The Wicked Passage (A Blake Wyatt Adventure) (21 page)

CHAPTER 23

THE DARKEST DAY

So this is how it’s going to end, Erica thought. Christopher Columbus is never going to find the New World. Blake is probably stuck as a wooden statue, and I’m trapped by a lunatic pirate waiting to kill me.

Feeling so alone, Erica touched her beaten-up uncle’s arm.

Rat stood in the doorway, slapping his knife repeatedly in his palm, staring, grinning, like he was completely enjoying his victory.

Looking up at the cabin’s wall, she thought about the opening where she watched the Parabulls trying to save the membrane. She pulled a stone from her pocket and watched as the light burned out. She glanced at her uncle.

“The power is gone, my dear,” he said, and shook his head. “The Rellium’s dead.”

Rat sauntered into the room. He pulled Erica off the floor and pointed his knife at her. “I’ll save the princess for last.”

“Don’t lay a hand on her,” Leopold said, standing.

Rat shoved her to the floor and faced her uncle. “Who’s going to stop me, old man?” He moved to the admiral and pushed the tip of his knife under Columbus’s chin.
“Two logbooks, eh?
Your lies will see you to the bottom of the sea.” He looked to the doorway. “Listen to the men out there. Even that pig Diego can’t change their mind.”

Sweat formed above Columbus’s lip.

“Surprised that I know about your trickery? Tell your so-called rescuers what you’ve done!”

Columbus closed his eyes and swallowed.

“Tell them!” Rat pushed harder on the knife.

Columbus remained quiet.

“Leave him alone!” Erica said as a swirl of nausea raged in her stomach. “What did he ever do to you?”

Rat snorted back snot running from his nose. “Well, well, what do you
know.
Princess Wyatt has something useless to say.” He swept his gaze over the three of them.
“Pathetic, the lot of you.
But you--” he focused on Uncle Leopold “--you are a double-crossing scoundrel.” Rat spat a wad of yellow mucus on her uncle’s shirt. “How’d you do it?”

Leopold turned his head.

Rat poked Uncle Leopold in the shoulder with the tip of his knife. “Coriane’s poisonous to Wyatts, but you didn’t die. You drank small amounts until you were able to tolerate the tea. Didn’t you?”

Her uncle didn’t respond.

Rat jabbed Uncle Leopold in the other shoulder, this time drawing blood. “Little by little you killed off your Wyatt powers so you could spy on the Tolucan. Ha! Wouldn’t you like to have them now?”

Rat moved within inches of her uncle’s face. “Who smuggled you a tempus?
Needed one to get through the membrane.
Another Wyatt?”

Leopold flinched. The bloodstain on his ragged shirt grew.

“You must take me for a fool.” Rat withdrew his knife.

“I’m going to throw up,” Erica said.

“Shut up, Princess.” He pointed his blade at her.

“Seriously, I’m going to--”

“She might,” Uncle Leopold said.

Cradling her stomach, Erica barfed on Rat’s boots.

“You little witch.” He shook off the vomit.

“Where’s my brother?” Erica said as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Rotting, I’m sure.”

Erica felt some of her strength return. “You’re just a stinky, gross ogre!”

“Rat!”
A voice shouted from outside the cabin. “Pinta wants to give Columbus another day!”

“Damn!” Rat sheathed his knife and bolted from the cabin.

Uncle Leopold closed the door,
then
moved the furniture against it.
“Admiral?
What sort of misinformation might he
--
”

“Allow me to explain.” Columbus stared out the window. “Sometimes we do what we must, regardless of consequences.”

Uncle Leopold joined Columbus and gazed at the open ocean. “I understand, Admiral. I also carry the heavy burden of duty.”

“I’ll be fed to the sharks because of ignorance.” Columbus folded his arms and turned from the sea. “Two logbooks document this journey. One is written by a fanciful poet, the other by a dutiful admiral. The poet wrote what the men wanted to hear. The admiral wrote the actual distances sailed since we left the Canaries--nearly one hundred twenty leagues farther.” He looked back to the sea. “I am both men.”

