by E. G. Foley
It was very peaceful except for the steady, mechanical din of the Turtle chugging along at a respectful distance behind them, propellers churning.
Sapphira had told them the noise bothered the dolphins, so the sub stayed far enough back to spare the creatures’ sensitive ears, but close enough to keep Jake still in sight.
He just hoped that Maddox and Isabelle didn’t strangle each other in there, confined to a small space together for however long this took.
Of course, they seemed to be getting along better ever since the pirate raid, for some reason…
The greater mystery to him at the moment was how the blazes Sapphira’s dolphin friends could locate a particular set of coordinates in the sea. It all looked the same to him for miles in all directions: big and blue and wavy. Dolphins were said to be highly intelligent, though, so Jake supposed he shouldn’t doubt them.
Still, he had nearly laughed when he’d heard the mermaid give them their instructions in a funny, squeaking, clicking language—and then heard them answer in kind!
He still chuckled to think of it, though he really had no room to laugh, since he could communicate with a gryphon who only spoke two or three words, if you could call them that—caw or becaw, with an occasional, unhappy tweak.
Ah, he missed Red. He wondered how the rescue mission was going, if it was still underway or if Derek had been freed yet. But with the load of gnawing worry that these questions brought, Jake quickly shoved them out of his mind.
He could not afford to let himself be distracted right now. He needed to concentrate. He had his own battle to face right here—especially when the big dolphin he was riding finally stopped swimming, chirped, and bobbed its head to get his attention.
Jake realized this was the signal to put his mask on. Davy Jones’s Locker must be somewhere right below them.
His heart skipped a beat as he fastened the strap around his head, putting on one of Archie’s clever underwater masks that was usually kept in the submarine for safety purposes. It had been one of the boy genius’s earliest inventions, safely filtering breathable oxygen right out of the water.
Confident he had it secured, Jake caught hold of the dolphin’s fin again, and the animal dove into the depths, tail pumping.
The human world went quiet for Jake, but for the sound of his own breathing inside the mask. Amid the streaming bubbles and angled beams of sunlight filtering through the water, he waved to Maddox and Izzy as he passed them by.
Leaving the turquoise and the green upper layers of the sea, the dolphin took him down into the cold cobalt blue.
Jake shivered, partly from the chill and partly from dread of what he was about to attempt. In the ultramarine shadows below, he could just make out two weird lights, one red, one green, that glowed around a large rectangular object on the seabed.
As the dolphin carried him closer, he was able to make out a long, squat building in the exact shape of a giant coffin. So this is Davy Jones’s Locker. Most disconcerting, Jake thought.
More details emerged as he approached, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. The structure was built of wood, sealed with pitch, and crusted with barnacles. It was the ship, all right, transformed into a bunkerlike building, just as Sapphira had described.
Just then, the dolphin rolled, toppling him off its back. Having completed its duty for the princess, it fled as soon as Jake saw where he was meant to go.
A sense of desolation filled him as he watched his ride zoom away. Now the only comfort left to him was the distant chugging of the submarine.
But as scared as he was, he had to keep going. Archie and Nixie were counting on him—and the human world just getting its day started had no idea of the danger it was in. A day that might well be its last, if Davy Jones had his way.
“Who goes there?” a gruff, gurgling voice demanded from the darkness ahead.
Jake braced himself as a couple of menacing shapes charged at him out of the bruise-colored murk.
Well, if it wasn’t old Squid Head and the thresher shark man.
Still, Jake gulped to see that, back in the water, Davy Jones’s crew had resumed their monstrous shapes, with human arms and legs, but other features particular to their individual species.
He quickly put up his hands and shouted through the mask, “I’m unarmed! I’ve come to parley!”
“Well, look who it is! My, you are one cheeky lad, comin’ here. You just don’t learn, do you?” Thresher Shark shook his head, hovering upright in the water, hands braced on his waist, while his long tail swished dangerously back and forth below him.
