The Otter Way had almost reached the northern end of its sentry run. Since Dead Man's Cliff was a promontory, the crew couldn't see the coast south of the cliff from their current position, so Rikki headed in that direction to make her ascent.
She swam straight south to circumvent the rocks and the rip tide, then cut toward shore and scanned for a good place to climb. She spotted the inlets Lewis had mentioned.
Rikki chose a point about half a mile south of Dead Man's Cliff, where the land was only about thirty feet high. There was no rip tide here, but that didn't mean the ocean was calm; the sea rhythmically pounded the cliff with medium-sized but deeply powerful swells. The cliff face was rocky, offering lots of hand- and footholds. It would only take a minute to climb, especially with her mermaid secret weapon.
Rikki made sure no one was around to see what she was about to do. She trusted that no one on the search boats half a mile off shore were looking in her direction. She felt safe.
She chose her landing spot, positioned herself below it, and dove. When she was about thirty feet deep, she reversed direction, pointing herself upward. She put her arms straight overhead, palms together, forming a long, tight cone. Then she thrashed her tail as powerfully as she could, full speed.
Rikki burst from the water and rocketed twenty feet into the air, aiming for a point just above her landing spot, and vaporized the water from her skin in a single burst of steam.
She reached the top of her arc and dropped forward just a bit, landing on her human feet exactly where she wanted, wearing her human clothing: black pants, red shirt, pigtails. She grasped the rock. All hand- and footholds secure.
With that move, she was already halfway to the top. She grinned and began climbing.
Just three feet from the top, she almost met with disaster. She heard a tiny chink and froze just in time.
Keeping as still as possible, she slowly looked down.
Her locket had caught on a rock which jutted out to a point. Had she pulled herself up any further, she would have pulled the chain apart, and the locket would perhaps have fallen into the sea.
"Oh, no you don't," she whispered to the locket, and slowly lowered herself. This didn't free the locket, as a tiny point of the rock had hooked the chain. Carefully, she leaned forward to maintain her balance and let go of one of her handholds. Oh so delicately, she freed the chain, then inspected it and the locket.
Nothing was damaged.
She breathed an enormous sigh of relief and kissed the locket tenderly. "No, girl, you stay with me," she whispered. "Don't do that again." She tucked the locket inside her shirt, chastising herself for not thinking of that in the first place. She would have been devastated to lose it, and would never have stopped searching for it.
Being extra careful and a lot less cocky, she ascended the rest of the way without further mishap.
Once on the clifftop, Rikki found herself on almost flat grassland. In the distance, the edge of the forest wove a meandering line, keeping anywhere from five hundred to a thousand feet from the cliff. From where she stood, the land sloped down toward the trees, but the grade was hardly noticeable.
Rikki started hiking toward Dead Man's Cliff.
She kept her locket inside her shirt. She was heading into danger, so running, hiding, and crouching might be in her near future. Best not to have her locket flying around her face, or getting caught on more things.
The Otter Way, having turned around, eventually came into view. When it did, Rikki veered further from the cliff edge to stay out of sight. She knew her red shirt would be particularly noticeable.
Ten minutes later, Rikki reached the top of Dead Man's Cliff. Just as where she'd climbed, the grassland here sloped gently down to the forest's edge, about a thousand feet inland.
Rikki couldn't resist a look over the edge. She lay on the ground to minimize the risk of being seen.
It was the sort of breathtaking view a hang glider or a parasailer would see, if they wanted to soar over something so frightening. The rocks and the maelstrom looked even more terrifying from up here than they had from below. The field of rocks was enormous, almost as long as a football pitch in every direction. She couldn't help but glance at The Claw, which looked as menacing as ever.
Looking along the cliff, Rikki was surprised to see tire tracks. They ended nearly at the cliff's edge. Then she admonished herself. Why am I surprised?! she thought. Of course the men we saw last night didn't carry a car chassis all this way by hand!
Rikki carefully crept away from the edge, stood, and jogged to the tracks. There were multiple sets, some clearly more recent than others, roughly overlapping. They led straight inland, and she followed them.
As she walked, she was glad to see that the grass was mostly dry after the recent rain, so she wasn't in much danger of accidentally sprouting a tail. But the ground was saturated, so there were a few small puddles here and there, with maybe an inch or two of rainwater still waiting its turn to be evaporated. These puddles were hidden in slightly taller clumps of grass, and Rikki accidentally stepped in one with her left foot.
Growling in frustration, Rikki sat on the grass, tore off her shoe and sock, and steam-dried her foot two seconds before deadline. Then she spent a few minutes steam-drying her sock and shoe. She had to be extra careful, remembering Lewis's scorched shorts.
She was finally able to put her sock and shoe back on and resume her hike.
When the tracks reached the forest, she found that someone – the thieves, no doubt – had created a rough trail through the woods, if one could call a path eight feet wide a trail. It was practically a dirt road or a track, wide enough for a vehicle.
Rikki bet herself a million dollars there was junkyard at the other end.
She'd find out.
"I have an idea!" Emma said.
"Great," Cleo said. "I love ideas."
The girls spoke in whispers. They were still huddled beside the hull of the Otter Way.
"There's a problem with my idea. We need to get ahold of that bomb."
"Yep, that sounds like a problem."
"Here's how I see it: first, we need to verify where it is. Second, we need a diversion to make everyone look the other way-"
"You mean look the Otter Way?"
"Ha ha. If we can somehow create a distraction for everyone aboard – including that family, because we don't want anyone to see us – maybe we can snag that bomb!"
