Sea of Lost Souls Page 18

  With a huge, pained sigh, Scylla slipped underneath the water, her white body growing dimmer and dimmer each second until, quite suddenly, she winked out of my vision.

  Huh. That actually was easy.

  Someone grabbed my neck.

  I thrashed against my assailant, immediately trying to hit them with my ax. I caught glimpses of him; he was a pirate, all white and green and sparkly, and pissed off. My head went underwater, held down by large, masculine hands. Not dangerous, but disorienting—which was incredibly dangerous in battle.

  His hands clamped on my throat.

  Pain in every inch of my body caused me to seize and stiffen, unable to escape from the source. Something inside me began to move, inching out of my body into his, crawling in my veins like lava. It was like an obscene parody of what happened when I released the magic into the ship. This was forced, and it was horrible.

  His hands went slack, and he slid underneath the water with me. There was an enormous gash in his head, billowing blood into the murky water.

  I popped my head out of the water. Torres was hanging off the side of the RHIB, her ax dripping blood. “Sorry about the wait.”

  “Help me up!” I held up my hands, and Bickley and Torres hauled me inside the RHIB.

  “Can’t hang around,” Bickley said, turning the wheel. “The prison ship just went through the weak spot.”

  I looked around at the chaos. The seven ships had been ripped apart either by bombs or giant naked women falling on them, and their crews were in the water. Some were desperately trying to stay above the surface, while others were floating face-down. Body parts drifted by in the current. The flotilla was history—but the threat still remained. We had to stop the final ship from harming anyone in the world of the living.

  Behind us, the Rickover was suffering, large columns of smoke rising up a thousand feet in the air. The lights were flickering, puttering along on the last of the power I’d put into the ship. The shields were broken, and large dents and scorch marks in the side of the hull provided large targets to anyone who wanted to attack.

  The three of us were the only ones in a position to storm the final ship.

  I took a deep breath. “Bickley, get us alongside the hull. I’m going to blow it open.” None of us had enough power to take on an entire crew, but a ship in distress was a ship in distress—they’d have to throw all their efforts into fixing the damage, freezing them where they were.

  Bickley piloted the RHIB through the floating carnage while Torres and I hacked at the pirates trying to grab on. We passed through the weak spot with ease, the only noticeable difference in the temperatures of the two worlds. It was August in the world of the living, and therefore immediately muggy.

  More bullets rang out, blowing water into the air. Bickley shot back at the small machine gun on the stern of the prison ship. Within seconds, we were immediately alongside the ship.

  Torres, Bickley, and I clasped our hands together and locked onto the hull.

  Pirates began shouting in alarm as a huge strip of rusting metal was pulled back from the ship as easily as a label was pulled off a soup can. Water flooded into the empty compartment. The ship began to list.

  We jumped out of the RHIB and into the compartment, axes in hand. The compartment was an office, by the look of it, and I sloshed through the water to a light socket, where I placed my hand on it and tapped into the power supply. Every system on the ship died at once, plunging us into a shadowy dimness only punctured lightly by the fingers of sunlight shining through the breached hull.

  Torres and Bickley came up to me, and I rationed out the power into thirds. I was trembling from the power surging through me, but I knew I couldn’t let it go to my head. We were at a disadvantage, since we didn’t know the layout of the ship, didn’t know what was waiting for us, and—I watched water creep up my ankles—we’d soon be in a capsizing vessel.

  “Spread out, keep your axes up,” Bickley ordered. “Our only goal is to find the prisoners.”

  I shoved open the door, bracing for an onslaught of pirates… but nothing happened. The passageway was empty, devoid of any being, living or dead.

  “What are they waiting for?” Torres asked, her eyes darting around. “They know there’s only three of us.”

  A gunshot somewhere above us made us flinch. Bickley motioned for us to get behind him, and we began inching our way down the passageway. There were more gunshots, followed by shouts and thuds of furniture moving.

  We all exchanged confused glances. “What do you think is going on up there?” Torres whispered.

