The other passengers on the speedboat sat opposite Khaos and her friends, clutching drinks in their hands, which they were still trying to consume on the trip out to the ship, mostly ineffectively.
It was not long before they reached the pirate ship and sailed up by its side. Another official-looking person, this one wearing a pirate hat, long coat, and an eye patch, grabbed the ropes from the speedboat and secured it to the ship. Then a rope ladder was let down, and they all climbed up onto the deck.
The whole boat was dressed up like a real pirate ship, from the rope riggings to the brightly painted deck, the skull and crossbow flags, and the boat’s “crew”, who were all dressed in pirate costumes. As seemed to be a frequent theme in this place, the five new passengers were handed drinks as soon as they were on board. Already on board were several other partygoers, all gyrating and dancing to that same repetitive music. It was just another excuse to dance and drink, just on a boat instead of the island.
Not for the first time, Khaos sighed.
‘Doesn’t anyone ever get tired of this?’ she asked.
Melody sniffed the drink then wrinkled her nose.
‘What is that stuff?’
Khaos sniffed hers. The liquid was so strong it stung her eyes a little. She threw the cup to the ground in revulsion.
‘Don’t drink it! I told you! Aren’t you underage, anyway?’
‘Relax, Kay! The girl just wants to have fun!’ said Ripper. ‘Come on, let’s dance!’ Ripper moved away from them and began dancing and gyrating to the music with a group of girls in bikinis. Presently, a pirate came round with a second tray of drinks, which Ripper and the other girls helped themselves to.
Khaos saw the pirates lower the rope ladder again, and five more people clambered aboard the ship, immediately grabbed drinks, and began dancing. The speedboat must have gone and come back again. Already, the ship seemed quite full.
Khaos began to get anxious. They couldn’t waste time dancing and partying on this boat; what about Georgi and Barden? They could be dead by now. Ripper really was not grasping the seriousness of the situation. He didn’t even seem to understand or care about Bottle. Khaos would never forgive herself if…
Wait, where was Melody? She turned around twice, but the girl was gone. Khaos stared around wildly. Another one in her care, lost in the crowd. Another person to save and protect, and she had just disappeared. Then she spotted her standing with Ripper at the far end of the deck, talking to a pirate and pointing at the water below. Khaos marched over to them, angry at their recklessness.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Melody is hot, we need to get in the sea,’ replied Ripper, casually, as if this were a perfectly normal suggestion.
‘You can’t get in the sea, Melody, it’s deep and choppy here! What if you drown?’
‘But I’m so hot! I feel weak!’
‘She needs to cool off in the sea.’ Ripper turned back to the pirate, ignoring Khaos’ pleas.
Khaos turned to the railing of the boat and peered over. The water was a bright blue and the waves gentle, as if to spite what she had just said. But she could not stop thinking about the shadow she had seen below the boat on their journey here. Suddenly, the music was shut off.
‘Right, me hearties!’ bellowed one of the pirates in a mock pirate accent. ‘It’s time for you all to walk the plank!’ As he said this, two other pirates behind him were putting the ‘plank’ in place; it was actually a diving board. ‘Who’s up first?’
Melody raised her hand to get his attention, only for Khaos to grab her wrists hastily.
‘You cannot go in that water!’
‘I’m sure it’s perfectly safe, otherwise they wouldn’t do this.’
‘It is not safe! Nowhere is safe!’
‘I’ll go!’ To Khaos’ dismay, Ripper bounced up to the pirates, full of enthusiasm. He downed his drink, which was about a pint of dubious liquid, and when he was finished, crushed the plastic cup on his head, much to the pleasure of the other party people who were gathering. The music started again, and he climbed onto the plank.
‘Ripper, stop!’ But Khaos’ shouts fell on deaf ears. Ripper bounced, once, twice, then dived backwards theatrically over the edge of the boat. Khaos dashed to the railings and looked down at the water. Her earlier fears were realised; the water had gone dubiously dark, and something moved and shifted just under the surface. Then, for a split second, a huge eye appeared, peering through the water. It was a red, bleary eye, as if it never slept.
