No.Dire needs only.
“There are words!” Trinica points across the way from where she’s climbed up onto a ledge.
Sure enough, the sinking water has revealed words in English carved deeply into the cave walls. At first, they barely show over the waterline, but it goes down fast enough to make them out. And as soon as I read them, a kick of dread plows into my gut.
If you see these words, then weep.
Not good. Very not good.
A glance tells me most of the others are free now. Isabel is assisting Aphrodite’s champion down her post, but Zai is still up on top of his own. And I can’t cut him free.
“Isabel!” I call out. “Dex took my axe. Help Zai when you’re done.”
Her head comes up from what she’s doing, and then she waves an acknowledgment, so I start cutting a swift path through the water away from the carved warning in the rocks, back toward Trinica and several others now up on the ledge.
I’m almost to the wall when Neve’s eyes go wide as she stares over my head toward the carving. Trinica must see the same thing, because her mouth forms the words Oh shit before she’s waving and yelling at all of us. “Get out of the water! Get out of the water!”
If I’ve learned anything in this life, it is to not hesitate when someone yells at you to run. So I swim hard, heart pounding like it wants to break through my rib cage as I cut through the water, feeling like I’m not going fast enough as my muscles cramp from the cold. Any second, I expect something to catch me by the feet and drag me under.
Every time I lift my head to breathe and make sure I’m swimming the shortest path to the ledge where the other champions wait, I can see their faces grow slacker and paler with fear and shock. I hit the rocks and try to climb up, but unlike the wood posts, the surface is slick.
“Come on. Come on. Come on.” I’m muttering to myself as I crab walk my hands, trying to find a spot, any spot, to pull up, when suddenly a large hand appears before me. Randomly, my brain gloms onto the detail of long, tapered fingers before he grabs me by the wrist.
I look straight up into midnight eyes crinkled in a smile.
“I’ve got you,” Samuel says in a deep voice––his English is accented, but I can’t make out from where––then hauls me out of the water one-handed as if I’m a very wet feather.
I’m congratulating myself in relief as my feet touch down, only to have Samuel yell, “Watch out!”
He tackles me to the ground, wrapping me in strong arms and taking the brunt of the impact against the rocks as we both go down.
That doesn’t help absorb the horror that hits me at the sight of the thing sliding back into the water, inches away from where we were just standing.
28
The Gods Love Monsters
I pull my feet away from the edge. “Where in Hades’ name did that thing come from?”
“There seem to be eggs under the words on the rocks.” Samuel lets go of me, and we both get to our feet.
Sure enough, I look over just in time to see a black-and-red pod the size of my fist, half in, half out of the water, stuck to the cave wall like a barnacle beneath the carved letters. A wave swells, then recedes, and a monster erupts from an egg. Small. Much smaller than what just attacked us.
Nearby, the bigger version of the nightmare creature breaches the surface before diving back under, so I get a better look. It is black with red edges and shaped a little bit like a seahorse but the size of a small pony, except all its undulating parts are made up of leafy-looking appendages, like strongly colored kelp. Instead of a sweet little horse’s face, there’s a long, narrow, snapping snout with jagged teeth that fit together in a way that I imagine would rend flesh from bone. A crocodile sea dragon?
The ripple in the water tells me the thing is headed straight for Isabel, who is still trying to climb up to Zai.
I open my mouth to warn her, but Samuel beats me to it. “Isabel, watch your back!” he booms.
She turns just as the sea monster rears up and lunges at her with those snapping teeth. She slashes with the wire cutters I gave her, and the creature whimpers and drops back into the water. But it doesn’t leave. It swims around the pole as Isabel frantically climbs to join Zai near the top. They are treed prey.
There’s a sick popping as another little sea monster thing breaks free from its egg and drops into the water. Now there are three of them. Worse, as the water dips lower, I can see the silhouettes of at least nine more eggs under the surface.
What…one for each of us? What’s making them hatch?
Over the roar of the ocean waves and the calls and cries of the champions, I catch a strange squelching sound nearby. There’s water dripping behind us. But the drops aren’t coming from the ceiling—they’re materializing in midair, a few feet above the ledge floor.
Goose bumps creep over my flesh. Where’s that coming from?
Samuel swings out a hand like he’s swiping at the air, but there’s a thud a heartbeat before Dex appears out of nowhere, a metal helm falling to the ground beside him with a clank. Samuel grabs Dex by the wrist and yanks my axe right out of his grip. Without looking at me, he hands the relic to me as he shoves Dex back a few feet. “Couldn’t swim out of here, I guess?”
“There’s an invisible wall,” Dex says. “It won’t let us out.”
The sneer on Samuel’s face says it all. He considers Dex to be a bit of a coward. I don’t. He’s just trying to survive like the rest of us.
“If I had the chance to escape, I would, too,” I say.
I get distinct looks from both men—one resentful and the other speculative.
At the very least, now we know one of Dex’s gifts—the Helm of Darkness, which can render him invisible. The question is, did Samuel also use a gift to be able to see him?
“Somebody do something,” Isabel yells.
The sea monster leaps, thrashing its long tail to propel itself higher into the air, snapping at her feet as she and Zai both huddle at the top of his pole.
I’m the one with the weapon, so I guess that means me. “I’ll try to get them,” I tell the people near me, though I’m not sure if anyone cares. Other champions are scattered across the ledge, which runs all the way around the cave. “Somebody figure out what’s going on with those eggs and how to stop them.”
