Triton (25 page)

Fifty-five
.
Fifty-four
.
Fifty-three
 . . .

By now, the glowing monolith of the Triton took up half the sky.

“So we’re going to sink?” she said.

Naomi nodded grimly.

“But isn’t wood weaker than metal?”

“So are icebergs,” said Naomi. “It doesn’t matter. At this speed, the hull will crack right in two.”

“And then we’ll sink?”

Again, she nodded. “Our inertia will drive water down the length of the ship; she’ll be flooded in seconds. Then the suction will pull us under. We’ll be underwater in minutes.”

“What about Cedar and Sky?”

“They better not still be down there. If they are, they don’t stand a chance.”

Her heart jolted.

What if Cedar
was
still down there? “Call them again,” she said, her voice edged with panic.

Jake raised the radio to his lips.

“I’d tell them to hold their breaths if I was them,” said Naomi.

In the tiny
crew cabin on the bottom deck of the
Cypress
, Cedar stared in awe at a hundred rows of candles burning without a flicker—until the suction created by the door whipped their flames back and forth, making glitter in the six inches of water pooling on the floor.

But that wasn’t what had given Cedar the creeps.

On the bottom bunk, a man—a normal man—sat in a meditative position, praying by the looks of it. His lips moved in a blur, his whispers filled the cabin, unrecognizable.

But Cedar recognized him.

How could he not? Those chisel-sharp cheekbones had been burned into his memory on day two of the cruise.

It was
him
.

Zé Carlos—the Brazilian magician who, in a single evening, had become the bane of his existence.

Apparently, he hadn’t been taken either.

Sky stepped into the room in front of Cedar, her feet sloshing through the water, but the magician’s eyes stayed shut.

Then Cedar’s radio crackled. “Cedar, Sky,” said Jake’s voice. “Estimated impact in Thirty seconds. What deck are you on?”

Thirty seconds?
Jesus.

At the crackle of the radio, Zé Carlos’s eyes snapped open. Sky froze.

“It’s okay, I know this guy. He’s just a cheap magician.” Cedar squeezed in next to her and addressed Zé Carlos. “You—why didn’t you come forward?”

“All part of act,” he said.

“What
act?
” Cedar growled. “Is this all you? Is this all one of your crap illusions? Just like what you did to my sister—”

“I tell you already, I not do illusion. The vanishing girl is not illusion.”

“Cut the bullshit. Why are you still here?”

Zé Carlos raised a hand to silence their conversation, closed his eyes, and went back to praying.

“Zé, I’m talking to you,” Cedar warned, but the magician’s lips continued to whisper . . . some kind of prayer, in an ancient language he didn’t recognize.

Or an incantation.

An incantation in Hebrew. The realization made Cedar’s scalp tingle. Of course.

He set the flashlight on the nearest counter and lunged for his radio. “Jake, get Brynn. I need her to translate something.”

“Where are you?”

“Just get Brynn.” He splashed forward, and a moment later, Brynn’s voice crackled over the speaker.

“Cedar, we’re about to hit. Get to safety!”

“Just shut up and listen.” He thrust the radio up to the magician’s mouth, who continued to utter in Hebrew. Zé Carlos appeared to sink into a deeper trance right in front of them, his posture relaxing and floating upward as if free of a burden. Then his prayer ceased abruptly, and his eyes opened.

Sky spoke from Cedar’s side. “Why didn’t you come forward? We announced our presence. Why’d you hide down here like a rat?”

A slow smile crept onto the magician’s lips. Just then a brain-rattling blow slammed the bow, extinguishing a dozen candles and knocking them off their feet. The explosion fired shockwaves down the length of the ship.

Still smiling, the magician answered. “Because,” he said, “you are the nephilim.”

Then he popped out of existence.

Booby Trap

Brynn was still
squeezing the radio to her ear, straining to disentangle even a single word from the rapid-fire stream of Hebrew she had just heard, when the cruise ship smashed headfirst into the Triton.

A curtain of water shot up before the ship’s bow. The deck rocketed upward, buckling her knees. She fell, and her face slapped carpet, bristles stung her cheek.

