The Oracle's Message

She turned toward the surface and broke through, again taking a deep breath of air. She turned toward her boat, but misjudged the distance. In the choppy water she was thrust forward and knocked her head on part of the catamaran.

She saw stars and felt blackness rushing for her.

Her final thought before she slipped under the waves was that at least she’d killed the tiger shark.

Somehow, death by drowning seemed better than being eaten by a shark.

3

She heard voices. That was enough to tell her she wasn’t underwater.

But was she dead?

“Miss?”

She opened an eye and found a tanned, handsome face staring into her own. Judging by the scar on his cheek, he’d seen some sort of fighting at one point in his life. But there was an eagerness in his expression that told her he was very concerned.

She tried to speak but coughed instead. A bottle of water found its way to her lips and she took a greedy gulp, coughing some more and letting the better part of it dribble all over her face.

“Easy, easy.” His voice was strong and soothing.

Annja smiled. “I guess I’m not dead, after all.”

“Almost. But not quite.”

Annja propped herself up on one elbow and saw she was in a boat, one much larger than her catamaran. “What happened to my boat?”

“It sunk.”

Annja frowned and then remembered that the tiger shark had rammed the pitifully small catamaran. And when she’d surfaced after killing the shark, she must have hit her head against a piece of it. She felt her head and found the large bruise. She winced at the touch as pain sliced through her body.

“You’ll need to get that looked at, I suspect.”

Annja touched the spot again. The skin was bloated, swollen, and felt a little mushy to the touch. But she thought it was probably nothing worse than a bad knock. “I’ll be all right.”

“For a moment, you weren’t.”

She looked into his eyes and then smiled. “My name’s Annja.”

“Hans.”

“You’re German?” She could hear the accent now.

“I am.”

Annja sat up and saw another couple of men sitting in the boat looking at her with a mixture of amusement and concern. “I’m on your boat, I take it?”

Hans nodded. “We saw the commotion in the water, saw your diving flag and wondered if you might be in some sort of danger.”

Annja shrugged. “Tiger shark.”

Hans started. “A tiger shark? You’re sure?”

“I know those stripes, Hans. Trust me.”

“How did you get away?”

Annja shook her head. “I didn’t. I killed him instead.”

That brought a low murmur from the other men on the boat. Hans smiled. “How large was the shark?”

“Probably fourteen feet. Give or take a few inches.”

“And you killed it? With what?”

Annja almost said something about the sword but caught herself. “I had a diver’s knife with me.”

“That must have been some knife,” Hans said.

“I stabbed the shark in the head with it over and over until it died.”

“You’re quite a remarkable woman, Annja.”

“I don’t feel so remarkable right now.” Annja groaned. The bobbing of the boat, which wouldn’t have bothered her if she’d been uninjured, now made her intensely nauseous.

Hans moved out of the way just in time as Annja rushed forward and vomited into the sea. After heaving a few more times, she leaned back and wiped her mouth. “Got any more of that water?”

Hans handed her the bottle and held up his hand. “Perhaps you shouldn’t drink it quite so fast this time.”

Annja nodded. “Yeah, that would be good idea.” She swirled the water around in her mouth and then spat it out along with the taste of bile. She took another sip and tried to hand the bottle back to Hans.

But the German only held up his hand. “That’s fine. You can keep that bottle. We have more.”

Annja smiled. “Not into sharing with the damsel in distress?”

Hans shrugged. “Well, ordinarily, I would not mind. But seeing as you have just, uh, purged…”

“Yeah,” Annja said. “I don’t blame you.”

Hans leaned closer. “Where is the person who was diving with you?”

Annja shook her head. “It was just me.”

“You? Alone?”

“Yeah.”

Hans whistled. “You are either incredibly brave or rather foolish.”