Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (40 page)

“Give me the shell, boy,” Cromier held out a black-gloved hand and curled his fingers, beckoning Jim to obey. “No one else need bleed here tonight. No one else need die.” Jim and his friends pressed themselves back against the rail as far as they could. But there was nowhere left to run. Percival was fighting the owls over the waves, and the
Spectre’s
crew was battling the Corsairs on the ship’s deck. Even if Jim and all his friends had swords, they would stand no chance against the Cromiers.

But the voice of the one who had time and again saved Jim’s life called over the storm.

“Cromier!”

Dread Steele swung over the wheel on rigging from the main mast. He landed between the Count and his son, sword drawn. He spun to face both men, standing as a shield for Jim and his friends.

“Well, isn’t this poetic?” said Cromier, laughing. The Count shook his head at the storm in the sky and then at Dread Steele. “Look at us. We are all that remains of the Pirates of the Black Skull. Our work is almost complete. So here we are, together again.”

“I no longer call myself a member of that order,” Steele spat. “The Treasure is Jim’s by right. The shell is ours, and with it, the Treasure that was once Lindsay Morgan’s. You lost your claim to it long ago.”

“In my dreams, I have seen you fall beneath my sword, Steele,” Cromier growled.

“I think you shall find the swords in your dream less sharp than those in my hands.” Steele drew a second blade from his belt. “Now come to me!”

The two Cromiers fell upon Dread Steele as one. But Dread Steele showed once more why he was Lord of the Pirates. The Captain of the
Spectre
dove into a roll and the two Cromiers swung over top of him, clashing their own swords together. Steele was on his feet again in the blink of an eye. He danced across the deck and took the fight to his enemies.

“Two at once, Jim!” George cried, slapping Jim on the back. He and his brothers shouted encouragement to the Captain over the rain.

“Let’s help!” Jim said. He and the Ratts ran to a stack of piled cannon balls. With mischievous gleams in their eyes, they rolled them across the deck, targeting the Cromiers’ feet.

“Be careful!” Lacey shouted. But she was never content to sit still herself. She crept over to one of Mister Gilley’s barrels and tipped it over. With all of her strength she kicked it hard toward the Count, who failed to see it and tripped over backward, crashing hard onto the deck.

“Well kicked, milady!” Squawked Cornelius.

Jim and George rolled a cannonball each over Bartholomew’s toes at the very same moment. The pale captain erupted in a howling stream of curses as he staggered back in pain. Jim and the Ratts leapt up with a cheer, celebratory fists in the air. But a screech then tore over the rain and thunder. A giant owl swooped out of the dark, talons bared, reaching for the shell in Jim’s arms.

“Look out, Jim!” Peter and Paul said together. The two younger Ratts tackled Jim out of the way just in time. The owl tore just over their heads. But Jim had no time to thank his friends, for Lacey screamed a second warning.

As the owl had hunted Jim, Percival hunted the owl. His great head crashed through the port railing. The monster’s body, many boat-lengths long, coiled about the
Spectre
as he fought the owl. His scaly bulk came to rest over the quarterdeck like an armored wall between the Ratt Clan and the battling pirates. Jim and his friends threw themselves against the aft railing as splinters and bits of shattered wood joined the water raining on their heads.

As Jim hit the deck, the shell was jarred loose from his arms. It tumbled across the wooden deck and nearly clattered over the starboard side and into the ocean.

“The shell!” Jim cried. He tore free of Peter and Paul’s grasp to chase it down.

“Jim, be careful!” George shouted as Jim slid across the slick wood to retrieve the powerful talisman. But just as Jim’s fingertips grazed the Shell’s curled edge, a pair of swarthy hands swooped down and snatched up the polished artifact for their own. Jim scrambled back on his hands and knees. He looked up to find Splitbeard the pirate, the Hunter’s Shell in his grasp.

TWENTY

h, it burns!” Splitbeard gasped. No sooner than he had gained it, the pirate took a start and nearly dropped the shell. The shell’s glow returned to life beneath his touch. The sorcerous captain stared deep into the magic flame, as though lost within it. “The shell burns with life. This is most powerful magic indeed, oh brave son of Lindsay Morgan.” As the shell’s aura strengthened in Splitbeard’s hands, so the storm’s thunder deepened. The wind slammed against the
Spectre
and the rain stung harder against Jim’s skin.

“It’s too powerful for you, Splitbeard,” Jim yelled, casting his eyes fearfully at the crimson clouds above the ship. “It brought this storm here, can’t you see that?”

Splitbeard threw back his head, howling with laughter. The pouring rain splashed in his face and fell into his open mouth. It slicked long strands of greasy locks to his face until he seemed more animal than man.

“Too much magic for Splitbeard the Pirate? There is no such thing, oh young son of Morgan. Do you think that I, master of the black arts, fear this cloud, with its pesky rain? Have you not seen what I can do? Or, perhaps, oh young and foolish one, did you see and not realize that you saw?”

Splitbeard put two fingers to his mouth and loosed a shrill whistle. It was so high and loud that it carried even above the battle and the storm. But there was something in the whistle, Jim thought, something familiar to the rising and falling tune. With a green flash, the pirate’s form warped and grew and burst into feathers. Splitbeard transformed his body again into a great owl. He spread his fearsome wings wide and clutched the shell in his claws.

“I know you bore witness to this form, young Morgan, but do you recall this one?” Splitbeard whistled again. His frame twisted and shrunk. The feathers molted down to scaly skin until all that remained was a lizard…a lizard with a twisted tail.

