Anton Strout - Dead Waters

“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.