The Wheel of Darkness (45 page)

L
ESEUR STOOD ON THE AUX BRIDGE AND STARED OUT THE WALL OF
forward windows. The ship’s bow bulled through the heavy seas at high speed, the hull slamming, green water periodically sweeping the forecastle. The fog was lifting, the rain had almost ceased, and visibility had risen to almost a mile.

Nobody spoke. LeSeur had been racking his mind for a way out. There was none. All they could do was monitor the electronics over which they had no control. The chartplotter showed the Carrion Rocks to be two nautical miles dead ahead. LeSeur felt the sweat and blood trickling down his face, stinging his eyes.

“ETA Carrion Rocks in four minutes,” said the third officer.

The lookout stood at the window, binoculars raised and white-knuckled. LeSeur wondered why the man felt it was so important to see the rocks coming—there was nothing they could do about it. Nothing.

Kemper laid a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, I think you need to issue instructions to the bridge personnel to assume defensive positions for . . . for the upcoming collision.”

LeSeur nodded, a sick feeling in his stomach. He turned and signaled for attention.

“Officers and personnel of the bridge,” he said. “I want everyone on the floor, in fetal position, feet facing forward, heads cradled in hands. The collision event will not be a short one. Do not rise until the vessel is clearly DIW.”

The lookout asked, “Me as well, sir?”

“You, too.”

Reluctantly and awkwardly, they lay down on the floor and assumed their defensive positions.

“Sir?” Kemper said to LeSeur. “We can’t afford an injured captain at the critical moment.”

“In a minute.”

LeSeur took one last look at the CCTV trained on the bridge helm. Mason remained calmly at the helm, as if on the most routine of crossings, one hand draped casually over the wheel, the other caressing a lock of hair that had escaped from under her cap.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught something beyond the bridge windows, and shifted his gaze.

Directly ahead and about a mile off, LeSeur could see a light-colored smudge emerge out of the mist, which resolved itself into a ragged line of white below the uncertain horizon. He immediately knew it was the immense groundswell breaking over the outer edges of the Carrion Rocks. He stared in horrified fascination as the line of white resolved into a tearing expanse of combers boiling and erupting over the outer reefs, exploding over the rocks and sending up geysers as tall as small skyscrapers. And behind the churning white water he could see a series of rocky masses looming up like the black, ruined towers of some grim castle of the deep.

In all his years at sea, it was the most terrifying sight he had ever seen.

“Get down, sir!” Kemper cried from his position on the floor.

But LeSeur could not get down. He could not take his eyes off their looming end. Very few human beings had looked into hell itself—and to him, this cauldron of writhing water and jagged rocks
was
hell, the real hell, far worse than mere fire and brimstone. A cold, black, watery hell.

Who were they kidding? Nobody would survive—nobody.

Please, God, just make it quick.

And then his eye caught a movement on the CCTV. Mason had seen the rocks herself. She was leaning forward, eagerly, as if urging the ship onward by sheer willpower, yearning it on to its watery grave. But then an odd thing happened: she jumped and turned, staring with fright at something offscreen. Then she backed up, away from the wheel, a look of pure terror on her face. Her movement carried her out of the field of the camera, and for a moment nothing happened. Then there was a strange burst of static on the screen, almost like a cloud of smoke, crossing the field of view in the direction Mason had retreated. LeSeur slapped the CCTV, assuming it was a glitch in the video feed. But then his audio headset, tuned to the bridge frequency, transmitted a gut-chilling scream—Mason. She reappeared, staggering forward. The cloud—it
was
like smoke—whirled about her and she breathed it in and out, clawing at her chest, her throat. The captain’s hat tumbled off her head and her hair flew out wildly, snapping back and forth. Her limbs moved in strange, herky-jerky spasms, almost as if she were fighting her own body. With a thrill of horror, LeSeur was reminded of a marionette struggling against a controlling puppeteer. Writhing with the same, spastic movements, Mason approached the control panel. Her smoke-shrouded limbs convulsed in fresh struggle. Then LeSeur saw her stretch forth her hand—unwillingly, it seemed—and press a button. The cloud seemed to sink deeper into her, thrusting itself down her throat, while she clawed at the air, arms and legs jerking now in agony. She fell to her knees, hands up in the caricature of prayer; then she sank, shrieking, to the floor, out of sight of the camera’s view.

