Vertigo Effect: The Eighth Jonathan Shade Novel Page 10

  “Do we have any SCUBA gear?” Kelly asked.

  “Are you certified?” Angela asked.

  “No, but how hard can it be?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Angela said as she went through cabinets. “We don’t have any. There are a few life jackets, and dive masks, but that’s it unless either of you want a machete.”

  “I’d love a machete,” Kelly said.

  “Leave it,” I said. “We don’t need that. We need oxygen tanks and gear.”

  “I like machetes,” Kelly said, but Angela put it back in the cabinet with the vests.

  “I’ll check our boat for gear,” I said and hopped back to the bowrider.

  Esther popped in front of me as I reached for a container. I jumped back, startled.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “What are they doing down there?”

  “Terrell is down there completely naked, and he’s holding a gigantic shark upside down. Meghan and Bill are in wetsuits, and they’re plucking teeth from the shark’s mouth.”

  I blinked. “Did I hear you correctly?”

  “You did.”

  “What the fuck is he—? Never mind. What kind of shark?” I asked.

  “A big one.”

  “Does it have a T-shaped head?”

  “No. It’s like the shark in that Jaws movie that scared the bejeezus out of me.”

  “A Great White? In Florida? In August?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me,” she said. “Why would he hold it upside down?”

  “To put it in tonic immobility. If he keeps it that way for long, it will suffocate.”

  “They kept looking up at our boat,” Esther said.

  “Good. They’ll surface soon. I guess we just wait.” What I really wanted to do was get the hell out of there. I signed up to find a killer, not to deal with a dead guy who came back trying to win the Badass of the Century Award.

  I sat down, and hoped I’d be able to get back up without showing any pain. My legs and back grew stiff, and my abrasions stung. My knee throbbed, and my shoulders ached. I made a note to soak in the hotel hot tub when we got back.

  If we got back.

  What the hell kind of guy will jump into the ocean in the nude, and intentionally wrestle a Great White shark? What the hell could he possibly want with the predator’s teeth? And why the hell was I out here trying to catch him? As he was walking, talking, swimming, and beating the shit out of Jaws, my mission to find his killer no longer existed. Right?

  And if he came back as something else, was that really my problem? I could be lying on the silvery sands of Anguila’s lovely beaches. Maybe kick back at Rendezvous Bay to enjoy the sun and calm waters with some reggae music playing softly in the distance. Sadly, my only rendezvous was going to be with a guy who yanked teeth from the mouths of living sharks. Way to go, dude.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Terrell surfaced first. He shot out of the water like a breaching whale to catch the side of the speedboat. He pulled himself up and inside to stand dripping on the deck. The courtesy lights were brighter than I realized. Terrell stood naked and proud.

  “I see we have visitors,” he said.

  “Surprise,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “We heard your boat coming from miles away.”

  Kelly kept her distance, her muscles tensing for whatever action she might need to take.

  “We just want to talk,” I said as I pushed myself to my feet. My knees screamed and one of the cuts reopened. I pretended it didn’t hurt as I jumped from the bowrider to the speedboat. “No need for violence.”

  “She’s ready for a fight,” Terrell said. “I can sense it in her.”

  “I’m always ready for a fight,” Kelly said.

  I stepped between them, hands out to keep Terrell back and to show I wasn’t holding a weapon. I had my gun, but I was too close to be able to draw and use it before he could reach me. And the last thing I wanted was for him to toss me into shark-infested waters. He might like to swim with them, but not me.

  “Let’s all be cool here,” I said.

  Angela kept her distance. “Terrell, baby, what happened?” she said.

  He met her gaze, but didn’t seem to recognize her. “I’m gathering a few essentials for my ritual,” he said.

  “Don’t you know me?” she asked. Her voice cracked with emotion as she spoke.

  “What ritual?” I asked.

  He smirked and didn’t respond.

  I heard splashing behind Terrell.

  He glanced over. “My friends are ready to come aboard,” he said.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Movie stars eaten by sharks would make for a bad headline.”

  “Oh, that shark won’t be aggressive for a while,” Terrell said. “He needs some recovery time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He laughed. “I can see the ghost you have with you. She came down to watch. Surely she told you what we were doing.”

  “Ghost?” Angela asked.

  “She’s watching from the other boat,” Terrell said. “Cute white woman in her late twenties. Looks like she stepped off the set of The Great Gatsby.”

  “Give me a hand,” Bill Dolan said.

  Terrell moved to the side, reached down and pulled Bill onto the boat. A moment later, Terrell pulled Meghan aboard as well.

  The movie stars stood in tight wetsuits. They pushed their dive masks up on their heads, and shrugged out of their oxygen tanks.

  “Welcome aboard, Jack,” Bill said, and I didn’t bother to correct him.

  “We weren’t expecting company,” Meghan said. She walked up to me and ran a finger under my chin. “But I can’t say as I mind.”

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  “What does it look like?” Meghan asked. “We went on a night dive. It was radical.” She removed her belt, unzipped her wetsuit and peeled it off. She wore a blue bikini underneath. Her knees were still bandaged, and I knew the salt water had to burn them, but she didn’t complain. “Toss me a towel?”

