Desire Wears Diamonds (42 page)

Instead of driving his weapon in, he slides
the scalpel sharp tip just into the sore, slowly, deeply to allow
the tool to do its work.

‘Is there such a thing? A gentle
wounding?’

Black blood as dark as the darkest onyx ink
fills the large glass tube—and other details find their way into
his notice as he fulfills his purpose. The creature’s breathing is
labored. The skin reminds him of a landscape of disease and
death.

When the vial was full, he pulls it out as
cautiously as he can and the dagger end becomes a stopper. He swims
back down the tunnel and steps into the temple chamber bearing his
ebony prize.

‘Your elixir, my Queen.’ He offered it into
her greedy hands and the drums in the temple and the gong sound
with a cacophony of celebration. The priests hold it aloft and the
Atlantians cheer. ‘But where is my crew?’

She smiles enigmatically. ‘They will serve
us in another way. But you are my champion and tonight we will
partake of our traditional feast! It must be held to strengthen us
before the final Rites tomorrow night.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Feast of Suffering

She prepares him for the evening’s revelries
and shows him her private gardens. Everything in her touch and look
enchants and the horror of the Kraken fades in her presence as she
bids him lay down with his head in her lap while she touches his
face and weaves a tale. Queen Arête shares the story of the Elixir
with her beloved captive.

‘Immortality has long been the quest of the
rulers and priests of Atlantis. Their every thought and effort was
shaded by their insatiable desire to live beyond all other races
and transcend the clutches of death. Men looked to Atlantis as a
shining City State without equal and their fame spread throughout
the known lands.’

‘But the Gods of Olympus were disgusted by
their arrogance and their pride and decided to test their
metal.’

‘One day, an emissary of the sacred temple
of Poseidon was sent to ask why the Atlantians should live when
others died and why they would deserve such a Divine Gift. The King
of Atlantis answered with a sneer that they received no “gifts” but
would earn the achievement of immortality on their own merit with
brilliant science and superior technology. He boasted that the
world of men would kneel in awe to them and the humblest Atlantian
would surpass the distant and dusty splendor of the gods.’

‘What of your Patron Deity? What of
Poseidon?’ the emissary asked. ‘Surely you do not think to scoff at
his powers!’

‘The King laughed. “Poseidon should be
pleased that his children have grown so clever that we need not bow
and scrape to every tide for our prosperity! And if he is pouting
at our glory, there are plenty of ignorant fishermen left in the
world to assuage the hurt.’

‘And so the fate of Atlantis was
sealed.’

‘A gift was presented to the King of
Atlantis at the next Rites of Tides. It was an opiate derived from
the blackest inky blood of the Kraken that swam in the deepest
depths of icy ocean imaginable. No one was sure of its origins. But
a gold embossed note explained that it was the gift of immortality
from the gods themselves in tribute to the worthy people of our
kingdom. One small dose transported the subject into a state of
euphoria like no other, warming their skin and reminding them of
what it had been to stand in the sun and walk as men—As the delight
faded, their beauties returned to former glories, their bodies
refreshed and rejuvenated and they failed to fear!’

‘Very quickly, we came to prize it above all
other things.’

‘It is addictive then?’ he asks.

The Queen shrugs her shoulders unconcerned.
‘It is terrible to feel the change come over us but we cannot
resist the Elixir now. It is the only thing that sustains us and
after all, we always return to our natural state.’

A chill creeps up his skin but he ignores
it.

A gong sounds. ‘Come, it is time for the
Feast of Tides to celebrate your successful harvest of the Elixir.’
She leads him from the idyllic garden with its glass walls and the
ocean pressing in on all sides. ‘They will sing your praises for a
long time to come, Captain.’

Into the Throne Room, he follows her as if
in a dream. The dome is once more solid gold and the courtiers all
shine with an ethereal beauty that makes him wonder if any mortal
would not mistake them for gods. A long table has been set up and
already the feast is underway.

He is given a place of honor next to Queen
Arête. Hack tastes the wine and the smell of the dishes is enticing
but then the lids come off of the giant platters and as the
revelers cheer the work of their kitchens.

