Secrets of the Deep (61 page)

“Good,” said Jones. “Abandon ship! Not you two. Come with me,” he ordered Archie and Nixie, while the shark men cleared the decks. “You two lubbers should feel honored. You’re going to see something few living folk have ever witnessed.”

Full of trepidation, they swam warily after Jones as he strode across the deck to the very point of the bow. The crew had swum off to tread water several yards back from the ship.

Archie was confused. He looked at Nixie, who shrugged in response, while Jones climbed over the railing just beside the long, pointy bowsprit bristling off the ship’s nose.

Nixie and Archie peered over the railing up front and saw that the captain had climbed down alongside the Grim Reaper figurehead.

“Now watch this,” Jones said, clearly enjoying having an audience.

Of course, they already knew from the puppet show incident that he was vain.

He took hold of the figurehead’s skull and, to their surprise, turned the Grim Reaper’s head so it was looking backward.

Rather unsettling, that.

Jones climbed back up onto the deck, looking pleased with himself. “Step one,” he announced. “Now for step two. Follow me.”

They did. He marched back to the weather deck, sheltered beneath the overhang of the quarterdeck. There they watched him seize hold of the
Flying Dutchman’s
massive double wheel.

What sort of inhuman strength the devil of the deep blue sea possessed, Archie could not say, but where it had taken four of his crew to steer the ship, Davy Jones singlehandedly pulled the whole contraption down from an upright position, until the ship’s double wheels now sat horizontally atop their squat pedestal.

“What’s all this about, Captain?” Archie asked, marveling.

“You’ll see. Now clear off—back up to where my men tell you. And don’t do anything foolish like trying to escape. You’re here for a reason, and you’ve got work to do.”

Carnahan and Lebrec had swum forward again, and now roughly escorted the two of them about twenty yards away from the
Flying Dutchman
. The captain, left behind, began turning the great double wheel all by himself.

It was then they discovered—much to their wonder and dread—that it was not just Davy Jones’s crew that underwent such dramatic physical transformations. So did his ship!

First, the yardarms spun the sails in like roller-blinds whirling up on their springs; then the spars and yards alike slammed upright, flush against the three towering masts, which, in turn, began telescoping in upon themselves, withdrawing down into the ship. The bowsprit did likewise, retracting, while the pulleys came alive.

The planks buckled and groaned, began to slide and fold, while winches everywhere whirred wildly. Ropes snaked about with a will of their own in the eerie green glow.

“What’s it doing?” Nixie cried.

“You’ll see,” Carnahan said, his impassive stare fixed on the vessel, which seemed to be collapsing, twisting in on itself.

The captain could no longer be seen amid the churning water. Archie’s heart pounded as he looked on, bewildered.

They heard a thunderous succession of muffled booms coming from inside the transforming vessel as different levels of the decks slammed down on top of each other, bulkheads heaving from horizontal to vertical positions and vice versa.

A long, boxy shape the size of a building was assembling itself out from the crumpled hull of the
Flying Dutchman
. At last, the whole thing turned upside down; the ship shuddered and buckled and finished its tortured metamorphosis from a sleek wooden sailing vessel into a giant version of a…

Sea locker.

The long wooden box that, according to Dani’s brother, could become a sailor’s coffin.

The name engraved on the huge rusty plaque on the side of this one, writ large, said:
David W. Jones.

“Ohhh!” Archie breathed.

Nixie glanced at him, her dark eyes round as they both realized—Davy Jones’s ship
was
his locker.

His own giant, traveling wooden coffin—to which he was confined for all time, inescapably.

The crew did not seem perturbed by this procedure—but one last touch still remained.

The bilge pump poked up through the roof like a smokestack and belched out a huge burst of water from inside. Expelled from the interior, the fizzing water bubbled violently over the Locker for a moment, but had no sooner dissipated than a door swung open on the side, just beneath the giant brass plaque.

Jones peered out of the doorway and beckoned them inside.

The resemblance to a giant wooden coffin was unmistakable, but Archie thought the ship-turned-building resembled a simple, plain warehouse or an undersea bunker of some kind.

