Ex-Isle by Peter Clines (electronic reader TXT) 📕

“Nautilus?” asked St. George.

Zzzap shrugged. No idea.

“Did he go down on the sub?”

Madelyn snickered.

Zzzap buzzed out a chuckle. Honestly, I don’t know. I think he saw me coming and went to launch his missiles, but then I lost track of him when I boiled the ocean.

“So what happens now?” asked Madelyn.

St. George looked back up at the cruise ship, then down the length of the tanker. All four gangplanks had been knocked down onto the tanker’s deck. “I think all the exes are trapped on this ship now,” he said, “but we need to make sure none of them got onto the Queen. Once we know, we can—”

Something heavy and metal rattled behind him. Madelyn’s eyes got wide. Zzzap brought his arms up, fingers spread. St. George turned and—

The anchor knocked him across the deck. The chain trailed after it, then whipped back into the mist. The links clinked in the fog, and the huge piece of steel came rocketing out at him again.

St. George lunged into it, grabbed the anchor, and yanked hard. The ripple shot up the chain, and Nautilus came flying out of the mist. It was like a shark rushing in to feed.

St. George swung the anchor up and struck the merman across the face with it, smashing him to the deck.

Nautilus rolled, spat out some blood and a triangular tooth, and threw himself at St. George. The shell shoulder plates slammed into the hero’s chest, and the impact flung them both down the length of the ship. They landed on an ex and crushed its hips to gravel. The merman twisted around and pinned St. George to the deck.

Blisters dotted Nautilus’s arms. In places his blue skin had sloughed off to show tender, raw flesh beneath it. Heat radiated off his body. He glared down at St. George.

“Why?” he growled. “Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?” His punch slammed St. George’s head back against the metal deck. The boxing-glove fist came down again and again.

St. George pushed down against gravity and threw the merman off him. Nautilus spun in the air and landed in a crouch. He took a step forward, and the tanker deck brightened.

Hey, Jabberjaws, said the wraith. Back off. He held up a hand that popped and sparked in the mist.

“Save it,” said St. George. “I’ve got this.”

You sure?

St. George nodded, and Nautilus slammed into him again. They slid through one of the garden plots, spraying plants and dark soil across the deck. St. George smacked the merman in the chest with a palm and sent him flying.

As soon as he landed, he charged forward again. St. George batted away the first punch, and the second. The third caught him across the jaw but left Nautilus open for a gut punch that bounced him into the air and dropped him to his knees.

“Not so good without a bunch of children covering for you,” St. George said.

Nautilus roared, lunged, and swung one of his boxing-glove fists around again.

St. George grabbed the wrist, twisted, and got it behind the merman’s back. Nautilus snarled and brought his other fist around, but the hero was already too far behind him. He threw another punch anyway, and when his fist swung back St. George slipped his arm under the shell-armored shoulder and grabbed the other man’s bull neck.

Nautilus roared. His shark teeth snapped in the air. It was a thin, sharp sound. “You can’t hold me forever,” he growled.

“Not planning on it.”

St. George focused on the spot between his shoulder blades and launched them up into the night sky.

The merman’s head slammed back and cracked into St. George’s forehead. The hero shook it off. The arm in the half-nelson jabbed back, but it couldn’t reach.

They flew faster, higher into the air, and the mist fell away. The wind shrieked in their ears. St. George glanced down and saw a flicker of light on the deck of the tanker. Zzzap, taking out the last of the exes.

“Barry pointed out why you’re so tough,” he said to the merman. “When you’re like this, your body’s designed to survive deep underwater. Tougher, stronger, more resilient. That’s why you’re so strong on the surface.”

Nautilus brought his legs up and swung them back in a kick. It only grazed St. George’s knees, but it made the two men sway in the air. The merman wheezed out a breath and twisted his shoulders again. St. George tightened his half-nelson and willed them to go higher.

“But it hit me a few minutes ago,” said St. George, “that if you’re built for those super-high undersea pressures, really low pressure must be brutal on you. Like those stories about deep-sea fish that explode when you bring them to the surface.”

His breath, always hot from his fires, steamed in the cold air. It bit through his jacket and his wet suit and nipped at his ears and nose. He looked down and guessed the ocean was almost three miles below them.

He sucked in a mouthful of thin air and went even higher.

Nautilus threw his elbow at St. George’s head again. It didn’t come anywhere close. The veins bulged on the arm.

“As I see it, you’ve got two choices. You can stay like this and we’ll see if we both freeze before I hit deep space or if you explode like a fish.”

Nautilus turned to St. George and hissed. The sound rattled in his barrel chest. His teeth gnashed together like an ex.

“The other option is you change back to your human form. The high altitude will still mess you up, but I think your odds of survival will be much better. And we go back down and talk and figure out what to do with you.”

“Why?” hissed the merman.

St. George slowed their ascent. “Because those people down there trusted you. You owe them answers.” He took in another breath of thin air.

“Why are you so greedy?” asked Nautilus. The arm in the half-nelson sagged. The fist behind his back flopped open.

“What?”

“All I wanted was what you have,”