Connor looked at his comrades. Each extended his right arm, and the three touched hands in a fist.
“One for all and all for one!”
“Okay,” called Bart. “We’re coming.”
Connor slipped on his mask and duck-dived into the water. As he hit the surface, he looked back up to see Jez jumping down to join him. But then he noticed Flynn approaching Bart. He said something Connor couldn’t hear.
Bart called down to him, “I’m just gonna help Flynn with the mainsail. You guys start without me. I’ll follow you in a jiffy.”
Connor gave him the thumbs-up. Suddenly, a shaft of sunlight fell on a circle of water in front of him. To his amazement, he could see Grace’s face. Her eyes were fixed intently upon him as she spoke.
Danger. Underwater.
This was getting silly. It wasn’t Grace. It couldn’t be. It was just his nerves getting the better of him. He’d be fine. He knew it. João, Loic, and Musimu were there to help him. There was nothing to fear. He had to keep calm. Once more, he repeated the breaths in and out.
His flippers disturbed the surface of the water and the image of Grace disappeared. Connor shook his head to clear it, then spat into his mask and wiped it clean. He slipped it over his face and then dove down into the water, finding the top of the weighted line.
“That’s it, Connor,” came João’s reassuring voice. “Take your time. Melt into the water.”
Connor no longer found it strange that he could hear João’s voice underwater. All he knew was that its tone was incredibly calming. He found himself easing into a natural rhythm. He reached his arms along the rope, heading down. As his body relaxed, everything felt different. He could feel the slow but regular thud of his heart and every muscle—from the top of his head down to his toes—as if he were truly at one with the water. Perhaps this was something close to what it felt like to be a fishtail.
“Well done!” said João encouragingly at his side. “If you want to let go of the line now, you can.”
Connor looked at his hands on the rope, just above the weight. There was no time to waste. He released his hands and swam a few strokes. João drew up alongside him. “Very good,” he said. “Your lung capacity is unusually strong.”
They must be deeper than fifty feet now. The water was bluer than ever. A stingray was serenely floating just ahead of Connor’s nose.
“Stay calm,” said João. “She won’t do you any harm. You belong here now, just as much as she does.”
Together, they observed the rare grace of the stingray. Connor felt as if he’d been granted access to a new world. It was amazing to think that he’d spent all these weeks above the surface of this very ocean. Up there was only half the story.
Suddenly, he felt a pressure in his lungs. He frowned. He didn’t want this to end. Not yet. Instantly, João was at his side. “It’s okay, Connor. It’s nothing to worry about.”
That’s easy for you to say, thought Connor. His head was pulsing with warning signals.
“Just another few feet,” urged João. “You can do it! You’re nearly at the ocean floor.”
Connor hesitated. They said that the body was sometimes stronger than the mind gave it credit for.
“Concentrate on your breath,” João said in his soothing tones. “Think how good you’ll feel when you reach the bottom!”
Connor saw a bright yellow school of clown fish sweep past him. He couldn’t stop now. He reached down the line, pulling himself deeper.
“That’s it, Connor,” said João encouragingly. “Just another couple of feet.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Connor saw that Loic had come to join them. Was everything okay? Shouldn’t Loic be with Jez? Or had Jez gone back up already? Perhaps his lung capacity wasn’t as strong as Connor’s.
“It’s all right,” João said, sensing his anxiety. “Everything’s fine, Connor. Don’t stop now!”
But Connor suddenly sensed that everything was not fine. Then he saw Jez—his eyes shut, his body limp—being carried still deeper by Musimu. As he registered the sight, Connor felt hands firmly grip him on either side, forcing him down.
“Come on, Connor,” said João in the same steady voice. “Do you want to go deep…or do you want to go dead deep?”
Suddenly Connor saw the ocean floor. But any sense of achievement he might have felt was overcome by a cold flood of fear. The fishtails hadn’t brought him and Jez down here to perfect their dive technique—they had brought them here to remove any obstacles to Bart staying on The Lorelei. They had brought them here to kill them! Did they really need a new captain that badly?
