The Phantom (23 page)

The Phantom leaped to avoid the low first slash, then ducked just in time to keep his head from parting with the rest of his body. He ducked and jumped a few more times as he backed away from the throne, grabbing a discarded belaying pin as he did. He used it to fend off one blow after another, until he had retreated to the edge of the moat. Just behind him, he could hear the excited sharks slapping the water with their fins. One more step and he was dinner.

“You’re not immortal! I know your secrets, Phantom!” Sengh bellowed.

As he spoke, Sengh lunged at the Phantom with his most forceful blow. The Phantom deftly sidestepped the thrust and brought the belaying pin down on the back of Sengh’s neck. Sengh screamed as he plunged into the moat.

“Take them to your grave, Kabai Sengh,” the Phantom said as the sharks attacked the floundering pirate king.

But the Phantom had made a mistake by turning his back to the rest of the pirates. Suddenly several of them rushed at him at once, their weapons raised.

Diana knew the Phantom was in trouble. She had to do something to help him, and she had to do it quickly. Then she saw the possibility, glimpsed it hanging just above them. She picked up a sword from the floor.

“Sala! Catch!”

Sala turned to Diana just as she tossed the sword to her. She snatched it above her head.

“Cut that rope!” Diana yelled, pointing to a taut rope anchored to the floor.

Sala turned to her right, and without a moment’s hesitation, she slashed through it. A rope net dropped down, ensnaring the charging pirates just before they reached the Phantom. The net was fixed to a pulley, and before the pirates could free themselves, they were hoisted up into the rigging high overhead.

“Thanks,” the Phantom said. “I thought I was going to have my hands full there.”

“Don’t mention it,” Diana responded. “Sala did the hard part.”

“That net won’t hold them long,” the Phantom said, glancing up. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Take me with you,” Sala pleaded. “I’m not one of these brotherhood guys.”

The Phantom hesitated, no doubt wondering if she could be trusted.

“She’s basically a good kid,” Diana said. She’d actually grown to like Sala.

That was enough for the Phantom. “This way.”

They rushed across the chamber, over a bridge, and through a dark passageway. After a few yards, the passageway forked.

The Phantom stopped. “Great. Which one did you take to get here?”

Diana looked at Sala, who shrugged. “It’s hard to say. They look the same.”

“Yeah, they do, but I’ve got the feeling they don’t lead to the same place.”

Sala glanced around uneasily. “We’d better not wait around or it won’t matter which one we take.”

The Phantom pointed to one, then the other, then the first one, and finally back to the other. “Okay. Let’s go this way.”

They raced down the passageway to the left. It twisted, dropped, and rose. Diana realized this passage was cleaner and drier than the one they’d been in earlier. There were no rats or spiders, and no skeletons.

“I’m not sure this is the right way,” she said.

“It’s too late to go back now,” the Phantom said. “Besides, this might be a better way out.”

They rushed along the curving wall and suddenly the passageway came to an abrupt end at an iron door. The Phantom tested the handle. Locked. He took out one of his pistols. “Step back!”

He fired twice at the lock, tried the door again. It was still locked or stuck. He kicked it, rammed it with his shoulder, but it wouldn’t give. He tried again with the same result.

“Hold it,” Diana said. She’d noticed a button on the wall to the right of the door. She pressed it and heard a faint buzzing sound. “Try it now.”

This time the Phantom turned the knob and the door swung open. “Good going,” he said. “Let’s just hope the buzzer didn’t give us away.”

As soon as they stepped into the room, they forgot about their concern. The walls and ceiling were made of iron, and several huge bullet-shaped cannisters were stacked near a couple of firing tubes. They didn’t look like they were there as conversation pieces, either. On one wall was a control panel; a periscope hung from the ceiling. It looked like something out of a Jules Verne novel, Diana thought.

“Torpedoes!” The Phantom was fascinated.

Diana immediately realized the implications. “I bet this just might explain all those missing ships in the Devil’s Vortex.”

“Could be,” the Phantom said, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He looked over one of the torpedoes, then slid back a panel to reveal a long hollow section inside. “You and Sala can escape inside here. I’ll shoot you to the surface.”

