Age of Blood

8

They were given the ten-minute warning. They were jumping in and didn’t know when they’d be back, so they wore their wet gear and carried their dry gear in waterproof bags, which contained their weapons as well. Emily Withers had gone missing almost exactly twenty-four hours ago. If they found anything it would be a body. Still, after replaying the recording of the giant creature taking her, they concluded that they might need to be prepared for additional threats, so they also carried knifes sheathed to their legs, as well as gas-operated spear guns.

Laws wondered if they’d really encounter the giant fish. Their mission brief had included the history of the oarfish. It could grow upward of fifty, sometimes sixty feet in length. It was long held that the oarfish was perhaps the start of the mythology of the sea monster, sailors spying the great long bodies, either alive and beneath the waves, or washed up on the shore. The species held a fondness for the protected warm waters and rather shallow bottom of the Sea of Cortez.

But these great eel-like fish were not alone in these waters. The giant Humboldt squid also called the Sea of Cortez home. Some thought it might have been the inspiration for Jules Verne’s sea monster that attacked the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Whatever the truth was, the millions of tourists that came to swim in the lusciously warm waters had no idea of the sheer size of the squid that swam beneath them.

Never having seen a sea monster in person, Laws found that part of him actually wanted to. Growing up on the back lots of Hollywood studios, he’d seen his share of movie props. The head and teeth they’d used in the final scene of Jaws had terrified him for months when he’d first seen them after watching the movie.

But another part of him didn’t want anything to do with sea monsters. They’d grown from small eggs to become as large as they were. Each and every one of them, in its own way, had become the ultimate predator, needing to feed on everything else, anything else, just to survive. Was that what had happened to the senator’s daughter?

The ramp opened and air rushed in. He set his goggles and checked the valves of the man in front, just as his were being checked by the man behind. He heard the countdown in his intrateam underwater radio system and prepared to step off. Then came the moment, and he let the wind take him.

They jumped at five thousand feet, so it wasn’t going to be a very long trip. Still, he saw the twinkle of Cabo to his right and the lights of mainland Mexico farther off to his left. Beneath him, as he rushed seaward through the wind, he spied lights of varying brightness, each of these boats, both commercial and private.

When he hit a thousand feet, he lowered his dry bag on a line. He watched the altimeter and GPS on his wrist and began flaring, using the risers to bring him on target and slow his descent. When he was ten meters, he released his dry bag, and when he was five meters he released the chute. He had time to press a hand to his goggles; then he was slicing into the warm water of the Sea of Cortez. As warm as it was, it was a shock, and he felt his chest tighten as he held his breath. He allowed himself to sink, pressed his regulator into his mouth, and cleared the air. Once he was certain his breathing apparatus was functioning, he freed his fins from where they were attached to his side and pulled them over his feet. Then he turned to regroup with the others.

They swam to the tactical underwater vehicle that Holmes had lowered on his own line. Laws powered it up and cycled it through its checks until he was sure it was ready to go. While he cycled through the setup and sonar, Holmes established coms. The mission plan was to move outward in a concentric circle while Yank and Walker held on to either side, ready to defend or attack if necessary. Holmes was a free floater and would move diagonally behind the Big Wheel–sized underwater craft and ensure that nothing came up behind them.

The light of the TUV gave them nearly five meters’ visibility. But their true vision came from the sonar, which could read seventy meters and showed depth, direction, and relevant size on a five-inch circular green display.

They’d landed fifty meters due east from where Emily Withers was taken. They began their concentric circles moving outward at a patient clip. Single fish appeared as yellow dots. Small groups of fish appeared as orange clumps. Large fish were shown in red. Here and there an occasional orange clump flashed to red, demonstrating a merging of fish schools. One came right toward them. Laws communicated this to the team just as the school of fish approached, then split, swimming madly away. To Laws they appeared to be nothing more than a thousand or so ten-inch blacklip dragonets, orange with black dorsal fins.

Then came a fish that was chasing them, a smooth hammerhead shark, eager to continue its mobile buffet. But when it saw Triple Six, its eyes on the end of the hammers grew wide, and it spun around, disappearing first from sight, then the sonar screen. The hammerhead was about four feet, hardly a danger to the team. If it had been in a hunting party with a dozen or so, they might have become aggressive enough to attack.

The water suddenly cooled. Laws checked the depth and saw that they’d found a drop-off of more than thirty meters. Half a minute later a single orange and red dot began to move toward them from west and down. Laws communicated this to the others, noting that it was now solidly red. He stopped the TUV, pointing it toward the oncoming sea creature. About the time he noticed that there were no other fish around, not even small ones on the screen, it began to come into focus.

Swimming as if it owned the ocean, an oarfish appeared whose body seemed to flap like a riffle of fabric. It saw them, acknowledged them, then swam around them. It became obvious that this fish, easily ten meters long, couldn’t grab a person. Even though it was as long as two Cadillacs end-to-end, its mouth was barely large enough for a human hand. Doing mental math, Laws suspected one would have to be five times the size of this one for it to have a mouth and jaw long enough to grab a person. And he doubted one that size existed.

Although…

The fish turned and went back the way it came.

Laws moved the TUV after it, if only to see if it might lead them to more oarfish, perhaps even larger ones.

They’d traveled about two minutes when a red blob invaded the right edge of the sonar. It moved quickly toward them. Laws had to stop and turn to face it. When he did, the spotlight captured a giant bullet-shaped head, easily the size of a Fiat 500, hurtling through the water toward the smaller oarfish. Long tentacles trailed behind the giant Humboldt squid, as did two clublike appendages.

It was clear the oarfish couldn’t match it with speed, and it had no way to defend itself; even so, it turned toward the squid. For a moment, the oarfish was straight as an arrow and it appeared that the squid would impale itself on the creature. But at the last second, the squid’s bullet-shaped body rose, exposing the two clublike appendages, which shot out and grabbed the oarfish, drawing it to the nest of tentacles. The squid’s giant parrot-like beak descended from the body and began to rip free great pieces of meat from the length of its prey.

The water was suddenly filled with blood and pieces of floating fish meat. Remembering the shark, Laws reversed the engine of the TUV and backed away. He was perhaps ten meters back when the first of many orange dots crept on to the screen and began moving toward the red blob that was the feasting squid. The only thing worse than being in the middle of a pack of hyena feasting on the Serengeti Plain would be to be in the middle of an ocean with blood in the water and a hundred sharks eager to feed.

“Chief—we’ve got to go!” he shouted into his mask.

He punched the power on the TUV to full, and swung around. Soon they were moving at max speed, still pathetically slow compared with how fast a shark could move. Walker, Yank, and Holmes were kicking madly with their fins, giving the TUV an extra couple of knots. Still, the inevitable happened as a cluster of sharks spotted them and gave chase.

Laws elbowed Walker and pointed behind them. Walker kept kicking, but turned, brought his spear gun to bear, and fired.

Laws spared a glance. The shot had missed.

While Walker reloaded, Yank turned and fired.

This one got the lead shark through the head.

Holmes fired and skewered another shark.

Soon, there was more blood in the water and no matter how intent the sharks had been to chase down Triple Six, they couldn’t fight a million years of evolution screaming at them to eat the weak.

As Triple Six disappeared into the dark water of the Sea of Cortez, the hammerheads fed on their own.