by E. G. Foley
Then a delivery wagon with paddles rather than wheels came thundering down the street, harnessed to a team of four huge tuna. It came barreling straight at them, and, just in time, Jake shooed his friends out of the way.
They whooshed up onto the long boardwalk that flanked the street as the vehicle rocked to a halt outside the general store.
They proceeded down the boardwalk, since this gave them a better view into each of the saloons. Inside the Salty Dog, the piano music jangled over the fish ladies’ shrieks as two large gamblers started brawling. Jake peered in as they passed and saw many strange customers, but no one fitting Sapphira’s description of Davy Jones.
A little farther on, a hapless fellow suddenly came flying out of the swinging doors of the Lone Barnacle and landed at their feet.
“And stay out!” the brawny aproned barkeep with orca features yelled, then trudged back into his establishment, dusting off his fins.
Jake and his friends stepped over the groggy silverfish fellow, who eventually sat up behind them and shook his head to clear it.
“No sign of Jones in there, either,” Archie murmured, holding back one swinging door just long enough to peek inside.
“We’ve still got to check inside the Sea Lion and the Smuggler’s Cask,” Dani said, nodding at the next taverns.
“Well, we don’t want to be too obvious,” Jake warned. Then he pointed at the small crowd that had formed in the intersection to watch some street performers making a merry din. “Let’s go down there for a few minutes and try to blend in. Maybe we’ll hear something useful.”
His friends agreed.
Reaching the end of the street, they found the entertainment taking place outside the Calypso Grand Hotel. It was a large, teetering building of shabby elegance, with a turret overlooking the canyon and wraparound porches from which hotel guests could watch the octopus-like family of street performers.
The loudest octopus chap made a splendid one-man band. The silly fellow was covered in musical instruments and was playing them all at the same time as he marched around the street. He had a large drum strapped to his back, a horn in one hand that he occasionally puffed into, a stringed instrument like a banjo under the other arm, an accordion belted in around his waist, and cymbals strapped to his knees.
“Impressive,” Dani said.
Meanwhile, a clownfish sort of fellow was riding around in circles on a bicycle with a calliope built into the front end. Music and bubbles both trailed from the pipes sticking out of the top.
Archie chuckled. “Would you look at that. A calliopede.”
On the opposite corner, someone had set up a big wooden puppet theater, where a show was currently in progress.
The boxy portable theater had red curtains, ornate carvings, and chipped gilding. Its wooden sides were painted with gaudy murals of the starring puppets, just like the ones in the streets of London, where Jake used to watch Punch and Judy beat each other up all the time.
Maybe they had scavenged the puppet theater from some shipwreck, he mused. However it had got there, a crowd stood around watching the show, laughing now and then at the puppets’ capers.
There was no shortage of heckling from the audience, of course, especially from those who had just staggered out of the various pubs. While the three kids drifted over to join the onlookers, furtively glancing around for any sign of Davy Jones, Jake overheard a snippet of conversation that gave him pause.
“You just wait,” a tipsy fish-man was saying. “When Cap’n Jones gets his hands on that orb, we’re takin’ over! No more sharin’ this globe with them good-for-nothin’ landers!”
“Only if he can find it,” his companion corrected him.
What the devil? Jake looked oh so casually over his shoulder to check out the speakers.
“Now, now,” the first, a gray-skinned, spotted fellow, chided his companion. “When Davy Jones puts his mind to a thing—”
“I thought Atlantis orbs were only legends, anyway,” a third bloke interrupted. He had a tiger-striped eel head and far too many teeth.
“Maybe,” the spotted one conceded. “But if the orb exists, Davy Jones is the man to find it, mark my words.”
“And then we’ll all be rich!” cheered another, a grin on his wide blue face.
The fish-men laughed crudely and roughly, and began punching each other in their excitement. Jake furrowed his brow, turning forward again before any of the drunkards noticed him eavesdropping.
