While the title of Jack Frost came with its fair share of perks, I doubted Ryan’s predecessor had ever been capable of anything like this. The former Jack Frost had needed all sorts of rituals to invoke his will, and yet there was nothing like that here. No sacrifice. No ceremony. Merely a display of raw power, of force. To kill the son of a god, to send him squealing to the floor, had seemingly taken nothing; Ryan stood as he always had, relaxed and poised. Framed as it was by the light of his own skin, I had to admit his face was as handsome as any man I’d ever met, blue or not. In fact, with his otherworldly colouring, he might as well have been an incubus—a deviant creature who invades dreams, lavishing others with his attention, with his touch, feeding off their lust. And yet, I sensed there was nothing like passion in him anymore—that his power lay within a hatred so cool it burned. It was there in the curve of his lips, in the sneer of contempt he wore, the way his eyes tracked everything and nothing.
“It won’t budge,” Mabel whined. She plowed her hands into the folds of Polyphemus’ face, burrowing until even her forearms vanished with a wet, slurping sound. She gritted her teeth and strained, trying to draw out the massive eye which sat in the middle of the Cyclops’ forehead. Only it wasn’t an eye—not one like I’d ever seen, anyway. Metal gleamed where Ryan’s light touched the gold cylinder, its surface crossed with unfamiliar glyphs.
“Come away, I’ll do it.” Ryan stepped forward. “Without it, we’ll never be able to navigate this wretched realm.”
“But the Doctor said you shouldn’t touch—”
“Enough. That madman doesn’t control me. Move.”
Mabel yanked her arms free, accompanied by an audible pop that made me want to gag. The smell of pus and sharper, nastier odors followed her as she scrambled off Polyphemus, inadvertently gouging the Cyclops’ ruined throat in the process. She fell to the far side, out of sight, with a muffled groan. Ryan turned his back to me completely, pinching his nose to block out the stench. He seemed to be studying the Cyclops, oblivious to anything but his prize. I flinched, realizing this might be my best chance.
I took one deep breath, then rushed into the opening with all the obscene speed I’d regained, swinging the blunt end of my spear towards the back of Ryan’s head with every ounce of strength I had, praying it wouldn’t cave his head in. He’d barely begun to turn when the wood caught him; his head whipped sideways as he fell to the ground, his body limp, navy blue blood trickling from his scalp. Ryan’s light died, and Polyphemus’ blood melted beneath my feet.
“Jack! Jack, where are you?” Mabel called, using Ryan’s new title. I could hear her struggling to work her way around the head of the fallen giant in the dark. “Ryan?” she asked at last, fear and uncertainty mingling in her voice. “Ryan, are you there?”
I waited for the would-be assassin to come round, waited for her to notice me standing over Ryan’s body. Not so long ago, she’d had me dead to rights in a jail cell, prepared to kill me out of jealousy and hate. Part of me wanted to lash out at her, to drive the end of my spear through her chest and pin her against the wall to rot. But I didn’t. Instead, I jabbed with my spear the instant she stepped within range, planting the butt end in her gut with enough force to send her to her knees, wheezing.
“Hello, Mabel.”
The Faeling looked up, squinting, her face a rictus of pain. The pointed ears which emerged from her lank blonde hair were scabbed, and her skin was sallow. She looked malnourished, somehow. Sick. Indeed, it reminded me of Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily, albeit far worse. Was this the fate of all the Faelings who dared sail the Eighth Sea? One glance at Ryan’s immaculate face, however, made me think otherwise. Was it possible only the weaker, the less powerful, felt its effects? Or perhaps it was only a matter of time before he ended up like the others. But, then, what about me?
“Who is that? Who’s there?” Mabel croaked.
“I’d say an old friend, but we weren't that close, were we Mabel?” I pressed the tip of the spear to the hollow of her throat, let her feel its iron against her flesh. “Not unless ye count that time ye tried to knife me in the jail cell.”
“It’s you! But—but how?”