But the plan was fatally flawed. Bart wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t stay with Kally if he knew the fishtails had murdered his best friends. Only it wouldn’t seem like murder, would it? It would just be a terrible accident. Connor could imagine how convincingly João would break the news—his sad eyes wet with tears as he told how, in spite of his and Loic’s pleas, Connor and Jez had overstretched themselves.…
Connor’s heart started to race—the very last thing he could afford at this point. He felt the pressure of João’s and Loic’s hands on his shoulders. Ahead of him, on the ocean floor, lay an ominous sight—a skeleton, a circle of chains, and, in the dead mariner’s hands, a rusting sword.
“Look!” João said with a laugh. “You’re not the first pirate to reach the ocean floor!”
Connor received the words with horror, finally realizing the depths of João’s betrayal.
“It didn’t have to end like this,” João said, as though reading Connor’s thoughts. “You could have just let him go. You don’t need another pirate. But we won’t survive without another captain.”
So you’re going to kill for one? Connor wanted to speak, but opening his mouth now would only speed up his death. Instead, he just shook his head slowly, hoping that João could see the hate in his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” said João. “I’m only doing my best for my crewmates. Just like you would for yours.” He smiled. “One for all—”
“And all for one!” added Loic. The two fishtails chuckled. It was a horrible sound.
Connor’s eyes were half-closed now. He had managed to slow his breath, in spite of his terror, but there was a limit to how long he could survive.
“He’s losing his air,” Loic said. “Leave him. The job is done. We have our new captain.”
“It’s a shame, really.” Connor heard João’s receding voice. “He was kind of a fun guy. The other one, too. And it was good to have some decent opposition at cards.”
As Connor’s eyes embraced the darkness, he felt his back bump against the seabed. Suddenly it was deadly quiet. The fishtails had swum off, perhaps to check on Jez. Connor thought of his buddy. Was Jez hanging in there, or had he succumbed to the worst already? Connor tried to shut out the fear for a moment.
Not for the first time in his life, he found himself facing death underwater. Cheng Li, the pirate who’d saved him from drowning before, had told him it was a gentle way to die, but he didn’t plan on sticking around to find out whether she was right. Thinking about Cheng Li gave him an extra surge of energy. She was a fighter—she wouldn’t give up. Not even under these circumstances. He could imagine her talking to him now: Did I rescue you, boy, only to have you drown once more, at the hands of mermaids?
He opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with the skeletal remains of the dead pirate. His eyes fell to the rusting sword held loosely within the skeleton’s fingers. I’ll just borrow that, he said to himself, reaching out for the hilt.
Grabbing it from the skeleton’s clutches was easy—as if the dead sailor were lending him a hand from beyond the grave. Now the hard work began. Moving the sword through the water was far from easy. It took an extreme effort, and Connor knew that he had little strength left. The only possible way to get back to the surface alive was to conserve his energy, to keep hold of his breath for as long as he could.
With a grim sense of deter
mination he began swimming, the sword gripped tightly in his right hand.
Loic stopped his ascent and turned to watch Connor struggle up from the sea floor.
“He’s certainly got stamina,” Connor heard João say.
João’s sneering tone gave Connor even more determination. The fishtails were swimming back toward him now, but they were in for a surprise. As Loic homed in on him, Connor pulled the immense weight of the sword through the water.
But he was too slow. Loic laughed and easily swerved out of danger. “Let the pirate swim with his rusty sword,” he sneered. “It’ll sink him before it saves him.”
Connor wanted to cry out in frustration. He had no fight left, and almost no breath. With or without the sword, he’d never make it. He was going to die. Here, in this pirate’s graveyard. He thought of Grace. She’d tried to warn him, and he hadn’t listened. Now he’d never see her again.
Suddenly the waters around him bubbled, then revealed the shape of another diver. Slowly, a familiar face came into focus. It was Bart! He had come to rescue Connor!
