Pan's Revenge (7 page)

AN ENTIRE MONTH lost! Dammit.

Gazing at the ever growing island outside the
windows of my study as we sail toward its shores, I fist my hands,
my nails digging deeply into my palms. Twenty-one times we’ve tried
to sail to London. Twenty-one times we kept finding Neverland. It’s
just like back then as we set off with Angel still on board and
tried to help her leave this place. There was nothing out on this
goddamn sea. In all these waters only one island exists.

Heck, did the fairies lie to me? Are the
gates of Neverland closed after all?

I spin on my
heel and stride out on deck, into the burning afternoon sun. Smee
tilts his head when he notices me and stops playing cards with
Potato Ralph. Passing them, I see it was a wise decision of my
first mate. He held a poor hand and would have lost the couple of
doubloons.

He follows me down to the main deck. “The
plan, Cap’n? Shall we round the isle and set off again?”

I face him and snap, “We’ve been covering all
routs in a ten degree interval. Do you honestly think it will make
any difference if we start the same routes backward?”

Smee lifts his hands in baffled surrender.
“Man, you’re in a mood today…” He laughs a throaty sound. I want to
put an end to it with showing him where the ship’s plank extends
out over the water. But it’s not his fault that we’re stuck
here.

I tamp down on my frustration, shoving my
hands into my pockets. As always, when I did this the past thirty
days, my fingers close around the two remaining beckon beans in
there and I’m tempted to swallow another. Maybe this time it’ll
work.

Fishing them
out, I stare at them for a long time. “
Think of Angel and eat one
,
she said.
It’ll lead you in
the right direction.
” I bite my bottom
lip and fling the beans across the deck. “To hell with
them!”

Smee ducks. “Maybe you’re forgetting
something essential?” he suggests when he straightens again.

“And what would that be?”

“
Well, she
also said,
don’t forget about
the rainbow
, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“
So
maybe
we should start spending the days
with trying to catch one instead of looking for an island where
there’s none.”

He does have a point. “Drop anchor as soon as
we reach the shore. And find me some gunnysack.” I rub my temples.
“No idea how to catch a blasted rainbow.”

When Smee’s
eyes suddenly grow wide as they focus on a spot over my right
shoulder and the constant murmur and whistling on deck stops
abruptly, I whirl about to see what put them all in shock. A young
man stands in front of me. The first thing I’m aware of is that he
doesn’t stink or look like a pirate. He’s none of my crew. “How the
heck did you get on my—” Realization strikes hard and fast.
“Peter?” I whisper.

“Good afternoon, Hook,” he says through
gritted teeth. A heartbeat later, his fist crashes into my jaw.

Pain explodes
in the left side of my face. Hauled several feet backward across
the floorboards, I’m knocked into the stack of boxes. My lip split
from the punch. Blood gathers in the corner of my mouth. I spit it
out and wipe the rest away with the back of my hand. Hunched over a
box for support, I glare at Peter sideways. “Good afternoon to you,
too.”

I push back to my feet and brace myself for a
fight when Peter stalks forward, hands fisted. But Smee and Skyler
rush to his side, holding him back by his arms. Peter wrestles to
get free. Only wearing pants, there’s a display of twitching abs
and pecs under his skin—muscles that haven’t been there when we
last met. Stubble shadows his cheeks and chin now and his hair has
grown enough to notice a certain change. More, he made good on the
few inches I always had on him. My little brother has become a
man.

“Let him go,” I tell my men calmly.

Reluctantly,
they release his arms. “What? Do I look like I can’t handle a fist
fight?” I scowl at them until they step away but their gazes remain
on us. So be it. I ignore them and focus on Peter. “What happened
to you?”

“
Why
don’t
you
tell me, bilge rat?” Free of the pirates, he comes at me
again, fists lashing. “How did you make me age so fast?”

This time, I’m prepared for his attack. I
dodge another hit aimed at my jaw and block a sucker punch to my
stomach with my right forearm. Grabbing his, I twist it to his
back, step into the hollow of his knee and shove him forward. He
lands on all fours.

