“Are you asking whether or not the sight of my face would make a cannibalistic giant think twice before eating me?”
“Aye, that.”
“Haven’t tested the theory,” she replied, deadpan. “But probably.”
“Good. James, if things go sideways, be sure to look away until she tells ye otherwise. Wouldn’t want ye gettin’ caught in the crossfire.”
Helen snorted indelicately.
“I wish to go with James.”
I wheeled to find Tiger Lily standing in the corner of the room like some sort of poltergeist, her painted face even eerier in twilight. She slipped silently out from the shadows, her animal skins barely rustling. As I’d suspected, the Neverlander could move like a damned wraith when she wanted to.
“Yes, I know, but I want ye with me,” I replied. “The two of us are goin’ northeast, which means we have the largest stretch of island to cover before dawn. If the others run into trouble, they can at least get back to the ship quickly. We may not have that luxury.”
What I didn’t say aloud—though I hoped the Neverlander comprehended on her own—was that Tiger Lily and I were the only two fighters aboard. The only two who could handle ourselves if we ran into real trouble; despite the sword at his hip, I had no idea whether James could hold his own, and Tinkerbell still wasn’t feeling well, even if she was worth her weight in gold as air support. Sadly, the way Narcissus had freaked out during the storm told me everything I needed to know about his combat experience. As for Helen, well, the demigoddess was proving to be an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an absurdly gorgeous, shockingly intelligent box.
What I needed was someone who would have my back, not stab it.
“So, none of these splits are meant to get us working together?”
The question—which I’d honestly expected from Helen—came from James. The young man half-sat, half-stood with the majority of his weight on Hook’s desk. Once again, I was struck by the intensity, the watchfulness, behind his eyes. At times, the Neverlander reminded me of every awkward teenage boy I’d ever met: one half hormones, the other half...more hormones. Indeed, his crush on me, I suspected, was merely circumstantial; I was the only grown woman he’d ever met who wasn’t his mom, his sister, his thumb-tall companion, or his father’s childhood partner-in-crime. Helen, whose face he’d never seen, didn’t count. And yet, despite all that, I had to admit the kid had an air of maturity about him that I’d come to rely on—not to mention rather keen instincts.
“If I’m goin’ to be your Captain, I have to see how ye follow orders,” I replied, begrudgingly. “If we do this and nobody ends up eaten, great. If ye all end up workin’ better together on top of that, I’ll consider it a bonus.”
Before I could even finish speaking, however, Tiger Lily and Tinkerbell turned to their young charge, obviously waiting to see what he’d have to say about this arrangement. James exchanged glances with both before giving his tacit consent, and it was in that moment that I realized I’d never be Captain aboard the Jolly Roger. Why? The answer was simple.
Because she already had one.
Though young and somewhat untested, it was clear that James had already earned the respect of his fellow Neverlanders, and that—between the two of us—he had a far better claim to the Jolly Roger and its fortunes. Sure, I was older and more experienced in a crisis, but that wasn’t what made a leader great. Charisma, the ability to recognize and implement good advice, and being able to command authority—these were the defining features of a good Captain. Did James have them? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But there were ways to find out, ways to elevate him to the status he’d already achieved in the eyes of Tiger Lily and Tinkerbell.
To my surprise, the thought came as a complete relief.
And yet, I shared my thoughts with no one as we prepared to leave the ship, knowing deep down that the Neverlander’s ascension would have to wait. That my momentary authority, however dubious, had to suffice for the time being; once James was ready to take over and felt he’d earned the role, I’d step down. But, until then, we had immediate problems to solve.
Like not dying of starvation or getting eaten by cannibals.
24
The six of us split up shortly after using a pinch of Tinkerbell’s dust to get us over the cliffs, sparing only a few brief minutes to secure ropes we’d found among the rigging to serviceable trees. We’d spent about the same amount of time saying our goodbyes, after which I reminded everyone of their roles, impressing upon them once more the need for stealth.
