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“Yeah.”
“Nice to meetyou.”
The kraken didn’t seem to notice us. Finally, something was going my waytonight.
I brought the submarine to the surface, saw the dark bank of the park, and took us in thatdirection.
You think you will escape after your heinous crimes, mongrel human?a voice thundered in myhead.
At first, I thought it was Zav and that he was angrier with me than I thought, but this was someone new. One of the dark elves. It had tobe.
You will not escape, Ruin Bringer. You will suffer for all the carnage you left in yourwake.
I decided it would be wiser not to give a snarky retort. We were almost to the park, but who knew what the dark elves could do with their magic? Even fromafar.
Half-expecting a tidal wave to come roaring after us, I twisted to look behind us. The surface of the water stirred, not with a wave but with a huge dark shape. The kraken. It was chasingus.
Sindari?I asked silently as I pushed the acceleration to maximum, envisioning those long tentacles grabbing the little submarine and dragging it down to the bottom.Are you nearby? We may need a littlehelp.
The submarine was faster than I expected. We roared toward the dark bank like an out-of-control semi barreling down from a mountain pass. The headlamps flashed over something—a rock? We slammed into it, and the impact sent me into the domed lid. My head hit hard, and pain blasted through my skull. Jennifer cried out infear.
I forced bleary eyes to focus. We were almost to theshore.
“Where’s the— there.” I was practically sitting on the console, so it was easy to slam my elbow against the button to raise thetop.
It only went up halfway. That would have todo.
As I grabbed my passenger and squirmed out through the gap, a monstrous tentacle slapped down on the lid. Another one wrapped around the base of the submarine. The hull ground against rock as the kraken pulled it away from theshore.
The girl and I tumbled out. I reached for the ground with my boot, hoping we were close enough to touch. Yes. The water was at waist-level. Low enough to run, albeit tediouslyslowly.
The kraken drew the submarine out into the depths and lifted it into the air. I heard shouts from across the lake, from the houseboats, and wondered how many reports of a Loch Ness monster there would be tomorrow. The kraken hurled the submarine twenty feet before it smashed down into thewater.
“Better it than us.” I had my arm around Jennifer, helping her slog to shore, and kept Chopper in my other hand. I didn’t think the kraken would be able to reach us once we were on land, but I wasn’t positive. And we weren’t thereyet.
My new friend is coming for you,the voice taunted in mymind.
I glanced back as we plowed the last few feet to the bank. Yes, there was the dark shape of the kraken, and two tentacles reared up into the sky, silhouetted against the Space Needle and the lit cityscape to thesouth.
The tendrils came down toward us likeaxes.
“Go, go.” I pushed the girl toward the shoreline as I stood in the shallows, waiting with Chopperpoised.
I scrambled to the side, the water slowing me down, as the first tentacle hammered toward me. I sliced upward, cutting into it with the magical blade. But the thing was massive. Even as I sliced through it, the force of the rest of it striking the water created a wave that hurled me to the side. I stumbled, struggling to get my feet under me and my blade up again as a second tentacle whipped toward me from theright.
I ducked, and it whizzed over my head, pouring a waterfall on me. The one that had crashed into the water, its tip now missing, rose up and slapped at me. I pierced it with the tip of my blade, but it still clubbed me in thestomach.
Out in the lake, more tentacles rose. If they all came at me at once, there was no way I could parry everyone.
Orange light flared on the shoreline behind me, and I glanced back in horror, imagining a dark elf hurling a fireball at the girl I’d worked so hard tosave.
But Zav stood there in his full dragon form, his jaws open wide as fire flared from his mouth like a blowtorch. A ball of spinning flame sped toward the kraken, quadrupling in size as it flew. It slammed into the giant squid, and all of the tentacles reared back, jerking away from theshoreline.
I sensed tremendous power as a wave of magic crashed into the kraken. The massive creature was lifted from the water and thrown even farther than it had thrown the submarine. It struck down on the other side of the lake with a splash that had people in their houseboats shouting andpointing.
The kraken soon slunk below the surface, disappearing from sight. As silly as it was, I hoped it wasn’t dead. The dark elves had been using it all along. All it had wanted was somefood.
By the time I slogged to land—land that I wanted to collapse on and kiss repeatedly, but wouldn’t because of my dragon witness—Zav had changed back into human form. The artifact was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’d already opened a portal and thrust itthrough.
