Lesson one: How to keep your head when the situation goes pear-shaped and any sensible person would GTFO and wish for their brown pants.
Step one: Follow procedure.
“Team, sound off and report!” she barked.
As she listened to and mentally logged what the others echoed back to her, she let her eyes take in the whole of the situation before her. Well, the whole of the situation that she could see. No way of knowing how much monster was still under the water.
Shah estimated the head was six meters above them now, water streaming from its feathery green beard and splatting down on them, accompanied by a wash of fetid breath that smelled of rotted fish, salt, and the deep, dark places of the sea.
It was definitely aware of the boat. “Hold!” Shah called, and didn’t have to look to know that Soo and Ellsdale would be frozen at the ready. It was possible that the creature was more curious than hostile. Not that they could leave it in either case. Curious monsters, like toddlers, were apt to break the objects of their curiosity. Also, it was still a monster, and the Society was not in the business of letting unnatural creatures roam free. But if it wasn’t yet attacking them, they could use the time to gather information and observations. Information that might just save their lives, or someone else’s, when the battle was finally joined.
The creature opened its mouth, revealing two glittering rows of razor-sharp teeth. Not a krill eater, then, Shah thought, and drew her sword.
“Darts, now!” Shah called.
Team One had higher turnover than the other branches of the Society, but what they lacked in years, they made up for with constant practice. At Shah’s word, Ellsdale fired a volley of four darts from the pistol he had readied the instant the sea monster had appeared.
All four—silver, lead, iron, and bone—hit their mark. The creature reared back, startled, but not, Shah thought, in significant pain. Each hit bled, but none smoked, steamed, or showed any other particular reaction.
Ellsdale called out confirmation of her assessment: “Four by corporeal. Zero by sensitive. Follow up with elementals?”
“Negative,” said Shah. “Ready archers.”
In the main, the Society’s magic weapons ran more toward melee than projectiles. It made sense. Once you fired a magic arrow, you seldom got it back. However, if this creature was vulnerable to mundane artillery, there was no reason for her people to get closer to those teeth than they had to.
At Shah’s order, Ellsdale traded his dart gun for an RPG launcher, and Soo nocked a modern composite arrow into her longbow. Asanti believed it had been crafted from lumber salvaged from the Argo, but all they knew for sure was that it imparted uncanny accuracy to even a novice marksman. Soo was not a novice.
“Fire when—” Shah saw unexpected movement in the corner of her eye. An instant later, Grace was barreling across the deck, as if to leap over the rail and onto the sea monster. “HOLD!”
Shah wasn’t sure if she was yelling at Grace not to get herself eaten or at Ellsdale and Soo not to shoot the newest member of their team. In any event, only the latter two listened. Grace swarmed up the neck of the creature, silver sword strapped to her back.
“Fuck me,” muttered Soo. Privately, Shah agreed. But before Shah could even formulate a new order for her team or a useful response to Grace, Grace had perched herself on the back of the sea monster’s head, clinging with her thighs to a neck as thick as a century oak. The beast thrashed madly, trying to reach, or at least throw off, the annoyance on its neck, but Grace had pinched her knees in behind the hinge of its jaw, placing herself at least two meters from the snapping snout. Grace pulled out her sword, glowing with runes and mystic power, and drove it through the back of the neck.
The monster writhed in pain and shock. A second neat slice and the severed head dropped to the deck, accompanied by a spurt of noxious fluids. Grace landed easily on her feet beside the growing puddle as, behind her, the remains of the monster sank beneath the waves.
• • •
On the other side of the world, it was nearing midnight as Liam and Menchú reached the coordinates identified by the Orb, the small village of San Lupino and the source of the light on the horizon. Liam noticed the new construction scattered around the village square, architectural steel glinting in the shadows of medieval stone, sometimes in the same facade. He wondered how that had gone over with the local planning commission. In his experience, people who lived in old places liked to keep them old-looking. Then again, enough small communities had collapsed in the global recession that maybe the old residents had been glad to see new money in the local economy. Maybe the old residents had simply died off.
