Page 42 of Bloody Black

“ H ow much bad luck can one person have?” I curse, buttoning my shirt as I yank open the door.

Teach takes one look at me, then over my shoulder at Robb, shirt untucked, hair disheveled, pants undone, and draws his own conclusions.

He’s a sailor, not stupid.

Of course, he realizes what we were doing. Thankfully, now is not the time to talk about it.

Lanterns lining the corridor flicker, swaying with the ship’s unsteady movement. Teach strides away, me in his wake. “The storm knocked us off course; I didn’t realize they’d snuck up on us until it was too late.” Teach shakes his head. “What do you want to do?”

“Get the hell out of here?” As if that’s an option.

He laughs, giggling uneasily. “Yeah, right.”

I leave Robb tied to the chair behind me .

I try not to think about him either. I truly don’t have time to wonder if he’ll be grumpy that I’m leaving him there, because I have bigger problems. The ship creaks ominously, a low groan that feels too much like a warning.

I take the stairs two at a time, already reaching for my weapons, ready for confrontation.

“Grab the wax cloth!” I hear Holly say. “Hurry!”

Too late, I think. Too late, because voices are already rising. My crew starts singing back.

The moment I step onto the deck, the world closes in.

Fog presses against my skin, thick as wool.

A suffocating wall of gray swallows the ship, blurring the lantern light.

And a low hum drifts through the fog, so soft it might have been the ship itself breathing.

It curls in my ears at the edge of understanding, slipping through my ribs.

I grip the railing. Shapes move in the fog—long-limbed figures, so fluid they might have been made of water, colored like pale pink jellyfish. One clings to the side of the ship, its fingers bending the wrong way around the wood, nails splitting as they scrape upward.

A face rises from the gloom. Too smooth, too pale, too boneless. The mouth stretched in a wide grin, hissing. Another face surfaces. Then another.

Five in total. Not climbing, but waiting. Singing. I clench my jaw, but I can feel it inside my skull, burrowing and digging into my brain like an animal.

I press my hands to my ears, although I know that won’t last. I can’t cover my ears and handle a sword; eventually, the sirens will climb up on the deck and rip us apart. That is, if we don’t offer ourselves up for sacrifice before then .

Tremaine stuffs wax cloth into his ears, shoving rolls at the others. “Normally, I would be flattered if women were singing to me, but I don’t fancy dying today. ”

Robb stumbles up behind me, still disheveled. He stops short, eyes going wide as the figures ripple closer. “What in all the hell?”

“Sirens,” I grit out. “Also, how did you get untied?”

Robb swears. “Wasn’t Xandretta paying attention?”

He doesn’t answer my question, but now is really not the time.

Crimson mist coils at my heels, ready to do my bidding. I’ve never used it against a siren before; I’m not sure how effective it would be. As far as I know, they cannot be killed, only wounded. And since there are five…

“I say we fight.” Prudence has wax paper stuffed in her ears, her cutlass drawn. “I didn’t come all this way to die cowering.”

“I say we run.” Holly bites her lip, staring down at the water.

Teach exhales sharply. “If I’m going to die, I’d rather the last thing I hear not be the sound of you two arguing.”

All the while, the siren song swells and the fog thickens. My head is starting to hurt, eyes squeezed closed, breathing through the pain. I open them in time to see Samson throw a spear, hurling it with all his might, striking a siren straight through the heart.

That one stops singing.

Good riddance.

Drawing my flintlock, I brace myself. Gunshot cracks through the fog, the flash of powder illuminating the deck for a split second. The bullet punches through her chest—only for the wound to close almost instantly, the jellyfish-like flesh rippling, reforming.

But to my surprise, her voice warbles, pauses .

The siren Samson speared wails, a high, keening sound that sends white-hot pain stabbing through my skull.

It writhes, the spear still embedded in its chest, but instead of dying, it moves with it—body shifting, twisting around the weapon like liquid.

A heartbeat later, it pulls the spear free and drops it into the sea.

Unkillable.

But those two are wounded, and it seems they cannot sing unless they are fully healed.

Still, there are three more, and their song presses harder against me, clawing under my skin, pulling at something deep in my chest. I stagger, blinking rapidly. My mind is drifting. Sinking. The melody is a whisper in my veins, urging me to step forward.

I nearly do. My foot lifts, my muscles tensing, my body betraying me.

No. No, no, no.

A rough hand grabs my collar, yanking me backward.

Robb. He shakes me once, his own face tight with strain. His mouth moves, but I barely hear him over the song. He slaps me hard across the face.

“Wake up!”

The sirens are leaning forward on the crest of white-capped waves, fingers curling into talons, their too-wide pink mouths stretching, humming, coaxing—

Robb shoves a wad of wax cloth into my hand. “Captain!”

I don’t hesitate. The moment the wax muffles the song, my head clears with a gasp, like breaking the surface of the ocean after nearly drowning .

“All hands on deck!” I shout. “Fire the cannons! All bullets toward the sea! Keep your ears covered!”

Meanwhile, Holly strides through the chaos, banging the ship’s chow bell with a wooden spoon and shouting random words.

I pull the trigger, but my shots hit nothing. The sirens dive under the water, fast as a lightning flash.

“You there! Get to shouting!” She gives a second pot and wooden spoon to Robb, who looks momentarily confused and then begins to chant like a shaman in the middle of a vision quest.

A loud thud shakes the deck. I whirl toward the sound, heart lurching. Mercy.

She must’ve climbed down from the crow’s nest without anyone noticing. She stands stiff, her arms loose at her sides, head tilted at an unnatural angle. Since she was so high above, she didn’t have wax cloth.

