Doomsday Hunter 4, page 19
A spiderweb of fine cracks had started to spread across the window like a Minnesotan morning frost, and I swallowed thickly.
“Tracey, how you doing over there?” I asked the brunette Wayfarer.
“All I can do is send out a distress signal, but fat lot of good that’s gonna be if Percival’s on the receiving end,” Tracey groaned and shook her head.
“You said there’s a way we can send out like, an attraction call for sea turtles or something?” I asked as I rushed over to the control panel, and Maurya immediately clutched onto my hand.
“If we can boost the signal, we can attract maybe more than turtles,” Maurya suddenly said, and with her idea came a newfound confidence. “Do you think you can alter the signal, Tracey?”
“The basic principles are the same in this dimension, it seems,” Tracey said casually as she took her dagger out and used the wooden handle to bust open the control panel completely with one quick smack, and a bunch of wires and a couple of attached seashells and pebbles tumbled out. “If I just reroute the signal for the turtles right into the mainframe of the pod itself, so the signal is internal rather than external, the pod should become a big old homing beacon.”
“Hunter, I can see the eyes again!” Daphne called out. “They’re closer! This thing has gotta be gigantic…”
“Okay, do it,” I told Tracey. “We might attract more than sea turtles, but any distraction is a good distraction.”
“You mean we’re gonna be calling in more beasties?” Natalie asked, and I nodded as I pulled her back over to the door.
“If a shark appears, just punch it in the nose,” I said to the Scavenger, only half-joking. “I saw it once on the Discovery Channel.”
“So, if we call in more sea creatures,” Natalie grunted as she started to try and wedge the tip of her bone sword between the hermetic seal of the pod door. “You’re hoping their survival instincts will kick in and go after the bigger threat?”
“Exactly,” I agreed and started to wiggle my sword into the other side of the door. “We’ll look like shrimp to them, they won’t bother with us.”
“You’re sure about that?” Natalie grinned up at me as she worked. “Don’t go calling me a shrimp.”
I was about to make a mildly flirtatious comment back to the Scavenger when Daphne’s panicked voice called out to us.
“Hunter, it’s… I can see its mouth, I… oh, my god…” The black-haired Wayfarer’s voice petered out into silence, and she whipped around to face us with her eyes black and massive. “We need to leave, now.”
The pod shuddered as if in response to Daphne’s words, and she stumbled away from the window as a tentacle slapped against it and stayed there. I could see the beast’s ugly suckers gripping onto the side of our pod, and the giant tentacle almost blocked out the entire window as it slowly dragged across the glass.
The web of cracks in the window crept out further as the tentacle latched on.
“Tracey, do it!” I shouted. “Now!”
“Almost there!” she said with her dagger beneath her teeth as she worked, and her fingers were twisting the cables with lightning speed. Then she slammed the control box shut and slapped at a purple shell button on the panel above her. “Got it!”
The shuttle pod suddenly emitted a huge sonic wave through the water, and the tentacle at our window immediately writhed and released us as the signal shuddered through the trench.
“Oh, it’s gonna be really pissed at us now,” Natalie chuckled darkly as she continued to work the blade of her sword into the door. “We need to get this thing open.”
I turned and grabbed my newest Wayfarer’s green wrists. “Maurya, when we break out of this pod, I need you to swim straight for the landing dock and get us a way back inside, okay?”
“Okay, Hunter.” Maurya nodded firmly even though her hands shook finely in my grasp. “I can do it.”
“I know you can.” I took her face in my hands and kissed her. “You’ve got this.”
“I got this,” she echoed with a little more confidence.
“Daphne, Tracey… Natalie,” I commanded the attention of my other Wayfarer mates. “We’re gonna have to try and distract this thing so Maurya has a path back to the landing dock, okay?”
“We’ve got maybe fifteen minutes of air and pirate swords.” Natalie grinned up at us from where she worked at the door.
“And an army of sea creatures heading straight for us,” Tracey added.
