by Anton Strout
The Inspectre shook his head at his old friend. “So you struck a bargain,” he said, “with that woman in green. Tell me, Mason, how did you manifest her? You haven’t practiced arcana in years.”
“Actually,” Mason said, “finding her was purely accidental. I unearthed her withered remains while researching the ship graveyard below the Hell Gate Bridge for a perfectly normal documentary I wanted to do about those mundane horrors your friend here suggested. Charybdis was damaged, weakened, and needed my help, which I gladly offered in exchange for some help of my own I wanted.”
“This is her weak?” Jane asked. “Geez. I’d hate to see her in tip-top shape.”
“No,” Mason said. “Once we raise Scylla and Charybdis takes control of her host, she will return to her full power. It took years to return her to her current state. I helped her recover and she promised in return to tell me dark secrets to assist me in pursuit of my rebirth.”
“At the expense of others,” the Inspectre reminded him.
“No,” Mason said. “Not at first, anyway. Originally I only twisted my students to the use of magic trying to make film come alive. Nefarious, but mostly harmless. I kept my grander plan for my youth a secret. When Charybdis was recovered enough to her satisfaction, she finally shared those dark secrets with me. I never knew she would want blood in return.”
“Oh, come, now,” the Inspectre said. “We both know that’s not true. You must surely have suspected. Even with what you had seen in your short time with the Department, you must have known that such a bargain would bear a heavy price.”
“Perhaps,” he said, admitting it with a slight smile, “but it is a price I’ve come to live with for the promise of rebirth.”
It was the Inspectre’s turn to smile, but there was a sadness to it.
“You can’t cheat death,” the Inspectre said.
“Oh, no?” Mason asked, turning to look at Aidan. “What about him? He seems to be doing quite well at it.”
“Make no mistake,” the Inspectre said. “Death even comes to their kind, even if it is staved off by supernatural means. Some give up wanting to live, some are struck down by vampire hunters, but eventually death comes to us all.”
“Hey!” Aidan said. “Not cool with all this talk about me dying, guys.”
Mason Redfield looked around for a way to escape as we argued in the growing fury of the storm, but there was none.
“Come, now, Mason,” the Inspectre said, walking after him. “Give yourself up. You can’t run anymore. You’re surrounded.”
Mason spun around, angry. “Are you happy growing old, Argyle? Are you?”
The Inspectre stopped. “Honestly, no,” he said, “but it has made me appreciate life all the more for what it is. We get one go-round, Mason. That’s all.”
“Well, not me,” he said, “and once I am finished carrying out Charbydis’s wishes, I intend to get right on appreciating my second one.”
“How are you helping her with the ritual?” I asked.
Mason fixed me with a sinister stare. “You shall see,” he said.
“No, Mason,” the Inspectre said, good and pissed. I had never seen him this angry. “This ends. . . now.”
As a group, our circle closed in on Mason Redfield. I held the business end of my bat up high, ready to swing. Redfield was close enough that I’d have no trouble dropping him if needed, but a second later that wasn’t even an option.
A blast of water shot up through the slats of the bridge itself, shattering some of its structure and flinging shards of it in every direction. The water wrapped itself in a wide circle around Redfield, rising up above him for several feet and staying around him like some bizarre waterfall feature at a mall. One thing was sure: Mason Redfield wasn’t responsible for it. Even he looked surprised to see it happening.
Inside the protective circle the water began to solidify until the woman in green stood by his side. Her hair swirled in the chaos of the growing storm.
“Nice Medusa effect,” I said.
“Wrong Greek monster, kid,” Connor said.
“Sorry.” I tested the wall of water with my bat. The rushing water threatened to tug my bat skyward from my hand, but I tightened my grip and pulled it back. Before I could do anything else, the woman’s voice boomed out into the night.
“Prokypto,” she said, holding her arms out and looking down through the bridge.
“What?” I said.
“It’s Greek,” Connor said. “Arise. She’s starting the ritual now!”
I looked down, too. Below, the water churned against the edge of the island like it was boiling. Bits of old, rotted wood rose to the surface, ancient timbers that littered the surface, looking like tiny toothpicks from where we stood.
“I gather those are the remains of the General Slocum,” Connor said.
“And countless other ships, no doubt,” the Inspectre added.
“Aidan,” I said, looking over at him on the far side of the water barrier. “Do something!”
He shook his head. “What part of ‘not good with water’ did you not get, Canderous?”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll handle it myself.” I rushed the wall of water protecting the woman and Mason Redfield. The woman was already looking toward me, waiting. She pointed her arms out at me.
No, not at me. Past me. Jane screamed, stopping me in my tracks. I spun around. She was doubled over, clutching her arms around her midsection. “Jane!”
“Get her away from here, kid,” Connor said. “Now. At least off the bridge, anyway. If the woman can’t have Jane, she can’t complete her ceremony. Hopefully, anyway.”
