Free Phantom Prospect by Alex Archer

rammed hard enough, she might lose her footing and that would be it.
    Annja swallowed and used the flashlight beam again, aiming it just off the stern of the boat, closer to where she stood. With her other hand, Annja held the back railing for dear life. It would be her only link to the ship and she didn’t want to lose it.
    “Annja!”
    She glanced back. Hunter had come out of the wheelhouse and stood halfway down the stairs leading to the stern. “What the hell are you doing?”
    “I’ve got to see if I can get this thing interested in me or if it’s doing something else.”
    “I can’t help you if it attacks.”
    “Just keep watching the scope and let me know if it starts to change course. Give me as much warning as you can.”
    “Yeah, all right.”
    Hunter vanished back up the stairs, leaving Annja alone on the lolling platform. She felt cold and her legs wanted to carry her back up onto the boat proper. Psychologically, she knew that she would feel a lot safer with the deck between her and the ocean. Right now, all that separated her from the deep was a few inches of steel.
    The flashlight beam cut into the darkness and then died only ten yards away from the boat. Annja could see the frothy white caps cresting in time to the sway of the boat. A stronger breeze blew and she shivered again. Her left hand ached from holding the railing so tightly, but there was no way she’d loosen her grip.
    Annja’s stomach cramped slightly and she realized that if the shark did indeed decide to check out the light, she had no way of summoning her sword if necessary. Both of her hands were fully occupied.
    She couldn’t very well risk using one of them to hold the sword. Plus, its appearance would mean an uncomfortable amount of questions from Hunter and who knew who else? How would she explain that she somehow possessed the sword that once belonged to Joan of Arc and that she could summon it at will?
    No, the time for the sword would be later. If it got to that point. If this was just a shark acting like a shark, then Annja didn’t see any real need to fight it. Jock’s death notwithstanding, there was already enough shark slaughter happening elsewhere in the world and Annja didn’t want to contribute to it any further.
    She frowned. There should have been some reaction to the presence of the light by now. She glanced back at the wheelhouse, but her view from the stern of the boat was limited and she didn’t know what Hunter was up to.
    She heard him coming down the stairs a moment later. “Annja?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You okay?”
    “I’m wondering why this shark hasn’t responded to my presence or to this flashlight beam.”
    “You thought it would?”
    Annja frowned. “Hell, I don’t know what I thought. It was more of an experiment than anything else.”
    “The scope isn’t showing much. It’s still there, but its movement is as slow as it was before. It’s like it either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that you’re there.”
    Annja frowned. “I could go for a swim.”
    “Don’t you dare!” Hunter’s voice grated across the darkness. Annja smiled at the reaction.
    “Relax. I told you I wasn’t suicidal. And even if I was, I wouldn’t do it like that.”
    “All right. Don’t make me haul you back aboard against your will.”
    “Like you could.”
    Hunter started to laugh, but then they both stopped.
    Something splashed out beyond the range of the light.
    Annja’s heart started beating faster. “Did you hear that?”
    “Yeah.”
    She could tell Hunter was coming closer to her. “Annja, why don’t you get back on the boat now?”
    “Hang on a second.”
    She could hear more splashing. It sounded like something was almost on top of the water. She swept the flashlight beam as far as she could but the inexorable darkness simply swallowed it up beyond ten yards.
    “I can’t see a damned thing.”
    “Neither can I. But I think you should get back on the boat,” Hunter said.
    “Get back to the