  Before I could answer, we passed a door with bars on the windows. I peered in. It was a brig, and it was filled with people.

  “Guys, it’s our officers,” I said, eyeing their insignia. Their uniforms had changed, too, even as they’d been captive on a pirate ship. I raised my ax to break the small window, but Bickley held his out and motioned for us to move back.

  “Let me. You too, find the others. Use your power to blast them to hell.”

  Torres and I hurried down the passageway, our steps in time with Bickley’s assault on the door handle and window. There were no pirates to be found anywhere, but it was no comfort. There were pirates on the ship, so why were we being allowed to free the officers? And where were the enlisted captives?

  “Psst,” Torres hissed. “Check out this door. There’s a padlock.” She’d stopped at a narrow door at the end of the passageway, right at the bottom of a stairwell. “It’s probably a holding cell or an armory.”

  “More likely a holding cell, since they knew we were coming. Stand back.” I raised my ax to break the lock.

  “No!” Torres screamed.

  A bullet missed my head by inches, ricocheting wildly around the passageway. Commander Gagnon was at the top of the stairs, holding her service weapon and staring at me with so much hatred it was a wonder that I didn’t burst into flames. Torres and I grasped hands.

  Gagnon flew backward, out of sight.

  “Get that door open!” I shouted, holding my ax up. “I’ll take care of her!” I scrambled up the stairs, searching for the treacherous officer who’d tried to kill me twice now. “Where are you, you little…”

  I trailed off, grinding my teeth. The stairs led to an intersection of three passageways, all lined with doors. She could’ve been in any one of them. Worse yet, because I’d leeched the power out of the ship, they were all dark.

  “Come out and face me!” I shouted. “It’s over, Gagnon! We’ve won!”

  I shoved a door open and ran into the room, ax up, but was met with only an empty berthing. Meals sat half-eaten on some of the racks.

  I stepped out of the berthing and opened the next door. Galley storage.

  The next door. Another berthing.

  The next one. A men’s head, complete with unwashed urinals.

  I opened the final door on the left side of the passageway. My jaw dropped.

  Sacks of gold and silver coins gleamed in the low light from the passageway. Row upon row of chests were similarly filled, jewelry and other baubles spilling out of them. Stacks of American dollars lined one wall, directly opposite a wall of magic spheres tucked into sawdust boxes.

  Apparently these pirates were interested in people and regular booty.

  I walked over to the magic spheres and picked one up, the magic automatically rushing into my hand. I held it up, smiling despite myself. The white light illuminated the small compartment, as well as my pale, bloodstained face, visible in the reflection. I could clearly see a gash on my cheek I didn’t know I had.

  Something in the reflection moved.

  I moved just in time. Gagnon’s bullet tore through my right shoulder, eliciting a scream from me. I crashed to the floor, the sphere still in my hand, the magic still rushing into me.

  Gagnon’s finger moved, but this time her gun just clicked. Cursing, she tossed it aside and jumped on me.

  “It was mine!” she screamed, swinging her fists pe
ll-mell at my face. “It was all mine! You took this from me!”

  I tried desperately to block her strikes, but my useless right arm meant that I was almost defenseless.

  My leg, however, worked just fine. I landed a sharp kick in her stomach, causing her to fall to the ground. I rolled onto her and straddled her stomach, bringing down my ax onto her head.

  She blocked the ax and dug her nails into my wrist. I hissed, then fisted a handful of her hair and slammed her head into the deck repeatedly. “Why?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Why turn on us?” I stopped banging her head. “What was worth betraying your countrymen and your ship?”

  She gave me a look of deepest loathing. “We’re dead, you stupid cow. I don’t owe anything to anyone. Money is the only thing that matters in both worlds. All of this was mine. They wanted ghosts to suck the juice out of, and I wanted gold. Simple transaction. Until the Rickover came along. Even summoning Poseidon didn’t work.”

  I faltered. “You summoned him?”

  “Yes. But, oh oh, you were all cuddly with Fish Man. So I had to resort to other measures to weaken the ship. If I couldn’t kill that idiot captain, I had to pick something else.”

