Chapter 45 - Language

  It didn’t take me long to figure out something was very wrong with the city. Once I was airborne, I flew high enough to see over all the buildings in my way and looked for anything that might cause the ground to shake. I was figuring we had a kaiju moment or something. I mean, it would have made sense, right? Certainly fit the vibe over the past few days.

  But there was no giant lizard monster rising from the ocean depths to storm Boston. In fact, I couldn’t see any signs of titanic-scaled creatures at all. For just a moment, that was disappointing. Only for a moment, though, because I couldn’t imagine how insane it would be to try going up against something the size of a building. Even with all the crystals I’d collected, that would be beyond me.

  No giant monsters were visible, but that didn’t mean the city was safe. The next thing I checked was the lobster activity. Their front line had become far more focused. That train of eight giant crabs and their lobster escorts was still coming in toward MacGregor’s defensive lines from the side, and they’d moved in another hundred or so lobster troops to engage his line from Cambridge Street.

  That was dangerous enough. It was the spots I’d seen before, where they’d been setting up some sort of structure, that really caught my eye.

  Those structures were still there, now looking completed, or nearly so When I looked before, they were mostly scaffolding, but the creatures had pushed ahead in the construction with incredible speed, and now three towers stood, each capped with a massive blue crystal.

  Water poured from each of the giant crystals, gushing down in fountains. They were swamping the whole area around the construction sites, flooding the streets. Each tower was set up in a low-lying area of the city, places that already acted like natural basins.

  Flooding wasn’t new to Boston, but usually the drainage system handled all but the worst of it. They must have done something to stop up the drains, though, because the water wasn’t going down. Instead, the water level was rising and pushing the flood into more streets by the minute.

  As if that wasn’t enough, Boston Harbor was creeping inland, too. I’d seen flooding similar to this during what they called a ‘king tide.’ That was when the Earth, moon, and sun aligned in a way that created especially high tides. In Boston, a king tide usually meant the sea was saying hello to Atlantic Avenue, and parts of the underground T would usually flood, too. It looked like that now, with waves washing in from the ocean a lot deeper inland than they ought to be.

  I didn’t know if the water was causing the earthquakes or if that was just another symptom of whatever effects those towers were generating, but either way, it was time to let MacGregor know what was going on. I dropped swiftly back to the ground where he was waiting.

  “Well?” MacGregor asked.

  “The good news is, there’s no Godzilla type creature storming the city,” I told him. “The bad news is, the lobsters are up to something, and it doesn’t look good.”

  I explained the towers to him, telling him everything I’d seen earlier, and then the changes I’d noticed on this latest scouting flight. He nodded through most of it, rubbing his chin toward the end.

  “I don’t think a little water is going to cause earthquakes,” MacGregor said at last. “If adding a new skyscraper downtown doesn’t upset the geological applecart, I doubt even a few thousand gallons of water will.”

  “Then they have to be doing something else,” I said. “Maybe tunneling under the city?”

  He shook his head. “Already plenty of tunnels, too. I doubt that’s it. After what you told me about the tide coming in, though, I wonder if they’re trying to sink the city.”

  “Sink it?” I couldn’t even imagine how that was possible. On the other hand, I’d never imagined people flying around Boston without a helicopter until today, so a flexible mindset was probably healthy in this sort of scenario.

  “A good chunk of modern Boston used to be underwater,” MacGregor said. “Maybe they’re trying to magic it back to how it was. Or worse. I don’t know; I’m guessing as much as anyone else in this mess. But it feels like something they might try. And it would explain why they’d want water pouring from their towers.”

  It would. Flooding the city didn’t make sense, by itself. So long as the streets were above sea level, eventually the water would run down into the Charles River or Boston Harbor. Either way, it wasn’t going to stick around the city streets forever. But if they were sinking the spit of land where Boston’s downtown was built, then the flood waters would remain. The weight of the water could even help the sinking process along, maybe, although that seemed like a long shot. Physics was strange now, though.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You want me to go wreck one of their towers?” I asked. I figured that would be the next smart move. If those towers were somehow sinking the city, that had to be our next play.

  But MacGregor shook his head. “I’d suggest holding off. The enemy knows you exist, Castle. I saw you fly one of those tank-crabs up as high as a building and then drop it on another one. They saw it, too. They know you’re out here, fighting for our side, and by this time I’m betting they have a better idea about your capabilities than I do. After all, they probably understand all this magic stuff better than I do, too.”

  “You think they’ll have defenses set up to zap me if I go after those towers,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’d bet money on it.”

