The Sea Wolves (24 page)

Ghost loomed over him. “Stay on your knees, Mr. London. That's where cowards belong.”

The captain strode aft and vanished below, and a moment later Huginn and Muninn took up positions on either side of the cabin steps, making certain no one dared follow.

Jack staggered to his feet. Maurilio sneered at him. Vukovich hawked up something from his throat and spit on Jack's shirt, but otherwise they ignored him. They mumbled to one another about the captain, their hatred for him blazing like the inferno, overriding the loyalty that membership in the pack demanded. At first Jack did not understand, but then Ogre and Tree picked Finn up by his hands and feet, careful not to touch his spilled blood, and carried him to the railing. As they tossed the corpse overboard as unceremoniously as they might have the remains of their dinner, the truth dawned on him, and he realized the enormity of what the captain had done.

In the eyes of the pack, Finn had deserved to die, killed by Ghost and then savaged by the rest. He ought to have been torn apart and eaten, but instead of killing Finn in combat, Ghost had tainted him with silver. Poisoned him. They wouldn't dare eat the corpse.

Ghost had given them what they wanted, but in a way that only added insult to earlier injury. He must know how they hated him, and that he had only made things worse. But he did not care. He might as well have spit in their faces. It was just another example of his disregard for their loyalty. The rules of the pack seemed to apply less and less to its leader, and the wolves were growing angry.

As Jack watched the crew disperse, the dread fluttering in his chest merged with sick excitement. Ghost had lost respect for him, but as long as the captain still had plans for him, it didn't matter. In two days or less, Death Nilsson would come for his brother, and all hell would break loose.

But Jack wondered if the crew would last two more days. If Ghost continued to treat them with such disrespect, it was only a matter of time before they would be driven to mutiny.

In the aftermath of Finn's death, a strange new dynamic developed on board the
Larsen
. Ghost kept mostly to himself, living behind the closed door of his cabin and emerging only every few hours to inspect the ship and its crew. Once that first night and several times the next day, he went into the chart room that doubled as Sabine's quarters and consulted with her. Each time he visited her, Sabine would wait until the captain had departed and then come up to walk the deck in ghostlike silence. No one troubled her, and she spoke to no one. Jack's only contact with her came while he was preparing meals—a task that was his once again, now that Finn was dead.

As first mate, he could have ordered any member of the crew to take over as cook, but in truth he did not like the idea of inviting any of the crew into the galley. Except when the diminished crew gathered to eat in the mess, Ghost, his silent guards, Sabine, and Jack were now the only people on board allowed in the stern cabins. It was safer that way.

The
Larsen
had become a stew of hatred and homicidal intent. Of the crew, only Louis and Tree did not look at Jack with murder in their eyes. Yet despite the animosity, he could feel that he was merely an afterthought for the sea wolves. They understood the usefulness of Sabine's gifts, but they could not comprehend Ghost placing an ordinary man in a position of authority over members of the pack. Even if Ghost intended to make Jack one of them, the pirates did not want him; in their eyes he was a symptom of whatever madness had come over their captain. Ghost had formed this pack, turning them into monsters and using fear, intimidation, and brutality to teach them the laws by which the pack would operate. Now he had thrown those laws in their faces. His pride had turned him into a tyrant who made decisions in order to remind them that he stood above and apart from them, not with them. The
Larsen
had become a powder keg of resentment and anger, ready to explode at the slightest further provocation.

More and more, as Jack heard the crew's angry rumblings and saw the way they watched their captain, he thought of the Roman senate drawing their long knives and turning on Julius Caesar. In the case of Ghost, at least one of the knives would have to be silver, and Jack wondered how many other such blades there were hidden on board. Ghost had thrown Finn's silver knife into the sea and kept his own, but would other members of the crew risk the captain's ire by secreting such a dangerous weapon among their own things? He suspected not. Only Finn had been that stupid. But there was no way to know for sure.

Those two nights he slept only fitfully, thinking of the softness of Sabine's lips and the depth of her eyes. But love was not the only thing that kept him from surrendering to sleep's embrace. The silent hostility and the promise of death that suffused every waking moment aboard the
Larsen
kept him wondering, not only about the outcome of a mutiny, but also about what might become of him should it succeed. He had no intention of still being on board when the mutiny concluded, yet he could not help but wonder if Louis and Tree were fond enough of him to prevent the rest of the pack from killing him after Ghost was dead.

He tried to shake the thought. He and Sabine would be gone from the
Larsen
by then, or they would already be dead. He did not really care who came out victorious when the men finally mutinied—as he felt sure they would do before long—except that if Ghost survived, he would pursue Jack and Sabine, reluctant to let her strange powers escape. Those who would rise against Ghost were less likely to give chase.

The hate simmered, like a volcano fit to blow. But the surreal quality of each hour that passed sprang from love just as much as it did from hate. He would walk the deck and issue orders to trim the sails, or for one man to spell another at the wheel or in the crow's nest. Then he would go below and begin to gather together the ingredients for a meal to feed those same men, and while he cooked, Sabine would slip into the galley to visit him. As Ghost could be relied upon to remain in his cabin for long hours, she even helped him choose spices and prepare certain dishes, and while they cooked, she would touch his hand or his shoulder or kiss his neck. Jack felt a wild bliss growing unrestrained within him, and that went some way to keeping him focused on their survival instead of the festering malignance of the crew.