Yet his stomach had tightened with the sudden, unsettling thought that perhaps Sapphira had not told them quite everything about what was really going on. Like where she had acquired the orb in the first place. She’d never explained that bit…
Or why exactly Davy Jones wanted it so badly. Enough that he’d even kidnap the daughter of a king…
He had asked her at least twice, but she had said she didn’t know.
A chill ran down Jake’s spine as he saw now with the clarity of hindsight that he had dived right in to help the mermaid without asking nearly as many questions as he probably should have.
Why? All because she had a pretty face? Nixie had warned him and Archie and Maddox to be wary of her charm, that it was only sea magic…
But good Lord! Had he let the mysterious princess get away with using him and his friends all for the sake of her beauty and his feckless desire to impress her?
He had to admit that, away from Sapphira and her enchanting blue eyes, it was easier to think clearly. Blast it; he had been too cavalier about Isabelle’s warning that she had sensed deception from Sapphira.
Jake wanted to kick himself. He suddenly wondered in dread what sort of game she was playing…with him, with all of them.
Maddox! Nixie…
His heart jumped up into his throat as he wondered if she had led them off to their doom. His stomach wrapped itself up in knots as he thought of those two, somewhere out there with her in the deep.
And it was too late to do anything about it now. Their plan was already in motion. Jake was horrified. Standing there, thousands of feet underwater in a town peopled by fish folk, Jake suddenly didn’t know for the life of him why he had trusted her.
If anything happened to his friends…
How could he bring Dani down here? Or Archie?
His cousin nudged him in the ribs just then. Jake quickly hid his dread for fear he would unnerve his companions if he gave voice to his sudden misgivings.
“Found him,” Archie murmured in Jake’s ear. “He’s over there, playing cards inside the Briny Bottom. It’s behind us, on the corner.”
Jake tamped down his fears to avoid panicking his friends and glanced over his shoulder.
“Let’s go have a closer look,” Archie said eagerly.
Jake tugged on Dani’s elbow to get her attention. Then they all drifted away from the crowd around the octopus performers and edged toward the corner saloon. When they managed to glimpse into the Briny Bottom, Jake saw he’d been wrong about another thing, as well: they were not the only humans in Driftwood.
There was one more: Davy Jones himself, Lord of the Locker. Devil of the deep blue sea.
Jake caught a glimpse of him through the swinging doors of the saloon. Dressed in full pirate regalia, Jones had fully human features, only his skin held a slightly blue tint, like a drowning victim. He had a black devil’s beard and mustache and was playing cards with a table full of men.
Well, not exactly men.
Jones’s opponents in the game made Dani whimper. She backed away from the saloon doors. Jake grabbed her elbow to keep her from fleeing and pulled her closer. “What’s wrong?”
“Sharks!” she squeaked.
“Aye.” Jake looked again.
The card player sitting across from Jones had his back to the door, giving them a fine view of the large, jagged dorsal fin jutting up from his back. It was exactly the sort of dire gray triangle that no swimmer ever wanted to behold while out splashing in the waves.
Even more i
ntimidating was the bloke standing behind the pirate captain, his brawny, tattooed arms folded across his chest. Planted there in the pose of a bodyguard, he could only be described as a shark man: body of a sailor, black-eyed, jagged-tooth head of a shark.
“Well,” said Jake, striving to keep the tone light, because Dani looked on the verge of panic, “there’s a face that only a mother could love. A blind mother.”
“Hmm, yes. Thresher shark, I daresay.” Archie nodded at the large shark man’s long tail spilling out from the bottom of his spine.
He was waving it back and forth in a slow but menacing rhythm.
The other pirates clustered around Davy Jones were equally threatening, but they weren’t all blended with sharks. One fellow had the nose of a swordfish.
The third—the most hideous, without question—had been blessed with a slimy shock of squid tentacles flowing out of the top of his head, like disgusting, wriggly, flesh-colored hair.
Dani pulled away and fled without warning.
“Carrot!”
Jake and Archie looked at each other in exasperation and had no choice but to follow.