“Right,” I said, grabbing Jane around her shoulders. We ran off as the Inspectre started talking reason with Mason through the wall of water. As we ran farther away from the woman and the professor, a new sound filled the air as we dodged through the swarm of lingering ghosts. A rush of water of tidal-wave proportions filled my ears and I looked down through the bridge. The surface of the river erupted, a greenish gray mass of land rising up, water pouring off it in waterfalls. No, not land, I realized. Flesh. Whatever was rising was alive. It rolled as it rose, exposing the familiar yellow eye I had seen in the vision of the General Slocum sinking. Scylla was no longer dormant, and even bigger than when I had seen it. A jagged maw of teeth opened to nearly the size of a bus, water running down into its throat. A gurgling roar rose up from it, causing me to grab Jane tighter and run a little faster.
“Who invited the kraken?” Jane asked with weakness in her voice.
“Scylla,” I corrected. “Godfrey called it that.”
Jane looked good enough to stand again and the two of us stopped where we were to stare at the monstrosity.
“Whatever it’s called,” I said, “I’m pretty sure my bat alone isn’t going to take it down. Good thing I equipped the boat with the ram. I’ll see if I can put a nice boat-sized hole in that. . . thing. Godfrey told me when all else fails, go for the heart.”
“What can I do?” Jane asked. There was concern on her face, but I could see how hard she was still fighting the effect of the green woman’s mark on her.
“Stay here,” I said, “and don’t let her get control of you. Keep fighting her, Jane. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
Jane nodded, but the look on her face was pained.
“Listen, Simon,” she said. “I’m sorry about the whole drawer thing.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “You want to get into this now?”
Even in the rain, I noticed tears streaming down her face. “It’s just. . . I’m so in love with you and the idea that you didn’t want me around all the time, well, it hurt.”
I pulled Jane to safety behind of one of the bridge supports. “Jane!” I said. “This is so not the time.”
She looked like I had slapped her. “Do you hate me or something?” she asked, hurt. “It’s just that I don’t know how long I can stop this from overtaking me and I need to get this off my chest.”
Given the chaos all around us and the distracting amount of pain she was in, I couldn’t believe we were getting into this now. Either way, I had to make this fast or we were sure to die in the middle of it all. I dug into my satchel, pushed past my Ghostbusters lunch box, and pulled out a slip of paper. I handed it to her. “There,” I shouted over the noise. “You see, Jane. This is how much I hate you.”
“What’s this?” she asked, looking at it, and then back up at me.
“It’s a receipt,” I said. “I found a dresser, online. I hate you so much that I agonized and searched for days trying to find just the right piece for your stuff in my apartment because I can’t stand you.” Jane’s eyes widened, and I forced myself to stop shouting at her. I hadn’t meant to, but the dire situation had me caught up in the moment. I softened my voice. “You know how anal I get about selecting stuff for my own needs. . . It took all of my spare time and energy to even come close to finding the exact right one that would be perfect for you. I love you and I realized that’s not going to change. What I mean is . . . that dresser is just the beginning. I know you weren’t asking me to, but I’m telling you. . . I want you to move in with me. Whatever angry flare-ups or hesitation I had before, that was just me letting the psychometric emotions of another interfere with my own insecurities. I know that now. Like the Inspectre said, we get one go-round. I want mine to be with you.”
Jane continued staring at the receipt, a smile slowly building on her face. “Oh, Simon, thank you,” she said. “I love you.”
She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me hard. I melted into it, but after a few moments I felt I had to pull away.
“Not to put a damper on things,” I said, “but we kinda need to do something here. Something along the heroic lines.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Right. Of course.”
She handed the slip of paper back to me, hands trembling. When I went to reach for it, it slipped from her hand, the wind catching it and blowing it away. I turned, grabbing for it. It was just a slip of paper, but the weight of everything it stood for was so important that I felt compelled to get it back. It tumbled along the walkway of the bridge and I ran a few steps before catching it, then folding it and stuffing it back into my messenger bag as I turned back to Jane.
She wasn’t there. I peered through the dozens of ghosts manifested all along the bridge looking for her. After a moment I caught a hint of movement back where we had all climbed up onto the bridge together earlier. Jane was hurrying to get back to the island below, which meant. . . she had tricked me by pretending to let go of the note too soon. Why? To distract me. To run off before I could stop her.
“The boat,” I said, and then started running after her, my heart sinking. “Jane! No!”
I tore along after her, but the small lead she had grew as she monkey-barred her way down the structure of the bridge toward the land below. I climbed down after her as fast as I could, but by the time I had worked my way down, Jane had already reached the boat and was casting off the line, leaving it dangling from the tree we had secured it to.
“Jane!” I screamed above the sounds of the storm. The swells of water coming from the gigantic monster writhing in the river threatened to capsize the boat. Jane raised her hands above her, calling out to the boat, and its systems flew on, it searchlights practically overloading with power as they shone out into the darkness. Her eyes, however, remained on me.
There was no way I could reach the boat now that it was launched. Unless . . .
I looked up at the underside of the bridge. The under support holding up the structure was a web of steel that snaked out over the dangerous waters. If I could get myself out onto it, there was a chance I could jump down onto the boat. I started climbing out onto the steel skeleton until I was back in shouting distance of the boat.
“Jane,” I shouted. “Come back! Pull that boat over now!”
