The Demon Crown

  Seated in front, the pilot lowered the sub away from the station.

  Gray joined him in time to witness the final destruction of the station. The concussion of the depth charge had shattered one side of the facility. Air bubbled upward, while broken tubes tumbled toward the lake bed. In slow motion, the rest all came down. With a last flicker, the emergency lights died, turning the lake dark again.

  One of the crew flicked a switch and a beam of light shot forward, revealing the dark eye of a tunnel to the open ocean. The pilot guided the vessel toward it. Even taking into account the small displacement and draught of the midget sub, it looked like a tight fit.

  Gray noted another crew member, acting as navigator, bent over a Krupp Atlas sonar array. The sensor suite could run active or passive.

  Worried, he leaned to Aiko, who had joined him. “Tell them it’s okay to use the light to traverse the tunnel, but once in open water, they’ll have to douse it and run on passive sonar so we’re not detected.”

  She nodded and transmitted his orders.

  He looked up as the nose of the small sub entered the tunnel. Whoever had dropped those depth charges could still be up there, monitoring the surrounding seas.

  As the tunnel fully swallowed the sub, he drew his attention back to the crew, “Are the batteries fully charged?”

  One of them spoke enough English to answer with a thumbs-up.

  “Then once free of here, make for Midway. Max power.”

  He got a nod.

  Grimly satisfied, he followed the beam of the sub’s light as it pierced the darkness ahead and made a silent vow to Seichan.

  I won’t stop until you’re back in my arms.

  28

  May 8, 6:17 A.M. SST

  Airborne over the Pacific

  The world slowly returned, bringing pain with it.

  Seichan’s left temple throbbed, and her limbs burned. Agony knotted her guts. She wanted to vomit but feared it would only make matters worse. She blinked her eyes against a glaring brightness that spiked through her skull.

  Groaning, she tried to shield herself from the radiance, but her wrists were cuffed and bound by chains to her ankles.

  It took her another few breaths to recognize she was in a cargo plane. From the timbre of the engine’s whine, probably a turboprop. She swiveled her head, which set the world to spinning.

  Still, she spotted Ken strapped in the jump seat next to her.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She simply scowled and forced her dry tongue to form a few words. “Gray . . . the others . . .”

  Ken looked down at his bound hands. “Don’t know. Still down there.” He glanced sorrowfully at her. “She firebombed the entire island. The station is destroyed.”

  She twisted enough to stare out the bright window. The sun had finally risen and shone brightly across a calm ocean, revealing the damage wrought overnight.

  Behind the plane, the island burned, cloaked in smoke.

  She stared back there, refusing to accept that Gray was gone. She grasped on to that hope, trying to make it certainty. But pain and exhaustion confounded her. Tears welled, which only made her angrier.

  As she faced forward, that knot of pain in her gut exploded.

  She cried out, doubling over her bound hands. She closed her eyes and panted, as if trying to blow out the fire inside her. After what felt like tens of minutes, it finally subsided enough for her to sit back up.

  As her gaze focused, she found a familiar tattooed countenance staring back at her. Valya was down on one knee.

  “So you’re awake?”

  Seichan didn’t bother answering her.

  Valya turned to Ken. “You’re the entomology expert. What stage is she in?”

  He winced at Seichan. “By now, from the pain she is experiencing, it suggests the larvae are likely beginning to molt into their second instars.”

  “So that means the real agony is about to begin.”

  Seichan could not help but quail at such a thought.

  Ken looked with pity on her. If her hands were free, she would’ve punched him. She did not want pity—not from anyone.

  “She has another day,” he continued. “Then the third instars will begin migrating into her bones.”

  Seichan knew what that meant.

  Valya stared at her belly. “And her child?”

  Ken shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Ice-blue eyes studied Seichan with a calculating look. “Then we’ll discover her status when we land in Japan. A pregnancy could prove useful to Fenikkusu Laboratories’ plans. If that ends up being the case, it looks like I’ll be arriving with three prizes, instead of just two.”