“Please,” said Jake, trying to look innocent and humble, “I didn’t come to fight. You’ve already beaten us. I just want a meeting with your captain. I think he’ll be interested in what I have to say.”
“Oh, really?” Squid Head sneered. “If you’ve come to try to talk him out of using the orb, save your breath—you’re going to need it soon!”
He elbowed his mate, and they both guffawed at his heartless humor.
“That’s not why I’m here!” Jake said with a flash of anger. “I’ve come to challenge Davy Jones to a wager!”
They stopped laughing abruptly.
“Oh, indeed? Well now. That he might just be interested in,” the thresher shark man said warily. “I’ll go see.” Then he swam away.
A few minutes later, Jake was admitted into Davy Jones’s Locker. Thresher Shark did not return, but sent back an unfortunate-looking sailor in his place. The new fellow had a long swordfish snout and went with Squid Head to escort Jake in to see the captain.
As they pushed and pulled him roughly into the coffinlike building, Swordfish Nose ahead of him and Squid Head behind, Jake marveled at the dim, net-strewn wooden interior. Details barely visible in the hint of red and green illumination suggested that the ship had turned upside down as part of its metamorphosis into the Locker.
He shook his head, amazed. Legend had always said that the Flying Dutchman was no ordinary vessel, but he doubted this was what the storytellers meant. Once more, however, he refused to be distracted.
“Are my friends still alive?” he demanded while his escorts hurried him through the warehouse-like space.
“I should think so,” Swordfish Nose retorted in a nasally voice. “They wouldn’t be much use to the cap’n dead, would they? Now, move!”
The two crewmen shooed him up a ladder on the far end of the space. He swam up through the open hatch above him to a second level. The ladder continued up to a third level, but this time, the square wooden hatch at the top was closed.
Squid Head swam up to it, passing Jake, and knocked three times. “Capitaine said he will see you up there. Now, when I open the hatch, try not to get water all over de place. It annoys him.”
“What?” Jake asked, startled. Aren’t we underwater?
“Come!” ordered a voice from above.
Squid Head pushed the hatch upward, opening it with a bang. “Up, up, go!” he urged Jake, the little pinkish tentacles on his head flailing with his agitation.
Jake glanced up and saw light shining through the watery square above him. Realizing he was meant to go up there, he swam toward the top of the ladder. But before he’d quite reached it, a powerful hand shot down from above and hauled him up into a dry space, dropping him in a heap on the floor.
“Well, look at this little drowned rat.”
Jake scowled through his mask, but it fogged for a moment. As it cleared, the first thing he saw was a large pair of scuffed black knee boots—and inside of them stood Davy Jones.
The undead pirate king quickly slammed the hatch closed again.
Jake glanced around, baffled to find the top floor of the Locker inexplicably dry. Small puddles of seawater had collected here and there—especially under him, since he was soaked—but everything else looked dry.
“So. You again,” said the Lord of the Locker, eyeing Jake with something like sardonic amusement as he propped his fists on his waist. “You’re b
ecoming quite the pest. Go on—you can take off your mask. It’s air.” He gestured at the space around them.
After all the high strangeness that had accompanied this entire holiday, Jake was beyond the point of questioning how this was possible. He removed the mask gladly and inhaled a cautious breath.
The air seemed safe.
“What is your name, boy? We were never properly introduced.”
“Jake.” He climbed to his feet, glancing around at the lantern-lit space. All the barrels and wooden shelves stacked with supplies told him they must be in the cargo hold. “I’m Jake Everton, the Earl of Griffon.”
“Earl of Griffon? Well, goodness me, your lordship! This is a rare honor indeed.”
Jake scowled at his sarcasm.
“Hmm, I don’t believe I’ve ever had a guest who’s still alive visit the Locker of his own free will before. Yet here you are.”
“I’m not most guests,” Jake boldly informed him.
The pirate captain threw his head back and laughed, as though he couldn’t help himself.
“What?” Jake demanded, coloring slightly.
