Plague of Death

by D. L. Armillei

  An unholy screech rang through the commotion.

  Brux lost his footing and released Van as he tumbled and smashed against the ship’s bulwark.

  Van grabbed hold of the nearest stationary object—a round knob-like protrusion used to wind excess rope.

  Once Van got a firm grip, she turned her gaze in the direction of the other’s terrified stares.

  Lightning lit the sky, thunder boomed as Van witnessed a naked woman rising from the sea.

  The sea creature had pale, yellow skin, coral-colored hair that cascaded down to her belly button, and appeared ten times the size of a normal woman. The lower half of her body remained underwater. Her mouth opened to an unnaturally round O and she belted out a hollow, demonic screech. She flailed her arms above her head; the monster’s hair also lifted into the air and thrashed wildly.

  Van could have sworn she wet her pants from fright, but couldn’t be certain since she was already drenched from the torrential rain and seawater.

  “Scylla!”

  Van heard cries of the sea monster’s name through the wind, hail, and thunder.

  From the waist up the monster was a woman, but her lower body emerged—made of green, slimy seaweed tentacles, like that of an octopus.

  At least ten tentacles broke the surface of the water and slithered through the air toward the ship. Their tips had protuberances that reached like fingers.

  The tentacles grasped the bulwark with their sticky hand-like grip. The surface beneath the its clutch dissolved away, like acid poured onto wood. Another curled into a fist and smashed into the deck, causing an explosion of busted planks.

  Scylla made their previous battle with the laocoon seem like a warm-up act.

  One of the seaweed-hands stretched and reached, swooping down in an attempt to nab Van. She ducked and released a deep-throated scream.

  Wiglaf appeared on the top railing of the outer bulwark, close to Van.

  “No.” Van’s little bunfy had responded to her scream.

  Wiglaf looked thin and frail. His fur wasn’t glowing white like usual; his ears were floppy. He was already drenched from the rain, and his tiny paws gripped the railing as the ship recklessly swayed. With a direct hit, the hail alone would kill him.

  “Wigl—” Van tried to tell the bunfy to go back to his magical realm. When she opened her mouth water sloshed into it. She choked and coughed up the salty sea. Hard, icy rain pummeled her, as the ship dropped, then rose again.

  All around her the crew fought the reaching, gripping seaweed tentacles with their cutlasses, axes, and swords, while still getting pelted by the hail and soaked from the rain.

  Van was about to ask a crewman fighting next to her for help getting Wiglaf when one of the tentacles wrapped around him. It lifted him into the air by his waist. Immediately, the seaweed grip corroded his abdomen. His blood mixed with the rain and splattered down onto the already soaked deck.

  Visibility was limited, and Van could only catch glimpses of Thyra, Brux, Pernilla, Ferox, and his soldiers as they battled the sea monster’s tentacles alongside their shipmates. There was no one to help her rescue Wiglaf.

  Her bunfy gripped the railing as the ship rocked. The deadly tentacles twisted and swirled around Wiglaf darting with their acidic grip, dissolving more and more of the ship, and some crew members.

  Van could see Ferox gripping a rope to steady himself as he slashed and swiped his sword at a seaweed tentacle stretching its finger-like projections at him, attempting to catch him in its deadly grip.

  Brux dodged a tentacle-hand that clamped the bulwark inches from him. He seemed to lack energy and Van knew the Twin Gemstones weakened him.

  He slashed his sword and cut clean through the tentacle as it disintegrated the wood beneath its grip. Green liquid squirted from the cut, burning holes through the wood planks. Some sprayed on Brux’s arm. He yelped and dropped his sword as he gripped his wounded arm.

  Pernilla moved into Van’s view. She bent to grab a fallen crewman’s blade but slipped across the roiling deck and slammed against the outer bulwark where Wiglaf still clutched the railing.

  Van’s thoughts jumbled; everything happened too fast.

  The ship heaved to the side, and Wiglaf’s grip on the railing slipped. His tiny paws scrambled to keep him balanced.

  “Wiglaf!” Van shouted. Seawater gagged her. She spit it out.

  The weakened bunfy couldn’t keep hold. Wiglaf lost his grip and toppled over the side.

