There was no time to wrestle. I summoned gallowfyre, the dark power of the wraithkin.
My skin fell into blackness and the air suddenly chilled, all semblance with Gillian falling away. Flickering moonlight covered the deck where there was no moon, swimming and swaying, exaggerating the movement of the boat.
His face registered shock as a hungry tide swelled within me and coursed down my arms into the skin of his wrist. He shrieked as the cold bit into him, jerking in spasms as he tried to wrench his hands away. My hands clamped on to his wrists, leaching dark power into his skin. He tried vainly to headbutt me but suddenly his strength failed him. The grip faded as black threads of power found his veins and followed them to his heart. His skin sank inwards upon his frame and he fell to his knees, all colour blanched from his skin as it withered on his skeletal frame. I released him and he fell backwards, all life sucked out of him. I kicked what was left through the gap in the rail and it fell with a light splash and sank.
The deck was clear. Three men, less than thirty seconds. My heart pounded in my chest, but I was not breathless. It wasn't a fight. It was a massacre.
I pulled myself back from contemplating what I had just done. My body felt fuelled, burning with energy, but I had just killed three men. They might have de served it, what they'd done might justify it, but I had killed them. There was no time to think about what that made me.
Turning back to the rail, I searched the water. I could hear splashing away to my left as the boat rocked on the swell, the grunts and shouts identifying them as the men who had gone over. I could not see Shelley. The moonless night cast flickering starlight on to the water, made worse by the glimmering gallowfyre. I recalled the power and it slid back within me like an ocean creature sliding back beneath the waves. The worst of the shifting glimmering vanished, but I still could not see Shelley. She had jumped straight in, but surely she hadn't swum far?
I ran back to the cabin. They had all this radar and technology, surely that would show me where she was? There were banks of switches and battered console screens arrayed behind the wheel, but I had no idea how any of it worked. It looked as if it was all switched off and I could not see an obvious way to activate it. Even if I turned it on, would I understand what it was telling me?
I ran back to the rail and worked my way along it, looking for signs of something in the dark water.
"Shelley? Can you hear me?"
There was no response.
I knew she would not last long in the cold water. All the crap about her being the maiden of the deep, saving the town, had been just that – crap. Shelley was just a girl and she would drown like any other if I didn't find her soon. I needed some way of finding her in the water. I had all this power, I must be able to do something.
Then I knew what I needed to do. I moved to the bow of the boat, standing where she'd stood looking out over the water to the town. I reached within and opened myself to the well within me. I felt it dilate and an answering pulse that thrummed through my veins. I began drawing in power.
In using gallowfyre against Ted, I had stolen his energy, robbing him of that which made him vital and alive. I took that energy and drew more. The air around me chilled, the breeze whipping suddenly about the boat. I reached further, drawing power from the water on which we rode, gathering it into me, building a great well of energy. As I did so, the world began to fade, overlaid with another view. The boat appeared most solid, the metal of the hull standing stark against the fluid insubstantiality of the water. The sea beneath us was vast, but it was also flimsy, a gauzy veil that didn't appear strong enough to support the hard metal of the boat that perched upon the surface while the currents shifted and swirled beneath us. The men in the water were flotsam, threads of life, floundering in the water, and there, beyond the light, was another thread. Pale and weak, it lay in the water, pulling vainly towards the land in sporadic bursts of effort while the life within it cooled and faded. She had got surprisingly far, but now she was fading fast.
I ran back to the cabin, trying to reconcile the dual images of the boat and its mechanisms and the shadow world overlaid upon it. I found a panel of buttons and switches and started pressing all of them. The lights flashed off and then on again, screens flickered into green phosphorescent life, then I found what I sought. A low groan thrummed through the boat as the engine caught and rumbled into life.
There were shouts from the water as the men heard the engine spark. I heard the sudden fear in their voices as they realised that their only hope of rescue was leaving them behind. For a moment I felt their fear, my stomach sinking in response, but then I thought of Gillian, and of Trudy, and I pushed the throttle forward, slowly easing the boat into motion.
Using my shadow-sight, I steered the boat to where the pale figure in the water struggled. It took only a moment or two, but already I could see the life fading from her, her strokes weakening. Whether she heard the boat coming from behind or she simply found the strength for one last effort, I saw her kick out again, once, twice, then a pause, then another stroke.
Easing the throttle into idle, I ran to the bow. I grabbed a length of rope, tied the loose end to a metal ring, pulled the other end around my waist. My fingers felt numb as I fumbled to secure the knot. Then I climbed up to the rail and leaped into the water after Shelley.
The water took my breath with cold, salt filling my mouth and flooding my nose. I surfaced and spat seawater, a wave washing over me and making me splutter again. Shelley was yards away. I thrashed forward, vowing to myself that one day I would learn to swim properly. My ungainly half-crawl made achingly slow progress. As the gap closed I could see her fading, the strokes becoming languid and ineffectual, her body lying low in the water. Then she slipped under.
I flailed my arms, thrashing though the water, then gulped air and dived. My legs kicked out, my fingers stretching out to catch her as she sank beneath my grasp. I kicked again, propelling myself down. My outstretched hand brushed something, fingers grasping, floundering for contact. A flaccid touch of drifting frond, no, a handful of limp-loose sleeve. I wound my hand into it and turned for the surface, punching, reaching for air. I felt the anchor-tug of her weight beneath me as she hindered my rise, resisting the return to life. She weighed me down as I kicked and pulled myself upwards with the rope. My lungs burned for air, my heart pounded, my muscles screamed in protest. Suddenly there was air.
I heaved huge gulps of it down, not caring when salt washed into my mouth, making me cough and retch. With one arm I pulled in the rope and wound it around my arm, lifting Shelley up to me. She rose beside me, limp and inert in the water. I wrapped one arm around her chest and hauled myself in with the rope, towing her along, snatching each length of rope to draw us back to the boat. I reached the hull and we floated alongside until we came to the rope mesh hanging down.
Tangling my arm in the mesh I hung there suspended, pulling her cold body in beside me, supporting her, holding her face above the wash of the waves.
I needed to get us both out of the water.
I tugged the knot from my waist and wound the rope under her arms, two, three times, twisting and tying it with fumbling fingers. I leached what power I had left into my muscles and hauled myself up the mesh on to the rail. As I released my grip on the rope, she slipped away again, but then I had my hands free. Pulling the rope hand over hand, I dragged her back to me. Reaching down I caught hold of the rope around her chest and with a huge effort heaved her bodily from the waves, water streaming from her hair like a sodden ragdoll. I hauled her up to me, hugging her close, until she toppled over the rail on to the deck. Landing like a badly-netted catch, she sprawled across me.