.” The rectangle of light shimmered in her golden eyes.

Cedar gaped at her. “Why aren’t you afraid?”

“I’m
terrified
,” she said, “of not knowing what’s going to happen to me when I close my eyes and fall asleep. I’m scared to death of what’s in there, of the nephilim, of what’s haunting this ship. My heart’s beating a million times a second right now . . . and that’s why I need to go in there.”

Seeing her like this—seeing her bravery, when he had none—tied his stomach into knots. She was stronger than he was.

Her gaze burned with resolve, held him captive, melted away his own fear. And right then, eyes locked on hers, his heart swelled with pride.

He understood why she had to go inside. And he understood why he had to let her.

But that didn’t mean she had to be alone.

“Fast or slow?” he asked, taking her hand and reaching for the handle.

“Fast,” said Sky, her throat tensing from a swallow. “Count of three.”

He nodded. “One . . . two . . .” his heart rate crescendoed, “
three
—”

Together, they plunged the handle down and yanked open the door, which clanged against the bulkhead.

Golden-yellow light spilled over them.

Next to him, Sky gasped.

Cedar just stared in disbelief, icy fear dripping into his heart.

From the bridge
, Brynn estimated the seconds until impact.
Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven
 . . .

The cruise ship lurched forward, and a wave crashed over the bow and sent spray whipping across the deck—and her pulse careening into overdrive.