“How much time has passed since sundown?” Ondine asks, her voice hitching with nerves. “Did Lina really have enough time to get everyone out?”

“She’s a force of nature, so I’m sure she did,” I say with more confidence than I’m really feeling.

“Any chance those powers Rufus gave me include the ability to breathe underwater?”

I don’t want to tell her I doubt either of us would survive a huge swell of water, so instead I say, “I wonder where Robbo is.”

“We should retrace our steps, see if we can find him. Maybe his injury was worse than it looked.”

We set off quickly, along the path, calling out to Robbo. Because Ondine’s faster than I am she’s ahead of me and, when she stops suddenly, I almost run into the back of her. “Thom! The whirlpool!” she yells excitedly.

“What about it?”

“Do you think you can make one?”

“Maybe – why?”

“The water they’re sucking back from here, and the water they’re planning to let loose to flood the town – if you can create opposing currents, isn’t there a chance it’ll make a whirlpool and not a tsunami? A swirling mass rather than a single giant wave?”

I honestly have no idea, but Ondine’s also smarter than me so I don’t waste any time in arguing with her. I brace myself and flick my fingers in the air, trying to halt the flow of the water back into The Wash. I feel resistance, like the water is obeying, and swirl my fingers in the air. It takes less than a minute, and then the water starts to eddy and swirl, just like a whirlpool.

It’s fine, but it’s not really impressive – nothing like the size or scale we’ll need to transform a giant wave. Unsure whether this one will hold if I try to make another whirlpool, I don’t dare stop this action. Ondine must read my mind, because she raises her left hand and slips it behind mine, swirling her fingers in a mirror image of what mine are doing.

I move my left hand slightly sideways and Ondine copies my movement. Then we do the same with our right hands, swirling our hands in synchronicity, but after a minute, then two, then three, I still don’t feel any resistance from the water. “It’s not working,” I say to her.

“Yet. Keep swirling,” she says with pure determination.

Five minutes pass and I begin to think it’s a lost cause – a great idea, but one that never stood a chance of working, up against the forces of the deep. And then, just when I have all but given up hope, there’s a slight tug on my fingers – upwards, then sideways – and Ondine must feel it to.

“I just felt my hands move. Is it happening?” she asks, smiling.

“I think so.” I close my eyes and imagine two whirlpools side by side, churning and foaming as the opposing currents come into contact with one another.

“That’s it, Thom – I can see them!” Ondine shouts.

My whole body throbs from the pressure of generating the whirlpools, and my fingers feel like they’re about to snap off at the base. I let out an inadvertent grunt, which becomes a wail that I hope is drowned out by the roar of the whirlpools.

“Hold on, Thom – you’re doing great!”

Ondine’s words of encouragement work, and a surge of energy pulses from my core to my fingertips. I grunt again, and I’m pretty sure I swear a little, but she’s kind enough not to comment, even when I let out a pig-like snort from the exertion.

Gross, man. I open my eyes and see Rufus on the far side of Ondine, his hands in the air.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

What took you so long? I ask him.

We were a bit busy down there, dealing with a leviathan, among other things.

“Rufus!” Ondine says, suddenly aware of his presence.

“Nice one, Ondine,” he says, with his killer smile. “Good plan. Saphrine will join us in a minute, since Thom’s fingers are about to fly right off.”

“Will the whirlpools hold?” I ask, grimacing.

“Let’s hope so. If they don’t, we’re screwed basically.”

“They’ll hold – come on, we need the power of positive thinking,” Ondine says.

At first I think it’s Rufus’s presence, his considerable powers, causing the bulge in the whirlpool. For a split second I think it’s a huge surge of water rising up and being held back from flooding the bank by the sheer power of the whirlpool. But then I see it – the top part of an enormous, writhing snake with a head the size of a transport truck. Or two trucks. My brain struggles to register the scale of the gigantic sea serpent. It looks more like a dragon than a snake, with its huge scaly head and massive spiky teeth.

“That can’t be good,” Ondine says, her voice full of fear and awe.

