Below (29 page)

V
al watched Sturman disappear below her, helplessness overtaking her fear as she accelerated up toward the surface. Then the terror returned as she felt something touch her head and slowly wrap around her shoulders. She screamed into her regulator and thrashed her arms at the unseen attacker, but her hands met only folds and piles of rough narrow strands.
The seining net.
She had risen into it, and now it was preventing her from surfacing.

Even with the lights from above closer now, Val couldn’t see exactly what was happening. Her view was obstructed by the dark mass of the net intermixed with the blinding glare of the lights. She knew that she was close to the surface because the lights were brighter and she could hear the waves above and feel the swells moving the seawater around her. The shoal should be upon her now, but it was not.

It was the net. Although it kept her from surfacing, clumped around her upper body and scuba tank, it appeared to be protecting her as well. Maybe it was the light, but more likely they were unable to detect her in the net or were unwilling to enter its confining folds.

She thought of Sturman, down there in the blackness with the shoal upon him, but pushed the image from her mind. She couldn’t help him unless she could get to the surface and find a way to help from there. At least he had a tether. With enough air and the shark suit protecting him, there was a chance.

She forced herself to calm down and carefully sorted through the folds of netting around her, trying to push it past her so she could maneuver around it and surface. She was close to
Maria.
She could board the vessel from the stern.

As she felt her way through the netting in the darkness, she sensed a gradual change in the fistfuls of loose strands. They were growing tighter. Moments later, they began to tow her away from the lights on the boat above. Away from the surface.

The seiner was finally going down, and taking her with it.

Unable to resist the pull of eighty tons of steel, Val fought the hundreds of strands pressing against her head and shoulders as the
Centaur
began the long descent to the bottom of the ocean.

T
he one-eyed female darted between two of her sisters for a better grip on the immobilized prey. She powered her way through the smooth, wriggling bodies of the other squid and again found purchase on the creature’s body. Wrapping her sinuous arms tightly around it, her beak again met the pliable yet dense outer shell. She scraped against the rough surface, which gleamed in the light like the scales of fish, and sensed the soft flesh underneath.

Around her the shoal was now busily feeding on itself as wounded members pulled away from the struggling prey, which still fought furiously but was gradually slowing. Yielding. The female sensed a growing weakness.

Another large squid jostled against her and she lost her grip on the prey. As she sought another opening, she watched a vulnerable member of her shoal pulse through the water past her, already wounded by the silvery creature. Her heavily scarred sister darted out of the darkness and attacked the wounded animal, wrapping her arms around its middle. The one-eyed female’s focus shifted back to the prey. Although the injured in her shoal would make an easier meal, she had become focused on this alien thing.

She would feed on it. This armored thing that would not be brought down, that was somehow suspended from above.

Her aggression spiked and she closed on the prey again. She fired her whips and their tiny teeth tore at a fin on one of her sisters. The other female quickly yielded and darted away from her.

For an instant the one-eyed female saw the thing’s gleaming armor part under the tugging of her hungry brothers and sisters, exposing a pale, smooth surface beneath. She oriented her tentacles toward the prey and hurtled forward, forcing her arms into the opening before the outer armor could close over it.

This time her beak found what it was seeking.

She sensed a renewed energy in the creature as her massive beak dug eagerly into warm flesh and blood. The rough edges of her maw scraped alongside the prey’s protective bone but continued to dig into the writhing flesh. The taste of blood excited her.

Abruptly she felt something sharp pierce the side of her body, punctuated by the slam of a hard appendage into her organs. The prey was resisting. She only squeezed tighter, burrowing furiously into her assailant’s side, as the sharp pain again exploded against her body. The thing struck her again. And again.

Her tentacles loosened, her well-developed but impaired brain less focused on feeding. The sharp object struck her a final time, opening a wide gash in her side. Her eye twisted in its socket and she watched a nest of foreign worms drift out of her body into the black water, wriggling wildly as they found themselves in open water.

One of her sisters rushed in to attack the prey, crashing against her own body, and she finally lost her grip. Something was wrong. As she felt herself rapidly weaken, her urges began to focus on her own survival. Instinct told her to move down.
Darkness. The deep
. That was where she would be safe.