“You do amuse me, lad. So what’s all this about you challenging Davy Jones to a wager? Please.” He gestured to a barrel and bade Jake sit.
Jones himself did likewise. As Jake moved toward the barrel, he opted to stand when he saw the word Gunpowder printed on the side. “Er, I’ll stand.”
Jones shrugged. “Suit yerself. Well? Speak your piece, boy. I’ve got a world to drown. Busy day.”
Jake furrowed his brow, flipped his dripping forelock out of eyes, and then got down to brass tacks. “Well, sir, I hear you’re something of a gambler.”
“It does pass the time.”
“I’ve come to offer you a game of dice.”
“Oho, you’d roll the bones with Davy Jones, would ye?”
“Aye.”
“Then I was wrong about you, kid. You’re not brave; you’re a fool.”
“That’s my concern, not yours. If I win—”
“You can’t have the orb,” Jones said flatly. “Not interested.”
“Hear me out! I have higher stakes in mind for this bet than you might realize. In fact, I’d call it all or nothing.”
“Is that right?” Jones arched a jet-black brow. “Very well. I’m listenin’.”
“If I win, you release my friends and give up this mad plan of yours to drown the Earth. I take the orb and destroy it.”
Jones mulled this with a glint of interest in his eyes. “What could you possibly offer me in return that would entice me to play against you for such stakes? I don’t need wealth, I’ve got all the power I could want, and I’ve already got plenty of sailors. You wouldn’t even make a fit member for the crew, scrawny kid. You’re not even fully grown yet.”
“I didn’t come to volunteer for your crew, Captain.”
“Well then?”
“If I lose…” Jake shored up his courage and shoved away a thought of Dani. “I take your place. And you go free.”
Davy Jones leaned forward, eyes narrowing, then froze. He looked absolutely shocked. “What’s this?”
“If I lose the game, you go free,” Jake declared, “and I become the Lord of the Locker.”
Jones looked at him as if he had gone mad. “Why would you risk such a thing? You’re just a boy. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Jake shrugged. “If you flood the world, I’m going to die anyway.”
“Oh, but death is a luxury!” The pirate shot up off the barrel where he’d perched and paced a few steps back and forth, staring at Jake as though he were the freak here. “You have no idea. Believe me, I’ve tried! Nothing works. I always come back again. That’s how I know I’ll be doing all those useless breathers on the dry land a favor when I introduce them to oblivion. If only I could be so fortunate!”
“Yes,” Jake said in a low tone, “I noticed that you felt that way. The line from that poem you keep quoting. I looked it up. John Milton, Paradise Lost. Words spoken by the Devil in the poet’s tale.”
“That’s right. ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n.”
“And the sea is your Hell, your eternal punishment, along with this ship…” Jake gazed at him, almost in pity. “You’ve done this job for many years.”
“Aye, lad,” Jones admitted quietly. “And I am more weary of it than you can possibly imagine.”
“Wager with me, then. I win, you release my friends and hand over the orb. I lose, I willingly take the curse from you, and you’re the one who’s finally released.” Jake held his breath as Davy Jones considered this unforeseen possibility, looking dazed…
And then he could not resist.
“Very well. Come with me,” he ordered, pivoting to march deeper into the cargo hold.
Jake’s heart pounded as he followed. “First I want to see for myself that my cousin and the girl are all right!”
“They’re back here—and should bloody well be finished fixing it by now.”
To Jake’s surprise, the cargo section of the ship-turned-Locker ended in what looked like part of a tavern, of all things. And there, standing at a round table, were Archie and Nixie, working on the orb—or at least pretending to do so.
“There’s still more sand left in the hourglass!” Archie yelled, turning when the captain entered, but then he gasped. “Jake! What are you doing here?”
Nixie said nothing, but her pale face showed her ominous surprise at his arrival.
“I trust you two clever beans are almost finished fixing my orb,” Jones said, perusing the mere two pieces still left on the table.
