Peter and the Starcatchers (30 page)

“Hel o there, ladies!” said Slank, cordial y.

The she-fish spun, their bodies now rigid. They stared at the two men with expressionless faces dominated by round, huge, sea-blue eyes.

Beautiful eyes,
thought Little Richard.
But not human eyes.

“My name is Slank,” said Slank. “I think you may have run into something I’m looking for.”

The she-fish did not speak or move. For twenty seconds there was no sound but the low hiss of the surf.

“We mean you no harm,” said Slank.

As reassurance, Little Richard parted his lips in a broad smile. He had nine and a half teeth in al , the color of tree bark.

The instant he opened his mouth, the already wide eyes of the she-fish became even wider. Before Slank could say another word, the creatures had flipped their tails, slithered off the rock, and slid into the lagoon.

“Wait!” shouted Slank, but they were gone. The men’s eyes fol owed the long, graceful shapes, gliding underwater with astonishing speed to a dark opening in the jumble of ship-sized rocks nearby. The she-fish surfaced there, looked back for a moment at the men, then dove again, their bodies shooting into a dark opening between two massive boulders, and disappearing.

“You IDJIT!” said Slank, turning and throwing a punch that landed on Little Richard’s massive trunk, having no effect other than to hurt Slank’s fist. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“Nothin’, I swear!” said Little Richard. “I just smiled at ’em, is al !”

“Wel , don’t do it again,” said Slank. “You scared ’em, and now we got to go in there after ’em.” He gestured at the dark opening in the rocks.

“We do?” said Little Richard, who, in addition to spiders, did not care for the dark.

“We do,” said Slank, wading into the lagoon toward the big rocks, with Little Richard reluctantly fol owing. As the water reached his waist, Slank pul ed the two pistols from his belt, holding them up to keep them dry.

When they reached the cave opening, the water was up to Slank’s chest and Little Richard’s waist. The two men paused and looked into the cave. In the late dusk they could see only a short distance: on either side, water sloshed against smal er rocks; overhead was a high, sloping, cathedral-like ceiling, formed by massive rocks leaning together; ahead lay a yawning darkness.

“I don’t like this,” said Little Richard.

“I’ve seen you whip six men at once in a fight,” said Slank. “How can you be afraid of
women
?”

“Those ain’t normal women,” said Little Richard. “And it’s dark.”

“Just the same,” said Slank, holding his pistols high as he waded into the gloom, “we’re goin’ in.” They moved forward, the sound of their sloshing echoing back to them in the dark, cavernous space. Soon they were in deep gloom, barely able to make out the cave wal s, no longer able to see beneath the surface of the water.

“Hey!” shouted Little Richard, his voice booming off the wal s.

Slank spun, pistols leveled. “WHAT?” he shouted.

“I felt something,” said Little Richard. “It touched me leg.”

“It’s your mind playin’ tricks,” said Slank. “Stop bein’ such a baby.” But it was bothering him now, the darkness of the water.

They pressed on, the cave entrance now almost out of sight, their eyes straining to pick up what little of the wan dusk filtered in through openings in the boulders high overhead.

What was that?

Now it was Slank’s turn to think something had touched him. He kicked out his right leg, but struck nothing. But now he saw it: something was roiling the water around them.

Little Richard saw it too.

“They’re here,” said the big man, moving close.

“Stand back to back,” said Slank. “Get your sword ready.”

They moved together, each facing out. The roiling around them was getting more pronounced now. There was a splash, and the tip of a tail. And then several more, from different directions.

There’s more than two,
thought Slank.

And then a woman’s head appeared, streaming hair, circling, a few yards away; then another head, and another, and another.

A LOT more than two.

“What’re they doing?” said Little Richard, behind Slank. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know,” said Slank, trying to shake the thought:
They led us in here. It’s a trap.

Now, in the gloom, they could make out six, perhaps seven heads circling them, moving very fast, stil a few yards away, but Slank saw now that the circle they spun was shrinking. Inch by inch, the she-fish were drawing closer, closer….

Then they stopped.

One of them—the men could see now it was the blond one that they had seen before—was directly in front of Little Richard, just out of his reach—not that he wanted to touch her.

She looked into his face, her face without expression, blue eyes seeming to glow.

Then she smiled.

Little Richard gasped. The she-thing’s mouth was a horror: the top overcrowded with a jumble of jagged teeth, more shark than human; the bottom row was a hard, smooth, bony plate, stil more fish than human.

Little Richard raised his right arm, and with it, his sword; he meant the gesture purely defensively, but the instant he moved, another she-fish—Slank’s glimpse told him it was the black-haired one that had been outside—hissed and darted forward, snakelike, opening her own hideous mouth and clamping her needle-sharp teeth down on his right forearm.

Slank whirled to shoot it, but Little Richard, bel owing in pain, moved faster; he brought his massive left fist down on the she-fish’s head. She emitted a blood-chil ing screech and fel away into the dark water.

The cave fil ed with hisses now as the other she-fish erupted in a frenzy of furious motion. Little Richard screamed in pain as another set of teeth sank into the back of his left thigh; he reached down frantical y, trying to knock the thing away. The water around the two men foamed and boiled; Slank swept his pistols back and forth, but could find nothing to aim at; the she-fish were moving too fast, and mostly underwater.

And then they were gone.

For a moment there was no sound in the cave but Slank’s breathing and Little Richard’s moans as he felt the pain of his wounds, especial y the jagged hole in his leg.

Then they surfaced, perhaps twenty feet away. Five—no, six—of them. One of them, the one Little Richard had struck, was clearly hurt, possibly unconscious; the other five were supporting it, making odd, low noises. They were moving away slowly, toward a bend in the cave wal ; as they rounded it, Slank could see them looking back toward the men, could see the fury in their glowing blue eyes, could see…

Wait a minute.
There was something odd….