“What?”
Sala exclaimed. “That’s nuts.” She stabbed a thumb at the torpedo. “There’s a live warhead on there. If it hits anything, we’re fish food.”

“It won’t hit anything,” the Phantom assured her. “I’ll use the periscope to make sure the path is clear.”

“What about you?” Diana asked. “How will you get out of here?”

The Phantom looked around the room. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind you.”

“But how?” Diana asked.

“No time to explain. C’mon. Climb in. It’s time for a ride.”

Diana stepped into the torpedo, but suddenly she wasn’t so sure about it. “What about air, Phantom? How are we going to breathe?”

“You’ll have enough to last.”

“We’ll make it,” Sala said. “The Phantom’s right. We better hurry.”

They both squeezed into the torpedo, and the Phantom slid the panel shut. The darkness closed in around them, thick and crippling. Claustrophobia clutched at her, nearly suffocated her. She forced herself to take several deep, calming breaths. It helped, but deep breaths weren’t going to get her to the surface without her losing her mind.

She hoped it wasn’t going to take long for the Phantom to launch the torpedo.

The Phantom hurried over to a spool of thick chain that was attached to a winch. He hooked the end of the chain to the back of the torpedo and jerked on it, testing its strength.

He was fairly certain it was strong enough to pull him to the surface. Like he’d told Diana, he would be right behind them.

He moved over to the periscope and peered through the eyepiece. The path was clear. There was no ship visible anywhere nearby. Next he studied the control panel. He pulled back on a lever and the torpedo was immediately loaded into the firing tube.

“Good. Almost ready,” he said to himself.

He froze in place, sensing that he wasn’t alone in the room. “Dad?”

No answer.

He whirled around, a punch clipped his jaw. A very human blow. The Phantom stumbled back against a wall, and the gold skull fell from his grasp. Quill grinned and brandished a knife as the skull clattered across the metal floor.

It stopped right in front of Drax, who was holding the satchel with the other two skulls tightly to his chest.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Q
uill lunged at the Phantom, driving the knife toward his heart. But the Phantom twisted to the side and the blade merely scraped his purple jerkin. The Phantom grabbed his wrist. They struggled for the knife, their faces just inches apart.

“I killed you ten years ago!” Quill growled through his gritted teeth.

“No, you idiot, you killed my father!” The Phantom twisted his wrist, the knife dropped to the floor, he kicked it aside and dove for Quill’s legs. They crashed to the floor together.

They each threw one punch after another, arms flying like pistons. They rolled, slammed into a wall, rolled again. Quill wrapped his hands around the Phantom’s throat and squeezed until stars literally exploded in the Phantom’s eyes. He jackknifed the lower part of his body, his knee slamming into Quill’s groin, and Quill’s hands loosened enough for the Phantom to suck in air and toss him off.

He scrambled to his feet, spun, and kicked Quill in the ribs. Quill doubled over, groaning and clutching himself, then sprang up like a huge, agile cat and slammed into the Phantom. They fell again, rolled, each struggling to gain the advantage. It seemed to the Phantom like a kind of hell, an endless loop that he couldn’t escape.

Drax was oblivious to the life-and-death struggle between the two men. His gaze was fixed on the gold skull at his feet, and his eyes glistened as he bent down and picked it up. Now he had the three skulls.

“At last . . .” His voice was barely more than a whisper. His hands were shaking.

Suddenly the silver and jade skulls flew from the satchel, propelled by their own power, and the gold skull turned hot as coals in his hands. He let go of the skull and it leaped into the air with the other two, locking together in the shape of a pyramid. The eyes of the skulls began to glow, the pounding of drums filled the room, and the temperature plunged.

Blood rushed out of Drax’s face and he backed away, enthralled but terrified that the surge of energy, when it came, would overpower him.

“What’s taking so long?” Diana was hot, cramped, and finding it more and more difficult to breathe.

“I don’t know,” Sala answered. “Something must have gone wrong.”

“Let’s try to get out of here. The Phantom must need our help,” Diana said.

“We need help,” Sala responded. “The panel is locked. I can’t move it.”

“What’s that?” Diana asked. “Do you hear it?”

The drumming reverberated around them, shaking the torpedo. “Maybe we’re on our way!” Sala said hopefully.