‘Look!’ she shouted to Melody. But when she looked again, the eye was gone.
Ripper resurfaced and splashed around. Then a strange, pained look passed over Ripper’s face, and he ducked suddenly under. Something had pulled him down.
Immediately, Khaos pushed past to the diving board, barging the other people out of the way, and leapt into the dark water after him.
She sunk beneath the waves, their gentle motion pushing her under the water. She opened her eyes, but at first could only see the vague dark shape of the underside of the boat. All the sounds of the boat were drowned out. She was reminded of her dream of being underwater and that feeling of panic, then her father’s arms reaching in to save her.
No one was coming to save her today. Using her control of the water, she stretched her fingertips out and extracted the oxygen from it, creating an air bubble which she formed around her head so that she could breathe. She drew her sword, which did not light with flame under the water, yet still glowed a bright orange. Khaos could feel the heat coming off it, but it did not burn her.
She stayed near the surface at first, suspended, until her eyes adjusted enough to see the dark shadow far below. At first it had no definition; it could merely be a large rock or a mass of seaweed. But it appeared to move, shifting toward her. As it drew closer, she saw the vague outline of what first appeared to be a shark of some kind. But she knew it was no creature of this Earth. She caught a glimpse of those eyes, huge drooping red eyes, with such a sickness in them; there was such a need in them that would never be satisfied.
There was no sign of Ripper anywhere. The shark-like thing approached her silently through the water, seeming bigger and bigger as it got nearer. Khaos poised ready with her sword. She could see now that the creature was shaped a bit like a shark: it had flippers and a dorsal fin and a long jagged tail that swept from side to side as it moved. But its skin was strangely saggy and a slimy grey, like rotten flesh, and its huge red eyes were like a human’s in shape.
As if it had read her thoughts, the creature responded by bending its tail down and its head up, exposing its belly, from which eight arms flexed out, hard-shelled appendages like a lobster’s, with knobbly claws that swung at Khaos. Instinctively, she swung her sword, but it bounced uselessly off the hard claws. The shark turned then, and to her initial amazement and relief, swam past Khaos. But then she realised it was heading for the surface and noticed the legs of swimmers; people from the boat, above them. Its red eyes glowed bright as it bore down on its prey.
Quick as she could, Khaos tried another swing of the sword, and this time managed to pierce its vast side as it passed her. It was a tiny wound on its massive frame but enough to make the creature shriek with rage and spin around, heading for her again.
Summon the oceans to help you!
‘But what can I do?’
Create a current to pull that creature away from those people!
Khaos reached out her hands, palms downwards, and concentrated. She pushed at the water, and her eyes became grey. She swung her hands forward, and to her delight and surprise, the water wavered beneath her fingertips, sending a dragging current that spread out through the water. Like a huge watery hand, Khaos’ force grabbed the demon creature’s tail and dragged him back towards her. The demon, enraged, thrashed his tail wildly about, until Khaos herself was jerked forward toward the demon. His tail swept up and smacked her in the face, dispersing her air bubble.
Panicked, Khaos t
ried to make it for the surface, holding her breath as long as she could.
Khaos spotted a small dark shape moving quickly across the surface of the water above her. It seemed to be circling, as if looking for someone. Khaos knew instinctively that it was Nyx, coming to her aid, and swam after him as fast as her feet could propel her through the water.
She broke the surface with a gasp and saw that it was indeed Nyx, in the guise of a small black speedboat. He stopped beside her, engine rattling, though this was mostly for effect as Nyx had no need for an engine. She clambered aboard, her wet clothes clinging to her heavily. She pulled off her hoodie and dumped it in the bottom of the boat; it was too heavy with water and useless to her now. Nyx began making his way back to the shore, when Khaos shouted to him,
'Wait! Melody, she is still on the pirate ship!'
At once, the little black speedboat curved round, cutting through the water with ease, and they sped back toward the pirate ship. Distressingly, Khaos could see from this distance that most of the people who had jumped into the water had now disappeared. Incredibly however, everyone still on board the boat continued to party, oblivious to the disappearance of their friends. The music blared on.