For a second, LeSeur stood motionless, staring at the screen in surprise and disbelief. Then he grabbed the radio, punched in the frequency for the guards posted outside the bridge. “LeSeur to bridge security, what the hell’s going on up there?”

“I don’t know, sir,” came the reply. “But the Level Three alert’s been lifted. The security locks on the bridge hatch just disengaged.”

“Then what the hell are you waiting for?” he screamed. “Get in there and turn hard aport,
hard aport, you son of a bitch, now, now, now
!”

E
MILY
D
AHLBERG HAD LEFT THE AUXILIARY BRIDGE AND, AS
ordered, was making her way back to her cabin. The ship was still proceeding at what seemed like full speed. She descended a staircase to Deck 9, walked along a corridor, and emerged again onto a balcony overlooking the highest level of the Grand Atrium.

She paused, shocked at the sight that greeted her eyes. The water had drained away into the lower decks, leaving a tangled wreckage of sodden and broken furniture, wires, seaweed, wood paneling, ripped-up carpet, broken glass, and—here and there—a motionless body. The place stank of seawater.

She knew she had to get to her cabin and brace for the collision. She’d listened to the argument on the auxiliary bridge, heard the announcement over the PA system. But it occurred to her that her cabin, here on Deck 9, might not be a good place to be. It seemed a better place might be on one of the lower weather decks, near the stern, where she would be farthest from the point of impact and could perhaps jump into the sea afterward. It was, of course, a pathetic hope, but at least it seemed a better risk than being trapped in a cabin a hundred and twenty feet above the water.

She ran down a set of stairs, descending another eight levels, then stepped through an archway and began picking her way sternward, through the sodden debris littering the floor of the Grand Atrium. The elegant wallpaper of the King’s Arms restaurant was stained and darkened, with an encircling line of kelp showing the high-water level. She passed the ruined piano, looking away when she noticed one crushed leg protruding heavily from the sound box.

With everyone in their cabins, the ship seemed strangely still, unpopulated and ghostlike. But then she heard a sound nearby—a sobbing—and, turning, noticed a bedraggled boy of perhaps eleven years old, shirtless, soaking wet, crouching amid a scatter of debris. Her heart swelled with pity.

She made her way over to him. “Hello, young man,” she said, trying to keep her tone as light and as even as possible.

He stared at her and she extended a hand. “Come with me. I’ll take you out of here. My name is Emily.”

The boy took her hand and she helped him to his feet, then took off her jacket and placed it around his shoulders. He was shaking with terror. She put an arm around him. “Where’s your family?”

“My mum and dad,” he began in an English accent. “I can’t find them.”

“Lean on me. I’ll help you. We don’t have much time.”

He gave one more gulping sob and she hustled him out of the Grand Atrium, past the Regent Street shops—shuttered and deserted—and then along the side corridor leading to the weather deck. She stopped at an emergency station for two sets of life vests, which they put on. Then she led the way over to the hatch.

“Where are we going?” the boy asked.

“Outside, onto the deck. It’ll be safer there.”

Within moments of opening the hatchway and helping the boy step out, she found herself drenched by wind-driven spray. Above, she could see airplanes, circling uselessly. Keeping a tight hold on the boy’s hand, she made her way to the rail, preparing to head aft along the deck. The engines screamed and throbbed, shaking the ship like a terrier shaking a rat.

She turned back, looking at the boy. “Let’s go—” she began. Then the words died in her throat. Over the boy’s shoulder, ahead of the
Britannia
’s bow, she could see a line of leaping white surf thrown up against a dead-black row of huge, tooth-like rocks. An involuntary cry escaped her lips. The boy turned and stared. The wall of death was approaching at high speed. There would be no time to reach the stern, no time to do anything but brace for the impact.

The boom of the surf against the rocks reached her, a deep vibration that seemed to thrum through her body. She put her arms around the boy. “Let’s just stay here,” she said breathlessly. “We’ll crouch down against the wall.”