With an encouraging smile, Bart grabbed the sword from Connor’s hands. He propelled himself forward fast, lifted the sword, and sliced through João’s tail.
There was an ear-piercing scream. Then the waters filled with dark blood. And then, all hell broke loose.
Chapter Eleven
End Of
At João’s anguished cries, the other fishtails swam to his aid. The sword had sliced through the tip of his tail and he was rapidly losing a terrible amount of blood. It flooded the water like red smoke.
Bart grabbed Connor and, letting the bloodied sword drop to the ocean floor, began to swim powerfully up, past the fishtails and into clearer water.
Beneath him, the sword floated slowly back into the hands of the skeleton pirate.
The fishtails circled around João as his truncated tail flapped out of control. Its trail of blood acted as a clarion call to a trio of hammerhead sharks swimming close by. Scenting a kill, they swam into the heart of the red mist, their hunger fully roused.
Some of the fishtails fled to the surface at once, but Loic and Musimu stayed on, holding their bleeding comrade between them, frozen with indecision.
The sharks closed in fast, their teeth sharp and merciless. They didn’t stop to consider the unusual shapes of the fish they attacked. Loic and Musimu could only save themselves. At last, they released João’s limp body to the rapacious jaws.
Above them, Bart swam strongly toward the surface, wondering how much time he had before Connor’s breath finally gave out. Jez was surely already dead. He couldn’t dwell on this thought. Instead, he focused solely on his and Connor’s survival and powered on. His own air supply was weakening, but he wouldn’t give up. He owed his buddies.
Below him, the sharks had made light work of their first prey. Now they circled Loic and Musimu thoughtfully, as a new predator swam forward to join them. Nature has a hierarchy and, just as hagfish give way to sharks, so the hammerheads gave way to the newcomer.
Sidorio swam closer, registering the confusion in Loic and Musimu’s eyes as he approached. He knew what they were thinking: How could a man come to be here? And why did the sharks not attack him? But, like them, Sidorio was neither man nor fish. As they would find out soon enough.
The waters were thick with João’s blood now. The scent of it overcame Sidorio and, before the fishtails’ horrified eyes, he changed. His pupils became pits of fire, no remnant of humanity left in them. And when he opened his mouth, his two gold fangs seemed as alarming as a whole row of shark’s teeth.
There was no possibility of escape.
Bart heard the distant screams as his head finally broke the surface and he felt the breeze on his face. He pulled Connor, who was still unconscious, up alongside him. Bart had to get him back onto the boat. Bart looked up toward The Lorelei. Two people were staring down at him.
“Help us up!” Bart rasped, barely able to speak.
Neither Kally nor Flynn moved. It was as if they hadn’t heard him.
“Come ON!” Bart pleaded. “João is dead; Loic and Musimu, too. There are sharks down there. Help us up!”
Still Kally and Flynn remained motionless.
“Please!” Bart cried. “Connor’s unconscious and I can’t find Jez. Please! I was prepared to give up everything for you. I still could. If you have any humanity at all, please let us up onto the boat.”
Even at this, Kally and Flynn did nothing. Perhaps they were too shocked by what had happened. Perhaps he was simply no longer of use to them.
“Turn around.” The voice was only a whisper, but Bart turned. He found that a small boat had drawn up behind him.
A pair of gloved hands reached out to him. Bart drew on all his strength as he lifted Connor forward. The hands helped pull Connor out of the water and into the small dinghy. Bart made the mistake of looking down and saw a spiral of blood rising up through the water. He felt a fin brush past his feet…but then the hands reached out once more, and at last he, too, was safely inside the boat.
Bart looked up gratefully toward his savior, but the face was completely hidden by a dark mask.
“You are tired, friend,” came the whisper again. “You fought so well, but now you must rest.”
“Who are you?” Bart asked. He did feel incredibly tired, and his eyelids were already half-closed.
His rescuer did not reply; he simply turned and took up the oars. As he did so, Bart spotted another passenger by his feet.
“Jez!” he exclaimed.
