Kronos (19 page)

The brandy slid down Atticus’s throat, warming his insides and calming his nerves. He smiled as Trevor poured him a second glass. “You know you’re going to get me addicted to this stuff.” Atticus downed the second shot. The alcohol and pleasant atmosphere of the underwater sitting room were having the intended effect of soothing the raging soul of a man who just watched his daughter get eaten alive. They’d watched the video over and over, yet found nothing, aside from fueling Atticus’s rage, that would offer them any aid in killing the sea serpent.

“Every good man has a flaw,” Trevor said with a smile and drinking his second shot as well. “Tell me, then, what does my intrepid hero have planned for the morrow? Hmm?”

“I’ll need the sub.”

Trevor crossed his legs and perched his hands daintily on his knees. “Yes, you mentioned that earlier.”

“Alone.”

A single eyebrow arched high on Trevor’s head. “While I share your desire to see Kronos dead, I would very much like to see the event take place.”

 “I’ll drive it to the surface in the sub, where you can hit it with whatever big guns you’ve got hidden on board.”

Trevor grinned. “And if the weapons on the sub fail to push the creature onward and upward?”

“Then it will chase me to the surface.”

“Sounds like a fool’s errand.”

“It will work.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“You mean if it eats me?”

Trevor offered a feeble nod.

“Then I’ll use the mininuke and send us both to hell.”

“Ahh yes. You know that was designed to be a long-range weapon; but I suppose it would function well as a self-destruct mechanism.” Trevor sighed long and deep. “You will, of course, do me the common courtesy of warning us before detonating a nuclear device? Will you not? We would need time to steer clear. It may be a small charge, but it will create a sizeable splash.”

“I’ll wait until my last breath.”

After chewing on his lower lips, Trevor let out a chuckle and slapped his knee. “You do know how to raise the stakes don’t you! Very well then—”

An enormous collision reverberated through the room, sending Atticus and Trevor immediately to their feet.

“Are we under attack?” Trevor asked eyes wide.

When Atticus saw it, he knew they had nothing to fear. He pointed to the window with a view of the dark undersea kingdom. There, chomping his jaws on something indeterminable was Laurel, the twenty-eight-foot great white shark.

“Ahh,” Trevor said as he straightened his rumpled black turtleneck. “Laurel, you naughty fish. You nearly caused me to soil myself.”

Atticus moved closer to the window, watching Laurel devour whatever was in her mouth. “What’s she eating?”

“Late-night snack I suppose. One never knows.”

28

Under The Titan—Gulf of Maine

Pain wracked Andrea’s body as her insides tore.

She’d moved so frantically to avoid the freight train of a shark that she’d pulled several muscles in her legs, arms, and chest. But the most painful of pulls came when the great white locked its jaws upon her fin, nearly taking her toes off, and yanking it from her foot. With the giant’s jerk, the muscles of her right leg stretched like the strings of an over-tightened harp.

If not for the shark’s total dedication to devouring the rubber fin, breaking away would not have been possible. Even then, her chances of escape remained slim as she feebly kicked her way toward the back of the
Titan,
relying on one bare foot and one finned foot to propel her forward and outrun the ocean’s top predator.

As she kicked, a burn filled her chest. She’d been holding her breath. Worse than that, she had yet to replace the regulator that she’d spat out when she screamed. Reaching back for the regulator caused multiple fresh muscle pulls to protest painfully, but she pushed past the pain and found the regulator hose dangling from her air tank. As the regulator met her lips and she took a deep breath, her strength returned. But she was nowhere near the stern of the
Titan.
If the shark gave chase, she’d never make it, injuries or not.

She dived under the
Titan
in an attempt to remove herself from the shark’s field of view. In the end it wouldn’t help much, but she refused to make an easy meal of herself. Sharks had evolved to sense their prey using more than eyesight. They could smell a drop of blood a quarter mile away. More than that, the shark’s ampullae of Lorenzini, jelly-filled canals in its head and snout, could detect the electrical fields emitted by all living things, especially panicking, thrashing prey trying to escape.