“I have to do this,” she said. “It’s too late for me, anyway. I can feel Charybdis pulling at me. She’s trying to take possession of me.”
“Just get off the boat,” I shouted. “We can fight her, together.”
Jane turned and pointed up at several of the tentacles crashing down around her, rolling the boat to its nearpitching point. “We have to stop this one if you’re going to have any chance of defeating her. I can do that.”
“Fine,” I said, “but do it away from the monster, then.”
Jane shook her head, and then slammed her hands down onto the control console of the boat. “Afraid it doesn’t work that way, hon. I’m so sorry.”
She turned herself away from me and pressed her magic into the boat, the lights on it rising as it gained speed heading for the body of the creature. I gauged my distance to the boat from where I was. There was no chance I’d hit its deck at this angle. I had to get myself back up to the bridge, and started climbing.
When I pulled myself back up onto the Hell Gate Bridge, I immediately looked for Aidan, spotting him off to my right farther along the bridge. I ran over to him, Connor joining me while the Inspectre continued trying to reason with Mason through his protective wall of water.
“Jane’s down there,” I said. “Go help her. Please.”
Aidan shook his head. “I keep telling you,” Aidan said. “We’re pretty much useless in water. You know, like the way you are when you’re breathing.”
“So you can’t fight that monster?” Connor asked.
Aidan gave a smile. “I didn’t say that, now, did I?” he said and sped farther off along the bridge.
Already the enormous creature was making its way up out of the water. I didn’t have time to count all of its tentacles, but bunches of them were smashing and crashing against the sides of the bridge already. I steadied myself under its sway as I watched Aidan leap up off the bridge, grabbing one of the tentacles near him. He wrapped it around one of the bridge struts, holding it in place, pinning it.
He looked over at us and smiled. “Happy?” his voice said, unnaturally amplified from where he stood.
“It’s a start,” I said.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say we know for sure what brought the General Slocum down,” Connor said.
“Crap on toast,” I said. “That is one giant octopus thing.”
“Steady, kid,” Connor said. “Just remember. The bigger they are . . .”
“The more damage they do. . . ?” I finished.
“That’s not where I was going with that,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do with all these spirits up here, see what they can do to help Jane. Let’s see if I can get them interested in a little revenge on this monstrosity or the woman.”
As the bridge creaked and swayed, I started back to the water woman, Mason Redfield, and the Inspectre out at the center of the bridge. Ghosts were flying across my path and I was having trouble seeing, but when I was about fifteen feet away, I caught sight of the three solid figures. The Inspectre looked like he wasn’t having much luck in dealing with either of them.
“Charybdis,” Mason shouted, pointing at the Inspectre. “Attack!”
“No!” I called out, racing the last few feet to put myself between them and the Inspectre, who looked resolved to await his fate at their hands. I braced myself for a wave of water coming my way, but when nothing happened a moment later, I opened my eyes.
Mason had turned to the woman within their protective bubble. “Did you not hear me?” he asked. “I told you to attack.”
The woman walked over to him, taking slow, deliberate steps. “I think. . . not,” she said. “I serve no man.”
“What?” Mason said, fury in his eyes. “What about our arrangement?”
“There is only one arrangement,” the woman said. “And that is mine.”
The woman pulled in her arms, the column of water around her closing in on the two of them. The professor’s face filled with horror as water rushed into his mouth and down into his lungs. From the panicked look in his eyes, there was no doubt that h
e knew his death would not result in his rebirth as it had the last time.
Before any of us could try to reach into the watery barrier, the professor’s body imploded from the water pressure, red rushing out of him. It ran into the woman and her body changed, growing in power and strength until the water ran clear and her body turned more solid in the column of water than I had ever seen her.
“Why?” the Inspectre shouted. “Why would you do that to your ally?”
The woman spoke in Greek again, but I didn’t bother to wait for the translation from Connor. I thought I knew.
“Betrayal,” I said, piecing some of it together from everything I had investigated so far. “It feeds her soul, which is why it took Professor Redfield sacrificing students like George to bring about her rise, but in order to get his help in that, she had to promise him something. His own rebirth. She killed Mason Redfield the first time so he could be reborn first to help her rise and also to awaken Charybdis.”
“Taking the professor’s life now was all the more cruel and sweet a betrayal,” she said, “the power of his blood growing tenfold from it. In death, his power completes our ceremonial rebirth.”
She dropped what remained of the professor’s lifeless body to the tracks of the bridge and he fell through a shattered section down into the water below. I spied Jane and the lights from the boat as she headed straight for the sea monster, aiming for the yellow of its giant eye. I had to act fast.
I went to charge into the water wall around the woman, but the Inspectre’s hand came down on my shoulder. I turned toward the far end of the bridge and called out to Connor’s brother.
“Aidan,” I shouted. “Do something!”
He looked at me like I was stupid. He let go of the tentacle with one of his hands where he held it in place wrapped around the bridge support and pointed at it. “I am!”
“No,” I said. “About Jane!” I pointed down at the boat below as the spiked ram slammed into the creature. “Down there. Hurry!”