“Dani! It’s all right; we’ll protect you!”
Thankfully she didn’t get far before they stopped her.
“And just where do you think you’re going without us?” Jake demanded.
“I want to go home,” she said in a small voice.
Jake gave Archie a look that said, I’ll handle this.
Archie moved aside and gave them a moment alone.
Jake gripped his oldest friend sternly by the shoulders. From long experience, he knew quite well that the best way to snap the carrot-head back to her usual dauntless self was by helping to get her Irish fight up. “Quit bein’ a baby,” he ordered.
“I never agreed to battle sharks!” she whispered. “Gargoyles, pixies, evil spirits, Jake, fine. A sea-witch, a river hag, even the Boneless, no problem! But shark men? No, Jake! No. No, thank you. Not sharks. Anything but them. Not even for you.”
“Oh, they’re not going to bother us,” he said while Archie looked around to make sure the carrot had not drawn undue attention to them when she’d bolted. “We’re just here to spy on them, remember? No one’s going to confront them. Calm down!”
“Calm down, he says!”
“Honestly! I don’t believe you,” Jake chided, trying to annoy her so she’d forget to be afraid. He hated putting her through this, but he couldn’t let her collapse into a quivering mass of terror. “You’re always begging to come along on my adventures. Now you finally get your chance, and this is what you do? Stand there whimpering? Run away? Come on, O’Dell, I thought you were tough!”
“Did you see them, you loon-bat?” she exclaimed, her eyes wide.
“Aye, I saw them,” Jake said, hiding any horror that he, too, might feel about the creatures. He just gave a cocky shrug. “So?”
“Ugh!” she said, pulling away from him. “You are such a liar.”
“What, you want to go back and wait with Isabelle and the happy, smiley dolphins, babykins?”
“Leave me alone!”
“People! Look lively!” Archie whispered.
“What?” Dani demanded, glancing over with a scowl of impatience.
“They’re coming,” Archie said.
He was right.
Jones and his hideous henchmen had just stepped out of the Briny Bottom. Dani covered her face with her hands rather than look at them again.
Archie glanced worriedly at Jake. “They’re leaving.”
“We have to stop them,” Jake said.
“How?” his cousin asked.
As Jones swaggered down the boardwalk away from the saloon, his monstrous entourage behind him, Jake scanned the street for some means of creating a distraction.
His gaze narrowed in on the puppet theater. “I think I have an idea. C’mon! You too, carrot.”
“Don’t. Wanna.”
“Well, suit yourself. I’m going, anyway. But what if I get into trouble and you’re not there to save me, eh?” He winked at her and then turned away.
Dani sighed. “I hate you,” she grumbled, but Jake smiled in relief as she followed him.
# # #
Sapphira’s muscles ached all over from the hours she had spent in human form—after getting run over by a submarine—but she would not allow the pain to interfere with rescuing her sister. Anxiety about Lil gnawed at her without letup. By Poseidon, if Jones had done anything to harm her…
Well, she conceded as they swam along the rim of the vast Calypso Deep, she did not know what she could really do to that fiend, powerful as he was. Glancing at her companions, she wondered if they would still be here if they understood better what they were up against, let alone what Jones would actually do to their world if he did get the orb.
Probably not. But for now, she had to admit she felt a begrudging admiration for these landers. They were brave; she’d give them that. It was really strange to find humans so willing to help when there was nothing in it for them.
As they neared the Calypso Deep, she began calling for Wallace as loudly as she dared. Before long, the little seahorse came zooming out of the cold indigo darkness. He was clearly upset, and huddled close to Sapphira for comfort.
She put her arm around his neck and stroked his muzzle. “Good boy. It’s all right, Wallace. You’re not alone anymore. We’re here to get Liliana back. Do you know where they’re keeping her?”
Wallace bobbed his head up and down.
“Show us.”
Sapphira looked at her two companions. They nodded, showing they were ready. Then they all swam after Wallace until the Flying Dutchman came into view.
