Never, Never (28 page)

He was numb as he made his way back to his ship.
His ship
. The
Main
was still his, despite his foolish promise to Starkey. It rose before him, smooth and powerful and more beautiful than any woman. He stalked aboard, eyes furiously alight.

Smee said, “Capta—” but Hook slammed the door to his cabin before the man could finish. Then, he sat at the desk and took a bottle from one of its drawers. It was crimson liquid, seductive and lovely. He stuck his hook in the cork and removed it, then watched as the wine slowly drained from the bottle into his glass.

Face carefully expressionless, he lifted the glass and inhaled, letting the sweet, pungent smell overwhelm his senses. He brought it to his lips and let the velvet slide down his throat. When he closed his eyes, savoring the feel of the alcohol as it warmed him, he could see nothing but her. And he snapped.

He grabbed the wine bottle and hurled it across the room, and it shattered, sending shards of glass and cerise liquid spraying everywhere. He stood and let out a harsh cry, agony and malice combined, and as he did so, thrust his hook down upon his bedspread. Feathers coated the room as he shredded the blanket, sticking to the wine. And he jammed the hook into the wood of his desk, splintering it in several places, then flipped it over.

When there was nothing left to break, Hook collapsed on the floor, and the yelling dissolved into weeping. He buried his face in his arms and let the last piece of him that was left unbroken shatter into oblivion.

T
HE CAPTAIN SAT IN HIS CABIN
,
STARING DARKLY AT HIS
sword, running the point of his hook up and down the blade. It screeched terribly, but it did not hurt his ears. Or, if it did, he didn't notice. He was numb everywhere. It had finally sunk in that Tiger Lily was not coming back, and it was all because of Peter Pan. The boy's very existence was offensive to him, making his hook twitch in the night.

His blanket was still shredded and the pieces of glass had mostly been cleaned up, with some exceptions. The cabin still smelled strongly of wine, which did not bother Hook so much. Smelling it somehow calmed him enough that he did not need to drink it, at least, not as often as he would have otherwise.

The cabin was silent, in a muted sort of way. In the choking quiet, Pan's hideaway called out to him, beckoning him, tempting him. He stood, seeking a distraction. In this state, raiding Pan's tree house would not be wise. There was a dark flash in his mind of the last time he'd gone drunkenly after the boy. He locked his jaw, sinking into his chair.

He wished, not for the first time, for Keelhaul. He wanted nothing more than to drown himself in wine, or rum perhaps, and women and music. Perhaps if he journeyed there this time, he would choose never to come back. But that was not a possibility. None but the wine
was a prospect here on the
Main
. Blast his twelve-year-old self for not dreaming up a piano to put on the ship. If only he hadn't had such a hatred for practice then.

He clenched his jaw and reached into his jacket, and his fingers came away with a little vial, the one filled with death. It nearly glowed green, and he could practically feel the poison buzzing into his palm. One touch of his lips to the rim, and all this would be over. One touch.

He rolled it around, examining the contents, considering. What had he left to live for, really? Tiger Lily was gone, his family had forgotten him, and he had ascended to the highest level he could on these seas. What was left? Nothing.

Nothing
, whispered the darkness creeping into his spirit.
Nothing but killing Peter Pan
.

He took one longing look at the vial and slipped it back into his jacket, honing in on the lone thought. Nothing but killing Peter Pan. Then, he rose from his chair with terrible purpose.

He ran a blade across his chin and throat, clearing away any stray facial hair, trimming it until he looked like the captain once again. His hair was falling over his shoulders now, in shiny curls. The mark of a pirate and a fiend, he had once claimed. And it had been the truth.

“Starkey,” he called, voice steady, exiting his cabin for the first time in a while. “Ready the men.”

“Captain?”

“After the suns fall, we are paying a visit to Pan and his Lost Boys.”

