Cape Storm Page 0,60
someone screamed, and I looked up to see the approaching black arms of the hurricane sweeping in like scythes. There were bulbous eruptions forming in the trailing clouds, swelling and then narrowing into cones. Forming tornadoes have a lazy look, almost tentative; they bob and weave and seem impotent at first, until they get their strength consolidated.
I'd never taken time to admire their elegance before. So beautiful. So deadly.
Cho was shouting something at me. She wanted my help.
Well then.
I gave it. I gave it to the tornado, and laughed as it gobbled up power like a greedy shark.
Cho must have realized what I was doing. She stepped up and gave me a sharp elbow to the back of my neck, sending me reeling into another Warden, who put me down on the deck and pinned me, yelling for Djinn.
My pet tornado collapsed - no great surprise, they always were fragile constructs, by the very nature of the physics that drove them - and the waves that battered the Grand Paradise, heeling her violently from one side to the other, eased to merely heavy instead of psychotic. I felt the waves' pounding rhythms begin to ease, like a racing heart slowing as adrenaline faded.
"You can't stop it," I told Cho, who was taking advantage of the breathing space to stare into the heart of the storm. "Everybody dances with the devil." I knew the storm was watching too, this monster of a thing that Bad Bob had imbued with life and cunning and cruelty, and a particular kind of insanity. I could feel it gathering itself, studying us. Planning.
It could feel that I was an ally, if only it could reach me. I could have done more, but I felt lazily content to wait.
No hurry. I was enjoying the panic too much to end it quickly.
The ship lurched - not side to side, but down , as if a giant hand had suddenly grabbed the hull from beneath and pulled it straight down. The ship sank like an express elevator, and I watched the ocean pour in over the railings on the decks below, then come for us in a foaming, deadly rush...
... and then the force let us go, and the ship's buoyancy popped us violently straight up like a cork from a rubber band. I don't think the Grand Paradise quite came out of the water, but there was a sickly sense of utter stillness as momentum fought gravity and gravity's patient pull won.
The ship crashed back into the water and settled. We were sprawled like ninepins all over the deck - Wardens, crew, staff, hapless passengers. The screaming sounded thin and lost.
"We're loose!" one of the Wardens shouted. "Get everybody on the lifeboats!"
"No!" Cho snapped. "We're getting control! We'll stand no chance at all in the smaller boats!"
"Are you?" I asked. "Getting control? I don't think so!" It felt like the kind of adrenaline rush you get from hurtling down a mountain on skis, straight for a killing drop, knowing it may destroy you but there's nothing so beautiful as that moment when death means nothing, nothing at all...
The Warden holding me down - I realized it was Kevin, as I focused on his face - gave me a solid right cross, trying to put me out."You'll have to beat me harder than that," I told him, very seriously. "Come on, Kevin, dig deep. Hurt me like your stepmother taught you." He went pale, and I felt his grip on me loosen. Too easy. I threw him off, not particularly caring where he landed, and stalked to Cho.
Before I reached her, we all staggered as a massive subsonic boom rocked the decking.
Far beneath the Grand Paradise, the seafloor collapsed into a massive trench, sending a crush of seawater flooding downward to fill the sudden mile-deep gap. For a moment, a significant section of the sea dipped into a concave bowl - not by much, distributed over such a huge and adaptable area, but enough.
And a wave formed, rushing over the depression, gathering strength and speed and energy.
Rushing straight at our port side. It would take a minute to get to us, maybe more - not much more, though. We were in deep water, not shallows; that was the only thing that might save us. To survive, the ship had to turn into the wave.
I needed to stop it from turning.
"Jo." That was Cherise, laying her hand on my shoulder. "Jo, stop." I turned to look at her, and