Dark Depths

by Lani Lenore

  Dark Depths

  by Lani Lenore

  Text © Lani Lenore 2017

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Images licensed through Shutterstock.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One:

  Chapter Two:

  Chapter Three:

  Chapter Four:

  Chapter Five:

  Chapter Six:

  Chapter Seven:

  Chapter Eight:

  Chapter Nine:

  Chapter Ten:

  Chapter Eleven:

  Chapter Twelve:

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen:

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine:

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Sea of Lovers

  The moon cast light onto the surface of the sea, and like every other night, the sea repelled the glow, refusing to be penetrated by her lover.

  Their romance was enjoyed from a distance, the intensity varying with the size of the lustful moon’s eye. The sea wore her glittering dress and the moon pulled at it, urging up the tides but never managing to uncover her. The velvety thickness of the night made a perfect blanket for their liaison; it went on continually.

  Within their love, their children thrived.

  Beneath Father’s watchful gaze and wrapped in Mother’s cold embrace, the children rose up into the night from the belly of the deep. The volatile wind touched their ash-colored flesh, chilling them, tossing their tangled hair. Their eyes glowed like tiny fireflies drifting over the water, and only a trained eye might see them for what they truly were. The jutting rocks hid the children from view, and they distanced themselves over the area that would be their hunting ground.

  Thunder rumbled—an approaching storm, which brought its own sadistic desire. The sea’s violent anger, lashed as she was by a whip of lightning, would aid the children on this night. Past their small white teeth, like pearls fresh from the oyster, they began to salivate.

  As silent as a ghost, a ship approached, steady and peaceful in the night. The children laid in wait.

  Chapter One

  Blood and Water

  1

  What is freedom? This was Nathan’s thought as he sat in the dark of the night, rocked to and fro by the waves beneath the ship.

  The boards groaned with the persuasion of the sea and thunder rolled softly in the distance, but all else was silent now. Beneath a flag which lapped in the wind—bearing no nation’s colors—Nathaniel Thomas stared at the blood on his hands.

  He’d wiped the haunting substance off on his clothes, but in the light of the full moon, he saw that they were still stained. His captain’s ship, the Blood-Red Siren, had been drifting for hours on the open sea after leaving Port Lennings. The flames had finally faded from view behind the ship—the smell of smoke and blood with them. Now, once again, Nathan asked himself: What is freedom?

  Was freedom in this blood on his hands? He’d done what he’d been prompted, according to his captain’s orders. He’d looted and murdered, wreaked general havoc and protected his own, but he’d done it his own way. There were no rules, after all. But was it freedom? Did this behavior release him from the expectations of society—of what it was to be reserved and controlled by a standard? Or had his actions made him more of a prisoner?

  Nathan remembered what he’d done quite clearly—lingering as the shadow of blood on his hands.

  In the port town, he’d broken through the door of a modest house, and was confronted immediately by a man with a scraggly red beard who seemed as big as the doorway itself. The attack by Nathan’s shipmates had already been underway, gunfire sounding through the streets, and the man of the house had received the warning, ready to counter a raid. The hulk was holding a sword, and Nathan guessed he’d known how to use it. Children were crying somewhere within. A woman was hushing them frantically.

  Though he’d not matched the man’s size, Nathan had speed and youth on his side. That had been his advantage. After a battle that dealt him a few bruises, his own blade had slid through his opponent’s flesh. Nathan could remember the feeling of resistance as the point passed through thick muscle. He’d felt the flow of hot blood as it ran down his arms, but this was not the first man he’d killed, and he was certain that it would not be the last.

  The sound of the screams had heightened around him as the head of the household fell with a heavy thud, a pool of his own blood growing around him. Nathan had been infuriated by the shrieks of the family—could feel his inner demons pushing outward, a steady pulse inside his head. He’d found the woman and two children crouched against the wall, the mother shielding her offspring from her husband’s fallen corpse. Others of the crew had moved in behind Nathan to ransack the house, but he’d hardly noticed. In that moment, he was becoming free.

  It was easy for his fingers to find a grip in the woman’s chestnut hair. He’d twisted her face upward to look at him, his sword in hand, and then…

  He’d frozen. He’d looked down into her damp eyes, witnessing her terror—which he saw in his mind’s eye, even now. The children had still been wailing, and despite his purpose in this place, Nathan hadn’t been able to hurt them directly. The conscience he’d tried so hard to smother was restraining him, keeping him harnessed like a prisoner. Unable to make the move of a man with no soul, he’d fled from the house and into the street where chaos was rampant, taking deep breaths of the tepid, smoky air.

  Within the house, he’d heard screams that he had not caused, but he hadn’t looked back. Two years in this life, and still, he could not bring himself to hurt a woman or child directly. On the other side of the coin, he might kill any man who opposed him. He was willing to steal anything if he wanted it. He could strike a match that would burn an entire village to the ground. But he’d never had a woman who wasn’t willing or else paid for. His blade had never tasted one either, and despite how a child’s howls might ail him, he’d only ever run from it. It was in those times—unwillingly—that he recalled he wasn’t some ravaging beast without a moral compass. Not like those other men. They were different. Perhaps to be like them would be the next step in his progression to becoming something truly evil, but he was not there yet. What would he have to give to be that free?

