Blood in the Water Read Online Free Page A

small gun, cold and
heavy in my sweaty hand, and I almost drop it in shock. Louise
doesn’t even notice. Just keeps talking.
    “ Sea Serpents in the Thames. Approximately a hundred breaches.
It’s a total cluster bomb—that’s why you’re here. Even if every one
of our nineteen London weavers makes it in time, you’ll still have
to close five or six rifts each. And they’re under water, so that
adds an extra layer of complication. We have to split up, time is a
huge factor here.”
    My eyes
widen as my earlier thoughts from class flood over me again, and I
check that the safety of the handgun is on before placing it
gingerly on my lap. I have had precisely two lessons actually
shooting a firearm. The boy next to me, dreadlocked Ruble, taps me
gently on the shoulder, and when I look, is holding up a leather
armpit holster. He has a sweet tattoo on the inside of his wrist, I
notice. A swallow, right where my stitches are. I reach out and
take the holster with my heart pounding in my throat. As the van
skids to a halt, engine still running—red light?—I gather my
nerve.
    “ So ... if the breaches are under water, why doesn’t the
Thames drain out through them?”
    The female warlock snorts a laugh and looks up from the book
she’s been flicking through, a disdainful expression on her
heart-shaped face. “’Cause there’s water on the other side, hence
the Sea Serpents finding their way through. Sea to sea. It’s not
like they can fly! Breaches can’t open unless the environment on
the other side is almost identical. Else we’d all get sucked into
space or our seas would fill up with acid or something. Not much we
could do about that! The world would have ended millennia ago. Did
you sleep through the first lesson in Dimensional Physics, or what?
How new are you?”
    Ah. Maybe I should start paying attention in class. I flash an awkward grin and pick at a frayed spot
on my jeans. “I guess I was absent that day. So … Sea
Serpents?”
    Louise
cocks her head to one side, clearly listening to someone speaking
through her bluetooth, and after a few moments looks around at the
waiting van. “All right, Bravo Sierra, we’ve been allocated the
two-mile patch with the fewest breaches, in deference to the
newbie. The first teams are already on site, and their warlocks
have marked out zones so we don’t tread on each other’s toes.
Spotters reckon there’re about forty Serpents; biggest looks like
he’s around one hundred metres. The area is being cleared for a
couple of miles on either side of the river—flood warnings—and the
police are already setting up a perimeter to help us out. Bonnie’s
on site, coordinating the whole operation. Teams are gonna pen the
Serpents in further up and downriver; they’ve got their warlocks
building magical barriers to turn ‘em around. Our job is to chase
‘em back from whence they came, or kill ‘em, and, primarily, close
the breaches. That means you, small-fry. Pick a guard.”
    I
swallow, aware that all eyes are on me. The dedicated, serious eyes
of people who probably never skipped a class or caused a delay
getting to a multiple-breach site because they were necking instead
of studying. “Uh, a guard?”
    Relax, would you? You’re just saving the world from being
overrun by monsters, it’s not bloody military school. Which I was supposed to go to before the
Protectorate hauled me out, so I guess I should be grateful. This
is obviously much better. Right?
     
    Louise
rolls her eyes impatiently and gestures around the van. “We’re
working in pairs. You need a guard to drive and watch your back
while you’re doing your thing.” She waggles her fingers in the air,
obviously imitating magic. “Pick someone.”
    Drive? Do we get submarines? That would be cool. And safe.
Very, very safe.
    I chew
my lip for a moment, and then glance at Ruble. He smiles, and I
shrug. “I’ll go with Ruble, then. If that’s okay?”
    Cuz you’re kind of bitchy, and he’s kind