The Sea Wolves (35 page)

Hurriedly, he loaded the gun, and had just thumbed a bullet into the last chamber when he heard the floor creak behind him. Jack turned to see Louis standing on the threshold, one eyebrow raised.

Louis flashed his gold tooth. “Looks like Death left you a little present.”

Jack hesitated, wondering if Louis would try to take the gun from him. They had been allies thus far, and he thought the werewolf liked him well enough. But would Louis let him keep possession of a gun full of silver? For half a second Jack thought about aiming the pistol at him, just to be safe, but Louis had helped keep him alive more than once. If he didn't trust Jack with the silver, then Jack would give him the gun.

“If anyone should have it, you should,” Louis said, as if reading his mind.

Jack exhaled, relaxing. He picked up the scabbarded sword with his free hand and tossed it to Louis.

“I thought you might like this,” Jack said.

Louis caught the sword, his smile turning to a playful grin. “I've always had a fondness for sharp things.”

Jack closed the box and replaced it on the top shelf, hoping Ghost would not notice it.

“I want to thank you for speaking up for me,” Jack said. “That's not the first time you've prevented me from having my throat ripped out.”

Louis's grin faltered and his gaze dimmed. “That's not the worst thing that could happen to you.”

“I know,” Jack said. “I owe you.”

“Maybe,” Louis replied. “Though it must be said, I do not think he would find it so easy to kill you.”

“I'm just human,” Jack said. “Just me. I wouldn't stand a chance.”

“You're clever, Jack,” Louis said, eyes darkening further. “Your life is precious to you, as well as the life of another. There's great power in that. You will kill to live, but Ghost lives to kill. He is a hollow man.”

The laughter from the gangway froze them both where they stood.

Ghost stepped into his brother's quarters and studied Jack and Louis as if they were misbehaving children.

“You're mistaken, Louis,” Ghost rasped. “Hollow I may be. But I am not a man.”

Jack felt the weight of the gun in his hand, the poisonous reassurance of the silver, but he had formed an alliance with Ghost and would not break it. Despite the monstrous brutality of the creature, some part of Jack could not help but admire his survival after his brother's betrayal, and wish for Ghost to have his vengeance. And with Death Nilsson and his men on the way, Jack's fate was intertwined with Ghost's.

“Did you find anything?” Jack asked.

“Maurilio and Vukovich found plenty of weapons in the crew's quarters,” Ghost said. “Nothing truly useful. Blades, but no silver.” He nodded toward the weapons Louis and Jack now wielded. “I see neither of you is empty-handed.”

“We'll have to make do with what we have,” Louis said, undoing his belt and threading it through the slit on the scabbard. “If that means I become a swashbuckler, so be it.”

Ghost laughed, but the humor did not reach his eyes. He set his gaze upon Jack.

“Louis likes you, Mr. London,” Ghost said. “For some reason he ascribes to you extraordinary abilities. Don't let his faith in you make you do something stupid that might jeopardize our pact.”

“You don't have to worry about me,” Jack replied.

“Of course not,” Ghost said. “You won't kill unless your hand is forced, isn't that right?”

“That's right.”

“I'd almost forgotten.” Ghost's fingers crooked into claws, as though he wished for nothing more than to tear Jack apart. “But not to worry. You'll be forced soon enough. A baptism of blood for you today.”

Jack didn't like the sound of that. Ghost had wanted to infect Jack with his curse—turn him into a werewolf and part of the pack—and perhaps that was still his plan.

“I have no interest in being anointed,” Jack said. “Only in being alive when the storm clears, whole and human. And if my hands are stained with wolf blood when it's done, it'll wash off easily enough.”

“Because my kind are less than human?” Ghost asked, ready to debate the point.

They fell silent. With Louis looking on, one hand on the hilt of his newly acquired sword, Jack and Ghost stared at each other for long seconds. The tension was interrupted by heavy footfalls pounding along the gangway outside.