“I didn’t know this would happen! I thought
time would start where it had stopped when you cursed Neverland.”
And it’s the truth. Seeing Peter at the same age as me when really
only a month has passed is a shock to the bones. “The destruction
of the watch should have set things back to normal—not turn you
into a man in an instant,” I add in a lower voice as Peter rises to
his feet again, facing me.

“But it did!” he barks. “And I’ll make you
pay for it!”

His kick to my chest comes too fast and I fly
backward against the mast. Pain spreads in my lower back. I twist
around and grab the mast for balance, recovering quickly. From the
corner of my eye, I see how Peter starts his next attack. Another
kick. This time, I react faster and his bare foot only hits the
mast. If it hurt, he doesn’t show.

Taking the
opportunity, I knee him in the guts and headbutt him. Briefly
dazzled, he stumbles backward, finding support at the railing. He
shakes his head to clear his dizziness. I could end this battle in
a minute, if I pulled my sword and skewered him through the heart
or sliced his throat. But I don’t. In fact, I’ve done enough bad on
him. For a moment I wonder if any treasure in this world was worth
hurting my brother. But then I see Angel’s face in my mind, and I
know I would do it again
.

“Peter, I’m sorry.” Panting, I brace myself
on my knees. “I didn’t mean to put this fate on you. But it was the
only chance I had.”

His face glistening from sweat, he slowly
lifts his gaze to mine. Blood drips from his nose. “You damn
asshole,” he drawls. “I was a fool to believe you and I could ever
be brothers. You haven’t changed a bit—never cared about anyone but
yourself.”

It’s not true. I care about him. Only I care
more about Angel.

“
Next time we
meet,” he continues, “I
will
kill you. I swear, James
Hook, I’ll find the sword that’s forged only for piercing your
black heart.”

Understanding
his wrath, I don’t doubt him for a minute. But he’s mistaken if he
thinks I won’t be prepared. I straighten, the gap hewn into our
newly discovered brotherhood widening fast.

Suddenly a
fire of a wholly new kind glazes in his eyes. “Or maybe killing you
isn’t enough… What would be the worst thing that could happen to
you?” He bends forward and picks something small up from the deck.
One of the beckon beans.

Shit!

“
I bet it’s
something to do with Angel.” A sneer crawls to his beaten face.
“What did you say before? Think of her and eat the bean? It’ll lead
the way…right?”

Before I can
rush to him, Peter flies up and puts the bean into his mouth. From
his appalled look I know when he chewed it. Then he swallows hard
and coughs. “Wicked stuff.” Looking up, he gazes at the sun for a
second, then he turns his head and focuses on a spot in the sky in
the opposite direction. As he looks down at me next, he laughs
scornfully. “You really tried to
sail
there? Major fail,
brother
.”
Spitting the last word, he zooms off.

Without hesitation I pull my gun, aim at
Peter, and shoot. The bullet misses the target.

“Follow him!” I yell to the crew, fighting
against the fear in my chest that he would hurt Angel if he found
her just to get back at me.

Smee steps in my way. “Cap’n, he’s flying.
We’re on a two thousand ton ship. How should that work?”

“Right.” I twist and tilt my head, cupping my
mouth, and shout up to the crow’s nest. “Bull’s Eye! Where’s Pan
going?”

The short, bald man with dark skin lifts the
spyglass to his eye and looks through. “Up, Cap’n!” he shouts after
a moment. “East and up.”

“
What do you
mean
up
?”

“
That Peter
Pan is flying higher than I’ve ever seen him fly before. And he’s
still going up.”

I remember the urge to climb the mast when I
ate the first beckon bean and how I almost tried to jump then.
Maybe I was misled all along. In the past, Bre’Shun sent me a
stellar card. It should help me to find London. Is Angel really on
a different star?

The headache from Peter’s punch to my jaw is
getting worse. I rake my hands through my hair and lace my fingers
at the back of my neck, tilting my head back. A tortured sigh
escapes me.

