Chapter 302: Look at the Cross, Ye Bastards!

No one who survived could agree on how many things came up through the floor or what they looked like. On one point, at least, they were unanimous.

The screaming never stopped.

It rose, held, and went on.

Pale light poured through the cracks in the stone, the last torches went out, and the floor quaked.

A six-armed creature climbed out between two ranks of redcoats casually. By their side, a two-headed one drifted past, split from throat to belly, while a crawler dragged itself along on arms bent backward, its head turned to look over its own back.

Some ungodly apparition no taller than a child hauled itself forward on arms as long as an adult.

These abominations went through sailors as a draught goes through a keyhole. Their victims had their limbs bent backward until the bone cracked and came through their skin, were forced to walk towards the abyss and step off politely toward their demise.

Every charm in the Caribbean was put to use, be those that crossed themselves so fast they beat their chests raw, held their cutlass upside down, pointed the hilt at an apparition, and screamed at it to look at the cross.

"Look at the cross, ye blasphemin’ bastard! LOOK AT IT! Get back where ye come from, in the name o’ the Holy Mother o’ God!"

In the thick of it, a sailor clawed a shriveled caul from inside his coat and thrust it out like a lantern against the dark. "I were born in a BAG, I were! Born in a bleedin’ bag, an’ me mam kept it forty year! Ye can’t lay a finger on me, ye grinnin’ sons o’ bitches, I’m drown-proof an’ devil-proof, so I am!"

His mate flung a fistful of nails over his shoulder with grim flourish.

"COLD IRON! Cold iron, ye wicked buggers, cold iron!"

The nails rattled off the caul sailor’s skull. A hand went to the scalp, came away red, and the look that followed it would have curdled milk at forty paces.

From the dark a voice bellowed, and a finger began to sweep the white faces, jabbing each in turn. It slowed. It faltered.

"There’s a Jonah aboard, I tell ye! A cursed, bloody Jonah! It’s him! It’s you... It’s... it’s..."

It swung inward and stopped, trembling, on his own breastbone.

"Is it me? Lord have mercy, is it ME?"

A redcoat on his knees tried to say the Lord’s Prayer. "Our Father, who art in... in... HELL! No! No, no, Heaven! Heaven, Lord, I meant Heaven! Hallowed be thy... thy... oh, Christ an’ all His saints, what comes after hallowed?"

The sergeant’s voice had been shredded to a rasp an hour ago, but he hauled it up and flung it down the ranks. "STEADY, ye whoresons, STEADY! It’s smoke, d’ye hear me? Naught but smoke and bad rum! Present! Present, damn yer eyes! FIRE!"

The volley crashed out in one ragged roar.

The lead shots went through the six-armed creature like fingers through fog, kept going, and hit the redcoats behind it.

"At IT, ye blind, bog-brained lobsters! The THING! Not each other!"

Tomás knelt in the blood among the wounded with his sword held up like a crucifix, thumb doing the sign of the cross over brow, lips, and heart so fast it blurred.

His prayer came in a hoarse, rolling mutter that climbed with every line. "Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros, pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte..."¹

The pale light climbed the steps to the top, where the apparition still hung above the coffin.

James’s wrist was still ringing when the creature spread its arms wide. It stood a head taller than the commodore, with an eye at each temple and a torn jaw hanging down to its neck.

The upper pair of arms swung at the commodore’s head, the middle pair at James’s, and the lower pair came through the coffin as though the stone weren’t there, reaching for his knees.

The commodore stepped back as James brought [Verdict] up edge-first and swept it across. The middle arms struck the blade and split open from end to end, while the lower pair swept through the space where his knees had been as he jumped back.

White light burst from the cuts and turned the hall to noon.

Threads of it snapped loose and whipped around, and the blade vibrated wildly with a light azure glow. The apparition’s jaw parted open in a scream, but no voice came out.

It retreated away from the sarcorphagus and watched him over one cautiously. The severed arms dripped light that went out one strand at a time.

James let [Verdict] hang at his side and let out a sharp grin. "Och, mind your jaw there, mate! You’ll go trippin’ on it, and there’s no a lick of dignity in bein’ laid low by your own chin."

He jammed his hat back on, as a pirate didn’t rob a king bareheaded, after all.

"Beggin’ your gracious pardon, Your Majesty, I’ll be borrowin’ this wee trinket a while."

His left hand closed around the key.

