Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

I wave to the team, showing them how to pull debris off the ocean floor. I mix it into sharp shapes, then fire it into the fleeing Rusalka. The children give chase, each one mimicking my trick, launching spears into the fleeing beasts.

Our attacks have ferocity. The children channel whatever it is they’ve bottled up since they were taken to Tempest. Most of what they still believe about their mothers and fathers is a lie, but they have a cause I will not steal from them. Whatever gives them the courage to fight is good enough today. I have my own passion to fuel me. I fire one deadly rocket after another, watching them cut the Rusalka down.

“Show me which ones have the gloves,” I beg the water.

Magically, I can sense them all, as if we are linked together. They are spread out so many miles away, but there are a hundred close enough to be targets. If I can destroy them, the soldiers and my team waiting on the beach might actually have a chance. I reach out, concentrating on what is in the water. There is so much debris at the bottom, remains of Coney Island dragged out when the water crushed it to death. There are nails and pieces of glass and car parts and jagged planks of wood. I stop and focus on it all, pulling up as much as I can. It swirls around me in a whirlpool of filth, and the water seizes each deadly piece, turning it toward the fleeing mob and shooting it in one massive assault.

I watch the pieces zip forward, catching monsters in the back. Bodies heave, then sink; and glowing blue gloves fall like stars into the deep. The kids are following my lead, creating their own shrapnel attacks. There’s too much agitation in the water to know how many we have killed.

Suddenly, the chase comes to a screeching halt. We’ve reached the beach. It’s up to the soldiers and Finn’s team to do their part.

Riley swims close and grabs my arm. He points toward the surface. There’s a rush, and suddenly he and I are soaring out of the water and into open air, riding the crest of a spout. The other children do the same, and soon we are all looking out over the battle zone. Despite the carnage we inflicted, there are still so many Rusalka that they have melted into a single black and purple mass tumbling onto the shore. The soldiers spray them with gunfire. Finn shouts orders at the children, and several rockets crash into the water, ripping dozens of our enemies apart in fiery explosions.

But in this grotesque mess are five Rusalka who survived my attacks and have gloves like mine. I can see their glow from high above, and each monster is slobbering with fury. Together they lift their gloves skyward, and I hear a sound like the earth has cracked in two. Riley and I turn to find a swell rising higher and higher in the distance. It grows into a tower of liquid that is ten feet, twenty feet, fifty feet. It’s twice as big as the one that destroyed my home, and it’s coming right for us. It will kill everything when it arrives, charging through our numbers and crushing our bodies. It’s an act of desperation. These creatures are willing to be torn limb from limb if they can take us with them.

“I will stop this,” Arcade shouts, leaping off of Harrison’s spout. He tries to hold on to her, but she wrenches free and leaps down into the throng of Rusalka in a falling arc, She swings wildly, dismembering everything nearby. I have never seen such violence. She is killing and killing and killing, moving closer and closer to the last five who can destroy us all. I hope the Great Abyss has answered her prayers today, but she may not reach them in time.

“We have to push it back!” I shout to the children. The power needed to make it happen is all-consuming. We tumble out of the sky and land in the shallows. I feel my ankle wrench, and a burn rolls up my leg. I may have broken it. Emma and Harrison look hurt as well. I can deal with it later, if I live.

“Hold hands!” I shout.

The children link to one another, and the wave trembles. It knows we’re in its path of destruction and we plan on stopping it.

“You are all giants!” I shout at the children. “You are all five hundred feet tall. You have to believe me. We can stop this, but you have to believe that you are a force of nature.”

“I believe it!” Riley shouts, and then each of the children says the same.

“All right, bear down,” I instruct. “Don’t let it move forward another inch.”

There are ten of us against an angry ocean, and the nosebleeds begin. Harrison is first, then Tess. I’m too exhausted to know if it’s happening to me. Georgia is shaking like she’s having a seizure, and the others are screaming from the intensity.

“They’re breaking through!” someone shouts.