Why can I see them so clearly?

Slank squinted for a moment, and then he realized what it was: there was light coming from somewhere around that bend, from deeper in the cave.

Something in there was giving off light.

“Come on,” he told Little Richard, moving toward where the she-fish had disappeared around the curve.

“What?
” said Little Richard, grimacing in pain. “You want to
follow
those devil things?”

“Yes,” said Slank, pushing forward, excited now. Little Richard, not wanting to go, but afraid of being alone in the dark water, fol owed. They reached the bend in the cave wal , and Slank, holding his pistols in front of him, inched forward until he could see around it.

“Wel , wel ,” he said softly.

Little Richard leaned around to see, and gasped.

In front of them was a little cove, at the back of which was a rock ledge, perhaps thirty feet across. Lying on the ledge, to the right, was the injured she-fish, stil being attended to by the five who had carried it there. Arrayed along the ledge, and in the water in front of it, were many more—Slank estimated two dozen—she-fish. Behind them, on a pile of rocks at the center of the ledge, was the source of the glow that fil ed the cavern.

The trunk. It was battered and lopsided, light streaming from its many cracks.

“It’s mine,” said Slank, mostly to himself.

The creatures, keeping their glowing blue eyes fixed on the men, moved slowly toward the center of the cove, gathering in front of the trunk.

“I don’t think they mean to give it up,” said Little Richard. “They’re protecting it.”

“Yes, they’d want to keep it,” said Slank. “But I don’t mean to let them.” He turned to Little Richard. “Go get it,” he said.

“Me?” said Little Richard. “But…”

“GO GET IT,” barked Slank, evoking a flurry of hisses from the she-fish. “If they come at you,” Slank continued in a calmer voice, “I’l shoot them.” Stil , Little Richard hesitated.

“If you don’t go in there,” said Slank, “I’l shoot
you.
”

Little Richard stared at him for a moment, and saw he meant it. Turning back, he took a breath, and began wading toward the she-fish.

The creatures began darting nervously side to side; the hissing increased. Little Richard glanced back over his shoulder, pleadingly, toward Slank, but found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. He turned away and took another step toward the creatures, who were very agitated now, opening their mouths as they hissed, revealing those terrifying teeth.

It happened in less than a second. One of the she-fish shot from the pack, mouth agape, straight for Little Richard. As he threw his hands up, the cave rang with the sudden sound of a pistol shot, magnified by the stone wal s. Incredibly—for the creature was moving very fast—Slank’s aim was true: the pistol bal struck it in the neck, and it fel back with a gurgling sound, blood spurting from the wound.

The cave now fil ed with unearthly shrieks and screeches. Another creature, and now a third, lunged at Little Richard, and Slank fired again. This time he missed, but the sound of another shot, and its ricochet on the stone, was apparently too terrifying for the she-fish. As suddenly as they had attacked, they whirled and retreated. Grabbing their two wounded, the creatures flashed their powerful tails and dove, giving the men—and their terrible weapon—a wide berth, swarming from the cove and toward the cave entrance.

Slank, stil holding his pistols leveled, watched them go. Little Richard, barely believing he’d been spared, slowly lowered his hands from in front of his face, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

“That was worse than spiders,” he said.

“It’s a good thing,” said Slank, “they don’t know there’s but one shot per pistol.”

Then he turned, slowly, savoring the moment, toward the glowing, now-unguarded trunk.

“And now,” he said, “you’re mine.”

P
ETER STUMBLED DOWN A STEEP SLOPE of hard-packed dirt that formed the interior wal of the Molusks’log structure. He couldn’t see where he was going, as the dense tree branches overhead blocked out most of the fading dusk-light.

After a few feet the wal became even steeper, almost vertical, and Peter lost his footing, fal ing…

“
UNH
.” Peter had slammed into a body sprawled on the earthen floor.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Get
off
me,” hissed Tubby Ted.

“Where are the others?” said Peter, scrambling to his feet.

“Here, lad,” said Alf, his deep voice reassuring to Peter. “Over here.”

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw Alf’s big bulk, with the three smal er forms of James, Thomas, and Prentiss huddled next to him. They were in a corner of the space, but he couldn’t see how large it was; only two wal s, disappearing off into the gloom.

He took a step toward Alf, and his foot hit something hard and hol ow-sounding. It skittered forward a few feet. James bent and picked it up, then dropped it, screaming.

It was a skul .

“It’s al right, lad,” said Alf, hugging the sobbing boy. “It’s al right.”

“No it’s not,” said Prentiss. He was pointing at something, a pile of things. Peter peered at it. Bones. He looked around, and realized that the floor was covered with them.

Bones and skul s. Dozens of skul s.

Then they heard it, from somewhere off in the darkness.

Another growl.

“We have to get out of here,” whispered Peter. He turned back and tried to scale the wal , but it was too steep to climb, and he couldn’t gain either a handhold or a foothold on its smooth, hardpacked surface.

“Here, lad,” said Alf, heaving Peter up onto his shoulders. But as high as Peter could reach, the wal was hard, and smooth, and steep.

“It’s no use,” he said, and Alf set him back on the floor.

Another growl, this one closer.

The boys backed away from the sound, into the corner, Alf and Peter in front of them, al of them peering into the darkness, watching, listening.

Another growl, stil louder. And a scraping sound, like claws. And the rumble of a massive weight, shifting and dragging on the hard earth floor. Coming ever closer.

James screamed again, and as he did they al saw what he saw in the distance, in the darkness, coming toward them: Two ovals, red, glowing, like coals, each with a cruel black vertical slit.

Those are eyes,
thought Peter.
But they’re impossibly far apart.