"They'll discover it's missing!"
"Doesn't matter. Once that bomb's in our hot little hands, it's all over!" And Emma explained her idea.
"All right," Cleo said. "It's risky, but I agree we have to try. I'll hold you; you tell me where and when."
They maneuvered to the starboard stern of the Otter Way. This was where they'd heard the argument, and where they'd heard Eddie handle the bomb.
Cleo descended a bit and grabbed Emma around her upper tail, about where her thighs normally were. Beating her own tail a little extra, Cleo lifted Emma out of the water, just high enough for Emma to peek over the deck.
Emma scanned the situation as fast as she could. The good news was that no one saw her, and she got a much better idea of where everyone was. The bad news was that she couldn't see the bomb.
Emma indulged in a few extra seconds to get a good look inside the cabin. It wasn't a large space, but there was nowhere else to keep the family out of sight. Mr. and Mrs. Lavea were kneeling with their hands behind their backs, huddled to one side, looking extremely cramped and miserable. Two children, maybe and eight and ten, were likewise tied and kneeling on the other side of the cabin. This left barely any room for the helmsman. Only the toddler was unrestrained. At the moment, he was near his parents.
Emma signaled Cleo to lower her a little bit. Cleo lowered her about six inches, but continued to hold her.
Emma wanted Cleo to continue holding her because Emma felt there was too much activity on board. Emma didn't want to spend precious seconds lowering herself all the way back into the water, then have Cleo raise her the entire way again. Emma was carefully listening for voices and for people moving about, and she needed Cleo to lift her the final few inches at a moment's notice, because Emma's window of opportunity might be extremely slim, what with the way the thieves seemed to be pacing a lot, and fidgety.
Using her left hand to signal hold, left, and right, Emma directed Cleo where to move her. Emma listened as best she could, trying to discern where the men were. She wanted to go where they weren't. Emma signaled Cleo to take her further forward at bit, raise her, lower her, then take her forward some more.
Cleo slowly moved Emma forward. This was tricky, because the Otter Way was, itself, moving through the water. Cleo was matching its speed and direction, while simultaneously maneuvering along its side, all while remaining vertical. Fortunately, each girl's tail was incredibly powerful, versatile, and flexible. Cleo had to concentrate, but she managed. The hardest part was that her very human arms were struggling with the strain of holding Emma.
Emma signaled Cleo to stop and lift her once more, suddenly heard footsteps and frantically signaled to be lowered, heard the footsteps pass and signaled to be raised again. She took another look.
She still wasn't seen, and this time, she saw the bomb. At least, she saw a dark green box about ten inches across, with a small keypad and a digital readout on one side, a clamp on the opposite side, and some foreign writing she didn't understand stenciled along a third side. It certainly didn't look like fishing equipment. It rested on a table near the port side, next to an ice chest and a pile of small fishing nets.
Emma motioned for Cleo to lower her entirely. Cleo did so, and let go.
"My arms are getting tired," Cleo whispered.
"It's okay. I know where the bomb is. Now we just need that diversion."
"How are we going to do that?"
They stared at each other.
"Well...do I have to think of everything?" Emma asked.
Cleo wrinkled her nose at her in mock irritation.
The track was somewhat rough, and dotted throughout with puddles of dirty rainwater from the storm. Often, the larger puddles lay along ruts made by vehicles the thieves used.
The sun had come out the previous afternoon, so Rikki wondered why these puddles weren't mostly evaporated by now, like they were back on the grassland. Then she realized that, because of the surrounding trees, which were pretty tall, the track lay in shadow most of the day.
The entire track looked like it had been nothing but mud just a day earlier. It seemed to have hardened a little since then, but it was still ready to ruin a person's shoes and pants quickly if they weren't careful.
Considering all the standing water and mud, Rikki found it easier and safer to walk through the trees beside the track.
After about twenty minutes, she reached the rear of a huge junkyard and had to pay herself a million dollars.
Bernard's Junkyard was about half the size of a football pitch, and completely surrounded by a ten-foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire. From where Rikki was standing, the forest came right up against the fence as far as she could see in either direction.
The thieves had cut an enormous hole in the fence where the track ended. Their pipeline for getting rid of evidence out the back way.
Cleo had been right: the junkyard was still full of stuff, all ancient and no doubt worthless, since it was still there. Appliances, wrecked cars, barrels, more wrecked cars, a children's rusted swing set with broken plastic swings, couches, cabinets, a gym set, an armoire, more wrecked cars. It was where civilization came to die.
All the junk was arranged roughly in long rows which stretched from the front of the property to the back, leaving lanes of open travel among the junk. One such lane was directly in front of Rikki, leading to the front of the junkyard. This lane contained multiple, overlapping tire tracks, some of which looked recent. This indicated that the thieves traveled up and down this lane regularly, which made sense, as it was the lane which led directly to the hole in the fence.
The rows of junk stopped ten feet shy of the back fence, allowing a horizontal lane of travel along the rear of the property.
Since the thieves obviously used the lane in front of her, Rikki didn't want to walk down that lane and risk coming face to face with them, if they chose that moment to make a dumping run.
She took the next lane, which had no recent tire tracks, and proceeded cautiously. She reached the other end without incident and carefully peeked out from behind the final pile of junk, which was a five-foot-high jumbled pile of old CRT television sets. Rikki had never seen one in person, and barely knew what they were.
Ahead and to her right was a large building in two parts. The first part, the rear of the building and the part closest to her, was your basic small, cheap, wooden structure, the bare minimum needed to hold an office or two. The second part was a huge corrugated metal barn tacked onto the wooden building's front.