Suddenly, Nyx tipped, first to one side then the other, and then was lifted right out of the water. A shellfish-like claw clamped tight around his deck; his motor chugged and spluttered ineffectively, suspended in mid-air. Khaos looked back at the water in time to see the huge, vile sea creature breaking the surface of the water, its long talons spread out for the kill, its mouth, which was positioned in the middle of the claws, opened wide, revealing a vast dark gullet full of several rows of sharp teeth. The stench of its breath was horrible. There was no time to think; Khaos leapt out of Nyx just as the demon creature dropped him into his jaws. In one gulp, Nyx was consumed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The sun was just beginning its decent into evening when Khaos burst out of the sea and laboured to shore, the water splashing around her, forming little currents around her arms and legs.
Exhausted, she collapsed face first into the shallow water. She forced herself up onto her elbows and crawled on her stomach to dry sand, then collapsed again, every inch of her completely worn out. But she didn't have time to rest! What about Nyx?
'Nyx! The demon ate him!' she spluttered into the sand.
Yes, Nyx is gone. But not forever. He is no mortal creature, he cannot be killed. He is of no help to you now though; the demon has him in his clutches. You must find a way to release him.
Khaos pushed herself groggily up onto her hands. A strange smell wafted into her nostrils: an unpleasant one. She lifted herself upright, resting on her knees, and looked around for the first time.
This was not the beautiful white beach she had just been on an hour ago with Melody and Ripper. The sand here was grey and course. The beach on both sides was dotted with grey rocks. The water was white and foaming, picking up and leaving debris and freshly churned sand in its wake. A long black shadow blocked the sunlight on Khaos’ right hand side. She shielded her eyes, to see, at the far end of the beach, a vast outcrop of rock that stretched right into the sea and realised it was the same cliff face she had seen on the other beach, but from the other side. She was on the secret side of the island.
Black seaweed lined the edge of the beach, covering almost everything along the shore: the sand, the rocks… Wait, was that a face?
Khaos stood suddenly. A few feet from her, what she had initially thought was a rock now looked suspiciously like a human head. The face was grey, the lips chapped, and the eyes open glassily. Seaweed covered its hair and cheeks, but as she gazed, she realised it was not just a head but a whole body, though most of it was submerged below sand and seaweed. She stared around again, realising for the first time, to her horror, that there were many more bodies all over the beach, everywhere she looked: what her eyes had initially assumed to be lumps of rock.
As she stood in shock, disturbed and sickened by this discovery, she noticed a shape floating out at sea, on the surface of the water, the current dragging it closer and closer to shore. Moving, not with a life of its own, but by the will of the water. She realised with a sickening jolt that it was another body, as it washed slowly up on the beach a few yards away. More shapes in the water caught her eye; she counted at least seven or eight, all bobbing slowly to shore. She did not know where to look, to the sea or the beach; all around was death, the victims of the demon Gluttony.
One body was swept up right beside her: a woman she vaguely recognised from the pirate ship. She had long blonde hair and a leopard print bikini. Now her skin was pale and grey and dead. With her foot, Khaos gingerly turned her over; her eyes were also glazed over, staring in an expression of horror at something only visible in some other dimension.
Khaos then remembered Ripper. Anxiously, she darted up and down the beach, trying to recognise him amongst the other bodies that were drawing near to the shore, but hoping against hope that she wouldn’t.
‘Please, please, don’t let me find him. Please. I can’t bear it,’ she whispered to herself over and over, as she searched. A male body washed up a few feet away, but it wasn’t him: this one had a white T-shirt on and black hair. Another washed up amongst the foam to her right, but she could see immediately from the clothes that it was another woman. Each time Khaos was relieved.
Then her eyes alighted on one shape a little further along the beach: pale white bare shoulders and a shaved head, face down. She ran toward it, her heart sinking. She knew immediately that it was him, even before she turned him over. His face was now pale and drawn, his eyes with that same faraway look that Bottle’s corpse had had, that all the other corpses had. It was almost as if they could still see something. Khaos shuddered.