The streetlights were on, but no one was out. Which struck Liam as odd. He had never known the Spanish to be early to bed/early to rise types. Midnight in Madrid was “we’re finally done with dinner and now it’s time to hit the streets” time. Maybe schedules were different outside the city. Even Spanish cows didn’t sleep in.
As they crossed the square, however, one door did open: a small building beside the village church. The rectory? A man in an outfit very much like Menchú’s emerged and motioned for them to approach. Yup, definitely the rectory.
“Father!” the priest called from the doorway.
“Father,” Menchú replied.
This is going to get old fast, Liam thought. But soon they were inside, and the priest introduced himself as Lopez.
“What are you doing walking into town at this hour?” he asked.
Menchú explained their circumstances, and Liam took the opportunity to look around. The rectory was a cozy, welcoming space, filled with comfortably battered furniture and heavy rugs to cushion the stone floor. Still, there was only so much that window planters could do to obscure the fact that the stone walls were at least three feet thick. The place had to be five centuries old if it was a day. Had it been built to survive a siege, or was it just the style back then to build as though you intended your church to stand until doomsday?
Father Lopez clucked his tongue as Menchú told him about nearly being run over by a sports car.
“Rich foreigners,” he sighed. “They buy a summer house and then treat the roads here like their private race track. You are not hurt?”
Menchú assured the other priest that he was fine, if a bit footsore from their unplanned hike, and Father Lopez insisted that they accept his hospitality for the night. “We have no hotels here and there is plenty of room.” His face was perfectly open and earnest as he added, “No man of God should roam our streets at midnight.”
• • •
Menchú had accepted the offer of beds for the night, and after he and Liam were shown to their rooms—connected by a bathroom—they assured themselves they were alone and then took the opportunity to debrief.
“Whatever set off the Orb, it’s definitely nearby,” said Liam, looking up from his laptop.
“In the village?” asked Menchú.
“Probably,” Liam agreed, barely managing the words around the massive yawn that suddenly surfaced to nearly split his face. “Sorry.”
Menchú waved him off. “No, no. Father Lopez is right. Roaming the streets in the middle of the night will help nothing. We’ll get some rest and investigate in the morning.”
Menchú turned to go back to his room, but in the confusion of his own fatigue, went to the door that led back to the hall, not to the shared bath. He paused.
“Something the matter?” asked Liam.
Menchú stood at the door, hand on the knob, frowning. “We seem to be locked in,” he said.
• • •
Having successfully survived—or, more accurately, ignored—Shah’s lecture on proper procedures for engagement and the importance of team coordination and respect for the chain of command, Grace found a bit of privacy toward the stern of the boat. She had just pulled out her notebook and was checking her watch when Sal stepped up to the rail a few feet away.
It struck Grace as a calculated di
stance. Close enough to be in easy conversational range, far enough to have plausible deniability. What? No, I didn’t come out here to stand next to you. I just decided to casually stand here and admire this patch of water that is exactly like every other bit of water that surrounds this boat. Why? Did you want to talk about something?
Grace ignored her. But she did make a note of the time. Exactly forty-three seconds later, Sal said, as though to no one in particular, “I haven’t heard anything from Menchú or Liam yet. Have you?”
Grace resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but only just. “No,” she said. “But I’m not on Team Three anymore. They would have no reason to contact me.”
“I hope they didn’t run into any trouble.”
“Trouble is part of the job.”
“Yeah,” said Sal, “but if they do, we’re all on the other side of the planet. Doesn’t that worry you?”
Grace gave in to the eye-roll urge. “If there’s something you want to ask me, Sal, ask. Otherwise, I’ll go back to my book.”
“You’re not reading. You haven’t been since before Belfast. And don’t give me The Da Vinci Code. When I offered to loan you my copy back in Rome you said you’d rather read shampoo bottles.”