It was to Starkey's credit, Hook thought, that he did not protest in the slightest, but consented immediately. Hook had wondered, upon first returning to the vessel, if he would be met with resistance from his first mate. He had declared the fellow temporary captain, after all.
But Starkey greeted him immediately as his captain, as though they'd never had the conversation at all.

Starkey went off and spread the message to the rest of the crew while Hook waited, veins buzzing with terrible anticipation. He stared off into the trees, wondering what exactly Pan was doing now, if he was attacking the Indians or playing with the mermaids or sleeping in his hideout beneath the ground. Whatever it was, he was quite certain the boy would not be doing it come nightfall.

Starkey returned and looked out over the island with him, solemn, calculating. In his eyes, Hook could see that he was always calculating something or other.

“You mean to really kill him this time, do ye, Captain?”

“Aye.”

Starkey narrowed his eyes, staring into Hook's. “Can ye truly kill him tonight? He is only a boy, after all.” Starkey was not challenging him; he could feel it. Starkey's tone of voice said that he was partly curious and partly meaning to prepare Hook for the task ahead. The one he'd, as of yet, been unable to complete. That was why Hook felt no need to lash out at the man. He was quiet for a little while, contemplating his answer. Starkey did not pressure him to speak.

“I feel it in my bones,” he said, rolling his fingers over the handle of his sword. “Tonight is the night that I will slay him. And I feel no remorse about it. He may be but a boy, but he is a fully wicked sort of boy.”

Starkey did not nod or say a word; he simply stood beside the captain, looking over the rolling ocean, letting him finish the soliloquy.

“He took everything from me, Starkey. My family, my home, my childhood, the only woman I ever loved. He took it all, and he feels not an ounce of guilt over it. A child, a heartless child.” Hook heaved a great sigh, leaning heavily over the edge of the boat. “No. I will do
what needs be done tonight. I will not feel guilty for it.” And then, more darkly, “The deepest circle of Hell is kept for Brutus, Judas, and Peter Pan.”

N
ONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE ISLAND HAD EVER TRULY
set out to kill Pan, at least not with the sincerity that the captain possessed. Any who had ever battled him (including Hook himself, in the past) had always had a piece of his heart that desired to let the boy win. But not Hook, not tonight.

So puzzled was Neverland at this unexpected and impossible turn of events that the weather itself was a paradox. Stars churned and stopped, the sea nymphs unable to decide whether to glow or stay hidden. Hook and his men vacated the boat with furious speed as the night fell. As Hook and his band of men crashed through the trees, he found that he was at once warm and chilled to the bone. He felt both soaked and parched, blind in the darkness and clear-sighted, following a sort of light that none could see. It was an odd set of feelings, to be sure. But the emotion that overtook him, beating all the confusion that Neverland could throw his way, was hate. Deep, black, festering, necrotic hate.

There were several varieties of hatred, he had learned in the past several days. There was the kind that sent a man spiraling into himself and kept him chained to his bed, unable to do anything but sleep and wallow. And there was the kind that possessed a person and drove him to distraction. The kind that forced him to seek escape in wine and women and inane adventures.

Those sorts of hate were certainly terrible and had profound effects on a person. But the third kind, that
was the most lethal. The third was the kind of hate that infected a man, and it replicated and ran through his veins, replacing his blood. And it drove him to do terrible, vile, murderous things. That was the sort that propelled Hook forward into the trees that night.

His troupe of men followed behind him, black-hearted and happy to carry out the raid, but they were all compelled to do so by loyalty, and some by a mite of fear. Hook was driven by a dark, urgent need. He replayed the image of Pan in his head, writhing, dying, bleeding beneath him. The more he thought it, the less the guilt and disgust elbowed into his heart, until he felt nothing in the imagining. Nothing, save for a grim satisfaction and prickling numbness.

So intent was he on the end goal, so focused, so bloodthirsty, that he did not at first realize that he had run into a body. But when it spoke, he was snapped out of his dreadful musing.

“James Hook,” said the body.

When Hook looked up to see who it was, he recoiled.