Uncle Leopold raised an eyebrow. “Then, one book is--”

“A complete fraud,” Columbus said. “All of it, by almost a fifth of the distance.”

Erica looked at the admiral. “Why would you fake something like that?”

Columbus sighed. “When my crew signed on for this enterprise, no ship had ever sailed more than seven hundred fifty leagues.”

“What’s a league?” Erica asked.

“A little more than three miles, my dear,” Uncle Leopold chimed in.

“If my men knew how far we needed to sail, none of them would have stepped on the deck of this ship. No man believes a safe return to Spain is possible from such a distance.”

“By my calculations, this is a journey of almost nine hundred leagues.”

“That’s correct. The crew signed a contract to sail seven hundred fifty leagues--not a league more.”

“I see,” Leopold said.
“A bit of honest dishonesty.”

“How did you know how far it was supposed to be?” Erica asked. “I mean, it’s not like you were here before.”

“The map, the chart, and the logs, everything given to me by a dying sailor, all confirm what I have always believed. A western route exists to the Orient.”

“Why don’t you just tell them, Mr. Columbus?” Erica asked. “Maybe they’ll--”

The cabin door exploded open, pushing the bed backward.

Erica fell against her uncle.

“Pero, please--”

The sailor hurtled toward Columbus and snapped up his arm with one strong motion. “You’ve hidden these lies long enough!”

He threw Columbus down the steps. “The sea will judge you now!”

From the cabin doorway, Erica stared at the mass confusion on the deck below. She felt numb.

Menacing laughter, mixed with raucous howls, seemed to flood every part of the ship. The crew was going crazy, each man taking his turn spitting, punching, and kicking the admiral. She could see Columbus was giving up, accepting his fate, one strike at a time. Pero slung the explorer over his shoulder.

Christopher Columbus reached out for Diego. The master-at-arms turned away.

Erica leaned against the cabin’s doorframe and sobbed. She dreamed of so much more in her life. She’d never have her own cell phone. She’d never have a totally awesome birthday party with her friends. She remembered her broken backpack and the Bubblematic lipstick. A lump formed in the back of her throat. She would never see her mom and Blake again.

A loud roar from the crew shattered her thoughts. Pero threw Columbus to the deck. Some men grabbed his arms, and others pulled on his legs like a wishbone. The angry mob hoisted him high in the air and passed him to the side of the ship.

“Murderer!”
Pero shouted as two men dangled the explorer over the rough sea. “May our souls haunt you in
hell!
”

CHAPTER 24

NO FEAR

Blake shuddered, tortured by Nura’s horrific screeches as Dagonblud’s grip tightened around her neck.

“Nura!”
Blake covered his face as a black tornado of dust engulfed him. Clutching the tempus, he felt himself sucked back into the whirling debris. An old movie of Abraham Lincoln speaking from a platform played around him. He heard “Four score and seven years ago . . .” and then Lincoln faded, replaced by another famous-looking guy.

Blake wiped his eyes,
then
glanced at the spinning hands of the tempus. Wham! His body crumpled as he slammed feet first into a huge wooden bucket. He knew exactly where he was--high above the deck of the Santa Maria in the ship’s crow’s nest.

Rain pelted him as he peered over the side of the swaying, creaking basket. Columbus dangled upside-down over the choppy water, surrounded by a gang of crazed, cursing sailors.

“Don’t do it!” Blake shouted to the mob.

Every grimy, bearded face looked up at him.

“The devil!” one man shrieked.

“I’m not the devil. I’m just a kid from California, and ya can’t have Christopher Columbus hanging over the edge of the ship! He’s gotta make history.”

“He’s Beelzebub in the admiral’s clothes!” Another man hollered back.

“Throw the traitor to the sea!” a bony guy in a red cap urged.

Unruly cheers erupted.

