Deadshifted (Edie Spence 4)

Even I felt the urge to answer her—and I knew who we were speaking to. I lifted my head weakly out of the raft. Claire was there, beached on the diminishing remnants of the Maraschino’s hull like a Renaissance painting come to life. She was as long as a twelve-person dinner table, most of her tail, and looked nothing like the frail elderly woman Hal had loved. Her hair was the color of kelp, from dark brown to translucent yellow, and her tail was covered in variegated scales, ending in an extravagant fin—but the top part of her was human-ish. Her fingers ended in talon-like claws, all the better to spear fish with I assumed, and something about the color and shape of her skin made me feel it would be rubbery to touch.

“Make this work,” she said, her monstrous voice an imperious command. She had far too many teeth.

Asher took in whatever she’d shared with him—I couldn’t see what it was. “This ship is already lost. ”

“It’s not for this ship. It’s for that one,” she explained, and then her voice changed again in pitch, becoming one of command. “Make it work. Now. ”

“Stop that,” Asher said, kneeling down. “I’ll do it if you can fix her. ”

I saw Claire’s head wave back and forth. “I can’t. It’s not just your child living inside her now. ”

Asher stopped whatever he was doing. I saw his shoulders go still. “Heal her,” he begged.

“Would that it were that easy,” she said snappishly. Then perhaps remembering her years as a human, “It is beyond me. I’m sorry. ”

I concentrated on pulling myself up so I could see what Asher was working on. Claire had brought him something that looked like putty that I recognized. The packages of C-4 we’d left downstairs, the ones that Hal had stopped from exploding. Claire must have swum below to retrieve them, presumably in through the gaping hole that the ones that had exploded had left.

I hadn’t known that Asher had had a demolitions expert inside him, but I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“I have no idea how you’re going to light all this,” Asher said as he worked.

“I overturned lifeboats until one of them gave a flare gun to me. ”

Asher paused at this, possibly, like me, imagining those lifeboats carrying people she spilled into the water, then shook his head and kept working.

“Emily?” I asked quietly, knowing she would hear.

“She’s none of your business now,” Claire said. Her dark eyes were sad, looking at me. “She’s safe,” she amended, more kindly.

Asher continued to work as the sound of the water came closer. “You only brought me five minutes of fuse. Once you light this—” he warned her.

“I’m built to swim,” she cut in.

“And you know where to use it?”

She laughed bitterly, an awful sound. “Hal was a torpedoman. ”

Asher nodded and gave his finished work to Claire. She took it in one taloned hand and held it to her breast like a child as she used her free arm and tail to propel herself back into the sea. I let myself relax back into the raft as Asher appeared overhead.

“Ready?”

“Yeah. ” I had my two fists punching in over my stomach, unsuccessfully trying to keep it from knots. Another wave hit, hurt so bad I could puke, and then left me. I could see the fear on Asher’s face looking down. Claire had told us both the truth. They were worms. I was going to die.

The pill I’d palmed had already melted in my pocket.

“Where’s she going?” I whispered when I could. Anything to stop him from looking down at me like that.

“I think we’ll see. ”

He disappeared again, and I felt us sliding until we hit the water with a slap. Then the edge buckled as Asher jumped in beside me ungracefully, letting cold water in.

It wasn’t until I could feel us rocking in the waves like we were in a cradle that I realized we’d escaped the Maraschino at last.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The Maraschino died as it had lived, slowly and stately. It sank beneath the waves as though it were merely going on another trip, only this time to the bottom of the sea. There was no sucking woosh or danger of us being pulled in after it. Burbles of air escaped, like an ancient volcano burped below, and then it was gone, along with everyone else who hadn’t survived, all their deaths red on the hands of a madman.

In between waves of cramps, my curiosity outweighed my pain. I used my elbows to prop my head up on the raft’s edge so I could look around outside its canopy. The surrounding waters were full of random debris, clothing, pieces of furniture, and madly swimming worms. Now free of their human hosts they twisted around one another, copulating in the growing dawn, releasing streamers of luminescent eggs into the ocean like scattered stars. Those were what I’d seen frothing in the sink, and out of the weird woman’s mouth. Worm eggs.

Like what was growing inside me. I sank back into the raft bleakly.

It wasn’t any warmer here than it had been on the Maraschino. Jorge, Marius, and Rory had gotten into a lifeboat, but this was only an inflated half-a-foot of air and rubber between us and the sea, and a canvas canopy to protect us from the sun. We didn’t even have a paddle. Asher leaned over me and out the raft’s door, swirling his hand.

“Edie, look,” he said, and I leaned up again to see.

We were pointed at the rescue ship that I felt sure Claire was swimming toward.