His arm is dead weight, a slab of salami hanging off his body.

But the rest of his body still works. Even as his heart pulses like an old frog’s neck – lubdub, lubdub, lub…dub – he knows that what Nora said is true.

He’s the weapon here.

And what his Grampop said so many years ago is true, too: “You got a hard head, Mikey.”

Hard as diamond, but nowhere near as pretty.

He rolls his body over, using his dead arm like a bludgeon. Sorago doesn’t expect it and is bowled over. Mookie rolls with him. Pins him. Lies on him like a beached whale. The gun comes up, presses into his forehead–

Mookie jerks his head aside as the gun goes off. Bang!

Ears ringing. High-pitched whine. This is a test of the emergency broadcast signal…

He brings his hard head down against Sorago’s.

Once. Then twice.

A third time. Fourth, fifth, sixth.

He rears back one last time–

Sorago’s mouth fills with fresh venom to spit–

A switchblade buries into his forehead.

Nora presses it further. Then twists.

Crunch.

Sorago’s legs kick once. Then are still.

“You saved me,” Nora says. “I save you.”

The Vollrath work, unaware. Drill buzzing. Dynamite in tubes.

Suddenly, the first drill cuts out. Then the second. Engines gutter. Drills slow, then stick in the rocky holes they were drilling. Smoke curls upward in lazy circles.

The heads of the puppet-men turn and look.

Behind the drill stands a corpse-walker with a beet-red blister-face. He holds the power cords that connect the massive drills to the generator.

The generator still grumbles – a quiet chug compared to the growl of the drills – but the dead man has unplugged the machines from it.

And on the other side, a girl with a bleeding arm bends down and uses a small knife to cut the det-cord leading to the bundle of dynamite.

The Vollrath let go of the bodies. The men drop. Still alive. Barely.

SOMETHING HAS CHANGED.

The thought goes out, a frequency shared by all Vollrath.

THIS WILL NO LONGER BE OUR TIME.

Then:

WE RECEDE UNTIL

And the Vollrath sink through the floor, escaping the Shallows. Returning to the Tangle from whence they came.

Nobody is answering on the other end of the walkie-talkie.

“The Vollrath are leaving,” Vithra growls.

“Shut your mouth,” Candlefly snaps. Suddenly this nice day is as gray as the sky above. He tries to raise Sorago. “What’s going on down there? Over.” Just an empty radio hiss.

“Something’s changed.”

“I said, shut up.”

He grabs the button, hits it with the flat of his palm.

There’s a buzz and a crackle.

The det-cord, so he understands, is fast. Many times the speed of a bullet. Miles away but traveling ten thousand feet per second…

There should be a boom right about–

Now.

Nothing.

No distant whump.

No earth shake.

How irritating.

“You,” he says, pointing to Vithra. “Go.”