“I've lost interest in talking philosophy with monsters,” Jack said.

Before Ghost could reply, Tree burst into the room, grim resignation etched upon his features.

“They're coming!”

The storm had worsened. The
Charon
swayed violently, the creak of wood and metal like the wail of the banshee, harbinger of death.

“There!” Maurilio shouted as Jack, Ghost, and Louis ran onto the deck. There were four wolves in each of the three boats, and Death Nilsson's pack was rowing hard for their ship. As expected, the gunpowder explosion had brought them in a hurry.

On board the
Charon
, the five beasts remaining from the
Larsen
prepared for a fight, bearing long knives and machetes, and a pair of rifles. Jack held on to his pistol, the secret of its silver ammunition acknowledged in silent exchanges between himself and Louis. Once the enemy started to board, there would be claw and fang, flashing blades and close-quarters murder, and they would earn either victory or death. But for now they wanted to harry Death and his pack as much as possible. To that end, Tree and Vukovich, the best marksmen, took aim with the rifles and began to take shots at the boats as they came within forty yards of the
Charon
. With the churning waves rocking them all, there seemed no chance of finding a target, but at least two of Death's pack caught bullets.

The wounds would be little more than an annoyance, though they might slow them down during the crucial first moments of the boarding. Jack held his pistol, waiting for the boats to draw nearer, knowing the limits of the weapon and his own aim. His bullets would do far more than slow the wolves down. But only if he made the shots count.

“Where is the witch?” Ghost asked, taking up position next to Jack at the railing.

Jack was relieved to see no sign of Sabine on Death's boats. Somewhere on the island, or in the waters offshore, she waited for him, and she would do whatever was within her power to help.

“They didn't find her,” he replied.

Tree and Vukovich kept shooting as Death's crew rowed the three boats closer. The veil of rain confused Jack's view of the boats, but he flinched as a bullet punched through the skull of one of the men on the rearmost boat. The pirate tumbled over the side and into the churning water. The rest of Death's pack continued on with barely a glance toward the place where the pirate had just submerged. Jack wondered if the sea wolf would drown before he could heal, but a moment later he saw a monstrous head come up from the water, partially transformed, and a huge, clawed hand grabbed the back of the boat.

A flash of lightning seared the sky, so bright it drove him back from the railing. Arcs of fire splintered the air around the ship, and thunder crashed in the heavens, rolling away on the storm.

“This is her?” Ghost demanded. “This is Sabine's doing?”

Jack nodded, getting a tighter grip on his gun.

Louis shouted for him, beckoning urgently from a place along the railing. Jack ran to join him and looked down to see Sabine crawling up the netting on the side of the ship. The three small boats were thirty feet away, rising and falling upon the swells, and the wolf-men snarled and shouted the filthy things they intended to do to her.

“Sabine,” Jack breathed.

Maurilio had joined them, and he grabbed one of Sabine's wrists and lifted her over the railing. Jack reached for her, the deck rolling underfoot, the rain soaking them all to the skin. He had feared that he might never see her again, and now, though Death's pack was moments from boarding, he needed to touch her, embrace her, just to assure himself that she was truly here and unharmed.

Sabine looked at him, but her gaze flickered past Jack's shoulder.

Ghost caught Jack from behind and hurled him aside. Jack dropped the gun and it slid across the deck in the rain. He scrambled across to the gun, snatched it, and turned to see Ghost grab a fistful of Sabine's hair and hoist her off the deck. The captain held her up, screaming hideous abuse whose precise phrasing was lost to the wind. His features had begun to contort, fangs stretching his mouth wide, snout pushing forward, body distorting and fur sprouting. Sabine's feet dangled beneath her and she kicked, batted at his grip, clawed at his arm. Whatever hex she might use, Jack feared she would not have the time or focus to defend herself.

Jack leaped through the rain and jabbed the gun against Ghost's skull, hard.

“Silver!” Jack shouted against the storm. “Can you smell it, Ghost?”

