Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) (7 page)

And that’s where my luck ran out.

The bastard used his last ounce of strength to force me over the railing, where I fell back, falling...

Falling.

* * *

Because the lower decks had a larger perimeter than the upper decks, there were only a few places on this particular cruise ship where a person could be thrown over the railing into the ocean—from an outside stateroom balcony, for example—this wasn’t one of those places. I’d been on enough ships to get the layout pretty fast.

I crashed into a buffet table that was laden with whole pineapples and other sharp foods.

As I gasped and extricated myself, a few people screamed.

“Sorry!” I mumbled, but my problems had only started. Ship security was on their way, pushing through the crowd.

I made a beeline for Gabby’s stateroom with crew security hot on my ass.

I hate when that happens.

* * *

I beat feet down the corridor, slid down railings and boomeranged around corners until I found the correct corridor.

I ran full speed at the door and crashed it down with my shoulder. They ran in after me and I opened the door to the stateroom’s exterior balcony. I jumped up on the railing, balancing on it, cat-like. To hell with those guys. Nobody else was gonna manhandle me.

“Don’t jump! We’re too far out to sea!” cried one of the security goons.

Admittedly, his idea was better than mine. I didn’t move or speak, although they inched closer to me.

“What’s your nationality?” he demanded.

Oh shit. Not that question!
“American. I’m
not
a terrorist, in case you’re wondering.”

“
Look, we’re going to make port in Hilo in the morning. We’ll turn you over to the authorities and you can tell it to them. I’m sure they’ll give you one phone call.”

“
Don’t worry about me. Find Gabrielle Dubois. She’s been kidnapped.”

“
Kidnapped by whom?”

I almost grinned. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Get ‘em!” said the first guard, and now a goon came at me with gun in one hand and cuffs in the other.

Before he could grab my ankles, I took a deep breath, leaped out as far as I could, and crashed feet-first into the dark water.

Chapter Nine

It felt like Navy Seals Hell Week all over again, except that the sea was much warmer here than where I had jumped out of helicopters.

I knew we were still a few dozen miles from shore. I knew this because I had smelled the faint scent of sand and palm trees on the breeze as I plummeted down...

Now, as I fought my way to the surface, my lungs feeling like they would burst, I was dragged and tumbled in the pull. The ship disappeared quickly.

I took a look at the clear sky and the stars in it, getting a bead on the direction to Hilo Bay.

I didn’t aim myself after the ship because I assumed it would be turning around and heading back to search for me. It would take a long time to turn around or launch a rescue boat, but I had no time to deal with sitting in a jail cell while they tried to figure out if I was a terrorist. 

Memories arose of jumping out of helicopters into the sea and treading water for hours with my fellow Navy Seals. There were reasons I was scared of sharks, was petrified of Portuguese man-o-war jellyfish, and had respect for heights.

I had seen men die...friends die.

I forced myself to not think of the Seal brothers I had lost. I forced myself not to think of losing my nerve in the sea and almost losing my religion. It had been a tough life for a married guy, and after six years of service, I had not re-upped. I had then settled into a life of scattered income with my darling wife and child.

We had lived happily in my family’s old Spanish-style hacienda until my brother Rudolph had been killed by the same vampires who had killed our parents.

And then, all hell did break loose as I became a vampire hunter and an inventor and began to withdraw myself and my family from the world, in order to protect us from the vampires. We were the last of this branch of the Sebastians: me, my wife, and my child. The rest of us, except for my grandparents, who had died of natural causes, had been taken out by vampires.

Treading water, I carefully took out the contents of my pockets, my wallet and keys and even my drenched phone, and stuck the items safely into my snug boxer-briefs. Then I stripped off my pants and tied knots in each ankle. I filled up the pant legs with air, and made myself an emergency flotation device, as I had been taught in the Seals.

I probably wasn’t going to die of hypothermia. My body estimated about a seventy-five degree ocean. I was a little chilly but it wasn’t a killing cold for quite some hours. As long as I didn’t succumb to exhaustion, or get eaten by a shark, or stung by a jellyfish, I thought I would make it to Hilo.
I had to.
My family needed me.

After about half an hour of steady swimming—yes, my watch was waterproof—I tried not to think of my burning thirst.

As the hours went by and dawn began to break, I visualized myself in a jet, heading back to the airport in Los Angeles. I visualized my wife and daughter at the end of my trip.

“
Just keep swimming!” I told myself, using my daughter’s favorite line from the movie,
Finding Nemo.
It was not a bad mantra.

