Chapter Twelve
Power
Iscreamed.
“Rooster, my God…”
Dinesh took my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. I stopped my outburst but sobbed with terror.
“The thing…from my nightmares.” I could barely make the words. They surged from my lips like vomit.
But the creature was gone. Esmaralda fluttered against the bars of her cage, no doubt upset by my hearty cry, but in a moment she settled down.
“Pummel the blackguard!” she muttered.
Dinesh followed my terrified stare to an empty corner. The beast had vanished, if the thing had ever truly been there at all.
“There’s nothing there,” he said, gazing at me with grave concern.
“There was. There was.” My powers of speech were returning but I still felt numb.
Domingo had moved away as soon as I’d screamed and now sat next to me, frowning. He circled a comforting arm around me.
“Shh, it’s all right. It’s all right.” He and Dinesh exchanged a look.
“For god’s sake, untie me, please.”
I began to struggle in the ropes, worried the creature would come back to devour me. The numbness was fading, replaced with a sharp and encompassing terror.
“Please, please, please. Let me go. Let me go.” I started to cry, ashamed and embarrassed but desperate to escape from this vulnerable captivity.
Domingo helped Dinesh release me from the ropes, saying soft words to soothe me. There was nobody in the room but the three of us, and I tried to calm myself.
“Here, lie down. Domingo, pull the sheets back. Let’s all lie close together for a moment.”
They settled me into the bed and lay on either side of me, cuddling me between them.
“Are you certain we are alone?” I asked. The creature had looked so real.
“Only us,” Dinesh said. “We are the only ones in this room, I swear.”
“He’s telling you the truth,” Domingo assured me. “There is naught here, though I’m dying to know what you saw.”
“Domingo,” Captain Martin said as if to warn him away from the topic.
Their steady and familiar voices were doing much to settle me. I focused on their closeness and how solid and real they were.
“What? I don’t think burying this is the right idea.” Domingo stroked a hand over my arm. “What did you see, Rooster? You appeared awfully frightened.”
“Aye, I was. I am. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
The captain looked at Domingo over my shoulder. I was facing Dinesh and Domingo was behind me on the bed.
“Simon’s been having nightmares,” Dinesh said.
“Terrible nightmares,” I said, squirming on the mattress, feeling spunk ooze out of me. Which normally would remind me of the pleasant activities we’d enjoyed, but now only made me uncomfortable.
“I’ll get a cloth,” Domingo said, moving off the bed and going over to the washbasin.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m sorry, Rooster. We were having a good time, weren’t we?” Dinesh said.
“Yes, for fuck’s sake. Of course we were. I’d recently finished in your hand, with Domingo’s prick in my arse. I was in heaven. And then, in another instant, I was in hell.” I buried myself in Dinesh’s arms, closing my eyes and resting my forehead against his strong chest.
“Do you mind if I clean you up?” Domingo asked.
“Please,” I said.
So gently, as if I were a babe, he applied the wet cloth to my tender bits, and wiped away the remnants of his and Dinesh’s release.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” he said, kissing me on the shoulder.
He went to move away, but I reached behind me and grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t go.”
“Stay for a bit, will you?” Dinesh suggested. “You’re not simply a quick fuck, you know. You’re our friend, Domingo.”
“I…thank you.” He settled into the bed again, snugging up behind me and putting an arm over me. He stroked the captain’s arm with his fingers. “Tell me about Simon’s dream…”
“Perhaps Simon should tell you.”
“Stop calling me Simon, for fuck’s sake. You’re only making this all seem so bloody serious.”
“Fine,” Dinesh said with a smile. “Rooster. Tell Domingo about the dream.”
“Nightmare.”
“Nightmare.”
I explained the visions to Domingo as best I could.
He might as well know, especially to understand why I’d reacted the way I had.
Domingo made the sign of the cross over his chest, which didn’t exactly soothe me.
“Sorry. The gesture is a reflex. Mostly.”
“I was fine in Talamanca. I had no dreams or nightmares at all.” Then I remembered the tentacle. And the spiders.
“Fuck.”
“What now?” Dinesh asked.
“I, uh…I didn’t tell you, but—” I glanced at Dinesh and then looked at Domingo. “—there was an incident…in the ocean.”
“What kind of an incident?” Dinesh asked, his expression gone very grave.
I didn’t want to tell him.
“We were swimming, you see, the three of us,” Domingo said. “And Squid and I noticed that Simon was…was not where he had been.”
“I don’t understand,” Dinesh said. “What do you mean?”
