Rhino tossed Gael the apple. He caught it midair and bit into it like a Siren with a fresh carcass.
“Why is he a prisoner?” X asked while the man inhaled the fruit.
“For fleeing the battle with Horn,” Rhino said. “He deserted his comrades, which is normally punishable by death. But we kept him alive since he’s the only one who knows anything about Horn. And he was a mechanic—knows how to make bullets.”
“But he’s never said what happened that day?”
“Only to el Pulpo,” Rhino said. “And to my knowledge, el Pulpo never told anyone.”
“Give me the orange,” X said.
Rhino handed it over, and X peeled off the skin while Gael watched. That seemed to agitate the prisoner, and he reared away.
It then struck X that he was doing to the orange basically what the skinwalkers did to their enemies. As soon as he stopped, Gael stepped back to the bars.
“Show us what happened out there and where Raven’s Claw went, and you get the orange,” Rhino said in Spanish, holding up the pencil.
“Tell him if he does that, he can have a bucket full of oranges,” X said.
Rhino relayed the message.
The prisoner’s gaze flitted from Rhino to X. His hand darted out and snatched the pencil. Then he picked up the pad of paper and scribbled for several moments, drawing what appeared to be a crude map with a few lines of illegible text. With a shaky hand, he drew a line on the map, and then a circle. He glanced up, like a child looking for approval.
Rhino picked up the paper.
“What’s it say?” X asked.
“Something about a great journey,” Rhino said. “Horn took the warship to…” He held up the paper and pointed to what looked like a skull. “Then what is…”
Rhino looked closer at the map. The line did indeed go where he suspected.
“What?” X asked.
“He says Horn took Raven’s Claw to the former colony that we abandoned many years ago,” Rhino said. “A place we call la Escolta—the Outrider.”
X pointed at the circle on the map.
“And what’s that?” he asked.
Rhino swallowed. “The Vanguard Islands,” he said. “Just as I feared, the bastard must be planning to come back for his throne.”
Magnolia sat in the hot lower compartment of Star Grazer with six half-naked Cazador warriors. Sofia sat beside her on a crate, trying to explain the complicated game that involved dice, a deck of dog-eared cards, and a lighter.
So far, Magnolia wasn’t having much luck, and not because of intimidation. The Cazadores had certainly tried clacking their teeth, pounding their chests, and yelling, but she didn’t fear them. She had decided yesterday that if she was going to fight alongside them, she would get to know them. And what better way than by playing cards?
Rodger, by contrast, had no desire to know these people or join in their games. He sat in a chair across the open barracks, tongue sticking out in rapt concentration as he carved a wood figurine.
That was fine. She didn’t want him to see her lose, and so far, she was doing little else.
“How about poker?” Magnolia said. “This shit is rigged.”
“It’s not rigged just because you suck,” Sofia said.
Magnolia sighed. “You know, I was happy when Les sent you down here to make sure nothing happened to us, but now I’m not so sure.” She squinted at Sofia’s cards. “Are you cheating?”
Sofia laughed. “no!”
“We shall see…” Magnolia said. She was glad to have Sofia down here with them, but it wouldn’t be for the entire journey. When they reached the destination, Sofia would return to the airship and join Michael’s team.
Sudden shouting interrupted the game. Across the room, a Cazador pounded down the ladder, waving. He wasn’t here to play cards.
“¡Vengan rápido!” he shouted.
The Cazador warriors all hopped off their crates and chairs.
“What’s going on?” she asked Sofia.
Sofia shrugged. “No—”
Automatic gunfire jolted Rodger out of his chair.
“Armor up,” Magnolia said. “We must be under attack.”
The three divers threw on their armor and helmets, grabbed their weapons, and headed up the ladder.
The sounds of battle reminded Magnolia of the day the sky people had shown up at the Metal Islands to save her. Machine guns barked from the turrets, firing into the water as Cazadores ran across the deck toward their stations.
“What’s going on?” she shouted.
“No clue!” Rodger yelled back.
The bow cannons boomed, and twin geysers erupted and then fell back to the surface.
After the next shot came a flurry of loud clicking sounds. But this noise wasn’t from the weapons. It came from whatever they were shooting at.
Magnolia watched tracer rounds lance into the water. Whatever they were firing at was big. The possibilities raced across her mind.
“Come on!” Sofia yelled.
They ran up to the command center. General Santiago and Lieutenant Alejo were on the bridge, monitoring the battle.
“Sofia, find out what they’re firing at!” Magnolia shouted.
As Sofia crossed the busy bridge, Magnolia and Rodger went to the port windows, where she switched on her infrared optics.
A red mass flashed across a large section of water.
That reading couldn’t be real. The beast would be almost as long as the warship.
Magnolia bumped on her comm channel. “Captain Mitchells, do you copy?”
Static crackled in her helmet.
Les’s voice came over the channel, faint but recognizable. “Copy. Mags, are you okay?” he said.
“What’s in the water?” she shouted.
The gunfire outside made hearing difficult. She hunkered down to listen.
“Come again, I didn’t catch your last,” she said.
A momentary letup in the gunfire allowed her to hear the next response.
“Timothy believes it’s some mutant version of a sperm whale,” Les replied.
Magnolia stared at the gargantuan creature cutting through the water on the port side. She remembered reading about them when she was a kid and wondering what one might look like in real life.
But this wasn’t what she had imagined, and she doubted this beast ate only fish and squid. It wanted to eat everyone aboard Star Grazer.
“There are more—”
The crack of gunfire made it impossible to hear the captain, and she stood back up just as the whale slammed into the hull.
Glass shattered from the portholes, and a computer exploded in a shower of sparks and electronics. Two Cazador officers fell to the deck.
As Magnolia pushed herself up, the vessel got slammed again, this time from the other side. Now she understood what the captain was trying to say.
There was more than one whale out there.
“We have to get to the Sea Wolf!” Rodger yelled.
Sofia looked down at a monitor next to Santiago. “We’re taking on water,” she said.
The general yelled at his crew, giving what looked like orders to abandon ship.
Another message came over the open channel with Discovery. “Get away from the windows!” Les yelled.
Magnolia pulled Rodger to the deck just as a missile came streaking through the sky. She didn’t see the explosion, but she heard it. A few beats later, a curtain of seawater deluged the ship, and she heard thuds against the windows. Looking up, she saw that it wasn’t just water. Blood and lumps of pink gore flecked the cracked glass.
General Santiago raised a fist in defiance at the whale bits sliding down the glass.