The Oracle's Message

The level on her gauge continued to drop.

Annja was going to have to make a run for it.

I’m not doing this alone, she thought.

She summoned the mystical sword she’d somehow inherited from Joan of Arc, and the gleaming blade was snug in her hands, right where she wanted it to be.

She looked around but couldn’t see the tiger shark anywhere.

It was time to go but the problem was that on the ascent she’d have to rise no faster than her air bubbles. To rush it, she’d be risking the bends—when her body couldn’t get rid of the nitrogen in her blood. That could be as fatal as being attacked by the shark. She was only in about fifty feet of water, but she still had to maintain proper protocol.

That meant she’d be exposed for what would feel like an awfully long time.

But the level of oxygen she had was dwindling and she’d have to go for it, regardless of the risk from the shark.

Another quick glance and Annja kicked off, her fins churning behind her as she rose from the coral reef.

Instantly, she felt the presence of the shark, as if it’d been waiting behind the coral for her to show herself.

It came fast as Annja drifted higher.

She could see the rows of teeth in its mouth as it came toward her like a missile. Annja brought the sword up in front of her and swiped it through the water. It felt like she was moving in slow motion, though, cutting through the liquid of the ocean.

Still, it sliced into the tiger’s snout before the shark suddenly backed away and shot back down toward the reef.

Annja turned her eyes up and judged she was perhaps halfway to the surface. Her bubbles rose faster than she did, but only just. Annja didn’t want to remain underwater any longer than necessary.

The grim expression of the dive master lurked in her memory. She could hear his scolding now, telling her how foolish she’d been to go diving alone. Annja frowned. Maybe it had been foolish, but maybe she’d needed to do it.

She looked back just in time to see the tiger shark lurking near the seafloor. Annja’s diving knife still poked out of the top of its snout. Annja wondered if the shark would spend the rest of its days with that blade permanently planted there.

She kicked some more and cut the distance to the surface. Her heart was thundering and Annja tasted stale air.

Her tank was almost empty.

She glanced back and scarcely had time to bring the sword up as the shark rammed into her again.

Her regulator was knocked free and Annja had only a second to grab the last gulp of air before the hose was ripped away by the rush of movement.

Annja tried to put it back in her mouth but the hose was torn open. A slow stream of bubbles was being released from the tank on her back.

So much for that, she thought.

Annja shrugged one side of her straps free and then the other.

The tank fell down toward the reef, trailing the last bits of air behind it.

Annja jerked around and saw that the tiger shark was level with her at a distance of maybe fifty feet.

She brought the sword up in front of her.

The tiger shark’s eyes seemed to register the threat but cared little about it. Annja was on the menu and it meant to finish this.

It glided at her so smoothly that Annja barely registered the movement, so streamlined was the shark’s body that it caused no disturbance in the water. All that did register was the fact that the shark suddenly seemed to grow in size.

Time slowed.

Annja marveled at the magnificence of the creature coming to try to kill her. The teeth so perfectly suited for cracking sea-turtle shells were also perfect for shredding human skin and bone.

And then it seemed to gather more speed.

Annja readied herself and felt her body take over. She cut up, stabbing right at the tiger shark, and plunged the sword straight into the shark’s nose. She knew that all sharks had sophisticated electrical sensory systems in their snouts, and she hoped by attacking it so savagely the shark would virtually short-circuit.

The effect was instantaneous. The shark seemed to stand straight up on its tail in the water and then jerked back, freeing itself from Annja’s sword. A dark flow of blood spilled into the water, clouding Annja’s vision.

And then the shark turned and shot away, trailing blood behind it.

Annja looked overhead and saw she was only eight feet below the surface. She kicked, surfaced and gasped air into her starved lungs.

Her boat bobbed on a swell a few yards away and she clawed through the surf toward it, willing the sword away to the otherwhere with the power of her mind.

As she reached the catamaran, she felt herself rise up as something struck the boat from below.

The shark hadn’t fled, after all.

Damn, Annja thought.

Disregarding the boat, she ducked back under the surface and saw the tiger shark, grievously wounded, circling around, preparing for another attack.

Annja summoned her sword and waited.

The shark had a look that told her it would attack her until one of them was dead.

There would be no quarter.

Annja steeled herself and the shark came at her, moving with an almost supernatural level of speed through the water.

Annja bent backward as the shark’s jaws snapped close by her head. She saw its belly pass over her face and plunged the sword as far as it would go into the underside of the massive beast.

The blade cut deep, scoring a line across the belly. Entrails slipped out while blood spewed into the ocean around her, turning everything dark and cloudy.

Annja imagined that she heard a deep rumbling gasp from the shark and then it simply turned over and slipped away from her.

Dead.

She watched it sink down to the ocean floor. Instead of Annja being its dinner tonight, the tiger shark would be dinner for the smaller fish around the reef.

Annja nodded grimly. There was no joy in killing the magnificent beast, but she’d had no choice.