Aetherial Annihilation (6 page)

"Oh, god." I didn't want to watch.

The other ship twisted and turned, out of control. I realized that within seconds, we'd plow right into it.

"Get ready," Elyssa said in a strained voice. "I can't hold this course much longer."

I remembered the dead woman with the rope and had an idea. "Do what you need to do." I ran to the lower deck and untied the rope from the woman and the railing, then raced to the front of the ship.

We were less than a hundred feet from the spinning boat. Hot wind whipped against my face. The man on the deck of the other boat had given up yelling for help and apparently braced for the inevitable. I leaned over the railing.

"Grab the rope!"

He didn't see or hear me. I shouted again and again, but the deafening din of the swirling water was too much to overcome. I decided to try another tactic and tied the rope to the railing and around my waist then I rappelled down the side of the ship. The yacht abruptly turned and I lost my footing.

The rope played out all the way to the end, jerking me to a halt inches from the rushing water. Agony inflamed my ribs and I shouted in pain. Dangling and twisting in wind and the stinging salt spray, I heard a faint cry. When I rotated toward the front, I saw the man and his boat only feet away. With a yell of surprise, I put out my feet to ward off the blow. The other boat's hull knocked me swinging out over the void. For a moment, I hung over the violent maw, then swung back toward the boat as the yacht crushed through its hull.

The man's face filled with fear. I held out a hand as I swung toward him. "Jump to me! Jump!"

He ran to the edge and leapt just as I swung back into range. He slammed against me, clinging tightly to my ribs. I cried out in agony. He slipped and his weight shifted to my foot. Water foamed around his waist and I knew I'd lose him to the tide unless I did something fast.

Using every bit of supernatural strength, I fought gravity and tried to pull him up with my leg, despite the burning pain in my abdomen. One of the man's arms hung limp by his side and I realized he must have dislocated it.

The fingers of his left hand held my shoe in a white-knuckled grip. My hand reached for his as I pulled up my leg. With one last gasp of pain, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist.

The ship shifted directions and we swung back over the glowing vortex. The other man screamed. I imagined his shoulder hurt as badly as mine did with all his weight and centrifugal force jerking on mine.

The gravitational slingshot threw the yacht out of death's door, past the event horizon of the maelstrom, and into open water.

I heard a man sobbing. At first I wasn't sure if it was me or the guy I'd rescued. It turned out to be both of us. Unfortunately, I was out of juice. There was no way in hell I could get both of us up the rope. I'd be lucky to get up there myself. Elyssa probably had no idea where I was, so that left me little choice. The man's feet were already trailing in the water.

"Can you keep afloat until I untie the rope?" I asked him.

"Yes," he replied.

I released him into the water. The knot had tightened considerably from all the weight on it, but I managed to work it loose and dropped into the water a moment later. I swam to the man and grabbed him under an armpit as the yacht motored past. Just as the rear dock neared, I swam for it, and grabbed the ladder. With a chorus of grunts, groans, and sobs, we heaved ourselves up onto the back deck.

I was in pain and beyond exhausted, but we'd done it.

We had a ride to the mainland.

Chapter 5

I heard Elyssa screaming my name as we neared the bridge.

"I ought to slap you silly, Justin!" She threw herself into my arms, eliciting a yelp from me.

"I think a slap would've been less painful," I groaned.

She jumped back. "Oh, god, I'm sorry." Her lips quirked. "Sort of." She suddenly noticed the man trailing behind me. "Who—what?"

"He was on another boat caught in the whirlpool." I shrugged and instantly regretted it as aches lanced into my shoulders. I motioned toward the space-age console. "Got that figured out?"

She shook her head. "Just the basics." Elyssa's eyes flared and she went over to the unconscious ship captain. "He's still out."

Despite his slumbering state, the man moaned and groaned like someone trapped in a nightmare. "Maybe the doctor can patch him up."

"I hope so. I'm afraid to take the boat too close to shore." She went to the throttle and eased back the lever as we neared the clods of floating debris a few hundred yards off the island. "I don't even know how to drop the anchor on this thing."

