A Shield Against the Darkness

by Todd Downing

  As they hit sixty feet, Jack’s lantern beam was suddenly interrupted by a huge shape resting between the grassy sea floor and a small mountain of rocks which extended back to the main reef. The Nuestra Señora de la salvación lay on her belly, in remarkable condition for her age, save for the giant tear in her keel and almost four centuries’ worth of barnacle growth. There was no doubt as to what had sunk her. A larger question was how she hadn’t been completely torn in half, given the extent of the damage. Jack’s light played across the Spanish galleon’s elaborately carved stern, and Doc noted the name. This was indeed the ship. The lodestone glowed with a faint blue light, urging Doc toward the captain’s cabin.

  They approached the stern, and Doc noticed a wide hole where ornate leaded glass once enclosed the aft cabin—the cabin where the captain slept and the ship’s officers ate their meals. She was about to step through when Jack caught her arm and had her pause while he peered inside with the lantern. The cabin was the only structure still in an approximation of its original shape. The floorboards were dusted with sand and sediment, seagrass reaching through the seams. An oak table lay on its side in the corner, missing a leg. Various tarnished silver goblets and utensils were scattered about, and a small crab skittered away from the light, disappearing under the cabin door. The room was otherwise unoccupied.

  Giving Doc a thumbs up, Jack held out his hand to help her inside. She stepped up into the wreck, her weighted boots kicking up the dusty sand from the floor. Jack followed, clipping the lantern to a hook on his weight belt and unhooking a crowbar from the same place. They scanned the room’s interior. Outside, a sea turtle glided past the hole where the windows used to be.

  Doc held the lodestone out, letting it hang from its leather strap. She knew after this trip she’d have to replace the leather with a proper metal chain, but something that wouldn’t interfere with its magnetic properties. The stone pulsed with bright blue light, one end pointing and pulling toward the corner of the room where the table had overturned. She waved Jack over and pointed toward the heavy old table.

  Jack re-secured the crowbar to his belt and grasped the table with both hands, pulling it backwards with every ounce of strength he could muster. It came away far easier than he’d expected, and he stumbled back with most of it.

  The skeletal remains of someone Doc presumed to be the captain had been trapped under the table for four centuries. The body had been picked clean by scavenging fish, but the bones had grown a new layer of barnacle and sponge. A tiny gray-green crab appeared from the eye socket of the skull and quickly darted back inside.

  Jack peered over Doc’s shoulder and pointed to an object the late captain had been holding when the ship went down those many years ago. An iron box, roughly 24 inches long and 10 wide, wrapped in heavy chain, sat under a skeletal hand with a missing index finger and an enormous emerald ring sitting loose on the pinky.

  Doc knelt on the dusty floor and gently pulled the box from the captain’s grasp. She turned, the lodestone glowing brightly and almost magnetically attached to the box. Tucking the lodestone away, Doc placed the iron box on the floor and signaled Jack to use the crowbar.

  Jack unhooked the crowbar from his belt and found an especially weak point in one of the rusted chain links. A simple twist popped the link open and Doc was able to do the rest. The chain fell away and the lid opened to reveal the decayed velvet-lined home of a beautiful gold cross, beset with large jewels in early Baroque Spanish style.

  This had to be it. They’d found the Cross of Cadiz.

  Jack knelt across from Doc and looked at her. He could see her look of abject excitement in the lantern light, moments before a giant red tentacle coiled around her waist and pulled her backward through the cabin breach.

  Without thinking twice, Jack grabbed the cross from the iron box and clambered out of the hole in the stern.

  He could see Doc coiled in what appeared to be the arm of a gigantic octopus of some kind. Glaring out of the crevice in the ship’s midsection was a single yellow eye, which became the spongy brick red body of the creature as it oozed out from its hiding place. Its body was perhaps thirty feet long from the tip of its bulbous head to its snapping beak, with tentacles twice as long.