“He is sleeping now,” said the mysterious ferryman. “So is Connor. And now so, too, must you. We’ll meet again in time, Bart. I owe you a debt of thanks.”
How does he know our names? Bart thought, searching the mask for clues. But there was nothing. No longer able to stave off the deep tiredness, he slumped back against the side of the boat and closed his eyes. He fell instantly asleep.
“Safe now,” said the masked boatman as he steered the boat swiftly away from Hell Bay.
Chapter Twelve
Surfacing
Connor opened his eyes and found himself staring up into the blinding lights of Calle del Marinero.
He was lying on the deck of the small lightboat. His head felt foggy and, as he twisted to his side and found Bart and Jez lying beside him, a sharp pain seared through his skull. His groans woke the others.
“Where are we?” Bart asked, completely disoriented.
“Calle del Marinero,” said Connor.
“What day is it?” asked Jez.
“Never mind that,” said Bart. “Why are we only wearing underwear? Where have all our clothes gone?”
It was a good question, but as hard as he tried to think back, Connor couldn’t remember.
Bart’s face suddenly turned a vivid shade of green. “I think I’m going to throw up now,” he said quite calmly, leaning over the side of the boat.
Connor grinned and shook his head. “Ouch!”
“That’s better!” said Bart, wiping his mouth clean.
“Charming,” said Jez.
Connor managed to heave himself up into a sitting position. As he did so, he saw that, in the distance, a familiar ship was approaching the floating city. “It’s The Diablo,” Connor said. “They’ve come to pick us up!”
“Already?” said Bart.
“Must be Sunday night, then,” said Jez.
“I guess so,” said Connor. “Do either of you remember exactly how we spent our shore leave?”
Jez shook his head. Bart looked equally dumbstruck. Then he broke into a smile. “That must have been some shore leave, eh? For us to be half-naked and not remember a thing!”
“I guess,” Connor said. Suddenly, he noticed something. “Look,” he said with a smile. “I got a tattoo.” He held out the inside of his forearm. There was a picture of three cutlasses, their hilts intertwined. Beneath the artwork, his skin was red and tender, but that aside, it looked good!
&n
bsp; Bart and Jez extended their own arms.
“Hey,” said Bart. “Look, we all got one!”
“They’re exactly the same!” said Jez, examining his forearm.
“Well, almost exactly,” Connor said. “Look, Bart’s got an extra part on his. Just below the swords.”
The others looked more closely.
“He’s right,” said Bart. “What is that?”
“It’s a letter,” Jez said. “The letter K.”
Bart looked at it, puzzled. “Why K?”
Jez shook his head. “Beats me!”
“I don’t know, either,” Connor said. It was a mystery. “It’s a cool tattoo, though, isn’t it?”
Jez grinned. “It’s a souvenir of the Three Buccaneers’ first shore leave together!”
“Let’s hope we remember more of the next one, eh?” said Bart. “By the way, does anyone else’s head feel like it’s being split open like a clam?”
“Yes!” cried Jez and Connor simultaneously.
“One for all…” said Bart softly.
“And all for one!” answered the others in little more than a whisper.
The Diablo had come into its mooring just a little farther out in the bay. It would be easier to steer the lightboat toward it than for the larger ship to come closer into the harbor.
Bart unfastened the ropes tying the small boat to its mooring and cast them off. Connor took up the tiller once more. As he turned to take a last look at Calle del Marinero, the pain in his head suddenly intensified. He shut his eyes, just for a second. In that moment, a strange jumble of images raced through his mind.
A dingy bar. Two hands locked together. Wheels. A beautiful ship. Playing cards. Grace’s face. Danger. Underwater. The face of a girl. The flap of a tail. Magic. Underwater. A stingray. A school of yellow fish. And then…darkness.
Connor opened his eyes again, trying to hold on to the images but unable to. They were replaced by Bart’s grin.
“Here’s a little tip for you, buddy. You might find it easier to steer a straight course with your eyes open.” Bart shrugged. “Just a thought.”
Vampirates 1.5:Dead Deep Page 5