aiming for my head, but she misses — causing a bright sharp pain, and then I'm in her face and she's biting at me and trying to smash me on the side of the skull and Ramona does something with my arms that I'm just not up to, some type of blocking move. I can feel muscles, possibly a tendon, tearing as I punch Johanna overarm; she blocks, I bring up a knee — Breathe for two because the Mabuse is holding station but it's still a third of a kilometer away — 'Bitch!' screams Johanna, then sinks her teeth into my shoulder and goes for my balls.
Ramona, not used to having that external hazard to guard, doesn't react in time to Johanna — but I do, and I manage to squirm sideways so that Johanna grabs my inner thigh painfully, rather than turning me into a pile of screaming jelly. The Glock in my pants is digging in uselessly. Then I notice Johanna's teeth in my right shoulder. They burn and they're icy-cold at the same time, which is wrong: bite injuries aren't meant to freeze. Everything about Johanna is wrong: this close with the Tillinghast resonator powered up I can feel something moving just behind her face, something horrifyingly similar to Ramona's succubus, but different.
Instead of feeding on the small death I can hear it calling for the great one, the ending of time. I feel weak in its presence, enervated and crushed by a numinous dread.
**Fuck it, keep breathing, monkey-boy! What are you doing, shit-for-brains, trying to kill us both?** That's Ramona. She sounds as if she's calling to me from the far end of along corridor.
Breathe? I'm lying on top of Johanna on the floor. How did we get here? She's still as a corpse, but she's got her teeth embedded in my shoulder and she's hugging me like her one true love. And I feel so heavy. Breathing is a huge effort.
There's a haze forming around my vision. Breathe?
A hand — mine? — is fumbling with the lump in my pocket.
Breathe.
Everything is going gray. The tunnel is walled in darkness.
Johanna Todt waits at the end of it, smiling coolly, as inviting and desirable as a glass of liquid helium. But I can also tell somehow that Johanna isn't what's waiting for me if I take that drink: Johanna is like the bioluminescent lure dangling before an angler fish's head, right in front of the sharp jaws of oblivion. She's got me in her arms and if I take the lure, when I get up I'll be as hollow as she is, I won't be me anymore, just a puppet rotting slowly on its feet while her daemon tugs it through the motions of life.
Breathe?
BANG.
Johanna spasms beneath me, shuddering and tensing. Her thighs flex.
BANG.
I remember to breathe, then nearly choke on the hot stink of burned powder.
She's vibrating away, drumming her heels on the floor, and there's a flood of blood and tissue everywhere around her head, like a spray of hair. As I pant for breath I realize there's a hand clutching a pistol inches away from my head, and my arm feels as if it's twisted half out of its socket. A combined wash of fear and revulsion makes me bounce off the floor, muscles screaming. **Ramona?**
**Still here, monkey-boy.** She's gasping — no, that's wrong — she's struggling for breath. There's a burning sensation in her gills as she fights down the reflex to extend them fully. Stroking towards the slim shadow of the Mabuse outlined against the brightness of the surface, still some 200 meters overhead: **Breathe, dammit! I'm getting cramps! I can't keep this up.** I pant like a dog, then carefully lower the pistol. I've got more pulled muscles and my right arm is screaming at me, plus a savage bite that makes me dizzy when I poke at it with my left hand. I look at my fingertips. Blood. **Shit. How long — **
**If that bitch was telling the truth, you've got two or three more minutes to get the diorama and make it up on deck.** I look around, trying to make sense out of nonsense, a luxurious lounge aboard a yacht, a dead woman on the floor...
and a diorama in a large, locked display case. I can't move the case, it's the size of a pool table. I groan. It looks like the proximate effect of my first stab at hatching a Plan B was to spook Billington into ordering the ship sunk — and right now, I seem to be short of options. But. Secure the field generator. That's the core of the geas Billington's set up, and he's now trying to destroy it in the crudest way imaginable — not just by throwing the 'off' switch, but by blowing up the ship. (Why? Because I got a little too clever and let slip the yipping Chihuahuas of infowar.) If I can keep it running, then the semantics of the spell demand that James Bond — or a good knockoff — will save us. It's just a matter of figuring out how to keep the thing running while I get it off the sinking ship.