  Spanish sailors had told tales of el Diablo del Mar, the Devil of the Sea, a creature that hid among the reefs and would pick apart foundering ships, dragging sailors down to feed upon them. Jack read the stories as a child, but always assumed them to be the colorful folklore of a simpler time. Yet here he was, face to face with just such a creature, a day after encountering Vodoun zombis, escaping an exploding Spanish fort, and wrestling a saltwater crocodile.

  With his dive knife in one hand and the Cross of Cadiz in the other, Jack hopped through the water like a man on the surface of the Moon. Doc had freed her own knife and was slicing at the tentacle coiled around her. She could see the scars of previous encounters running like hash-marks down the length of each flexing red arm, and knew that hacking at it with an eight-inch blade probably wouldn’t do much good. Still, it was the only weapon she had.

  Jack leaped up onto the raised aftercastle where a mast had once stood proud and sturdy, but had been subsumed by the reef. The creature was pulling Doc toward its body, most likely with the intent to devour her in its enormous beaked maw.

  He pulled some slack in his air hose, aimed himself toward the giant eye and pushed off.

  - Chapter 11 -

  The air compressors chugged dutifully as the hose and tethers unspooled off the back of the salvage ship. Louis paced the deck, frowning in worry. He didn’t notice the crewman with the four-pointed star tattooed on his wrist until the man had slashed the air hoses with a fishing knife.

  Compressed air began to hiss from the severed lines, and Louis turned to face the saboteur, aghast. The man glared at him from savage eyes under a receding brown hairline, hunching into a fighting stance.

  “What have you done??” he accused. “Zey will die without air!”

  The man simply thrust his knife at Louis’ throat, and the Frenchman was forced to duck away. Pivoting on his right foot, he knocked the knife from his assailant’s hand, grabbing the back of his striped shirt and tripping him toward the stern rail. The man impacted the railing with a huff, then rolled and let fly with a random left cross. The punch missed Louis by several inches. Louis was far more accurate with his. He felt the man’s jaw pop out of position as the rest of him sailed over the railing and into the water.

  # # #

  Jack felt the tentacle wrap tightly around his leg as he neared the leviathan’s head. He slashed at it with the dive knife, doing negligible damage as he felt his lungs begin to burn. He gasped a breath that was stale and heavy and his heart raced with a rising dread as water began to seep into the heavy helmet.

  Someone had cut their hoses.

  Doc frantically pulled at the arm wrapped around her, flailing her arms in panic as her air failed. If Jack had been alone on this venture, he might have been tempted to let nature play out, but he refused to let Doc become a meal on his watch.

  Then he noticed the gold of the Cross of Cadiz begin to take on a brighter hue. He thought perhaps it was his oxygen-deprived brain hallucinating, but soon the object had built up a significant glare—to the point that Jack couldn’t look at it—and with it an unearthly hum. Then there was an explosion of light, like a thousand white phosphorus grenades going off simultaneously, accompanied by a piercing screech like high-volume feedback, and suddenly they were free.

  The gigantic cephalopod retreated into its dark hole in the ship, and Jack grasped blindly through the water. Somehow he found Doc’s dive suit, dropped both weight belts and pushed for the surface.

  As they swam, they fumbled with straps, kicking away the weighted shoes, the heavy gloves, and the brass helmets.

  Jack pulled through the water with one hand grasping the cross, the other clutching Doc. He would not let her die. Damn it, not today. Not now.

  The Devi
l of the Sea quickly regrouped from its surprise and erupted from the shipwreck, angrier than before. Sixty-foot tentacles snaked through the water, reaching toward the surface as the two exhausted divers climbed the volume of water, struggling for breath.

  Come on, Doc! Jack thought. Swim!

  Then they broke the water’s surface, gasping and choking, filling their lungs with fresh air. Still some fifty feet away, they began to crawl for the boat’s ladder as Louis rallied them closer.

  Jack felt a heavy shape brush along his side as they swam with every bit of strength they could muster. It was either a giant octopus tentacle or a reef shark, and he didn’t care to know which. He kept swimming, pushing Doc through the water as she tried to reach the boat. Doc made the ladder first, just as Jack was pulled under. She turned to call out, but he was gone.

  Then the water lit up from below and there was an enormous splash from the underwater explosion.