“Go on,” Carnahan grumbled, poking him in the back to get him moving.

Archie snapped out of his daze. Some of the sailors stayed outside, taking up posts around the building to keep watch, but with Carnahan prodding him and Lebrec shoving Nixie, they had no choice but to move.

Into the belly of the beast they went. Indeed, Archie felt a bit like Jonah swallowed by the whale as he swam, heart thumping, into Davy Jones’s Locker.

He was careful to keep an eye on Nixie. This would certainly be a story to tell Jake if he survived.

Inside the Locker, everything shiplike was upside down now. It was hard to tell for certain because it was very dark, the water lit only by the phantasmagorical green illumination.

Scanning the spooky, algae-covered space in all directions, Archie did not see Jones. Fishing nets draped here and there looked like vast spider webs, and against the walls, Archie could just make out stacks of what looked like crab traps or lobster cages built big enough to hold humans.

They were quickly hurried through this first broad space to a ladder on the far end, which they ascended at Carnahan’s behest, swimming up through an open hatch to a second level. The ladder continued up to a third level, but the square wooden hatch at the top of this one was closed.

Brushing past them, Carnahan swam up to it and knocked three times.

“Come!” the captain answered from above.

“When I open the hatch, climb up quickly,” the first mate ordered them. “He doesn’t like it getting wet.” Then he pushed the hatch upward, opening it.

At once, Nixie and Archie scrambled up the top steps of the ladder, startled to find that their watery environment had given way to air. As they hurried in, dripping, Jones quickly closed the hatch behind them and secured it.

The masks on their faces automatically released. Archie took his off, and, seeing it was safe, Nixie followed suit. Davy Jones was standing there, fully dry somehow.

Archie looked around, thoroughly puzzled. The top floor of the Locker was relatively dry. An inch or so of water sloshed about here and there, or pooled in uneven dips across the warped wooden floor, but everything else was dry.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Well, if the ship were the ship, it’d be the cargo hold,” said Jones, handing them each a towel.

“Thank you,” Nixie mumbled.

“But since it’s now the Locker, it’s just…I dunno, the Locker. Captain’s quarters, I suppose.”

“Yes, but how is it dry in here?” Archie demanded, his curiosity piqued.

“You think I know?” Jones exclaimed. “It was always like this for me. You’re supposed to be the genius.”

“He still thinks he’s dealing with science,” Nixie said.

Archie frowned at her, but Jones snorted.

“Follow me.” He still clomped when he walked, even though he had long since lost the bucket shoes. As he went ahead of them, Archie noticed the captain was carrying the knapsack containing the pieces of the orb.

He led them through the long, low-ceilinged wooden space, dimly lit by a few oil lanterns hanging overhead, and crowded with various stores of supplies and a great many barrels—probably full of grog or rum or whatever it was that cursed pirates drank, Archie thought. Frankly, he was still annoyed that he did not understand how it could be dry down here, but he told himself it must be some sort of diving bell effect.

It was not a satisfactory explanation, but it would have to do.

Then a word printed in large letters on one of the barrels caught his eye:
Gunpowder.

Archie drew in his breath. At once, his heart started thumping with the stirring of inspiration, but he kept his thoughts to himself and followed his captor.

“Right,” Jones said, passing through the long, crowded storage section, “here’s where you can work.”

At the far end of the cargo hold, they arrived at a space that looked exactly like the inside of an old English pub, or at least part of one. There was a teakwood bar with ale taps, a line of waiting pewter tankards, and many rows of bottles—all of which were empty.

Set into the wall like a ghastly decoration was the Grim Reaper skull with its unnerving grin, watching over all. Somehow the figurehead had ended up there after all the ship’s agonized twisting.

A chill ran down Archie’s spine as he realized Nixie had been right. The worst sort of darkness was at work in the fate of Captain Davy Jones. Perhaps the Devil himself had created the
Flying Dutchman
/Locker, for Archie believed the bizarre scene before them was a replica of the tavern where Jones, the barkeep, had once carried out his crimes. This bitter replica was surely meant to remind him forever of what he’d done, how he’d ended up here.

