Secrets of the Deep (24 page)

“Where did he get those names?” Jake asked, scrunching up his nose.

“They were painted right on the front of the theater. Didn’t you see?”

“Also starring,” Archie continued with admirable showmanship, “Lady Wynonna the Humpback Whale!”

“Well, he’s definitely got their attention,” Dani reported, her eye to the peephole.

“Everybody, let’s give them all a big round of applause!” Archie said, leading the cheering.

Only a few fish folk in the audience clapped slowly here and there.

“We’re on!” Dani whispered.

“I don’t have a story idea!”

“Well, make something up! Come on!”

Both crouching inside the puppet theater, Jake and Dani raised their arms and waved them about as their characters arrived on stage.

“Robert, old fellow! How are you on this fine day?” Jake made the clam puppet ask the lobster.

He decided on the spot that Sam should be something of a wiseacre, while the lobster could be the straight man.

“Oh, you know…” he had Robert answer in a hangdog sort of voice. Jake wiggled his first two fingers to make the lobster’s antennae move up and down. “The old fungus been flaring up again—”

“Why, look here!” Sam the Clam cut him off. “It’s our most excellent friend, Lady Wynonna!”

“Hello, Robert!” Dani’s whale greeted the lobster.

“And Sam,” Robert pointed out.

“Humph! Sam who? I’m not speaking to him.”

“Why not, Wynonna?” the lobster asked.

“He thinks I’m fat!” the whale cried. “He said so last week! Insufferable mollusk.”

Jake flashed a grin at her as they heard the audience guffaw. Then he dove right in to luring Davy Jones over before the pirate and his fierce crewmen were out of earshot.

“I say, dear girl!” Jake made the lobster say, deciding on the spot to model the character on Archie. “Have you ever heard of Captain Davy Jones?”

“Well, of course!” Dani’s whale puppet answered in a very loud voice. “Everybody knows the Lord of the Locker!”

Jake nodded at her for following his intent without any need for explanations. “I’ll bet neither of you know just how powerful Captain Jones is, though,” the lobster said.

“Keep going!” Archie whispered, briefly poking his head in behind the theater. “This fish is hooked! He’s coming over.”

Jake swallowed hard. “Did you know that every sailor who goes to sea trembles in fear of his name?” the lobster asked in tones of awe.

Dani twisted her whole arm back and forth to show the whale shaking her head. “No, Robert, why is that?”

“Because any sailor who drowns at sea is fair game for him. He owns the whole place, you see.”

“The whole ocean? Surely not!”

“It’s true—so they say.”

“He must be very powerful,” the lady whale said admiringly.

“Ahh, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” a deep, rumbling voice called in amusement from the audience. “Just wait till I get my hands on that orb.”

Jake and Dani exchanged an eager glance behind the scenes, realizing Jones himself had come over to watch the show. He’d taken the bait! Well, who wouldn’t want a puppet show in his honor?

I certainly would,
thought Jake. But they had to keep it going.

“They say he can command a hurricane in the Atlantic and a typhoon in the Pacific at the very same time!” said Robert in a sage voice.

“Really!” the whale said while the audience murmured, impressed at this claim.

“He can control the leviathan,” said Robert.

“What’s a leviathan?” Wynonna asked sweetly, and for some reason, the audience laughed loudly at this.

Jake and Dani looked at each other and shrugged.

“No idea,” he made the lobster say, and the audience laughed harder.

Archie poked his head behind the side of the puppet theater again. “Do something! You’re losing him!”

“What do you suggest?” Jake asked.

“You need a narrative arc! Motivation! Conflict!” Archie said, waving his hands.

Well, conflict I can do,
Jake thought, considering he made people want to kill him everywhere he went.
Here goes nothing.

If flattery had all too soon bored the captain, then there was only one thing left to resort to.

Insults.

For this, sarcastic Sam the Clam was the perfect stock character. “Say, you two,” Sam said, “it’s all very well, you singin’ the praises of Captain Davy Jones, but let me tell you something! He’s not as mighty as you all seem to think.”

“Ooooh,” said the audience, laughing uncomfortably.

Dani gave Jake a wide-eyed look and blanched. “Oh, really?” she said uncertainly. “And wh-why is that, Sam?”