The man I'd rescued stepped to the console and regarded the buttons and switches for a moment before pointing to a button that plainly said "Anchor" on it. "This is it."

"Pardon my manners," I said. "I'm Justin, and this is Elyssa."

"Alon," he replied. He touched his dislocated shoulder and winced. "The wave hit my boat last night." Tears gathered in his eyes. "My wife was lost. Somehow, I survived."

"I'm so sorry, Alon." Elyssa placed an arm on his good shoulder. "We're trying to get back to the mainland, but we have a group of people to rescue from the island first. We have a doctor who can probably reset that arm for you."

Tears rolled down his cheeks. He nodded. "I am grateful."

I noticed a small refrigerator tucked into the back corner of the cabin and opened it to find bottled water and soft drinks. "Maybe you should have some water." I handed one to him, and then gulped one down myself.

He sat cross-legged on the floor and forlornly drank his water. "Why did this have to happen here?"

"If you're talking about the meteors, they hit all over the world." I didn't want to dampen his mood further, but I had the feeling he was blaming bad luck or god for killing his wife.

The news obviously surprised him, because his head rocked back as if I'd struck it. "All over the world?"

Elyssa slowed the ship and released the anchor. "Hope it holds."

"What's the best way to get everyone onboard?" I asked.

"There should be inflatable dinghies," Alon said quietly. "Look for the pods on the sides of the yacht."

"You seem pretty experienced." Elyssa knelt next to him. "Can you pilot this boat?"

He nodded slowly. "If I must, though I have never piloted such a large craft."

"That makes you a gazillion times more qualified than us." I rolled my head to ease some of the muscle spasms gripping my neck. "I'll go look for the dinghies."

"I'm coming with you." Elyssa regarded Alon, sympathy softening her eyes. "Will you be okay alone?"

He nodded and leaned against bottom of the console. "I will rest."

We found several rafts and paddles located in compartments all along the length of the ship. We inflated one and put the others inside it. Elyssa grabbed a paddle and pushed us toward shore. Harley stood atop a giant mound of debris and waved when we he spotted us. He carefully made his way down and met us.

"I thought you were dead for sure." He whistled and showed me a video of the yacht on his phone. "This is definitely something you can tell your kids about."

Elyssa grinned. "They'll have no shortage of stories to keep them entertained."

I noticed a crowd of people streaming down the street from the direction of the hotel with the big man in the lead.

Harley whooped and waved at them. "Looks like Reese took care of business."

"Is Reese the big man?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yep. Former special forces, if I had to guess. I see a lot of those types in these parts. I think they figure Thailand is a good place to lose themselves and forget the past."

Elyssa gave me a knowing look. I knew she didn't mean anything by it, but guilt used my guts as a hammock. I'd left behind plenty of loose ends when I ran away from responsibility after the war. If one of Daelissa's former minions caused all this, then I was partly to blame for leaving them free.

Harley seemed to sense my unease and chuckled. "Hey, there's nothing wrong with running away." He flashed his teeth. "While you were gone, I did some research on the internet."

"At least that's still working," I mumbled.

"There were over a hundred reported impacts yesterday." He pulled up a map with red marks. "Some of the impacts were negligible. The meteors fizzled or shattered before reaching the ground." He scrolled along the map. "As you can see, they hit all over the place. I don't think they missed a single country." He switched to pictures from all over the world. All the meteors more or less resembled what we'd seen on the first newscast. "Here's the weird part."

"I think you need to reevaluate how you use that word from now on," I said.

He chuckled. "I see your point. But the oddity here is none of these meteors show burn marks from atmospheric entry."

I hadn't really thought about it, but he was right. "In other words, they were launched inside the atmosphere."

"I suppose." He seemed to have as hard a time wrapping his brain around it as I did. "I just don't see how anyone would be capable of launching so many of these things worldwide, especially in such a short time frame." He looked up. "It would take hundreds of stealth bombers all over the world."

Elyssa showed us her phone. "Look at this video."

A girl taking a selfie video of herself in a small airplane shrieked and flipped the phone around as something the size of a basketball streaked past the nose of the plane.

