Nevermor (48 page)

“Rifter…”

He turned back
to humor her, but she must have seen the annoyance on his face.  She seemed
shocked at his expression, and he wondered if he should have apologized – given
her assurances and promises – but he didn’t.

“Don’t do
anything reckless.”

She’d meant it
to show that she cared about him, but he didn’t take it that way.  He took it
as more nagging, and he scoffed as he walked away from her.  Didn’t she
understand how important this was?

As soon as he
had this finished, things could go back to the way they had been before. 
Didn’t any of them see that?

He went out and
took to the air, traveling over the land and sea.  He went for miles across the
open water, to no result.  He let the clouds hide him as he rechecked every
cove and pirate camp for the ship, but he found no trace.

He searched for
hours – much like the hours he had searched before – but remained with nothing
but the stirring dark of his enemy’s presence churning inside him.

4

One blue eye
opened in the blackness, and the Scourge awoke with a start.  Sweat trailed
down the side of his face, into the stubble along his jaw as he tried to catch
his breath – as the shock of what he had seen left him cold and shaking.  He
struggled to remember where he was, for the things he had seen through that
door had distorted his mind.

Why now?  Why
only now have I been allowed to see the truth?

It was the
girl.  She was the only thing that made this time different.  It was unusual
how her image had brought it all home to him, but he would hold onto what he
had seen.  It was right.  He was ready to embrace it.

Despite what he
knew it meant, it didn’t change his intentions.  His enemy still had to die,
but now he had an even greater advantage toward making that happen.

Sitting there in
the chair made of bones from so many men he’d killed, the Scourge looked down
at his mangled arm and began to laugh.  He laughed until he was hoarse – until
it had turned to a cough and he was choking on his own saliva.  The way his
enemy had cut him suddenly seemed to mean so little.

Why didn’t I see
it before?  How could I not have known?

There was a
careful knock on his chamber door, breaking into his thoughts and echoing
loudly inside his head.  He wasn’t pleased for the interruption, but he trusted
that it was important.

“Come in if you
have a good reason.  Be warned if you don’t,” he said, his voice rough.

The door opened
slowly.  The one who entered was a man named Silas – a weathered seadog if ever
there was one.  Scourge had put him in charge of the preparations while he
healed.  Silas was a large man, commanding, yet even he trembled in the dark
man’s presence.

“It’s ready,
Scourge,” he said.

“Have you done
just as I told you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Silas
answered, feeling a chill run through him.  “It’s ready.  The men are ready
too.  But are ye sure that you are?  Ye’ve only just been wounded, after all.”

Silas was
nervous, trying to hide it behind words of concern, but the Scourge saw through
that.  He looked down at his own hands on the arms of his chair, first his
right and then his left.  From where he sat, the limb that had been previously
rendered looked perfectly normal beneath the sleeve and glove that hid it, but…

“I can’t wait
any longer,” the Scourge growled in disgust, his blue eye cold as winter.  “We
do it now.”

“But sir, we
don’t even know where he is.”

The Scourge
stood up, his arm limp at his side.  “That’s not going to stop me anymore.  I
will burn every inch of this island if it means finding him.  Tell the men we
do it now.  We flush him out.”

1

The twins hated
watch duty.  They rarely took it seriously.  Not much ever happened and they
considered it a waste of their time.  When they were confident that Rifter
wouldn’t be looking, it was common that they would get up to mischief and
completely neglect their effort.

Rifter had been
gone for a while searching for the Scourge, and since the boys knew he wouldn’t
give much thought to what they were doing, Mech left his perch and joined Mach
in his tree.  He produced a bottle of Firefly, a concoction of their own
making, and they sat there together, drinking and looking at the sky through
the branches of the trees.

“Do you know
what I’m thinking of?” Mech asked suddenly, but he didn’t expect an answer, for
of course his brother knew – or if he didn’t, he would pretend.

“That’s
disgusting,” Mach jeered, reading his brother’s mind perfectly.  It could have
only been one of two things.  “I don’t want to think about that with
you
involved.”

“Why not?” Mech
asked with a laugh.  “It’d be like looking into a glorious mirror!”

Mech laughed and
Mach shoved him so hard he nearly went out of the tree.

“You know,” Mech
said mischievously.  “Finn says pirate wenches
love
young boys.”

“As if he knows
that for certain,” Mach said sarcastically.  “I’ll bet he’s never been close to
one.”

Mech shrugged. 
“I was thinking more about the mermaids anyway.  Oh, how I wish I could get my
hands on one o’ them.”

“You’re
pathetic,” Mach joked with a laugh.

“
You’re
pathetic,”
Mech returned, nudging his brother so that the bottle missed his mouth and
spilled some of the liquid down his front.

“We should go to
the lagoon,” Mech went on.  “Maybe Rifter’s not the only one who can get close
enough to taste.”

“Nah, it’s too far,”
Mach said, shooting down the idea.  “The others will notice we went.”

“Sometimes you
have to take risks,” Mech encouraged him.  “Greater risks for greater rewards.”

“I don’t know…” 
Mach looked down at the bottle and Mech could tell that his brother was fishing
for some kind of excuse.

“Don’t be a
whiny bitch,” he scolded, jerking the bottle out of his hands.

“I’m not a
bitch.”

“You are
so
a bitch.”

Mach didn’t feel
like responding anymore.  He swiped the bottle away and took a long swig before
passing it back to his twin.

They sat in the
quiet of the night.  Despite all the big talk, neither of them moved to leave
or do anything else.  They were a unit, and they always moved as one.

