Chapter 5: The Tank

The tank room was a long concrete hall with a glass wall as high as a house.

Behind the glass was the water, and in the water was Stellan.

A crack ran up the glass from floor to ceiling, white and branching, and seawater beaded along it in thin bright threads.

Behind the man, in the dark green water, something enormous was uncoiling.

It was a golden sea serpent, as long as the whole tank, with wide gold fins along its back.

It slammed its head against the glass, and the crack grew.

"The control room is locked," Bastian said, panting behind me. "We can't drain it."

"If that goes, he drowns the block," Kit said. "And us."

"He can't drown," Rafe said.

"No," Bastian said. "But he can lose himself."

I looked up at the top of the tank, where a steel ladder ran to an open hatch.

"Does anyone know how to turn off his rage from the top?"

"Nobody gets close to him," Rafe said. "Not even you."

"Then I'm the only one who has."

I took off my boots and my jacket and put the steel dish of beads in a corner where it would stay dry.

Rafe caught my arm.

"If you go in there and he hurts you," he said, "I will not forgive myself."

It was such a strange thing for him to say that I almost laughed.

"Then don't let go of the rope," I said, and tied the end of a hose around my waist and gave him the other end.

I climbed the ladder.

The water at the top was warm and green and very still.

I filled my lungs, and dropped in.

It was louder below the surface than above it.

The serpent's body moved past me in a long gold wall, and the current pulled my hair out around my head.

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