Vampirates 1.5:Dead Deep (4 page)

“What is it?” asked Connor.

“It’s pretty simple, really,” said Bart. “I’m thinking that when you guys hook up with
The Diablo
tomorrow, I’m gonna stay here on
The Lorelei
.”

Jez’s jaw dropped. “You’re
what
?”

Connor frowned. He could understand the temptation to remain on the dive-boat—especially given Bart’s obvious bond with Kally—but even so…

“This is so sudden,” he said. “I mean, all your life you wanted to be a pirate. That’s what you told me, remember? My first night on
The Diablo
?”

Bart nodded. “I remember, buddy. Of course I do. But things
change. People change. I’m not the kind of person who draws up lists of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ before making a decision. I feel it in my gut. And right now, my gut is telling me to stay here with Kally and the others.”

“You can’t do this!” At last, Jez was able to string a sentence together. “Connor’s right—your whole life has been geared toward your becoming a pirate. Eight—
eight
years
—ago, we joined
The Diablo
. Are you going to throw all that away because of Miss Wonderwheels and a gut instinct?”

Bart gave Jez a dark look. “Don’t call her that,” he said. “And don’t think for a moment that this was an easy decision. We’ve been talking about it all day. If I could split myself in two, I’d be a happy man. One Bart could go back with you to
The
Diablo
. The other could stay here and help out Kally and Flynn.”

“Help out?”
Jez was incredulous. “What do you
mean
, help out?”

“Flynn’s getting old,” said Bart. “He’s done an amazing job looking after the fishtails, but every day he’s losing strength. There’s only so long he can go on as captain of
The Lorelei
. And, as independent as the fishtails
are, they need someone to assist them. They can’t survive on their own.”

“Wow!” said Jez, shaking his head. “She’s certainly worked her sorcery on you!”

“Sorcery?”

“How else do you explain it? You stepped onto this ship not twenty-four hours ago as a rational pirate, and suddenly you’re ready to give everything up for her!”

“It’s not just about Kally.”

“Come on, Bart,” said Jez. “I’ve known you way too long for you to pretend this is about a higher purpose. We all know you go weak in the presence of beauty. And Kally
is
beautiful. There’s no doubt about that.” He shook his head once more. “But she’s a beautiful
mermaid
.”

“They’re
fishtails
,” said Bart, surprisingly
calmly.

“Call them what you want,” said Jez, “fishtails…kulullu…naiad…nixes.…It doesn’t matter what you call them. It all comes down to the same thing. They’re half human and half fish, and they lure sailors to their deaths.”

“Even if that was true,” said Bart, “she isn’t luring
me
to my death. I’m not talking about
dying
. I’m talking about
living
—here,
on
The Lorelei
.”

Jez shrugged. “That isn’t a life. Not for you. It’s a living death.”

As the pirates’ words grew louder and more heated, Connor noticed that the fishtails had stopped what they were doing and wheeled their chairs along the deck. Suddenly, they were all around them. He exchanged an uneasy glance with João.

Bart and Jez
stood in deadlock, their words and emotions spent.

Suddenly, Jez realized that he was surrounded. He looked around in anger. “Bloody mermaids!” he cried, pushing through the wheelchairs and marching angrily to the other end of the deck.

Kally wheeled over to Bart. He looked at her sadly, then back toward Jez.

“He’ll come around,” she said, squeezing
his hand. “He just needs some time to warm to the idea. I promise, by the time we get to Calle del Marinero tomorrow, he’ll have changed his mind. You’ll see.”

Connor looked along the deck. Jez was right up by the bow. He could go no farther without jumping overboard. And, in the middle of the open ocean, that wouldn’t be a smart option.

Connor glanced back at
Bart. Could this really be the end of the Three Buccaneers? It might feel right in Bart’s gut, but Connor’s gut told another story. Something was wrong on
The Lorelei
.

Once more, he saw Grace’s face. He heard her warning.
Danger. Underwater.
Well, now he knew what that meant, didn’t he? The danger was Kally and the others. They had lured Bart away from his friends, away
from his pirate family. Connor didn’t want to be forced into choosing sides, but he had to go and comfort Jez.

Bart had Kally now. Jez was on his own.

Two hundred fathoms below the surface of the ocean, Sidorio—the renegade Vampirate—takes his rest. It’s a place as far removed from light as you can find on this planet. Darkness pervades his being here, seeping into his ears and nose and eye sockets as intently as
the water. Just as he likes it. Light can be such a menace. Others cling to the light, fear the dark. He smiles. How they would loathe it here.