Pero manhandled Columbus, gripping his ankles. He turned to the crew. “I told you Satan would come to take him to hell! Let’s give him what he wants!” Pero dropped the admiral into the Atlantic.

The uproar escalated.

“God help us!” Diego cried out.

“Quiet!” Pero gestured the men to silence, and then he looked up at Blake. “He’s yours now.”

Diego held up his hands toward the crow’s nest. “Spare our souls!” he pleaded.

“I don’t want your souls!” Blake yelled, scanning the water.

Columbus flailed frantically, bobbing in the churning sea.

“Aw, crap!” Blake climbed out of his perch. As he started down the rope ladder, the tempus slipped from his hand and plummeted to the deck. “Double crap!”

He scrambled down the webbed rungs, jumped to the deck, and then lunged for the watch--his only way out. The ship lurched sideways, and the tempus skipped into a balled-up fishing net. Blake’s hand tingled as he leapt toward the tangled mound. He glanced at his father’s ring, glowing around his finger.

The chronicle’s weak voice whispered in his ear.

Columbus is drowning. He needs your help, now.

“Blake!”

He turned and watched his sister burst out of Columbus’s cabin, then down the steps toward him.

She threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’re alive!”

“Get back inside, Ricki!” He nudged her away. “It’s too dangerous out here!”

“They threw Columbus into the ocean!”

“I know. Go back in the cabin and stay there!”

Blake heard the chronicle’s voice again.

History is dying. You must hurry.

Abandoning the search for the tempus, Blake bolted through the mob to the far side of the ship where Columbus had gone overboard. He locked eyes with Pero.

“Take him to hell,” the brute said.

Blake squeezed past him and then leaned over the rail.

“Blake!” Erica panted, wedging herself next to him.

“Get out of here!” he ordered his sister.

“But there’s something I’ve got to tell you!”

“Later!” Hiking his legs over the side, Blake dove into the choppy water. He tore through the ocean like a triathlete, gunning for the listless admiral. Grabbing Columbus’s jacket, Blake struggled to lift the man’s rubbery body above the raging water.

“Please, Mr. Columbus, try to keep moving! We’ve gotta get outta this mess!”

Columbus spat a mouthful of water and gulped air. “I’m finished, Blake. My journey is done.”

“No way!
Swim!”

“I cannot.”

“You have to!” Blake kicked harder. “Don’t make me do this all by myself!”

“It is of no use.” He spat more water. “My crew’s hope is gone, and I am to blame.”

Blake turned his head when he heard shouting from an approaching ship. “Maybe they’ll rescue us.”

“Pinta won’t help.”

Through the rain, Blake could barely make out the men hanging over the side of the smaller ship, pounding their fists in the air. As Pinta moved closer, he could hear their angry shouts. Niña’s crew had already turned back, no doubt headed to the nearest familiar port. Dang! Rat must’ve got to them. Whatever was in that logbook totally fired them up.

Blake felt his father’s ring burn on his finger, but this time, the warmth coursed up his arm and then settled around his heart.

“Blake!”

“Erica?!”
His sister’s frantic voice sounded like she was next to him. How could this be? She was too far away.

“You can hear me?!” she shot back.

“Yeah, loud and clear.”
He looked at the Santa Maria and picked out his sister, jumping and waving from the rail. “We must be connected, somehow.”

“That’s freaky. Now get out of there before you drown!”

“Not before I save the admiral.”

“It’s too late for him!”

“Don’t you get it? If Columbus doesn’t make it to the New World, the future will collapse. We’ll never--” A torrent of seawater surged down his throat. He gagged and spat. “--never get home.”

“There’s nothing we can do now!” she cried. “Rat found out Columbus was lying! The admiral gave the crew a fake logbook so they wouldn’t know how far they had to go, and he hid the real one in his locker!”

“No way!”

“That’s why they did this to him. Rat told them that unless they kill Columbus and go back to Spain, they’re all going to die!”

