“Well, that is odd,” I said to the Howler. “Something immortal is on your ship. And it is making these mortals a little bit uncomfortable, to say the least.”
“Indeed,” replied the Howler, peering with her keen eyes up and down the deck of her ship. “It is not a werewolf. It stays hidden, and that is not our way.”
I nodded and smiled. “I would stay hidden, too, if I knew that we were coming aboard.”
Garlic did not seem to be bothered by the threat we all felt, other than sniffing quickly at the ocean air and growling ever so slightly. She kept her eyes affixed to Big Belly Bart and the assassins, waiting for their treachery. It would most assuredly come, but the gang of three was obviously waiting until we were on the Howler’s ship, where the strange hidden immortal and the rest of the crew would—in their minds—overwhelm us.
I was betting on the Howler regaining control of her crew. And aside from a faerie with an attitude, I had not yet faced an immortal when I was sober that I could not defeat, especially with a vampire Maltese by my side! We were still a good distance from the Howler’s ship. I could see just a few idle crew members on deck, and the man in the lookout’s nest was either sound asleep or doing a passable job at faking it. I estimated there were twenty men below deck, plus the mystery immortal. Big Belly Bart began fidgeting in his seat and was no doubt trying to signal the lookout of the danger we represented. We were approaching from the stern of the Howler’s ship, and I grinned as I saw the name of her craft—the Moon Hunter.
The skiff came closer, and there was now a flurry of activity on deck as Big Belly Bart had communicated his warning, or the lookout had found us suspicious. Either way, it was of no concern to the Howler, Garlic, and me. A ladder came over the side of the boat, and the assassins steered us toward it. The feel of the immortal was strong now, and I could sense its anticipation as it sprung its trap.
But I was never one for standing by idly while a plot against me unraveled ever so slowly. I stepped forward and pitched the two assassins headlong into the sea, then steered the skiff to the side of the Howler’s ship opposite the ladder. I tossed Garlic up on the deck, and the Howler and I spun expertly up the anchor chain and somersaulted onto the deck. Big Belly Bart’s cries from below had alerted a crew of nineteen rogues, who turned to find us in charge of the bridge.
The Howler knew she had to regain control of her ship and do it quickly. We could slay these men quite easily, but again would be stranded without a quick way to Port Royal. And we would rather have them on our side when the immortal made his appearance.
“Men of the Moon Hunter,” the Howler called out to the crewmen, her voice unwavering. “This mutiny is no more. You have been promised riches beyond your wildest dreams. It is I who is your captain. My patron is a man of much means. Do not cross him.”
I could see a few of the men begin nodding as she spoke. Clearly, her father had made an impression on them. But could she bring them over to our side before Big Belly Bart and the immortal played their hand?
Up from the ladder came the two assassins jumping onto the deck, and behind them with a series of grunts and much puffing of breath came Big Belly Bart. They stood in front of the crew, and Big Belly Bart cursed them angrily. A few of the crewmen shied away, and one cowered as the pirate raised a hand to strike him in the face. The feel of the immortal grew stronger, and oddly, it seemed vaguely familiar. Had I crossed paths with whatever strange creature lay in hiding, watching and waiting as Big Belly Bart did its work?
Big Belly Bart pointed his finger in our direction but did not take his eyes off the crew. “We don’t need her,” he said. “Our new captain and first mate take care of us, provide for us, and will make us rich men.”
“More like they will make you dead men,” the Howler said. “Bind these traitors and take them to the hold.” But the crewmen did not move.
“No, milady,” spat Big Belly Bart. “It is you that must answer to our first mate and captain.”
Suddenly, the door to the hold was thrust open, and out from the belly of the ship emerged a mountain of a man. He was easily seven feet tall and built like a barrel. His eyes were vacant and dead, and a sneer was permanently etched on a scarred, misshapen face. A bloodstained cutlass hung on one side of his belt, and a short but deadly gun I would come to know as a blunderbuss from the other. The crewmen and Big Belly Bart stepped back from this monstrosity as he tromped toward us. I could feel the vibration of his heavy step, and the crewmen appeared to be quite terrified of this new first mate. Oddly, he seemed to grow larger as he walked, feeding off the collective terror of the crew.
