Dead Waters - Anton Strout [120]
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 he 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