“What we do now, James?”

I look at Smee. “I don’t see any other choice
than get the fairies what they want. Get us back to the shore.
Tonight we hunt rainbows.”

LIKE A VORTEX, the sky pulls me up with
incredible strength. I don’t know where I’m going or what it really
is that leads me straight up and on, but fighting against this
power is in vain. After some time, I relax and simply go with the
warm flow.

Far away from Neverland, the sky starts to
darken. Stars are shining so bright all around me that it feels
like I only have to reach out and could pluck them from the canopy.
It’s beautiful beyond words.

In this
place, a person completely loses time out of sight. I could have
been here for minutes or traveling for hours. There’s nothing but
light spots against darkness. And a bluish white crescent to my
right. Flying through a shower of falling stars and finally a loop
around the moon, I feel how the flow starts to drag me downward.
New lights appear beneath me, but they’re not stars. They are
lights of a town.

London.

The houses
there look like nothing people would build on Neverland. Some of
them are as tall as mountains, scraping on the night sky it seems.
Ships float on a broad serpent-like river, and in the distance a
clock strikes ten. I follow the sound to a high angular tower
tinted in yellow light. There’s a huge white watch with black hands
built into it.

An awfully
lot of bustling activity is going on in the streets beneath. Weird
for that time of the night. Coaches zoom past, but they aren’t
pulled by horses. And crowds of people are still out and about.
Staying in the air high above them all seems to be the safest
way.

I’m gliding across a wide green area, when
the pull suddenly increases again. Following the impulse, I soon
realize I’m headed to London’s outskirts. The activity is fading
behind me. Hardly any man is seen in the streets and alleys, and
there are more trees and bushes here. Some windows in the lower but
more exclusive houses are illuminated, but most are dark.

I wonder how far I’ll still be sucked on this
powerful current, when the pull stops abruptly and I drop. Moments
before I crash into the roof of a mansion, I catch myself in the
air and come down gently.

The dark clapboards are cold and rough
against my bare feet. And now that the warm flow has stopped
completely, goosebumps rise on my arms and back. I ignore the chill
as soon as I hear the familiar voice of a girl.

“Yes, I will. Good night, mother.”

I sneak
toward the edge of the roof and peek down. There are two balconies
attached to this side of the house, both semicircular and facing a
wide garden. Light falls through the open door to the one right
beneath me. Behind the drawn net curtains, the shadow of a
person moves back and forth several times, then
this figure walks out onto the balcony. It’s a young woman.
Somebody I know. Her short black hair reveals a slender, pale neck
and her fragile body is wrapped into a light pink dressing
gown.

When I lean farther over the edge to get a
better glimpse, a clapboard comes loose and drops. It misses the
balcony by a few inches, falls down in the garden, and breaks in
two.

Her hands braced on the balustrade, Angel
glances down, then she slides a look up to me. Quickly, I duck
back. It’s not a good idea if she sees me up here…and the way I’ve
changed. She wouldn’t recognize me.

After a few calming breaths, I lean out once
more, but she’s disappeared from the balcony and the light in her
room is out. Temptation rides me hard to fly down and sneak inside,
but what would she say if she found a half naked stranger in her
room?

Right, I have to find some clothes first.

Several
windows in this street are open, mostly on the second floors. I try
those that are dark, hoping that whoever lives in those houses have
gone to sleep by now. The first two windows I fly through lead into
beautifully decorated nurseries. Babies are sleeping peacefully in
their cribs. I try a couple more houses farther down the street. In
the last one, I get lucky. A young man in snoring in a wide bed,
the covers draped up to his hips. From what I can see in the dark,
we’re both the same built. There’s a closet opposite the window
with a selection of clothes that might fit me.

Carefully
skimming through the many shirts on hangers, I try to make no
sound. But suddenly, the man stirs in his sleep, rolls onto his
back and his left arm flops sideways over the edge of the bed.
Startled, I retreat to the shadows, but he doesn’t awaken. So I
quickly grab a few items from his closet and rush out through the
open window.