Staying low, Rikki reached the building's nearest corner. Ducking beneath a window, she made her way to the rear door and tried the knob. It was unlocked.
Rikki opened it and crept inside.
She found herself at one end of a short corridor. It smelled of old carpet, cheap wood paneling, and a hundred years of cigarette smoke. To her left was a restroom so cramped she found it impossible to believe anyone had ever used it, but judging from its stains and chipped tiles, someone had obviously done so for years.
Ten feet ahead, the corridor ended at a closed wooden door, which looked about as cheap and basic as a door possibly could. It had scratches and scars, and it had been cut slightly too short for the doorway.
To either side of this door were open doorways, leading to rooms on the left and on the right.
Rikki heard no sound from either open door, but through the closed door came the sounds of drills, electric saws, and the clanking of tools.
She crept forward, and peeked through each open doorway. If anyone saw her, she had no plan except the hope she could outrun them.
Each doorway led to an office with a desk, a chair behind the desk, two more chairs in front of the desk, a filing cabinet, a window or two, and an ancient stained coffee maker. The offices looked just like they did on TV shows from fifty years ago, except rattier, and dust coated everything. Rikki thought it must have been sad to work in such a soulless place.
Most importantly, each office was unoccupied.
Rikki eased open the door at the end of the corridor a crack, and peeked through.
This door led to the metal barn, which had been put into service as a garage. Rikki saw three – no, four – no, five – men. Each looked tough and burly.
No softies, here, Rikki thought. Not in a gang like this.
The men were busily separating cars and motorcycles into parts.
The front wall consisted of four garage doors. All were up, letting in fresh air and sunlight. This far from town, the gang apparently had no real worry anyone would see or hear them. A number of box fans scattered around kept the garage a smidgen cooler.
None of the men were looking in her direction, so Rikki slipped through the door and closed it behind her. She crouched and crept forward a bit, hidden by a vast assortment of more old junk, piled throughout the rear of the garage.
She hid behind a chest freezer, the kind which had held glass-bottled sodas buried in crushed ice, in cafes and diners half a century earlier. Rikki found herself eye to eye with a grinning polar bear offering her a soft drink, for a brand she'd never heard of. The artwork was scratched and faded.
About six or seven feet from her, Rikki saw three intact motorcycles standing beside each other, waiting to be dismembered. Each had been hotwired. Two modern Yamahas and a vintage kick-start Harley-Davidson. The Harley wasn't Thelma, she was relieved to see, though it was a very similar model. Next to the bikes was a workbench holding a vise, wrenches, a huge curled-up chain with a large metal hook at one end, a roll of duct tape, a bundle of wire, and a circular saw with a ruined blade which had apparently been considered useless and tossed aside.
Rikki peeked around her chest freezer and eyeballed the situation.
One man paused his work. He approached another man while wiping sweat off his face with his shirt sleeve. "Boss," he said. "That Beemer's got one of those newfangled bars they put under the engine block. I can cut it, but I'm afraid of damaging the engine."
The boss was a blonde man in his forties, with rugged features and a scar down his left cheek. He called to one of the other men. "Charlie!"
Charlie looked up.
"You've cut those new Beemers before, right?" the boss asked. "The ones with the new cross bars?"
"A couple, yeah," Charlie said. "They're tricky."
"Jim's got one," the boss said. "Show him what to do."
The two men set to work on the partially dismantled BMW.
Rikki took a good, long look at the boss.
Terry Chadwick was a good and decent man. Nevertheless, being poor, he had been forced to live near a few unsafe areas over the years, so Rikki had grown up on the edges of some rough places. She knew tough, heartless, ruthless men when she saw them.
She was looking at one now. This was a man who could easily murder a family, including children, to keep himself safe for one more night.
Rikki looked around the garage, seeking ideas.
She suddenly saw what she needed. Since the garage was hot, one of the men had removed his outer button-up shirt and laid it on a workbench about twelve feet from her. Inside the shirt pocket, Rikki saw the man's cell phone.
It was a gamble, but also the answer to every problem: get the police while staying anonymous.
Carefully watching all five men, Rikki left her hiding place and crept forward. Three men, including the two working on the BMW, were in a position to see her if they looked in her direction.
None of them did. Rikki snagged the cell phone and rejoined her polar bear. Only when she was back in hiding did she realize how much her heart was pounding.
She flipped open the phone and dialed 000.
A female operator answered immediately. "Police emergency, where do you need the police?"
Rikki spoke in a whisper. "I'm a member of that gang of car thieves which has been stealing cars all over the Gold Coast area. I want to turn myself and the rest of the gang in. I have to whisper because I don't want them to know I'm doing this."
"What's your address?"
"Bernard's Junkyard, at the northern edge of Farmersville. That's where we have our chop shop. There's five men here at the moment."
"Are you able to stay on site until police arrive?"
"I doubt it. I may need to run for it."
"Is there any way you can prove what you're saying? Can you maybe give me a license number of one of the cars?"
"Sure." Rikki quickly read her the license plate of the BMW, and of one of the motorcycles.
"Thank you for that, ma'am. Do whatever you need to stay safe. Please be assured police are on their way."
"There's more. That family missing at sea is on-"
Charlie powered up a circular saw and began cutting. The noise was deafening.
Rikki flinched, then raised her voice to make the operator hear her. But not too much, as she didn't want the gang to hear her. "The family missing at sea is on a boat-"
"Ma'am, I can't make out what you're saying. Please speak up or get to a quieter place."