The dry fingers snapped off like kindling, and the thing came free. For one heartbeat it felt like cold stone, then grew warm and began beating in his palm like a second heart, only for the key beneath his coat to answer with two quick beats.

James shoved the new one inside his coat beside it.

The floor quaked further. More apparitions climbed over the abyss by the dozen, and the darkness above the coffin spun faster.

Behind the commodore, a long-necked creature rose through a crack. Its head hung over its own shoulder, and its mouth stretched open across the whole length of its neck.

Falcombe turned and slashed across its throat, but his notched blade went through like smoke.

The creature’s body slid over his arm, twisting it a quarter turn at both wrist and elbow. A tendon stood out in his neck, his fingers went slack, his sword dropped to the stone, and his pale eyes glared on nothing as his lips whispered a word no one heard.

He dragged his gaze back to the dangling head and clamped his left hand around his right wrist. Inch by inch, he hauled the arm back into place, teeth bared and face white to the lips.

The apparition stopped dead in the air.

"No, you shall not have me. Return to the purgatory, ungodly abomination."

It drifted away unharmed. The commodore turned to James and spoke in a low, hurried voice, whatever calm he’d carried before now gone.

"This is not finished, Mister Calloway. Mark me well."

He let out a breath, hard-won. "You have trudged halfway round the world for your pretty stones, and left your pretty town without your protection. I am a man of my word, sirrah, and I promised you company. It is on its way, and it will cost you more than you have ever dared reckon."

Then the commodore left without a care for a reply, and the redcoats closed around him in formation with the sergeant croaking orders.

James moved after him, [Verdict] came up. Then a scream tore from the steps.

"JAMES! JAMES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!"

A child-high creature was hauling itself up the steps behind Anne, its long fingers scraping the stone. She backed onto the top step, jumped, and climbed James like a topmast, arms around his neck, legs around his waist, hair in his mouth, teeth chattering.

"Don’t you say a word, James Calloway!"

She hissed in his ear.

"It’s lookin’ RIGHT at me, so it is, with them great wet eyes, and it’s NOT BLINKIN’!"

James took her weight on his left arm easily. "Och, lass, lass. Wheesht now, I’ve got ye, d’ye hear? No thing’s takin’ you while I’ve breath in me body. Only mind you don’t throttle me, there’s a good lass."

The redcoats had closed around the commodore and escorted him away toward the planks, taking James’s chance to follow with it. From the top step, he could see the whole platform being overrun. Kit was on his knees with his knife lying on the stones.

Och, Christ. The lad. The wee daft lad.

He set Anne on her feet and went down the steps with [Counterargument] in his left hand. The pans were soaked, but he thumbed the hammer back regardless.

The child-high creature was caught by a shot the face, and its long arms dropped and faded.

From behind, a long pale hand reached for his back. Blue sparks cracked across the gold threads of [Discretion], and the hand jerked back smoking, the whole creature reeling away.

Some crawler was three lunges from Kit, and James fired from four paces. The shot struck it in the neck, its head burst into ribbons of light, and the thing folded into the floor.

Nearby, some two-headed creature was drifting toward a sailor with hands outstretched.

James stepped beneath it and cut low through its legs, then brought the blade back up through its body. Both heads screamed, and a white flash burst at each cut as the halves fell apart like dropped crockery.

The pirates gathered into a tight knot, Bert in the middle carrying a wounded man, Tomás at the back, and Jim and Kit at the front, side by side.

"Did ye SEE that? Cut the bleedin’ thing clean in two!"

"Calls the Devil by his Christian name, the Scourge."

"Aye, and asks after his old mum, I’ll wager, and sends her flowers at Christmas."

James drew a deep breath. "THROUGH THE HOLE! NOW, you gawpin’ bastards! MOVE YOUR ARSES, the whole bloody LOT of you, afore I leave you to the dead!"

Anne went through with the wounded, then Sam, Tomás, Bert with a man across his shoulders, Kit, and Jim bringing up the rear, still talking.

James held the edge of the hole with [Verdict] raised. The apparitions reached the wall, and he swept the blade through them, sending them bursting apart and falling back.

He looked back once. The floor was splitting wider, and figures poured over the abyss by the hundred, shining brighter than every torch.

Across the floor, the redcoats retreated in a ragged file, the sergeant croaking with the commodore at their front. A pair of pale eyes spotted James across the chaos.

He stepped through the hole with those eyes still on his back.