Secrets of the Deep

by E. G. Foley

  “The point is, I don’t believe you really want to do this,” Archie announced, visibly startling the Lord of the Locker. He looked him in the eyes. “You may be the collector of drowned souls, but you’re no killer.”

  “Oho, is that right?” the pirate captain countered with a snort, setting his fists on his waist.

  “We both know it’s true,” Archie said. “You could’ve killed us in Driftwood, but you let us go. You could’ve slain us on the beach, but again, you showed mercy. If you use this orb as you intend, millions of people are going to die and you know it.”

  “So?”

  “I say you don’t have it in you to do that,” he declared, lifting his chin.

  Nixie’s eyebrows rose.

  Jones looked at him in shock, then chuckled warily. “Don’t be too sure, lad.”

  “Then tell me why. Why would you do such a thing?”

  He scowled, debated with himself, and then said, “You have no idea what it’s like—being here, what I am—forever…with no hope of getting out. Can’t quit. Can’t die. Not allowed. Believe me, I’ve tried. This is my fate. I wagered with the Devil and I lost. So here I am. If I’ve got to be miserable, then why should anyone else get to be happy?”

  “But think, man!” Archie exclaimed. “If this is your punishment now for selling drunkards to the press gangs, what do you suppose you’ll get after you drown all of humanity? You honestly believe it can’t get any worse? I assure you, it can!”

  “Shut yer trap!” Jones boomed. “Nobody asked you, ye cheeky minnow. Now get to work!”

  Well, I obviously touched a nerve, Archie thought, but he took a step back. The undead pirate king was more than a little frightening when angry. “Very well, but I’m going to need more light.”

  He frowned at the single candle burning in a pewter holder on one of the pub tables where Jones had also set the knapsack. “I can barely see what I’m doing in this gloom—besides which, I have no tools.”

  Jones narrowed his eyes. “Here.” He reached up and unhooked a couple of the metal oil lanterns overhead, then set them on either side of the round table along with the candlestick. “As for tools, I already thought of that. Got these for you from our ship’s carpenter.”

  He brought over a toolbox that had been sitting by the bar. Archie glanced at its contents. Hammers, screwdrivers, nails.

  “These, too. From our surgeon down in the sickbay.” The captain returned to the bar and picked up a wooden case that had been resting on it. Carrying it over to the table, Jones opened it and showed Archie a rusty array of old-timey surgical and dental instruments. “Pliers, tweezers, handy little picks. You’ll manage. You’re a clever boy.”

  Out of excuses, Archie fell into a grim silence.

  “My wand?”

  “Right. No tricks,” Jones warned, taking Nixie’s wand out of his coat and handing it to her. “Now, I don’t give a bilge rat’s tail which of you two fixes it, but I want that pretty bauble working, posthaste. Don’t make me wait,” he said, raising his knife, “or I’ll start with your toes. Perhaps you think you can spare a few of yer little piggies if it means savin’ the world. But it’s my crew, you see. The smell of blood in the water, well, it agitates the lads. We wouldn’t want to touch off a feeding frenzy, now, would we?”

  Archie and Nixie both gave him a dirty look.

  Jones walked over to the teakwood post at one end of the bar. Attached to it was a large brass mariner’s hourglass. He flipped it over. “I’ll be back to check on you by the time this runs out of sand, so don’t dawdle. I may have all the time in the world,” he added, “but that doesn’t mean I am a patient man. Now get to work.”

  With that, Jones stalked off to leave them to their task.

  “What are we going to do?” Nixie asked in a low tone after they’d heard him splash back down through the hatch.

  “There’s only one thing we can do,” Archie said grimly. “We’re going to blow up the Locker and the orb with it.”

  Nixie frowned as he moved past her. “Uh, won’t that kill us, too?”

  Heading back to the cargo hold area where he had seen the ship’s gunpowder stores, Archie paused and sent her a dark look over his shoulder.

  He gazed at her for a long moment, losing his usual clear separation between his head and his heart.

