A scream echoes out from somewhere beneath Bao and the tentacle snaps back, a curl of smoke wafting up from the neat hole I’ve just burned in it. But before I can congratulate myself, the cephalopoid’s limb slams down again, and this time I can’t roll out of the way.
The world goes dark. I feel like I’m suffocating, like I’m spinning, like “up” and “down” are figments of my imagination, and then suddenly I’m back. I choke in a breath through the respirator and discover that we’re underwater, that the blackness wasn’t all imagined. My head throbs so viciously that for a second I think my skull has cracked. I’ve been tossed around far too much to get away intact at this point. Bao flexes underneath me, his jaws gnawing insistently at something, but everything else seems too still.
Then the cephalopoid’s tentacles loom out of the darkness again, lashing down around Bao’s body. He rolls his head and catches one in his beak, and thick Reckoner blood flushes into the water around us, blinding me. I flatten myself against Bao’s skull. There’s nothing I can do in this blackness but feel the power of the monster beneath my feet as he struggles, locked in mortal combat.
The only consolation is that the trainers up above are just as blind as me. With the fight underwater, they can’t afford the refraction throwing off their aim, can’t risk setting their beasts on each other. It’s all down to the three Reckoners.
And Bao’s giving it all he has. As the blood in the water clears, I see that he’s managed to rend the cephalopoid nearly in half. The squid beast still flails, but it’s mostly trying to get away from Bao’s snapping jaws, which slice into its tender flesh like it’s nothing. A twinge of pity rattles my bones as I think of all of the pups I’ve raised, of the sucker scars on my ankle, of how much pain the Reckoner is in.
Then Bao lunges forward and ends it.
But there’s no relief, no time to catch a breath as the cetoid rockets out of the murk. Its flukes pump furiously and it slams into Bao, sending me flying to the end of my lines again. There’s a horrible, muted scraping noise as somewhere its teeth rake along Bao’s keratin plates, and he convulses underneath me, his forelegs flailing as he tries to kick the cetoid away.
I yank myself against his hide, close my eyes, and wait.
This, I imagine, is what a cow that’s been sucked up by a tornado feels like. I can’t cut myself loose, and even if I could somehow unlatch the line-hooks, it’d only increase my chances of being crushed to a pulp by one of the beasts. The tendons in my hand creak as Bao swings his head from side to side, but I keep my eyes squeezed shut. I don’t want to know what he’s doing. I don’t want to know if the cetoid’s made it through his shell, if Bao’s gotten his razor-sharp claws into the whale beast’s tough hide, if they’ve managed to tear each other’s throats out in the same instant.
No matter what, it’s beyond my control. All I can do is pray.
When stillness finally comes, my eyes drift open. I see the pieces. The two-pronged fluke of the cetoid looming out of the shadows above me. The meaty, pulpy mass of the cephalopoid’s head to my left. My breath catches in my throat as I watch them sink past us. And beneath me, Bao’s as alive as ever.
He did it.
A glow of pride warms through me, and I can’t help but grin against the respirator. “Varma, you there? The Reckoners and one of the boats are down.”
But the piece in my ear only crackles in reply. The Minnow’s out of range.
Which means the boats might be on its tail again.
Which means Santa Elena has a gun to Swift’s head.
33
I pull the Otachi triggers, and my stomach lurches as Bao raises his head to follow the projections. A familiar stabbing pain shoots through my ribs. I get my feet underneath me and lash the line-hooks tighter, fingers fumbling over the cables. No matter what, I can’t let those boats catch up.
If I’m too late—
I can’t afford to—
But I feel the sensation start to curdle somewhere in the back of my throat, the urge to come crashing down, to become the reckoning that I’m owed after so long at Santa Elena’s mercy. If she dares take my last good thing, there’ll be no saving her. She thought that using Swift as a shield would protect the Minnow.
But she underestimated me. I played my cards, I laid in wait, I let myself be beaten and manipulated. If she keeps that promise she made to me, I’ll show her the truth I’ve learned on her boat. I don’t just raise monsters.
I am one.
Bao breaks the surface with a growl that shakes me to the bones, and I squint through the spray, searching for the lights of boats on the horizon.
I find them. Three of them. The Minnow’s retreating shadow barely glows in the distance, but bound right for it are two keels that blaze brightly half a league’s length from us. There’s still time. I flick the Otachi to charge. There’s no holding back now.
Bao lunges after his lights with every last ounce of speed he can give. The pursuit is defenseless, their Reckoners dismembered, their guns their only hope against me and my beast. If we can catch them in time, it’s all over.
I point Bao under the water and we plunge beneath the waves again. This time I brace against it, keeping my feet firmly planted on his head. The night betrays the Otachi beams too much for us to stay above—it would tell them exactly where to point their guns. But in the shadows of the NeoPacific, their shots are uncertain, their aim thrown off by the refraction of the water. All we’ll have to do is kill the engines.
With the water cutting over my face, with Bao’s strength beneath my feet, I feel invincible. I nudge him upward, teasing us toward the surface until my head skims out of the sea, just enough to check our position and adjust before we dive again. No lasers sweep over the waters from the pursuit boats. They’ve long since given up on their beasts after they disappeared into the depths with Bao.
We prowl the night, every bit the ancient horror we were meant to be.
When I next edge my head past the surface, the boats have split off from the Minnow’s tail, turning their bows toward us. Our approach is no secret. Their radar tells them exactly where we are every time we brush the surface, but once we take to the depths, we drop out of their sight on all frequencies. The darkness is ours.
And soon we’re right underneath them. The harsh cut of their hulls looms above us, outlined by the scant lights they’ve left on. Bao tenses below me. With the Minnow almost out of range, he’s growing more and more nervous by the second, the strength of his imprint urging him to fall back on his companion’s tail. But he holds true to the Otachi’s direction when I give it, and when at last I blaze the destroy signal at the hull overhead, he rises from the depths like a freight train.
A blast of heat hits me like the summer sun as we run up against the engines, but Bao’s claws are there to mitigate it. The ship bucks upward when he strikes, and the muted shriek of rending metal makes my ears ring.
But before we can call it a job well-done, the clatter of gunfire echoes out to our left, and suddenly the murk is alive with heavy machine gun rounds that punch through the darkness with impunity. Lasers carve through the water, learning us as they trace, and I duck my head to avoid being blinded. A shriek rings out from above, and a small explosion rocks Bao’s side.
We have to get deeper. We have to get deeper now.
I point the Otachi down, or at least my best guess of down. The Reckoner underneath me is tossing his head and rolling his shoulders far too much for me to tell which way it is for certain. In the confused tangle of beams, Bao picks out his signal and charges after it.