Ghost had ordered that meals be delivered to his cabin. Sabine always obliged. In those moments, with the crew in the mess and Sabine distracting Ghost, Jack made preparations of another sort. He squirreled away food in various places throughout the galley so that they could be gathered quickly. There were old wine and whiskey jugs in a cabinet, and now some of them, hidden behind empties, had been filled from the store of fresh water below.

When Jack visited the food stores, the pirates' treasure was beneath the boards underfoot, and yet Ghost never sent anyone to oversee his work there. Either he truly believed Jack would not be stupid enough to steal from him, or he wanted to leave such concerns and suspicions to the crew. But the crew left him alone, perhaps reckoning that Ghost would decide his fate in time, or maybe they were more interested in their own plans for the captain.

Jack concentrated on his preparations, determined that he and Sabine would be ready when tensions finally erupted on the
Larsen
. There would be mutiny, or there would be an attack from Death Nilsson. Either way, that would be the moment of their escape.

“We'll want the long pork for lunch today, Mr. London,” Ghost rasped, standing in the shadows beyond the galley entrance.

Jack could not hide the look of revulsion that swept across his face. “Long pork.”

“You know the term, I take it?” Ghost asked.

“I know it. It's what the cannibals of the East Indies called human flesh.”

Ghost did not smile. It was clear he no longer took pleasure from his rapport with Jack. Instead, he sneered.

“We are not cannibals, Mr. London. Cannibals eat their own kind for sustenance, and as you'd be the first to observe, we aren't human.”

Jack felt sick. It had been challenge enough for him to cure and salt the remains of the prisoners taken from the
Umatilla
, but now to cook that meat and serve it to Ghost and his crew … it stained his soul to even contemplate such a horror.

“Surely you don't need it cooked for you,” Jack said, glaring at him in the shadows as the ship creaked around them. “I remember well enough the screams and the blood, Captain. You prefer your long pork raw.”

Now Ghost did smile, but it was a warning. “When it's fresh, Jack. Only when it's fresh. Otherwise, I'm as much a gourmand as the fattest, wealthiest man in San Francisco. Spice it well. Make a nice sauce to accompany it. And serve it yourself, this time.”

Jack held his tongue, knowing that he had pushed Ghost too far.

“What you and Sabine have for your own lunch is up to you,” Ghost added.

A shadow approached from the mess. It was Maurilio, Huginn looming behind the rangy man, ready as ever to protect the captain.

“Kelly's in the crow's nest, Captain,” Maurilio reported. “Says there's a thick fog forming due west. We're headed right for it, a few hours out.”

“Keep on course. Our sea witch will let us know if we've anything to fear in the fog.”

Maurilio darted off to relay orders to Vukovich, who was presently at the wheel. Ghost turned and looked at Jack.

“Go on, then. Your galley awaits.”

Jack nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The captain retreated into his cabin and closed the door. He hadn't even bothered to go on deck to survey the crew's efforts or check on their heading himself. Jack knew it wasn't fear of mutiny that kept Ghost in his quarters, because he feared nothing. The captain had been consulting with Sabine about the location of several merchant ships, but also of the nearest land, and Jack suspected that Ghost might be considering what to do about the venomous atmosphere on board. How much trouble would it be to kill most of his pack and begin again?

Jack would have to go into the hold to retrieve the long pork—he could not think of that meat by any other name, for his own sake—for the wolves' lunch, but first he wanted to see what else he might need. Standing in the galley, the ship swaying beneath him, he thought of what he was about to do and was nearly sick. Nothing frightened him. Jack London had confronted the wildness of human nature and the human heart, and had found himself undaunted. But this…

“Jack.”

Her voice eased his spirit effortlessly, and he turned to Sabine, standing just inside the galley behind him. Silhouetted in the sunlight that filtered down into the cabin, she seemed for a moment like an angel come to save him from the hell of the
Larsen
.

Then he saw the fear in her eyes.

“He's coming, Jack,” Sabine said. “Death is here. They'll see the smoke from his ship any moment now.”

Jack took her in his arms. He kissed her gently, then fiercely.

“For luck,” he said.

They heard shouts and running footsteps, and then Maurilio was calling for the captain.

Jack pulled away, clasped her hand in his a moment longer, and then nodded.

“Be ready.”

G
host slammed from his cabin so violently that the door cracked from its hinges, splintering against the bulkhead and scattering along the gangway. Jack pulled back into the shadowed corner of the galley, Sabine close beside him, and held his breath.
This is when everything begins to change
, he thought, and it was a strange idea. Change had been evident day to day, hour to hour, since Ghost had thrown him from the deck of the
Umatilla
. But this moment felt like the line between life and death, however thin or ambiguous that line might be.

On the deck above them, footsteps pounded and voices shouted for the captain—the crew calling for the man they had started to hate.

Ghost walked past the galley doorway, kicking the remains of his cabin door ahead of him, his breath a constant, rumbling growl, and he looked larger than he ever had before. He was a force of nature, channeled by these wooden walls and floors and ceiling but never contained, never tamed. His shadow passed through the galley and it seemed to abrade every surface it touched. Then he stopped, turned, and stared in at Jack and Sabine.