Secrets of the Deep (64 page)

Sapphira looked over, startled. She didn’t think the children ever paid attention to the boring school speeches that were part of her royal duties.

The mother put an arm around her child and drew him closer. “Hush!”

But many had heard the child’s exclamation, and now people were starting to stare at her, swimming closer, craning their necks, whispering amongst themselves.

Sapphira hesitated, knowing she had been recognized. Her heart began to pound. For a moment, self-doubt flooded her—but she had long yearned to prove herself as a leader to Father and to her people.

After the dire news she had just heard from the listening conch, she knew the time had come.

Making no further effort to hide herself, she swam forward into the middle of the street. She cleared her throat a little and hoped her voice sounded strong. “It’s all right. The child is correct. It is Sapphira, the daughter of your king. Please, come out. Gather round. I want everyone to hear me.” She beckoned to them, and the merfolk cautiously swam out to hear what she had to say.

“Your Royal Highness, where have you been?” someone called. “We thought you and your sister were dead!”

“No, no. We’re both all right,” she assured them. “After the city was attacked, my father sent Liliana and me to safety, to the one place where Davy Jones could not reach us. On land.”

They murmured in amazement at this. Most ordinary merfolk would have considered the dry world anything but safe. But given Jones’s power over the whole underwater realm, what choice had they had?

“Commander Tyndaris promised the palace would send for us when it was safe, but we never heard from him…and now I see why. I’m so sorry I was not here to help you before now, my dear, good people,” she said, gazing around at them in regret. “I was trying to be obedient to my father…”

For once,
Sapphira thought. “But circumstances have changed,” she continued, “and I could no longer stay away. Now that I’m here, this listening conch has told me how you’ve suffered in the meantime under these shark-faced bullies who’ve taken over our beloved home.”

She gritted her teeth with fury at the next part. “As you may or may not know, His Majesty has been placed under house arrest inside the palace. Likewise, Commander Tyndaris and even Professor Pomodori have been thrown into the soul cages Davy Jones fashions for his captives. This will not stand.”

Her face hardened. “Unfortunately, Jones is a bigger threat than ever right now. He must be stopped. The landers who helped me are working against him even as we speak. But to succeed, they’re going to need help from Poseidonia—help we cannot provide with our palace taken over and our king trapped in a cage. We have to do something.”

“But what can we do, Princess?” a fellow asked. “We’re just simple folk, not soldiers!”

“We are merfolk! And besides, there are more of us than there are of them,” Sapphira said in a loud, unyielding voice. “If you will join me, I know we can take back the palace, free the king, my tutor, and Tyndaris, and then drive these pirates out of our city for once and for all! Once we have them on the run, I tell you, I will personally lead our troops in pursuit of these invaders until we’ve chased them all the way back to the Locker!”

They were considering her words, but they still looked worried and uncertain.

“I know they are fearsome,” Sapphira told her people, “but I am your future queen, and I am not afraid! By the time we’re finished with them, Davy Jones will never dare sail past the Pillars of Hercules into our waters again! But I cannot do this alone. So who’s with me?” she cried, raising her spear.

A throaty cheer arose from their midst, much to her relief.

“Good.” Sapphira looked around with a sense of regal pride, lifting her chin, squaring her shoulders. “Then fetch whatever weapons you have and follow me!”

She cast off the cloak, gripped her weapon, and, with a flick of her tail, headed for the palace to free the king. Armed with pitchforks, shovels, and spears, a growing crowd of angry merfolk of all shapes, colors, and sizes followed in her wake.

CHAPTER 31

Wagers

J
ake tried not to think too much about the confrontation ahead as he held on to the dolphin’s curved dorsal fin. Moving at a leisurely pace, the powerful marine mammal carried him along at the surface with two other members of the pod flanking them a few feet behind.

It was very peaceful except for the steady, mechanical din of the
Turtle
chugging along at a respectful distance behind them, propellers churning.

Sapphira had told them the noise bothered the dolphins, so the sub stayed far enough back to spare the creatures’ sensitive ears, but close enough to keep Jake still in sight.

