The Viking Throne: The Cursed Seas Collection Page 8

  “How do we get those two away from their post?” I asked Imogen.

  “Leave that to me. I know those two buffoons. I will get them both to escort me into the corridor, then you two can follow.” Imogen walked toward the two black-suited men at their post.

  “There she goes. We reunited literally minutes ago, and she already walks away.” I shook my head.

  “She’s decisive. Stay back a few paces then sprint to the door,” Pierce said.

  Imogen hugged the two guards and made them laugh. The two idiots opened the door for her. They made the turn to walk with her down the corridor to Cornwallis’s quarters. I sprinted to catch the door before it closed. Pierce kept pace with me. We made it to the door just in time.

  The two security guards turned and reached for their weapons. They looked confused and patted their jackets for their guns. Imogen stood behind them. She pointed their pistols at them.

  “On your knees, boys. Now,” Imogen commanded.

  Dumb and Dumber followed her orders.

  Pierce pulled out his PPK. Two shots. I couldn’t believe the spray that burst forth from both of their heads. It was so quick.

  “What the hell?” I yelled.

  Pierce walked over their bodies. “You might want to give one of those to your husband.”

  Imogen’s mouth opened, and she put her hand over it.

  “You all right, love?”

  She shook all over, likely from nerves and the gore on the corridor floor.

  “We better keep close to Pierce for now. I will take these.” I grabbed the guards’ handguns from her. I secured one to my back waistband, and I held the other.

  “So, your friend is an assassin.”

  “He is. Siren Guard Special Forces. Glad to have him with us.” I walked around the curve of the corridor.

  Pierce climbed the first few rungs of the ladder to his mark.

  “Should we head up with you?” I asked.

  “This won’t take long. Keep watch.” Pierce looked down.

  “Remember what McBain said. Bring back something to prove your success.”

  Pierce nodded and disappeared. He must have reached the doorway to the cabin.

  A voice sounded from one of the dead guards’ radios. “All Guards. High alert. Stirling came to. Said to look for bearded man in a white shirt, black vest. Red may be with him. Repeat. Red may be with him.”

  “They call you Red?” I asked Imogen.

  “Yes, I didn’t give them my real name. Maybe you should get on the radio and tell them to go to another part of the ship. Change your clothes too.”

  “Let’s wait until Pierce returns. Then we can use your ruse.” I looked up.

  A thumping had sounded. Not in sync with the deck party.

  “You think he’s finished?” Imogen asked.

  Another thump.

  “You should start your climb. Give me a gun.” She held her hand out.

  I didn’t think Pierce would have any issues. The time he’d taken was unsettling. I started the climb up the tall, black ladder.

  “Be right back down.” I made it to the top of the ladder to be met with more gore.

  Another guard’s head had been twisted so his face lined up with his back. Ick. I climbed to the small platform that housed the entry to Cornwallis’s cabin. The hatch-like door was open, and I ran toward it. Pierce punched Cornwallis in the throat. The big, bald, powerful Cornwallis shook it off and landed an uppercut. Pierce flew back towards me.

  I aimed the gun at the big bastard’s head and fired. And missed. He’d dipped down in a charge to spear me.

  The shot was loud as hell, reverberating off the steel of the ship.

  I shot again at the charging bull of a man. Hit him in the top of the head. He fell onto Pierce.

  “Your assistance please,” Pierce said from underneath Cornwallis.

  I kicked the big dead man off the special agent. Pierce’s chin bled. The blood from Cornwallis’s head dotted his white tuxedo jacket.

  “That didn’t go as planned.” Pierce stood up and smoothed his jacket.

  “Well, this man has a special place in hell. I am so glad I could get him there faster.” I pointed at the wall. Pictures of pirates he’d killed adorned the walls. Each pirate was featured twice, a picture before their death and after.

  “James. Look at this one.”

  I examined the one Pierce pointed to. My heart dropped to my stomach. A tear welled up in my left eye.

  “Oh my.”

