The Watchtower

churned. The swath illuminated by the moonlight looked like river rapids.
    Then I realized that it was only this part of the ocean that was disturbed. Something was moving through the water. Something either very big or very strong. Or both.
    “He’s here.” Will pulled me away from the edge of the cliff and toward the coach. “It’s better if you wait inside the coach. I don’t want you anywhere near that thing. ”
    But my eyes were glued to the churning surf. Surely nothing in reality could be worse than what my imagination was conjuring from beneath those waves.
    I was wrong.
    The thing that crawled out of the surf was far worse than anything I could have imagined. The moonlight caught its thousand scales, edging them with razors. When it stood up on webbed feet, seaweed streamed from its limbs like a torn funeral shroud. Only when it began its lumbering slither across the beach did I see that the streamers of seaweed were actually long eels that sprouted from its head. Sharp fangs curled out of its open mouth.
    “That creature attacked you and made you a vampire?” I asked as Will pushed me into the coach.
    “You thought all vampires looked like the ones in movies?” Will asked, his face set and grim. “That’s the monster that spawned me. It lay beneath the ocean for a thousand years, feeding off the creatures of the deep, its teeth and appetite growing. As he fed from me, he started to look more human—and God knows if I hadn’t killed him, he might have grown human-looking enough to pass among humans again. The thought of drinking that creature’s blood…” A look of revulsion passed across Will’s face. “I don’t want you to see me do it,” he said, looking into my eyes. “Promise me you’ll stay here.”
    “But what if you need help—”
    He barked a short, mirthless laugh. “With that thing? Please, Garet, just promise me to stay here.”
    “Okay, if you promise not to take any unnecessary chances. I want you back.”
    He looked at me as if he wasn’t quite sure he believed me, but then he gave my hand a sharp squeeze. “That’s what we both want.” Then he disappeared into the night.
    *   *   *
    Will had told me to stay in the coach, but he hadn’t told me not to watch out the window. When I drew back the curtains, I could make out Will’s figure on the edge of the cliff, his face white in the moonlight and his eyes riveted to the tower window. I couldn’t see the tower, but I didn’t have to. I could read the horror going on in there from the expression on Will’s face. How badly he must have wanted to stop it! That was himself—his younger, more innocent self—up there, making the biggest mistake of his life. Given the chance, who wouldn’t take back his worst mistake?
    A cry of pain rent the night and I guessed that hideous creature had attacked young Will. I saw my Will take a step forward to the edge of the cliff, his arms tensed against the wind, poised to leap up to the tower. But then he let his arms fall. A long, despairing moan from the tower rode the wind, a cry so anguished the gulls in their cliff aeries tried to drown it out. Even the waves on the beach seemed to crash in answer to that cry, the ocean coiling back in outrage at the young man’s pain. My Will bowed his head. His face, white a moment ago, was black with tears of blood.
    He dashed them away angrily and tensed again. Another cry came from the tower, this one infuriated. This was young Will attacking the creature who had made him. Then a bellow like the one that had come from the sea before … cut short as Will and Marduk appeared at the window struggling, Will’s hands wrapped around Marduk’s throat …
    Then my Will was gone. One moment he was poised on the edge of the cliff, the next moment he had vanished. Just as quickly I was out of the coach, running down the footpath to the beach. I’d listened helplessly to young Will cry out in pain; I couldn’t sit by while my Will battled this demon.
    I reached the beach just as Marduk hit the rocks beneath the tower. The impact shook the ground so hard I stumbled on the sand. When I got up, my Will was standing over the beast. I ran to him, unable to stop myself. I had to see if the creature was really dead. I reached Will and looked at where he was staring.
    For a moment I thought there had been some awful mistake. That Marduk had won the battle and thrown young Will to the ground where he lay now broken on the rocks, instead of