A plethora of foul curses and insults spilled from the man’s mouth, each causing the ghouls to grow more agitated.Or was it excitement? Their groans and grunts grew louder, their bodies undulated more violently.
Terror clambered up Blake’s throat until he could hardly breathe. Where was he?Hell? Was the place real after all? Of a surety that would explain his father’s presence.
“Nay!” He crushed fists into his eyes, rubbing away the vision, nightmare, whatever it was, demanding he wake up.
His father appeared before him. “You never could do anything right, little mongrel.” His favorite pet name for Blake.
Ignoring him, Blake searched for a way of escape. There had to be a way out! He wasn’t supposed to be here! He knew it.
His father gripped his arm, his eyes wide with shock. A trickle of blood spilled from his lips. The shock transformed into a maniacal loathing, a hatred that infected Blake’s very soul. His father looked down, aghast. Blood oozed from a wound to his belly. Releasing Blake, he gripped it and backed away.
“You killed me!” he seethed. “You…killed….me!”
A monkey’s jabbering rang through the darkness. Turning, Blake dashed into the ghoulish mob.
Light swallowed him whole, dispelling the shadows. His head throbbed.
His stomach vaulted.
The monkey kept chattering.
He pried open his eyes. His cabin formed around him. The same fiendish dark shadows swayed across the deck.
We will do your bidding. We will do your bidding.
The words, dark and malevolent, repeated over and over.
“Be gone!” Spotting an empty bottle of rum, he grabbed it and threw it at them.
Instantly, they vanished. The bottle hit the bulkhead and splintered into a dozen pieces, glittering in the rays of sunlight floating in from his cabin windows.
Bandit leapt up and down on his desk, screeching in terror.
“Hush now,” Blake mumbled as he attempted to rise from his bed. The pain etching across his skull and the sour bubbling in his belly halted him. He hadn’t thought he’d overdrank. Finally managing to rise, he stumbled to last night’s empty bottle of rum on the window ledge. Must have been some bad spirits, for he’d not so much as given a thought,nor a dream,of his father in years.
But those devilish apparitions?Here in his cabin.
Bandit finally settled and leapt onto the ledge, quietly staring up at Blake.
He patted him on the head. “Just a bad dream, nothing more.”
Rubbing the Ring on his finger, he leaned back against his desk. Outside the windows, morning sun dappled gold over an azure sea. He would not allow a nightmare to stop him now. Not when he had the Ring and all the power that came with it.
Renewed excitement chased away the memories of the night as he grew anxious to test those powers. He didn’t have long to wait as one of his men knocked on his cabin door and alerted him they’d spotted a sail.
Shaking off both the throbbing in his head and the nightmarish dream, he emerged onto the quarterdeck to a torrid breeze and spray of salty mist.
“Four points off our starboard bow,” Finn shouted and gestured to his right.
Plucking the scope from his belt, Blake leveled it in that direction where the sails of a schooner puffed like cotton against a cerulean sky.
“She sits low in the water,” he said to no one in particular as he spun and began flinging orders to set all canvas to the wind. Low meant she had cargo, valuable cargo. It also would slow her down. Marching to the helm, he touched the Ring and grinned. Though he’d captured and plundered many a merchantman without it, ’twould be good to see what other powers it possessed besides creating a foggy mist.
“She’s a fast one,” Maston shouted from the main deck. “Even with all our sails set to the wind, she keeps her distance.”
Leaping down the quarterdeck ladder, Blake marched to the railing, examining their soon-to-be prize. Indeed, her smaller size aided her speed. At this rate, and with the contrary wind and current, theSummonswould be hard pressed to catch her.
If he could but shift the wind a mere two points toward the west and alter the current ever so slightly, he could run her aground on the shoals near that cay in the distance.