Archie had put the rest of the orb’s wedges back together again, but thankfully, the artifact still did not look operational.
“Hold on,” Jake interjected before his cousin could answer. “If I become the king of the sea in your place, Jones, it’ll be up to me whether to use the orb or not.”
“What?” Archie cried, hearing this.
Jake ignored him, as did their host.
“True,” Jones conceded. “And I suppose if I’m to go to land and finish out what was to have been my mortal life, there’s no point in flooding the place. Right, take a break, you two. But keep your distance. I don’t want anybody helping the lad.”
“Helping him what?” Nixie asked.
“What are you doing, coz?” Archie demanded, aghast, as Jones beckoned Jake over to another round table near the bar. “You can’t gamble with him!”
Focused on the enemy, Jake merely sent his cousin a quick, reassuring glance as he sat down with Davy Jones.
Across from him, the Lord of the Locker pulled out his skull-shaped dice box and began rattling it with an eager grin. He plunked it down in front of Jake. “Behold the knucklebones! You know how to play?”
“Knucklebones?” Archie murmured as he and Nixie drew closer.
“These are no ordinary dice,” Jones said. “The Devil gave ’em to me.”
“No, he didn’t,” Nixie said with a scoff.
Jones didn’t clarify if he was serious or joking. “Proper knucklebones have to be made from the bones of a cloven-hoofed animal. A black goat, in this case.”
“Figures,” Archie mumbled, folding his arms across his chest.
“What do I do?” Jake asked innocently. But of course a boy who had spent his earliest years in a rough-and-tumble orphanage and then lived scrapping in the rookery knew the rules of street dice well.
Especially a boy who had walked into the game already planning to cheat. Well, he was no flower of chivalry, Jake admitted. That was Archie’s department.
Jones spilled out the knucklebones onto the table.
Goat bones or not, they had been shaped into cubes and polished smooth, and looked like two ordinary dice to Jake: black dots on ivory cubes. “So, what do I do, then?”
“I’ll talk you through it,” Jones said. “First, you roll the Main. This will determine whether you get to roll again or not. Certain number
s let you win immediately—seven and eleven–and certain numbers mean you immediately lose–two, three, and twelve.”
“What about the rest of the numbers?”
“Never mind them for the moment. Roll anything other than two, three, or twelve, and you’re safe. That’ll mean you get to roll again. Ready?”
“Jake, you don’t have to do this,” Archie pleaded, and Jake detected a meaningful undertone in his cousin’s voice that seemed to hint discreetly at the notion that Nixie and he were scheming something.
But Davy Jones took out his knife and plunged it down into the wooden table, staring harshly into Jake’s eyes. “Yes, he does. He’s come this far. He ain’t backin’ out now.”
Jake did not intend to. He was ready. He picked up the dice in his hand and let them roll around inside the loose curl of his fingers.
With Nixie and his cousin anxiously looking on, he rolled the bones, his telekinesis at the ready. But much to his relief, he did not have to use it on the Main roll—which was good, because Jones was watching him like a hawk.
Two fours resulted.
“An eight,” rumbled the captain. “All right. You didn’t win, but you didn’t lose, either. Not yet.”
“What’s next?” Jake asked.
“Your second roll is called the Chance. Since you rolled an eight on the Main, an eight becomes your goal now. The Chance means you just keep rolling the dice until you get another eight. If it comes up, you win. But along the way, if you should roll a seven instead, then you automatically lose and I win.”
“Don’t roll a seven, Jake,” Archie said.
“Thanks, Arch,” Jake muttered, giving his cousin a dirty look. I may not be any good at maths, but I’m not a total idiot.
Jones folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair, watching. “Use the dice box,” he ordered, seemingly as an afterthought. “I won’t have you cheating. I remember your little magic trick on the beach. My men told me, too, how you threw them about without even having to touch them. Interesting talent.”
Jake rattled the dice box. “It doesn’t work with fine motions. Only large moves, for personal defense.”