  Valya glanced at them both as she straightened.

  Before she could turn away, one of her men came rushing from the back of the plane. “Spotters have identified the submarine from the air. It just exited the island and is crossing the shallows.”

  Valya’s fingers curled into fists. “I knew that rat would find some way to escape the sinking ship.”

  Gray . . .

  Seichan grasped this thin hope with all her heart.

  “It could be our people,” the man warned.

  “Doesn’t matter.” She pointed to the plane’s rear. “How many barrels do we have left?”

  “Ten.”

  She twirled a hand in the air. “Bring us around and open the rear hatch. We’ll drop half the load to soften them up, then swing back and dump the rest.”

  “Hai!” The man ran back to pass on her orders.

  Valya faced Seichan again. “There are miles of shallow waters aproning the island. There’ll be nowhere they can run where we can’t spot the vessel from the air.”

  Seichan’s hope began to crumble.

  Valya must have noted her despair. “Fear not, at least you’ll have front-row seats to the death of the father of your child.”

  6:32 A.M.

  Gray cursed the new day.

  He leaned on the back of the pilot’s chair. The Una-class sub glided low over ridges of reefs. Schools of fish flashed out of their way, their scales reflecting the morning sun’s brightness.

  Though the midget submarine had been specifically engineered to traverse such shallow water, he felt exposed.

  “How deep are we?”

  The pilot, a man named Nakamura, spoke English. “Thirty meters.”

  Gray knew they needed to find depths of at least two hundred to be able to sink into the shadows of the deep sea. From Gray’s constant gaze upward, the pilot must have guessed his worry.

  “There’s a deep trench that we usually run along to stay hidden. About ten klicks ahead.”

  Perfect.

  “Get us there as fast as the engines will allow.”

  “Hai.”

  Aiko stood at Gray’s side. She still had her rifle, but it was hung over her shoulder now. There was no need to coerce the crew’s cooperation. After their own people had tried to kill them, they were happy to switch allegiances.

  Palu crowded up to them, his head bowed from the low roof. He had spent the past twenty minutes using a first-aid kit to bandage the bloody limbs of the three injured men. In addition, he had taped gauze sponges over the wounds on their backs and lower abdomens.

  “How are they doing?” Aiko asked.

  Palu grimaced. “They lost a lot of blood. And Tua’s too pale. He’s slipping into shock.”

  Aiko turned to Gray. “Midway is still eighty miles away. Even at top speed, it’ll take us seven or eight hours to get there.”

  She glanced at the men in back, her thoughts easy to read.

  They won’t last that long.

  Gray recognized this, too. “Once we’re well enough away from here, we can risk raising an antenna and sending a mayday to the station at Midway. Get them to dispatch an airlift to us.”

  Palu nodded. He squinted at the seas, at the spread of reefs. “We better not wait too long.”

  Understood.


  Weighted down by the press of time, Gray followed Palu’s gaze.

  “It’s beautiful out here,” Palu mumbled, his voice mournful, as if reflecting on all that had already been lost. “We should be entering the waters of Papahānaumokuākea soon.”

  Gray recognized the name of the protected marine monument that surrounded these remote islands. As if mirroring Palu’s mood, a dark cloud swept over the bright waters.

  It took Gray a breath too long to realize the truth.

  The cloud was moving too fast, aiming straight for them.

  Aiko grabbed his arm. “Plane.”

  Gray jerked forward. “Hard to port! Now!”

  The pilot responded immediately. He heaved on the boat’s rudder, while trimming the dive planes in opposite directions—raising one, lowering the other—to cut sharply away. The sub listed hard into the turn, tossing everyone sideways.

  Kowalski groaned in back. From the sudden maneuver, he must have known they were in trouble.