He just hoped that Maddox and Isabelle didn’t strangle each other in there, confined to a small space together for however long this took.

Of course, they seemed to be getting along better ever since the pirate raid, for some reason…

The greater mystery to him at the moment was how the blazes Sapphira’s dolphin friends could locate a particular set of coordinates in the sea. It all looked the same to him for miles in all directions: big and blue and wavy. Dolphins were said to be highly intelligent, though, so Jake supposed he shouldn’t doubt them.

Still, he had nearly laughed when he’d heard the mermaid give them their instructions in a funny, squeaking, clicking language—and then heard them answer in kind!

He still chuckled to think of it, though he really had no room to laugh, since he could communicate with a gryphon who only spoke two or three words, if you could call them that—
caw
or
becaw
, with an occasional, unhappy
tweak
.

Ah, he missed Red. He wondered how the rescue mission was going, if it was still underway or if Derek had been freed yet. But with the load of gnawing worry that these questions brought, Jake quickly shoved them out of his mind.

He could not afford to let himself be distracted right now. He needed to concentrate. He had his own battle to face right here—especially when the big dolphin he was riding finally stopped swimming, chirped, and bobbed its head to get his attention.

Jake realized this was the signal to put his mask on. Davy Jones’s Locker must be somewhere right below them.

His heart skipped a beat as he fastened the strap around his head, putting on one of Archie’s clever underwater masks that was usually kept in the submarine for safety purposes. It had been one of the boy genius’s earliest inventions, safely filtering breathable oxygen right out of the water.

Confident he had it secured, Jake caught hold of the dolphin’s fin again, and the animal dove into the depths, tail pumping.

The human world went quiet for Jake, but for the sound of his own breathing inside the mask. Amid the streaming bubbles and angled beams of sunlight filtering through the water, he waved to Maddox and Izzy as he passed them by.

Leaving the turquoise and the green upper layers of the sea, the dolphin took him down into the cold cobalt blue.

Jake shivered, partly from the chill and partly from dread of what he was about to attempt. In the ultramarine shadows below, he could just make out two weird lights, one red, one green, that glowed around a large rectangular object on the seabed.

As the dolphin carried him closer, he was able to make out a long, squat building in the exact shape of a giant coffin.
So this is Davy Jones’s Locker. Most disconcerting
, Jake thought.

More details emerged as he approached, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. The structure was built of wood, sealed with pitch, and crusted with barnacles. It was the ship, all right, transformed into a bunkerlike building, just as Sapphira had described.

Just then, the dolphin rolled, toppling him off its back. Having completed its duty for the princess, it fled as soon as Jake saw where he was meant to go.

A sense of desolation filled him as he watched his ride zoom away. Now the only comfort left to him was the distant chugging of the submarine.

But as scared as he was, he had to keep going. Archie and Nixie were counting on him—and the human world just getting its day started had no idea of the danger it was in. A day that might well be its last, if Davy Jones had his way.

“Who goes there?” a gruff, gurgling voice demanded from the darkness ahead.

Jake braced himself as a couple of menacing shapes charged at him out of the bruise-colored murk.

Well, if it wasn’t old Squid Head and the thresher shark man.

Still, Jake gulped to see that, back in the water, Davy Jones’s crew had resumed their monstrous shapes, with human arms and legs, but other features particular to their individual species.

He quickly put up his hands and shouted through the mask, “I’m unarmed! I’ve come to parley!”

“Well, look who it is! My, you are one cheeky lad, comin’ here. You just don’t learn, do you?” Thresher Shark shook his head, hovering upright in the water, hands braced on his waist, while his long tail swished dangerously back and forth below him.

“Please,” said Jake, trying to look innocent and humble, “I didn’t come to fight. You’ve already beaten us. I just want a meeting with your captain. I think he’ll be interested in what I have to say.”

“Oh, really?” Squid Head sneered. “If you’ve come to try to talk him out of using the orb, save your breath—you’re going to need it soon!”