  McBain’s photo was featured on the left. There was no death picture of McBain. There was a picture of a woman and a boy. Dead on a wooden floor.

  “He killed McBain’s family.” I touched the picture. I thought of my own, and that tear that formed in my left eye turned into many more.

  “James!”

  Imogen climbed onto the platform. “More guards. They are coming!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “This bubble cabin has to have some form of emergency exit.” Pierce looked around the cabin, which was almost completely transparent with shaded glass. No one could peer in from the deck below.

  “Did they see you, Imogen?” I asked.

  “No, I heard them enter from around the bend. They did see the dead guards. Then called it in. I climbed as fast as I could.”

  “They don’t know that we are up here for sure yet.” I pushed the hatch door closed and locked it.

  “Wait. The dead guard!” Imogen said.

  “Oh right! Shit.” I opened the door and grabbed the dead bloke.

  Shoes tapped on the steel ladder. They were headed up here. I dragged the body in as quick as I could. Imogen shut the door.

  “Trapping us was the best plan you two had?” Pierce poked around the room some more, probably looking for a way out.

  “They won’t be able to get through the door, and if they do, we shoot them,” I said.

  “Until we run out of bullets, that is, or they just blast us out of this suspended bubble from the deck. Best to use our bullets on the glass. Secure that picture, James.” Pierce pulled out his gun. The rounds from the PPK hit the glass and barely cracked one pane.

  “James, time to use yours,” Pierce said.

  “Will do.” I put McBain’s pic in my pocket, raised the gun, and aimed. Suddenly, the glass pane opened automatically. I gave a quizzical look to Pierce.

  “Or we could just open the windows.” Imogen held her finger to a switch on Cornwallis’s chair.

  “That works too.” I laughed.

  Pierce shrugged.

  “So, what do we do now, gents? Jump?” Imogen asked.

  Pierce reached into his jacket pocket and brought out what looked like a harpoon bolt. He unscrewed the silencer then twisted the bolt onto the end of his gun.

  “Are you kidding me? How many cool toys do you have?” My envy overwhelmed me.

  Pierce aimed the bolt out the window to a spot just at the edge of the pool thirty feet below and twenty yards away. There were people milling about the pool area and in the pool. He waited for a clear shot.

  “Hey! Mr. Cornwallis! Mr. Cornwallis!” A guard pounded the door.

  “Let us in, sir!” another voice yelled.

  “Go away. I am busy!” I yelled in a deep, husky voice.

  “He doesn’t sound anything like that, James.” Imogen put her head in her hands.

  The voices stopped. Clanking sounded back on the steel ladder.

  “They might have bought it!” I smiled.

  “Or they are headed to the deck to shoot from below.” Pierce shot the bolt. A thin line unwound from behind it. The Walther PPK had decent strength, but I worried it wouldn’t have enough for that distance.

  The Siren Special Agent pulled the gun and line taut then wrapped it around the leg of Cornwallis’s desk.

  “Ladies first. Wrap this around the line and go.” Pierce took off his jacket and ripped his sleeves off his jacket. He gave one to each of us.

  Imogen approached th
e window, slung one side of the sleeve over the line, and zipped down. “Ah!” She screamed the whole way down.

  Humans stopped and stared. The lights of the top deck were pulsing with the rhythm of the music. People started clapping, thinking it was part of some ridiculous show.

  I stuffed the gun in my pants and followed Imogen. The pleasant breeze did nothing to ease my nerves. If I fell, I would be done for. I took a deep breath and began my angled journey to the top deck. The experience was short, fast, pulse-pounding, and attracted attention. A spotlight from the DJ stand above the pool blinded me. I hit the ground with my ass. Imogen helped me to my feet.

  Pierce followed close behind, and the spotlight followed him from Cornwallis’s cabin.

  “Clear the way!” a guard screamed in a panic.

  The drunken human crowd surrounded us, dancing and shaking their hips.

  A shot rang out. The music stopped. The crowd went into a panic. Some people fell into the pool. Others hit the deck. The guard’s arm was still raised. The one who shot into the air headed toward us.

