Venna drove Rahel back under the surface again, and bubbles geysered in their wake.
Lewis rose out of the water. Levitated, like a freaking superhero, dripping gallons of seawater.
“Everybody, move close together!” he yelled. “Grab on to each other. Kevin, you’re in charge. Count noses!”
The noses were still bobbing to the surface, like corks. Kevin swam to the center of the chaos and forcibly dragged people to form the first tight layer of the circle, then ducked beneath them to form up the next ring, and the next. “Hold on to each other!” he yelled. “Just like you’re in a huddle! And keep kicking!” Now the survivors looked like a giant skydiving stunt, concentric rings of people floating with their arms around each other. Scared, sure, but human contact helped, especially for those who couldn’t swim or were too terrified to remember how.
I bobbed in place, watching them for a moment, and then I called sharks.
Lewis felt the pulse traveling out through the water, and he knew what it meant. I saw his head snap around, his eyes widen, and the shock and horror on his face set up a warm, liquid glow deep inside me.
“Now I’ve got your attention,” I said. “Don’t I?” There weren’t enough Earth Wardens to control big predators like sharks, not if they had to be focused on not drowning at the same time. The Fire and Weather Wardens would be completely vulnerable.
There were thousands of sharks out there. Thousands.
And now they turned and headed our way, drawn by an imaginary smell of blood in the water.
Something in Lewis’s face changed. He’d made a decision, not one he liked. I wondered what it was.
Between the two of us, a vividly painted craft suddenly erupted through the waves. It was reflective yellow, bright as a traffic sign, and it was completely enclosed, sleek as a science fiction submarine.
A lifeboat.
More of them were popping up now, all around the Wardens. Lewis—or Venna—had broken them free of the sinking wreck. “Ladders at the back!” Lewis yelled. “Last row of the circle boards first! Each one of these will take about forty people. Wardens, I want a minimum of three of you per boat, and try to evenly distribute the powers!”
The railings around the ship were studded with these strange little craft—fiberglass, highly buoyant, with diesel engines and very little chance of being swamped even in high seas. I assumed they’d have life vests and provisions inside.
It was a race to see if he could get the Wardens into the boats before my sharks arrived for their feast. Lewis correctly deployed his forces, keeping the Earth Wardens focused on repelling attacking predators as the Fire and Weather Wardens, staff, and crew boarded their ships. Then he evacuated the last of them.
I bobbed in the pounding waves, cold and shivering, watching.
The Grand Paradise, that floating castle, rolled like a dying whale, heeling in the direction of its fatal wound, and then the stern rose at a ninety-degree angle out of the water, exposing the massive propulsion pods and steering mechanisms. I could see, very briefly, the entertainment area of the ship that I’d never had time to visit—the rock-climbing wall, the pools, the spas.
And then it all slipped beneath the waves with a deep, gurgling death groan, churning foam and debris, and was gone in less than a minute.
I put my face beneath the water and watched its free-fall descent into the dark, and laughed, because even if the Wardens survived all this, that was going to be one hell of a security deposit problem.
I was still laughing when something suddenly lunged up from the depths at me. I had one flash of a second to recognize the gaping maw, the dead eyes.
Shark.
Sometimes, no matter who you are, or how powerful, Mother Nature still wins.
I floated on my back, bouncing on the churning waves, watching clouds fly in black, menacing swoops overhead. My storm circled in thwarted, anxious fury.
I was bleeding badly, and I couldn’t seem to stop it. I’d blown the shark into bloody meat, but too late; it had gouged a giant chunk from my thigh, and although I’d shut down the pain receptors, I knew how bad it was. The power I had at my command wasn’t meant to heal. It was meant to destroy.
Maybe it was a hallucination, but I could have sworn Bad Bob was standing on the wave-tops, looking down at me. He was wearing that same crappy, loud Hawaiian shirt, and his thin white hair blew in the same wind that blew spume from the water into my mouth as I struggled for air.
“What is it the kids today say, Jo? Epic fail?” He crouched down next to me. I could see the water rippling over his toes, but he could have been standing on concrete, while my struggles to stay afloat were getting weaker and weaker. “I think you let this happen. I think you were so damn guilty, you thought a shark bite was what you deserved.”
“Fuck you,” I whispered, and coughed. God, I hated him. The darkness inside me had filled me to bursting, and I needed to gag it out before it choked me. “I killed the ship for you.”
“Yes, you did. Not a bad job. But you let the lifeboats survive. That’s a whole lot less impressive.”
I blinked away burning salt in my eyes. “Help me.”
“Wait, what was the pithy phrase you just used? Fuck you, Jo. You kill Lewis Orwell for me. Then we’ll talk about how I can help you.” He smirked down at me, his pale eyes as vicious and shallow as those of the shark that had come after me. “Consider it the fairness doctrine in action.”
And with that, his image turned into a black mist and blew away.
But I didn’t think he’d ever really been there anyway.
There were more sharks coming. I’d drawn them here, and now there really was blood in the water—mine. My wounds were pumping out more all the time, and the shark I’d destroyed was functioning as bait too. The next one to arrive wouldn’t be so tentative. He’d just rip me in half.
I wondered if it was shock that was making me so fatalistic about that.
The lifeboats were all heading off to the horizon now.
All except one, which peeled off and turned back.
I was unconscious before it arrived.
I woke up lying on the floor of the lifeboat, with two Earth Wardens healing up my bites as best they could.
It hurt.
It hurt a lot.
Cherise, Kevin, Cho Chu Wing, and the remaining crew were on this lifeboat, as well as the Grand Paradise ’s Captain Miller, a sturdy gentleman who retained his military dignity despite his waterlogged uniform. He didn’t say much. I didn’t suppose he was regretting not going down with his ship, but maybe he was thinking about all the inevitable paperwork.
Or, if he knew I was responsible, he was thinking about finishing up what the sharks had left undone.
“We need to split up the boats,” Lewis was telling the captain as I drifted in, out, and around consciousness. “We’re like ducks in a shooting gallery out here on the open water.”
The captain nodded, but not as if he really understood or cared. I didn’t think he cared about much anymore. “I’ve already sent out distress calls,” he said. “Six freighters are heading our way, including a Saudi tanker. They’ll start rendezvousing with the other lifeboats within the hour.”
Lewis nodded and walked over to take a seat near me. The benches were fiberglass, with cushions that doubled as flotation devices. Among the supplies already broken out were insulating blankets, one of which was already wrapped around my damp, shivering body, and boxed drinks. They were trying to coax me to drink apple juice, but I couldn’t choke anything down. Not yet.