  Brux flew into view. He stretched over the side in an attempt to catch Wiglaf. His hands came back empty.

  A tentacle swooped down, Brux leaped out of the way and smashed against the bulwark, near where Pernilla crouched.

  Thyra dashed over to help. The tentacle-hand twisted and wrapped its seaweed fingers around her waist, raising her high into the air. Her legs flailed for a moment before the corrosion ate away her body, splitting her in two. Thyra’s lower half dropped onto the deck, a flood of her orange-colored blood mixed with the downpour of rain. Her head and upper body splashed into the sea.

  Van had no time to grieve for Wiglaf or Thyra. She was too worried about the seaweed hand reaching for the two targets cowering behind the bulwark—Pernilla and Brux.

  They stabbed at the tentacle keeping it at bay. Each nick sent a drop of green acid-like substance burning through whatever material it landed on, be it skin or wood. Van was able to distinguish when the droplets hit either Brux or Pernilla by their screams.

  Frustrated with clasping and getting nothing, the tentacle turned its fingers and gripped the outer bulwark. Its acid-like touch sunk into the wall, inch by inch eating away the wood. Then the appendage dropped into the sea, leaving a gaping five-foot hole in the bulwark inches from Brux.

  Scylla screeched again and continued to flail her arms and wild coral-colored hair.

  Van braced for another tidal wave to hit the ship.

  The boat raised several yards toward the sky and then dropped back down.

  Brux’s feet pumped back and forth, trying to grip the slippery deck, his fingers curling and uncurling as they attempted to catch onto the slightest uneven plank in the deck.

  In a sickening déjà vu, Van watched as Brux slipped over the side.

  “Brux!” Pernilla cried. She rolled onto her stomach and reached toward the jagged opening in the bulwark, just in time to clasp his hand.

  A tentacle rose from the sea, water dripped from its seaweed-like fingers headed straight for Pernilla and Brux.

  Van felt ill. She had to take charge but there was no way could connect to her blood magic among all this chaos. She needed to focus…she needed the Coin.

  Van glimpsed Ferox stabbing his sword at a reaching, gripping tentacle with one hand and clutching onto the rope with his other hand. She released her clasp on the post and carefully began to make her way to him.

  Van kept her eyes on Pernilla as her teammate struggled to get Brux back on deck. She fleetingly noticed the blue-skinned pirate with the pointed face that used to be on the same ship as Thyra. He, along with several other crewmates, stabbed and sliced the seaweed-like projections whirling above Brux and Pernilla in an attempt to protect the two of them.

  Dripping acid spurted from the wounded tentacles as they thrashed in the air above Brux and Pernilla, burning them.

  The ship rocked, and Van lost her balance. She slipped and crashed onto the hard planks. She slid closer and closer to the opening in the bulwark, the same one where Pernilla grasped Brux. Van curled her fingers as she glided straight for them. If she hit them, all three would plummet over the side.

  Her fingernails caught on an uneven wood plank in the deck, stopping her slide and giving her a grip. She crawled the rest of the way to Ferox, rolling once to avoid the crashing fist of a tentacle, all while getting bruised and battered by the hail, and soaked from the rain and seawater. She grabbed the rope next to Ferox and stood on shaky legs.

  Pernilla slipped lower by the second as she struggled to kee
p her hold on Brux. Deadly tentacles twisted all around.

  “Give me the Coin.” Van reached out her palm while clasping onto the rope with her other hand.

  Ferox swiped his sword straight through an attacking tentacle. Its severed fist dropped onto the deck and began burning a hole through the wood planks.

  Scylla retracted the tentacle with the sliced off hand, pulling it back into the sea like a waterlogged sock.

  “This is a losing battle,” Ferox yelled in a survival haze. “Every time we wound one, we hurt ourselves. The creature’s blood is destroying our ship. We’re going to sink.”

  Van wasn’t even sure if he knew who was standing next to him.

  “Ferox, the Coin,” Van sputtered through a mouthful of rain. “I need the Coin.”

  There was a lull in attacking tentacles, and Van’s words penetrated Ferox’s attention. He focused on the person standing next to him. “Van?”