“Was there a question in there?” asked Grace.
“You stop reading, you ask for a transfer, you act like you don’t care about your old team, and you just defied orders to throw yourself at a sea monster. Are you okay? And to be clear, when I say that, what I mean is: ‘Why are you being an asshole?’”
• • •
Three months ago, Menchú had caught Grace digging through his desk. When he asked what she was looking for, she gave him a bullshit excuse about needing old photos to confirm the date of a mission they’d gone on together in the Yucatán not long after she had joined the team.
If he didn’t believe her, he hadn’t given any sign. He’d simply nodded and indicated his many albums. “You’re welcome to borrow the photos anytime,” he said. “Keep them for as long as you need.”
Grace had taken two of the earliest volumes and made her escape. His voice caught her at the door.
“Grace,” he asked, “are you all right?”
• • •
Grace gave Sal the same answer she had given Menchú: “I’m fine.”
• • •
The door of the locked guest room popped open with a small click and swung silently back on its hinges, revealing a darkened corridor beyond.
Following behind Menchú, Liam kept his voice low, but could not resist asking, “Where exactly did a priest learn how to pick a lock?”
“It is the duty of every revolutionary to improve him- or herself so that they may best aid in the struggle,” Menchú answered. Off Liam’s confusion he added, “You aren’t the only one with a colorful past, you know.”
“I thought you joined the priesthood when you were eighteen.”
“Yes. In Guatemala. In the 1980s.”
Aside from their own footsteps, the rectory was completely silent. They passed Father Lopez’s bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was open. The room lights were out, but the illumination that spilled through from the single barred window was more than enough to show the narrow bed was still perfectly made up and unoccupied.
Liam looked at Menchú, brow raised. There were no other lights on inside the rectory. No sound of footsteps in the kitchen or rustle of pages from the living room. The pipes were silent. The building had the feel of a place not just quiet, but empty.
“What is going on here?” Liam whispered.
By unspoken agreement, the two men made their way to the kitchen. Unlike the front entrance, which was made of heavy oak boards wrapped with iron bands, here they found a modern security door that opened easily onto the back garden. So we won’t be burned alive in the event of a fire … as long as we can break out of our bedrooms.
Liam caught a glimpse into the pantry. It was stacked high with tinned meat and sardines. “Do you get the feeling that this place is bracing for a siege?” he asked Menchú.
“They’re certainly preparing for something.”
They stepped outside. The garden overlooked the churchyard, filled with overgrown and tilted graves. The town’s streetlights had gone out, but the glow of the moon cast the entire scene in a silver light that set the hair at the back of Liam’s neck on end.
And then he saw a dark shadow slip among the headstones. It wasn’t much, a glint of moonlight on shaggy fur before the shadow froze again, but once he knew where to look, Liam could see an immense lupine head, nose up and scenting the air.
It turned and looked right at Liam. Time froze. And then the animal’s snout pointed skyward and a piercing howl split the night.
A second howl joined the first. And a third. And a fourth. Soon, a chorus filled the air. Dozens of wolves all calling to heaven. Until—as though cued by a signal only they could hear—they stopped.
In the darkness of the churchyard, a pair of bestial eyes glowed red. Liam couldn’t look away, afraid that if he did he would see dozens more, staring from every direction. Afraid that if he looked away for even a second—
He blinked. It was only an instant, but in the space of a heartbeat, the eyes rushed toward him, accompanied by a growl that had nothing to do with a combustion engine, and the wolf leapt at Liam’s throat.
3.
Menchú seized Liam’s collar and hauled back with all his might. In his youth, he might have been strong enough to pull the other man off his feet and fling him bodily back into the rectory kitchen, safely on the other side of the suddenly explicable steel security door. In his age, Menchú supplemented his physical strength with force of personality.