And yet, many creatures prosper in this place. He is watching some of them right now—a school of hagfish. They feast on a chunk of whale meat, helpfully discarded by a predator above. The hagfish barely merit the name “fish.” No sleek
shape for them. No glittering scales. They are more like thick worms—ill-formed creatures. All they are good for is feasting on the dead flesh of this world—flesh they don’t even have the ability to kill for themselves.
Why, they don’t even have teeth
, Sidorio thinks, running his tongue over his own golden fangs.

But what hagfish lack in aesthetics, they make up for
in gumption. They may not have teeth, but they suck flesh from bones at a pace that can make you nauseous to watch. They may look vile, but they are ruthlessly efficient. It’s a combination Sidorio admires.

Now he watches as a new visitor arrives in these inky depths: a hammerhead shark. On paper, not much prettier than a hagfish,
but
, thinks Sidorio,
personality goes a long way.
Sleek and knowing, the shark swims above the hagfish. The scavengers continue feasting until the very last moment. Then they take their leave. No point in messing with a shark.

Sidorio watches as the creature dives in and takes a bite of the whale flesh. Perhaps it isn’t to her taste. Perhaps she was only proving a point. She leaves the rest of the carcass uneaten and
swims on. The hagfish return to their business of sucking and chomping. It is what they know. What they are.

The shark comes toward Sidorio. He immediately recognizes in her the arrogance of the few creatures who straddle both the dark waters below and the bright waters above. Sidorio reaches out a hand and she swims in, nuzzling it. Then she retreats back a touch, raising herself
in the water. They are eye-to-eye now. Equals.
Yes
, thinks Sidorio,
you’re right. We two
are
the same. We know both darkness and light. We can make our choices.

He looks into her eyes and sees that she is in a playful mood. She swims up higher. He follows. It is as if she is calling him. As if, higher in these waters, there may be some sport to be had. Sidorio swims
strongly in her wake. It is time to leave the dark waters behind him for a time.

He is in the mood for some sport.

The waters of Hell Bay looked tranquil in the early-morning sunshine.
We must have sailed through the night to get here
, thought Connor. Did Flynn never sleep? No wonder he looked so frail.

In spite of its name, it was a beautiful spot. Glancing
around, Connor felt a deep sense of calm. Suddenly, out of the placid waters sprang a pair of dolphins. Connor watched with delight as they swam along, leaping in and out of the water. There could be few better sights to wake up to than this.

But as the dolphins swam away, the events of the previous night flooded back. He glanced down and saw Jez, still tossing and turning in
his sleep. On his other side was an empty space. Bart had not joined them on the sleeping deck last night.
It’s happening already
, thought Connor.
We haven’t even left yet, but already Bart’s cutting the ties.

Looking up, he could see the fishtails asleep on the deck, their chairs brought together and reclined in the center. Bart was lying on a bench, not far from Kally.
Seeing this, Connor made a decision. They had to seize the moment.

“Wake up, Jez!” he whispered, nudging his friend.

“Whaaat?”

“Wake up!” Connor hissed once more. “And try not to make too much noise.”

Jez opened his eyes, blinking in the light. “What time is it?” he asked.

“It doesn’t
matter,” said Connor urgently. “The fishtails are asleep. This is our last chance to talk to Bart alone, to make him see sense.”

Jez nodded. Clearly the memory of last night was fresh in
his
mind, too.

“Wait here!” said Connor. “I’ll get him to come over.”

He set off barefoot along the deck, trying not to make a sound. In a few paces,
he was standing right beside the cluster of fishtails.

Gently but firmly, he reached out his hand to Bart.

Even before Connor touched him, Bart’s eyes opened, and his face greeted Connor with a familiar smile.

“Can we talk?” Connor whispered. “Over there?”

Bart nodded. “Sure, buddy,” he said quietly.

He raised
himself upright and together they walked back to the bow of
The Lorelei
. Jez held up his hand and he and Bart silently high-fived each other.

“I’m sorry, man,” said Jez, “for all those things I said last night.”

“Me, too,” agreed Bart. “I’ve been going over them all night. Didn’t get a wink of sleep. I never meant to hurt you guys—you’re my best friends.
You know that, don’t you?”

Jez and Connor nodded.

“That’s why we want to be sure you’ve really thought through this decision,” said Jez.

“I have,” said Bart, but there was something in the tone of his voice that made Connor think his mind wasn’t quite as made up as his words suggested.