  Ferox hesitated for a split second before reaching inside his chest pocket. He pulled out a small satchel and handed it to her.

  Van wrapped her arm several times around the rope and fumbled with the satchel. A tentacle returned, stretching and reaching its fingers hoping to grab them. Van made sure to stay behind Ferox.

  He jabbed and sliced the tentacle while trying to stay balanced as the ship rocked and rain and hail pelted them.

  Pernilla had gotten Brux back on deck, but Van could see burns from the sea monster’s acid-blood on her back, shoulders, and arms.

  Van took out the shiny gold pentagram coin and held it in her palm. She expected the Coin would sink into her hand so she could use it as a weapon.

  It didn’t, so Van closed her fingers over it.

  “Show me the best way out of this situation.” She hesitated to open her hand, afraid the ship would toss, and she would lose the Coin.

  “Van!” Ferox hollered, his voice conveying his exhaustion. “Use your power! Hurry!”

  Van wound her arm more around the rope ensuring a semi-stable grip and crouched into a fetal position to better hold her steady.

  She opened her fingers. The Coin pointed to her.

  “Oh, for the love of—” Van said, resigned. She closed her fist and attempted to connect to her ancestral line through her thoughts and feelings.

  One of the tentacles met its target and wrapped its stretchy seaweed fingers around Pernilla’s waist, raising her from the deck.

  Brux reached up and clasped her hands in his, in a sick reversal of fortune.

  The tentacle’s toxic hand-like grip slowly ate away the middle of Pernilla’s abdomen. Blood dripped from her torso. Still, she held her grip on Brux, and he was also raised into the air for a few seconds until Pernilla’s life began to fade and she released her hold.

  Brux plummeted to the deck and bounced off the hard, wood planks of the deck. The ship lurched. He tumbled through the blown-out bulwark and dropped into the sea.

  Although near death, Pernilla continued to pound her fists against the tentacle’s fingers. Her feet waved back and forth like she was running, likely trying to twist out from the sea monster’s grip. Her struggle didn’t even last a minute.

  The fingers tightened their grip, severing her body into two pieces. Her legs and lower torso splashed into the sea. Her head and upper body thudded against the bulwark before bouncing overboard.

  Van closed her eyes and turned away.

  Pernilla was dead. Pernilla. Dead. She began to hyperventilate.

  But Brux…he could still be alive.

  Ferox cried out in pain.

  Her eyes shot open. One of the tentacle’s fingers had nicked Ferox on the arm. Thankfully the monster didn’t get a full grip. Still, Ferox’s sword crashed down and skated across the deck. His blood oozed into the cloth of his tan jacket.

  Scylla screeched again, and Van prepared for another wave to rock the ship.

  Her eyes darted across the battle zone on deck. Huge chunks had been corroded from the ship. Blood and water stained the damaged deck. Most of the crew were already dead. Now, Ferox stood defenseless, quickly unwinding his arm from the rope as the tentacle-hand returned to deliver its final blow.

  Van was the last hope to save the ship and everyone on it.

  She had a job to do. Do it!

  Van closed her eyes and concentrated on her mother’s love and the strength of her ancestor Amaryl. She felt her eyes turn phosphorescent violet as she connected to the power of her Anchoress’s ancestral line.

  Van opened her eyes, full of determination and strength.

  Until Paley walked on deck.

  At the sight of her friend, Van instantly lost the connection to her power.

  Paley looked as if she had died and come back to life, like a living corpse. Eyes black, skin sallow, cheeks hollow.

  As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, in her hand she held a lit stick of dynamite.

  Chapter 47

  The ship rocked, blasted by another wave caused by Scylla.

  Van’s body crashed against the mast. Her hand jolted, the Coin flew from her palm. It twirled in the air as if in slow motion.

  At the same time, Paley tossed the stick of dynamite into the air and lost her footing as the ship swayed.

  The Coin landed on the drenched, blood-soaked deck as the dynamite twirled through the air, rising higher as the ship dipped lower.

  The violent movement of the ship hurled Ferox across the deck, out of range of the reaching seaweed-like hand but closer to the flying stick of dynamite.

