Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

“It is good to see you, blob fish,” Ghost calls out to me. “I hear you have become quite average with your glove.”

I bristle at his insult, then remember he was the one who convinced the others that I could save everyone. I almost bust him but let him have his pride.

“Is it over, nephew?” Braken asks Fathom.

“Hopefully Minerva will take her foul brood to some dark corner of the ocean,” Fathom says. He kneels before his father, and I see that, despite the madness, Fathom still loved him.

“Flyer?” Arcade says. She steps to him tentatively.

He smiles as wide as the sky, then sees her hand. He gives it a serious look.

“Did you do this to impress me?” he jokes.

She smiles. I didn’t think she could. I didn’t think her face made that shape.

“We have much to discuss,” she says to him.

He cocks an eyebrow. “We do?”

“We do.”

Suddenly the ocean grows still. There is no tide, no waves—just eerie silence.

“Talking will have to wait,” Ghost says, pointing out to the water.

It’s then that it begins to churn and bubble. There’s an explosion, and something crashes onto the shore at our feet. It’s as big as a dog and made up entirely of tentacles. It charges right at me, using all of its hyperactive legs to drag itself forward.

“Undine!” Fathom shouts.

“Run!” I shout to the team, and everyone races inland.

The air fills with the shrill cries of the Undine. I don’t know which scares me more, the sound they make or how many I think there are behind us. I take a peek back and hate myself for it. I didn’t need to see the entire beach blanketed in sticky tentacles.

“We can’t outrun them!” Arcade shouts. “We have to fight.”

“Minerva has set them upon us. They will kill everything they touch!” Flyer shouts as he grabs Arcade by her good hand and pulls her onward.

The creatures spring into our numbers, attempting to cling to heads. One lands on the back of an older Triton, and I hear the sickening sound of its spike plunging into flesh. The Triton lets out a horrible cry and falls to the ground. I want to stop and help, but Riley snatches my arm and keeps me running.

In the distance, I spot the wrecked bus we walked through to get here. Soldiers are running through it in our direction. I shout and wave at them, hoping they’ll see what’s happening and run for their lives.

“They’re coming!” I shout to the soldiers. “Turn back!”

“Kid, you’re about two months late for that announcement!” one of them shouts back.

“Not the Rusalka,” I cry. “Something worse!”

One of the soldiers hoists his rocket launcher to his shoulder, aims, and fires. I watch the rocket’s wobbly path as it slams into the endless sea of tentacles. Fire and smoke rise from the charred carcasses, and bodies fly. The other soldier shouts at his radio for more troops when an Undine crashes into him. It’s then that I see the horrible spike they hide. It’s red and coarse, like coral, and it jabs into the back of the soldier’s skull. He screams, but the pain isn’t the worst thing that happens to him. Within seconds, the spike is sucking out everything inside him—blood and bone—until he’s nothing more than a bag of skin discarded onto the sand. The monster rolls onto the ground like it’s stuffed from a Thanksgiving dinner.

I hear a pop, and watch a black streak of smoke fly across the sky. Whatever the soldiers fired lands on the ground not far from us and explodes with a massive boom. I can feel the shock wave. The effect is devastating and grotesque. One rocket blasted a whole twenty yards in diameter, turning the octopus creatures into glop. I cheer when two more streak above, shaking the air as they go.

“The human weapons will not stop them,” Braken barks at us. “Distance is the only thing that will save us.”

My team makes its way around a semi truck just as four jets roar overhead. Each one drops a bomb, and a moment later it feels like I’m in the middle of an earthquake. My eardrums ring, and I’m thrown to the ground. Fathom falls as well. One horrible explosion follows another, shaking my bones. While the world is being ripped in two, I watch hundreds of soldiers racing past us, guns ready and aimed at the shoreline. They storm the beach and fire, their bullets tearing into the octopus creatures one by one.

Riley gets me to my feet, only for us to hear a horrible scream. I turn and look, spotting a soldier flailing about, trying to remove an Undine that has locked onto his head. It ends in the same nightmarish way as the last.

In the chaos I hear someone calling my name. Chloe races out of nowhere.

“Chloe, what are you doing here?”

“I didn’t want to go with them. I want to be with you!” she shouts.

I scoop her up in my arms.