  A second explosion, and a third, erupted from the ocean surface.

  Jack popped up and scampered over the ladder onto the aft deck of the salvage boat, looking up to see the Daedalus soaring along at low altitude.

  Duke sat in the open side door, dropping grenades into the water. “Tally ho, boys!” he cried. “Calamari for supper, eh wot?”

  Jack saluted as the airship passed overhead. “Good way to cover our exit,” he chuckled.

  Louis and Doc helped Jack to his feet. Louis was effusive in his apology.

  “I am so sorry, mon amis, zere was a saboteur. He cut your hoses, but I knocked him overboard.”

  Jack turned to look out over the water. “Where is he?”

  Louis handed Jack his binoculars. Jack scanned the ocean surface, finally catching the shape of a person swimming away from the salvage boat. Panning the field glasses, Jack found a small, unmanned motorboat anchored some 200 years away to the south.

  “Ah,” he said. “He’s headed for that boat in the distance.”

  As he watched through the binoculars, Jack saw a familiar red tentacle coil around the swimming man, then he was gone, dragged beneath the waves.

  Well, Jack thought, it looks like the beast will feed after all.

  Louis patted Jack on the shoulder. His dive suit was torn and dirty, and he looked funny with the rubber helmet yoke over his collar and no boots on. “Good to see ze expedition was a success, non? Now to get the cross to safety.”

  “Uh, Jack?” Doc chimed.

  Jack and Louis turned to see the entire crew assembled on the stern deck, holding them at gunpoint.

  Jack sighed. Was this for real?

  The ringleader of the pirates, a Creole with rotten teeth and a stained bandanna, stepped forward, aiming a Mauser pistol at Jack. “The cross is worth far more than your promised wages, Lambeau,” he explained. “Give it to us and we won’t shoot you.”

  “That’s nice of ya,” Jack snarled.

  The gunman snickered back at him. “We’ll just let you swim for it,” he said. “I’m sure your airship will rescue you before El Diablo del Mar returns.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. This day had already taken a toll on his nerves and his patience, and he was more than ready to take it out on these jokers. He’d already judged them to be opportunists rather than experienced brigands, but this would be risky just the same. “If you want it,” he grinned, “CATCH!”

  Then he hurled the cross high into the air. All crewman eyes followed. The aft deck was suddenly a confused, writhing mass of grasping arms and punching fists and shouting. Pistols skittered across the deck planks as punches flew, Jack and Louis each sending a pair of pirates to the floor. Doc leaped into the air and came down with the cross, while Jack grabbed the Mauser from the pirate leader and waved him to a corner of the deck. The brawl was over as soon as it had begun.

  “That’s right,” he barked, “get ‘em up, you cretins!”

  An aluminum chain ladder dropped to the deck, and the Daedalus came in low. Deadeye sat in the gondola side door, Winchester trained on the crew.

  “Looks like I’m just in time,” he quipped.

  Jack shouted over the electric whine of the engine turbines. “Charlie, get Doc and Louis aboard. I want to make sure our friends here don’t try anything.”

  Doc dropped the cross inside the front of her dive suit and was up the ladder first. Louis followed.

  Jack was about to take his turn when a small object rolled across the deck—a shape Jack immediately recognized as a grenade.

  Oh no, he thought.

  And then his world was fire and thunder.

  - Chapter 12 -

  The salvage ship exploded as the grenade blew through the deck and ignited the diesel engine beneath. Smoke billowed from the resulting fire as the vessel tore in half, the screams of burning men silenced as they splashed into the ocean.

  Louis grasped an upper rung on the ladder, pulling himself toward the open side door of the gondola. Doc looked down past him, into the smoke and fire, but could see nothing. She scanned the water’s surface for any hint that he’d been thrown clear.

  Nothing.

  The Daedalus lifted away from the ship, and the end of the ladder finally cleared the smoke. There, hanging from the bottom rung, was a wet and exhausted Jack McGraw.

  Rung over rung he climbed, aching and sore from head to toe. “A giant octopus,” he mumbled, “a saboteur, and pirates.” Inching his way up the ladder, he decided he hated the pirates most of all.