Rikki grimaced in frustration, and raised her voice a smidgen more. "The family missing-"
Charlie powered down the saw, but Rikki was still talking. Her next words carried loud and clear through the suddenly-quiet garage.
"-at sea-"
Horrified, Rikki froze, her hand over her mouth.
Five men looked in her direction.
"Hey!" the boss called. "Who's there?!"
"Hello?" the operator said. "Hello?" To Rikki, in that now-deathly-silent garage, the operator's voice sounded louder than the saw had.
Rikki desperately stabbed the button to end the call. Her heart thundered in her chest. She was frantic now, not just for herself, but for the Laveas, who could still be in danger because she had failed to give the operator that crucial info!
The men slowly advanced toward the rear of the garage, wielding pipes and crowbars.
Rikki braced her back against the freezer, thinking desperately.
She saw a lug nut on the floor next to her. She snatched it up and threw it as hard as she could over her shoulder and to the right. A second later, it clanged against a metal wall.
The men stopped and looked in that direction, puzzled just for a moment.
Rikki knew it was the only moment she would ever get. She sprang up and leaped onto the Harley, opening the fuel and pulling the choke even as she climbed on. She kicked the pedal down. The bike sputtered.
Five pairs of eyes swiveled to lock onto her. Rikki was partially hidden by an old washer and dryer, but they saw her face.
Rikki stood on the pedal, kicked hard. The bike roared to life.
On inspiration, in a single fluid motion, she grabbed the large metal hook off the table and dropped it onto the back of the bike next to her. Then she shot forward.
Jim and Charlie were in her way, gaping with eyes wide as saucers. They had no clue what the hell this little teenage girl was doing in their chop shop, much less why she was stealing one of their bikes.
Each man held a pipe or a crowbar. Rikki swerved to go around the other side of the BMW, putting it between herself and them, and charged for the open doors.
The boss ran at her from the side, his powerful arm reaching for her, merciless hatred and rage on his face. Rikki put on a burst of speed.
The boss missed her by inches, and she was out the doors.
Rikki sped along the gravel drive toward the property entrance. All I have to do is head into town, reach civilization, she thought. I'll probably even meet the police on their way in!
The drive curved to the right. Rikki couldn't see what was around the bend because of the overgrown brambles and brush alongside the drive. She drove through the curve...
And found the front gate chained shut. The same ten-foot chain link fence and barbed wire.
No wonder they weren't afraid to leave the garage doors open! Rikki thought, grinding the bike to a halt.
Over the sound of the idling engine, she heard shouts, and looked over her shoulder. They'll come after me! she thought. They know the gate's shut, and that I'm trapped! Because of the overgrown brush along the drive, she couldn't see her pursuers, and they couldn't see her. Not until they also came around that bend.
Rikki quickly looked around. To either side, the ground inside the fence was a slight ditch overgrown with years of brambles. Not an option. Backtracking down the drive was her only choice.
She wheeled the bike around. There was a second exit from the property, provided by the thieves themselves. It was her only way out. To get there, she'd have to drive through the thieves again, and this time, they'd be much more prepared.
But Terry Chadwick had taught his daughter well. She didn't just know how to drive a Harley.
Rikki slipped the bike into first gear and kept one hand squeezing the clutch, the other on the throttle, ready to go in a split second. She stared along the drive and listened, hypervigilant for the slightest sight or sound, like her life depended on it. Which it did.
There! The briefest glimpse through a tiny opening in the brush. A man running past. Another man running past an instant later.
Rikki charged. That glimpse had been all she needed. Now she knew the men were on foot and less than two seconds from the bend. She drove straight at it...
And popped a wheelie.
Four men come pounding around the curve and frantically dove out of the way as they suddenly saw a wheel lunging toward their faces.
Rikki sped past them, set the wheel back down, and turned wide through the curve. Now the only one between her and daylight was the boss, who'd been standing back, letting his men take the brunt of the fight.
With rage and power, he lunged at her again.
Rikki drove right at him, feinted right, jagged left. She skidded on gravel a bit, but gunned the engine and passed him safely, leaving him spinning.
She drove around the garage, heading for the junkyard proper.
Jim was the first back on his feet, so the boss glared at him and shouted, "Come on!" He ran back to the garage, Jim following. They raced to the remaining two motorcycles. On the way, the boss snatched a pistol from his workbench.
Rikki sped down the first lane she came to, reached the rear of the junkyard, and drove to the hole in the fence.
Jim and the boss hopped onto the remaining two bikes, started them up, and took off after Rikki. In their frantic haste, neither noticed the chained hook on the back of the motorcycle Jim was riding. The chain uncoiled, stretching out behind him.
The same chain which was bolted to an anchor in the wall.
Jim and the boss roared out the garage doors. The chain stretched taut and suddenly yanked Jim's bike backward, out from under him. Jim went flying head over handlebars in a forward flip, and slammed into the ground on his back, in a way which looked much too painful.
The boss paused, looked over his shoulder to see Jim's situation, then looked ahead again, rage on his face. He gunned his bike.
Rikki paused at the fence opening and looked around in despair. Now that she was outside the fence, she desperately wanted to drive around the entire property to reach the road, but she was surrounded by forest. There was no driving a motorcycle through that. She began to weigh her chances at hoofing it.
She heard another motorcycle. She turned and saw the boss swing into the lane.
And she saw the gun in his hand.
Rikki shrieked, kicked her bike into gear, and took off up the track.
The boss poured on the speed. Rikki risked a glance back, saw him gaining, saw him taking aim!