“Hmmm, good to see you took my advice and travelled through the crags, good sirs and lady,” the lizard said with a dry, cackling laugh. Jim felt his face grow hot, even in the cold rain. George leapt to his feet behind him, fists clenched at his sides.

“You lied to us!” George raged. He lunged forward as though to charge the lizard and tear him apart with his bare hands. But his younger brothers and Lacey held him back, though it took all three of them to do so. “You lied to us and almost got us killed! You almost got me brothers and me best friends killed! Why do they all keep doing that to us?”

“Almost killed, oh little Ratt child,” the lizard said. “If Splitbeard wanted all-the-way killed, I could have done so with ease. Your good friend, Master Morgan, would have been dead long before this adventure even began, before he even left the beach near the pile of ash that had once been his home.” The lizard whistled once more. The creature’s body writhed and curled until it stood in Splitbeard the Pirate’s shape. But just when the pirate had reached full height, he changed again. He shrank shorter and shorter. His smooth, swarthy skin paled and wrinkled. His long black hair retreated into his skull, turning frail and gray. Lastly, his twin-braided beard took solid form and fell from his chin into his hand – a wooden pipe with two necks.

“Philus Philonius!” Jim cried.

“That’s the man who took your necklace, Jim?” Lacey gasped. She still held tight to George’s arm, though she too seemed more than ready to attack the little wizard who had hurt so many of her friends. “You liar! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Indeed I am, little lady,” said Philus, though he was smiling gleefully and twittling a little tune on his flute. He reached beneath his shirt and revealed Jim’s mother’s necklace, dangling it before his eyes. “A good thing I did, too. This little lovely protected me from all the evil enchantments of the island - even from the faeries themselves. I never even would have turned to stone with this around my neck. It is powerful magic, boy. And you gave it to me of your own free will! But nevertheless, you should not be angry. If anything, you should be thanking me.”

“Thanking you?” Jim seethed. “For what? Stealing my mother’s necklace from me? Sending us into the harpy’s nest? Snatching my friends up with your owls? Poisoning me with your cursed rose? You tried to murder me!”

“Murder you?” Philus said, an overly dramatic look of hurt on his face. “Believe me boy, I would have done nothing of the sort. I could have killed you there on the beach, could I not? And think of all the ways I helped you on your journey. If I had not sent you through the
crags, the harpies would not have followed you out into the Sea of Grass and saved you from the Cromiers. When my owls captured your friends, they whisked them over the entire dark forest, full of deadly creatures and hidden pitfalls. Your trials were painful, yes, but murdering you? Oh no, Jim, oh no.”

Almost at once Jim understood. Philus Philonius wanted the Treasure of the Ocean for himself. But he was no Son of Earth and Son of Sea. He could not wield the Treasure’s power on his own. The truth of the rose thorn’s poison was more horrifying than Jim could have ever guessed.

“The poison would not have killed my body,” Jim said. “But it would have killed me…my soul. That’s why I couldn’t do what I wanted. I was doing what you wanted. I would have become your slave!”

“Slave?” Philus said, the false incredulity dripping from his face. “Partners, Jim. Partners! All those challenges on the Isle were but tests. Now I know what you’re made of, boy. And as for the rose, it fulfilled its purpose, just as I promised it would.”

“Fulfilled its purpose?” Jim said, desperately thinking of a way to catch Philus by surprise and win back the shell. “If you mean turning me into your puppet, then you’re wrong!”

“Oh no, young Morgan,” replied the little sorcerer. He tapped his flute against his chin as a slow, sly grin spread over his rain-slicked face. “The rose has given you the chance to strike revenge. It has given it to you now.” Philus stepped to the side, revealing the smashed timbers of the
Spectre
where Percival had broken through. There, dangling by the collar of his red coat, pierced with a splintered board, hung the unconscious Bartholomew Cromier. With a loud snap, the board holding Bartholomew splintered almost to the breaking point, and nearly dumped the angry, young captain into the sea.

“Oh-ho!” Philus said. He danced up and down as the board groaned under the strain of the weather and the weight of Bartholomew’s body. “Come with me, Jim. Think of all we can do with the Treasure in our grasp. We can turn the tables on your foes, just as I promised. You
need not even strike. In truth, you need not even lift a finger. All you have to do is watch.”

The board cracked again, closer and closer to tumbling into the ocean and taking Bartholomew with it. A small ache pulsed from the palm of Jim’s hand. He held the hand up, the white rose bloom clearly visible in the lightning’s flash. The stem ran all the way to Jim’s heart, where the poison of the blackened rose had nearly killed him. Jim looked from his hand to Bartholomew. The pale captain once again seemed so young, not much older than Jim himself. The raindrops were falling down his face like tears.

The board finally snapped in two and Philus Philonius gave a whoop of joy. He threw one hand behind his ear and waited with gleeful anticipation for the loud splash to follow.

But no splash came, for Bartholomew Cromier never fell into the sea.

Jim caught him by the collar of his red coat.

Bartholomew’s weight nearly dragged Jim across the wet deck and into the ocean, but Lacey and the Ratts came to the rescue. Together, they pulled with all their might to bring both Jim and the raven-haired Cromier back on deck.

“You fool!” Philus raged. “Do you think he, Bartholomew Cromier, would have spared you? No, no, no! He would have run his blade through your little heart before watching you fall into the sea! It could have been ours, Jim. All the power in the world was yours for the taking!”

“I don’t want any power,” Jim shouted back over the wind. The storm was growing ever more violent. It tossed the ship back and forth on the waves amongst the rocks. “I just want to go home. But I won’t let someone like you or the Cromiers have it either.”