“Chief.” Hook's voice was not smooth or confident, not in the presence of the Chief. Hook had always been tall, but the Chief was quite a bit taller and twice as wide. His presence was solemn and hulking and infinitely wise, like his eyes themselves held all the quiet knowledge in the world. It made Hook feel inferior, like a boy.

“What brings you out into the forest so late at night, Hook?”

It bothered him somewhat that the other man refused to call him by his title, but he could not address it, he found. Hook tapped his fingers against his upper leg. “Nothing of any importance, sir.”

“Do not lie to me,” the Chief said, and Hook shuddered, shrinking, for in the Chief 's face and in his words, Hook was reminded of a conversation not so long ago, one he'd
had with the Chief 's daughter. It brought a crippling pain to him, and his knees buckled for a moment in surprise. But he regained his composure quickly, unwilling to look weak in front of the man before him.

Hook then straightened and puffed his chest out. “Chief, I beg no resistance from you and no special favors. But this is not your land; I am not trespassing. I ask only that you let me pass.”

As Hook's eyes adjusted to the darkness and to the world outside his mind, he saw that behind the Chief was a score of people. It seemed that the entire tribe was gathered behind him. He wondered for a moment if Tiger Lily was among them, and his eyes darted from man to man. That sent his pulse pounding.

“James Hook.”

Hook blinked. “Aye.”

“Do your ears trouble you?”

“No, sir.”

The Chief crossed his arms and looked down at him hard, shallow wrinkles at the corners of his eyes making themselves known. “I wonder, then, why it seems you cannot hear the words I speak to you.”

Hook stuttered. “I apologize, Chief. If you wouldn't mind…”

“I feel a sinister wind in the air tonight, boy.”

Hook prickled a bit at the word “boy.”

The Chief 's eyes wandered to the black trees, the silvery ribbons of wind that slid through all of their limbs. “Something foreboding is waiting to happen. And I believe that, should I let you pass without explanation, it would be a foolish thing.” He brought his hard gaze back to Hook.

Something shifted then, in Hook's heart and in his stance. “You mean to stand in my way?”

“I do not wish to fight with you,” said the Chief. “But I do wish an explanation.”

“Am I not allowed to roam the island as I please anymore? Have you instated a curfew for me?”

The Chief rolled his eyes. “Do not be a child.”

Hook was beginning to feel less and less childish, and more and more angry. He was the captain of the
Spanish Main
. His name was known across Neverland and beyond that. Who was the Chief to question him?

Hook narrowed his eyes. “Mind what you say, Chief. Don't you know who I am?”

“I do.” The Chief stood taller then, made his voice deeper, more resonant. “You are the mighty Captain Hook. A man so great that he spends his life attacking weaker men and taking their treasure, and so wonderful that he beds women and leaves them cold in the morning, and so fierce that he shudders at the sight of a crocodile. I know who you are, James, and who you have chosen to become. And there is a grave disparity between them.”

Hook felt the wind as it was knocked from his lungs, and he stood before the Chief, blinking silently. For a moment, he was unable to form a sentence. After the shock of the man's words wore off, he steeled himself.

“Let me by.” His voice cracked when he said it.

The Chief caught him by the shoulder as he made a move to pass. “You mean to kill the Pan tonight.”

Hook turned back to the Chief; in a low voice laced with ferocity, he said, “I do.”

“I cannot let you do it. I am bound to do everything in my power to stop you.”

Hook's face turned to a scowl, but it was composed purely of raw pain.

“Let me pass, Chief.” He held up his hook, and his voice shook when he said, “Or I will not hesitate to kill
you. I and all my men will set your people to running and we will soak the ground with their blood. I swear it.”

The Chief looked down, sadness washing over his countenance. Hook saw a shred of disappointment, and it nearly stopped his heart.

After a minute of tense silence, the Chief stepped aside. Hook did not feel a bit of elation at this, only seething, simmering anger. But the captain walked past, looking stone and proud, and led his band of men with him.