Loch

beasts. There are a lot of them.”

“Tell the net boats to close!” Cavenger roared.

“Close the nets!” Emilio shouted into the radio.

“Faster,” Cavenger yelled, moving quickly across the length of the control console.

BLIP … BLIP …

There was too much data coming in for Cavenger and his men to process, too much to compute and calculate. The trawlers were pulling ahead, beginning to close their circle. Cavenger grabbed the mike out of Emilio’s hand and began bellowing into it himself. “Faster! Faster!”

“They’re doing as much as they can,” Emilio said.

BLIP …

Cavenger threw the mike back at Emilio. “They’re not going to make it!” he shouted with disgust. All his calculations had never considered the possibility of the fleet being rushed by a herd of plesiosaurs. He looked off the port side and was relieved to see the crew members of the PT boat ready with rifle butts held firmly against their shoulders. The new photographer-who hadn’t been told about Erdon-was at the video camera, following the action. Cavenger checked to see that the harpoon team was in position at the bow, then grabbed a pistol and ran out on deck. The skiff with Loch at the wheel passed swiftly between the yacht and the PT boat. Cavenger saw his daughter with Loch and Zaidee. And he saw the great undulations fast behind them.

He fired a single shot into the air to alert everyone. There was no way he was going to come out of this empty-handed. If anything, he would err on overkill.

“Slaughter the beasts!” he found himself shouting, his hand trembling as he pointed down at the huge passing shadows. “Slaughter them!”

As Sarah passed in the skiff, she saw her father out on the deck of The Revelation. She didn’t recognize him at first; his face was distorted with hate and he looked out of control. She had never seen him like that, and she flinched when she heard him fire the gun.

“What’s going to happen?” Sarah asked Loch.

“I don’t know,” Loch said. “We have to keep going.”

“What if Dad didn’t hear us on the ship-to-shore?” Zaidee asked. “What if he didn’t understand or won’t open the grid?”

Bam. Bam. Bam …

Terrible sounds of rifle fire echoed from the mountains like a cluster of firecrackers lit from a single fuse.

“Where’s Wee Beastie?” Zaidee cried out. “I don’t see him!”

“My father’s killing them,” Sarah said.

Loch looked back, reading the surface of the water. “No,” he said, “they’re running deep now. The bullets won’t get them. I’m sure Wee Beastie’s okay.”

Loch glanced to the south shore at a point where the paved road weaved for a stretch close to the lake. If only Dr. Sam had heard their radio plea, if only they would catch a glimpse of the Volvo speeding along the road toward the end of the lake and the grid.

Bam!

The shooting started again as The Revelation and the PT boat turned about quickly and took up pursuit. The rest of the fleet floundered, struggling to turn and re-form.

Zaidee was the first to see the little, black, shining body skimming again through the wake of their skiff.

“Wee Beastie!” she shouted happily.

The Revelation was gaining on them, the PT boat pacing itself easily off its port.

Loch saw the grid and its cement control bunker in the distance. He searched the ridge for any glimpse of his father. There was no one.

“The plesiosaurs are surfacing!” Zaidee cried out.

Loch looked back to see the water rupture as the creatures’ dark, scaly backs began to emerge from the lake. Their speed slowed and the handful of smaller beasts began to panic, skimming to the surface at the edges of the adults like frightened fish. Only one huge head began to rise from the herd, the tremendous bony mass and snout of the Rogue. The Rogue slowed, dropping back like a patriarch whose instincts are clear.

“What is the Rogue doing?” Zaidee asked.

Loch, understanding what was happening, answered sadly. “Protecting his family.”

The Revelation closed the distance between itself and the Rogue. Cavenger and his team were in place at the bow, the harpooner manning the huge gun. The Rogue lifted his head higher, showing more of his neck and letting the yacht come within striking distance.

“Oh, God, please don’t …” Sarah said aloud, as if magic would carry her words to her father. As much as she feared the beasts, she didn’t want to see them destroyed like this.

Boom.

The first harpoon exploded from the gun and entered the Rogue’s neck so deeply its shiny, metal tip burst from the scales beneath his jaw. Blood spurted out of the wound, rushing down into the water of the lake as the creature snapped his neck back and forth, trying to break free.

Boom.

Another harpoon tore into the Rogue’s shoulder, this one setting deep. Its explosive head detonated, blasting loose a vast slab of the creature’s flesh and muscle.

The PT boat began to circle the beast, its crew firing and refiring rifles, pumping bullets into his body. Sarah put her hands to her ears to try to block out the terrible, terrible noise of the shooting and the tortured roars of the beast. The Rogue kept trying to turn his head as if to see whether his herd was safe.

“The creatures are passing us,” Zaidee yelled as the clear springs of the shallows replaced the darker peat water.

She watched the huge blackness of the beasts rush by beneath them to halt at the mouth of the grid. What might have been Beast and two of the other larger plesiosaurs surfaced in front of the boat, forcing Loch to cut the motor and shift into neutral.

“They’re going to eat us!” Sarah screamed, flashes of what had happened to Erdon stabbing back into her mind.

“They could have done that already,” Loch said, ready at the wheel for anything.

With the skiff stopped, the herd had strangely quieted, the creatures sinking to the bottom. Only Wee Beastie stayed off the boat’s stern, clicking at them, motioning with his snout toward the slaughter of the Rogue, as if there were something they could do.

“What’s going on?” Zaidee asked, confused.

They looked back at The Revelation. Perhaps in a last desperate attempt to escape, the Rogue had sounded in the deep water. The harpoons were holding, their lines drawn taut as the yacht began to list from the great weight and strength of the beast.

Cavenger pushed his way to the railing and stared down into the black and bloodied water. Emilio, with a belt of grenades, appeared at his side.

“Kill it!” Cavenger screamed at him. “Kill it now!”

Emilio took a grenade, pulled its pin, and hurled it down into the water. Seconds later, there was the great sickening thud of an underwater blast and a great fountain of blood and water erupted from the surface of the lake. Still the harpoon lines were taut, pulling the boat down.

“Throw another grenade!” Cavenger ordered.

Emilio had time only to draw the pin out before the Rogue suddenly shot up out of the water like a huge submarine surfacing from a great depth. His body angled across the bow, then came crashing down and ripped away a section of the hull. He slashed forward with his fins as the men with guns on the PT blasted him mercilessly. One of the better marksmen hit the beast’s left eye, bursting it.

The impact of the Rogue’s attack caused Emilio to drop the live grenade on the deck. Cavenger saw the grenade fall, then watched helplessly as it rolled back, past the crew, and dropped into the maze of cables and wires of the sonar power base.

“It’s going to blow!” Emilio shouted, diving over the side.