Andrea doubted the shark had ever lost track of her, but she had no other recourse.

Upon reaching the bottommost portion of the hull, Andrea discovered something that lent her hope. A second portal, extremely large, glowed at the center of the lower hull. If it turned out to be another viewing port she’d be eaten for all to see, but if it was an open bay.

She kicked hard and yanked at the water with her hands. As the bright light from the portal illuminated the water, she could clearly make out small waves rippling in the open space.

Even as a massive, dark silhouette circled the light, once, then twice, she kept moving forward. The shark was taking its time, unaware of the escape route.

As Andrea angled up toward the open hatch, she sensed the water behind her shifting, driving forward. The shark charged from behind. Andrea clawed toward the hatch, only five feet ahead.

Overcome by fear and instinct, Andrea pulled herself upright and turned around, arms outstretched, facing her attacker. A moment later and she would have lost her legs in the shark’s jaws. And though her action saved her legs by pulling them away from the shark’s jaws, she faced the open maw of a twenty-eight-foot superpredator head-on. She kicked up, grasped the shark’s head, and took the impact in the gut. The force drew all of her breath from her and knocked the regulator from her mouth.

With her body wrapped around the snout of the shark, her limbs were safe from being snapped up by the shark’s mouth, but she could feel the lower jaw opening and closing, snapping at her legs and scraping against her wet suit. She was about to become a frog in a blender.

Andrea screamed, expelling the last bit of air in her lungs, filling the water with a bubbly howl before jabbing a thumb into the shark’s eye.

With a sudden jolt, her backward motion stopped, and the shark vanished into the gloom. She saw it circling again, moving fast, agitated. It would be back…and soon. Andrea looked up and found herself directly beneath the open hatch. But unless she could fly, it did her no good. She surfaced, took a desperate drag of air, quickly shed her air tank, weight belt, and regulator, and pounded toward the edge of the thirty-foot pool.

She swore she could feel the shark behind her again, but had no energy to turn around and face the monster. She knew it would only end in her demise, and this time she had no desire to look death in the face.

Andrea winced as her hand struck metal. She reached the edge. She threw an arm up over the edge and found the floor surface wet and slippery. She dug in, feeling her nails scratch against the cold floor. She began pulling herself out, grunting with exertion. But her tortured muscles, burning lungs, and bruised ribs fought against her, pushing her back into the drink. As she gripped the edge of the hatch again she glanced back and saw the shark shrinking the distance between them, its jaws open wide and its white, nictitating membrane covering its black eyes, protecting them from the struggles of its prey.

Her spirit broken, Andrea let go of the floor, prepared to meet her maker, whoever that might be. But before her hand slid beneath the water and her body into the jaws of the shark, a crushing pressure took hold of her wrist and yanked her up out of the water. She became airborne and collapsed onto the bay’s metal floor.

Exhaustion quickly set in along with a kind of numbness that came softly over her. Her field of vision dwindled to that of a peephole, and her body fell limp. She looked toward the pool, where her rescuer stood. A tall, beefy man, whose attire suggested a jovial or comical personality.

As her vision faded to black, she heard the man’s dull footsteps clang against the metal floor, growing closer. As he spoke, his hot breath, which smelled of popcorn, seemed oddly close to her face. “Well, well. Look at what the fish dragged in.”

If Andrea had been conscious enough to see the man’s lust-filled eyes, the bent smile, and rough beefy hands advancing toward her hips, she would have known how wrong her assumptions about the man had been. If she’d known he had a history of violence against women, she would have been thankful for being unconscious.

Remus slung Andrea over his shoulder and exited Ray’s Bay, whistling a happy Hawaiian tune. He knew he couldn’t do anything to the woman until Trevor questioned her, but then he’d have his way with her. The fact that she’d survived an encounter with Laurel meant she was a fighter; and he liked a woman who fought back. They reminded him of his wife.

May she rest in peace.

29

The Titan—Gulf of Maine

Atticus woke as the foot-long teeth pierced his belly and ran him through, severing his body in two. He’d had the same dream three times since retiring to bed that night. The first two times he hadn’t wakened until after he’d looked down and found his entrails unraveling into the water. Mercifully, this time he awoke just as vertebrae separated from disk.