“And with my night vision, we’ll be able to see just as well as whatever is down there.” Daphne blinked her big round eyes.
“I’ll get you a way back into that building, I promise,” Maurya said in a determined tone.
“We’re Wayfarers,” I reminded them all. “We can do this.”
“I’ve almost got it,” Natalie grunted again as the tip of her bone sword suddenly sunk half an inch into the door’s seal.
“By my calculations with the amount of pressure above us, once that door is free, this pod is gonna almost instantly fill with water,” Tracey said. “Natalie, as soon as you feel any kinda give, you take a breath.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Natalie muttered with her teeth clenched, and she wormed her sword further into the door’s seal.
Then I matched her work as we both shoved our swords against the hatch.
“This is it,” I groaned as I used all the strength in my arms to worm the blade through the rubberized seal. “Ready?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Maurya, Tracey, and Daphne, who all nodded their heads in confirmation.
“Steady as she goes.” Natalie winked at me, and I pushed the hilt of my sword away from me as the leverage caused the pod door to sigh deeply and release its airtight grip.
Water immediately flooded the space, and we had about three seconds before it came rushing in and filled the pod completely, so I kept my grip on my sword and took a huge breath as the deep ocean quickly reclaimed us.
The water was freezing cold, and the shock of it almost made me release the air in my lungs, but I clamped my mouth shut against the torrent and let myself acclimatize. I opened my eyes and realized the salt didn’t sting half as bad as before, and I blinked against the sudden darkness.
Then the five of us shoved ourselves against the door and swam out into the unwelcome waters of the huge trench.
It was bottomless, empty, and even more terrifying now that I was floating freely in the open waters. Though the blackness was never-ending, I continued to blink furiously against it, and Daphne’s gifted night vision slowly started to kick in. The ocean around us turned a dark murky green, and I could finally see the true size of the monster we were about to go up against.
A forest of thick tentacles writhed around the five of us as we regrouped in the waters of The Great Trench, and I could see the appendages were at least the width of our bodies, and its deadly suckers were the size of our heads. It was hard to make out the color of the beast in the night vision, but it looked almost the same shade of dull green as the surrounding water.
I spread my arms out in the water to steady myself and stared downward at the pair of eyes we had seen from the pod. They were no longer red, but radioactive green in our night vision, and absolutely massive. The sea monster didn’t seem to have a head at all, because the eyes sat above a gigantic black pit at the center of the mass of tentacles, and even my night vision couldn’t see down far enough to work out what it was.
Our pod sank beneath us with the weight of the water now inside it, and we watched the lights start to flicker and go out. The shuttle sent out one last sonic wave into the water before the machine died completely, and the tentacles stiffened against the sound blast before the beast below eventually replied. The rumble started low beneath us and rippled its way through the water into a long howling shriek that set my teeth on edge.
This thing was really angry with us now.
The pod floated into the darkness in silence and sank toward the black emptiness beneath the beast’s glowing green eyes, and then Maurya started to glow beside me of offer some light as I stared down at the monster.
What I eventually saw there made my heart sink into the pit of my stomach.
Hundreds of sickly-green teeth, arranged in haphazard circles like a ghastly tree trunk, emerged from within the central emptiness and bit down on the shuttle pod as it fell into a hellishly huge mouth.
We needed to move, now.
I immediately twisted in the water and grabbed Maurya’s wrist, and she looked at me with unbridled fear in her beautiful pale-green eyes as I nodded to her. She squeezed my hand once and instantly took off toward the landing dock against The High Council building above us, and her body skimmed effortlessly through the water.
I turned back to face the beast below with my three Wayfarer mates and tightened my grip on my bone sword. I just hoped Tracey’s sonic boom trick with the pod had worked, because the four of us that floated in the water didn’t stand a chance against the sea monster below.
Suddenly, a huge tentacle whipped through our group and caught Daphne by the ankle. She couldn’t even scream, so she started to hack desperately at the snake-like limb as it curled disgustingly around her leg.