He recalled what Dani had told them, courtesy of her Navy brother, Patrick. How, as a mortal, Jones had sold the poor drunkards who passed out in his pub into shipboard slavery under the press gangs, and how he, in turn, was now forced to helm this vessel of doom until the end of time.

Cruel.
Archie almost felt sorry for the man. After all, he wasn’t
so
bad. He could’ve killed them in Driftwood…

Suddenly, a thought gripped him. It was greed and corruption that had landed Davy Jones here, not murder. “Captain?”

“Aye, lad?”

“Say I fix the orb—”

“You
will
fix the orb.”

“That is—even if I get it working—”

“
When.
”

“The point is, I don’t believe you really want to do this,” Archie announced, visibly startling the Lord of the Locker. He looked him in the eyes. “You may be the collector of drowned souls, but you’re no killer.”

“Oho, is that right?” the pirate captain countered with a snort, setting his fists on his waist.

“We both know it’s true,” Archie said. “You could’ve killed us in Driftwood, but you let us go. You could’ve slain us on the beach, but again, you showed mercy. If you use this orb as you intend, millions of people are going to die and you know it.”

“So?”

“I say you don’t have it in you to do that,” he declared, lifting his chin.

Nixie’s eyebrows rose.

Jones looked at him in shock, then chuckled warily. “Don’t be too sure, lad.”

“Then tell me why. Why would you do such a thing?”

He scowled, debated with himself, and then said, “You have no idea what it’s like—being here, what I am—forever…with no hope of getting out. Can’t quit. Can’t die. Not allowed. Believe me, I’ve tried. This is my fate. I wagered with the Devil and I lost. So here I am. If I’ve got to be miserable, then why should anyone else get to be happy?”

“But think, man!” Archie exclaimed. “If this is your punishment
now
for selling drunkards to the press gangs, what do you suppose you’ll get after you drown all of humanity? You honestly believe it can’t get any worse? I assure you, it can!”

“Shut yer trap!” Jones boomed. “Nobody asked you, ye cheeky minnow. Now get to work!”

Well, I obviously touched a nerve,
Archie thought, but he took a step back. The undead pirate king was more than a little frightening when angry. “Very well, but I’m going to need more light.”

He frowned at the single candle burning in a pewter holder on one of the pub tables where Jones had also set the knapsack. “I can barely see what I’m doing in this gloom—besides which, I have no tools.”

Jones narrowed his eyes. “Here.” He reached up and unhooked a couple of the metal oil lanterns overhead, then set them on either side of the round table along with the candlestick. “As for tools, I already thought of that. Got these for you from our ship’s carpenter.”

He brought over a toolbox that had been sitting by the bar. Archie glanced at its contents. Hammers, screwdrivers, nails.

“These, too. From our surgeon down in the sickbay.” The captain returned to the bar and picked up a wooden case that had been resting on it. Carrying it over to the table, Jones opened it and showed Archie a rusty array of old-timey surgical and dental instruments. “Pliers, tweezers, handy little picks. You’ll manage. You’re a clever boy.”

Out of excuses, Archie fell into a grim silence.

“My wand?”

“Right. No tricks,” Jones warned, taking Nixie’s wand out of his coat and handing it to her. “Now, I don’t give a bilge rat’s tail which of you two fixes it, but I want that pretty bauble working, posthaste. Don’t make me wait,” he said, raising his knife, “or I’ll start with your toes. Perhaps you think you can spare a few of yer little piggies if it means savin’ the world. But it’s my crew, you see. The smell of blood in the water, well, it agitates the lads. We wouldn’t want to touch off a feeding frenzy, now, would we?”

Archie and Nixie both gave him a dirty look.

Jones walked over to the teakwood post at one end of the bar. Attached to it was a large brass mariner’s hourglass. He flipped it over. “I’ll be back to check on you by the time this runs out of sand, so don’t dawdle. I may have all the time in the world,” he added, “but that doesn’t mean I am a patient man. Now get to work.”

With that, Jones stalked off to leave them to their task.

“What are we going to do?” Nixie asked in a low tone after they’d heard him splash back down through the hatch.