“You’ll need to be more specific with your answers than ye have been with your questions, I’m afraid.” I nicked her, just enough to see her bleed, to watch her wince in pain as the iron tip sliced through her Faeling flesh. “What are you and Ryan doin’ here? No lies, or I’ll shove this spear through each and every appendage ye possess.”
But what came out of Mabel’s mouth was neither dismissive nor vague, as I’d expected. Instead, it was a plea. Pitiful and pathetic, she spoke like someone who’d been accosted by a savior, not an enemy; she crawled forward through the pool of blood, closing the distance between us before I could step back.
“Please! Please,” she begged, “you have to take me with you. Get me away from this place. Away from him.” Mabel snatched my spear and held it to her own throat. Her fingers had withered to little but bones covered by a thin coat of skin, the veins beneath floating to the surface like worms after a rainstorm. “Or, if you won’t, then kill me. End it, please.”
“End it?” I asked, disturbed by the Faeling’s uncharacteristic behavior. “Are ye mad?”
Mabel shook her head so violently I had to yank my spear back to keep her from slicing open her own throat. She fell to the floor on all fours, panting like a dog. Indeed, there was something feral about her I hadn’t noticed before—a manic gleam to her eyes that spoke of unimaginable suffering. The Faeling I’d hoped to pry information from began hyperventilating, drawing in ragged breaths.
“Please, please don’t leave me with him...I’ll do whatever you want, just...don’t...” Mabel drifted off, then slumped to the floor, casting ripples in the crimson pool that lapped against Ryan’s slack face. I stared down at the Faeling who’d tried to kill me, who’d sent me hurtling towards the Otherworld, and felt something I’d never expected to feel: a stab of pity. It wasn’t just the plea, but the fact that there had been nothing left of Mabel in that pleading mess—nothing of the malevolent, plotting creature I’d known.
“What did ye do to her?” I whispered, staring down at Ryan. But he was in no state to answer, and I wanted to keep it that way. What I needed to do now, I decided, was to get him out of here. I needed to tie him up, to restrain his powers somehow. Only then would we be able to talk. I glanced back down at Mabel, then at the broken Polyphemus, a feeling of foreboding tugging at my gut at the thought of trying to negotiate with someone who was capable of doing what he’d done to the Cyclops and the Faeling who’d loved him.
Nonetheless, I snatched Ryan from the floor and threw him haphazardly over one shoulder. No longer forced to resort to stealth, I sprinted back the way I’d come, giving my eyes barely enough time to adjust to the burgeoning light ahead. Shadows moved outside the mouth of the cave, their silhouettes flitting across like insects. I slowed, realizing there were far too many, too oddly shaped, to belong to James and the Laestorgynians. It was only then, after the clatter of my own echoing footsteps died away, that I could make out the sounds of fighting.
I quickly took off again, bursting out onto the sand with my spear leveled, Ryan still perched over my shoulder. At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at: naked giants—those Laestrygonians who’d crewed the Crow Boat as well as Obelius—appeared to be squaring off against smaller, far less nimble opponents. Covered head to toe in shades of blue trimmed in white, the assailants were tall and lithe, their skin so pale it seemed unpigmented, their eyes pink and larger than they should have been. Albinos, perhaps? Some other race indigenous to the Titan Realm? I had no idea. They lumbered among the giants, welding all manners of weapons, most of which were stained with rust and covered in barnacles. They did not howl as they fell, but collapsed in silence, their yellow blood staining the sands like piss. And yet, somehow, the Laestrygonians were losing; as I watched, one of the Vegiants fell shielding Obelius, sliced at the knees, his c
ry silenced by the descent of a blood-soaked hatchet.
The Queen’s greatest warrior hurried to the side of his fallen comrade, wielding a sword in one hand and a javelin in the other. He chucked the javelin with a side-arm throw that took one attacker through the throat, then decapitated another with his sword. And yet, they kept coming, lurching inexorably forward.
“Quinn!” James shouted, slipping out from between the rocks to stumble to my side, his face ashen, a shallow gash seeping red across his chest.
“What’s goin’ on?” I asked, whirling. “Where did these bastards come from?”