  “Maybe they do.” I shrugged. I wasn’t blasé about the risk, but… “We can’t keep me in reserve forever, though.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to. I just want to use you in a way that maximizes your impact, and ideally doesn’t get you killed,” MacGregor replied. “You good with that?”

  “I’ll follow your lead here,” I said. For now, anyway. If it came down to a choice between saving people and listening to orders, I already knew which side of the fence I was going to fall on. I had a feeling the police captain knew that too, though.

  “Good. I’ve got an asset I’ve been informed about on its way to our position,” MacGregor said. He glanced at his watch—which was dead—and grumbled under his breath. “I’d pay good money for a windup watch. Never thought I’d say that again.”

  I’d gotten rid of my Apple Watch a while ago. Since they didn’t work anymore, there wasn’t much point in carting the thing around with me. I didn’t think the power was just going to snap back on anytime soon.

  “What asset..?” I asked.

  MacGregor held up a hand as two police officers came up to him from the north, escorting a familiar face. It was Maggie! What was she doing here? And where was…

  “Hi, Mr. Castle,” Emmy said, tugging at my sleeve.

  “This is her?” MacGregor asked. His eyes narrowed when he spotted Emmy. I could tell he wasn’t happy, but he didn’t say anything.

  The officers nodded. “She says she has the crystal we heard about.”

  “I do,” Maggie replied. “We were attacked on the bridge by some sort of giant flying fish. I hit it with this.” She gestured with the baseball bat she still held. “Had to whack it a few times, but when it died, I touched it like I’d been told and it dropped a crystal I’d never heard of before. It’s called Language. It’s only tier two, but supposedly it lets me talk to anything that has a spoken language.”

  I had a feeling I knew where this was going. When I’d run into the ratkin down in the tunnels, I’d been able to communicate with them just fine. Their English was a little broken, but serviceable. We’d understood one another just fine.

  The lobsters were another story. I’d heard them making clicking and hissing noises to each other, but if they could understand what we were saying, they’d never given any indication of it. And nothing they were saying made any sense, either. But if Maggie had a stone that let her talk to them, maybe we could negotiate a peaceful resolution to all of this. That could save a lot of lives.

  Or it could get Maggie killed. If the lobsters didn’t want to talk, then a human who understood them represented a potential threat. Maggie could reveal what they were calling out to one another on the battlefield, maybe even learn to read their writing, if we found any. While we had zero understanding of their language, they had an advantage. Maggie’s find changed that.

  “Ms…” MacGregor trailed off.

  “I’m Maggie.”

  “Maggie, then. We could really use your help,” MacGregor said. “Right now these invaders are attacking the city. We know they’ve killed hundreds of civilians. Maybe more. We also know they’re doing things to our home. Possibly some sort of ‘aquaforming.’ We haven’t been able to speak with them at all, though, so we can’t even begin to negotiate.”

  “Aquaforming?” Maggie asked.

  I broke in. “It looks like they might be trying to turn parts of Boston aquatic through magic.”

  “Oh. Shit.” Maggie shook her head. “How can I help?”

  “You two know each other?” MacGregor asked, glancing from one of us to the other.

  “Yeah. I helped coach the soccer team Emmy there was on,” I said.

  “And you saved Emmy from monsters. Twice,” Maggie interjected, giving me a warm smile.

  “And you trust Castle?” MacGregor asked.

  “Yes. Of course.” There was no hesitation in Maggie’s voice.

  “Good. That sort of trust is excellent,” MacGregor said. “I want you the two of you to approach the enemy lines and ask for a parlay. Castle, your job is keeping Maggie here alive and unharmed. She’s not as tough as you, so you’ll need to make sure they don’t blast her with magic or something. You just keep her in one piece. Maggie, you need to see if you can get them talking. If they’re willing to broker some sort of peaceful arrangement, maybe our species can coexist. If not, I think we may lose the downtown area entirely.”

  And maybe more, beyond that. If we couldn’t stop this attack here, what was going to keep them from continuing their invasion? They were strong enough that they could strike us with impunity. Alex and I could keep some of them at bay, but there were only two of us, and they had thousands on their side.

  “I’ll help. I don’t know exactly how this crystal works, but if I can use it to talk with them, I’ll try,” Maggie said. “I’ll need someone to keep an eye on my sister, though. Our parents are still…out there, somewhere.” Maggie pointed deeper into downtown.

  MacGregor nodded, understanding what she wasn’t saying. If her parents were still out in the parts of the city occupied by enemy forces, odds were they’d already been killed. “I’ll appoint two of my men to watch over her. Let’s get you two up on the front lines and see if we can at least get a ceasefire in place. Even buying a couple of hours for more civilians to escape will save a lot of lives.”