“I trusted her, and she betrayed me.” Ghost gnashed his teeth at Jack.

“You fools, they're coming!” Louis cried. Tree and Vukovich kept firing, and Louis waved his sword high. “Death is coming!”

“Let me go!” Sabine screamed.

“You kept her prisoner,” Jack said. “You
tortured
her!”

Ghost stared at him with such hatred that Jack held his breath, finger twitching on the trigger. The captain started to speak. Jack saw a spark of something in his eyes—shame?—and knew precisely what those words would have been. Ghost was about to declare his love for Sabine. But it went against everything he believed, and after an endless moment of conflict that Jack had never before seen in him, the captain sneered, eyes narrowing.

“I'll eat her heart! I'll have her power!”

“You don't know that for sure,” Jack said. “She doesn't even know what she is!”

“I have black curses in my heart,” Sabine said, her voice quiet in the storm yet somehow audible, as if the wind carried it to both Jack and Ghost. “And I will put them all on you if you don't release me.”

A barrage of lightning danced down from the sky. A single bolt struck the farthest of the rowboats and it split in two, one half on fire and both halves quickly sinking. Midtransformation, two of the werewolves on board burst into flame, their flesh charred and smoking as they disappeared into the waves. The third fell into the water, pawing at the sea in a frenzy, unable to swim. Only the fourth, who had fallen out when he'd been shot in the head, seemed likely to survive. He swam toward the other two boats, unwilling to drown and eager to kill.

Jack pressed the barrel harder against Ghost's temple. “Put her down.”

Ghost dropped Sabine to the deck and turned to the railing, where the last of his pack awaited him. They mocked Death's pack with promises of pain and torment.

Jack took Sabine into his embrace at last, watching over her shoulder as the wounded werewolf dragged itself onto one of the two remaining boats.

“I love you,” Jack whispered.

“And I you,” she replied. “Dying would ruin everything.”

Jack did not smile but kissed her once more.

There was a momentary lull in the storm. In that instant of calm, Jack stepped away from Sabine, took aim, pulled the trigger, and put a silver bullet into the wounded werewolf's chest. The creature screamed as it slid back into the raging sea, and for a moment all eyes—on deck, and at sea—turned to Jack. Death's crew marked him, and he knew he had just made himself a target. The temptation to fire wildly and try to kill them all almost overwhelmed him, but he had a limited supply of bullets. Every one had to count.

The two remaining boats were close enough now for Jack to see hatred in the eyes of the crew, and the cold fury carved into Death Nilsson's features. Ghost snapped orders to his surviving pack, but Jack barely heard him, able to focus only on the hatred bristling in the space that separated the two brothers.

Lightning struck the water around the two rowboats. One of them was grazed and began to burn, but it no longer mattered. The
Charon
's crew had returned. The boats bumped alongside, and the first of the sailors leaped for the netting, scrambling toward the deck at inhuman speed.

Jack fired as the werewolves flowed over the railing. They moved so swiftly that several of his bullets hit only open air, but two of them struck home in the shoulder and abdomen of the same creature. The wolf spilled onto the deck, twitching and dying as the poison raced through him, and then Death's pack had been reduced to eight.

Jack dropped to one knee, fishing bullets from his pocket and reloading. Sabine stood beside him, swaying as she mouthed the words to some silent song. The ship rocked beneath them and wind battered them, but her motion seemed not to be influenced by the world around her, guided instead by a storm within.

There was war on the
Charon
's deck, and the bloody melee spread from starboard to port. Some of the sea wolves had completely transformed, but Ghost and his remaining crew fought in the median shape of the savage wolf-man so that they could use the weapons they had scavenged from Death's ship. Louis swung his sword, cleaving the arm from a werewolf and forcing the monster to shift to the median form as well. Blood sprayed the deck and was washed away in the rain, all of it—the death and gore around Jack and Sabine—bleached to the gray hue of the storm.