  No, he very much didn’t want to die, and he certainly didn’t want to kill his darling friend. He wanted the chance for both of them to grow up and live to a ripe old age. But two lives mattered little when all of humanity was at stake. Especially when he knew this was his fault—his failure to escape with the orb the way he was supposed to.

  “Archie?” she asked, starting to look genuinely frightened as she realized he was prepared to sacrifice them both.

  “Sorry, Nix,” he said, then shook his head and shrugged. “Why do you think I told you not to come?”

  CHAPTER 30

  Calm Before the Storm

  Since there was nothing anyone could do until Sapphira returned with the location of the Flying Dutchman, Jake advised everyone to rest up while they could.

  They looked at him like he was mad, but this was far from over. He especially expected Maddox to refuse, but to his surprise, the Guardian apprentice agreed. Though healed now, his injuries had been serious and clearly taken their toll.

  If not for Red’s healing feather, Jake did not know what they would’ve done for him.

  Eventually, everybody saw the good sense of his advice and retreated to their various quarters to try to get some sleep before they undertook the next dangerous leg of their adventure.

  Maddox mumbled goodnight and shuffled off to the boys’ room. Dani collected her dog from Aunt Ramona’s room before she and Lil went off, yawning, to the girls’ chamber. Isabelle curled up in the armchair near Aunt Ramona’s bed, anxious to be there in case the Elder witch woke up.

  Once everyone had quieted, the emptiness of the house without Archie in it sank in. More than just a cousin, the boy genius was the best male friend Jake had ever had. He drifted off reluctantly to sleep, hoping that Archie and Nixie were all right for now, and brooding on their next course of action…

  Less than two hours later, he awoke to the sound of the Triton Trumpet blowing once more from the beach. After the last disaster that the horn’s by-now-familiar notes had heralded, the sound jolted him upright.

  But when he rushed to the window, he looked down into the turquoise waves, brightly lit now by the sunrise, and, to his relief, saw Sapphira.

  She’s back! Desperately hoping for news, he waved from the window to let her know he’d be right down. Then he strode out of the boys’ bedroom and ran all the way to the beach.

  “I found them,” Sapphira said when Jake had reached the edge of the water. “I can take you there. The ship changed into the Locker!”

  “Really? Huh,” Jake said, then shrugged off this bizarre tidbit. “Good work. You should get some rest, too, before we set out again. You’ve been up all night.”

  “Have you figured out a plan?”

  He nodded. “I think so. It came to me in the middle of the night. I’ll just need to take some of Nixie’s underwater potion.”

  “Did she make more? I thought you all finished it.”

  “Hmm. You may be right.” He glanced toward the Turtle. “Never mind, then, I’ll just use one of Archie’s filter masks.”

  “What do you mean to do?”

  Jake gave her a hard look. “Challenge Davy Jones to a game of dice.”

  Sapphira’s eyebrows rose.

  The others soon emerged from their chambers, having heard the Triton Trumpet. It had awoken everyone except Lil and Aunt Ramona.

  While Sapphira drowsed, half draped across a boulder, Jake, Dani, Maddox, and Izzy ate a hasty breakfast, and he explained his plan—or, at least, a carefully edited version of it. No need to upset the redhead with the full scope of what he intended.

  “Maddox, Isabelle, you two will be in the Turtle. Ar
chie told me he rigged it so it can be driven by only two people now. Think you can figure out how to drive it?”

  Maddox nodded while Isabelle glanced questioningly at Jake.

  “You two are my backup in case I need help getting out of there,” he explained. “Keep a distance, though, unless you see me get into trouble. I don’t want to risk Jones’s shark men attacking the sub. I don’t know how much damage it can withstand.”

  “Where will you be?” Dani asked.

  Jake flashed a grin. “Riding a dolphin. Sapphira’s going to summon a pod to carry me out there, then take me down to the Locker, where Jones is holding Arch and Nixie.”

  “Wait—he’s got them in the Locker?” Isabelle asked in alarm.

  Jake shrugged. “Apparently the ship changes into it.”