“They came on that ship!” James pointed to a dark-hulled monstrosity that dwarfed our own, anchored far enough out to sea that I hadn’t noticed after emerging from the cave. A Man-of-War, I believe they called such ships. The vessel had a vaguely Spanish look to it, though the flagpole was bare. And yet, I knew who it belonged to immediately; the sails were dyed blue and bore a single symbol.
A freaking snowflake.
I tossed Ryan to the sand, then drew him up by his hair, leveling the point of my spear so close to his throat that Mabel’s blood stained his neck. But no one seemed to care; the attackers continued their awkward assault as though nothing else mattered. Not even the fate of their Captain—as I presumed Ryan to be.
“That’s enough!” I screamed, pouring my frustration and anger into my voice. Power—raw and crackling—rode the air. Power I didn’t even know I had. Green flames licked the edges of my spear, and my voice reverberated along the shore as though I’d used a megaphone. The pale-skinned bastards lowered their weapons immediately, followed in short order by the clearly exhausted Laestrygonians. All but Obelius, who hurried up to us with two blades in either hand.
“Where’s Polyphemus?” he demanded.
“Dead,” I replied, still eyeing the creatures who’d attacked the Crow Boat’s crew. Ryan’s men, I gathered, if men they could be called.
“Really? Tell me—”
“Not now. I’ll explain later.”
Obelius’ face darkened. He reached for me, taking half my jacket in his hand, the leather whining beneath his fierce grip. “You’ll explain now, mortal.”
I glanced down at that hand, incensed that the moron was thinking only of himself and his vendetta in this moment, what with so many of his own people under seige. I looked up, meeting his eyes. I let him see in my face what I thought of his callous disregard, of his offensive touch.
“Get your hand off me.”
Obelius jerked back with a yelp of pain, steam hissing from his fingertips. Green flames, again. Was this more of my mother’s power? Or something else? I couldn’t say and didn’t have time to dwell on it. And so, rather than waste any more time arguing with the Laestrygonian, I turned my attention to the task at hand.
“I have your Captain,” I said. “He is a prisoner, now. Mine. So, if ye don’t want him dead, you’ll throw down your weapons and get on your knees.”
Ryan’s men didn’t so much as fidget. They simply stared at me with their sickly, bloodshot eyes. There was something wrong with them, I realized. Something beyond their unusual pallor and stiff, robotic movements. After a few heartbeats of silence, I realized what it was: they weren’t breathing. Dead men. I was looking at dead men. The horror of it must have flitted across my face, because in that moment another voice cried out, this one from a small skiff moored not far from the scenes of the fight.
“Do you like them?”
The voice belonged to a frail, reedy man with a weak chin who sat on the lip of the skiff, cleaning his spectacles. He had wild, untamed hair and sported a thick, curling mustache that hid most of his face. “I made them myself, you see. I’ve done much better work in the past, naturally. But one does what one can with limited resources.” The man donned his glasses and bowed his head, fingers steepled to support that wobbly chin. “Dr. Victor Frankenstein, at your service.”
All I could do was gape. Doctor Victor Frankenstein—engineer of the horror which had nearly killed me beneath the earth outside Salem, the mad doctor who had created one of the world’s most terrifying monsters—was sitting but a few dozen yards away. I shook my head, unwilling to believe it. I mean, I’d known he’d worked with Ryan in the past, of course, but I had no idea the doctor had joined him on this endeavor. What the hell was he after?
But it seemed there would be no time to get my answers; Ryan, who must have woken at some point during the doctor’s speech, wrapped his hand around the shaft of my spear. Frost bled across its surface in an instant, and I jerked away to the sound of it shattering in two, leaving me with little more than a thin club in its place, the sharp end buried uselessly in the sand. After a word from Dr. Frankenstein, the dead men seemed equally revived; they raised their weapons as one to resume the fight. In seconds, chaos reigned as the recovered Laestrygonians roared, led by a charging Obelius. Ryan, mercifully, remained on the ground, clutching his wounded scalp.