He elbowed his mate, and they both guffawed at his heartless humor.

“That’s not why I’m here!” Jake said with a flash of anger. “I’ve come to challenge Davy Jones to a wager!”

They stopped laughing abruptly.

“Oh, indeed? Well now. That he might just be interested in,” the thresher shark man said warily. “I’ll go see.” Then he swam away.

A few minutes later, Jake was admitted into Davy Jones’s Locker. Thresher Shark did not return, but sent back an unfortunate-looking sailor in his place. The new fellow had a long swordfish snout and went with Squid Head to escort Jake in to see the captain.

As they pushed and pulled him roughly into the coffinlike building, Swordfish Nose ahead of him and Squid Head behind, Jake marveled at the dim, net-strewn wooden interior. Details barely visible in the hint of red and green illumination suggested that the ship had turned upside down as part of its metamorphosis into the Locker.

He shook his head, amazed. Legend had always said that the
Flying Dutchman
was no ordinary vessel, but he doubted this was what the storytellers meant. Once more, however, he refused to be distracted.

“Are my friends still alive?” he demanded while his escorts hurried him through the warehouse-like space.

“I should think so,” Swordfish Nose retorted in a nasally voice. “They wouldn’t be much use to the cap’n dead, would they? Now, move!”

The two crewmen shooed him up a ladder on the far end of the space. He swam up through the open hatch above him to a second level. The ladder continued up to a third level, but this time, the square wooden hatch at the top was closed.

Squid Head swam up to it, passing Jake, and knocked three times. “
Capitaine
said he will see you up there. Now, when I open the hatch, try not to get water all over de place. It annoys him.”

“What?” Jake asked, startled.
Aren’t we underwater?

“Come!” ordered a voice from above.

Squid Head pushed the hatch upward, opening it with a bang. “Up, up, go!” he urged Jake, the little pinkish tentacles on his head flailing with his agitation.

Jake glanced up and saw light shining through the watery square above him. Realizing he was meant to go up there, he swam toward the top of the ladder. But before he’d quite reached it, a powerful hand shot down from above and hauled him up into a dry space, dropping him in a heap on the floor.

“Well, look at this little drowned rat.”

Jake scowled through his mask, but it fogged for a moment. As it cleared, the first thing he saw was a large pair of scuffed black knee boots—and inside of them stood Davy Jones.

The undead pirate king quickly slammed the hatch closed again.

Jake glanced around, baffled to find the top floor of the Locker inexplicably dry. Small puddles of seawater had collected here and there—especially under him, since he was soaked—but everything else looked dry.

“So. You again,” said the Lord of the Locker, eyeing Jake with something like sardonic amusement as he propped his fists on his waist. “You’re becoming quite the pest. Go on—you can take off your mask. It’s air.” He gestured at the space around them.

After all the high strangeness that had accompanied this entire holiday, Jake was beyond the point of questioning how this was possible. He removed the mask gladly and inhaled a cautious breath.

The air seemed safe.

“What is your name, boy? We were never properly introduced.”

“Jake.” He climbed to his feet, glancing around at the lantern-lit space. All the barrels and wooden shelves stacked with supplies told him they must be in the cargo hold. “I’m Jake Everton, the Earl of Griffon.”

“Earl of Griffon? Well, goodness me, your lordship! This is a rare honor indeed.”

Jake scowled at his sarcasm.

“Hmm, I don’t believe I’ve ever had a guest who’s still alive visit the Locker of his own free will before. Yet here you are.”

“I’m not most guests,” Jake boldly informed him.

The pirate captain threw his head back and laughed, as though he couldn’t help himself.

“What?” Jake demanded, coloring slightly.

“You do amuse me, lad. So what’s all this about you challenging Davy Jones to a wager? Please.” He gestured to a barrel and bade Jake sit.

Jones himself did likewise. As Jake moved toward the barrel, he opted to stand when he saw the word
Gunpowder
printed on the side. “Er, I’ll stand.”