“It’s not,” Rufus says gravely. “The Sentinels were only just managing to hold it back.”

“So that means -.” Fortunately Ondine doesn’t finish her thought.

“Tighten your grip, if you can,” Rufus shouts to me. “We’ll try to force it back down.”

My brain tells my fingers to tighten, but they’re so stiff nothing happens. I close my eyes and imagine the swell of the whirlpool getting smaller, shrinking and suffocating the leviathan. I try not to think about what would happen if Rufus weren’t here, by my side.

“It’s working!” Ondine yells.

I open my eyes to see that the leviathan’s neck is narrowing, as the force of the current squeezes it. The beast’s terrible head rears up, its mouth open like it’s in pain.

“You’re squishing it!” she shouts.

Eyes closed, I imagine the whirlpool shrinking ever smaller, forcing the leviathan back down to the deep. What I don’t account for is the fact that the push-and-pull of the water might cause something else to pop up on the other side of the eddying pool.

Saphrine, I hear Rufus say, and I open my eyes to see a tiny projectile shoot out of the water opposite the leviathan. I only have time to hope the beast is too busy worrying about the squishing to notice.

But my hope is in vain. In one quick movement the serpent cranes its head to the side and Saphrine disappears into its gaping mouth.

Rufus makes a single choking sound, one solitary note of grief that rings out across the water.

“Oh Rufus I’m so, so, sorry,” Ondine says sadly.

I say nothing, silently or otherwise, just close my eyes and focus on shrinking the whirlpool, and choking this murderous beast to death.

Rufus’s grip must tighten too, because soon I feel a change in the air, and somehow I know the leviathan is writhing, fighting the choke-hold the water has on it. A terrible shriek pierces the air and then stops, abruptly. The next sound I hear is a loud thwap. I open my eyes in time to see the great serpent’s severed head and a little bit of its neck in a foamy mass of water and then it’s spinning, churning in the whirlpool before it disappears, like it was never there.

“That is foul,” Ondine says. “The most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

Rufus and I keep up the pressure until, after several minutes that feel like a lifetime to my fingers, he says, “Okay – stop.”

We watch the whirlpool, which is somehow still churning and swirling, despite us relinquishing our hold on the water, for several minutes.

“It should hold now,” he says, sadness flooding his words.

Ondine hugs him, tightly, holding onto him for a long minute before she moves on to me. I hug her back like my life depends on it.

“I’m sorry about Saphrine,” I tell him.

“She’s not the only one who didn’t make it,” he says sadly, and an image of an upside-down octopus springs into my head. I’ve been so focused on the whirlpool, I’d momentarily forgotten about the strange beasts, and the fireball-hurling giant.

Of course, Rufus knows what I’m thinking, so he says, “They got a few of us. Not all of them survived, either.”

“We need to find Robbo,” Ondine says, and the three of us rush off towards the path along the western bank. There’s a strange noise in the air – a kind of keening, or wailing – and a strong, sulfurous tang. Other than the moonlight it’s completely dark. There are no lights on in the buildings in the city centre, no sound of traffic, no dogs barking. It feels like Juniperville is dead. We might have prevented a tsunami, but all at once I realize it was just a temporary salvation of this town, my hometown, the place I have feared and loathed for so long. And now, only now, do I feel protective of it. Juniperville doesn’t deserve to die. It’s a ridiculous, flawed place, but it’s my place – our place – my father’s and Lina’s, and all of the residents who choose to call it home. It’s Rufus’s hometown, and he chose to sacrifice everything that was good about his earthly existence to defend it.

Ondine stops abruptly and says, “Robbo!”

I hear a groan and look down to see Robbo lying to one side of the path, head resting on a rock, one arm lying across his waist. And then I see it – a large piece of jagged wood protrudes from his left side. Even in the moonlight I can see how pale he is.

“Is he alive?” I ask her.

Ondine gently places her fingers on his wrist, and then on his neck. She turns to look at me, sadder than I’ve ever seen her and says, “Just barely.”