Directing her mantle away from the surface, she tried to force a jet of water out of her siphon. As her mantle squeezed to pressurize the water inside it for propulsion, most of it spurted out of the gaping holes in her body in a cloud of damaged flesh. Her body spun away at an angle, spiraling away from the mob of squid attacking the armored creature.

The prey was forgotten. There was only safety. Safety, and survival.

She tried to swim toward the deep, away from her frenzied siblings and the bright lights, but her body would not respond. Awkwardly, she managed to jet herself sideways, but her body turned again, sending her upward. Each pulse of water she tried to emit from her siphon somehow sent her in the wrong direction.

In the dark water, the female began to notice several members of her shoal hovering nearby. Among them was her badly scarred sister. They were looking at her as she spun aimlessly in the open water. Watching.

Waiting.

She was emitting another pulse of water when the first one struck.

The smaller squid seized the top of her mantle, well away from the dangers of her tentacles and beak. Normally she would have flung off this weaker member of the shoal and devoured it, but she was powerless. The squid ripped at her body, tearing into her. For a moment, her scarred sister hovered close to them as they struggled. Assessing. Then her body bloomed bright red, and she, too, attacked.

The one-eyed female felt her sister’s arms wrap around one of her fins. She tried to dig her tentacles into her, into any of the attackers, but her body was failing as her life fluids poured out of her damaged organs. With her remaining eye she watched a smaller sister use her beak and wrenching arms to tear through one of her tentacles before darting off with its prize.

Then the shoal engulfed her.

T
he seining net pressed down against Val’s head, forcing her deeper as it trailed the sinking vessel. Fighting panic, Val grabbed handfuls of the mesh and tried to push it aside, seeking an opening where she could maneuver around the gathered folds and make her way to the surface through open water. She could see almost nothing in the weak beam of the dive light.

Several meters below the surface, Val found the opening she was looking for. But her tank was caught in several strands of the netting, and she had no knife to cut them. There was only one option left. She tore off her BC vest and slid free of the entangled scuba tank, spitting the regulator out of her mouth and kicking through the net. Moments later she broke the surface.

The huge lights shining down from
Maria
forced her to squint as she looked around. Sturman’s boat was fifty feet away, farther away than she had imagined—and there was another problem. The boat was listing, the reason obvious to Val in an instant. Sturman had somehow attached his boat to the
Centaur
to prevent it from sinking to the bottom. He had bought time to save her.

Near
Maria
was the skiff from the seiner. Sturman’s dog stood with his paws on the edge of it as he barked at two men in a third, unfamiliar boat, this one much closer to her. She kicked hard for the new vessel, which appeared to be a recreational fishing boat. She splashed past the floating red dive flag she had deployed when she and Karl had gone down and reached the side of the boat. She stretched her arms up to two men leaning over the side. They looked at her in disbelief, but reached down anyway.

“Help me! Hurry!”

The two men grabbed her forearms, but before they could haul her out of the water she felt something grasp one of her legs. She cried out as the men tried to haul her out, the weight of something very heavy now clinging to her legs. She saw their eyes widen. One of the men released her wrist and turned away. He reappeared at the side a second later and swung an oar over her head. She heard a loud slap, and the squid released her. Val felt the men’s hands slide under her armpits and then the three of them spilled over the gunwale in a drenched heap on the deck of the fishing boat.

Val tried to speak but only managed a loud cough. The men fired questions at her, but she needed a second to process the situation.

“Christ! What the hell was that thing?”

“It’s okay, lady. You’re safe now.”

“We got your SOS. What the hell’s going on here, miss? Were you underwater this whole time?”

“Is that your boat? It’s sinking.”

“Jesus, what happened to your leg?”

She had been rescued by two middle-aged guys in a private fishing boat. They smelled like beer. Several rods rigged for tuna jutted out of holders in the stern. Exhausted, she tried to stand, but her left leg gave and she slipped on the wet wood. She decided to stay on her knees until she could adjust to being out of the water.