“How about we go back to
The Diablo
—” began
Jez, but Bart immediately started shaking his head.

“Wait,” said Jez. “Please. Just hear me out! How about we go back to
The Diablo
and talk to Captain Wrathe about this?”

“Captain Wrathe?” said Bart.

“I’m sure he’d have some good ideas of ways to help these guys out,” said Jez. “Don’t you agree, Connor?”

Connor imagined the scene. Bart telling Molucco Wrathe that after eight years in his service he’d decided to break the binding articles that every pirate has to take in order to look after a ship of fishtails. He could imagine the interesting shades of red that Molucco’s face would turn as he considered Bart’s proposal—and then instantly rejected it.

“I think it’s a really good
idea to talk things through with Molucco,” said Connor, nodding calmly. “He’s not just our captain, Bart. Why, I’ve heard him say that he looks on you as the son he never had.”

“Really?” Bart said, clearly surprised at this information. “Molucco said that?”

“Yes.” Connor nodded. He felt really bad telling the lie, or at least exaggerating the truth. But he’d stop
at nothing to save Bart.

“Maybe I
have
been a little hasty,” said Bart. “But you know me, guys! Sometimes my heart rules my head.”

Seeing that they were gaining ground, Jez gripped his friend’s shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with that, man. We’re all guilty of it sometimes. And Kally’s a beautiful girl. I can see how she’d spin your world around.”

Bart turned and looked back at her. Connor followed his gaze. He noticed with a shiver that the fishtails were waking up. Their time was running out. Even if they
were
successful in changing Bart’s mind, he had an uneasy feeling that it wouldn’t end there.

“These guys need me,” said Bart.

Jez twisted Bart’s face back toward them. “No,”
he said gently. “They need
someone
. And we can help them find that someone. You’re destined for greater things. For a ship of your own, a
pirate
ship…”

“Besides,” said Connor, “
we
need you. Jez and me. Your friends. Your pirate family. Molucco and Cate. Can you imagine how upset Cate would be if she heard you’d gone away and not even said good-bye?”

“Cate…” said Bart, his face showing the impact of the name. Connor silently congratulated himself on this masterstroke, but there was no time to be complacent. Kally was upright in her chair now and looking over at them. Perhaps it was simply the way the light fell on her face, but Connor thought he saw a flicker of anger there. She turned, helping João with his chair, whispering something
to him. Now they both looked over at the three pirates.

Connor turned back to Bart. There was no more he could say. Ultimately, it was Bart’s decision.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” said Bart. “I know what I need to do.”

“Wow!” Connor said, spotting a shoal of silvery fish swimming just below the ocean’s surface. “The water’s
so
clear here,” he said. “I bet the diving is great!”

João laughed. “You’ll find out soon enough! Think you’re ready?”

“You bet!” Connor said, beaming down at him. He couldn’t contain his excitement any longer. Even from the side of the boat, he could see the wealth of colorful sea life waiting there for him. Sitting in his wetsuit, the sun beating down on him, Connor couldn’t believe how well things had turned out. The Three Buccaneers were together again! The fishtails seemed to have taken Bart’s change of heart
in good spirits. Even Kally had said that she was cool with it. And Flynn had laughed and said that he wasn’t ready to give up his captaincy just yet. It had all been a storm in a teacup—a storm brought about by the exhilaration of shore leave, perhaps, and the strange magic of
The Lorelei
and its crew.

“I can’t wait to get down there,” said Jez, coming to sit beside
Connor, dressed in his wetsuit. “Should be pretty special, huh?”

Connor nodded. He was raring to go. They’d been working on their breathing all morning, and he felt ready. It was called
pranayama
, and it was designed to slow your heart rate before your descent. The slower your pulse, the farther down you were able to dive.

Bart came to join them. Kally
wheeled her chair up alongside him.

“Kalypso!” Flynn cried from the stern. “Can you come up here for a moment?”

Kally shrugged and turned her chair around. “No rest for the wicked!” she said, giving Bart a friendly punch before whizzing off up the deck.

“She seems to have taken it really well,” Jez said, zipping up his suit.

“We had a good talk,” Bart said. “We’ll definitely keep in touch.”

He sat down with his friends. Together, they prepared themselves for the dive. As Connor followed João’s precise instructions from the water, he could already feel his pulse starting to slow. His body was perfectly calm, though he was aware that deep in his core he was excited and fully adrenalized. The dive at
Hell Bay was such a cool way to finish their weekend!