They took shelter against the superstructure, the boy, now crying again, bundled in her arms. A scream sounded from somewhere above her, a forlorn sound like a lost seagull.

If she had to die, at least she would die with dignity, with another human being in her arms. She held the boy’s head against her chest, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

And then the sound of the engine changed. The ship heeled over with a new motion. Her eyes flew open, almost afraid to hope. But it was true—
the ship was beginning to turn
. Rising, she brought the boy back to the rail, hardly believing her eyes as the booming line of surf edged closer, yet not quite as fast now. As the ship continued to yaw, the steepening groundswell pounded the hull, throwing up sheet after sheet of water, but in between them she could see the black rocks swinging past the bow—turning, turning—and then they were running parallel and the monstrous line of surf passed on the starboard side, the nearest rocks almost close enough to touch as they ran past, the ship’s hull slamming through the steep-walled waves.

And then, suddenly, the last moiling tooth fell aft, the boom of the surf faded, and the ship headed on, noticeably slower now. And over the whine of the engines and the wrack of the surf, she could hear another sound now: the sound of cheers.

“Well,” she said, turning to the boy. “Shall we go find your mum and dad?” And as she walked back to the hatch on shaking legs, Emily Dahlberg allowed herself a small smile of relief.

S
COTT
B
LACKBURN SAT, CROSS-LEGGED, IN THE RUINS OF THE PENSHURST
Triplex. The stateroom salon was a perfect whirlwind of destruction—rare china, precious crystal, exquisite oil paintings, jade and marble sculptures—now so much bric-a-brac, lying strewn about and piled up against one wall in a tangled, broken heap.

Blackburn was oblivious to it all. Throughout the crisis, he had taken shelter in a closet with his precious, his most prized, his
only
possession, cradling it and protecting it from any harm. And now that the worst had passed and they were headed into port—as he’d always known they would—he had lovingly replaced it on its golden hook in his salon.

His possession—that was wrong. Because, if anything, it possessed
him
.

Pulling the monastic robes more tightly around his athletic frame, he sat on the floor in front of the Agozyen, assuming the lotus position, never once allowing his eyes to drift toward the mandala. He was alone, wonderfully alone—his private maid was gone, perhaps dead, for all he knew—and there would be nobody to disturb his communion with the unending and the infinite. His frame shivered in involuntary pleasure at the mere expectation of what was to come. It was like a drug—the most perfect, ecstatic, liberating drug—and he could never get enough of it.

Soon, the rest of the world would share his need.

He sat quietly, his heartbeat and mental restlessness slowing in turn. Finally, with a deliberation that was both delicious and maddening, he permitted his head to rise and his eyes to gaze upon the infinite wonder and mystery of the Agozyen.

But even as he did so, something intruded on his private world. An inexplicable chill caused his limbs to tremble beneath the silken wraps. He realized that a stench was settling over the room—a smell of fungus and the deep woods, completely overpowering the mellow fragrance of the butter candles. Disquiet chased away his feelings of expectation and desire. It was almost as if . . . but no, that wasn’t possible . . .

In sudden apprehension, he turned to look over his shoulder. And to his transcendental horror and dismay,
it
was there—not bent on hunting down his enemy, but rather closing in on him with a hunger and desire that was palpable. He quickly rose to his feet but already it was upon him, penetrating him, filling his limbs and his thoughts alike with its burning, all-consuming need. He reared back with a gargling scream, falling over a side table and crashing to the floor, but already he felt his living essence being sucked from him, pulled relentlessly and utterly into a black and unquiet void from which there was no return . . .

Soon, quiet once again settled over the Penshurst Triplex. The guttural cries and sounds of struggle faded into the smoky, salt-heavy air. A minute passed, then two. And then the front door to the suite was opened with a passkey. Special Agent Pendergast stepped inside. He paused in the entryway, taking in the scene of devastation with pale eyes. Then, stepping over the clutter of broken objets d’art with the finicky precision of a cat, he made his way into the salon. Scott Blackburn was sprawled across the carpet, motionless, limbs shrunken and contorted into odd angles, as if bones and sinew and viscera had all been sucked from him, leaving a loose, empty sack of skin. Pendergast gave him only the most cursory of glances.