"What the hell is that?" a male voice asked. "Hang on, I'm gonna follow it." The view through the windshield shifted sharply down.

"Dwayne, what are you doing?" the girl cried.

"I want to see where it lands. Keep videoing, babe. This is our chance to become internet famous!"

Sunlight sparkled off the crystalline object. As it fell, it gathered speed and swelled in size. Before long, it was big as a bus and trailing sparks. The aircraft shook violently.

"N-n-no!" the girl shouted, her words stuttering from the turbulence. "G-g-get us out of here!"

Dwayne cursed and turned the plane from the meteor's trail. The view evened out for a moment and then shook violently as the sound of impact rumbled in the distance. "Holy sh—"

Elyssa stopped the video. "Did you see how small the crystal was at first?"

I blew out a breath. "This must be the work of Serena. Who else could make crystal meteors that grow to the size of an elephant and then suck all the magic from the world?"

"I'll let you two figure that one out." Harley shook his head. "This stuff is crazy."

Reese and the crowd of refugees reached us a moment later.

I shook his hand. "Good work. Did you find many supplies?"

"Yep, but I gotta warn you—I saw Jay and a group of his loonies looting a gun store." His upper lip curled. "Judging from the size of the crates they were pulling out of there, they can't be up to anything good."

My chest tightened. The last thing I needed was Jay trying to kill me. "We've got plenty of inflatable rafts. Let's get everyone loaded onto the yacht."

Reese looked out at the craft and whistled. "She's a beaut."

"Yeah it's okay, I guess." I would have settled for a speedboat, but at least this way we could take a boatload of people with us.

I found Elizabeth and took her aside. "I'd like you to go on the first raft. The ship pilot needs some attention, and there's a French guy named Alon there who needs his arm put back into the socket."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're like a magnet for serious injuries."

"If only you knew." I motioned her toward the shore. "You'll find the rafts up there."

It took an hour to get the first rafts of people onboard the yacht and paddle the inflated rafts back to shore. All the remaining refugees boarded the rafts and piled the supplies inside. We'd just pushed off from shore when I heard an outboard motor revving nearby. Mounds of floating debris blocked my view, so I couldn't tell where it was coming from. We finally reached relatively open water and were about halfway to the boat when the rumbling motor grew louder behind us.

"Oh, crap," Elyssa eloquently stated.

I looked back and saw Jay and his merry band of demon haters riding in a flat-bottomed steel boat and coming straight for us. Every one of them held a rifle of some sort. Elyssa had told me to take it easy, but the sight of those gun-wielding maniacs lit a fire under my ass. I grabbed a paddle and worked it like mad despite the agony in my muscles.

Elyssa growled. "Why can't people like him just go away?"

It was slow going, but thankfully, a lot of unpleasant people weighed down Jay's boat. We reached the yacht just as the other craft caught up to us.

A shot rang out. People cried out and ducked. I turned and glared. Jay grinned smugly and fired another shot into the air.

"Give us the demon," he shouted. "We'll throw him into the fiery inferno in the ocean and rid the world of his evil."

I pumped my fist at him. "You're a grade-A certified lunatic, jackass!"

Another man held up a handful of grenades. "We're going to blow him all to hell."

Bullets spattered the water all around the small boat. Jay and crew nearly crapped their britches.

"I've got a better idea," Reese said, the butt of a sleek black automatic rifle pressed against his shoulder. "Why don't you go away and stay away?"

One of Jay's men whipped a pistol out of a holster. Before he could aim it, a bullet pinged off the handle and sent the gun flying into the water. The man shouted and nursed his hand.

"I'm a pretty good shot," Reese said. "I could probably ace every one of you from a hundred yards with this rifle." He smiled. "On the other hand, you could just do what I asked and go away."

"If you want to damn yourselves to hell, then I won't try to save you." Jay stood and glared at Reese. "But you won't stop our holy mission." He jabbed a finger toward the glowing whirlpool of doom. "We will destroy the root of his power."

Reese snorted. "With grenades and guns?" He shrugged. "Be my guest. Now get out of here, and don't think I won't be watching you."