My Treo is in my back pocket. I nearly scream as I reach for it with my right arm, then shakily switch it on and aim the camera lens at the display. Once I've filled the memory card that'll have to do. I check the display — 72Km/97% Complete — then shove it in a hip pocket.
Looking around the owner's lounge, I don't see anything obvious, but the dining room was just up the corridor. I duck out and stumble towards it, shove my way through the door, and what I want is waiting for me under a pile of uncollected dirty dishes. I grab the linen tablecloth, wait for the clatter of crockery to stop, and stagger back to the lounge. Then I whack the display case hard with the butt of my pistol, knocking out as much glass as possible.
Breathe. I catch a glimpse of Ramona, the agony spreading to her lower back. There are burning wires of pain in her shoulders as she scrabbles towards the surface close by the port side of the Mabuse. The air in here is foul, a stench of sewers and decaying, uncooked meat. I shove the pistol in a pocket then take the tablecloth in both hands and drop it across the broken glass and the diorama. I lean forwards — remember to breathe — and gather it all in with both hands.
Then I fumble on the floor for the plastic box containing the tokens that Johanna taunted Ramona with. My hands shake as I finally tie off the corners of the tablecloth in a rough knot. **Got it,** I tell her.
**Get the hell out!** She doesn't need to tell me twice. I head for the door, grabbing the MP-5 on the way, and cast around the corridor for the door onto the sun deck.
**That one, Bob — ** The daylight glare nearly brings tears to my eyes after the death-stink below decks. I step out onto the deck and walk to the side of the ship, then look aft. In the distance there's a white trail etched across the wave crests. Breathe. I blink, and see through Ramona's eyes, looking up at the light from beneath the keel of the frigate. From down here it looks enormous, the size of a city. Run. I weave my way aft, back into the access passage to the boat deck. There's a crane and boarding steps descending over the side, ending just above a floating platform at the waterline. I take the steps two at a time, nearly tumbling into the water in my haste.
**Get yourself overboard! Now!** Breathe. She can see the grid of the platform, the shadows of my feet on the metal grating.
**Not yet.** I gasp for breath, my vision flickering with the bright sparkles of hyperventilation as I set down the stolen diorama and pull out my phone: 74Km/99% Complete.
**How do you think we're going to get onto the Explorer? Neither of us is in any condition to swim that far, and anyway — it's moving.** There's white foam at the bow of the huge drilling ship as its positioning thrusters power up. Billington isn't stupid enough to sit too close while his yacht self-destructs: even if he isn't afraid of the backwash from the geas generator he's got to be worried about the fuel tanks. **We've got to get over there!** She's near the surface.
**I've got a plan.** Breathe. I reach down into the water as — With all her remaining energy she reaches up towards the hand breaking through the silvery mirror-surface above her and — 'Ow!' Water splashes over me as Ramona breaks the surface and grabs onto my hand.
'Plan. What plan? Ow ... ' I heave. Something in my back registers a complaint, in triplicate, then locks up and goes on strike.
Ramona twists round and falls back onto the platform.
Out of the water, she goes limp. I can feel her muscles. I wish I couldn't. 'Look over there.' I point. The silvery trail is curving towards us like a bizarre missile running just above the surface of the water. There's something that looks like a glassy black sphere in the middle of it, surrounded by four huge orange balls: 'It's my car.'
'You. Have got to be. Kidding.'
'Nope.' I grin like a mad thing as the Smart Fortwo whines towards me eagerly, its hub-mounted air bags thrashing the water into submission. 'It may not be a BMW or an Aston Martin, but at least it comes when I call it.' It slows as it nears the edge of the platform. Ramona sits up wearily and begins to peel off her outer-heated wet suit. Her skin is silvery-gray, the scales clearly visible: even the few hours underwater have been enough to cause