  He could only guess what had happened inside the house once he’d retreated, but he had put himself away from that. Nathan had left that family to the devices of his companions, and he’d moved away, carrying on with the rest of his business. He’d slain a few others who had opposed him, but none that he remembered like the woman and children who he’d not even touched. Once the pillagers had gathered everything of value, raped and murdered to their hearts’ content, they’d set fire to the buildings, and fled back to the sea.

  Their actions had been to send a message as well as to appease their own bloodlust. The towns were to pay their debts where debts were due, as had been dictated by their lord. When they did no
t, bad things were bound to happen. Nathan had been one of those bad things, and yet not as horrible as he would like to claim. Even the fire had been wilder and more uninhibited than he had been.

  The ship had been drenched in adrenaline, the fog plagued with the drunken shouting and singing of the crewmen. After a while, silence had reclaimed the air beneath the sails. Nathan’s disappointment had not faded away despite the amount of rum he poured over his guilt to hold it down. His notions of complete freedom had moved on.

  But it had all been false, hadn’t it? No, he was not free, for he could not stop staring at this remaining, smudged blood on his hands. He could not stop thinking of those crying children being burned alive. Of the woman being assaulted. His insistence that he was only being what a man was meant to be did not work—no matter how he tried to convince himself. Nathaniel Thomas was cursed, and he could not cast off his flaw.

  Unlike most others that surrounded him in the life he had chosen, he was chained down by a guilty conscience that was much too heavy. To be without guilt would be freedom—to feel nothing at all—but that was simply not who he was. It never had been.

  Nathan dragged his nails across his neck—grimy with sweat, dirt and salt—and sighed through his nose. Pouring a bit of drink into his hands, he forced away the rest of the blood.

  “Yer a bit close ta the edge there, Thomas.”

  Nathan looked up toward the butchered English of his shipmate, who stood closer to the middle of the deck. The musing crewman was called Theodore by his mother; to everyone else, he was known as Slit. Cuts to the man’s face had forced his left eye to close almost completely. Unlike Nathan, he had been on this ship for years, his cracked and weathered face certain proof of that.

  Nathan looked around himself, seeing that he was indeed sitting against the rail of the ship, his leg near a scupper—one of the many rectangular openings that promised to spill out any great amount of water that was thrown onto the deck. Several cubits below, beyond the railing, he could see the black water.

  “Ye mus’ not believe in monsters,” Slit chuckled with a gap-toothed grin.

  Slowly, Nathan stood from his place. A conversation was certainly better than wallowing in guilt, even if it was about nothing more than superstition.

  “Oh, I believe in monsters,” Nathan assured the man. Then he added: “The ones I’ve seen.”

  His speech was much different from the man he stepped forward to address. Nathan had been given several years of education before he’d fled to the sea. He’d been proper once—not now.

  “Ye don’t trust legend?” Slit wanted to know.

  “I just think that anyone could make up a story about a fantastic, ravaging beast that peels man’s flesh from the bone,” Nathan said, his voice coated in cynicism. “One would be a fool to not be wary; I just don’t want to be made a fool for believing some lie.”

  Slit chuckled a bit at the notion, emitting foul breath past a flash of rotten teeth. He turned his face back to the water. Nathan smirked at his own musings, thinking that the seaman could laugh all he wanted at his doubt, for Nathan was the one who still had a mouthful of fine, square teeth.

  If one had examined him, it would be obvious that he hadn’t been on the sea for as long as the rest. He still bothered to shave his face on occasion, and that revealed the truth of his age more than anything. His skin had a youthful glow, though his cheeks were a bit gaunt of late. His dark hair was tinged with gold instead of gray. When he wasn’t brooding, his brown eyes were lively and laughing. But he need not fear; the sun, the salt, and the blade would gradually make him fit in.

  “I don’ imagine ye’ve seen much then,” Slit barked out. “Krakens an’ th’ Leviathan?”

  “I’ve seen the destruction of what was said to have been a kraken. Not the beast itself, mind you. That remains a mystery. As for the Leviathan… Haven’t even heard a recent tale. I figure it’s long dead, if it ever existed at all.”

  “That so?”

  “Mere mention in an ancient religious book is not quite enough for me. I need to see it.”

  Slit scoffed, narrowing his good eye as well. “Ye at least believe in ghosts an’ phantoms, boy?”

  That was a ridiculous thing to ask. Such apparitions were seen floating over the water quite often. Nathan had seen more than a few of those, but none that had ever given him trouble. They were merely reminders of life, and of a long and restless walk after death. He’d always thought that might be a pleasant oblivion. The wind circled in his ears briefly before Nathan spoke again.

  “Is that why you were concerned with me sitting too close to the edge? The Leviathan?”