“Remember,” I’d said, “we’re lookin’ for food, water, and anythin’ we might use to move the ship. Levers, pulleys, ye name it. If ye can’t move it, make a note of where ye saw it, and we’ll come back.”
“Did she say ‘bully’?” James had asked.
“A leaver?” This from Tinkerbell.
“My, how the education standards have fallen since my day.” Narcissus had said with a pat on James’ shoulder, his amusement palpable. “Don’t worry, Helen will explain it to you on the way. Come on, lightning bug. Work to do.”
Perhaps an hour later, Tiger Lily and I ended up creeping inland under the cover of darkness, my face coated in the same black varnish as her own—though admittedly I’d asked for a less garish pattern than the skull mask she’d gone for. Not everyone can pull off the Day of the Dead look. The island of cannibals was surprisingly quiet and eerily still, remarkably devoid of the wildlife I’d have expected to find. Of course, maybe that was for the best. Giant man-eating boulder-throwers were bad enough without running into any equally large, equally carnivorous animal counterparts.
We moved slowly beneath the light of the moon overhead, though I found the pale glow more than enough to see by; the night seemed inexplicably bright, like a television screen turned to its highest setting, the deepest shadows only the slightest shade of grey. Indeed, as we slipped from one copse of trees to the next, working our way across the landscape, I was surprised to find it was I who had the surer footing. And I wasn’t the only one.
“You move like you’ve been here before,” Tiger Lily commented, speaking for the first time since we’d left the others behind.
“I t’ink me eyes got an upgrade, that’s all.” I held a hand up, displaying three fingers. “Can ye see how many fingers I’m holdin’ up?”
Tiger Lily squinted. “Three.”
“How about those weird shapes over there, to our left? D’ye see those?”
“No.”
I pointed for clarification, but Tiger Lily still struggled to make out the bizarre silhouettes poking up from the opposing hillside; she shook her head, expression troubled. I reached out, squeezed her arm, and adjusted our trajectory. To get there, we’d have to pass through a tree-filled valley and emerge on the other side, which meant we’d have cover, but would also be exposed if anyone or anything called the valley home. Luckily, we’d already found a fresh water source not far from the beach—a frigid stream that trickled down from the north. Provided we found a few serviceable containers, at the very least we weren’t going to die of thirst.
“Alright, keep your senses sharp. We’ll see what’s over there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be food. But if it’s nothin’, we’ll go a little further, then head back.” I waited for her to respond, but the Neverlander simply fell in step behind me, trailing like a shadow. “Listen, I know you’re worried about James, but I’m sure he’s fine.”
“I am not worried about him.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Something is in the air, here. I came expecting to smell death. Meat. Blood. But this island does not feel like such a place. The air is clean. The forests untouched. It reminds me of our home as it was before the Manlings came.”
“Before Peter Pan, ye mean?”
Tiger Lily scoffed. “Peter was never a Manling. He was something else, a child with his hands in two worlds, taking what he desired from both. When he wanted playmates, he ral
lied Tinkerbell and his Lost Boys. When he wanted an ally, he called me. When he wanted a fight, he picked one with Hook. And when he finally wanted love, he found that, too.” Tiger Lily’s voice was tinged with bitterness, but I could tell it was an old wound, scabbed over. “Do you know why I’m not worried about James? It’s because he does not take what he wants, but gives.”
“How d’ye mean?”
“Have you not seen it for yourself, yet?”
I paused beside a tree trunk, pressed flush against the bark, eyes scouring the darkness for movement besides our own. Nothing. “Noticed what, exactly?”
“The way he…Look!” Tiger Lily hissed, pointing at the hillside I’d indicated earlier, just visible beyond the tree line. There, the silhouette of a figure emerged, too distant for me to make out. But I could tell it was huge. Not quite a giant, in truth; I’d met a frost giant as well as a Norse goddess, both of whom would have dwarfed this thing. Still, it was larger than any man or woman I’d ever met, closer to nine feet than eight.
“Good eye,” I replied. “Come on, let’s get a closer look and see what it’s doin’.”
