Chapter 92 - The Ghost of Victoria
The freezing seawater was already up to my shins, swirling violently with motor oil, debris, and blood. The shock of the sub-zero brine cut through the blinding agony in my chest, forcing adrenaline back into my bloodstream.
"Julian... cough... Julian, get up!"
My father was dragging his crippled body toward me, holding on to a structural support beam as the water dragged him sideways. Across the chamber, Eleanor was hyperventilating, backing into a corner where water was cascading through an overhead pipe seam like a violent waterfall.
"We're going to drown!" she wept, all her arrogance washed away, leaving only the pathetic cowardice that had driven her entire life. "There’s no way out! The doors are sealed! Julian, save me! I'm your mother!"
"Shut up!" I spat, tasting copper and salt.
I ignored her, crawling to my feet and leaning against the vibrating hull. I reached up and tapped my ear canal, frantically adjusting the encrypted comms channel. The static was deafening, but beneath the hiss, a faint, rhythmic clicking came through.
*Click. Click. Static. Double-click.*
Morse code. Military cipher.
"Victoria!" I yelled into the mic. "Victoria, report!"
A breathless, shuddering gasp answered me. *"Julian... I'm... I’m alive."*
"Where are you? Croft said—"
*"He shot me through the collarbone... thought I was dead,"* Victoria choked out, her voice ragged with pain and the audible sound of water rushing on her end. *"I managed to drag myself into the maintenance duct behind Communications. Julian, Croft didn't take the main submersible. He and that... that monster went down to the Sub-Trench Launchpad. They’re taking the Archangel craft."*
"The blast doors between us are down," I said, fighting against the mounting current that was already reaching my waist. "Sector Zero is flooding. The intakes are locked wide open."
*"Arthur foresaw this,"* Victoria replied, the sound of keyboard clatter filtering through the static. *"Julian, remember the house! Think back to the study! The morning after his funeral, what did you find behind the third oak panel?"*
My mind raced through the blur of the last seventy-two hours. The smell of pipe tobacco and cedar in Grandpa’s private office. The concealed brass gears. The inscription carved into the brass casing of the grandfather clock.
*“A Vance never builds a room without two exits. One for his family, and one for his vengeance.”*
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"The drainage conduits," I whispered, turning my eyes toward the vortex swirling in the corner of the flooded chamber. "The water isn't coming from the sea. It's coming from the cooling reservoir!"
***
