The Secret Sea

by Barry Lyga

  I can’t touch you, but I can move the air! Godfrey crowed. I can manipulate the physical world now, and you can’t stop me!

  A fusillade of pens, pencils, and other debris came at Zak. He curled into a ball on the floor, covering his face with his forearms. Something stabbed into his thigh and stuck there. Something else raked at the back of his hands, drawing blood. He bit back screams as his body was assaulted over and over, pelted from all sides as the wind spun and howled. Somewhere in there was the gruesome and demented laughter of the boy who’d been dead for so long.

  And also—

  Zak!

  Tommy? Is that you? You sound so strong.

  I think it’s the electroleum. It’s raw and pure. It’s acting like a conductor, making it easier for me to talk to you.

  A pen glanced off Zak’s elbow and bounced away, but he was captivated by the sight before his eyes—his arm. And hand. They were doubled, one offset ever so slightly from the other, the way something looks when you stare at it until your eyes lose focus. But his eyes were focused perfectly.

  That’s you! I can see you!

  I know! I think we—

  Zak didn’t let him finish. He clenched his hand into a fist; Tommy’s hand did the same.

  Zak stood, batting a spinning protractor out of the air as he rose, ignoring the bite of its sharp corner into the side of his hand. “Hey, Godfrey! How about a fair fight?”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  “What’s going on down there?”

  “They’re fighting.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  Moira shushed Khalid, rapt by the spectacle below her. She had come up even with Khalid, the rickety floor notwithstanding. She had to see this for herself.

  Godfrey was a swift, half-melted figure painted on the air, his limbs fading and reappearing at whim as he juked and ducked and bobbed and weaved. That was fantastic enough.

  But even more amazing was Zak.

  Lit by the glow of electroleum, Zak went toe-to-toe with Godfrey, somehow managing to land punches. It should have been impossible—Godfrey was a ghost, a piece of the spiritual plane. He should have been untouchable. But Zak was able to touch him. Even as she watched, Zak swung his right fist, catching Godfrey under his chin. The ghost vibrated and shimmered in the air for a moment, reeling backward.

  The electroleum. It had to be the electroleum somehow.

  Or … no! No, it wasn’t. Not entirely, at least. As she watched, she noticed that—

  “It’s like there’s two of him,” Khalid breathed.

  Sure enough, when she focused beyond the glow of electroleum and on Zak himself, she noticed a sort of afterimage, a second, translucent version of Zak superimposed onto her friend. That image, she realized, was what was making contact with Godfrey. Zak wasn’t punching the ghost—his twin was.

  “This is amazing.” Her breath caught as Godfrey kicked up another howling wind. Zak dived behind an overturned desk for shelter.

  “Does the electroleum act as a spiritual conductor?” she wondered aloud. “You said Bookman told you it had a spiritual component to it.… I wonder if it’s somehow psychoreactive.”

  “Psycho-who?”

  “Like, it reacts to emotions or thoughts or—”

  “Oh yeah—Dr. Bookman said something like that.”

  “Now you tell me?”

  Khalid snorted. “You never asked! You want to analyze it? Maybe later. Right now we should get down there and help Zak. At the very least, we should stop all that junk from leaking out of the tanks. If Godfrey made that happen, it can’t be good.”

  Moira blushed. She’d been so caught up in the magic and science of the fight that she hadn’t even thought of that. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  * * *

  The balcony below them was none too stable. Khalid insisted on going first, which annoyed Moira.

  “Do you really want to be the one to die if it collapses? Will that make you feel empowered?”

  She hesitated.

  “It makes sense for me to go,” he told her. “I’m heavier, so if it holds me, we know it’ll hold you.”

  Even Moira couldn’t assail that logic, so she helped Khalid lower himself to the balcony. Clinging to a precarious piece of torn-up floor, he dangled there for a moment, then—with something muttered in Farsi that could have been a prayer or a curse—dropped.

  The balcony creaked and groaned and swung to one side … but held. Khalid raised a hand to keep Moira from joining him, then—as she watched—jumped from that balcony to the one next to it, landing with a crash that nearly collapsed the second balcony.