I dove down as it pulled at my black-haired mate, and my other two Wayfarers immediately followed.
I shot through the water like an arrow and straddled the tentacle a little ways below where it had a grip on Daphne, and I held my bone sword in two hands so I could shove the blade straight through the monster’s flesh. It immediately released Daphne’s leg at the sudden pain, and she swam quickly away as I yanked the bone sword back out of the writhing tentacle. The jagged teeth of the blade ripped through the blubbery flesh, and blood billowed out into the water around me like a cloud of ink as the monster below screeched in pain and anger.
Now, it knew we were a threat.
The forest of tentacles around us immediately homed in on our group, and there was nothing we could do other than desperately hack and slash at the monster’s limbs with our borrowed weapons. Every time the creature managed to get a grip on one of us, we’d follow the same process and stab the tentacle all the way through so it was in too much pain to keep its grip.
But with every tentacle we injured, it felt like two more took its place, like a monstrous never-ending hydra head, and after a couple of minutes of desperate fighting, we were exhausted.
I swam a little further upward to metaphorically catch my breath, and I stared for a split second at the horrifying scene below me. Natalie was straddled against a tentacle that had a hold on Tracey’s arm, and the two of them slashed against the slippery thing with their weapons, and then Daphne swam over to help after she finished dealing with her own tentacle.
I turned in the water to see if I could spot Maurya in the darkness, but I couldn’t even tell where The High Council building was at this point. The wriggling forest of tentacles had whipped the water into a bubbling frenzy, and I had no idea which way was up, or behind, or forward. All I could make out was my three Wayfarer mates and the bright, glowing green eyes above the mass of teeth below us.
I felt a bubble of panic taint the air I held in my lungs, but then suddenly a new shape emerged in the water beside me, and I flinched in shock as a huge figure darted through the water on my right and headed straight for the mouth of the beast below.
I would’ve gasped if I wasn’t holding my breath.
A gigantic great white shark flew through the trench toward the sea monster’s mass of horrifying green teeth, and I quickly figured it was in search of the homing beacon that our shuttle pod had emitted out into the ocean.
Or maybe it had sensed all the monster’s blood that was tainting the water with a metallic tinge.
Natalie, Tracey, and Daphne swam up to hover in the water beside me as we watched multiple sea creatures start to materialize in the gloomy green depths. Another great white shark appeared and darted through the water to join its buddy at the gaping mass of teeth below, and a group of humongous sea turtles with shells the size of bathtubs and wrinkly old heads joined our little group and floated beside us like sentinels as we surveyed the battle.
The first shark had disappeared completely, and I figured he must have been unceremoniously eaten by the massive sea monster already, but the second shark seemed more wily and started to dart and snap at the creature’s hideous green eyes.
A huge barracuda, at least six feet in length, suddenly slashed through the water behind us and made us scatter. I gripped Tracey’s arm and darted out of its way with her as the streamlined fish dove straight down like a bullet to try and take a bite at the sea monster’s other eye.
The barracuda’s sleek mouth found a grip on the creature’s left eyeball, and the beast let out another rumbling growl that vibrated through the water before it turned into an almighty shriek that made my ears pop. The sea monster’s tentacles writhed around us in fury, and one of them suddenly managed to catch me by the ankle and whipped me through the water away from my group of Wayfarers.
Shit.
The suckers pinched at my leg, and the tentacle constricted as it yanked me around the water in quick, fluid motions. I let out a stream of bubbles from the corner of my mouth as I tore at the monster’s hold on me, and I grappled with my bone cutlass as I was hurled around at a speed that almost caused the weapon to slip out of my hands.
Then I finally got a grip on the hilt of the sword and slashed wildly at the slimy tentacle as it squeezed my leg tighter. I got a couple of random stabs and slices in, and the small bursts of blood dispersed in the water as soon as they had appeared, and I felt another stream of bubbles escape my mouth as I struggled with the tentacle’s hold on me. I looked up and saw my Wayfarer mates had their own problems to deal with, because another tentacle had managed to latch onto Natalie, and Tracey and Daphne were in a furious battle to free her.