She climbed to her feet, but the deck swayed again, listing to starboard and plastering her against the windows. The sight unfolding below her froze the blood in her veins.

It happened in sickening slow motion.

The starboard side of the bow
accordioned into the rest of the ship. Planks shattered like bones, steel plates tore apart and chewed through the cruise ship, pulverizing the lower decks into a spray of razor-sharp splinters. On the port side, the hull ripped open and bared a nauseating cross-section of decks like ribs inside the carcass of a whale.

Seawater poured into the gash, foaming and spraying the air with steam and sparks. The violent ruckus of crunching metal stabbed her eardrums, deafened her. The
Cypress
scraped up the face of the pyramid, ground to a halt, and—with an agonizing groan—careened back into the sea.

The jolt dislodged Brynn from the windows and flung her across the bridge. She was slammed onto her back, the breath knocked out of her. She writhed on the floor, disoriented and gasping for air.

Still, the haze of destruction roared around her. Wincing, she reached up to clamp her ears—and realized she still held the radio in a death grip.

Cedar
.

He was at the bottom of the ship. The fear that jolted through her almost stopped her heart. She raised the radio to her lips, and only then noticed that her hands were soaked with blood.

“Cedar . . .” she wheezed into the radio, the first hot tears burning their way down her cheeks. “Cedar, are you okay?”

Amidst the thunder of destruction, the radio stayed silent.

She let out a whimper.

Cedar untangled himself
from Sky—the impact had knocked him on top of her—and helped her, dripping wet, to her feet.

“He was lying,” she said.

“Maybe.” Cedar patted his pockets, but the flashlight was gone.

His eyes flashed to the counter . . . empty. The flashlight had fallen in the six inches of murky water sloshing along the floor and could now be anywhere in the room.

Crap.

Most of the candles still burned, but without a flashlight, they didn’t have a hope of finding a stairwell in the pitch black maze that awaited them outside the cabin.

“Help me find the flashlight,” he said, raking his hands through the water.

“Why don’t we just take a candle?”

“Because in about a minute, we’re going to be underwater.”

“
What?
” Sky’s eyes widened. “But I have a fear of drowning.”

“I’m a trained lifeguard. It’s fine.”

“Fine for
you
.” Sky dropped to all fours and frantically dragged her fingers through the water, but like him, she came up empty handed. Trembling, she took a fearful step backward.

A splash exploded at her feet, and a metallic click echoed through the cabin. She winced and collapsed into the water, clutching her ankle. Gingerly, she lifted it out of the water, and something came out with it. A chain.

“Cedar,” she moaned, the blood draining from her face. “Cedar, look . . .” She pulled away her hands.

And he got a clear view.

His heart slammed against his chest as if propelled by force. A gleaming iron shackle had closed around her ankle, a spring loaded mechanism of some sort, trailing a thick chain into the water.

She tugged the chain out of the water and it snapped taut, padlocked to the bedpost between the bunks. A single glance was all he needed. Without a key, they would never get her free. She was stuck, chained to the bunk. Imprisoned.

Zé Carlos had booby trapped the room.

Cedar didn’t have a chance to react. He felt a vibration crawling under his palms, a shuddering in the hull, ripples buzzing the water. Soon he felt thunder against his chest—the deep rumble of water flooding through corridors.

His and Sky’s terrified gazes snapped together, but only for an instant.

Like machinegun fire, the cabin doors in the hallway burst in. His ears popped, and he knew theirs was next.

Water gushed through the door, rammed the bulkhead, and ricocheted at them. Spray slashed his eyes, then the mass knocked him flat, crushed him, lifted him like a rag doll and flung him against the wall. Brine flooded his nose.

Somewhere, Sky screamed, but her voice was cut off, drowned in the flood. He surfaced, choking for air, but was dragged under again. He opened his eyes underwater, just as the last candle extinguished—plunging the cabin into pitch black.

The wall of
water slammed into Sky, knocked the breath out of her, then sealed her windpipe, cutting off her scream. In a dizzying flash, she was underwater, floating upward, then the steel shackle bit into her ankle and jerked her back down.