  “Ohhh,” everybody said.

  “While the dolphins show us the way, Sapphira’s going to sneak into Coral City, try to find Tyndaris, and bring some mermen soldiers for our reinforcements in case it comes down to another battle against Jones and his crew.”

  “Oh, I hope not,” Dani said worriedly.

  “Me too,” Jake agreed.

  “All right, so what are you going to do once you get there?” Dani asked him warily.

  “I’m just going to talk to him. Man to man.”

  “Davy Jones?” Dani asked, looking at him like he was slightly barmy.

  But Jake stood firm in his decision. “I’m going to challenge him to a wager. He loves to gamble, right? So I play dice with him, and when I win, I’ll make him let Arch and Nixie go.”

  Dani stared at him. “What if you lose?”

  “Can’t. Remember?” Jake raised his hands and wiggled his supernaturally gifted fingers. “I can control the way the dice moves. It’s guaranteed. No worries, carrot.”

  When she frowned, he thought it was in disapproval.

  “Well, I wouldn’t normally cheat!” he said, which even he wasn’t sure he believed, but she waved off his words impatiently.

  “That’s not it.”

  “Well? Why do you look so sour?”

  “Because—sorry—but that’s not much of a plan, Jake.”

  “Pardon?” he asked indignantly.

  Maddox and Isabelle listened to their exchange as they chewed, their heads turning back and forth like they were watching a tennis match.

  “I mean—that’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?” Dani asked. “Challenge him to a wager?”

  “Have you got a better idea?” Jake retorted.

  “Well, no, not yet, but maybe if I thought about it for a while longer…”

  “What while longer? He’s going to flood the world today unless we stop him! We’ve got no time to waste.”

  “Yes, but you can’t just waltz in there and… Well, what are you going to wager with, anyway? Your soul? The way the drowned sailors do?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What if that’s the only stakes he’ll take? What if you lose and he turns you into a half a fish? Jake, I like you better as you are.”

  “Come, carrot, don’t you trust me?” he countered. “You know I can control small objects as easily as large ones. I’ll do that with the dice.”

  “Yes, but they saw your demonstration on the beach,” Maddox reminded him. “That’s why they nearly cut your hands off.”

  “What?” Dani cried.

  Jake gave the older boy an exasperated look, nodding discreetly at Dani, who was now panicked.

  “Cut off your hands? Jake, you can’t go down there—”

  “This is Archie we’re talking about,” he said flatly. “And a second Noah’s Flood. I have to. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “What makes you even think he’ll agree to this? Jones wanted that orb more than anything!”

  No, there’s one thing he wants more, Jake thought, and that would be the stakes he would wager in the game, not his soul.

  Of course, he knew better than to tell Dani the full truth of what he had up his sleeve, or she’d never let him go.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me in the water with you?” Maddox offered. “I can swim again now. See?” He shrugged his shoulders and moved his arms about, loosening up the joints. “Good as new.”

  “No, it takes the two of you to run the submarine. Like I said, you’re my backup until Sapphira returns with Tyndaris and any mer-troops she can rally. Besides that, you’ll also need to pick up Archie and Nixie once I win their freedom. I’ll tell them to swim over and hold on to the sub, then you can just rise to the surface and let them in the hatch.”

  Maddox and Izzy nodded.

  Dani had buried her face in her hands but finally looked up in dismay. “What about me?” she asked wearily. “You haven’t given me a job yet.”

  “I want you to stay here and guard Lil and Aunt Ramona–”

  “What? No! Jake?!” She shot angrily to her feet. “I refuse to be left out again!”

  “Left out?” he echoed. “Trust me, you should be glad you weren’t in that battle.”

  The other two nodded, but Dani wasn’t having it. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Dani,” Jake said as she walked out.

  She didn’t look back. Jake glanced at Isabelle and Maddox; they gave him sympathetic looks, but did not suggest that they include her, thank gosh.

  Dani was the youngest of their group, she had no magical talents with which to protect herself, and Jake, in short, was utterly unwilling to risk the girl, no matter what.