She yelled “Will!” and the men quit talking. She coughed, gagging up seawater. After a moment, she caught her breath. “Someone’s still down there.”

“You’re bleeding, lady. I’m going to find the first aid kit.”

Val looked at the bloody seawater pooling underneath her on the deck as one of the men ducked into the cabin of the boat. She remembered now that the shoal had attacked her earlier, before she had seen Sturman, and she realized that this was her own blood. As she stared at it, she felt itching in her elbows, a sign that she was going to suffer the effects of the bends from surfacing too quickly. She drew in a deep breath, fighting the faintness creeping over her, and grabbed the hand of the heavyset man still sitting with her on the wet deck.

“Forget about me, please! I’m all right. Listen. There’s a man still down there!”

“Down there? Are there more of those squid down there?”

“Yes.”

“How were
you
even down there? You don’t even have scuba gear on.”

“He does, though. Listen to me, dammit. We have to hurry!” She grabbed his arms and shook them, as much to rouse him as keep herself from losing consciousness. “Don’t you understand? They’re going to
kill
him!”

“What more do you want us to do, lady?”

She heard a loud crack and looked over at
Maria.
The stern of Sturman’s boat, the last part of her still above water, was now sliding under. Somehow he had affixed the massive seiner to his own boat so effectively that apparently they would go down together. The lights mounted on
Maria
winked out as she succumbed to the pull of the
Centaur
, and darkness fell over them.

Her mind raced as the other man returned and tore open the boat’s first aid kit. When she had last seen Sturman, just as he had released her, his face had disappeared in a swarm of squid. They had covered his body, his face, as the heavy shark suit dragged him down. But he couldn’t have sunk farther, because he was tethered to the surface. Tethered to
Maria . . .

She looked over at the darkened boat, very low and angled steeply in the water. She stopped breathing. His tether, rather than save him, would now drag him to his death.

Sturman’s dog suddenly barked from the skiff, twenty feet away, and Val looked over at the small boat. Its stern was much too low in the water.
Of course
. Sturman knew his own boat might go down. His lifeline was attached to the skiff, then—not
Maria
.

“Listen to me! We need to pull alongside that skiff right away. My friend is tethered to it.”

The portly man nodded and moved toward the helm. She looked around the boat. There were fishing rods, a gaff and a hand net tucked in the side, a few beer cans, and several ropes coiled on the deck, each running up to a cleat on the gunwale.

“Are there any flares on this boat?”

“What?”

“Any flares? Or waterproof dive lights? Dammit!” She didn’t know why she was even asking about the lights. She had no scuba gear and was in no shape to dive down again. She would probably pass out before she could even help him.

The skinny guy wrapped a bandage around her bleeding thigh, right over the neoprene, as his friend put their boat in gear and nosed it toward the skiff. The big man tied the skiff to their boat, then leapt into it. Sturman’s dog wagged his tail warily at the stranger, then saw Val and bounded onto the unfamiliar fishing boat and rushed to lick her face.

“We need to pull in the rope running off this boat,” she said. “My friend is connected to that line.” She stood, and a wave of weakness flooded through her. She again felt as though she might pass out. She blew out a deep breath and fought it, shaking her head, dimly aware Bud was still licking her.

“How much does your friend weigh, lady?” The heavyset man grunted, leaning over to pull in the line. “I can’t pull this rope in. There’s no way—there’s too much weight on the other end. The entire skiff ’s about to freakin’ sink—shit!” The man suddenly fell backward in the skiff, clutching his hand.

The line running down from the skiff had suddenly grown even more taut. It skidded along the edge of the small vessel with an audible twang.

“Will.” She whispered his name. She knew it might already be too late. He had been down deep for some time, but she didn’t know how long. He couldn’t have much air left. But whether he was alive or not, they had to bring him up.

Val rose unsteadily, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the skiff. She rested her hand on its outboard motor to steady herself, fighting the overwhelming desire to simply crumple and pass out. Then it hit her. They could use simple physics. She looked around for a sturdy fulcrum, and spied the transom of the men’s fishing boat. It just might work.

She took another deep breath, braced her feet, and jerked the starter cord on the skiff.