Cape Storm

“And what?” I asked, and took a step forward. “You’ll cut me? Oh, shut up. Get out of my way if you want to live.”

Ve

“I’ve fought you before,” I said.

“You lost,” she pointed out. “The poisoned water may sustain you, but it’s still poisoned. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re my equal. Ever.”

“ Booyah, bitch,” Kevin said. Someone else, with more sense and better self-preservation instincts, muttered for him to shut up.

“I’m going to kill you all,” I said. I meant it. I felt it coming, a kind of inevitable darkness. “I have to.” I was still just a little sorry about that, but it really was necessary. Lewis had been right that somewhere deep inside me, the old Joa

No more.

I flung my arms wide, felt the storm roar and answer, and shouted, “Now!”

The Dji

No, notRahel—Rahel as commanded by her master, Bad Bob, the Black Warden.

Rahel was as large as the cruise ship. Her hair was a nest of writhing eels. Her face was distorted, pointed into an extreme triangle, and her mouth was full of rows of teeth. She was dressed in rags and weeds and pearls and fish scales, and in both hands she held swords as long as the hull of the ship.

“Oh, Christ,” someone said, appalled, and then the screaming started. Not among the Wardens, who instantly began pulling up every defense they had.

It really wasn’t going to do them any good at all.

Ve

Ve

Rahel’s shark teeth parted on a shriek, and she was yanked down under the waves. The Grand Paradiserocked violently as the water churned, and the storm winds lashed the ship in swirling gusts.

Rahel wasn’t the attack, of course. Just a diversion, something to help get attention away from me. While the Wardens were focused on the water, I concentrated on the metal of the ship’s hull, below the water line.

Metal bent and screamed, and the entire ship twistedas if it had been T-boned. It rolled starboard, then over-corrected to port, sending people flying and rolling and screaming.

Rahel broke the surface of the water and was yanked under again. The battle continued, not that it mattered to anyone on the ship anymore.

I could feel the damage.

It wasn’t containable.

I smiled.

Lewis left the deck in a sudden burst and went airborne—a trick that few Weather Wardens could manage under stress, even at full power. Formidable,I thought, filing it away for future reference.

Then something hit us hard on the side, and the ship, already dying, rolled all the way over.

Disaster can be oddly beautiful. It seems to happen in slow motion, like ballet, and if your emotions aren’t involved, then it’s only input.

All I was feeling, as the ship died around me, was a quiet kind of satisfaction.

It took about ten seconds for the Grand Paradiseto capsize, and then I was in the water, floating away from the ship. It looked exactly like it had ten seconds before, only now it was upside down and wreathed in so many cascading bubbles that it was like some wild New Year’s Eve party gone badly wrong.

There was a ripped section of hull below the waterline, extending nearly half the length of the ship. I could see inside to hallways, storerooms, and the complicated mechanics of what was probably the engineering section.

I had done that. Just me.

I saw people flailing amid the strangely serene wreckage of what had been our only salvation out here in the middle of this watery desert.

Rahel’s massive sea-monster body dived past me, driven by a tail that was as much eel as mermaid, and disappeared into the gloomy depths. She was followed by a pink, sparkle-ski

The water was shockingly cold, or at least that was my impression. I instinctively reached for power and warmed myself, oblivious to the screaming people bobbing around me in the waves. Weather Wardens were quickly reacting, encasing people in protective bubbles and popping them to the surface if they’d been unlucky enough to end up sucking sea. I supposed they’d be all about saving those who were trapped, too.

I felt the suction of water rushing into the ship.

Rahel and Ve

Ve

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 Ve

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.