Bobby and Dan had settled into chairs around a glass and wrought-iron table, and had pulled out a deck of cards as though they were on vacation. Good. Darnali released a quiet breath of relief and glanced over the rail to see Mike loosening the moorings as Monty coached from above. Berkfield and J.L. were in the pilothouse, as giddy as two little boys, oohing and aahing over the high-tech nautical controls.
She peeked her head into the large room that was covered in glass and winked at Berkfield, who was at the helm.
"Oh, maan, Damali ... all my life I dreamed of being behind the captain's wheel of one of these." Berkfield tipped his new captain's hat to her, laughing. "Monty is all right--look. He had an extra and said that us guys with the horseshoe deserved to wear these."
"But, look, D," J.L. cut in. "The generators, the radio, aw, man ... all the radar and sat gear on here is ridiculous. Monty's got his own server, too, so I can tap into what's left of the Internet. Even though the main service providers have collapsed, there're still independent guys out there trying to keep a pulse on the Web, trying to filter the bullshit on the Council Group Entertainment news. Bet I can rig a way to get secured Guardian transmission relays hooked up ... and Carlos sent us all kinds of deep sea fishing gear, like harpoons and whatever, that me and Jose can retrofit for weapons! He must have raided the naval ships, too, D--you know our boy is insane. Look at this, shells and launchers, and oh, my God, D, sweet, sweet ammo." J.L. kissed a grenade. "I love you, man!"
"Carry on, gentlemen," Damali said, waving and quickly getting out of Dodge before J.L. could get too deep in technical explanations. But where were Carlos and company?
Trying not to panic, she went to a starboard rail and looked out at what still appeared to be a gorgeous, tropical paradise. Nothing moved between the moored vessels in the marina. The bar and bait shops sat eerily idle. There was no calypso blaring, no tourists, and no happy, honeymooning couples. No taxis or moped traffic could be seen. Pedestrians were nonexistent. It was as though everyone had simply vanished.
Beaches were strangely still; only the surf provided lapping sound. The gulls were gone. Huge cruise ships off in the distance loomed on the water like large steel shadows, nothing moving on any of the decks that she could see from where she stood. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath at times. And there was that sense of dread filling her again.
Damali wrested her mind away from the unseen and glanced around at the only life she could wrap her mind around--her team and Monty Sinclair. Four couples would have to stand watch, one on each of the four cardinal points, while a fifth guarded Monty and learned navigation so he could rest, while the other four couples could sleep. That made sense. Four seer Guardian sisters could hold the Atlantis grounding and their navigation on course, sending energy to the submerged pyramid that Pearl had told her about, while the male at each seer's side could cover her with artillery, in the event something wasn't cool.
But something was still eating at her mind. Damali pulled her locks up tighter in her topknot and walked back toward the stern. What the hell was taking Carlos and the fellas so long? Before the thought had fully completed, a massive blast rocked their vessel, toppling Guardians onto the deck like bowling pins. "Heads up!" Shabazz hollered, scrambling to his feet. Mike was over the gangplank in seconds, kicking it away from the vessel and rushing to the top deck so he could see. Damali jumped up and strained at the rail as she watched a fireball consume the furthermost cruise ship. Everyone gathered on the top deck watched in horror as the ship listed and began to go down.
"We've gotta get her out of her slip and away from the dock!" Monty yelled, running into the pilothouse. "The waves coming in will batter her royal."
Another huge blast rocked the yacht again, sounding like distant cannon fire. Damali looked at her team. Her husband was crazy. "He's gonna blow 'em all." Disbelief claimed her as she craned her neck and shielded her eyes to the sun, searching frantically for any glimpse of Carlos, Rider, and Yonnie.
"Up anchor, they're all gonna blow!" Berkfield shouted, running back into the pilothouse with Monty.
"Yo, yo, yo! Three o'clock, hit it and quit it, man!" Jose I yelled, causing Big Mike to pivot, then spray the marina planks with machine-gun fire. "The blasts woke something up, D!"