And Captain Martin catches a glimpse of
Hell.

The feast is comprised of his crew…all the
men he thought to have saved. They are laid out in various forms
and pieces on platters. Next to a great bowl filled with the eyes
of his men, plates of hands and feet in jellied sauces, filets and
pastries, even puddings of their sweet breads, he spies George’s
boy roasted whole atop a gold ornate stand. His cooked body is
artfully arranged as if he were peacefully asleep but the nearest
courtier has already cut open his belly to reveal a seafood
stuffing that steams in the night air. New drink is brought out in
sea glass pitchers and Hack recognizes human blood pouring out into
the goblets of the guests.

The room spins and he stumbles from the
table.

He hears laughter and then comes back to
himself in the bed of the Queen.

She tries to comfort her fevered captain,
kissing him and casting an erotic spell that he slips into,
grateful for the escape from the madness and horrors in the royal
throne room. Aware that it is no escape at all but a dark fall into
bedlam.

‘You killed my crew.’

‘Shh! They served their purpose. Tomorrow is
the last night of the festival. You’ll see. You’ll see the Change
and why we must have the Elixir.’ She strokes his hair as if her
words alone are enough.

And Hack tries not to hear the faint sound
of cutlery and laughter from the throne room below them.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Poseidon’s Revenge

He awakes alone just before the last night’s
ritual.

He can hear them downstairs and races to the
throne room. The Elixir his crew died trying to get and that he
alone retrieved is brought in, a giant marble bowl holds it on a
dais in the center of the floor and every citizen lines up to take
their portion and imbibes. He watches from a narrow alcove behind
Queen Arête’s throne.

At first it is like any bacchanalian orgy as
the courtiers cavort and dance to celebrate the blinding beauty and
pleasure the Elixir brings. Without hesitation they sample each
other’s forms, openly fornicating in a frenzy that exhausted the
watcher, the tangle of bodies becoming unrecognizable.

And then it all changes.

His Queen is the most beautiful of all,
laughing at her ecstasy and shamelessly dancing naked atop the dais
for all to desire.

And then her beauty alters, her pale skin
darkens and she transforms.

Around the room, all of them begin to cry
out with a new tenor. They begin to writhe and twist, scream and
screech. Yet even then, the sexual undercurrent only strengthens
and Hack fights the vomit rising up in his throat as monsters pump
and play at a mockery of love.

They are a nightmare to behold! The black
ink coursed through their veins and showed through the pale glove
of their skin, pulsing in branches of gothic feathery dark veins
across their bodies and proclaiming their immorality.

For the true horror that our Captain could
only guess at was that over time, the addictive opium permanently
strips them of the white marble like beauty they once possessed.
Lost now is a beauty that had inspired the Greeks and Romans to
believe in Gods—and left them as tentacled monsters with gaping
maws where their mouths had been and serpent shaped spines.

‘Am I not beautiful to you, Captain Martin?’
She hissed and undulated toward him, a trail of putrid slime in her
wake. ‘For you are beautiful to me and now that I have a man worthy
of the Festival, you will repeat your bravery every year and bring
us what we need…and I will reward you in my bed, my dearest pet.
Does this not please you?’

CHAPTER NINE

The Fatal Storm

He races from her, from all of them. He
races down the dreaded paths to the temple to escape sea monsters
in pursuit. Captain Martin grabs one of the guard’s weapons from
the wall and a black cloth around his face. He is into the tunnel.
This time there is no care. Death whispers in his ear and Hack is
set on his course. He swims into the darkness and then toward the
great beast, so deadly and so powerful…imprisoned in this hole.

He swims into its gaping mouth, narrowly
missing its teeth and clutching his blades allows himself to become
a meal that the Kraken will quickly regret. He cuts and slashes,
twists and turns, a sharp whirling dervish that damages the monster
with a dozen mortal wounds from within. He fights, the black cloth
now converting blood to air and in the tight confines of the
Kraken’s guts, he conquers the wet until the cries and screams of
the Kraken make him deaf.