Her lungs ached for air. Panic surged through her limbs, and in reflex, she flailed her arms and legs to get above the surface. But her head plowed into a solid face . . . the ceiling.

No air pocket. A shriek of bubbles escaped her lips. More air . . .
gone
.

She was going to drown.

Her fingers scraped against the hard surface, and she felt bristles. Carpet.

What idiot puts carpet on the ceiling?

No, she was at the bottom. Suddenly, her diaphragm convulsed, trying to open up her chest and drag in oxygen that wasn’t there. The effort sent a wave of nausea through her body, drowned out her thoughts . . . and she felt a dizzying urge to let herself black out.

But Cedar was in here too. He would murder himself with guilt if he thought he had let her die.

Up
. Swim up, Sky.

Her brain flashed into focus, and she kicked off the floor and swam up. There was just enough chain. Her head broke the foamy surface, and she gulped down air. Relief displaced her anxiety.

She held her breath and tugged at the chain underwater, but it was no use. Unless she could cut off her foot, there was no way to free herself.

She surfaced again and touched the ceiling a few feet above her face—dropping fast as the room flooded with water.

“Cedar!” she yelled, her voice barely audible over the roaring water.

A moment later, his head broke the surface next to her. “I’m here,” he said, and his voice soothed away her panic. “Stop kicking. Put your feet down.”

She felt his arm wrap around her waist and pull her body flush with his. Her chin dipped below the water, and she lashed out, kneeing his hip in her struggle to stay afloat.

He seized her wrists. “Sky, you’re wasting energy. Put your feet down.”

Finally, she did—and realized they were standing on a desk. Water had risen up to their necks. She straightened up, and her forehead bumped the ceiling.

Suddenly, the crash of foam was hushed, replaced by an even more ominous gurgle; the water had risen above the door.

“Cedar, what do I do?” she whimpered, dread rising in her throat. “I can’t get out, the chain . . . I’m stuck . . .”

“I’m going to find my flashlight, then I’m going to find you a key.” He guided her hand to the corner of the light fixture, which she could use to brace herself, then let go of her.

“No!” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t leave me here.” She scanned helplessly for signs of his face in the dark. Not even a glimmer.

It was utterly pitch black.

“Sky, I can’t see anything,” he said calmly, prying off her fingers. “Without light, I can’t get us out of here . . . without light, we’ll
drown
.”

The thought horrified her.

“But . . . but I love you,” she whimpered.

“Save your breath,” he said, “Tell me when you mean it.”

He took a deep breath, and then he was gone, leaving her alone and hurt and confused.

Cedar blinked underwater
, but he couldn’t see jack. The wash of saltwater burned his eyes. He kicked deeper.

Sky loved him.

And she was going to drown. He would have to leave her down here, chained underwater. He didn’t have a choice.

The flashlight.

He had set it on a counter near the door.
Think, asshole . . . think
. The collision would have knocked it off the counter and—since he and Sky had been flung to port—probably thrown it to the left side of the cabin.

The flashlight might have fallen just left of the doorway, in which case it might have been spared the turbulence. It might still be there.

He climbed down a shelving unit like a ladder and dragged his fingers along the carpet, feeling nothing. This was impossible.

The flashlight might not even be waterproof, the bulb might have cracked, it might have gotten swept down the hallway.

Speculation stacked on speculation, each as unlikely as the last.

She was dead, and they both knew it.

His lungs tingled, and he gauged his air supply as half gone . . . his last breath; the water was rising too fast. If he didn’t find the flashlight now, he wouldn’t get another chance.

Sky might as well hyperventilate away the rest of their air pocket, flushing the carbon dioxide from her bloodstream so she could blackout before the panic set in.

At least it would make drowning painless. The thought made his heart ache.

He abandoned the carpet near the door and worked his way back toward the bed, floating through a swirl of debris—clothes, sheets of paper, ceramic plates held aloft in the current.

Denser items like mugs and paperweights littered the floor, but no flashlight.

It should be here.

Unless it rolled under the bed.

Lungs on the verge of caving in, he kicked to the bunk, and reached under. He got up to his shoulder and swept his arm across the rug. His fingers just brushed the back wall.