  “Here he comes,” said Deadeye, stowing the Winchester as Jack approached the open door. “Grab his arms.”

  Doc and Deadeye took Jack by the upper torso and hauled him into the airship while Louis pulled the ladder in and slid the gondola door shut. Jack rolled to the floor and—awkwardly—onto Doc.

  Her sparkling green eyes took in his bruised face, which was glistening with seawater and sweat.

  “Hi there,” she said softly.

  Jack grinned. “Did you miss me?”

  “I knew you’d make it,” Doc smiled back, surprised at the level of relief she felt at his presence.

  Deadeye helped his captain off the doctor, and Louis folded his arms proudly by the window.

  “On ze bright side, we are ahead ze crew wages and boat hire!” he announced.

  “Most importantly,” Doc added as she pulled the bulky artifact from her dive suit, “we found the Cross of Cadiz.”

  # # #

  The Daedalus headed south-southwest to Port au Prince, where they tied down at the bustling harbor and awaited instructions. Duke had radioed in to AEGIS headquarters en route, and was told to stand by. Word traveled fast through Port au Prince about the airship docked at the harbor, and within minutes of tying down, they’d drawn of crowd of some two hundred locals. A few gawkers were brave enough to approach the ship and touch the aluminum paneling of the gondola before retreating into the crowd. Eventually, the local gendarmerie arrived and dispersed the crowd, followed by a platoon of US Marines who posted armed guards at the harbor entry and along the pier to where the Daedalus hovered from its mooring cables.

  Jack was glad to see American military personnel on the job, although there were disturbing rumors floating around regarding mistreatment of the Haitian populace under the occupation. He hoped it wasn’t true, but he’d seen other examples of so-called “gunboat diplomacy”, so he wasn’t about to discount it.

  It was high noon the next day when they got the call on the radio that their contact was available to meet. Jack and Doc accompanied Louis to a small private office above a dress shop on Rue Bonne Foi.

  The day was hot and muggy, and ill-maintained motorcars vied with horse buggies and mule carts for possession of the road. The trio—dressed in their lightest traveling clothes and hats—got out of their taxi a block away to throw off potential tails, and negotiated their way across a gauntlet of angry traffic to the opposite side of the street, ducking up a staircase to a second floor balcony. The Cross of Cadiz, wrapped securely in canvas cloth and tied in brown pap
er, was nestled carefully under Jack’s arm.

  A small, pale man of fifty, flush-faced and sweating through his shirt, beckoned them into the office and flopped down in a wicker chair behind a rather ornate office desk, atop which sat a nondescript leather valise. Joe Salyer was miserable in the tropical heat, and found he constantly had to remove his round glasses and dry them with a handkerchief because they kept fogging up. “I understand the Daedalus crew has been successful in retrieving the Cross of Cadiz,” he huffed, fanning himself with a postcard, oblivious to the motorized fan spinning directly overhead.

  Jack looked around and could tell this office had been hastily rented. “As promised,” he said, placing the parcel on the desk.

  Salyer didn’t bother to open it. “Mr. Edison sends his sincerest thanks and congratulations,” he said. “You’ve done well, all of you.”

  Jack shrugged. “All in a day’s work, Mr. Salyer.”

  Doc leaned forward. “But we are anxious to continue our pursuit of the Luftpanzer,” she urged.

  “Indeed,” Salyer nodded. Then he noticed Louis and pulled a stuffed envelope out of the leather satchel and pushed it forward on the desk. “As promised, Mr. Lambeau, ten thousand US dollars.”

  Louis took the envelope. “Merci.”

  Salyer removed his glasses to clean them again. “And for the Daedalus crew, we have some supplies for you. They’re being loaded now at the harbor.”

  After explaining future procedures, Salyer assured Jack and Doc that he would be their primary field contact in the eastern US and Caribbean region. They bid him goodbye and hailed a taxi back to the harbor. None of them happened to spot the well-dressed European businessman in the company of two Haitian bruisers ascend the stairs to the office moments later.