“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.