The Sea Wolves

Page 25

Screams of hatred and rage swirled in the wind. Wood cracked, and Jack turned to see one of Death’s wolves smash through the railing and flail wildly as he fell into the ocean thirty feet away. Jack prayed that Sabine and he would not be seen, that the werewolf could not swim, that the sea would drag the monster under.

Jack hauled himself into the boat to find Sabine already there. She smiled at him with relief, then they hurriedly untied the ropes binding them to the doomed Larsen. Jack raised the small sail, then grabbed one of the long oars and pushed them away from the hull. He had to push hard because the sea still drove the tiny boat against the Larsen, but inch by inch he shifted them along until the skiff slipped past the bow, and the sail caught the wind.

He fell back and clutched the rudder, watching the sail to sense which way the wind wanted to take them. Right now, that was the direction he would aim. The faster they could flee these two warring ships, the better.

“Jack!” Sabine called, and she was staring past him at what they were leaving behind. Keeping his weight on the rudder, he turned to see what had startled her so.

On the Larsen, the conflict had spread across the deck. There was a riot of activity at the bow—a pile of slashing, slavering bodies, tearing and gouging and biting—and in their midst, a battling shape that they both recognized. Ghost. He raged and roared, threw a wolf overboard, and picked up another by its legs, swinging it around and using it to batter others aside. Ghost was revealed at the heart of the onslaught, and he was a statue of blood and violence. For a moment Jack was afraid that the captain was more than man, more than beast, and more than anything he had ever imagined. But then he fell, and other monstrous shapes fell upon him, murder their intent.

Jack turned and met Sabine’s eyes. He tweaked the rudder, and the wind filled their sails.

“We’re away,” he said, and she nodded.

The skiff carried them into the heart of the storm, and the battle vanished behind them. Savage, bestial cries and the scrape of the ships’ hulls flitted like ghosts around the small boat, dancing on the wind and then blocked by rolling waves. As they sailed away, Jack’s fear of the wolves also began to vanish, replaced by a total focus on the task at hand—not dying at sea. He gripped the tiller so hard his knuckles ached, and given the strength of the storm, it was all he could do to hold the sail in place. The skiff leaped over the waves, and Jack and Sabine did their best to hang on.

In minutes they were alone on the sea. Yet Jack could feel Ghost’s rage following them, a bitter resentment that lingered long after the last wolf’s cry had been swallowed by the wind.

Sabine shouted something to him from where she sat in the bow.

“What?” Jack called over the wind.

She rose up on her knees, dress plastered to her body, damp hair across her face, looking very much the sea witch that Ghost had called her. Sabine pointed off to starboard and turned to him, shouting to be heard.

“To the northwest!” she cried. “The nearest land is there, less than a day’s sail!”

Jack nodded, struggling to keep control of the boat as he adjusted their course. A huge wave rolled beneath them, and for half a heartbeat he thought they would capsize, but then the wave tossed them back down and they were on their new heading. The rain pounded at them, gusts of wind battered the sail, and the small mast creaked ominously.

His muscles burned with effort, and he clenched his teeth and blinked away the rain. Whatever happened, he would not release his hold. His mind went back to the White Horse Rapids in the Yukon. He had maneuvered to safety then and he would do the same now, conquering the raging sea, triumphing over the vast, wild ocean. If that meant navigating through stormy waters all day and night, he would do it. Jack refused to allow himself to accept any other possibility.

The laugh began soft at first, then grew louder, and then Jack turned his face to the rain and let it come.

“You’ve gone mad!” Sabine called, though she herself was grinning.

“We’ve escaped him!” Jack said. “Damn Ghost and his pack. Damn all of them! We set them against each other, outsmarted them.”

“You think a lot of yourself!”

Jack laughed at that as well. “It’s true. And I think a lot of you! But we’ve survived because we’re human. In our hearts and souls, we’re human. Not the mere animals that Ghost insisted we all were.”

Jack had to fight a sudden gust, tearing his gaze away from Sabine’s beauty. He had been on the verge of speaking his heart and was glad of the forced interruption. In all his life he had never met a girl or a woman who had made him feel so breathless, who had enchanted him and made him feel such true devotion. Though the storm threatened to swamp them at any moment, he felt only glee at their rush to freedom and this adventure they now shared, away from the constant threat of murder.

He wondered, though, about the mutiny that had become a massacre. It felt to him like a story with no ending, and the questions would linger with him. Who had survived that terrible, bloody battle? Did Ghost still live, and if not, had he been killed by his own crew or by his lunatic brother?

Salt spray stung Jack’s eyes, but he blinked it away and looked at Sabine again, realizing that these questions would not have to haunt him. His beauty, his sea witch, could stop him from wondering. She would know the answers, if he truly desired them.

Right then, Jack decided he did not want to know.

“I love you,” he said quietly, expecting the words to be taken by the storm and swirled away.

But in that same moment, something changed around them. The sea grew calmer, the rain reduced to a sprinkle, and the wind became gentler, yet still firmly behind the skiff. It happened so suddenly that he had not even time to notice before the words were out of his mouth, and the breeze carried them to Sabine.

Yet her eyes were closed. As raindrops slid down her face, she breathed deeply and evenly. Jack studied her, nervous; she must have heard him.

A smile played at the edges of her lips.

“There,” she said softly. “That should be a bit easier on us. Keep on with the wind, and it will deliver us to the island.”

Jack stared. Island? Easier on them?

“Wait a second,” he said, looking around to see the storm still raging behind them. Even off to either side of the boat, the sea remained a churning froth. But directly ahead the ocean had calmed, the clouds parted to reveal blue, and the breeze breathed true.

Sabine arched an eyebrow, her smile turning flirtatious.

“Is this you?” he asked. “You’re doing this?”

She pushed wet strands of hair from her face and nodded.

Jack laughed in amazement. “But how?”

“I’m not really sure.” Sabine shrugged. “I told you that I had other powers … gifts that I feared Ghost would inherit if he were to kill me. This shaping of the weather is one of them.”

“The fog?” Jack asked.

“No, I didn’t create the fogbank. But I called the storm to blind Ghost and Death and make it more difficult for anyone who might pursue us. All the better to hide our escape.”

Jack guided the little boat, settling down into an easy rhythm as the Pacific seemed to welcome them now and to help guide them on their way.

“Are you really a witch, then?”