  While she talked, I glimpsed the chain of the magic cradle beneath her collar. If I could just—

  She kneed me in the solar plexus, making me fall to the side. My ax was suddenly in her hands, and she had the blade to my neck. “Nice try. Any final prayers from Rachel Goldstein?”

  I spat on her face.

  “You little—”

  I clamped my hands on her face and unleashed the magic I’d absorbed from the sphere.

  There was a blinding burst of light.

  I laid my head down on the stacks of cash, my shoulder bleeding beneath me, and closed my eyes. The last thing I was aware of was a female voice calling my name.

  17

  Rachel.

  A thousand people were calling my name. Simultaneously near and far, their calls were all just one word: my name.

  I focused on it.

  Rachel.

  Now it was Peggy’s voice.

  I opened my eyes. I was in a hospital bed in a small, bland room, almost certainly off the main wing of the sick bay. My bedside table was littered with mementos from visitors: origami flowers I recognized as Torres’s handiwork, a challenge coin from an officer, a tasty-looking pastry on a plate, and a card bearing many signatures. Best of all, the superhero novel I’d been reading on the Taft sat beneath everything. The lone porthole showed the starry night sky, still and cloudless. I’d been out for at least twelve hours.

  I was still deciphering the signatures when a gentle knock on the door made me look up. “Come in.”

  Peggy opened the door. “You’re finally awake! I’ve had a long line of visitors for you, but you’ve been asleep for nearly thirty-six hours. How are you feeling?”

  “Achy. Sore. Tired.” My whole body felt like it had fought the flu.

  “Gunshots can be like that,” Peggy said. “Dot and I removed the bullet, but—”

  “Dot! Dot’s here? Send her in!”

  And then Dot was there, standing in the doorway in her new coveralls, her mahogany hair pulled into a modern ponytail. She was bearing a lunch tray and beaming at me. “It’s been too long since I heard your voice, Petty Officer. Lunch?”

  She set down the tray on the sliding over-bed table, and I threw my arms wide. She returned my embrace, hugging me for a long time. Finally, I sniffed and rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand. “I’m so happy you’re safe. Commander Gagnon said the pirates were going to suck all the magic out of you all.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes, that was the plan, I believe. They were aiming for a land invasion of Virginia Beach and had hoped to use our innate magic to power their weapons.”

  “Is everyone safe?” I asked. “Were we too late?”

  “We’re all fine,” she assured me, patting my hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing, except maybe what you’re going to eat first. Petty Officer Torres told me that you eat from the kosher counter, so I got something from every tray there.” She handed me a plate loaded down with noodles and sauce. “As the chief nurse, I can say that you’re not allowed out of bed until you finish this entire tray. Food is for the soul as much as the body.”

  “It kind of makes us holy women, you know,” Peggy said, leaning against the doorway. “We’ve been looking after people’s souls for decades.”

  We all shared a goofy grin, and I began to dig in.

  While I was eating, Peggy and Dot filled me in on what had happened after I’d fallen unconscious.

  “Chief Bickley got the officers out, and they ran up to the bridge and found the entire pirate crew had been shot by Commander Gagnon,” Dot said soberly. “It appears that she’d hoped to double-cross the pirates and make off with their booty.”

  “Sounds like desperation to me,” Peggy said, still in the doorway. “She freaked out when her master plan fell apart.”

  “We were liberated not long after that, by Petty Officer Torres,” Dot said. “And we all rushed to get the boat back into the Oceanus. The United States Coast Guard had hailed us already, and we needed to slip away through the weak spot. After all, if they’d boarded, they would’ve found dead pirates of another species, and all the magic spheres, not knowing that the ship was piloted by ghosts. Best not confuse or scare them.”

  “Who found me?” I asked through a bite of buttered bread.

  “I did, actually,” Dot said. “Lying there in a pool of blood, surrounded by a king’s ransom, with little bits of Commander Gagnon floating around in the air. It was all rather Shakespearean, I must say.”