As the sun came up behind me, I heard a familiar clang-clang-clang of a gong buoy, with its three distinct tones. With immense joy, I swam carefully toward the sound, stopping every few feet to make sure that it was louder and louder. Soon, I could see the red and white buoy. The discordant clanging was joined by the sounds of actual seals.

A couple of the friskier ones barked at me and vacated the premises. I untied the ankles of my pants and put them back on, so I wouldn’t cut the hell out of my legs on the barnacles that coated the edges of the buoy.

I needed rest. Exhausted, it took me a long time to get on the buoy, until I finally heaved my body onto piles of fresh seal shit that covered the buoy’s platform. I didn’t give a shit, literally. I rested and breathed, my arms twitching and cramping. Minutes later, I looked at my watch again and realized it had been six hours.
Damn.

After I lay in the sun for a while, with shaky legs and pruney, swollen fingers, I climbed the buoy’s tower and saw land, but closer than land, the breakwater, which I knew was about two miles from Hilo Harbor. I guessed that I might still be about six miles out, all told. If I rested, I could swim those six miles.

That was the good news.

The bad news was, from my perch above the water, I had a very clear view of an entire school of scalloped hammerhead sharks.

Chapter Ten

So close and yet, so far.

My seal buddies hopped up on the buoy again but gave me little notice as they huddled together quietly, with the school of hammerhead sharks circling the buoy. I wasn’t about to chase the poor seals off to their deaths.

As I climbed down to the platform of the buoy, exhausted, I hoped they wouldn’t chase me off either.

One of them gave a little bark and I barked back in what I hoped was seal talk for “be cool.” He laid his head down and took a nap. And that was that.

I worked my way around to the other side of the buoy to rest and watched as the seals lay side by side in the sun and basked.

I knew I was still on track for Hilo, but there was no way in hell I was going to get back in the water if the seals didn’t. The sharks would circle and wait for the seals for some time.

“Please, God.” Such a simple prayer, but those two words were as sincere as any other prayer I had ever uttered. I had to get back home. I had to
drink
.

After only a few minutes, I did see something in the distance:

Outrigger canoes, being paddled by a handful of people.

There was no mistaking that they were real. I couldn’t dream up such imaginative patterns of Hawaiian shirts if I had years to do it.

I looked through my wallet to see if I could find something to signal with and get them to come over. They might anyway, since buoys are often used for navigation, but I wanted to make sure they came for
me
.

I located that shiny silver business card of Ambra’s. I used the last of my strength to again climb the buoy’s tower and this time, I used that business card to signal an SOS. Even as they got closer and closer, I kept signaling.

My lips were so dry and cracked that I couldn’t even purse them to whistle.

I couldn’t see the hammerhead school anymore and the seals plopped into the water.

The wrinkled, tanned faces of the Hilo Bay Senior Citizen Ladies Outrigger Canoe Club pulling up alongside the buoy were the most beautiful faces I had ever seen.

“
Aloha!” I managed. My voice came out like a croak. I jumped in the water next to the nearest outrigger canoe.

They pulled me on board immediately, crooning to me.

I don’t remember when I passed out, but I do remember when I came to, with bottled water being held to my lips, and the sounds of my own swallowing filling my ears. They sang in Polynesian as they paddled the outrigger canoes in time to the music. I was choked up with immense gratitude.

On the way to Hilo, the ladies kept paddling but suddenly stopped singing.

I wondered why until I heard the song of a humpbacked whale, whose melodious tone resonated through the hulls of the canoes like an answered prayer.

Chapter Eleven

Finally there was land, sweet land. Hawaii was one of my favorite places. Yes, I even kissed the ground.

The ladies asked polite, urgent questions about what had happened to me. I gave them a half-truth: that I had taken a spill off a party boat. They wanted to alert the Coast Guard that I had been found, so I told them my brother’s name.

At their clubhouse, there was food and fresh clothing. I bummed a ride to the airport in Hilo, where I bought a plane ticket home on United.
My wallet.
What would I have done if I had lost it?

I used the on-board phone service but there was no answer from Megan. I frowned at this. A lot. She always picked up. Well, mostly always.

I couldn’t help but think the worst.

A guy in my business, who’s lost what I have lost—always thinks the worst. It’s our curse, but it’s also our drive.

After agonizing hours, finally, I got back to Southern California. I took a cab from LAX to the street where I had left my vehicle parked. I plucked a ticket from the front windshield. Street-sweeping day, damn it.

Boo-yah! I still had my car keys!

I threw the ticket in the glove compartment, and then pointed my vehicle toward home, which was down a winding road in a remote area of the Palos Verdes peninsula, the part with mud slides and a cracked road that occasionally moved.

Once traffic thinned out, I drove like a madman.