“You want to parley?” I called to the monster. “Negotiate your surrender?”
He kept walking, took out his cutlass, and eviscerated the air with a couple of savage swings of his mighty blade. I looked at the Howler, nonplussed. “Not a very talkative one,” I said. I turned back toward the approaching giant, who now stood just a few paces away. “I guess he rules by fear and that ugly mug of his.”
The Howler put a hand on my arm for reassurance, losing her nerve for just a moment. She was scared, and the first mate inhaled deeply, as if savoring the odor of her fear, and then charged us, swinging his weapon and going for the death blow. But he was too late, for I knew just what we were facing and how to stop it.
“Garlic,” I called, “bark this Bogeyman into oblivion!”
Garlic jumped forward into the path of the pirate Bogeyman and let out an earsplitting bark. The sound waves rushed over the Bogeyman like a tidal wave, stopping him in his tracks and then sweeping him backward across the deck and into the ocean in a million pieces of disintegrated fury. The Bogeyman’s cutlass dropped to the ground with a resounding clang, and all around the Moon Hunter fish and birds descended on his remnants in a frenzied feeding.
The crew stood silent, some with mouths open in utter shock. Garlic padded over to stand in front of them and growled. One crew member fainted to the ground, while another soiled himself when Garlic looked directly at him. The bluster had gone out of Big Belly Bart, and he lowered himself to the ground and sat quietly.
I walked over to stand near Garlic. I knew it would do no good to explain to the crew what the Bogeyman was, and perhaps the world was now a little happier, less fearful place, what with the Bogeyman’s new occupation as dinner for the local wildlife. “Your first mate is no more,” I said. “The Moon Hunter is once again in the hands of its rightful captain. I am Sirius Sinister, your first mate. Any questions?”
One gangly pirate raised his hand. “What did that little white dog do to him?”
“Ended his reign of tyranny and oppression for starters,” I replied. “What is your name, son?”
The pirate gulped awkwardly. “They call me Ishmael,” he said.
“Well, Ishmael,” I said, “once we complete our mission, you can tell the first mate’s family and friends, if he had any, that he wasn’t killed by a small white dog, but rather some sort of monstrous white whale that had it in for him. No one would believe a little white dog could kill a big, mean, old, nasty pirate, right?”
Ishmael nodded. “Okay,” he said. “A white whale killed him, got it. So the dog won’t hurt us?”
I grinned wryly, looking down at Garlic. “I can’t promise that, but if you listen to the captain, you will have no problems at all.”
The Howler had taken this opportunity to walk to the captain’s quarters. She stopped suddenly and motioned me over. “Sirius,” she hissed in my ear, “he is still here.”
“Who is still here?” I whispered. There was a faint scratching from behind the door. Concentrating very deeply, I closed my eyes and caught the faintest smell of freshly cut flowers, clouded by the overwhelming smell of rum. My sword drawn, I pulled open the unlocked door and peered into the dark cabin. I could make out a small figure in a hooded cloak, sitting at the captain’s table, armed only with a glass of ru
m. “Who are you?” I said, striding over to the table and slapping the glass out of a scrawny hand. When no answer came, I pulled the hood off the creature’s head and found myself looking into a familiar face from long ago.
Chapter 8
To my amazement, sitting in front of me was Jova, whom I had left as a young boy in the charge of Harvis over one hundred years before, after my first encounter with the Bogeyman. He looked to be about eighteen or nineteen years old, and there was no mistaking his big gray eyes boring back at me in a drunken stupor, nor the streaks of red in his hair that with age had become even more prominent. There was also no mistaking that Jova was our mystery immortal.
“Jova,” I said. “Do you remember me?”
The Howler looked at me in surprise. “You know this mutinous wretch,” she said, raising her sword. “He had better do some quick explaining before I add more ginger to that head of his.”
