I prayed that he would listen to me. That, first of all, he was recovered enough to make the journey, and second of all, that he was smart enough not to dive down and try to find me. I was much better suited to a fight in the ocean than he was, and though he worried about me because was my father, the last thing I needed right now was to stress out about him as well as Whatever thing had me in its grip.
I twisted around, determined to get a good look at the minion of Tiamat who had decided to grab me. But there was nothing. No one behind me, no one to the side of me. No one anywhere. Just a tight clamp around my ankles and the inexorable draw downward that felt an awful lot like fishing in reverse—with me as the catch and my dad as bait.
I powered up the light bubble again, made the glow brighter, then bent in half so I could get a better look at my ankles. Ancient iron manacles had been fastened around them, so tightly that already I could feel the skin chafing underneath. The manacles were attached on the outside to a rusty chain that spiraled down deeper than I could see.
I was furious, part of me more than ready to meet whatever had come fishing for me and nearly killed my dad instead. They’d wanted me and I was more than ready to let them try for a piece. But again, my more logical side refused to be ignored and I knew that the absolute last thing I should do was allow myself to be dragged to the bottom of the ocean. Not when I was chained, alone, and had no idea what was waiting for me down there. And not when my dad was still in the water above me, probably frantically searching for me when he should be making his way back to shore.
Grabbing on to the manacle on my right leg, just where it met the chain, I used every considerable ounce of superhuman strength I had to try to pry it off. The cuffs were old and rusted, the connector eaten through in places, so it shouldn’t have been that hard to rip the link away from the cuff.
But it wouldn’t so much as budge no matter how hard I tugged and twisted and yanked. Giving up on the right cuff, I turned to the left and started working on it in earnest. It wouldn’t budge either.
Letting go of the chains, I tried to wiggle my fingers under the cuffs just where the two sides met. No one had been around to lock them, plus I couldn’t even see where a key could be inserted into the stupid things. Which meant that there was probably some kind of catch on the inside that I could press to make them open. I just had to find it.
The only problem was the cuffs were tight, really tight. And while my fingers were slender, they weren’t tiny enough to slide between my flesh and the iron, no matter how hard I tried. Which only made me more frustrated and more determined to find a way free.
I kicked my legs out, somersaulted, twisted around and around so that the chain grew taut. My goal had been to stretch the chain until any little movement put pressure on it, and as I slowly began to press my legs outward, I realized—a little gleefully—that I had succeeded. The chain was so tight that the basic movement of opening my legs was almost impossibly difficult. Strong as I was, I could open them only an inch at a time.
Though the water muffled the sound, I could feel the vibrations as the chain stretched and stretched and stretched. Whatever was beneath me must have felt it too, because suddenly the downward tugging grew much, much faster.
I stretched my legs some more, felt a little give as my left leg slammed outward quickly. Yes! It was working. One of the links on the chain was breaking. I had gained only about three inches of movement that time, but it was enough to make me try again. I started scissoring my legs, pressing out harder and faster. It hurt like hell, but I ignored the pain. After all, what was waiting for me at the bottom of the ocean was probably going to hurt a lot worse.
The chain on my right leg gave first, all at once, and I went tumbling backward—which served only to twist my left leg up in its chain even more. It also made it impossible to apply pressure because there was no longer anything pulling me in the other direction. I was still tethered, only now it was by one leg—a gruesome balloon for some monstrous ocean creature.
I stared at my bound leg, out of ideas and nearly out of time. Adrenaline was racing through me, fear a wild animal clawing at my insides, but I tried to focus.
I bent in half once again, studying what I had to work with. When the chain holding on to my right leg had broken, it had done so about thirty links below the manacle, meaning I had quite a nice length of iron chain still attached to my right ankle.
After curling my legs up to my stomach, I started to search the still-taut length of chain for the link that had begun to give earlier. I prayed that it was close to me and not farther down, and for once I got lucky. It was only about fifteen links away from the manacle itself, which put it well within reach for what I planned to do.
I wrapped the length of the broken chain, still attached to the manacle on my ankle, around the intact chain so that the two lengths crisscrossed. Then I focused on the electricity bouncing around inside of me, molding it into a solid ball of heat and light. I had to be careful—metal was a great conductor of electricity even without the water to help things along. The last thing I wanted was to fry myself along with the chain. But at the same time, I needed to heat the metal up to the point that it was malleable.
Again, not an easy thing to do, as the chain was currently immersed in the very cold Pacific. The heat I needed to generate was immense, and I could very easily end up burning myself as the chain warmed up on either side of the weak link. That was why I had wrapped the broken chain around it to begin with. If I somehow did manage to get it hot enough to bend, there was no way I was going to be able to touch it.
When I’d gathered as much power as I could, when the ball was as tightly wound as I could make it, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and allowed it to explode outward in one giant, fiery eruption, aimed straight at the chain that was still, inexorably, pulling me down.
It nearly killed me. Nearly vaporized me on the spot, like it did the hundreds of gallons of sea water directly surrounding me. For a second it was like I was hanging in an air pocket, in a vacuum where nothing else existed, and then three things happened at once.
The chains and manacles actually melted, leaving molten hot iron wrapped around both of my ankles.
The weight of the ocean absorbed the sudden air pocket until I was once again surrounded by water.
And finally, sea creatures of all kinds swarmed around me, terrified and angered by the electricity that had snaked through the water in every direction.
A hammerhead shark shot straight at me, mouth gaping wide. My instincts—and my fear of sharks—screamed for me to get away from it, but at the same time I could feel the molten iron burning the skin around my ankles. Thank God for the nearly frigid ocean water, which was cooling the metal down rapidly. But if I wasn’t careful, I would end up right back where I started.
I settled for dodging out of the shark’s path at the same time I used my fingernails to scrape the metal from my ankles. My fingertips sizzled a little as they came into contact with the still hot metal, and I knew I’d have second-degree burns on them. But at least the shark decided to leave me alone, intent as it was on getting out of the area as fast as it could.
As I got rid of the last of the metal, I knew I had a choice to make. I could dive deep and see who was behind this attack, or I could head back to the surface and make sure my father was all right. I knew my dad well and I was pretty certain that, near-death experience or not, he wouldn’t head to shore until he knew I was all right.