"Monty, get us away from that dock!" Damali yelled, suddenly noticing activity in the moored boats near them. Quick moving shadows ran through smaller, docked vessels and then came out of hiding into the sunlight, bearing bloody fangs. Sallow-skinned predators with black, sunken eyes and mangled teeth scampered over decks onto the dock, running toward their yacht. Some still clutched the body parts they'd been feeding on in the lower decks of the neighboring crafts.
"Mike, where's your shoulder launcher, man?" Inez screamed, rushing to the pilothouse.
Berkfield met her with it, heaving a new launcher to Inez, who tossed it to Big Mike. As soon as it hit his grip, he took aim and separated the dock from the marina. The blast rocked the yacht, and a third cruise ship explosion put everyone down hard on the top deck.
"There's gonna be all kinds of wreckage and eddies out there!" Damali shouted toward the pilothouse, and then looked at her Guardians. "We have to get to deep water before those cruise ships go down and create a whirlpool!"
Krissy and Bobby jumped up, shock-charging the water with sibling-connected wizard skills.
"Keep all those jellyfish and seaweed out of the engines," Krissy yelled to her brother, causing everyone to scramble up and lean over the side of the yacht.
Millions of jellyfish had coalesced out of nowhere and bonded with deep ocean kelp, creating a mucuslike, thick, gray-green sludge that slowed the yacht's escape. Working with Shabazz, Bobby used his wizard strength to merge with Shabazz's tactical charge, jettisoning flotsam from the fallen cruise liners out of the yacht's path. Heather called the stones, her stoneworker skills merging with Dan's tactical current to propel beach pebbles, and any natural debris that would respond to her magnetism, at the speed of ricocheting bullets into the foreheads of the swimming undead.
Running from belowdecks, Jasmine clutched a sheet. Immediately Berkfield was at her side and he slit his wrist with a Swiss army pocketknife that he always carried and gave her his arm. Working at a frenetic pace, Jasmine quickly painted the sheet with Berkfield's blood, both father and daughter-in-law uniting in the effort to use the healing, life-giving blood that flowed through his veins with her ability to animate from pictures.
Jasmine hurled the bloody sheet to Tara, who flung it overboard into the water and then began firing rounds to protect it. Anything undead that had been on the smaller crafts that hadn't exploded dove after the bloodied linen as though frenzied sharks. Jasmine closed her eyes and a blue-white light rolled down her pretty face. Within seconds a huge water dragon formed out of the sheet, its scales glistening bloodred amid opalescent white.
Careening toward the misshapen bodies, it gorged, clearing a path. Krissy raised the strangling seaweed, craning her fingers, binding the undead and slowing their escape so that Jasmine's dragon could feast. Jasmine rushed to Krissy's side and slapped her five, both sisters-in-law momentarily jubilant as a fourth blast rocked the yacht.
Monty's hands slid from the captain's wheel as Val's wings unfurled and she took to the portside rail, running down it with perfect balance, a bow and arrow raised, headed forward to the bow of the ship. Intermittently Val would stop, take aim, and spear a demon with a dead-aim arrow.
"Keep that man on focus!" Damali shouted, taking the stern rail, wings Spread, her eyes keened for predators or survivors.
"Incoming!" Marlene hollered, using her walking stick as a pointer the second Damali jettisoned it into her hand.
Crazed sharks broke the water's surface with massive gray dorsal fins, eyes gleaming red and teeth gnashing. Guardians were at the rails, firing to keep them back from the hull, but it was a numbers game that the sharks would soon win.
"Supercharge that exterior!" Damali shouted to her tactical members of the squad. "All hands on deck!"
Shabazz, Bobby, J.L., and Dan hit the decks with a fast-moving, blue-white charge that immediately spilled over the sides of the craft, exploding any demon body that touched the vessel's skin.
Inez, Juanita, and Marj had been firing into the water with 9mms, but then glanced up at the same time as Marlene, all women pointing in the same direction at the same time.