“Do you think
Rifter remembers anything?” Mach asked.  “You know, about the last time.”

Mech shrugged. 
“Who knows what he can remember.  He can barely remember that we aren’t the
same person.”

“That’s
different.  He just can’t be bothered to try,” Mach said dismissively.  “You
know what I’m talking about though.  Or have you forgotten too?”

That last
statement was a jab.  Neither of them had forgotten it, just as the rest of
their brothers hadn’t.

“I’m not that
far gone yet,” Mech assured him, “but it’s not like we can do anything.  He
won’t listen.  It’s just like the last time, and the time before that.”

“I guess.”

“We just have to
go with it.  It’s all we can do.  There isn’t –”

In the midst of
their banter, there was a loud bang, like cannon fire ripping across the sky. 
Both of them
did
forget then – they forgot their conversation and
snapped to attention, looking off through the trees.  The only thing they could
think of was the Desdemona and the cannons on her deck, but it had been too
close – much closer than if the dark vessel was at the nearest beach, but yet
it
couldn’t
have been closer than that.

“What was that?”
Mach asked.  His voice held a tremor of fear, but he was trying to hide it.

They both had
the same thought:
The Scourge
– but there was no way he could have come
for them in the woods, at least not with the ship’s cannons.

“Maybe it was
nothing,” Mech told him, but he sounded unsure.

They sat for a
few moments as the silence settled back in – then they heard another shot that
made them both jump, and directly afterward, it happened again.  There was a
streak of orange light across the heavens, like a fallen star or a meteorite,
and another followed after it.  The boys watched in amazement – until the orbs
crashed into the forest, igniting the trees.

It was a chain
reaction.  The trees in the distance erupted in flame.

“Oh shit!” Mech
yelled, and they both began to scramble down from the tree, as even more of the
fireballs crashed down.  They were out of the way, but they knew they wouldn’t
remain safe if they stayed in the woods.  This was no act of nature.  This was
an
attack
.

They rushed back
toward the tunnels as fire consumed the forest, spreading the light and heat as
the trees passed the flames from one to another.

“Fire!” the
twins yelled in unison, but for once gave no thought to the way their voices blended. 
“
Fire
!”

2

Wren couldn’t
sleep.  She had tossed and turned for a long time, but rest would not come. 
She was too troubled to welcome ease.

Everything was
going wrong.  All wrong.

Max was sleeping
there beside her, seeming undisturbed by her restlessness, but even watching
how peacefully he slept could not soothe her.  Pretty soon he was going to look
like a smaller version of Henry with long, unruly hair, dressed like an
animal.  She hated the thought of that as much as she’d hated the thought of
him in a workhouse.

Though the boy
himself was faultless, she felt distant from him and could no longer look at
him.  Wren stared up at the ceiling, toward the waves of color across the rock.

She took a deep
breath, hoping to calm herself – and a strange smell drew her attention.  She
sniffed the air, trying to place it, but it didn’t take her long.  It was
distinct.

Smoke.

Was it from the
hearth in the den?  Did one of the boys have a fire going in their own space? 
She got up to see who was awake.  Since she couldn’t sleep, she might as well
have someone to talk to, but she was sure that they couldn’t solve her
problems.  Even if all she got was a distraction, that would be good enough.

When she had
come out of her room, she didn’t notice any light coming from beyond the other
doorways.  Going to the den also didn’t solve the mystery.  The hearth there
was cold and no one was about.  The smoke smell was still prevalent.  Surely it
wasn’t just her imagination that the air was a bit hazy?

She turned back,
wondering if she should rouse the others, but there was already someone
standing in the way.  Nix was there, looking at her through a layer of sleep. 
He was shirtless, staring at her as if she was a demon in their midst.

“Are you trying
to light a fire?” he asked huskily, and she realized that he must have smelled
the smoke as well.

She was about to
answer him when a shout was heard from deeper in the tunnels, and though it was
imperceptible at first, the bellowed words eventually became clear.

“
Fire
!”

“
Wake up! 
The forest is on fire
!”

The twins
eventually came barreling into the den, panting, their voices hoarse from
yelling.  They had done their job, however, and the rest of the Pack had been
pulled rudely from their beds, rushing out in varying states of undress that
Wren tried to overlook.

“What happened?”
Finn asked, looking baffled.

“The forest is
burning!” Mach told him, trying to be clear.  “We have to get out!”

“What the hell
did you do?” Nix accused.

“Nothing!  Fire
came out of the sky!  It was like an explosion!”

Nix shook his
head, trying to make sense of it.

“Which direction
is clear?” he asked them.  They hesitated, looked at each other, and then spoke
at once.

“It came from
the direction of the beach!”

“The way to the
beach is clear!”

This was
contradictory, and the twins looked at each other again in wide-eyed surprise.

“I thought we
were facing the other way.  And then the fire started toward the swamp?”

Nix observed
them carefully a moment, but it didn’t take long before he nodded in understanding. 
“You little shits have been drinking, haven’t you?  On the watch!”

“Of course not,”
Mech protested.

“What do you
take us for?” Mach added, but it was pointless to deny their faults.  They
didn’t have time to argue about it.

“The smoke is
getting thick,” Sly said urgently.  “We need to get out of here
now
.”

“If you came in
this way, you must have been running in from the east,” Nix said.  “If that’s
so, then we run for the closest beach to the west.  Got it?  Get what’s
important and be quick about it.”