  Bill went to one of the seats and got a towel for her. He threw it over and she caught it. He stripped out of his wetsuit to reveal he had Speedos underneath it. I was thankful for that because there was already too much sausage on display.

  “Can you toss Terrell a towel too?” I asked.

  Terrell smiled, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “Do I intimidate you?”

  “Only a lot,” I said.

  Kelly stepped up beside me. “Do you want me to kill him?” she whispered.

  Terrell laughed. “You can’t kill me, little woman, I’m immortal.”

  “And you have damn good hearing.”

  “Indeed I do.”

  “So what’s the story?” I said. “Somebody needs to start talking here.”

  “You don’t need to know,” Terrell said.

  “I do,” Angela said. “What happened to you?”

  “Let me simply say this. Once, this body belonged to a man, but now it belongs to a god. I was once Chike Okonjo, priest of the Vodon, now lord of Vodon.”

  “All righty then, Brother Voodoo,” I said.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Right you are. I think his name in the comics was Jericho Drumm.”

  “You don’t believe I’m Okonjo?”

  “Nobody said that. Did you plant the hex bag yourself?” I asked.

  He smiled, proud of himself. “I used Terrell for that. His blood, his semen.”

  “Gross,” I said, thinking about how I’d stirred the contents with my finger. “Let’s all just head back to the mainland. We can sort all this out later.”

  “Teeth,” Terrell said.

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly, but Meghan clearly did because she took a black bag from the belt she’d been wearing, and stepped forward. She opened the bag and Terrell reached inside. He withdrew a handful of triangular shark
teeth. She moved to Bill and he grabbed some teeth for himself. Then she dumped the remaining teeth into her own hand.

  “Cool,” I said. “You can all make necklaces when we get back to Miami.”

  Terrell stuck a shark tooth into his gums above his own teeth. He inserted another, and another until he had five teeth jutting from his gum line. He curled his lips back and the teeth fused to his mouth. When he smiled, he looked, well, terrifying. He stuck more teeth into his mouth for the lower level, and they, too, fused to him.

  Bill and Meghan followed suit.

  “It’s all fun and games until someone cuts their lips open,” I said.

  “You do not respect me,” Terrell said, though his words weren’t enunciated properly due to the extra teeth in his mouth. And sure enough, those teeth cut into his lips and blood trickled down his chin.

  “Dude, I respect the shit out of you,” I said. “You are one bad ass motherfucker.”

  Kelly moved up beside me. “Maybe you should get back to the other boat,” she said.

  Terrell laughed. “The man is correct,” he said. “It’s time to go back to Miami.”

  I pushed Kelly back. Her method would be to attack, and while I felt the tension in the air, I also thought I could still talk him down.

  “It’s all good,” I said. “We’re friends here. No worries.”

  Terrell stared into my eyes. “The next thing we need is to taste the blood of our former species.”

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t all good.

  Terrell pointed at Angela and Kelly. “Eat of their flesh!”

  And he rushed toward me, shark teeth glistening in the courtesy lights, the tips stained red from cutting into his own lips.

  I punched him in those shark teeth, and succeeded in cutting up my fist. He slammed into me, and drove me over the side of the boat. I smacked my head on the bowrider, and we bounced off it into the dark water.

  Teeth sank into my shoulder. I tried to shove Terrell away, but I was too stunned from taking the hit to the back of my head. I gulped seawater and choked. Terrell shoved me down and released me. My shoulder flared with pain. My hand burned. My head throbbed. My lungs cried out. Salt water stung my eyes, but thanks to the lights on the boat, I knew which way to swim. I followed the bubbles up and broke the surface, coughing and gagging. I pulled much needed air into my lungs.

  My shoulder was cut to shit. I tried to reach up to the side of the boat, and couldn’t grab anything. The boats bounced against each other. I heard the sounds of a struggle on the speedboat.

  Esther appeared before me above the water.

  “Esther!” I said.

  “They’re attacking Angela!”

  “Where’s Kelly?”

  As soon as I spoke her name, Kelly flew backward from the speedboat onto the bowrider. Terrell leaped across the gap toward her. I heard a solid smack, and Terrell flew back to the speedboat, and Kelly leaped after him.

  Something splashed in the water on the other side of the speedboat. My first thought was shark!

  I couldn’t get onto the boat from here, so I swam around the other side and bumped against something solid. I touched it, and it felt slick on one side with odd bumps and indentations. The other side was stringy. I held it up to get a better look in the dim light from the boat.

  I held Angela’s severed head.

  “Oh, shit! Esther!”

  Esther popped into sight before me.

  “What’s happening up there?” I struggled to tread water. Every stroke hurt my shoulder and hand. There was nothing to grab to pull myself up, so I was stuck in the water.

  “Kelly is holding her own against the three of them,” Esther said. “But Terrell has a big machete!”

  “I can’t get up there.”

  “The back of the bowrider,” Esther said.

  “Swim platform,” I said. The blow to my head must have really knocked me senseless. I needed to join the fray. I tried to swim toward the back of the boat to go around to the bowrider.

  Terrell sailed over my head and splashed into the ocean ten feet away. I spun around, thrashing in the water. He surfaced.