But Diana had heard the same pounding beat in the museum when Drax had united the silver and jade skulls. She didn’t know what it meant, but she didn’t like it. The thought of dying in this tin can sent a ripple of chills through her. Her hands curled into fists. She couldn’t think of a more horrible way to die. But she would go insane before she suffocated. She was sure that she was already starting to lose her mind.

She tried to pound on the wall of the torpedo, but there wasn’t enough space. Besides, with the drumming, nobody would hear it anyhow. She squeezed her eyes shut. Trapped.

They were on their feet now, locked together, spinning, when the Phantom was slammed into the control panel. Quill pulled him away, then shoved him into the panel again. This time the Phantom felt a lever move. He heard a roaring sound through the incessant drumming and realized that he’d just fired the torpedo. It shot out of its tube, and the chain attached to the torpedo began to rapidly unwind.

The Phantom twisted around, pushed Quill against the wall, and pressed his forearms into his throat. Quill gagged and gasped for air; the skull tattoos on his cheeks burned bright red.

“You have something that belongs to me,” the Phantom shouted over the din of the drums. His free hand moved down toward Quill’s waist. He snatched the skull-head gun belt, ripped it loose, and hooked it inside his own belt.

This was Destiny with a capital
D;
his Destiny. There was no turning back now. The future of the skulls and Drax’s life were intricately entwined. The power was there, and it was his.

He reached up and grabbed the pyramid of floating skulls with both hands. His fingers slipped into convenient holes between the skulls that seemed made for just this purpose.

Bolts of blue light shot from the jewel-encrusted eye sockets of the three skulls. They converged to form a ray of light so bright that Drax couldn’t look at it for more than a second. He smelled melting iron and saw that the ray had burned a huge hole in the iron-plated wall.

Holding the skulls tightly, he turned and beamed the ray toward the Phantom. But the Phantom, who was still fighting with Quill, turned around and jerked Quill in front of him.

Quill was instantly vaporized. One moment the Phantom had held his shoulder, the next he was gone. Not a trace of him remained behind. Then the ray faded and disappeared.

Drax circled one way, the Phantom the other. What happened to the ray? Drax wondered. How could he get it started again? Then he smiled as the skulls glowed, energizing themselves.

“The skulls are more powerful than I ever imagined,” Drax gloated. “You haven’t seen anything yet. I’ve harnessed the energy of the sun. Who needs a fourth skull, if there even is one?”

The Phantom glanced from Drax toward the unspooling chain, then back to Drax again. “There is a fourth skull, and I know where it is,” the Phantom said.

“That’s a lie.”

“I’ve worn it all my life . . . for protection,” the Phantom said. “But I’ve never understood what that meant until now.”

“We’ll see about that!” Drax raised the skulls and they discharged a full blast of their blue death. At the same moment, the Phantom lifted his fist and the death rays converged directly on his skull ring.

For a moment, the ring held the incredible flow of energy in check, then reflected it back toward the three skulls. But the legendary skulls continued to pour out their lethal blue light.

The Phantom used every ounce of strength at his command to repel the death ray. He held his outstretched fist in place with his other hand, but he slowly sank to one knee. He grimaced in pain, sweat streamed profusely down his forehead.

“Die, die, die!” shouted Drax.

The struggle was grueling. It sapped his strength, bit by painful bit, until he didn’t know how much longer he would last. With a final effort, he drew on reserves he didn’t realize he had and pushed his fist and the skull ring a couple of inches closer to Drax and the three skulls.

He felt as if he were on fire, as if he were about to be vaporized. Then the skulls, overcome with their own reflected power, exploded in a flash of brilliant light. The Phantom covered his eyes with his arm but kept his ring hand extended. When he finally lowered it, the skulls were gone.

And so was Drax.

At that moment, the spool of chain ran out. It pulled tight on the drum, snapped, and the Phantom dove for it. He grabbed the end of the chain and shot through the firing tube and into the sea.

As the torpedo sliced through the murky depths, the Phantom began working his way up the chain, hand over fist, fighting the enormous opposing force of the water crushing against him. As a kid, he used to practice holding his breath under water, and he’d been able to exceed three minutes. But he’d never held his breath under these conditions. Already his lungs felt as if they were about to burst. He didn’t know how much longer he could last.