Undertow (35 page)

“Thanks,” I say as we clamber to our feet.

Once again I fill the holes. It's like I'm playing some bizarre video game, but I only get one life. More missiles are fired, causing me to reach out even farther. I need something to repair the damage. An old car is out there in the muck, but with a little concentration, I get the water to set it free. I'm about to fling it into place when I hear a gasp come from Luna and the others.

“What?”

I turn toward the horizon. In the distance I can see the navy ship that has stalked us for days rise up into the sky on the back of an enormous spout of water. I can see specks leaping off it and assume they are sailors, and then I watch as it is thrown like a child's toy toward the beach, rising effortlessly in an arc over my head, passing above the wall, and crashing down hard on the other side. Its impact is devastating. There are screams and explosions, and most of the wall disintegrates right before my eyes, including a huge section that once stood before me. A wave of heat knocks me around, sending me flying.

I struggle to stand, and when my eyes focus, I see an entire section of the wall is missing. On the other side is devastation. The ship landed on the tanks and trucks. There must be hundreds of soldiers dead from the collision, hundreds more seriously wounded. The bars and amusement park are obliterated by the skid the ship went into before finally stopping three blocks away. The only thing that survives, by some insane miracle, is the Cyclone roller coaster.

“We have to run!” I shout. There's no way we can fight something that can throw a ship a mile into the air.

“No,” Fathom commands. “Rebuild the wall! Ghost, deliver the next part of the plan.”

“What's the point?”

“The point is that there is now nothing between the Rusalka and your world,” Thrill shouts as he commands the water to sweep over the beach, collecting the refuse the missiles destroyed. “Use the ship!”

“It's too big!” I cry.

“Then be bigger!” he shouts.

I don't know why I'm trying, but I am. I'm so shaken, it's nearly impossible to concentrate. Still, I breathe and water rushes over my feet, through the hole, and toward the fallen destroyer. It swirls around until it's floating on its side, and then, to my amazement, it slowly drifts back toward us, filling the space in our wall. Before I know it, the gap is sealed.

“I did it!” I cried.

Thrill grins, then frowns. “Your nose.”

I reach up, knowing it's leaking blood.

Ghost cups his hands to his mouth and lets out his own howling command. “Let's bring them to us.”

This is the part of the plan I love. I turn back to the water, raise my gauntlet, and let it find the Rusalka. There are just over a thousand of them, and I give a mighty tug with my mind. The ocean wraps itself around their bodies and drags them helplessly to the beach. I can see them tumbling in the water, unable to control themselves, and then they are spat out on the sand like something rancid. They're broken and confused but quickly on their feet, shaking off their dizziness and charging in our direction. Horrible hooked claws spring from their hands. Teeth snap. They have no weapons. Their bodies are deadlier than any sword.

And our secret Alpha rise up from their trenches, leaping high into the air and coming down on top of the vicious breed. I see spears sink into flesh and tridents impale brown skin. I see creatures shocked to death like Svetlana Wilder, and I see Nix teeth ripping into muscles.

Nor uses his sword to slice off a Rusalka's arm. The bloody stump lands at my feet. Its hand is wearing a gauntlet.

“Good, that's four hundred and ninety-nine more to go,” I say.

“They're sending a wave!” Luna warns.

I look out at the shoreline and see it sucked out to sea. Within seconds every drop of water has receded, exposing endless amounts of debris on the muddy sea floor. On the horizon it gathers and builds, the entire ocean rising up to kill us. Water stands forty feet high, and then breaks, racing toward us like a runaway semi truck.

I raise my glove and try to think big. I can feel the impact the five of us have on it. We shrink it, send huge portions of it racing in other directions, but it's not enough. I'm trapped between the wave and a wall of trash, and like a great, greedy hand it pulls me under, tosses me around in all directions, and then tightens its grip until I'm crunched like a paper ball. I am no longer in charge of this shell. My lungs burn for air, but I have no way of knowing which way is up or down. I fight my own brain to keep myself from opening my mouth. My body wants oxygen even if it knows there is none to be had, and it will suck in seawater and drown me if I don't get to the surface. But I can't find up or down. I do not know where I am or how to get to safety.