He sat beside Jez and Bart, their flippered feet dangling over the edge of the boat. Beneath them in the water, two of the fishtails—Loic and Musimu—had swum down to the ocean floor to fix a weighted line.

“How deep is it?” Bart asked as Loic surfaced.

“You don’t need to know that,” Loic replied,
smiling. “This isn’t about going deep. It’s about discovering the water in a new way—discovering
yourself
in a new way.”

“He’s right,” said João. “The most important thing is to keep your body and mind relaxed at all times. Don’t push yourself to swim down too fast. Take it nice and slow to maximize your oxygen supply. Just follow the rope. We’ll be close by.” João nodded
his head. “Okay, one at a time—first Connor, then Jez, then Bart.”

Connor looked at his comrades. Each extended his right arm, and the three touched hands in a fist.

“One for all and all for one!”

“Okay,” called Bart. “We’re coming.”

Connor slipped on his mask and duck-dived into the water. As he hit the surface, he looked back
up to see Jez jumping down to join him. But then he noticed Flynn approaching Bart. He said something Connor couldn’t hear.

Bart called down to him, “I’m just gonna help Flynn with the mainsail. You guys start without me. I’ll follow you in a jiffy.”

Connor gave him the thumbs-up. Suddenly, a shaft of sunlight fell on a circle of water in front of him. To his
amazement, he could see Grace’s face. Her eyes were fixed intently upon him as she spoke.

Danger. Underwater.

This was getting silly. It wasn’t Grace. It couldn’t be. It was just his nerves getting the better of him. He’d be fine. He knew it. João, Loic, and Musimu were there to
help
him. There was nothing to fear. He had to keep calm.
Once more, he repeated the breaths in and out.

His flippers disturbed the surface of the water and the image of Grace disappeared. Connor shook his head to clear it, then spat into his mask and wiped it clean. He slipped it over his face and then dove down into the water, finding the top of the weighted line.

“That’s it, Connor,” came João’s reassuring
voice. “Take your time. Melt into the water.”

Connor no longer found it strange that he could hear João’s voice underwater. All he knew was that its tone was incredibly calming. He found himself easing into a natural rhythm. He reached his arms along the rope, heading down. As his body relaxed, everything felt different. He could feel the slow but regular thud of his heart and
every muscle—from the top of his head down to his toes—as if he were truly at one with the water. Perhaps this was something close to what it felt like to be a fishtail.

“Well done!” said João encouragingly at his side. “If you want to let go of the line now, you can.”

Connor looked at his hands on the rope, just above the weight. There was no time to waste. He
released his hands and swam a few strokes. João drew up alongside him. “Very good,” he said. “Your lung capacity is unusually strong.”

They must be deeper than fifty feet now. The water was bluer than ever. A stingray was serenely floating just ahead of Connor’s nose.

“Stay calm,” said João. “She won’t do you any harm. You belong here now, just as much as she
does.”

Together, they observed the rare grace of the stingray. Connor felt as if he’d been granted access to a new world. It was amazing to think that he’d spent all these weeks above the surface of this very ocean. Up there was only half the story.

Suddenly, he felt a pressure in his lungs. He frowned. He didn’t want this to end. Not yet. Instantly, João was
at his side. “It’s okay, Connor. It’s nothing to worry about.”

That’s easy for you to say
, thought Connor. His head was pulsing with warning signals.

“Just another few feet,” urged João. “You can do it! You’re nearly at the ocean floor.”

Connor hesitated. They said that the body was sometimes stronger than the mind gave it credit for.

“Concentrate on your breath,” João said in his soothing tones. “Think how good you’ll feel when you reach the bottom!”

Connor saw a bright yellow school of clown fish sweep past him. He couldn’t stop now. He reached down the line, pulling himself deeper.

“That’s it, Connor,” said João encouragingly. “Just another couple of feet.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Connor saw that Loic had come to join them. Was everything okay? Shouldn’t Loic be with Jez? Or had Jez gone back up already? Perhaps his lung capacity wasn’t as strong as Connor’s.

“It’s all right,” João said, sensing his anxiety. “Everything’s fine, Connor. Don’t stop now!”

But Connor suddenly sensed that everything was
not
fine.
Then he saw Jez—his eyes shut, his body limp—being carried still deeper by Musimu. As he registered the sight, Connor felt hands firmly grip him on either side, forcing him down.

“Come on, Connor,” said João in the same steady voice. “Do you want to go deep…or do you want to go
dead
deep?”