Rikki shrieked again, then looked ahead just as she ran through a small puddle. It splashed her legs, but she was wearing pants. She was still dry.
She saw the larger puddle just in time. Shouting in surprise, she expertly dodged it. If she ran through a puddle that size, water would spray her arms and face, and she couldn't afford to spend a second drying herself every time that happened.
As she passed the puddle, she reached behind her and vaporized it. It exploded in a cloud of steam...
Obscuring her from view.
Trying to get a good shot, the boss flinched at the sudden and bizarre cloud which blocked his sight of the strange girl for a moment.
One step from panicking, Rikki poured on the speed and multitasked in three ways: outrunning her pursuer, dodging large puddles, and vaporizing all the water she passed.
She risked a glance behind, saw he was still there, saw the hatred on his face. She looked forward, dodged a puddle with lightning reflexes, vaporized it, leaned into a mild curve, risked going even faster, despite the slippery mud.
Around the curve was a sharp dip in the track with a huge puddle. Split-second reaction without thinking; lean a bit more; thread the needle between water and trees; past. Rikki vaporized the puddle on the way by, struggled to retain control as the dip bounced her bike into the air. Still upright. Keep going.
She glanced back. He burst through the cloud and also struggled to retain control when the dip threw him into the air. But he landed his bike well and kept coming.
The adversaries sped up the track, through a forest which suddenly seemed endless, the boundless sky above. The boss was forty yards behind Rikki. Then thirty. Twenty-five.
Trees flashed by, the engine roared in her ears. Rikki dodged a puddle, vaporized it, leaned into a sharper curve, almost slid into the trees, yelling the whole way. The boss, his face contorted in rage and determination, rode a sleeker and faster bike. He leaned into the same curve, trying desperately to get a clear view of his prey. Exploding clouds continued to vex him.
Suddenly, the trees were gone, and there was nothing but gently sloping grassland to the end of the continent, a thousand feet away.
Rikki was out of room and out of options. Her only way out was the ocean.
And between her and the ocean was a field of rocks as long as a football pitch.
Rikki put her head down to minimize air resistance, gunned the engine, and screamed at the motorcycle to give her everything it had.
She hit 120 KPH and kept pouring it on. Out here in the sunny grassland, there were few puddles to vaporize, and she was going way too fast for that to do any good, anyway.
The boss's eyes widened as he gradually realized what this crazy girl was about to do.
Rikki hit 130. The world flashed by at insane speed.
Seven hundred feet from the cliff, she plowed right through one last puddle in the blink of an eye. She never saw it coming. Water sprayed her arms and face; she bounced into the air for a second, landed, held on.
The timer in the back of her mind began. One...two...three...
The cliff approached fast. Rikki knew she was way past any point of no return. Her only chance for life was to clear all those rocks.
four...
The boss was merely cruising now. He watched, stunned.
Rikki gripped the throttle so hard her hand ached, twisting it to maximum. She hit 150. Wind ripped past her face.
five...
The cliff edge loomed, came at her at shocking speed.
six...
Do or die.
Rikki put her head down, screamed, and drove that motorcycle off Dead Man's Cliff at 160 kilometers an hour, into the sky, infinity below her.
For a split second, she felt like a parasailer without a sail. Almost peaceful. Rocks and water cruised past, so far below.
seven...
Wind whipped around her head, in her ears. Rocks and sea were a million miles away, yet at the same time came at her like lightning.
She was headed for The Claw.
Rikki tilted the motorcycle and herself to the left.
eight...
She bunched her legs and kicked the motorcycle's seat viciously. This sent her tumbling left while the motorcycle veered right. Now she was headed for open water. Barely.
nine...
She held her nose and straightened her body to hit feet first, like cliff divers do.
But Rikki had made a terrible mistake. It wasn't just the speed from falling off the cliff; her horizontal speed mattered, too. She headed for that water at a whopping 177 kilometers an hour, far faster than any cliff diver ever dreamed. No person could possibly survive that impact.
But a mermaid could.
Ten.
Rikki transformed.
A split second later she sliced into the sea, tail first, rigid like a blade. The motorcycle slammed into The Claw and shattered, scattering across a thousand square feet of ocean like buckshot.
Rikki should have come to a complete stop within half a second of entering the water, killing her instantly. But mermaid magic, in the form of green sparkles, took over. For mermaids, water has different rules. It obligingly let her through, lengthening her stopping distance so it wasn't so sudden, taking her deep, deep into its gentle embrace.
With her heart pounding and her eyes closed, Rikki drifted, close to the ocean floor. The current buffeted her, as she was just beyond the edge of the maelstrom, but it wasn't too bad.
She opened her eyes. Fish darted past. A few motorcycle parts fell around her.
She wanted to laugh and cry. She'd made it. She was safe!
Mason and Burt saw the crazy blonde chick ride off the cliff. Everyone on board the Otter Way, including the Laveas, heard the crash.
"What the hell was that?" Mason shouted. Eddie, Mason, and Burt rushed starboard to stare in stupefaction. Mr. and Mrs. Lavea craned their necks to look out the window in that direction, too, wondering what was going on.
Emma and Cleo, hiding under the port side of the Otter Way, also heard the crash. "What was that?" Cleo asked.
Hearing the commotion on board, Emma said, "I don't know, but I think it's the diversion we need! Lift me!"
Utterly confounded, the boss reached the cliff, turned his bike sideways a little, and eased to a stop. He'd heard Rikki's motorcycle crash. Now he saw nothing but the Otter Way, the rocks, and the roiling sea.