I turned to the Howler with a frown. “Settle down,” I said. “I knew him long ago when I first tangled with the Bogeyman. But he was no more than a child then.”
“That thing was the Bogeyman?” she exclaimed. “That explains what that weird feeling was I felt before Garlic destroyed it. It was fear!”
I knelt down in front of Jova, and his eyes followed me like limpid pools of quicksilver. “Jova,” I said. “It is me, Sirio, although you can call me Sirius Sinister now.” Just then Garlic padded into the cabin and came into Jova’s view.
Jova reached out a hand to pet Garlic. “Sirio,” he said, clearing his throat and the haze of the rum. “I love Garlic.”
I laughed. “You always did,” I said. “Now just what kind of immortal are you?”
He shrugged. “It is kind of hard to explain,” he said.
“I know what you are,” the Howler interrupted, growing impatient. “You are a thief and a vagabond. Why did you come on board, and what did you do to my crew?”
“I can explain,” Jova said. “Really, I can.”
“It is all right, Jova, don’t worry about her,” I said, glaring at the Howler, who made a face back at me. “She just gets a little bit overeager from time to time. Did the Bogeyman just find you again? Were you hiding from him?”
Jova swallowed long and hard, and reached for the bottle of rum, which I snatched away from him before he could grasp it and empty it. I needed a sober Jova to learn the truth about him and the Bogeyman. When the Bogeyman regenerated from the few remnants that survived being fish food, he was probably not going to be happy with me and my Maltese. Getting disintegrated by a vampire and his faithful pooch twice in one hundred years was surely going to make him one angry and vindictive bogeyman. I needed Jova for whatever information he could provide, since the last thing the Howler and I needed was the Bogeyman paying a visit to us, seeking its revenge while we were trying to rescue Cornelia.
“Come on now, Jova,” I implored as Jova put his hands on his head. “What is it?”
“I have never told anyone this before,” he said. “It is a family secret. I was not running from the Bogeyman. I am the Bogeyman.”
The Howler’s mouth dropped open in shock, and I noticed mine had followed suit. “You are the Bogeyman?” I repeated. “That is not possible. He lives on the essence of fear, until a vampire Maltese blows him to bits. Without fear, he does not exist. He is a monster. You are . . . are . . .” Actually, I wasn’t sure just what Jova was.
“I am the monster, well, in a way,” Jova said. “I didn’t know it when I first met you and Garlic with my sisters back in England, but I was the one that animated the swamp to attack you.”
“But the Bogeyman is not an actual person,” the Howler interjected. “It is a thing, right?”
“No,” Jova said. “From the dawn of time, the youngest male member of my family has inherited from his father the mantle of the Bogeyman. The rest of them are just ordinary witches and warlocks like Veela and Marmitte, who were taking me to see Hedley Edrick for training. That is why you didn’t know who we were, Sirius. They had cast a spell that shrouded our true identities.”
“So you didn’t need my help that night,” I said. “You were animating the swamp to destroy the ruffians that lay in ambush.”
“Yes,” Jova nodded. “That is, if my sisters didn’t turn them into cockroaches first. Witches love turning deserving souls into cockroaches for some reason. But back to meeting you in the swamp, I was only a child, so my control over my power was raw and undeveloped, and once you took out the ruffians, I could not stop the swamp from hurting you. I am deeply sorry.” Garlic had climbed up into Jova’s lap, and he stroked her softly.
“It is okay, you did not mean to attack me. We all do things when we are young that we regret,” I said, nodding in amazement at what I was hearing. “But I was not afraid of the swamp,” I said. “Whose fear were you channeling, the ruffians’?”
Jova laughed. “I have no idea, might have been them, might have been your fear of my sisters and me being hurt by those common thieves. Now, I can focus on one person’s slightest insecurities and animate something for whatever purpose I need. The first mate for example was made up of foodstuffs and old clothes in the hold, and the crew’s terror did the rest.”