  Moira’s heart stopped dead for a full two seconds, and her vision blurred. Oh. My. God. That had been the most reckless, stupidest, most dangerous thing she’d ever—

  Khalid gave her a thumbs-up from his new vantage point, and Moira wanted to strangle him and kiss him at the same time.

  She lowered herself to the first balcony.

  Below, Zak was moving from desk to drum to counter to drum again, dodging Godfrey’s wind and its missiles. He was clearly flagging, and the electroleum near Godfrey was beginning to bubble and darken.

  Psychoreactive, she thought. This is how Godfrey will win. He’s pure spirit. When he was summoned by Dr. Bookman, his rage and hate triggered the tiny bit of electroleum Bookman had.

  “It just absorbs and reflects energy, chap,” Jan had said at the Dutchmen’s hideout.

  Godfrey’s surrounded by it. How are we supposed to fight that? And Zak’s steeped in the stuff—what’s that going to do to him?

  She looked over at Khalid. He’d already moved to another balcony, this one so crumpled that nearly half of it spilled into the room below. He was scaling his way down, chunks of flooring crumbling around him as he went. But he did not slow down. Moira had to admit that his bravery—even if it grew out of cluelessness—was impressive.

  She borrowed a little of his impetuousness and jumped to the second balcony. It shook and complained with a steely series of squeaks, but it held.

  All right! Not bad!

  Then she scrambled to catch up. And move down.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  Zak’s breath burned in his lungs and throat; he longed to stay still, to catch his breath, but he couldn’t afford to stop moving. Godfrey couldn’t touch the real world, but he was doing something to the air, like ghosts in bad horror movies. Moira could have explained it, but Zak couldn’t.

  Watch out! Tommy cried, and Zak ducked just in time to avoid a heavy stapler winging toward him.

  Thanks. It was like having a second set of eyes. Or maybe a guardian angel. Zak and Tommy were connected now, united by the electroleum, tied together as tightly as they’d been in the womb. If Zak had had a moment to spare, he would have luxuriated in the sensation.

  But overhead, a light fixture—penduluming in the fierce Godfrey-conjured wind—had broken loose and now rained down on him in a shower of sparks, shards of metal, and glops of electroleum. Zak ran, flung himself on the ground chest-first, and slid along the floor until he was under a table.

  “You can’t avoid me forever!”

  Zak didn’t know if it was the electroleum, his connection to Tommy, or Godfrey’s growing power, but he could hear the ghost in the world now, not just in his head. His voice was incongruously young, not yet broken and deepened. It was the voice of a frightened child.

  A frightened child with powers Zak could only dimly understand.

  He rolled out from under the table and sprang to his feet. Godfrey hovered over the scene, just out of reach. Zak had managed to get a few punches in before Godfrey came to understand that one ghost could hit another. But Tommy’s power came from Zak, and he couldn’t leave Zak’s body to chase Godfrey. They were stalemated for now, but Godfrey would eventually pin him down with something in the room. And if the state of the electroleum—thickly boiling and popping on the floor, blackening—was any indication, this fight would be over soon enough. Zak didn’t understand how the s
tuff worked, but it was clearly reacting to something in the air. How long until it just blew up … with all the consequences that explosion would entail?

  No way. Not gonna let that happen. You with me, Tommy?

  Right with you.

  Zak hopped up on the table and took a running start along its length, then jumped. Maybe it was the electroleum; maybe it was desperation. But his jump was longer and higher than any he’d ever attempted before, high enough that Godfrey loomed before him.

  Zak lashed out with his fists. He felt the contact of the blows through his connection to Tommy. It was like tapping on flesh that had gone numb, a pins-and-needles sensation along his knuckles. And then his momentum carried him through Godfrey, and he pinwheeled his arms madly as he crashed into the floor.

  Godfrey, reeling from the punches, had sunk closer to the floor. Zak groaned and tried to stand up, but his breath, already so tenuous, had fled him when he’d landed. He lay on the floor, gasping.