Finally, as I become unable to stop myself from taking that false breath, I am spat out on the beach mere feet from the Alpha wall. Choking and blind, I wipe my eyes and scan my surroundings. The others are gone.

“Ghost! Arcade! Thrill!”

There are no answers but the waves crashing around me.

“Fathom!”

“Lyric Walker!” It's Arcade's voice. She's behind me, helping Ghost to his feet.

“Where is Thrill?” I shout.

“I do not know,” she cries.

“Luna?” Ghost coughs.

I shake my head. I don't see either of them. All of us were pulled under, but the others can breathe down there, so I'm hopeful. There's a better than good chance that they are still alive.

“The Voice is silent,” Ghost says. “It's not telling me where they are.”

“You mean these gloves aren't working anymore,” I cry.

Suddenly, Fathom throws himself onto the beach, gasping and wounded. Blood pours out of a hole on his side, soaking his body in red. I go to help him, but Arcade beats me there.

“We have to get everyone out of the water if we can,” Fathom says.

Arcade, Ghost, and I gather together and reach out with the gauntlets. Inexplicably there is nothing, no pull, no whispers, and then it is back. I see the shapes of the Alpha warriors. The Voice whispers their locations to me. Unfortunately, I can also see the carnage beneath the waves. The Rusalka are stabbing and slicing at our exhausted army. I can't let that happen, and I pull as many as I can to safety. Nor is among the survivors. In his hand he holds the stumps of two more Rusalka hands, both wearing the gauntlets. He throws them on the sand, and the golden metal snaps open, releasing the dead limbs.

“Two more,” he says.

“Little good it will do us,” Fathom growls. “We number in the thousands now.”

“We are lost,” a young Ceto cries. “We cannot beat them. There are too many.”

Fathom snarls. “We were never going to beat them, Son of Ceto. We were only going to die with our hands at their throats.”

Suddenly, the water at our feet is pulled back into the sea again. It races out toward the horizon for what looks like miles.

“They are building another tidal wave,” Arcade says. “We have to push it back.”

She races to the water's edge. Ghost follows.

Fathom looks to me. “Nothing will survive.”

I shake my head and run to join the others. “You're stuck with me, Your Majesty.”

“Here it comes,” Ghost cries.

I've never seen anything so big. It's easily a hundred feet tall. The shelter Arcade built for my mother and Bex won't survive this. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are not part of this stupid fight who will die. Arcade, Ghost, and I are all that can stop it.

“If we work together, the water will listen, but only to the loudest voice,” Ghost says. “Lyric, you have to make the world shudder before you.”

“I tried!” I cry.

“You have not!” Arcade growls. “Your family and friends are not safe, Lyric Walker. We will die with them if we do not stop this. Fathom will die.”

“Oh, that's not manipulative,” I growl.

I focus on the approaching calamity, breathing in and out, trying to find the raw emotion inside me. My feelings are my power. I know that, but how do I let them go? I feel something wet under my nose. More blood.

“They aren't designed for you, half-breed,” Ghost shouts.

“Don't call me that!” I say, and my anger ignites the gauntlet. Suddenly, a blast of energy comes out of my fingertips and hits the wave. For a moment it stands still, frozen in place. I have stopped the ocean in its tracks.

“That's it, bottom feeder. Get angry,” Ghost says. “Feel something or we will all be swept away to the Great Abyss. We are all that stand against complete destruction.”

The dribble of blood turns into a trickle. The strain of keeping the wave in place is ripping my brain apart.

“Do not stop. You fight at our side or the Rusalka take us all!” Arcade shouts at me.

The water creeps forward, stopping and stuttering, caught between our forces and theirs. Arcade and Ghost's gauntlets are glowing like fire. My head is going to implode, but we are keeping the water back.

“No farther!” Arcade shouts at the wall of oblivion so eager to consume us.