  “Let’s keep moving. James, your gun please. We need to get a few floors down for a safe dive.” Pierce held his hand out.

  I happily obliged.

  Pierce nailed the guard in the chest twice. The sound of the shots caused more panic. Pierce threw the gun and his torn white jacket into the pool.

  The three of us mixed in with the crowd that scattered from the pool area. We followed the clambering crowd to the stairs to the lower levels. It would be impossible for the guards to see us in the confusion of bodies. We pushed to the starboard staircase.

  “Think we can make it back to our bags?” I descended the stairs with Imogen on one side of me and Pierce on the other.

  “Shouldn’t prove too difficult,” Pierce answered.

  We reached the top level of the lobby. The grand staircase to the lower levels was ahead. A group of guards pushed through the gaggle toward us a few feet away. I hoped they were headed to the top deck and not us. I avoided any eye contact with them.

  “Just look down and keep walking,” I warned my companions.

  We were adjacent to the group of guards. They weren’t stopping to look at anyone. They wanted to keep control of the situation on the top deck by clearing it and sweeping for the culprits.

  “Phew,” I said whisper-quiet.

  One wide lane of people headed down the grand staircase. Once we made it down, we could grab our bags in the cabin, and head back down the hawsepipe to the Mediterranean.

  The butterflies in my stomach began to settle as we hit the red carpet of the staircase.

  “Keep your eyes and head down. Just keep moving.” I couldn’t help myself. I had to keep talking to calm my nerves.

  “We got it, James. We understand.” Imogen put her hand on the small of my back likely to both shut me up and comfort me.

  Pierce hit the lobby floor first. He quickened his pace to the cabin.

  We followed him down the cabin hallway, which wasn’t as congested. Our bags lay ahead.

  The door was open. That wasn’t good.

  Pierce put a fist up. We stopped. He kept walking casually down the hallway. The Siren Guard assassin stopped by the door and positioned his back against the wall next to it.

  “Here he goes,” I said to Imogen.

  Pierce pushed into the cabin. Out of sight. A rumble sounded, a vibration. A man gasped. Then another man let out a cough. The sound of fists hitting flesh. Once, twice, three more times. Then silence for a few moments.

  Imogen and I shared a nervous gaze.

  “What the hell are you two idiots waiting for?” Pierce waved us into the cabin.

  We walked inside. There were four unconscious and/or dead bodies spread over the floor and bed—two guards and the blokes who rented the cabin.

  Pierce shut the door behind us. “It was a dud.” He dropped the grenade in the small garbage pail.

  “Why were they here?” Imogen asked.

  Pierce pointed to the bathroom.

  “Oh, we did cut a huge hole in the bathroom wall. That would merit further investigation,” I said.

  The speaker on the ceiling crackled. “All passengers. Please proceed to your cabins and lock your doors. I repeat, please proceed to your cabins and lock your doors, or proceed to the nearest safety zone as designated by a crewmember.”

  “Time to go.”

  “Where are we going?” Imogen asked.

  “Down the hole in the bathroom,” I said.

  “Hey, English, where are our wetsuits?” I asked, then my wetsuit hit me in the face.

  Pierce zipped his up. He was always one step ahead.

  “Do I get a wetsuit?” Imogen asked. She looked upset. Hurt, even.

  I put my hands up. “Sorry, love, ours are too big for you.”

  “So thoughtful, James. Ass.”

  “I am sorry!”

  “Save the bickering. We have to go now.” Pierce pulled himself into the hawsepipe.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The journey down the hawsepipe was quick. We slid down then kept to the chain as cover from the Atlantis Club view. We hit the water, and it was a welcome respite from the harrowing situation aboard the Princess. I looked back up to the bottom of the ship and into the Atlantis Club. It had been emptied by the emergency lockdown.

  Imogen kept pace with us, but it had been a while since she’d swum, let alone with such intensity in a derring-do escape from a slave ship.