"You need to call the boss," Mason said. "Something really strange is going on!"
Fuming, Eddie whipped out his phone.
Rikki broke the surface. She clutched the side of a rock and leaned against it, breathing hard, her heart about to leap out of her chest. She was hidden from above. Another rock, slightly behind and to her left, hid her from the crew of the Otter Way.
Poking her head up just enough to peek over the rock, Rikki looked at the boss on the clifftop.
The boss stared at the sea in amazement. He shook his head and grunted, baffled. Then he turned his motorcycle and sped back to the junkyard.
In his pocket, his phone rang. But he couldn't hear it over the sound of the motorcycle.
Emma peeked just long enough to see that the thieves were all staring at the cliff, facing away from her. Eddie had a phone to his ear. Emma was near the prow but the cabin door faced the stern, so the Laveas couldn't see her. Emma could partially see the toddler, who sat just outside the cabin entrance.
Emma signaled for Cleo to lift her much higher. She did, and Emma grabbed the Otter Way's upper rail and pulled herself up a couple inches more. As an athlete, Emma had often worked out, and still did, so she had great upper body and arm strength. This helped her now.
The three-year-old boy looked around the cabin's corner and spotted Emma. He eyed her curiously.
Emma smiled and winked at him, and again, put a finger to her lips in a shhh gesture. The little boy began to smile, and almost giggled.
Straining all her muscles, Emma stretched forward and grabbed the bomb. Then she let go of the rail and signaled to Cleo, who silently lowered her back into the sea.
Eddie ended the call with a grimace. "He's not picking up."
"Call him again!" Burt snapped, his face taut with fear.
Eddie and his men looked extremely spooked, which wasn't surprising. They had committed multiple indictable offenses, and something deeply strange had just happened. And none of them believed in coincidences.
The boss rode through the hole in the fence, and down the lane between piles of junk. He turned toward the garage...
And found half a dozen police cars surrounding it. Three policemen immediately ran toward him.
His shoulders slumped in defeat. He shut off the motorcycle and raised his hands.
His phone rang.
He ignored it.
Eddie lowered his phone and gripped it in frustration. "He's still not answering!"
Emma and Cleo crowded close together. They spoke in whispers.
"Ten seconds," Emma said.
"Are you sure?"
"It should be enough. And if there's one thing we've learned in the last five months, it's how to mark off ten seconds without having to think."
"True! It's so appropriate!"
Mason asked, "What are we supposed to do now?!" The fear was evident in his voice.
Eddie nervously paced and ran his hand over his head, trying not to panic.
The timer's controls were extremely basic and easy to figure out. Cleo set the timer as Emma stretched her body out on the surface of the sea, face up.
Cleo looked at Emma. "Ready?"
"Do it!"
Cleo activated the timer. It started counting down from ten. When it had seven seconds left, she tossed the bomb toward the end of Emma's tail.
And Emma slapped the bomb with her tail as hard as she could, sending it three hundred feet straight up. Pure mermaid strength and power.
Everyone on board heard the strange slapping noise off the port side. Eddie and his men rushed to the rail and looked over.
Nothing there.
"What-" Burt started to say.
Three hundred feet over their heads, the bomb exploded.
Everyone on the boat, including the Lavea family, flinched and looked up in astonishment.
"What the hell is going on?!" Eddie screamed, absolutely beside himself.
Almost every single person within a mile of Dead Man's Cliff saw or heard the explosion.
Thousands of puzzled people, including Don Sertori and his crew, stopped what they were doing and looked toward the place where it happened. A thousand people turned to the person next to them and asked, "What was that?" Another thousand turned to the person next to them and asked, "Did you see that?"
All up and down the coast, on nearby beaches and at sea, people shielded their eyes from the sun, looked into the distance with puzzled expressions, and wondered what that could have been.
Lewis saw the explosion, and immediately headed for the rendezvous point. The three hours hadn't passed, but he knew mermaid handiwork when he saw it. Things were evidently moving rapidly.
Another person who saw the explosion was Constable Parker aboard the police cruiser S.K. Ridley, searching for the Laveas a mile off Weylan beach. He turned to his partner, Constable Dearborn. "You see that? Mid-air explosion north, just off the coast, maybe a mile, three quarters of a mile away."
Without a word, Constable Dearborn steered the cruiser in that direction and increased speed.
Constable Parker picked up the radio. "S.K. Ridley to Dispatch. We've seen a mid-air explosion or disturbance of some kind, half a mile or more north. We are investigating."
"S.K. Ridley, could it just be fireworks?" Dispatch asked.
"Uh, negative. This was definitely something different."
"Roger that S.K. Ridley."
Constable Parker wasn't the only policeman who'd seen. Off Ashton Beach, Constable Evans was already steering south as Constable Henderson grabbed the radio. "M. Coburn to Dispatch, mid-air explosion half a mile to a mile south, just off the coast, looked like. Headed that way."
"Roger M. Coburn," Dispatch said. "Multiple reports, multiple units responding.
Cleo and Emma huddled beneath the Otter Way's starboard hull, forward. They still whispered.
"Use their own explosive as a beacon!" Cleo gushed. "Emma, you're a genius!"
Emma smiled smugly. "I have my moments."
Rikki popped up. "Hi guys! Miss me?"
Cleo beamed with pure joy, and – trying to contain herself so she wasn't too loud – squealed a high-pitched, "Rikkiiiii!"
"Just in time!" Emma said with a grin. "Wanna uncover the family's boat so the whole world can see?"
