Oceans of Fire Read Online Free

into the calmer waters of the harbor straight toward the pier. When she couldn’t hold her breath any longer, she let go and kicked strongly for the surface, coming up choking, spinning wildly around to keep the speedboat in sight.
    The speedboat was beside her own vessel and the man with the plaid shirt leaned in to grab something, before shoving off out toward open sea. Kiwi nudged her again, presenting his fin. He was clicking and squawking, pushing at her in urgency. She caught his fin and went under, allowing him to pull her through the water at a pace she’d never be able to go herself.
    Kiwi halted abruptly just as Abigail was certain her lungs were deprived forever of air. She kicked strongly, anxious to rise to the surface. Something brushed against her back. Eerily, it felt like fingertips skimming across her shoulder blades and she spun around to find she was face-to-face with a dead man. His eyes were open and he stared at her in a kind of macabre horror, his dark hair floating like strands of seaweed and his face pale beneath the water. His arms were outstretched as if on a cross, yet swaying with the movement of the water, and he rolled with the incoming wave, his body bumping against hers.
    Her stomach lurched, and she gasped, losing her last bit of air and swallowing seawater. She kicked, desperate to reach the surface, her head breaking through as she coughed and gagged. Her eyes burned from the salt, or maybe from tears, but she dragged air into her lungs and caught at Kiwi a third time. Something scraped down the back of her leg as the dolphin pulled her through the water. A gray shadow slid noiselessly by.
    Abigail fought the urge to try for the surface. She knew the skin of a shark was covered with hard toothlike scales, called dermal denticles, and when rubbed from tail to head felt like sandpaper, the exact sensation she had had down the back of her leg. Whatever had scraped her was following, trying to circle, but Kiwi was taking her through the water at a dizzying speed. Kiwi’s echolocation was so precise they nearly hit Boscoe, who was still valiantly keeping Gene’s face above the water.
    Astounded, Abigail watched as several dolphins began to ram sharks, driving them to the bottom with such force that debris rose from the floor of the ocean and churned in a dark mass. The normally docile sand and leopard sharks were aroused by the scent of blood. If a great white was in the vicinity, she was certain it would be rocketing through the water to join in the frenzy. She added to the melee, shoving her punch stick against a small shark and triggering the pressure block to deliver a forceful, powerful punch to the shark’s nose in an effort to deter it. She reset the stick as quickly as she was able and swam to the pier.
    Tossing the punch stick onto the wooden planks, Abigail attempted to pull herself out of the water. Her back burned and her arms protested. She fell back into the sea almost on top of a small shark. Kiwi rammed it, hitting it hard, driving it down toward the bottom as she made another try. Using one of the dolphins as a stepping-stone, she was able to drag herself out of the water far enough to gain a crosspiece of wood to use as a ladder.
    Immediately she reached down and snagged Gene’s shirt, pulling him around and freeing Boscoe so the dolphins could swim away from the sharks. She hooked him under his shoulders and dragged him, wincing as she scraped his back against the wood. He was a big man and his waterlogged clothing added to his weight. She struggled to hold him, whistling to the dolphins, begging for further aid. Boscoe returned, using his enormous strength to shove the unconscious man up and out of the water. She was able to pull Gene nearly all the way onto the pier, although his legs dangled over the edge. She saw Kiwi come up from a dive, blowing water from his airhole and dragging the dead man by the arm. As she reached down to get the stranger, she was horrified to