Cape Storm

I smiled.

Lewis left the deck in a sudden burst and went airborne—a trick that few Weather Wardens could manage under stress, even at full power. Formidable, I thought, filing it away for future reference.

Then something hit us hard on the side, and the ship, already dying, rolled all the way over.

Disaster can be oddly beautiful. It seems to happen in slow motion, like ballet, and if your emotions aren’t involved, then it’s only input.

All I was feeling, as the ship died around me, was a quiet kind of satisfaction.

It took about ten seconds for the Grand Paradise to capsize, and then I was in the water, floating away from the ship. It looked exactly like it had ten seconds before, only now it was upside down and wreathed in so many cascading bubbles that it was like some wild New Year’s Eve party gone badly wrong.

There was a ripped section of hull below the waterline, extending nearly half the length of the ship. I could see inside to hallways, storerooms, and the complicated mechanics of what was probably the engineering section.

I had done that. Just me.

I saw people flailing amid the strangely serene wreckage of what had been our only salvation out here in the middle of this watery desert.

Rahel’s massive sea-monster body dived past me, driven by a tail that was as much eel as mermaid, and disappeared into the gloomy depths. She was followed by a pink, sparkle-skinned unicorn with eyes of fire, gills, and flippers instead of legs. Its horn was shimmering crystal, lighting up the dark as it shot away in pursuit of Rahel.

The water was shockingly cold, or at least that was my impression. I instinctively reached for power and warmed myself, oblivious to the screaming people bobbing around me in the waves. Weather Wardens were quickly reacting, encasing people in protective bubbles and popping them to the surface if they’d been unlucky enough to end up sucking sea. I supposed they’d be all about saving those who were trapped, too.

I felt the suction of water rushing into the ship.

Rahel and Venna broke the surface again, two giants now screaming and ripping at each other, far less human than I’d have ever imagined; Venna had given up her My Little Pony sparkles and was fish-belly white now, and Rahel’s body was a dark mesh of scales and teeth, too confusing to identify individual features.

Venna drove Rahel back under the surface again, and bubbles geysered in their wake.

Lewis rose out of the water. Levitated, like a freaking superhero, dripping gallons of seawater.

“Everybody, move close together!” he yelled. “Grab on to each other. Kevin, you’re in charge. Count noses!”

The noses were still bobbing to the surface, like corks. Kevin swam to the center of the chaos and forcibly dragged people to form the first tight layer of the circle, then ducked beneath them to form up the next ring, and the next. “Hold on to each other!” he yelled. “Just like you’re in a huddle! And keep kicking!” Now the survivors looked like a giant skydiving stunt, concentric rings of people floating with their arms around each other. Scared, sure, but human contact helped, especially for those who couldn’t swim or were too terrified to remember how.

I bobbed in place, watching them for a moment, and then I called sharks.

Lewis felt the pulse traveling out through the water, and he knew what it meant. I saw his head snap around, his eyes widen, and the shock and horror on his face set up a warm, liquid glow deep inside me.

“Now I’ve got your attention,” I said. “Don’t I?” There weren’t enough Earth Wardens to control big predators like sharks, not if they had to be focused on not drowning at the same time. The Fire and Weather Wardens would be completely vulnerable.

There were thousands of sharks out there. Thousands.

And now they turned and headed our way, drawn by an imaginary smell of blood in the water.

Something in Lewis’s face changed. He’d made a decision, not one he liked. I wondered what it was.

Between the two of us, a vividly painted craft suddenly erupted through the waves. It was reflective yellow, bright as a traffic sign, and it was completely enclosed, sleek as a science fiction submarine.

A lifeboat.

More of them were popping up now, all around the Wardens. Lewis—or Venna—had broken them free of the sinking wreck. “Ladders at the back!” Lewis yelled. “Last row of the circle boards first! Each one of these will take about forty people. Wardens, I want a minimum of three of you per boat, and try to evenly distribute the powers!”

The railings around the ship were studded with these strange little craft—fiberglass, highly buoyant, with diesel engines and very little chance of being swamped even in high seas. I assumed they’d have life vests and provisions inside.

It was a race to see if he could get the Wardens into the boats before my sharks arrived for their feast. Lewis correctly deployed his forces, keeping the Earth Wardens focused on repelling attacking predators as the Fire and Weather Wardens, staff, and crew boarded their ships. Then he evacuated the last of them.

I bobbed in the pounding waves, cold and shivering, watching.

The Grand Paradise, that floating castle, rolled like a dying whale, heeling in the direction of its fatal wound, and then the stern rose at a ninety-degree angle out of the water, exposing the massive propulsion pods and steering mechanisms. I could see, very briefly, the entertainment area of the ship that I’d never had time to visit—the rock-climbing wall, the pools, the spas.

And then it all slipped beneath the waves with a deep, gurgling death groan, churning foam and debris, and was gone in less than a minute.

I put my face beneath the water and watched its free-fall descent into the dark, and laughed, because even if the Wardens survived all this, that was going to be one hell of a security deposit problem.

I was still laughing when something suddenly lunged up from the depths at me. I had one flash of a second to recognize the gaping maw, the dead eyes.

Shark.

Sometimes, no matter who you are, or how powerful, Mother Nature still wins.

I floated on my back, bouncing on the churning waves, watching clouds fly in black, menacing swoops overhead. My storm circled in thwarted, anxious fury.

I was bleeding badly, and I couldn’t seem to stop it. I’d blown the shark into bloody meat, but too late; it had gouged a giant chunk from my thigh, and although I’d shut down the pain receptors, I knew how bad it was. The power I had at my command wasn’t meant to heal. It was meant to destroy.

Maybe it was a hallucination, but I could have sworn Bad Bob was standing on the wave-tops, looking down at me. He was wearing that same crappy, loud Hawaiian shirt, and his thin white hair blew in the same wind that blew spume from the water into my mouth as I struggled for air.

“What is it the kids today say, Jo? Epic fail?” He crouched down next to me. I could see the water rippling over his toes, but he could have been standing on concrete, while my struggles to stay afloat were getting weaker and weaker. “I think you let this happen. I think you were so damn guilty, you thought a shark bite was what you deserved.”

“Fuck you,” I whispered, and coughed. God, I hated him. The darkness inside me had filled me to bursting, and I needed to gag it out before it choked me. “I killed the ship for you.”

“Yes, you did. Not a bad job. But you let the lifeboats survive. That’s a whole lot less impressive.”

I blinked away burning salt in my eyes. “Help me.”

“Wait, what was the pithy phrase you just used? Fuck you, Jo. You kill Lewis Orwell for me. Then we’ll talk about how I can help you.” He smirked down at me, his pale eyes as vicious and shallow as those of the shark that had come after me. “Consider it the fairness doctrine in action.”

And with that, his image turned into a black mist and blew away.

But I didn’t think he’d ever really been there anyway.