The Kraken dies and as the cave and tunnel
turn black with its blood and the Elixir dies with it, the screams
of Atlantis echo through the underwater city. For the Kraken was
the last and Immortality, even as twisted monsters, is a prize they
were unwilling to yield.

Captain Martin’s fate? Who can say? Did they
retrieve him from his gory prison of a rotting Kraken and tear him
into pieces for a feast of their own? Or did they toss him back
into the dungeons of Atlantis to cling to the narrow hope that if
another Kraken were found, they would have their champion at the
ready? And how would they keep such a champion alive? Would they
use the last of their stores of Elixir? Would they extend his life
and transform him against his will into the monsters he feared?

Believe me not? At your own peril, you must
each decide what you will hold to when the storms come. Think your
civilization divine? Think that you are above the gods? Hold fast,
readers.

And who is it that can
relay all this tale and convey the secrets of the HMS
Fatal
? Who is it that
can testify to the truth of it or swear to seeing Captain Martin
breathe his last in the arms of the ocean’s Queen Arête when his
body finally gave out and the icy touch of her love could not save
him?

Perhaps only the Queen herself, mortal
reader.

Beware. And Voyage safely.

The End

A Last Note to Readers

Still reading? Well here’s your treat. I put
my hidden notes where only you would find them. Where do I start?
So many wonderful emails and questions have come my way as this
series unfolded, so I’ll try to hit a few fun tidbits and
behind-the-scenes facts for my Super Readers. After all, I’m going
to assume it’s only my die-hard Jaded Fans that are venturing this
far and that everyone else closed the book after the words “The
End”.

Truthfully, it was my first editor in the
series, Kate Seaver, who pushed the jewels to the forefront (and
into the titles!) and made me rework the plots around them. The
thought was that readers are mostly women and women like jewels. I
couldn’t really argue since I’m a bit of a magpie and have a
frightening penchant for anything shiny (this includes glass and
plastic…I have no ability to discriminate between real gems and the
sparkly fake stuff apparently and take equal delight in either
one!) Even so, at first, I was a very reluctant player as I looked
at the synopsis for the first book, REVENGE WEARS RUBIES, so I
rebelliously decided that if there were going to be jewels I would
take it to the next level. The gems became a thriller style
sub-plot that I stubbornly carried forward…and here we are!

Okay, let’s work backwards. Yes, Michael
joined the military when he was fourteen and the British Army took
boys as young as twelve at that time, bless their hearts. He was
far too poor to have purchased a commission and I loved the idea of
him existing in a twilight of rank as a bodyguard and personal
attendant to his “betters”. Michael’s polish inevitably would have
come from his association with more educated men and the
necessities of becoming familiar with a gentleman’s routines as he
served and guarded them. He taught himself to read using penny
novels and to this very day, refuses to give them up. (Especially
now that his beloved Grace supplies him with all the stories he
could ever hope for!)

To my military buffs, I am fully aware that
snipers are a more modern convention of war and something the
British would never have admitted deploying in the 19
^th
century. I understand that an American Sharps rifle in the hands of
a British shooter in 1857 would have been as rare as a butterfly on
a battlefield. But for the sake of fiction, I pushed the envelope
so that my beloved Michael could take on the full weight of war and
because I find long-range snipers enigmatic, compelling and they
fire up my imagination. Blame me. Not Ian. He gave me fabulous
information that I then chose to ignore.

I never fully explained the madness of the
raj or why he literally collected foreigners but honestly, why try?
Explaining the rationale of a madman is a bit beyond me and I think
life is full of lovely unanswered questions. Bottom Line: He was
not right in the head and as the British culture/presence became a
new reality in his twisted domain, he saw others turning their
relationships with the British Crown into political advantages. But
why be a servant to the British? Why not just “own” a few and have
them on hand? I’m sure he thought to demonstrate his genius and
power that he could pluck these white men off their feet and keep
them without fear of retaliation… And then the rebellion hit, and
his guests were even more “valuable” (although that value would
have increased if he’d bothered to tell anyone outside of his
palace that he had them.) And then he forgot he had them. Because
his dinner was cold. Or his favorite peacock died. I’ll let you
paint in the rest of that grim tale.