God, where was Maurya?
I had been pulled further down in the water than my three other mates, and that meant closer to the monster’s gaping mouth, so I gripped my sword in both hands and stabbed straight down at the suckered limb around my leg. My bone sword sunk right into the creature’s slimy appendage, but the tip of the blade buried itself about an inch into my calf muscle, too. I grunted in sudden pain and shock and immediately pulled the sword away and out of the tentacle, which finally released me as blood billowed into the dark waters from both of our wounds.
Uff-dah, please let that shark be distracted enough.
I kicked my legs, and I groaned inwardly at the sharp pain in my calf as I used my arms to pull myself up through the water toward my Wayfarers. They’d managed to free Natalie, and my chest felt tight with the lack of oxygen and pain in my leg. Daphne’s eyes were huge and black and terrified, and Tracey’s upper arm had a huge purple bruise already forming from where she’d been suckered.
We were exhausted, and about to run out of air any minute.
But then suddenly, as if she’d somehow heard my thoughts, I saw Maurya.
The beautiful Fishfolk woman appeared like a beacon in the blackness as her entire body shone a bright, sapphire blue that illuminated the cold, dark water of the trench, and I saw Tracey exhale a small cluster of bubbles into the water at the welcome sight of our newest Wayfarer.
Maurya swam toward us at an incredible speed with her face steely and determined, and she hooked one arm through mine before she started to pull me away from the writhing forest of tentacles below. I motioned for my other Wayfarers to follow our mate through the dark waters of The Great Trench, and we gladly left the battle to the sharks. The massive sea turtles flew in the water beside us like sentries, as if they were intent on guarding our way to safety.
My newest Wayfarer guided us through the darkness until we eventually saw the gleaming gold of the shuttle pod launch deck. Maurya had somehow managed to get the pneumatic doors open, and the entry back into The High Council building mimicked the same wall of water as the entrance to the city.
We didn’t break speed as we swam desperately toward the rippling portal.
The five of us tumbled back into The High Council building in an unceremonious splutter of gasps and coughing, and our bodies sprayed the pink shell marble of the floor in puddles of water. My chest heaved as my lungs worked overtime to refill themselves with sweet air, and I immediately did a quick count of our group in my head to make sure we’d all made it out alive.
Maurya’s beautiful skin had simmered to a dull blue aura until it turned back to its regular sea-green and coral-blue tones.
“Legend, my ass…” Natalie said breathlessly with a hand wrapped around one ankle and her wet blonde hair a mess on top of her head.
“Guess H. P. Lovecraft was right--” Tracey gasped and flung her dripping hair over one shoulder, so she could inspect the deep purple welts left on her arm by the deadly tentacles.
“What even was that thing?” Daphne coughed and spluttered on all four of us with her eyes still round and terrified.
I didn’t have the breath to answer them, so instead I just collapsed onto my back and stared up at the ornate ceiling of The High Council building of Anadonis with my chest heaving.
Thank Poseidon we all made it out alive.
“Oh, my god, I thought you were dead,” Maurya whimpered as she clambered over to me. Her beautiful green face appeared above me, and the blue ends of her hair dropped water onto my already wet face. “I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, love,” I assured her breathlessly, and I took her hand in mine and brought it to my lips for a kiss. “You saved us.”
“We’d be dead for without you,” Daphne agreed and scrambled over to wrap our newest mate in a tight hug. “Thank you, Maurya.”
“You were down there for nearly half an hour,” Maurya sighed. “I thought I wasn’t going to be able to find you.”
“Half an hour?” Daphne gasped in shock.
“That’s twice as long as we’ve ever managed before,” I laughed breathlessly. “Maybe your gifts are already starting to kick in, Maurya.”