“Liam! Back!” Menchú’s tone penetrated the haze that locked Liam’s muscles and together the two men stumbled backward inside, only inches ahead of the wolf. Liam flung the door closed behind them with a crunch of bone and a pained yip. The wolf recoiled, jerking its foreleg out of the way, and Liam slammed and locked the door.
“Sorry I froze there,” panted Liam. “Some really nasty dogs in the neighborhood growing up.”
Outside, the wolves sent up a new chorus of howls, and Menchú stuffed his hands into his pockets so that Liam wouldn’t see them shaking.
Liam eyed the door. “Do you think it would be overkill to shove the kitchen table against it?”
Menchú gauged the heavy wooden object, easily a few hundred years old. “Probably,” he said.
By the time they were done pushing the table into place, the howls were closer and louder than ever.
• • •
Sal found the captain, a woman by the name of Coker, as tough and weathered as her boat, in the wheelhouse, staring out at the waves, seemingly lost in thought.
“Am I disturbing you?” Sal asked.
The captain shook her head, not taking her eyes off the horizon. “You know, I’ve met a lot of oceanographers in my time. And if that’s what you’re sticking with, that’s your business, but I couldn’t help but notice the sea monster head you’ve got under a tarp on my deck.”
“Yeah,” said Sal. “Sorry about that.”
The captain fixed Sal with a glare that would have done Fox proud. “I’ve got no quarrel with you folks. That thing is better decapitated on my deck than alive and eating my home and livelihood. You hired me to get you here, not to ask questions, but if there’s more things out there like that, those of us who will still be here after you go back to wherever you came from deserve to know.”
Sal nodded. “That’s actually what I’m here for. Could I use your sat phone?” She held up her cell. “Turns out global coverage doesn’t cover international waters.”
A few minutes later, Sal was talking to Asanti over the crackling connection. She’d asked the captain for privacy, but the captain had just raised her eyebrow and gone back to staring at the water.
“Hey,” said Sal, “what do your sources have to say about the situation down here? Have things
quieted down?”
“My sources?” Sal could hear Asanti’s amusement loud and clear at least. “You mean the Orb? Are we speaking in code now?”
“I’m not alone. And yes, that’s what I mean. Has it gone quiet?”
“Not noticeably. Why?”
“Well, we just killed a sea monster and were kind of hoping that would solve the problem.”
“Really, Sal,” said Asanti. “You won’t say ‘Orb’ but you’re willing to talk about a sea monster?”
“Everyone here has seen the sea monster.”
A sigh. “I suppose. To answer your question, even if the Orb were quiet about your area, I’d be skeptical. Scientists in New Zealand thought they were dealing with an earthquake; I doubt a sea monster could have caused that. Unless …” She paused. “How large of a sea monster was it?”
“It’s big, but probably not earthquake big,” Sal admitted.
“Then there’s your answer,” said Asanti. “Oh, but you might be interested to know, I did some checking. A small vessel disappeared in your area a few days ago. If this is book-related, you might be looking at a wizard who got in over their head. Summoned the monster and then got themselves eaten for their trouble.”
“Why wasn’t this in the initial brief?” asked Sal.
“There was no distress call, no wreckage found. The boat wasn’t reported missing until a few hours ago.”
“Okay,” said Sal. “I’ll tell Shah. Has there been any word from Menchú and Liam?”
“Nothing yet.”
Sal pushed down a rush of worry. While she knew that they had gotten along without her for years before she came on the scene, Sal still didn’t like the idea of Menchú and Liam on their own. “I’ll try to hurry things up here.”
After hanging up and returning the phone to Captain Coker, Sal paused. “You should know that if you tell anyone about what you saw out here, a bunch of people in black suits are likely to show up to make your life difficult.” As the captain continued to stare at her, Sal added, “I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is.”
“Girl,” the captain said, “I live on this boat. Most of the year, I can’t even see land. I don’t do that because I enjoy talking to people.”
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