  Van hastily uncurled the rope from around her arm and kept her eye on the Coin.

  She tried to stand, but the shifting ship caused her to drop to her hands and knees. She scuttled toward the Coin. She stretched her arm, and reached her fingers, so close, she almost had it, then the dynamite plummeted back to the deck.

  “Ferox, jump!” Van shouted. He had a better chance in the sea with the acid-octopus-woman than surviving a blast from the dynamite.

  She heard him yell, “Charybdis.” But had no idea what he meant and had no time to figure it out. Van curled into a fetal position and covered her head.

  The dynamite exploded.

  The blast blew Van across the deck. She heard a crack in her body as she smashed against the bulkhead, then came the pain. Fragments of rope and sail along with bits of wood came crashing down around her like rain.

  The ship lurched again, but not in an up and down movement.

  This time, the ship locked into a smooth, forward motion, hurtling round and round as if being flushed down a gigantic toilet.

  Van slid toward the opening in the blown-out bulwark. She frantically scanned the deck where she last saw the Coin and caught sight of the shiny, gold disc as it slipped through the hole in the outer bulwark.

  Unable to stop, Van slid through the opening too and dropped headfirst into the sea.

  She got caught up in the swirling water, but drowning wasn’t her main concern. It was the teeth. The whirlpool—it had rows and rows of pointed teeth.

  I’m caught in the mouth of a sea monster!

  Charybdis. The name Ferox had yelled. A warning that came too late.

  Van saw the ship get caught up in the whirlpool as it hurtled round and round in Charybdis’s gaping circular jaw. Van realized the sea monster created the whirlpool as a way to get travelers into its enormous mouth.

  Van fell, sprawled like a starfish, as she tumbled deeper into the mouth of Charybdis. She choked on the water cascading into its throat like a massive waterfall and mercifully missed its sharp, pointed teeth.

  The light from the sky became edged out by darkness as Charybdis closed its mouth.

  The watery environment surrounded Van. It congealed and slowed down her rapid descent. She felt as if her body was enveloped in gelatin, providing a cushion. She could breathe, yet was surrounded by thickened bluish-white water.

  Her gelatin-support ended, and Van dropped into the sea with a splash, plummeting deep under the water. She waved her ar
ms and kicked her legs as she swam upward.

  Van broke the surface and gasped for air.

  She took in her surroundings, and they made no sense. She expected to be in the belly of the monster, deep under the Bottomless Sea. Instead, in front of her, she saw land.

  She scanned the horizon: the aqua water, so calm it appeared glass-like; the sky, a beautiful peach sunset; The Obelus, nowhere in sight. The land seemed to end at what must have been miles on both sides, giving Van a clue that she had come upon an island.

  Van swam until reaching the shore and then dragged her aching, exhausted body onto the beach.

  She laid on her back, on the soft sand, breathing heavily to catch her breath. She would bet her life that she rested on the sands of Insulam a Mortuis. Charybdis’s mouth must’ve created a passageway to the island.

  Her back ached from a rock wedged underneath her. Van leaned to her side and reached around to remove the hard object. She pulled it from the sandy ground and held it in front of her face.

  A human skull!

  She chucked it aside, repulsed. Then noticed the entire beach was littered with human skeletal remains and dead fish in various stages of decomposition, confirming she had indeed washed ashore onto the Island of the Dead.

  The creepiness of the island chilled her to the bone. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and took several deep breaths.

  She needed to find Kharon the ferryman to take her across the River Shade.

  The fairy’s tear! Her anxiety escalated.

  She reflexively slapped her palm against her pocket with the satchel as if it would help her find the tear. But Ferox had it, and she had no idea where he was or if he was even alive—and she needed the tear to pay the ferryman.

  Wait a minute.

  She pulled out the satchel. It would make sense that Ferox had it stashed with the Coin. She held her breath and checked inside—just to make sure—hoping against hope.

  She turned the tiny sac, dumping its contents into her palm. Nothing came out. She shook the satchel and…out fell the fairy’s tear.

  Yes!

  She inwardly thanked the light for assistance and Ferox for trusting her with both the Coin and the tear.