The Howler had listened intently. From the look on her face, I could tell she was fascinated by his story, but her untrusting nature always lurked beneath the surface. Was this the same girl that I had such a deeply passionate interlude with on the island? “Okay, Jova,” she said, her lips curling into a sneer that, in the back of my mind, I found quite alluring. “That is a lovely tale and all, but how come you were trying to kill us up on the deck. Didn’t you see Sirius and Garlic and recognize them? And most importantly, what are you doing with my ship?”
Jova sighed and put Garlic down at his feet. “Sorry about that,” he said. “When they sounded the alarm, I had already been drinking for a while. I am not a fighter. I let the Bogeyman do the fighting. I am all about my personal safety.”
“You never even looked out of the cabin, did you?” the Howler said.
“Uh, no,” Jova said. “But once the first mate was destroyed, I realized some immortals were on board and hid here, fearing for my safety.”
I sensed this little exchange was not going to end well and jumped into the fray. “All right, all right,” I said. “Why did you take the ship from her captain?”
“I am trying to get to Jamaica,” he said. “Part of my education, I am doing a field study, if you will.”
“Go on,” the Howler said.
Jova took out a leather-bound book and showed it to us. I nodded encouragingly, but could not tell what language it was written in, or anything about it. When this adventure with the Howler was over, I resolved to learn how to read—in one language, at least!
“Hedley Edrick told me to learn as much about fear as I can to get total control over my power,” Jova said. “If I get angry or lose focus, my power still goes out of control. I rage, it rages. If I do not get it under control, someone I love may get hurt or killed one day. I can’t live with that, so I commandeered this boat to take me to Jamaica to study Obeah.”
“O . . . what?” I said.
“Obeah,” Jova said. “It is a mystical African religion, and its adherents focus on the strength of the mind. And there is a mystic in Port Royal who can show me how to better control my mind.”
“Port Royal,” I said. “Just so happens that is where we are going. And we need your help there.”
Jova looked a little bit nervous. “Will there be any fighting?”
“Well, I hope so,” I answered with a laugh. “But, your talents will help us even out the odds. After you help us, then you can go find your mystic, deal?”
“I don’t like conflict,” Jova said.
“You should have thought about that before you tried to kill us!” the Howler exclaimed.
“The lady does have
a point,” I said. “You owe me for the swamp, and both of us for what happened here today.”
Jova nodded. “You are right,” he said. “I will help you.”
The Howler made eye contact with me, and then her gaze darted to the deck. She walked outside the cabin, and I joined her, leaving Garlic and Jova in the cabin. The Howler came close and put her lips to my ear.
“Do you think we can trust him?” she asked.
I could feel my manhood yearning to take her. The island seemed so long ago, and her standing so close to me was maddening, but she was all business at the moment. Perhaps we could break in the cabin a little later, I mused, casting my eyes downward to take in her body as I pretended to ponder what she had said.
“Good question,” I said. “I don’t know for sure. An immortal without full control of his powers may prove to be more dangerous than helpful. But I can tell you one thing.”
“What is that, Sirius Sinister?” she whispered.
I kissed her quickly on the ear, and stepped away before she could react. “We don’t stand a chance against the goblins without him,” I said, and walked over to assess the crew and ready the ship for its departure to Port Royal.
“Aye,” she replied. “Aye.”
The Howler and I told the crew that the first mate was really an evil ocean spirit that had enslaved Jova to do its bidding and run the ship. We also presented Garlic with a leather collar studded with gold in front of the crew, telling them that Garlic was a good luck charm, and her bark had destroyed the first mate because, as an ocean spirit, it could not face land animals. Mortals will believe anything if it presents an alternative to believing in something they don’t want to exist—like a bogeyman, for instance. For the most part the crew seemed genuinely happy to have the Howler back in command, except, that is, for Big Belly Bart, who failed miserably in hiding his dislike for me and Garlic. He was to be watched closely for treachery.
My Ex-Wife Said Go to Hell Page 12