“Quinn, we have to go!” James shouted, drawing me towards the shore. But my feet felt leaden, my mind muddled, my body exhausted. It was as if I’d run several miles in mere seconds, struck by a wave of fatigue unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Suddenly, I could hear Narcissus shouting, joining his voice to the Neverlander’s. Flee, return to the ship, he was screaming. The others, even Obelius, heard and began to disengage. I struggled to free myself from James, shaking him off my arm. Ryan was so close, I thought. If I could only get to him, I could clout him over the head once more and get the hell off this island with my old friend in tow. I just needed to find him, hit him with something. As I fought to shrug off James, I stared down at the shattered hunk of wood in my hand, unable to recall how it had gotten there.
A stronger grip took over, dragging me backwards, my heels digging furrows in the sand. I turned to find Obelius and another crew member pulling me into the boat. They launched me at James and Narcissus and began pushing the boat into open waters, fending off the dead men as they went. I saw one of the Vegiants take a blow from behind and slip beneath the waves, his blood smearing the frothing surf as it rushed towards the shore.
I stumbled to my feet a few moments later, intending to see what had become of Ryan, but Obelius thrust me back down. “They want you! Don’t give me an excuse to give you to them!”
“Me? Why?”
“That’s what they were saying,” James answered. “The blue one told them to get you. At any cost. Didn’t you hear him?”
I hadn’t. The blue one...was he talking about Ryan? I swiveled to study the shore, to find Ryan, but we were much further away than I thought we’d be; the mouth of the cave was dime-sized, the boulders on the shore little more than specks. Were we really moving that quickly? But how?
“What on Gaia’s green earth is going on?” Obelius bellowed, his voice laced with so much anger I instantly regretted lashing out at him earlier. “What were those things?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but one of the crew members interrupted before I could explain. The Laestrygonian pointed, shouting to warn us that we were being chased. We turned as one to watch the massive warship take to the sea with incredible swiftness, to marvel as it angled towards us like some dark behemoth, propelled by a wind that sent shivers racing up my spine.
“It will catch us,” Obelius said, his voice grim with certainty.
“Maybe. Then again, it might not.”
The entire crew turned to look at Narcissus. The Greek shrugged artfully, looking less concerned with the thought of his imminent doom than I’d ever have expected; he stroked his chin as though he were pondering some great mystery, a smirk tugging at his lips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, adrenaline chasing away the last vestiges of the mental fugue I’d experienced on the island.
“It means we have one other option, if we’re lucky. It all depends on how quickly this ship can move. And, of course, what you’re willing to risk,” he added, glancing sidelong at Obelius.
&nbs
p; Obelius started.
“You can’t mean—” he began.
“I’ve studied the maps, which means I know where the strait is.” Narcissus pointed off to our starboard side where two landmasses loomed, their cliffs separated by a narrow, almost imperceptible gap. “Their ship is too big to survive the passage. This one, on the other hand…”
“You’re insane.”
“What are ye two talkin’ about?” I demanded.
“He’s talking about Charybdis! The whirlpool. It will break this ship into a dozen pieces, and we’ll all drown.” Obelius shook his head, but I noticed him tracking the other ship in his peripheral. “It’s certain death, sailing that way.”
“Well, sure, unless of course you steer towards the other side.”
“And risk half my crew getting eaten by her?”
“Her?” James asked.
“Scylla,” the Greek replied on Obelius’ behalf, flashing his trademark smile. “The man-devouring monster who lives in the sea,” he sang, merrily, working his arms back and forth like a child doing a dance. I flinched, recognizing the name of the six-headed monster who reputedly devoured any unwary sailors who happened to pass within striking distance—a fate made more likely by the existence of a nearby whirlpool that very few ships could successfully navigate.
“I won’t—”
“Do it,” I insisted, grabbing the Laestrygonian’s forearm. He flinched at my touch, but didn’t shy away. “I only barely remember the legends, but if they catch us, it will be worse than anythin’ ye can imagine.”
Sea Breeze: Phantom Queen Book 8 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries) Page 20