Benjamin dropped a few bills on the bar as he passed it, waved to Rick, swung his cloak over his shoulders, and left.
As soon as he stepped through the door he was assaulted by driven rain pricking his skin like cold needles. Squinting to see, he headed straight into it, crossing the parking lot and road, until he stood at the edge of the water. Waves splashed up, soaking his clothing and chilling his freshly warmed skin.
He stared out into the darkness, watching white caps form and tear apart in the force of the wind, and remembered a night not so terribly different many years ago when he’d suffered his last brush with death at the hands of Poseidon.
2
“We’re breaking up, Captain!” The first lieutenant’s words reached Benjamin as little more than a whisper over the force of the wind.
Men screamed as the Spencer, rolling hard, sent them overboard.
“All hands abandon ship!” Benjamin righted a midshipman, Jeffery Veech, by the scruff of his neck. “Abandon ship!”
“Sir, the prisoners,” Jeffery yelled, holding a lantern high and clutching Benjamin’s sleeve. In spite of the driving rain, lantern light twinkled in the boy’s blue eyes and off the silver crucifix at his neck.
“I’ll get them, lad. Away with you!” He gave the boy a shove in the direction of the first lieutenant’s voice, and the young man and his lantern disappeared into the storm.
Fighting to maintain footing, Benjamin found the ladder and stumbled below into thickening darkness.
“Mercy! Release us!” the prisoners called from the bowels of the ship.
Rock splintered wood at a deafening volume with each wave, and the ship rolled harder to port.
Grappling with timbers he couldn’t see and wading through knee-deep water, he followed the cries until he’d located the hold and the latch held in place by a wooden pin. The pin had swollen tight.
“Have mercy on us!”
“Black-hearted villains,” Benjamin muttered, struggling with the pin. “I should let you drown.”
“Please,” one of the pirates wailed. “Take pity!”
The pin finally slid free and the door swung open. The prisoners charged through the doorway, sending Benjamin staggering back into a crate, which took exception to his head.
The hull heaved under a monster swell and he tumbled head over heels, smashing into immovable objects and splintered timbers, and splashing into cold, salty water. Sputtering, he managed to get to his feet, and tried to wipe the stinging water from his eyes. It didn’t matter; he couldn’t see anything.
Working from memory, he staggered and tripped back to the ladder where he climbed out hand over hand until he felt the Atlantic spray. Cold wind whipped him around, stealing air from his lungs.
“Abandon ship,” he yelled, not knowing if anyone was even left to hear. “Abandon—”
The cold, black wall of water that struck him full force lifted him completely from the deck and tossed him into the air like a loose main sail. He landed not on a wooden surface, but submerged in death’s seawater bath, sinking.
He noticed first the relative quiet. Water churned, but he heard no wind. And he saw nothing at all. Only blackness. His body ached from the battering, and then everything began to numb.
Everything but his lungs. They burned with need as he held his breath and his heart hammered against his ribs.
There was no way out, no way up or down.
Hell yawned around him as he opened his mouth to breathe.
For a moment, there was light. Something bright blue, like sun shining through packed snow. And then it was gone.
Benjamin gasped as air drove the water from his lungs in a gush. He retched and gulped again. Air, sweet and pure.
And then pain.
Pain burned through from his head to his toes and he realized he’d been battered beyond repair. The sea had not swallowed him but bashed him against rocks somewhere and spit him back out only to die on dry land.
He should have gone down with the Spencer.
And where were his men?
He opened his eyes to a night as dark as any he’d ever seen. Oddly enough, he’d landed under shelter of some kind, out of the rain. He felt mist in the air, and heard the thunder of great waves crashing against the shore, but the ground around him was dry.
He tried to roll to his side. Searing pain like a red-hot iron pierced his chest and drew a cry from his throat that he could not suppress. He remained still and waited for the pain to ease, but it didn’t.
“Damn you, Satan,” he said through gritted teeth. “Take me now.”
Suddenly, a figure appeared above him.
An angel? He wouldn’t have expected such an escort into the afterlife. Not that he’d done such horrible things as to warrant eternal damnation, but he’d never been one to follow the ways of the Good Book.
She must be an angel. Against the night, she was as white as new snow with golden hair that hung well past her shoulders. Her eyes glowed in the darkness like quicksilver, and she wore a white robe.
He wanted to ask her name, but he couldn’t find his voice. Perhaps he wasn’t supposed to speak.
She leaned close, her lips parted slightly, and his pain began to fade. Her silver eyes studied his face as if looking for redemption.
If only he could reach for her, his angel. He would gladly forfeit his life to wrap her in his arms.
A blaring horn startled Benjamin from the past.
He whirled around and watched a rusted blue and brown van swerve to barely miss a vehicle pulling out of the Tangled Net’s parking lot. The driver of the car gestured with his middle finger, and then sped away. The van slowed and turned at the next corner.
Benjamin glanced back at the angry sea where the bones of his crew had long ago dissolved. Good men, most of them. He still felt the loss of them like an ancient break that hadn’t knitted well.
Why had Cassandra appeared in his thoughts tonight? How long had it been since he’d seen her last? Five years? Ten?
Perhaps more.
He hadn’t thought much about her lately, which probably meant she was due to turn up. She had a way of appearing to stir up his existence just when things were pleasantly quiet. He always spent a year or two longing for her after she left.
And she would leave, just as she always had before. Ironic that he was the one who waited on the shore like a sailor’s wife.
With a sigh, Benjamin drew his cloak around him against the rain and started up the road toward his house.
“Come on, dammit.” Star pumped the accelerator twice and turned the key. The old van cranked and cranked, but didn’t catch.
“You flooded it,” Jack said.
“No shit.” She turned the key again, and the engine cranked slower.
And then it stopped.
“Oh, this is great,” Kyle said from the back. “Just fucking great.”
“Shut up,” Star said.
“We’re on a road in the middle of fucking nowhere, the battery’s dead, and it’s raining so hard I can’t see out the window.” Kyle’s voice rose in pitch. “Just fucking great!”
“I’m starved,” Wendy said. “We should have stopped at that bar.”
Star glanced at the woman