A Rusalka leaps out of the wave, then another and another. Hundreds of them with claws and chomping teeth, and they are running toward us. They cut down exhausted Alpha like weeds. Before I can beg him not to, Fathom leaps into the fray, his black blades spraying blood all over the sand. A head falls at my feet, and the disgusting bloated bodies of Rusalka form a growing pile. Those who are strong enough join him: any Ceto, Nix, and Selkie that can stand. Nathan appears, inflates like a balloon, and pierces Rusalka with the quills that spring out. They must be full of deadly poison. Rusalka who are scratched screech in agony and die shaking on the beach. Nor leaps into the water with his sword, eager for more gloves. Moments later severed arms are flung to shore. It is grotesque, but with every arm that lands near my feet, the struggle to hold back the water is eased.

We are winning.

“Stay focused!” Arcade shouts.

Fathom turns to me and gives me a smile. I smile back.

“I am proud of you, Lyric Walker,” he says.

And then two forms spring from the water. One is Minerva, and she wraps her arms around Fathom's neck. The other is his father, who plunges his arm blades into his son's abdomen. Fathom lets out a cry of surprise. He looks down at the savage wound, then back at me. For the first time since I have met him, since he has won my heart, he looks afraid.

“No!” I scream.

“I will see you in the Great Abyss,” he gasps, but I cannot tell who he was talking to. Arcade is standing by my side.

“No!”

Suddenly, I am unleashed. I am energy, and along with Arcade's rage and Ghost's determination, I let loose everything I've been holding back for three long years. No more hiding. No more keeping my head down. I am Lyric Walker multiplied by a thousand and fueled by revenge. I am a wild thing. Power explodes out of my fingertips. Even Ghost looks at me with awe in his odd little face. Is this what he was trying to explain? Is this how I control the water, work with the Great Abyss—or whatever it is that's talking to me? The Voice sounds pleased. It coaxes me on:
Push, push, push.
Let it all loose, Lyric Walker. You are bigger than the world.

And like the flick of a switch, the three of us have control over the Rusalka's killer wave. It's so sudden, it's startling, but it's ours. In fact, when I reach out into the sea, I can feel that the Rusalka's gloves have been turned off completely. Somehow, we have shut them down.

A black figure springs out of the wave and charges forward, punching me in the chest. It doesn't hurt, but it knocks me off balance and I fall backwards. It's a Rusalka. Ghost and Arcade attempt to stop the creature, but it leaps on top of me, kicking my ribs until they are on fire, trying to stomp on my neck and face with its horrible webbed feet. I try to stand but it knocks me back again. This time my head smashes against the wall, and the monster takes advantage, leaping on top of me and using its hands to slam my head into the filth over and over again. The world is going black. All I can see are its broken fangs and the glowing orb hanging from its head. It's going to kill me and eat me. It's saying as much in its fierce, gurgling language. I should be scared. I should be in tears. Instead I am angry. Angry that this is how I end: not knowing where my father is, not knowing if my mother and Bex are safe, watching the boy I love die in the fight.

I hear a crunch and then a slice and assume it's my skull, but then the Rusalka's body is thrown back off of me. I get to my hands and knees and see that a long, jagged strip of metal is impaled in its chest. It dies fumbling with the steel. I look around for the Alpha who killed it, but there is no one, just me.

“Lyric, we're losing the wave!” Arcade cries.

I hear her, but my brain is still trying to recover. I look at the wall behind me. The wave that crashed against it soaked everything inside. It's full of water, water that can cling and hold on to objects, water that does what I want it to do.

“It's coming!” Ghost cries. “We can't hold it back!”

The Voice keeps whispering its secrets to me.
You can't stop the wave, but you can make sure another one doesn't come.
See the sharp things I kept for you in the sea? See how you've stacked them? They can fly and stab and cut and kill.

“Ghost, Arcade—get everyone out of the water! Now!” I say.

“What are you talking about?” Ghost snarls.

“Pull them out. Every single one of them, before the wave hits. I'm going to end this right now.”

Arcade nods, but Ghost is enraged. “Have you lost your mind, human?”

“Ghost, just do it!” Arcade shouts.

Ghost raises his arms higher, and I watch hundreds of my people flying out of the water, held aloft above the waves.

“Whatever you plan, do it now, Daughter of Sirena!” Arcade says. “Because the Rusalka are coming to finish us off.”