Suddenly Connor saw the ocean floor. But any sense
of achievement he might have felt was overcome by a cold flood of fear. The fishtails hadn’t brought him and Jez down here to perfect their dive technique—they had brought them here to remove any obstacles to Bart staying on
The Lorelei
. They had brought them here to kill them! Did they really need a new captain that badly?

But the plan was fatally flawed. Bart wasn’t
stupid. He wouldn’t stay with Kally if he knew the fishtails had murdered his best friends. Only it wouldn’t seem like murder, would it? It would just be a terrible accident. Connor could imagine how convincingly João would break the news—his sad eyes wet with tears as he told how, in spite of his and Loic’s pleas, Connor and Jez had overstretched themselves.…

Connor’s heart started
to race—the very last thing he could afford at this point. He felt the pressure of João’s and Loic’s hands on his shoulders. Ahead of him, on the ocean floor, lay an ominous sight—a skeleton, a circle of chains, and, in the dead mariner’s hands, a rusting sword.

“Look!” João said with a laugh. “You’re not the first pirate to reach the ocean floor!”

Connor received
the words with horror, finally realizing the depths of João’s betrayal.

“It didn’t have to end like this,” João said, as though reading Connor’s thoughts. “You could have just let him go. You don’t need another pirate. But we won’t survive without another captain.”

So you’re going to kill for one?
Connor wanted to speak, but opening his mouth now would only speed
up his death. Instead, he just shook his head slowly, hoping that João could see the hate in his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said João. “I’m only doing my best for my crewmates. Just like you would for yours.” He smiled. “One for all—”

“And all for one!” added Loic. The two fishtails chuckled. It was a horrible sound.

Connor’s
eyes were half-closed now. He had managed to slow his breath, in spite of his terror, but there was a limit to how long he could survive.

“He’s losing his air,” Loic said. “Leave him. The job is done. We have our new captain.”

“It’s a shame, really.” Connor heard João’s receding voice. “He was kind of a fun guy. The other one, too. And it was good to have some
decent opposition at cards.”

As Connor’s eyes embraced the darkness, he felt his back bump against the seabed. Suddenly it was deadly quiet. The fishtails had swum off, perhaps to check on Jez. Connor thought of his buddy. Was Jez hanging in there, or had he succumbed to the worst already? Connor tried to shut out the fear for a moment.

Not for the first time
in his life, he found himself facing death underwater. Cheng Li, the pirate who’d saved him from drowning before, had told him it was a gentle way to die, but he didn’t plan on sticking around to find out whether she was right. Thinking about Cheng Li gave him an extra surge of energy. She was a fighter—
she
wouldn’t give up. Not even under these circumstances. He could imagine her talking to him
now:
Did I rescue you, boy, only to have you drown once more, at the hands of mermaids?

He opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with the skeletal remains of the dead pirate. His eyes fell to the rusting sword held loosely within the skeleton’s fingers.
I’ll just borrow that
, he said to himself, reaching out for the hilt.

Grabbing
it from the skeleton’s clutches was easy—as if the dead sailor were lending him a hand from beyond the grave. Now the hard work began. Moving the sword through the water was far from easy. It took an extreme effort, and Connor knew that he had little strength left. The only possible way to get back to the surface alive was to conserve his energy, to keep hold of his breath for as long as he could.

With a grim sense of determination he began swimming, the sword gripped tightly in his right hand.

Loic stopped his ascent and turned to watch Connor struggle up from the sea floor.

“He’s certainly got stamina,” Connor heard João say.

João’s sneering tone gave Connor even more determination. The fishtails were swimming back toward
him now, but they were in for a surprise. As Loic homed in on him, Connor pulled the immense weight of the sword through the water.

But he was too slow. Loic laughed and easily swerved out of danger. “Let the pirate swim with his rusty sword,” he sneered. “It’ll sink him before it saves him.”

Connor wanted to cry out in frustration. He had no fight left, and almost
no breath. With or without the sword, he’d never make it. He was going to die. Here, in this pirate’s graveyard. He thought of Grace. She’d tried to warn him, and he hadn’t listened. Now he’d never see her again.

Suddenly the waters around him bubbled, then revealed the shape of another diver. Slowly, a familiar face came into focus. It was Bart! He had come to rescue Connor!

With an encouraging smile, Bart grabbed the sword from Connor’s hands. He propelled himself forward fast, lifted the sword, and sliced through João’s tail.

There was an ear-piercing scream. Then the waters filled with dark blood. And then, all hell broke loose.