  “Nice shot!” he yelled. “But I’ll soon taste your flesh!” He swam toward the boat.

  I dropped below the surface and waited. As soon as he was in range, I tried to kick him, but underwater it’s not as easy to move. I connected, but it wasn’t enough to make any difference. He shot up out of the water and caught the side of the boat. I tried to do the same, but couldn’t manage it. I needed to get to the other boat.

  “They’d better be alive,” Terrell said.

  “For now,” Kelly said.

  I fell beneath the water for a moment and missed Terrell’s reply. Sounds of impact. This time, Kelly flew off the side of the boat and splashed into the water. A few moments later, she popped up and shook the hair from her eyes.

  “Kelly!” I called. “Are you all right?”

  “The son of a bitch tried to bite me,” she said and swam to the boat. “Are you sorry you told me to put back that machete now?”

  “And how,” Esther said, floating in the air above us.

  Kelly arced beneath the surface, and shot upward out of the water. She caught the side of the boat and started to pull herself up, but Terrell kicked her in the face and her fingers slipped from the wet rails. She fell back into the water.

  She surfaced, and shook her head. “He has a flare gun.”

  Terrell peered over the side of the boat and aimed the gun at us.

  “Look out!” Esther shouted.

  We dived into the depths.

  I held my breath as long as I could. Light grew brighter from the bowrider. I swam up to grab a breath and heard the speedboat engine start. The boat powered away, and I had to dive under to avoid the propellers. I surfaced at the same time as Kelly.

  “He’s getting away!” Esther said.

  The speedboat raced toward the mainland.

  Flames engulfed the bowrider.

  “We have to put out the fire,” I said and started to swim toward it.

  “The fire is concentrated on the gas tank,” Kelly said, and grabbed my foot. She pulled me toward her and I got another lungful of water. I coughed. “Dive!” she said, and shoved me down.

  I barely got a breath of air.

  The bowrider exploded.

  Chunks of fiberglass crashed into the ocean. The next time we surfaced for air, we found ourselves in the middle of a burning debris field.

  Esther hovered in the air, scanning the ripples for motion.

  All I could think of at that moment was the movie Open Water where the two divers are left in the middle of the ocean to struggle and fight only to be eaten by sharks. And sure enough, as soon as I thought about that, a dorsal fin broke the surface twenty yards away, lit by the burning remains of the bowrider.

  The dorsal fin glided closer.

  “Uh oh,” Esther said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kelly swam in front of me, and when the shark got close enough, she punched it in the snout. The shark swerved around us and kept swimming.

  “I’m glad that worked,” I said.

  “Me too,” Kelly said. “If not, I’d have had to hit it again with my stump.”

  “I’ll warn you if it comes back,” Esther said. “Unless you want me to follow the speedboat.”

  “I think we need you here,” I said. “Can you go underwater and keep an eye out for sharks and other hazards?”

  Esther nodded. “I’m on it,” she said and slid beneath the waves.

  The burning boat listed a bit to starboard. The flames weren’t as bad now, but the boat was a goner. I kept treading water, hoping that any sharks didn’t mistake me for food. Did we look like seals from below? Did the fire make our moving limbs look more appetizing? I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

  “We’re at least fifty miles from shore,” I said. “I’m still bleeding, and I don’t fancy the idea of fighting off
sharks all the way back to dry land.”

  “You’re bleeding?” Kelly asked.

  “Terrell bit my shoulder.”

  “Blood in the water will attract more sharks.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Exactly my point.”

  “Wait here,” Kelly said, “I’ll see if I can salvage any life jackets.” She swam toward the remains of the bowrider.

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll be a bleeding bobber. Hey, sharks, want a tasty morsel? Here I am. Come and get me.”

  The cold water made my teeth chatter. My shoulder throbbed. I held my right hand above the water, and angled it so the flames could let me assess the damage. My knuckles were cut, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared. I kicked my way to a larger piece of the boat. It looked like one of the seat cushions. I grabbed hold and it helped keep me afloat. I kept my right hand on top. My knuckles bled a little. A glance at my shoulder told me that was superficial too. No chunks of flesh were missing, so it was just deep scratches more than anything. They hurt, but they weren’t life threatening.

  Blood in the water around sharks might change that, of course, so I pulled myself as high onto that cushion as I could.

  Kelly climbed aboard the burning boat. She stood out in silhouette as she opened hatches. The third hatch was the charm, and she rose holding two life jackets. She donned one, grabbed something else from the hatch, and jumped back into the ocean.

  When she reached me, she handed me an orange life jacket. “Put this on,” she said.

  “What else did you grab?” I asked as I struggled into the vest.

  She smiled and held up a loaded speargun.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Just in case,” she said. “Can you swim?”

  “Fifty miles?”

  “We might have some swells and currents to help.”

  “Or hinder. Maybe we should stay by the boat in case help comes.”

  “Did you report our position to anyone before the boat blew up?”

  “Of course not.”

  “The boat is going down.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Tell you what,” Kelly said. “I’m stronger and more capable than you, so I’ll swim us back to shore. You just hang on to that cushion.”