Even though she knew he was dead, she reached to check for a pulse on his neck. His skin was horribly cold, but as she got close, she perceived the faintest of breath, the slightest rise of his chest. Was he still alive? She stared at his chest, holding her own breath, not daring to blink, for fear she would miss it. Yes, it rose and fell, very slightly. She shook him, trying to rouse him, but to no avail, some dark evil kept him in this state.
Out of sudden curiosity, she dashed to another body nearby, a young woman, and waited to see if she too still breathed. To her amazement, the woman took the tiniest of breaths. As she stared around her, and kept very still, she saw that all the bodies still breathed, very slightly. Even the ones that had been there a long time and were partially submerged beneath the sand. Her heart lifted suddenly. Perhaps they could still be saved, after all?
Do not get your hopes up, Human Soul. You are still too late to save these people.
‘But they are still breathing!’
The demon is a soul eater. Their souls have been ripped away from them, consumed by the demon Gluttony. They are the empty shells left behind, trapped forever in this half-living form.
‘Can their souls not be reunited with their bodies? If I destroyed the demon, perhaps…’
You would set the souls free. But they couldn’t return to their bodies. It doesn’t work like that. Destroying the demon would set them free, but they would not come back to life. Their bodies would just die naturally. They only live in this form because their souls are not free.
‘But maybe if I –’
Human Soul. You cannot save these people. The best you can do for them is destroy the demon and set their souls free. Let them die naturally, and their souls can live on in the afterlife.
‘I wish I had gotten here sooner. If I had killed the demon when it first manifested, instead of hiding away, none of this would have happened. Can I go back to dead time, go back to the beginning and start again?’
Time does not work like that, Human Soul. You cannot alter the path you have taken. Khaos exists in this timeframe now. History has already been made. Trying to go back and change it now would cause a rift in time which would cause time to stop completely. No souls would be saved, t
he world would not end, and it would be frozen forever. Time would stop, even for you, Khaos.
‘Sometimes I wish it would,’ Khaos muttered, bitterly. ‘You were right then. All those times you tried to get through to me, to remind me of the demon and my duty to slay it. You were right. I should have listened. I could have saved all these lives, but I didn’t. I hid away, like a worm under a rock, only concerned about my own life.’
None of that matters now, Khaos. What is done is done. Time to move on.
‘And Nyx! Now he is gone too; I could have saved him!’
You can put this right, Khaos! It is not too late. We may still be able to save Nyx. Find that demon, find a way to slay him, do what you must do. You may save more lives still, if you stop the demon now!’
Khaos stood suddenly, renewed purpose in her eyes. She had to find a way to that demon tonight. It could not wait. She surveyed the skyline, but the pirate ship was nowhere to be seen.
‘I must get back to the other beach, perhaps I can get back out to sea… ’ Then she remembered Melody. Did she make it? She didn’t jump off the boat, did she? The girl was pretty clueless, but she surely wouldn’t be stupid enough to get in the water after Khaos’ warning, surely…
She had to get back to the other beach. She was no good to anyone here. And she had no Nyx to come and rescue her.
There was no scaling the cliff, and it circled the secret beach completely, its jagged top like rows of teeth, confining her in this awful place of still, partial death. No one was meant to ever come here. They certainly couldn’t leave.
Khaos headed for the cliff edge that tapered into the sea. As she passed where Ripper lay, she glanced at his still form and murmured,
‘I’m sorry, Ripper. I will free your soul. You will have rest. I promise.’
When she was a few yards from the cliff, she raised both hands and spread them, palms outwards, towards the wall, bowing her head. She let the powerful force of Khaos loose in her and called to the stone and earth, willing it to move for her. With unseen, powerful hands, she delved into the earth, pulling it apart, breaking the stones in two. She was more comfortable controlling the earth than the water. It was so much more solid, much more simple than the constant changeability of fluid.
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