  To his relief, he got no argument from the other two, but he mumbled, “Excuse me,” and left the table, going after her.

  He found the carrot on the terrace, scowling toward the sea. The sunrise made her ginger hair gleam as orange as a newly blossomed daylily, but temper had turned her eyes a darker shade of green; she glared at him as he approached with caution.

  “You think I’m helpless, don’t you?” she accused him.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then stop protecting me! I’m not a baby! I can help!”

  “You will be helping by staying here. You’re the one who’s got to send our message to the Order as soon as the telegraph office opens and keep Lil out of trouble.”

  “Play nursemaid?” she huffed.

  “I know it sounds dull, but don’t forget, she is a royal princess and we are officially responsible for her, Dani. That’s no small thing! Plus, she’s scared and she likes you. More importantly, if Aunt Ramona wakes up in the meantime, you can explain what’s happening, and maybe she’ll be able to work some sort of magic to help us.”

  “Oh, I get to tell her all the trouble you’ve been whipping up? Typical!”

  “Dani…I don’t want to get in a fight right now. Your role in this is just as important as everybody else’s.”

  She heaved a sigh. “All I know is that ever since the rock monster incident, you’ve been treating me like I’m as fragile as an egg, Jake. Well, I’m not a helpless ninny, and you should know that by now.”

  “Can I help it if I don’t want you getting hurt? I…care about you, Dani.”

  “I care about you, too! I just wish you’d go back to treating me like an equal, instead of your little precious egg of a girlfriend!”

  He gave her a blank, stubborn stare. “But you are my girlfriend.”

  He thought she would’ve been happy he’d said it, making it all official-like. But no. “Ugh!” She threw up her hands in exasperation, pivoted, and stormed away again.

  This time, Jake didn’t follow. He glanced after her, frowning. But if he stayed near her much longer, he wasn’t sure he’d find the will to go.

  # # #

  They had gone.

  Dani sat alone on the beach, staring out to sea at all the pastel colors of the early morning. The submarine and the trio of dolphins taking Jake off to confront Davy Jones had just disappeared into the distance. That boy.

  She had let him hug her goodbye, but had refused to smile at his usual roguish teasing. She kn
ew Jake well enough by now to be able to tell when he was keeping something from her.

  Though she dreaded what that might be, she had resigned herself to her dull, unheroic role in their mission. It wasn’t very exciting sending a telegraph message, or playing nursemaid to a spoiled little girl, or watching an old lady lie unconscious, but so be it.

  If that was what Jake needed, she would do it.

  Loyalty, after all, was the closest thing to a magical gift she would ever be able to contribute, she thought with a slight ache of self-disappointment. With no particular talents to recommend her, she would probably just get in the way out there, anyhow.

  Ah well. Apart from being the boy she adored most in all the world, Jake had long since won her respect as the leader of their group. He’d defeated too many foes for her to question his abilities or second-guess his final decisions, once everyone had hashed them out together.

  It was only his judgment that she doubted sometimes, so, of course, she was worried. His need to be a hero occasionally drove him past the point of being merely brave to being downright foolhardy.

  She had a feeling he was up to something along those lines again today, and it made her slightly frantic, knowing she would not be there to pull him back from going just that one step too far, or to do her tiny little part that sometimes made all the difference.

  But it seemed that once again, she would just have to trust that Jake knew what he was doing. She only wished he would’ve let her be a part of it instead of trying to protect her. After all they had been through together, she’d hoped he had more faith in her than this.

  But their newfound closeness had changed things between them a bit. He cared more about her now than he used to.

  Thus the fragile-egg treatment.

  As she sat on the sand watching her dog run around, she supposed she had better be getting back up to the house. It was still at least two hours before the telegraph office opened for business, but perhaps she could start straightening up some of the chaotic mess the pirates had left in every room.

  “Daniela!” a shrill voice suddenly yelled.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw Liliana hurrying down the beach stairs. The younger mermaid had slept in longer than everybody else.