Sapphira quickly masked her mounting dread when she saw that the ship floated about a hundred yards out over the canyon. She glanced at the humans, but decided not to say anything about the added dangers of the ship’s location. She could not risk them backing out now.
She might’ve been tempted to do so herself, if it were anyone but her little sister out there.
“Eerie,” Nixie murmured, staring in fascination at the ship hovering over the blackness, its green and red lanterns glowing, starboard and port, its ragged sails billowing from the masts.
Sapphira glared at the gunports down the sides of the hull, acutely aware that inside them were the cannons that had bombarded Coral City.
But real fury only filled her when she saw her poor little sister suspended in a metal cage dangling from a long chain underneath the ship.
Over the abyss.
A jolt of horror slammed through her. She swam forward with a low, shocked gasp, squinting into the distance.
To make matters worse, guarding Lil were half a dozen large stingrays.
It was a haunting sight, those gliding winged shapes circling her sister’s cage in the midnight blue.
Maddox and Nixie exchange a worried glance, and for a moment, Sapphira was sure they meant to abandon her.
But then Maddox looked at her. “Well?” he asked. “Shall we?”
She sent him a deeply grateful glance. “Do you feel like you can use that thing now?” she asked, nodding at his weapon.
The large, black-haired boy gave a businesslike nod, gripping the harpoon in one hand and drawing his knife in the other.
“And you, Nixie? You’re confident your wand will work underwater?”
“It will,” the pale, skinny girl replied. “If you can draw those stingrays away from her, I could swim up to the cage, unlock it with a spell, and get your sister out. Just make sure you keep those creatures busy until I’ve got her clear.”
They all agreed that this was the simplest plan.
“First let me tell you a little about stingrays,” Sapphira said. “They can be very nasty. They’re fast, and the barb on their tails delivers a serious poison. If you’re in front of them or to the side, it’s easiest to get struck. But they can whip around just as quickly if you try coming up behind them. They have good eyesigh
t, too. In fact, the only real advantage that we have is that they aren’t very bright. And, unlike dolphins, they don’t really understand how to work together.”
Maddox nodded. “Got it. We’re going to have to do this quickly and quietly so we don’t alert whoever else may be up there on the ship.”
“I’m ready,” Nixie said.
But Sapphira shook her head in disgust as she stared once more across the distance at her sister in a cage. “How dare they subject a member of the royal family to such treatment? She is the daughter of a sea king!”
“Uh-oh, looks like the rays just noticed us,” Nixie said, gazing past the two of them.
“Hold your position, Maddox,” Sapphira ordered as she watched the first stingray heading toward them, its pectoral fins pumping, its long, sinuous tail swishing out behind it. “I doubt they’ll attack straightaway. They’ll likely want to investigate first, and my rank as a royal may help to keep them in check once I tell them who I am.”
“Ah, so they’ll just kill us, then, not you?” Maddox joked in his quiet, steady way, and sent her a little smile askance while Nixie let out a wry snort.
Sapphira’s heart fluttered a bit at his modest charm, but she scoffed.
He took hold of the little witch’s shoulder and gently pushed her back. “Get behind me, Nixie.”
“Are you sure I shouldn’t just make myself invisible?” she asked.
“You can if you like,” said Sapphira with a shrug, “but it won’t protect you from these fellows in the least. Like I said, bad vision. Stingrays can sense prey by temperature and feel vibrations in the water.”
“Charming,” Nixie muttered, swimming back behind the older two.
“Wallace, clear out of here, boy. Wait for us back there.” Sapphira gestured at the craggy rocks higher up the slope. “Be ready to carry a rider in case anyone gets hurt. Otherwise, stay out of the fight. Seahorses are quite helpless,” she told her allies as Wallace dashed away to hunker down beside the sea-cliffs at their backs.
“Here they come.” Maddox raised his harpoon, and Nixie gripped her wand.
“Let me take the first one.” Sapphira swam a few feet ahead of him. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”