race starts this afternoon.”
“Why’d we have to wait until today, anyway?” Saoirse asked.
“I thought it would be symbolic,” Ciaran replied.
“Now you want to be symbolic
“You should be under the water,” he corrected. “Now get in before the rest of the team starts to show up.”
Standing on the top rung of the ladder attached to the side of the pool, Saoirse paused, her left foot dangling in the air an inch above the water. “Hold on, boyo! Wasn’t that one of your selling points?”
she asked. “So maybe a certain ex-boyfriend might see me in my cracking outfit?”
Oh yeah, right. Remembering that he had mentioned her participation might result in Morgandy’s getting a glimpse of Saoirse like he’d never seen before, Ciaran backpedaled. “Um, yeah, but later, you know? When we’re finished.”
“Was Albert Einstein a liar too?” Saoirse asked, descending into the pool.
Ciaran had no idea. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was running out of time if he wanted to keep using the gym as his own private annex lab. “Take a few breaths, then a really deep one, and go under,” Ciaran said, holding a stopwatch. “Stay down for as long as you can.”
One breath, two breaths, three breaths, wait. “Is there any reason why we couldn’t have done this in my bathtub?” Saoirse asked. “The water would’ve been a lot warmer.”
Looking as if someone had presented him with an explanation as to how and precisely when the universe had been created, Ciaran replied meekly, “Oh I hadn’t even thought of that.”
Just before she took one last gulp of air and disappeared underwater, Saoirse snipped, “Guess you and Mr. Einstein have nothing in common after all.”
Alone, Ciaran watched the long hand on the stopwatch click, click, click as it traveled from one number to the next. One minute. One minute, ten seconds. Eleven, twelve, and then they were no longer alone.
The noise spilled out into the gym from the locker room before the three boys did. “You wanted to be one of Them all along!” Ronan shouted. “Well, you got your bloody wish!”
“I didn’t want to be cast out and left for dead!” Morgandy spat back.
Regardless of what he told Saoirse, Ciaran hadn’t wanted to be interrupted. No one was going to believe he and his sister had just wanted to go for a swim before the competition started. He would’ve looked for a place to hide, but it was a foolish idea. The gym was one huge, open space and plus, Saoirse was in the pool. He couldn’t just hide and leave her to fend for herself when she came up for air. No, he’d have to stay put and hope that the intruders were too wrapped up in their own drama to question their presence. So far it was working. Even Michael, who didn’t seem to be engaged in the argument, hadn’t noticed him yet.
When Ronan turned to face his nemesis, Ciaran could see that his brother was prepared for a fight.
The muscles in his back were flexed, his hands were fists, his thick legs like tree stumps anchored into the floor. Morgandy, on the other hand, was like a hungry mosquito, flitting about, bobbing, flailing.
“I was right to try and destroy The Well!” he cried, his deep voice so frenzied it seemed to make the gym shake. “I’m living proof of how vindictive and evil it can be.”
“No, Morgandy,” Ronan said, his voice so quiet it seemed to quell the shaking. “You’re living proof that some people are simply born evil.”
Ronan’s words, his insight, penetrated into the very depths of Morgandy’s mind and soul. Could that be his secret? Could that be what The Well had tried to erase? The fact that Morgandy had not been trying to uphold some personal belief or defend some popular ideology when he wanted to obliterate The Well, that he hadn’t been swayed by David to abandon his birthright to be its guardian, but that he was merely succumbing to his true nature? He had never thought of himself that way, but could his be the face of pure evil?
Glancing at his reflection as it rippled on the surface of the pool water he didn’t shield his eyes. He didn’t shrink from the horror of seeing his soul exposed in all its tainted, sullied glory or beg Ronan to help him find the path back to goodness, because he realized in one liberating moment that goodness was not the place from which he had come. There was no reason to scurry back there, remorseful, repentant, to seek shelter and salvation; his destination was in the opposite direction. He laughed, the sound rough and coarse like jagged rocks chaffing against one another. As his body convulsed joyously, his curls bounced slightly, and when he placed his hands on his hips to steady himself, he wasn’t surprised to feel that his flesh was hot, warmed not just by his latest victim’s blood, but by the recognition of exactly who he was. He couldn’t wait to share the revelation. “Oh my God,” Morgandy whispered. “I never imagined that.”
Ronan hadn’t been expecting such a humble response, but he’d take it. Maybe he had reached Morgandy? Maybe he had finally gotten him to understand that The Well had given him the greatest gift of all by separating him from his memories, from his past, from his innate malevolence so he could start his life over? Or maybe Ronan just misinterpreted the reply? “Thank you, Ronan,” Morgandy hissed, “for reminding me of who I really am.”
Distracted by his own hope that Morgandy might welcome the opportunity to change, he hesitated when he saw him leap forward, arms reaching, fangs bared. Luckily, Michael had dispensed with hope where Morgandy was concerned. He had never expected him to express gratitude and had known he would exercise his free will to retaliate against Ronan’s words with violence. Springing into action, Michael tackled Morgandy in mid-flight, and together they twisted horizontally and rested on the air for a few seconds before plunging into the pool.
Underneath the water, they fought not as boys but as the supernatural creatures they were. Michael whipped his webbed hand in front of him and a second later Morgandy’s head snapped to the left.
Morgandy kicked his leg up and after a slight delay Michael somersaulted backward. When he regained his balance, Michael flipped his webbed feet once, twice, and latched onto Morgandy yet again, this time holding him by the throat and ramming his back into the bottom of the pool. Staring at them while wedged into a corner of the pool, Saoirse screamed for them to stop. Her voice, however, was silenced by the water and the commotion. She may not have been heard, but she was definitely seen.
When Morgandy broke free and swam toward her, his face cruelly distorted and tinged with a greenish-blue color thanks to the chlorine, she screamed with even more force and never noticed that her lungs were completely filled up with water. It hadn’t registered, but like the other beings in the pool, she was having no trouble breathing underwater.
Michael had no idea what Saoirse was doing in the pool, but he would have to figure that out later.
Right now he had to protect her, because from the ominous look on Morgandy’s face it was obvious that she was about to become his next victim.
Wildly, Morgandy leapt forward through the water, hands outstretched, eager to claim his prize. As he propelled closer to Saoirse, she screamed louder and pressed harder into the side of the pool.
Morgandy’s fingers grazed Saoirse’s neck as Michael wrapped a webbed hand around Morgandy’s ankle. At the same instant the water around them started to bubble. When Michael hurled Morgandy into the far end of the pool, it started to churn. And when Morgandy was flung by the current back into Michael’s chest, they began to spin around, caught in the center of a mini-whirlpool. It felt wrong—a whirlpool in the middle of a pool—but it also felt safe. At least for Michael.
After a few rotations, Michael noticed that Morgandy was no longer struggling; he was unconscious. Michael remembered the last time he had had a pool fight, with Nakano, it was an altercation that didn’t end well for either of them. Holding Morgandy’s lifeless and now human-looking body as the water spun around them, Michael knew he had made his point; he had proved to his enemy that he and Ronan were a team. Strike one, prepare to contend with the other. As if the water was having the same thought, it abruptly stopped moving, and Michael knew it was time to bring this battle to an end. But he brought it to an end too hastily.
When Blakeley saw Michael’s face he was so terrified the scream clung to the insides of his throat, refusing to be heard. Worried about Morgandy’s condition, Michael had broken through the surface of the water without transforming back. His fangs were exposed, his face elongated, his eyes narrow slits, and the hands that placed Morgandy on the gym floor were webbed just like his feet.
Ronan didn’t have to say another word, in silence or out loud; Michael understood. He also understood that