A dagger of carved bone I hadn’t seen before flashed in Tiger Lily’s hand.
“Don’t attack unless there’s no other option,” I insisted. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, and we don’t know how many of ‘em there are.”
“I’ve played this game before.”
Tiger Lily’s painted face betrayed none of her emotions, but I recognized the cool detachment of a killer in her words, in the set of her shoulders. How many pirates had she killed on Peter’s watch? How many others who’d stood against her tribe? And what about me? My hands were so soaked in blood they could have named a ruby red nail polish after me. And yet, here I was, counseling her to rein it in—the irony was almost enough to make me laugh.
“Fair enough,” I said, at last.
We pressed onward, ducking from tree to tree until we made it to the base of the valley. Here, I paused. The slope was bare, which meant we’d have no cover to speak of; if the giant had even modestly good night vision and looked down at any point, we’d be busted. It was a risk—one I’d have urged the others not to take. But we needed food. Real food. Already my stomach was aching from the lack of it; I’d survived our stay in the gingerbread house by plucking candy from the wall whenever hunger struck, riding roller coaster sugar highs and lows. On this journey, however, I suspected my body would need something more sustainable. Vegetables. Protein. Sustenance. If we couldn’t find any on our own, then perhaps the giant would lead us to some.
Preferably nothing man-made, of course.
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and began ascending the hillside. We moved quickly, using our hands as well as our feet so we could stay as low as possible; Tiger Lily looked like a four-legged wolf running uphill in all her animal skins. The giant’s silhouette was no longer visible from this angle, so I skirted to the left, hoping to pop up out of its line of sight. But Tiger Lily stopped me before I could peek over the edge, latching onto my arm and drawing me flat to the earth with enough strength to drive the air from my lungs.
“What the hell was that for?” I whispered, glaring at the Neverlander.
“The smell. It’s different.”
I scented the air, trying to discern what had changed. Tiger Lily was right, there was an odd aroma on the wind. But it wasn’t an unpleasant smell. On the contrary, the peculiar odor made my mouth water. There was a floral, earthy quality to it that reminded me of the produce section in a grocery store. Like sticking your nose up against the rind of a watermelon. I exchanged puzzled glances with Tiger Lily, shrugged, and began crawling forward the last few yards. What we found when we got to the top, however, explained the smell but left me with a whole host of new questions. Tiger Lily nudged me, eyes so wide with surprise that the skull overlaying her face went from terrifying to comical.
“What is this doing here?” she whispered.
“I...have no idea.”
And so the two of us turned back, our bodies pressed flat against the earth, and continued staring at what could only be described as a garden. Except, of course, it was unlike any garden I’d ever seen; fruit trees as tall as sycamores had been planted in neat rows, their branches laden with everything from volleyball-sized apples to basketball-sized oranges. Between the trees, asparagus rose out of the ground like corn stalks, each easily as tall as a man. Pumpkins big enough to carry princesses to balls sat below dozens of cucumbers that could have doubled as billy clubs. Broccoli rose out of the ground like Bonsai trees. Ripe strawberries that reminded me of human hearts spilled out from their planters, left to dangle in the wind.
And of course, perhaps even more eye-catching, were the giants themselves; there were at least six of them from what I could tell, each remarkably well-formed and proportional from the tops of their heads to the bottoms of their feet. And I knew that for a fact because each of them milled about the garden naked as the day they were born, or were hatched, or were molded from sea foam and spit. In any case, it took me a minute or two to look past their nudity and realize that each of the approximately ten-feet-tall Leastrogynians wielded a gardening utensil of some sort. Were they all here cultivating their crops in the middle of the night, in the freaking dark, for a reason? Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to solve that mystery; I felt a presence emerge from behind a moment before I heard the all-too-familiar cadence of a masculine chuckle.
As one, Tiger Lily and I rolled to our backs, only to find an obscenely large, remarkably well-endowed giant looming over us, his beefy arms folded across a hairy, barrel-like chest. Amusement glinted in his eyes, and a toothy smile appeared within the maw of his bushy beard as he spread those arms wide.