“Well…” Jake cast about for an insult that would detain the madman but wouldn’t get them murdered.

Dani ducked her head and glanced through the peephole. “He’s listening,” she whispered. “He paused and looked back.”

Good.
Jake was pleased that his talent for being annoying should come in handy once again.

Inspiration dawned.

“The problem with Davy Jones,” Sam the Clam said, “is that he smells like fish! And—he has bad teeth.”

Dani looked at him, aghast, while, beyond the flimsy wooden boards, the audience gasped.

Jake shrugged at her. It was the only thing he could think of.

Thankfully, a few rumbles of nervous laughter followed. Hearing that, Jake gulped and pressed on.

“Jones may be able to command the wind and all that, and capture every poor soul who ever drowns at sea,” the clam said—not him, of course. It was just a comedy routine, after all.

The Lord of the Locker understood that, right?

“But I ask you this,” Jake, or rather Sam, continued. “What does he do with all the poor souls he captures? Where does he even
put
them?”

“Soul cages!” a heckler in the audience shouted back. “Everybody knows that!”

“Or they join his crew and get changed!” yelled another.

“Those blokes. Ugh!” said Sam, while Jake tucked away this enlightening piece of information. “Have you ever seen an uglier lot than them? They look like something Dr. Frankenstein sewed together!”

“Aw, Jake, I don’t want to die,” Dani moaned.

But the audience didn’t get the joke, anyway, so thankfully, the carrot held her ground.

“Y-yes, but looks aren’t everything,” Lady Wynonna offered. “I mean, look at you. You’re not such a prize, yourself, Sam.”

“What? I’m the best-looking bivalve on the seafloor!” the clam protested. “Not that I care what you think, tubby. All I’m saying is if Davy Jones had to force his crew into service like the old press gangs, then are they really loyal? I’ll bet if you asked them, most of those brutes would admit the rumor we’ve all heard about their captain is true.”

“What rumor is that, Sam?” Wynonna asked cautiously, Dani wincing beside him.

“Oh, you haven’t heard? They say Davy Jones is a horrible navigator. Can’t read a chart to save his bloody life. The real reason he just roams around constantly throughout the Seven Seas is because…he’s always lost!”

“Is that right?” the same deep, rough voice said from the other side of the boards, only it was angry now.

The audience had now gone absolutely silent.

“It’s him,” Dani breathed, peeking through the peephole.

Rather
guessed that.

“Ah, it’s just a show, sir,” Archie said, his cheery voice sounding slightly strained.

“Well, I don’t like it. Whoever you are back there,” Jones warned, “you’d best keep a civil tongue in your head. Best teach those puppets to behave or someone might chop off yer hands.”

“Thresher Shark doesn’t look too happy,” Dani reported.

Jake supposed that the snapping sound he heard coming from beyond the puppet theater was the captain’s bodyguard gnashing his big shark teeth at the mockery.

“Now, now, mates, just having fun!” Sam the Clam assured his audience, laughing weakly. He’d left poor Archie out there alone. “Beg your pardon, sirs. Never mind me—I was only being shellfish.”

Dani rolled her eyes, but a smattering of uneasy laughter was all that came from the audience.

Apparently satisfied with his apology, or at least not wanting to look like an utter tyrant who couldn’t take a joke, Davy Jones let out a snort and, Jake guessed, turned away. “Enough of this nonsense. Let’s go find out if they’ve found my orb yet.”

“Jake!” Archie whispered in alarm, peeking into the box for a moment.

Blast it, he’s leaving!
Jake could not let Jones return to the
Flying Dutchman
quite yet. They had not yet heard the signal from Isabelle, which meant that the others were still in the process of rescuing Liliana.

For the sake of Maddox and Nixie, he decided, however unwisely, to push Jones
just
a little further, though he knew there would be trouble. He nodded to Dani to leave the wooden box. “You and Archie clear out,” he ordered in a whisper.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered back, pulling the whale puppet off her hand.

“I’ll stall them,” he answered.

“How?”

“By trying to be as annoying as possible. Now go!”

She arched a brow at that, then slipped out to join Archie, and presumably relayed Jake’s message to the genius.