  Get up! He couldn’t tell if it was his own voice or Tommy’s. Get up and get him! Now!

  I can’t. I can’t stand.

  “Need a hand?” asked Khalid from nowhere, and Zak felt hands under his arms, lifting him.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Khalid grunted and heaved Zak to his feet. “No rest for the weary, man. You’re the only one who can lay a hand on this doofus.”

  Zak grinned up at him. “You were right. I was—”

  “Later.” He shoved Zak toward Godfrey.

  Moira caught up to Khalid just then. They watched for a moment as Zak tackled Godfrey, the air around them blurring like oil smeared on glass. Zak’s fists moved, followed a half second later by Tommy’s ghost fists.

  “Khalid, look at this.” Moira tugged his sleeve.

  Leave it to Moira to be present for a ghost fight and find something else more interesting. Khalid followed her direction and noticed something odd: The electroleum along the floor had been turning black, but where Moira and Khalid had walked through it, their footprints now burned bright yellow.

  “That’s kinda—”

  Zak groaned in pain and stumbled backward toward them. Khalid caught him before he could fall.

  Above them, Godfrey soared beyond reach. The wind, which had died down during the phantom fisticuffs, began to rise again.

  “You ready for round two?” Khalid asked.

  “More like round twenty.” Zak’s speech was slightly slurred. He’d really taken a beating. Khalid hated to throw his friend back into the fight, but there was no other option.

  “Hey, guys,” Moira said. “Do you realize you’re both glowing now?”

  Khalid looked down. It was true; they were.

  The wind began to howl. Khalid shut his eyes as debris and dust flew at him.

  “I have an idea!” Moira yelled.

  * * *

  It was the footprints that made her realize what they had to do, combined with the hot glow around her two best friends.

  Electroleum was wild science, which meant it had a psychic or magical component. Or at least, a component that in her world would seem magical. She couldn’t really comprehend that, but she could understand the evidence of her eyes. Wild or true, that was science.

  Zak was covered in electroleum, and it had allowed him to host Tommy in some way she couldn’t begin to comprehend. Their twin connection, a rare form of magic in and of itself, exploited the power of the electroleum.

  But now Khalid was glowing, too, just from contact with Zak.

  And their footprints …

  Godfrey’s rage had been corrupting the electroleum all around them, blackening, heating it. When she and Khalid walked through it, though, their impressions reverted it to its normal state.

  The stuff is psychoreactive. It picks up on rage or love or hate or whatever.

  There was no time to explain. Above, Godfrey chortled as the winds gathered. She planted her feet firmly in a widening pool of electroleum and reached out to Khalid.

  * * *

  Khalid raised an eyebrow at Moira but did not say a word. Keeping one hand on Zak, he reached out with the other, stretching as far as he could until he took Moira’s hand.

  And a jolt—

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  Zak seized as a jolt of power shot through him. He felt his brother seize as well, the two of them stiffening and freezing at once, Zak’s hand tightening painfully on Khalid’s.

  From somewhere a million miles away, Moira shouted, “Three Basketeers!”

  “Three Basketeers!” Khalid whooped.

  Zak shook his head. No. “Four Basketeers!” he cried, feeling his brother squirming deep inside.

  And then …

  And then Zak was Tommy.

  They’d merged. Zak still had his own thoughts, but they jostled for space side by side with his twin’s, coexistent with them.

  ohgottawowstopthishimisbeforesoheweirdblowsbutitcoolup

  zaktommywe’recaninyouthisheartogetherme

  ithinkiknowwhattodo

  gethim!

  And then Zak was in two places at once. He could still feel his hand gripping Khalid’s, could still feel the floor beneath his feet.

  But he was also in the air. He was Zak and he was Tommy; he was both; he was flying.

  He glided up, up, up until he was even with Godfrey, whose eyes widened in terror at the sight of him.

  “What are you doing? How are you doing this? This is impossible! You can’t do this!”