“Well, well, looks like we’ve found some rats in our garden.”
25
Tiger Lily and I, operating purely on instinct, made to break away in two opposite directions only to be brought up short by two more nude Laestrygonians appearing from each side of the hill. Both female, this time. It seemed we’d walked right into an ambush—with extra emphasis on the bush. But how the hell had they known we were coming? Had they spotted us earlier and waited to spring their trap, or had we given ourselves away when we’d left the forest for the hillside? Sadly, I knew it didn’t matter; our only priority right now was to make a break for it and pray we could outrun the bare-skinned bastards.
I whirled, hoping to see Tiger Lily doing the same, but instead saw that she'd been caught in a net fashioned from vines tossed by one of the gardeners; she struggled, using that dagger of hers to try and slice her way out, but the giants were closing in too fast. Another net appeared in the periphery of my vision, arcing towards me, but I was able to avoid it by diving headlong to my right. I scrambled back to my feet, trying to think past my throbbing pulse, to predict where the next strike would come from.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Behind me. I ducked and rolled just in time to see a pair of tanned, finely muscled arms sweep the air where my upper body had been; the giantess who’d cut off my escape route must have closed the distance—at least a dozen yards—while I’d been focused on Tiger Lily, apparently hoping to snatch me up from behind. Which meant she was fast, maybe even as fast as I was.
The Laestrygonian recovered quickly, laughing as she lunged for me a second time. She moved well, her reflexes far quicker than I would have imagined given her size and weight. Weren’t there supposed to be laws against that? Like, you know, mass and acceleration and all that Newtonian shit? Fortunately, she wasn’t the only one whose abilities defied reason; I danced out of reach using my own improbable speed, arms pinwheeling to keep from tumbling backwards down the slope.
Unfortunately, it seemed that not only had the laws of physics betrayed me, but time was no longer on my side, either; two of the gardeners came for me, charging from both sides with their arms thrown wide as if planning to tackle me. Had they been my height, they’d l
ikely have gone for my legs. But as it was, to evade them all I had to do was crouch. The two giants collided with one another and careened past, rolling down the hillside in a jumble of naked limbs. Sadly, the momentary victory was short lived; the giantess, clearly more agile than the third-string linebackers had been, lunged for me once more.
Except this time she caught me, crushing me to her ample chest with a cry of triumph. I struggled, of course, but found it difficult to breathe, let alone escape. It wasn’t simply her strength, but my lack of leverage; she held me a foot off the ground, which meant no matter how hard I kicked and screamed, I was well and truly stuck. Damn it all. After I’d gone and warned everyone to stay out of trouble, after preaching caution at all costs, I’d gone and gotten myself and Tiger Lily captured. All because I’d been too damn confident, because I’d underestimated our enemies.
“You dodged well, little one,” the giantess said as she adjusted her grip, raising me to eye level. I took the opportunity to take in a deep breath, fighting back the tunnel vision that had been slowly creeping in. For a moment, she and I looked at one another eye-to-eye. She was an arresting creature, big-boned and broad-featured enough to be considered borderline masculine—the bulge of her cheeks a little sharper, the cut of her jaw a little squarer than most women could pull off. Still, it was an attractive face.
It was a shame I had to break it.
I reared back and fired my forehead into the Laestrygonian’s face with all the force I could muster. Given the angle and my lack of mobility, it wasn’t enough to knock her out, but it was enough to loosen her grip; I broke free as she stumbled back, clutching at the right side of her face. My own head pounded from the blow, but my blood was up, my adrenaline pumping too hard for me to care. In that instance, my thoughts turned animalistic, primitive. Tiger Lily. Escape. Those were the only two things I cared about, the only goals that mattered. I took a step back, preparing to launch myself past the giantess, tear the net off Tiger Lily, and run for all I was worth.
Sea Breeze: Phantom Queen Book 8 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries) Page 14