  Gray leaned forward, looking up through the glass nose cone as the shadow passed overhead. Through the water, he could make out the silhouette of a cross sweeping the sky.

  Definitely an airplane.

  But was it the enemy?

  The question was answered as a rain of dark objects plummeted into the sea off their starboard side. As the plane’s shadow swept away, fresh sunlight revealed orange barrels.

  “Brace yourselves!” Gray yelled.

  The cascade of blasts pummeled the sub. Shattered bits of reef and coral pelted their flank. The concussion rolled the boat. Gray held his breath, willing them not to go upside down. If that happened, with the ballast doors open under them, they would sink.

  As the explosions faded, the sub righted itself.

  Gray gasped with relief.

  But they were far from safe.

  The strain had stressed the seal between the nose cone and the sub’s body. Water seeped through. Even more concerning was a noticeable crack in the glass. It appeared to be holding, but if there was another attack . . .

  He searched the waters. Off to the starboard side, the seas had vanished, obscured by blasted silt and rock. He craned all around for the return of the black shadow, not knowing from which direction it would come, only certain that it would.

  They were sitting ducks out here.

  “How long until we reach that trench?” Gray asked the pilot.

  “Still another eight klicks.”

  Too far.

  They would never reach the trench’s dark harbor before the plane overtook them.

  Gray searched the seas again—not for the enemy, but for some answer.

  “Maybe we should return to the island,” Aiko suggested. “Perhaps we can hide in the tunnel until it’s safe.”

  Gray shook his head.

  Even if they could turn around and reach that shelter in time, he didn’t like the idea of being trapped there. A few well-placed charges and they’d be sealed in their own grave. But her words gave him another idea, another place to hide.

  He placed his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Forget the trench. Power to the southwest.” He pointed in that direction. “With everything your engines have.”

  He turned to Palu, silently thanking him.

  The Hawaiian’s confused frown suddenly brightened into a knowing smile. “Like I said before, you be one lolo buggah.”

  6:49 A.M.

  “Where the hell are they going?” Valya asked.

  Seichan took satisfaction in the woman’s frustration. The witch leaned over a window next to her, plainly wanting to stick close to savor Seichan’s pain when the submarine was destroyed.

  Only the tables had been turned.

  It had taken the large plane too long to circle back around and search the bright waters for their target. By the time they had returned, the first bombardment had cast up a silty cloud that spread far over the seas. At first, it was unknown if the initial barrage had already destroyed the vessel. It could be sunk under that cloud, resting dead on the bottom.

  As a precaution, Valya had ordered the plane to search a path out to some trench. When that failed to reveal them, she seemed to grow more confident in its destruction. Still, she had them circle back and make sure the sub hadn’t retreated to the island.

  Again no sign.

  Afterward, Valya had loomed over Seichan with her hands on her hips. She wore a self-congratulatory smug expression.

  “One down,” she gloated, casting her gaze from Seichan’s face to her belly. “Two to go.”

  Then the radio cut in as the pilot called from the flight deck. “Target acquired. Running to the southwest.”

  As the plane banked in that direction, Valya’s expression hardened. She cursed in her native tongue and swung back to the window. “Where the hell are they going?”

  Seichan twisted around, too. She ignored the flare of pain, using the woman’s irritation as a balm. She caught Ken’s eye, reading the hope there. She refused to match it. Not yet. Gray may not even be aboard the submarine.

  Suddenly Valya shoved away from the window, her eyes wide with fury. She grabbed the closest man and pushed him toward the flight deck. “Tell the pilot to dive at them. Now! Get us as close as possible.”

  The man looked baffled, but he nodded and ran.

  Valya turned in the opposite direction and rushed for the open rear hatch, where the last five orange barrels waited to be dropped. As she left, she mumbled under her breath in Russian, a clear sign of the woman’s agitation.

  Seichan pretended not to hear her or understand, but she did both.

  “I can’t let the bastards get there,” Valya had said.