The nightmare left him covered in sweat and tense. He sat up in bed, controlling his breathing, attempting to move his thoughts away from the dream, away from Kronos or the impending encounter. His mind wandered to Giona, but the wound of her death was too fresh, and he felt his emotions swelling. He pushed his thoughts to Maria and found himself consumed with guilt for his actions, then sadness for having to face the loss of Giona alone. Unsure of what to focus on—it seemed every good thing had been taken from him—Atticus suddenly pictured the angry face staring at him from the Coast Guard cutter. Andrea.

His thoughts turned to their first kiss. The gazebo. Still sixteen, they stood beneath a gazebo as a torrential downpour pelted its roof and provided them with a rare moment of privacy. They’d stood in silence, awkward at first, then comfortable. The kiss came a moment later. Mutual. Soft. It ended when the rain faded moments later and neither spoke of it for weeks after. But it had been the beginning of their romance.

He smiled, picturing her scowling at him from the Coast Guard cutter. Why were they there? He imagined that the Coast Guard would take an interest in Trevor’s presence, but why watch him so closely? Before waking the previous morning he’d thought he heard her voice calling for him.

No,
Atticus thought,
it’s just a coincidence. She’s in the Coast Guard. It’s her job.
Still, he knew that she deserved an explanation, and he resigned himself to contacting her in the morning.

Dully distracted from the nightmare, Atticus felt his eyes grow weary again, and he lay back down. Though his eyes were closed, Atticus suddenly sensed a shift in the moonlight sneaking past the shades. He listened. Feet shuffled over the floor.

Someone was in his room.

He could hear the person breathing, quick and labored. Nervous, Atticus thought.

Possibilities flooded his mind. It couldn’t be Remus. The man might be excited about killing him, but he was a professional. He wouldn’t be so sloppy. Trevor would have simply turned on the lights and announced his presence. Besides, the silhouette of the man moving toward him lacked the explosion of hair atop top his head. With a smile, he realized who it was, but the cause of his late-night visit remained a mystery.

“Atticus,” the man said. “Atticus, are you here?”

Atticus shot up and whispered, “Boo.”

Father O’Shea stumbled back against the wall with a thud. “Dear Lord!”

Atticus turned on the bedside light, smiling at the panicked priest. “I thought priests didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain?” Then, before O’Shea could speak added, “Another vice perhaps?”

O’Shea wore only loose-fitting sweatpants, revealing a cut, fit upper torso. The priest’s athletic build struck Atticus as odd. What kind of priest cursed, listened to the Stones and had a body like Bruce Lee? He thought to ask, but kept his thoughts to himself. Everything on the ship held secrets, and the good Father was only one of them.

“Sorry for sneaking up on you,” O’Shea said. “Though I suppose it was you who got the best of it”

Atticus looked O’Shea over. The man was wiggling his fingers about and glancing around the room, clearly nervous about something more than being caught sneaking into his room.

“Why are you here?” Atticus asked.

 “You must swear to tell no one how you found out.”

Atticus nodded and crossed his arms over his equally bare, yet more muscular chest.

“I saw a woman today; Remus caught her trying to board the ship.” O’Shea sighed. “I just thought you would want to know.” He drew a deep breath and cracked his knuckles. It was clear he was about to share something he believed he shouldn’t.

Atticus stood straighter. “What? Who?”

“I don’t know who, but that woman from the cutter. Earlier in the day, when you were still sleeping, she confronted Trevor and asked to speak with you specifically.”

He
had
heard her voice. Atticus squinted. “Why didn’t Trevor tell me?”

“Why the man does anything at all is a mystery to me.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Here
we
are.”

Atticus stood in silent thought for a moment.  O’Shea continued.

“I went for a walk to clear my head. That damned beast of yours is giving me nightmares.”

You’re not the only one,
Atticus thought.

“I overheard Remus telling some crew members that a woman had been caught. His description of the woman matched the one I saw on the cutter. She’d almost been eaten by Laurel, but survived.”