His muscles spasming, Blake repositioned his arms around the admiral. “Ricki, there’s a tempus, you know, that watch thing, in that pile of fishing net by the rope ladder. If I don’t make it out--”

“Didn’t you hear me, Blake? Columbus lied!
Save yourself while there’s still time!”

“Breathe, Admiral!” Blake forced his spent legs to tread water. “I don’t care what you did. I’m not gonna let you die.”

“Let me go. I deserve--”

“No way!
Come on, kick!”

“I’m finished.” Columbus slipped beneath the surface.

Blake fought to raise the admiral’s body out of the water. “Erica, toss me something that floats!”

“I don’t see any life preservers!”

Rat appeared behind Erica, hoisting a barrel over his head.

“Ricki!
Behind you!”

Erica turned and froze when she saw the Tolucan thug.

Rat chucked a barrel in the water, landing a few feet from the pair’s bobbing heads.

Erica leaned over the rail. “Rat’s going to help us!”

“Don’t trust him!”

“He says Dagonblud wants to make a deal with you.”

“I’ll bet he does.
A bad one!”

“Grab the barrel, Blake!” Erica pleaded.

Blake paddled to the floating drum with one hand while trying to hold on to Columbus with the other. Another barrel sailed past his head, splashing a few feet behind them.
“What the--?”
He snagged the closer cask, but his hand slipped off, spinning the slimy drum like a muddy football. “Damn.” Blake blinked out the water’s sting.

“Look out, Blake!” Erica screamed.

A third drum crashed into the first, fracturing the bowed planks into a flattened, floating heap. Blake inhaled deeply, swam under the sinking admiral, and pushed him up by his backside.

The water was cold, and Blake’s lungs hurt. He burst above the surface after swallowing more of the salty sea.

Erica hollered. “Rat said Columbus is dead. Save yourself!”

“He’s not dead!” Blake dragged the admiral’s arm onto the floating wreckage. He forced the explorer’s limp hand onto the soggy wood. “Come on, Mr. Columbus! We can do this!”

Columbus didn’t answer or open his eyes, but he slowly curled his fingers into a gap in a cracked board and rested his head against the swollen timber.

“Yeah!
That’s it! Hang on!” Relieved, Blake sucked in a deep breath. He looked back at the ship.

Rat yanked Erica by the arm and pulled her into the crowd of sailors.

“Ricki!”

The gold ring stopped tingling. He waited a few seconds but heard nothing.
 

“Erica, answer me!”

The Santa Maria moved away, trailing the other two ships. Blake put his head on the drifting wood. He had no plan, not even a bad one. Columbus wasn’t supposed to die, at least not yet, and neither was he.

The sails of all three ships snapped in the wind. The rain slowed to a drizzle, and the sun broke through the clouds. Blake hoped the crew might take that as a good omen and come back for them. But more likely they’d view it as a good sign they were turning back.

He looked at Columbus. The admiral’s shriveled fingers slid toward the edge of the remnants.
“Hey, Mr. Columbus.”

The admiral didn’t move.

“Come on. You gotta hang on.”

Columbus’s pale face, pressed against the wood and barely above water, showed no sign of life. The cuff of his woolen jacket, skewered by the wood’s splinters, stuck to the wreckage.
 

Blake closed his eyes and tilted his head back, trying to think. Now what? He was about to drown in 1492, hundreds of years before he was born. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He should be at football practice, running through tires and hitting the sleds with Trevor. If he ever made it home, he’d never quit the team.

His thoughts were interrupted by birds calling to each other as they flew overhead. Blake opened his eyes and watched them. Funny how the sky looked the same as it had
back
home, a place he’d never see again.

Blake watched as the huge flock soared over him. If only I could fly. . . . Then the words of the chronicle flashed through his head: the wings know the migration.

Whoa! That’s it!
he
thought. American birds fly south for the winter!

Adrenalin rocketed through his body. “Hey! Hey, anyone! Look!” Blake screamed at the top of his lungs and pointed to the sky.
“Birds!
They’re land birds! American birds! The admiral was right! We’re close to land!”