Heather looked at Sandy in the cage and clenched her teeth. She thought about everything Sandy had tried with Ewan, what they’d just done for Ava.
<Sandy, are you OK?>
But there was no answer. She tried again.
Fellowes was dripping on the pavement, suit clinging to him. Heather wondered if wet guns worked.
She looked at Sandy. They were trying to squeeze through the tiny holes in the mesh, but the gaps were too small. The tips of their tentacles wriggled, body flashing with dramatic colour. The tentacles couldn’t touch Fellowes, the cage was too far away.
‘It’s a Faraday cage,’ Fellowes said. ‘Actually, it’s more complicated than that. Stops it from using its telepathy.’
Heather saw that the SUV that crashed into the ferry terminal had its boot open. That must be where the cage had been. She wondered if any of the thugs were still alive.
Ava was on her back, shielding her baby from Fellowes and the gun. Lennox stood in the back of the truck, gripping the edge. Heather saw Ewan’s body lying where she and Sandy dragged him out of the water. People were standing at the top of the promenade, some recording on their phones.
Lennox pushed away from the side of the truck, fists balled.
‘Don’t,’ Fellowes said, waggling the gun. ‘I don’t want to have to use this.’
All Heather’s energy had gone. Ewan was dead, Ava had her baby, Fellowes had Sandy. Maybe this was the end.
But she remembered her cancer. Sandy saved her life, tried to save Ewan, helped Ava. They did something for each of them.
Fellowes backed away from them, sliding the cage with the pole. Sandy’s tentacles waved around inside, fiddled with the lock. Fellowes flicked a switch in the pole, sending sparks arcing through the cage. Sandy shrunk and pulled their tentacles inward, their body turning grey.
Lennox climbed down from the truck.
‘Don’t,’ Fellowes said.
Lennox took a couple of steps forward. ‘Let Sandy go.’
Fellowes backed away towards the crashed SUV, sliding Sandy in the cage.
Lennox followed. ‘Let them go or you’ll be sorry.’
‘I’ve wanted this my whole life.’
‘There’s stuff going on here you don’t understand.’
Fellowes angled his head. ‘Then tell me.’
Heather thought about what Lennox had told her and Ava, Xander out in the loch, visions of Sandy’s home moon, an exodus of refugees.
Lennox shook his head.
Fellowes widened his eyes. ‘Well?’
Lennox was concentrating hard, like when he and Sandy talked. Fellowes saw it, checked on Sandy who hadn’t moved. ‘I told you, you can’t speak to it when it’s in there.’
‘I wasn’t talking to Sandy.’
Fellowes shook his head. ‘I don’t have time for this.’ He walked across the jetty to the ferry terminal, dragging Sandy in the cage. Lennox followed at a distance.
‘Careful,’ Heather said.
Lennox glanced back. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ He closed his eyes like he was getting a message.
Heather looked at Sandy, no change.
Fellowes was almost at the car now. Lennox stepped forward and Heather saw him smiling. Fellowes looked at Sandy, then back to Lennox.
A colossal rushing noise came from Heather’s left. The surface of the loch was bubbling and swirling, seagulls scattering, as a massive oblong portion of the loch seemed to rise into the air. Heather realised it wasn’t the loch but another creature, the size of a small ship, water pouring from its sides and cascading into the loch below. A huge shadow spread over the loch’s surface as the thing went higher into the air. It was a gigantic jellyfish shape, pink and red, orange and green and a million other colours glinting in the sun, a slippery sheen on their surface, huge tendrils draping from their body to the surface of the loch.
They moved, a sinuous curve shaping and reinventing the air around them as they rushed over the land, the shadow spreading over the fishing boats, the truck and the promenade. The people watching all stepped back or ran up the hill. Fellowes stood underneath, gawping at their underbelly. Heather turned to Ava, who stared wide-eyed. Heather saw an iridescent display like nothing she’d ever seen, swirls and dots and shapes intertwining and coalescing. The air shimmered around them, water still pouring off.
They were all in shade now. Lennox ran to Fellowes and grabbed the pole. Fellowes yanked it away, pointed the gun at Lennox.
One of the tendrils hanging from Xander’s belly swung in their direction, then expanded and turned more solid. It looked like a larger, darker version of Sandy, but still attached to Xander, and Heather thought of Ava’s umbilical cord still connecting her baby. The creature opened an orifice in a downward tube section and enveloped Lennox, Fellowes and Sandy in the cage, sucking them up like a vacuum cleaner. A few moments later it spat out Fellowes and the empty cage, then it disappeared back into Xander’s belly. Xander hovered for a second then narrowed to an ellipsoid, reshaped the air around them again, a shivering hum enveloping their frame. Then they shot straight upwards faster than Heather could comprehend, leaving a wet trail as they disappeared into the distant sky.
Heather blinked in the sunshine and tried to breathe. Lennox and Sandy were gone. The empty cage and the gun lay next to Fellowes, sprawled and unconscious.