  Curious, Seichan returned her full attention to the window. Sunshine stung her eyes as she strained to discover what had so angered Valya.

  “Look!” Ken said. “Across the ocean ahead.”

  She squinted into the glare—then saw it, too.

  A mile off, a flotilla of wide rafts and small islands rode the swells and waves. They spread across the breadth of the horizon. As the plane raced in that direction, the clogged seas seemed to stretch ever onward.

  “What is it?” Seichan asked.

  6:54 A.M.

  Palu had supplied Gray with the answer, a possible source of shelter in the open ocean. Back aboard the catamaran, the Hawaiian had warned Gray of the danger lurking at the fringes of the region’s marine reserve, threatening both the islands and the surrounding sea life.

  Even now as they raced toward it, evidence appeared in the water: a black tire resting on the seabed, a knotted tangle of plastic bags swirling like a frond of pale kelp, a lost fishing net waving from where it had snagged on a branch of coral.

  But the true bulk of their refuge lay directly ahead.

  It was known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a morass of floating refuse larger than Texas, where marine debris was funneled into this spot by a vortex of ocean currents. The surface was dotted with small islands of accumulated trash: plastic bottles and bags, Styrofoam cups, barrels from oil rigs, crates from ships. But the real danger lurked below. To the depths of several meters, a toxic slurry of photodegraded tiny bits of microplastic fogged the waters.

  While such pollution was a growing environmental disaster, for their group it offered a hope for shelter from the coming storm.

  As they sped toward this refuge, Gray sensed time was running out. He crouched low beside the pilot. Though he had no way of knowing for sure, he could picture the shadow of that airplane closing in behind him.

  His fingers dug into the back of the pilot’s chair.

  “Almost there,” Aiko whispered, as if fearing the enemy above might hear her.

  Palu scowled, matching her whisper. “Don’t jinx us.”

  The nose cone of the midget sub aimed for the darker waters ahead, where the debris field shielded the sun.

  And soon hopefully us.

  Gray held his breath, willing the engines more speed. Then at long
last, the sub glided under the thick layer of soupy microplastics. The world grew immediately dimmer. Ahead, darker patches of the ocean marked trash piles on the surface.

  He let out a rattling sigh.

  Made it.

  Then a muffled BOOM shook the back of the boat. The vessel momentarily lifted up on its nose as a shock wave struck their rear.

  Gray crashed against the pilot’s seat. “Hard to starboard!” he hollered and pointed to a shadow-mottled section under the garbage patch. “Max power!”

  The pilot expertly drove the boat into a sharp turn as more bombs smashed through the trash and filth, exploding like fiery stars in the night. A darker shadow enveloped them as the plane passed over the debris field. More charges exploded in its wake, but the barrage was scattershot and spread out.

  They’re shooting blind, he realized.

  Even better, the explosions blasted up sand and silt, further obscuring the path ahead.

  A moment later, the ocean went silent, marking the end of the initial bombing run.

  But would they come around again?

  Knowing they needed somewhere to hide, Gray spotted and pointed to a large carpet of debris ahead—and the dark shadows beneath it.

  “Bring us to a stop under there.”

  The pilot nodded sharply. He slowed the sub and glided it to a hover under the protective blanket of garbage. The underside was woven together by a tangle of nets. Several draped lower, hanging from above like Spanish moss.

  The nose cone brushed alongside one, setting the net to twirling. As it turned, the carcass of a seal revealed itself caught inside. The flesh had mostly been picked clean, leaving rubbery fins and bones.

  Aiko gasped.

  In the murk, even Gray shuddered at the sight.

  “We call it ghost fishing,” Palu said, nodding to the carcass. “Hundreds of tons of nets find their way to the Patch. While carried by the currents, they trolled the seas on their own, catching and tangling prey, carrying their ghostly cargo here.”

  Gray stared up at the netted mass of debris and bones.

  Let’s hope we don’t suffer the same fate.