  The sound of the sick bay door opening made us all look up, and Peggy moved aside. “Sir.”

  Captain Gorman stood in the doorway, ever calm and stern. He was holding a stiff blue folder bearing the seal of the US Navy. “Nurses, might I have a private word with Petty Officer Goldstein?”

  I swallowed a thick bite of bread. Heroics aside, I’d still started a mutiny on his ship. I wasn’t out of hot water with that one, I just knew it. That envelope was probably holding my dishonorable discharge paperwork.

  Dot and Peggy cleared out. Captain Gorman pulled up the lone chair and sat next to my bed. “How are you feeling, Petty Officer?”

  “I’ve been better, sir, but I’ll survive.”

  His eyes shone with an emotion I couldn’t name. “Because of you, many people aboard this ship right now can say the same, including me.”

  I ducked my head. How was I supposed to answer that?

  Captain Gorman opened up the folder. “Without the power of the US Congress behind me, I can’t award medals, no matter how much I want to. But this letter is from myself, asserting that your actions, and that of your coworkers, were worthy of the Bronze Star.” He handed it to me. “I only wish I could’ve seen you three in the RHIB with my own eyes. Thank you for you valor, Petty Officer.”

  I opened the folder and removed the handwritten letter, which was written on thick card stock with Navy letterhead. I looked up at him, my eyes wet. “The Bronze Star?”

  “Nothing less.”

  I closed the letter and wiped at my eyes again. “Sir, I don’t deserve this.”

  “Petty Officer Torres told me you’d say as much when I gave her letter to her. Something about a mutiny?”

  I nodded.

  “My, my, things did fall apart when I was gone, didn’t they?”

  I nodded again, too ashamed to look him in the eyes.

  He sat back in his chair, his hands folded on his lap. “While I will never condone mutiny, Petty Officer, it does not mean that I will immediately condemn your actions. An officer had tried to kill you, and you knew yourself and your shipmates to be in immediate danger. I wrote your letter knowing exactly what had happened that night.” He leaned toward me. “If you’ll let an old man impart some wisdom?”

  I nodded again, my eyes wide.

  �
��Do not rid yourself of that fire, but learn to be judicious of when you use it. Not all battles require a gunfight. Many more are won through patience, cleverness, and diplomacy. I suspect you were mastered by your own justifiable anger and fear that night, and being David to Gagnon’s Goliath was your immediate course of action.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like me,” I whispered. “Gotta shout down whoever makes me mad.”

  Captain Gorman reached over and picked up the superhero novel. “A favorite of yours, I assume? I heard that the entire series materialized in the ship’s library when the ship upgraded. When Nurse Majors upgraded the ship, some rather shocking romances were suddenly on the shelves.” He laid the book back down and patted it. “What I’m saying, Petty Officer, is to remember that you are a sailor in the United States Navy, not a superhero, as it were. You must fight your enemies differently. The time will come when you can fight them with an ax,” he said, giving me a knowing smile, “But the rest of the time, try not to immediately jump to a mutiny.”

  I nodded again, then laughed and hid my face in my hands, then uncovered it. “Sir, are you the captain again?” Hashem, I hoped so.

  “Actually, no. I haven’t received my command voice back. Captain Hollander has dubbed me Captain Emeritus Gorman, but I’m just a crewman, now.”

  “What will you do?” I asked, taken aback. “There can’t be two captains.”

  “Indeed,” he said, rising slowly from his chair. “The ship knows it.” He gazed out the porthole for many seconds, then looked back to me. “Petty Officer, how old do you think I am?”

  “You look to be in your sixties, sir.”

  “Very good. I was born in 1881. I died in the Second World War.” He looked back out the porthole. “I haven’t seen my wife and children in a lifetime. Louise and I were childhood sweethearts. We married under a willow tree on a sunny day. That was rather fancy-free back then, you know.” He walked closer to the porthole, never even blinking. “We had three children, and all of them died from Spanish flu in the same week. Theodore, Mary, and Evelyn. Such beautiful children. Louise died of a broken heart that Christmas.”