"Absolutely!" Rikki said, grinning devilishly.
They swam to the stern. Emma untied one corner of the tarp which covered the Laveas' rented boat. Rikki untied the other. Then Cleo used her new wind power to blow the tarp partially off the boat.
Eddie and his men staggered back, shielding their eyes, wondering where the sudden gust was coming from.
The gust died. When the thieves looked, they discovered the stern of the Laveas' boat, and the jet ski, were visible. Prominently displayed on the stern were the boat's registration number, and the words WaveCrest Adventures in large letters.
Aboard the M. Coburn, Constable Henderson scanned the Otter Way with binoculars. This strange fishing boat was the only craft near the position of that odd explosion.
Constable Henderson scanned right, and his jaw dropped. "You have got to be kidding me! I'm looking at the Lavea family's boat!"
"Are you for real?" Constable Evans asked.
"Dead serious!" Constable Henderson snatched up the radio as his partner hit the siren. "M. Coburn to Dispatch and all units, we have a sighting on the Laveas' rental craft, same location as the explosion. Craft is intact and rafted to a fishing trawler. Suspect perp activity, use caution."
"S.K. Ridley to M. Coburn, roger that," Constable Parker said. "We're coming at you from the other side." Constable Dearborn also hit the siren.
The two police sirens cut through the thieves' hopes and the Laveas' fears. Burt and Mason looked at the police cruisers with dismay, and their shoulders slumped as they suddenly saw their futures disappear. Lalo and Sefina Lavea, and their two oldest children, smiled in relief and wept with joy, as they suddenly saw their futures restored. Eddie could only scowl.
With satisfaction, Emma, Cleo, and Rikki saw both police cruisers approach. The girls retreated further into hiding, huddling in the shadows between the rafted boats.
"Well, my fine fellow mermaidens," Rikki said with a grin. "I think our work here is done!"
"What about the junkyard?" Cleo asked.
"Taken care of!" Rikki said. "They should all be rounded up by now!"
"Rikki, you're awesome!" Emma gushed.
Rikki gave a smug smile. "I have my moments."
The girls heard a commotion above. They looked up just in time to see Eddie jump across to the Laveas' boat. The girls shrank back out of sight as best they could.
Mason was exasperated. "Eddie, come on!"
"You two can get stuffed in jail!" Eddie shouted. "But not me! Never me!"
Amazed, the girls watched as Eddie climbed onto the Laveas' jet ski.
"He isn't," Emma said.
"He is," Rikki said.
Eddie unhooked the jet ski, powered it up, and took off.
"He did," Cleo said.
Hiding between the boats, the girls' view was severely limited, so they darted forward to see around the Laveas' boat, staying as close to the Otter Way's hull as they could. Each girl quickly popped her head out to get a look around the boat, extending her head further than the girl in front of her, one after the other: one, two, three.
They saw Eddie. To get away from the police cruisers, he was angling south toward shore.
"He's heading for the rip tides and the rocks!" Emma exclaimed in a harsh whisper.
Cleo half groaned, half growled in exasperation, then turned to her friends. "You stay with the family, make sure they're okay. I got this." She took a deep breath and set off in pursuit.
"M. Coburn to Dispatch and S.K. Ridley, suspect attempting escape in a jet ski," Constable Evans said into the radio. "Coming your way, S.K. Ridley, but dangerously close to Dead Man's Cliff."
Constable Parker picked up the radio. "S.K. Ridley to M. Coburn, roger. We see him. Dispatch, will try to intercept, but we're not endangering ourselves for a suicidal maniac!"
"Dispatch to S.K. Ridley, roger, use caution, no unnecessary risks."
With the S.K. Ridley diverting to apprehend Eddie, only one police cruiser was now approaching the Otter Way, and they were almost there. Constable Evans wanted better odds for whatever he'd find. "M. Coburn to Dispatch, request backup," he said.
"Roger M. Coburn. Two more units responding, ETA five minutes."
Eddie saw the S.K. Ridley angling to cut him off, so he edged even closer to the maelstrom. The Claw was just fifty yards to his right. The water became extremely choppy, and he fought to control the jet ski.
Ten feet beneath him, a mermaid mirrored his every move.
Cleo looked ahead as best she could, because it was always possible a rock jutting up from the ocean floor was tall enough to impede her but not Eddie. It looked like she was clear for the next few moments, so she smoothly flipped upside down without losing any speed. She was looking at the jet ski's underside, but now she couldn't easily see where she was going. That fact, and the fact that they would hit the southern rip tide any second, meant she had to end this fast.
Cleo was just about to make her move when Eddie altered course, turning slightly away from the coast to run more parallel to it.
Scowling, Cleo flipped right side up and reassessed the situation.
Eddie clearly knew about that rip tide and wanted none of it. Furthermore, Eddie's turn cut short Constable Dearborn's attempted interception, forcing the policeman to spin the wheel to avoid crushing Eddie, who zipped past the S.K. Ridley's prow. Eddie was now speeding in the opposite direction of the police boat's line of travel. The S.K. Ridley would have to use precious seconds to turn around, and the jet ski had comparable speed.
Again, Cleo caught up to Eddie, made sure no underwater rocks were in her near future, and flipped upside down ten feet beneath him.
But then Eddie changed course again. He was now beyond the point at which the rip tide started, so he cut sharply for land, even though that meant fighting the huge swells there. By this time, he was actually near the point at which Rikki had climbed the cliff. His intention was obviously to do the same, and it would be almost as easy for him as Rikki had found it. If he could make the transition from sea to land.