“I fell asleep, that’s all,” I explained. “But to my own mind it seemed that a…a creature had grabbed me and pulled me under.”
Dinesh’s eyes went wide. “The creature?”
I nodded. “But it must have been a dream. Surely.”
“You went under?”
“I did. But Squid and Domingo found me and got me to the surface.”
Dinesh looked suddenly like he wanted to throw up.
“I’m sure I would have recovered myself, even if they hadn’t been there. But they were.”
Dinesh grabbed me and pulled me to him, holding me so close I could feel his heart beating frantically. “Rooster. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to frighten you. And I convinced myself it was nothing.”
He glared at Domingo then. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”
Domingo shrugged, but he looked worried as well.
“Simon asked us not to. We didn’t want to worry you, Dinesh.”
“Right. Of course. Well, I’m quite worried now.”
I took a breath. “I’m afraid that’s not all.”
“What else? I don’t like it when you keep things from me.”
“I know, but I didn’t want you to think…that I was going mad.”
“What else?”
I swallowed, embarrassed and ashamed that I hadn’t told him.
“On our way back from the tidal pool, the first time we went, I swear to god I walked through a massive spider web and when I looked down, there were black spiders crawling all over my legs. I swear it.”
“Good God,” Dinesh said, and Domingo made the sign of the cross again.
I frowned at him.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he said, looking regretful but also very worried.
“But there was nothing. When I looked, there was nothing,” Dinesh asserted.
“Yes. And I didn’t want to worry you. And I didn’t know what was happening. I still don’t.”
Dinesh stroked my arm and spoke to Domingo.
“Francis and Jimena were hoping—I was hoping—that the sacred cacao ceremony would banish Rooster’s nightmares for good.”
“I hoped the idea would work. At least the sacred drink tasted good, and we were able to get spliced,” I said.
Dinesh laughed. “As in, married?”
“Aye. That’s the term. Spliced. A Smithfield bargain. Leg shackled. You know.”
“Surprised you agreed to the ritual, then.”
“Are you?”
“Not really. You do enjoy being restrained.”
I punched his arm. “Thanks.”
“Nothing wrong with that, especially since I enjoy rope work. And having you at my mercy.”
I sighed. “God, I was having such fun before that fucking thing came into my head. Why am I being tortured, Dinesh? Why?”
Domingo kissed my shoulder. “You’re a sensitive fellow. You’ve been feeling bad about the whole”—he waved his hand in the air over me—“Cayonne business.”
“Domingo…” Dinesh warned.
“No, he’s right. I have been. And perhaps this…hallucination…is an echo of that guilt and shame,” I said.
“Exactly,” Domingo said.
“But then…how do I stop them? How do I go back to sleeping soundly again?”
“Well that, I don’t know,” Domingo said.
“Perhaps we need to talk about what happened,” Dinesh said, gazing at me with a steady confidence.
“What do you mean?”
“Cayonne. And everything that went before. And what happened the other day.”
“My powers.”
“Your powers,” he confirmed. “We’ve been trying to forget about them. You’ve been trying to bury them. But we needed them to deal with the Eloise and they worked beautifully.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that we don’t understand them. You don’t understand them. And you don’t really have any control over them. Perhaps if you did, you would sleep easier. And not be inclined to hallucinate—”
“You think I simply imagined that thing? And the spiders? And the tentacle that pulled me under?”
“I think it’s quite possible.”
“But what about the incident on the deck, when I leaned so far over the side that I—”
“I don’t know, Rooster. I don’t know. But I will do everything in my power to protect you. From whatever this is.”
“And, for what it’s worth, so will I,” Domingo murmured, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
***
I’d promised Dinesh I’d be available the next day to talk with him and come up with a plan to work on perfecting the minimal amount of control I had over my powers.
I wasn’t looking forward to the discussion, let alone the actual work.
I’d only summoned the forces twice on purpose, and I still wasn’t sure how I’d managed the job, or if I could do the same again.
When I told Dinesh, he said that was even more of a reason to practice and reminded me we had come out of both those situations alive, which surely wouldn’t have been the case if I hadn’t called upon them.
But I avoided him all morning, taking Pearl down below decks to play, introducing her to the goats and chickens so she wouldn’t be scared by them or see them as prey, and continuing to teach her where she was allowed to piss and shit.
She was doing well in that regard, although there had been some accidents early on, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with using a bucket of water sluiced over the deck.
“What are you doing down here, mate?” Martinéz asked when he caught sight of me in the corner where my old hammock still hung, although now the spot was Squid’s, who lolled there with his bare feet hooked on the edge and watched me play with Pearl.