  The Riviera below was lit with such intensity it would be impossible not to spot us if one was looking. Pierce led us down into a row of yellow, pink, and tan buildings that would give us cover for a while until we cleared the lights from the cruise ship.

  The apartment buildings were nothing short of haunting in the worst way. There were still skeletal remains in some rooms and hallways. Pictures of families, friends, dogs, cats on the walls. Artwork that had been ruined by the sea, faded, torn, obscured, cracked by the pressure of the deep. These humans and their families hadn’t survived The Great Calamity. The sea had drowned them. The French Riviera, once a posh, romantic resort, had been converted into a watery grave.

  I hoped to hell there wouldn’t be any banshees in these buildings.

  The Princess of Monaco’s lights faded gradually. The windows in the last apartment building grew darker and darker. Pierce swam out a hallway window and kept on his path toward the perimeter. He didn’t use his light. I kept dark as well. There was still enough ambient light to keep to our route.

  “Almost to our ship.” I reached out for Imogen, a few lengths behind me. I almost let myself revel in having my wife back. I could see myself relaxing with her aboard The Relentless, enjoying a drink, feeling her warmth.

  Imogen grabbed my hand then squeezed it. The spotlight penetrated the surface of the sea. We stopped our swim. Pierce was nowhere to be found. He was too far ahead and impatient as always.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “One of the carrier’s choppers,” Imogen said.

  “Oh shite, McBain said there were three perimeter warships, and the last one was the carrier. How do they know we are out here?”

  “They don’t know, James. They are looking for us. They are most likely going to lock down the entire area. Stirling and those New East India bastards won’t stop until they find who killed Cornwallis. We must find Pierce now. We can’t let him swim too far ahead.” Imogen pulled me farther into the dark water.

  “How can we be in danger this deep in the water?” I asked, surprised at her strength.

  “James, just trust me. There is a reason no sirens are in these waters. Stop talking and swim. Pierce! Pierce!”

  The spotlight sped away from our current route.

  We swam on for a few minutes, keeping a straight path, while we yelled for Pierce.

  “We have to be getting close to the perimeter,” I said.

  The lights from the destroyer warship permeated our depth with ambient light.
A couple more minutes passed. Still, no Pierce.

  “That’s how they did it.” Imogen stopped swimming.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “You can’t see it?”

  “See what?”

  Pierce swam to us from below. “The perimeter net in front of us.”

  “Where the hell did you go?” I shot a befuddled look at him.

  “You two were too slow. There is no way we can get around or over that net without being spotted. It is a giant net that stretches from the mast of the man ‘o war to the destroyer to the carrier then back to the mast of the man ‘o war. It must stretch twenty meters above the surface and to the seabed,” Pierce said.

  I squinted to see the net. I swam a bit ahead and relaxed my eyes. There it was, a tightly threaded net with shards of seashells and glass sticking out from it. I shook my head and returned to Imogen and Pierce.

  Imogen shivered. She could have used a wetsuit. I didn’t think she would have to be in the water for long.

  “This damn fish net wasn’t here when we arrived!” I yelled in frustration.

  “We don’t have much time before they send the scuba divers to sweep.” Imogen looked up. The helicopter light danced on the surface.

  “I can quickly shoot the flare from the surface. Notify McBain,” Pierce volunteered.

  “It’s the only shot we got. Let’s hope McBain has some tricks up his sleeve. The Relentless’ guns are outmatched,” I said.

  Pierce unzipped the bag and brought out the flare. “Swim away from where I shoot the flare. All hell will break loose. The chopper will see us. The warships will be alerted too. I shall return shortly.”

  I swam next to Imogen and put my arm around her, rubbing her arm.

  “Let’s swim. We will go back to the apartments for now. We will get out of here soon. You hear that, Pierce, back by the apartments.”

  He nodded as he ascended.

  “James, we should stick together. If we dive deep enough, we can clear the range of their deck guns. We don’t want to lose Pierce again,” Imogen said.

  “It’s colder the deeper we go, Imogen. You’re cold enough as it is.”

  “Tell him. I will be fine,” Imogen insisted.