  The old seadog did not seem to appreciate that jab. He leaned in a bit toward Nathan.

  “Sea nymphs,” he said in a hushed voice. If there was any question before, this man was well past drunk. The stench was riding high on his breath.

  “Sirens and mermaids?” Nathan asked, more skeptically than before, crossing his arms in disbelief.

  “Nae, everyone knows sirens don’ exist,” Slit said with a swift shaking of his head. “Winged women? Right. Ever seen any of those flying around? Visions of angels, I ‘spect. I’d leave me window open if that were so. The front door too, if ye know what I mean.”

  Slit chuckled lewdly and looked over to Nathan for a response. He smirked in amusement.

  “But alas, they aren’t real,” Slit went on. “Sea nymphs though…”

  At the trailing of his voice, Nathan took his cue. “You mean mermaids then? I’ve heard stories,” he admitted, playing to his shipmate’s tale, “but never seen one myself.”

  “They only call ‘em mermaids in storybooks. Out here, we call ‘em deep sea nymphs—‘tis what they truly be. And they is nothin’ like children’s tales speak of. They seduce sailors wit’ voices, tha’s true, but they’re only lovely from a distance. They look like beautiful women, stranded on rocks, all their lovely parts revealed to a man who might like to gander. What man wouldn’t be anxious to assist? But once under their trance, it’s too late ta turn away when ye see their real faces. They mock the female form, God help us!” Slit paused to spit on the deck. “Their skin be like ash, and their hair like seaweed. The teeth are sharp and pointed like an animal’s. And once ensnared in their slimy, slick embrace, they steal away the seed from yer loins while they feast on yer flesh.”

  The man seemed to be frightening himself with the thought of it. Nathan had heard similar tales before. He tried to hear all things with an open mind, but to see the look on his crewmate’s face, he could not hold in his laughter.

  “And I hear they devour men’s souls because they do not have their own,” Nathan added. “Honestly, old man. Tell me another.”

  Though Nathan had long ago given up living by rules, he had a few ideas about how he should make choices for himself.

  “I don’t believe in things I haven’t seen. A monster—a soul; the same thing. If the old preacher couldn’t convince me, why should anyone else?”

  “Creatures o’ the darkness, they are,” Slit went on adamantly, “but real. Tonight be a prime night for an appearance. A full moon, a fog, an approaching storm. I seen a man pulled from a ship by one of those creatures, jerked right through one of the scuppers. Broke both his arms, it did, but he went through.”

  Nathan tried to imagine that—wondered if it was even possible for a body to bend in such a way.

  “I’ll be sure to add that to my collection of tales,” Nathan returned with a smirk, shaking off the image.

  Slit snorted out a bit of laughter, waving a dismissive hand. Done with him, the pirate moved across the deck, weaving slightly. Nathan did not think he was being unreasonable with his skepticism, only realistic. He’d heard so many pirates’ tales in the past two years that he’d lost count. He’d heard of many shipwrecks concerning the famed wenches of the deep, hypnotizing sailors and causing ships to run aground or into rocks. He’d decided it was only an acceptable way to explain accidental wrecka
ge and to avoid fault, but oddly enough, many people bought into those stories. His crewmates were among them, and Nathan was not surprised. Pirates were highly superstitious, he’d learned.

  Despite his words, Nathan was not a complete unbeliever. The fact was not lost on him that there were indeed monsters in this world. Still, someone had to keep their wits about them, and it might as well be him. No sense being paranoid about creatures he’d never seen. There was more than enough murky water beneath him to feed a wandering mind.

  He had more important things to worry about.

  Nathan moved to the railing, putting his hands on the roughened wood. He took a deep breath as the wind blew through his long, messy hair. The currents were picking up—in the air and in the water. The sails made slapping sounds as they pulled taut. Thunder growled sensuously at him from the heavens. The Blood-Red Siren was approaching a storm. Best to get prepared.

  He turned away from the edge, casting a stray glimpse across one of the openings in the deck, and for a moment, he thought he had seen something—a flash, a shadow, a quick movement. Something there? Had it been a creature with shining eyes and rough skin like lizards’ scales, reaching for his foot with webbed fingers? No, it had been nothing.

  Nathan stepped away, shaking his head at himself. He’d been made a fool by his own devices. There was nothing below except dark water.

  2

  The storm was more violent than expected, and all the men wondered why they hadn’t predicted one this night. It seemed to appear out of nothing, as if formed by magic instead of nature. Perhaps it was the bloodlust and pleasure for their bounty that had caused the sailors to be careless, but now, their only concern was surviving this weather as the waves tossed the ship.

  On the Blood-Red Siren, there was no man asleep.

  The downpour was drenching, soaking them all and obstructing their vision. The crew forced themselves to continue work, securing what they could, fighting with the sails and praying the helmsman could keep control. All wondered why he was off his course tonight, but they kept silent about it. He would certainly catch it from the captain later, if in fact they made it through the night.