Her eyes are little pinpricks of light, pupils swallowed by the vast, empty white. Her lips move silently, murmuring something to the sirens. The witch’s mark on her forehead glows, softly purple.

She steps forward. She moves like a sleepwalker, entranced, slow, and certain.

“Holly!”

“I’m trying!” she yells back. “Their pull—”

It’s too strong. The sirens’ song creates a whirlpool, dragging us toward them. Even with Holly’s tidecalling, we can’t escape them. Not unless we wound them.

“Mercy, stop!” Prudence screams. “Don’t!”

Dreamily, she sways toward the railing. “They’re singing to me. ”

Of course they are. The sirens always sing. Lure you to your death with a lovely refrain. I lunge, but Mercy is already heading their way. A few more steps and she’ll be in the water where the red-lipped devils are waiting. Eager to pull her under.

She’s going to die if I don’t do something. So I don’t think, I react.

I sprint toward my sailor, tackle her around the middle, knocking her down to the deck. Her head strikes hard, a sickening crack, and a shudder runs through her body. For a moment, she stops moving.

Worry spikes through me. Have I killed her?

But then I hear it, a low laugh, a steady hum.

Mercy is singing back.

“Stop that!” I demand, but she begins to writhe and crawl away from me. She’s so strong, caught up in their grip.

I grit my teeth and pull her hair, her dark braids wrapping around my fist. Dragging her backward, away from the railing. She stumbles, her breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps.

Then, as if the world snaps back into focus, she looks back at me–and kicks me.

I’m so surprised by it that I let her go.

She turns away, still humming. When she reaches the rail, Mercy touches the symbol engraved upon her forehead.

“Mercy! Look at me!” I scream.

She does. A gentle smile lifts the corners of her lips, and for the first time since I’ve known her, she is neither scared nor stammering. And through the storm, the rising winds and tossing sea… she speaks to me .

Her words sift through time and space. As if they’re said directly into my ear.

“Let go of me, Annie.” It’s the first time she’s spoken without stammering since I met her. I’m so surprised, I wonder if I’m hallucinating.

Mercy steps off the deck, over the side of the ship.

Prudence screams, a wail of pure anguish. Her cry rips through the fog and carves straight through my ribs. “MERCY!”

She throws herself forward, but Domino holds her back. Even as she thrashes like a wild animal. “Let me go!” she sobs, clawing at her arms, kicking, fighting, reaching.

“If you go over, they’ll take you too, and I’m not losing both of you!”

Prudence doesn’t stop fighting, still crying, her whole body trembling with effort.

Thankfully, Domino is stronger, and she doesn’t let go. “We’ll get her back. We will. But you have to stay here! Do you hear me?”

The sirens are thrilled with their new toy. They’re circling her in the water, smiling. But they have, at least momentarily, stopped their incessant singing.

Teach, his ears stuffed with wax paper, fires a cannon toward the sirens. The cannon’s roar shakes the ship, but it does nothing. The fog swallows the blast, the sea doesn’t move, and the sirens only gurgle.

Their song surges again, curling around the ship like a noose.

Mercy is doomed. And if we don’t act fast, we all will be.

I grit my teeth. I know what I have to do. I hate it. But I do it anyway .

Holly is clutching a wooden spoon like a weapon, her knuckles white, her eyes flitting between me and the sirens down in the water.

“Holly.”

She flinches, but nods. She already knows what I’m about to say.

“No.” Prudence spins on me, shaking her head violently. “No, we can’t—You can’t—”

“We’re outmatched. If we stay, we’re all going to die.” I snap, stepping closer. “So unless you have another way out, we’re leaving.”

Prudence’s breath is ragged. Furious. But she knows, deep down, she knows. “Mercy’s still down there.” She’s begging now. Her voice is small, breaking.

I close my eyes. It’s the only way I can say the next words.

“May the gods be kinder to her than men.” I turn to Holly. “Do it.”

She hesitates. “I—I can’t just—”

“You can.” I grab her shoulders, shaking her hard. “And you will. Control the tide and get us out .”

Her eyes are wide. Afraid. She shakes her head, clenching her hands into fists. “I won’t leave her behind, Anne.”

I wince at her use of my real name.

Domino chimes in. “We have to. It’s the only way.”

“Her agreement won’t be necessary.” Rokhur steps onto the deck, one rotting leg dragging behind her. Her face is impassive, a patchwork of horrors. Clearly, she’s been listening in.

Prudence lunges at her. “Where have you been? You could have helped us before!”

Teach catches her, but barely.

Rokhur doesn’t react. Her one-eyed red gaze flicks to me instead. “You want to leave, we can leave. I can make that happen.”

I stiffen. Crimson mist coils at my feet, snarling. “What will it cost me?”

She smiles . “You already know the answer to that.”

She gestures toward the sea, toward the sirens writhing beneath the waves.

“Do you want to die now? Now, when you’re so close to having justice done and fulfilled?”

Prudence is sobbing, her voice hoarse, barely forming words. Holly’s hands are still clenched at her sides, disobeying my orders.

And me? Can I bear to leave part of my crew behind? She will surely be killed by the sirens, chewed apart and tortured… but fighting for her, we might all lose our lives. And the ship.

I exhale sharply, then say the words that will haunt me forever. “Do it.”

The sea obeys. A huge swell comes, knocking us out of the swirling trap set by the sirens.

Another black bargain is seared into my neck, this one more painful than any other, and I fall to my knees, wax cloth dropping from my ears.

Behind me, Prudence collapses into sobs in Domino’s arms, screaming for her sister, as the Queen Anne’s Revenge sails away.

Meanwhile Mercy’s body spins in the water behind us like a broken compass, the sirens biting.