  He ignored Godfrey’s panicked babble. Zak was mainlining the power of the electroleum. It should have been impossible. As a spirit, he couldn’t touch the stuff directly, couldn’t absorb its physical power in addition to its psychic power.

  But he wasn’t just a spirit. He was tethered along the twin connection to his own physical body, to Khalid, to Moira.

  “I can do anything,” he said quietly.

  And lunged at Godfrey, who screamed in terror for the first time in more than three hundred years.

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Khalid squeezed his eyes shut. The wind was ferocious, hammering him, filling his ears with its grotesque song.

  He held tight to the hands in his own. “What’s happening?” he yelled to Moira.

  “I don’t know!” she yelled back. “My eyes are closed!”

  * * *

  Moira doubled over, clenching Khalid’s hand with both of hers now, as the wind built to what she knew would be a devastating crescendo. The gale mounted higher and stronger, and eventually it would rip her right away from Khalid. And he was worried about what she could see?

  “My eyes are closed!” she yelled.

  “Mine too!” came back.

  “Well, open yours!”

  “You first!”

  Not a chance. No way.

  Zak hadn’t joined in with them. Either he couldn’t hear them or—

  No. He’s doing something. I know he is. I can feel it.

  SEVENTY-SIX

  Below Zak, the electroleum on the floor, the torrents of the stuff spilling out of the tanks … It had all paled to a hot, intense white, a glow brighter than any Zak had ever seen. His body was still down there, still chained by touch to Khalid and Moira. He could hear them shouting to each other, like the sound of a train whistle far off down a tunnel. But he could not spare the attention to listen to them. He was too busy.

  Too busy pummeling Godfrey.

  He couldn’t believe how good it felt! All the frustration and anger, all the loneliness and rage, the disappointment in his parents, the fear of this new world—it all funneled down into his/Tommy’s fists as he/they struck Godfrey again and again and again.

  Godfrey flung his arms up before his face, trying to ward off the blows. But Zak/Tommy was/were twice as fast, twice as precise, landing blow after blow after blow, forcing Godfrey farther and farther back.

  On the floor, the glow of the electroleum began to rise, drifting up like a cool lake’s steam on a sweltering early morning. Zak could see nothin
g now, nothing but Godfrey before him, his face twisted into sheer terror as the glow ascended and then—as Zak watched—wrapped tendrils of pure light around him.

  “No!” Godfrey screamed. “No!”

  And for the first time, Zak felt a swell of overwhelming pity for Godfrey.

  Godfrey was scared. Godfrey had always been scared, Zak realized. Scared of the bigger, more powerful men who controlled his life on the ship. Scared of the storm. Of climbing the rope ladder. Of the sudden juddering halt of the ship. And, yes, scared of dying, so scared of death that he consigned himself to an infinitely worse fate, a liminal half-life that drove him to do anything—anything—to return to life.

  You were willing to do the same, Tommy whispered. You were willing to kill yourself and maybe many, many others. For me.

  “Help me!” Godfrey screeched, his voice gone high and tremulous. “Please! For the love of God! In the name of all that’s holy!”

  But I was doing it out of love, Zak told his brother. Not fear.

  Does it really matter?

  And in an instant, he decided: It didn’t. Done for love or done for fear, what Godfrey planned and what Zak had almost done were the same. Their motivations didn’t matter. Zak had almost become as bad as Godfrey, thinking the whole time that he was doing the right thing.

  “I forgive you!” he shouted, and reached out to take Godfrey’s hand. The unholy dread etched into his foe’s expression and threaded through his voice was more than enough. Godfrey had contemplated something horrible, planned something monstrous, but the agony riddling him now … No one deserved that.

  But the heat of the glow forced back his own ghostly hand before he could clutch Godfrey’s and yank him free. And then, as Zak watched, the light peeled Godfrey like a half-molted snake, sloughing off sheets of him as though he were caught naked in a sandstorm.

  Godfrey’s mouth stretched wide, wider than a human mouth should be able to stretch, and Zak could not look away, staring in horrified fascination, steeling himself for the final scream.