Praying he would hear Isabelle’s signal on the Triton Trumpet soon, Jake waited for Archie and Dani to withdraw out of harm’s way and racked his brain for some new cheeky comment that would keep Jones and his shark men distracted just a little bit longer.

“Well,” he made Sam the Clam say to his lobster chum, “there is
one more thing
you should know about Captain Davy Jones.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me?” the lobster answered nervously.

“Oh, it’s not his drinking, of course. Everybody knows he’s an infamous drunkard. But the thing that nobody dares admit is this…” Jake paused for effect. “You know all that gambling he loves so much? And how he always wins?”

“Yes…” the lobster said slowly, and even Jake trembled with fright as Sam the Clam declared to all the world: “That’s because he cheats.”

“That does it!” the butt of his jokes roared.

Ha,
thought Jake. But his moment of triumph was short-lived.

“Jake, get out of there!” Archie cried from somewhere unseen.

He should’ve listened. But for some strange reason, just for a heartbeat, Jake felt oddly safe inside the wooden box, as if nobody could get him in there.

But it was no fortress, a fact that was brought home to him when the whole puppet theater was suddenly lifted away and there stood the undead pirate king, having just hurled it aside.

“How dare you!” he thundered.

Jake was left crouching there, feeling as naked as a hermit crab robbed of its shell—only, when he tried to scuttle away, Jones clamped his hand down on his shoulder.

“Someone needs to teach you some manners!” Jones whirled Jake around, but his eyes widened when he saw him. He swooped closer and studied him, even sniffed him. “Who—
what
are you?”

Jake struggled to get away. He hadn’t been caught like this since Constable Flanagan had last nabbed him stealing potpies.

Impatiently, he peeled the puppets off his hands in case he had to use his telekinesis to defend himself. Whether his gift actually worked underwater, he wasn’t sure. He had been so distracted by all the wonders of the sea that he hadn’t thought to test it.

Finished sniffing him, Jones straightened up, looking baffled. “You’re human.”

“Er, guilty as charged.”

“How is this possible? What are you doing here? What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

“Cap’n, those two also look human!” his thresher shark henchman reported.

“Yes, they do… I want answers! Seize them!” the captain bellowed.

His men obeyed—or tried to.

Jake strained against Jones’s hold, watching the sailor with the squid tentacles for hair trying to grab Dani, but the rookery lass kept swishing to the right and the left, ducking away from his attempts to grab her.

“Leave her alone! I’m warning you,” Archie shouted. Though backed against the wall of the hotel, the gallant boy genius had shouldered his flowery pneumatic blunderbuss. “Don’t make me use this!”

“What the deuce is that thing?” Jones uttered, furrowing his brow at the gun’s long, curvy teak handle and the chromium-copper muzzle that flared at the end like a trumpet. He gestured at his henchman in annoyance. “Carnahan, bring that little sea-squirt over here to me.”

The thresher shark man started toward him.

“Stay back or I’ll shoot, you horrid, toothy thing! Don’t try me!” Archie cried in magnificent defiance, cranking the side handle and peering through the sight.

Jake was quite impressed.

“I obeys me captain’s orders, laddie,” the fellow replied in a voice very like that of a onetime sailor in the Royal Navy.

Just then Dani screamed as Squid Head seized her. But when Carnahan moved toward Archie, the boy genius narrowed his eyes, declared, “You leave me no choice,” and pulled the trigger.

Jake knew the blunderbuss slugs were very large—the sort of bullets used for big game on land. But underwater, everything was different, and sadly, Archie must have miscalculated somewhere.

For they all watched as the big bullet left the muzzle in a cloud of bubbles, floated sedately through the waves at a slowed-down pace, and instead of blowing a hole in the shark man, hit him in the stomach like a beanbag and threw him backward several feet.

Which merely made him angry.

Archie’s eyes widened. He stood there for a second looking shocked at himself that he had actually fired the weapon in the first place. “I knew I should’ve gone with a crossbow.”

Then Carnahan jumped to his feet, and Archie snapped out of his daze. “Stand back, sir! Mark me, that was just a warning! All I have to do is flip this lever to change the setting and you’re a goner,” he lied.

I am such a bad influence on him,
thought Jake, though he couldn’t have been prouder. Here he was, caught, and his short, bespectacled cousin was holding all the terrifying shark men at bay by himself.