Cleo saw what Eddie was doing, and realized he actually had a chance to escape. The police cruiser was back in hot pursuit, but they realistically couldn't make contact with the cliff, much less moor to it. So if Eddie could somehow hold the jet ski in position against the swells long enough to grab hold of the cliff – itself a dubious prospect – he could climb the cliff easily and lose himself in the forest, and possibly evade a manhunt.
Eddie slowed, as he was forty yards from the cliff. For the third – and last, Cleo was determined – time, she flipped upside down immediately beneath him. She formed a column of water under her control, and extended it up to push against one edge of the jet ski's underside.
The jet ski tilted. Eddie panicked, lost control in the rise of a swell, grasped at the handlebar, thrashed his arms and legs in a desperate attempt to stay in the saddle, but finally ditched into the ocean just twenty yards from the cliff. As he fell, he held onto the handlebar an extra split second, sliding his hand along the throttle control; his final hold also tilted the jet ski again, and popped it into a different direction.
The water was deep right up against the cliff, and the constant swells pushed against it. Eddie may have made it past the rip tide proper, but the current here was still vicious. In moments, he would be dashed onto the cliff.
But Cleo had a second problem. Eddie's final grab at the handlebar had not only redirected the jet ski, it had accidentally kicked the throttle up to maximum at the last second. The jet ski was now running south at full speed, angled somewhat away from the coast, with no one to steer it.
Weylan Beach was a quarter of a mile south, populated with people playing in the surf.
The runaway jet ski's path took it slightly away from shore, and the swell constantly pushed it back toward the shore. These things canceled each other out. In a long, shallow curve, the jet ski was racing along the coast, heading directly for the people off Weylan Beach at almost a hundred kilometers an hour. Cleo was the only one who could stop it.
Eddie gasped for air, desperately fighting the swells. He had only seconds until he was hurled repeatedly against the cliff. Cleo was only one who could save him.
Hovering five feet below the surface, beating her tail against the current to maintain position, Cleo saw both problems. And she made her choice.
She chose both.
In a masterful command of her element, Cleo reached out her hands and did two entirely separate things simultaneously. With her left hand, she formed a tentacle of water which pushed the runaway jet ski into a 90-degree right turn. It shattered against the cliff. At the same time, with her right hand, she created a wall of water which forced Eddie away from the cliff at the last second.
With the jet ski taken care of, Cleo flipped around and used both hands for the wall keeping Eddie safe. She could actually feel the current pushing against her magic. Its power and sheer weight just about took her breath away. She'd never experienced the ocean's force, and she knew this was nothing but the tiniest fraction of it.
Cleo gritted her teeth and strained every muscle in her body, keeping herself in position with her mighty tale, and keeping Eddie alive with mermaid magic. She wanted to scream at the ocean, tell her to stop pressing against her! But Cleo knew the ocean would do as the ocean would.
The ocean gave mermaids special treatment, for themselves. Everyone else suffered the indifferent rules of nature, like they always had. If Cleo used her magic to help Eddie, that was Cleo's business; but the ocean would not stop her currents and tides at Cleo's plea. Mermaids were the ocean's ambassadors, her friends, and her allies. But they were not her rulers.
The ocean answered to no one.
Cleo strained with everything she had. Again and again, the swell threatened to dash Eddie against the cliff. Again and again, Cleo would. Not. Let it!
A life buoy, attached to a rope, hit the water five feet in front of Eddie. He desperately swam for it. Against that current, he might as well have tried to swim to the moon.
With nearly the last of her strength, Cleo told a tiny tentacle of water to move the buoy into Eddie's hands.
"He's got it!" Constable Parker shouted.
Constable Dearborn eased the throttle up a notch. The S.K. Ridley slowly pulled forward. Eddie, exhausted and clutching the buoy, was gradually dragged to safety.
Constable Parker opened the gate and stood there as Constable Dearborn effortlessly reeled Eddie in.
Constable Parker looked at Eddie with the tiniest combination of scorn, sarcasm, weariness, and amusement. "Come on," he said comically, as if speaking to a child, motioning Eddie to come toward him. "Yeah. Coooome on."
This brought a chuckle from Constable Dearborn.
Eddie could only glare in shame and hatred.
Fortunately for Cleo, the rendezvous was nearby.
Lewis had chosen a narrow inlet, maybe twenty feet wide and forty feet deep. It was easy to enter, yet at the same time, a couple of relatively small rocks, just big enough to walk on if one were inclined to do so, extended about forty feet into the sea, partially shielding the inlet from the moderate swell. With this slight protection, one could call the inlet a cove.
Lewis had pulled his boat entirely onto land. He stood beside it, grimly watching the police cruisers in the distance, hoping everyone was safe.
His girlfriend suddenly splashed into view, gasping and lying at the cove's entrance, exhausted.
But happy.
She lay face down, arms spread wide, resting her cheek on the ground, looking immensely relieved that she could finally relax a moment. Her tail extended into the surf.
"Hi!" she said, breathing hard and smiling up at him. "I hope you've had a less stressful day than I've had."
"I dunno. Some jerkwads back at the cafe mocked me for holding a purse. And I think I got a bit sunburned on my arms, so, yeah, I've taken a real beating today-"
Cleo flipped up her tail and doused Lewis with several bucketloads of water, drenching him from head to toe.
He stood there, smiling at her. Then, slowly at first, they laughed themselves silly.
That was how Rikki and Emma found them when they arrived.
"Okay," Rikki said, seeing their mirth. "What'd we miss?"