The Right Words

After the encounter with Namor, Ben had decided it would be safer for them to follow the coastline of Brazil all the way to Cape Horn, rather than braving the high seas. The many shoals and reefs along the coast would deter any attempt at an ambush, and if any pirate was to attack them from the open sea, the Excelsior's boilers would allow her to outrun the enemy. Even if worse came to worst and they were forced to seek refuge inland, the Portuguese government, an ally of England, would provide them with a safe harbor. And so that was what they had been doing, always keeping that faint blue line in view on the western horizon. Johnny watched that line eagerly, for they had never ventured this far south, save for their ill-fated voyage on the Fantastic, and he had heard many wondrous tales of the strange creatures that dwelled in the jungles lining that shore. So far, though, it had been quiet. The ship glided smoothly over a calm sea, the wind blew strong and steady most days, and there was no sign of another ship, either friends or foes. Sometimes, Johnny could almost pretend they were simply on an extended patrol, chasing after a pirate ship as they so often did, until the deepening shadows under Sue's eyes or the expanding streaks of gray on Reed's temples would remind him that Franklin was out there somewhere, lost and alone and afraid, and fear for his nephew would gnaw at Johnny's insides again.

And of course, Shalla-Bal's presence was a constant reminder that this was no ordinary expedition. Even though Johnny had promised her privacy, she seemed determined to prove herself trustworthy to them by never staying anywhere on her own except when she slept, and even then, she insisted on being locked in the cabin. When they were working on the upper deck, she went with them, staying out of the way or helping with what she could. At first, Ben had set her to mending the sails, but after she admitted that she was no good with a needle—a strange deficiency for a seafarer, since any sailor, man or woman, had to learn to sew the moment they set foot on a ship—he had asked her to catch some fish for their dinner instead. They had left Nassau in such a hurry that Ben hadn't had a chance to stock up on supplies beyond the barest necessities, and their stores were inadequate to last them the entire voyage.    

"I must say, she's handy with a fishing line," Ben said, in response to Johnny's question.

As they watched, Shalla-Bal hauled her lines up. At the end of each was a large fish that flopped and squirmed and gasped angrily at the air. Carefully, almost gently, she removed the hooks from their mouths, put them in a barrel of seawater where they could be kept fresh, and dropped the lines over the side again. Johnny, remembering the way she had found the island, agreed that Shalla-Bal possessed an almost uncanny knowledge of where the fish were and how they behaved. They practically threw themselves onto her lines.

"And anyway, it doesn't matter what I think of her," Ben continued pointedly. "What matters is that I believe she can lead us to Galactus."

Johnny noted that Ben hadn't said they could trust Shalla-Bal. After her reveal about her daughter, the others, especially Sue, had softened a great deal toward her, but they still treated her with certain wariness. The four of them agreed that Galactus had taken Franklin as bait, meaning he knew they were coming and was probably waiting for them, to taunt them and toy with them. If what Shalla-Bal had told Johnny after their flight from Tortuga was true—that Galactus wanted to take them down himself as revenge for his defeat three years ago—then there would be no sneaking attack, no ambush. Galactus had had plenty of chances for that ever since they left Nassau and ventured into his territory on their own, without support from the Navy. No, it would be a fierce battle, an inevitable clashing of two forces where only one would emerge alive. Even if Shalla-Bal was secretly following Galactus' orders, it wouldn't make much of a difference to that battle. She wouldn't try to sabotage them and risk robbing her master of his thunder and glory in defeating the Four. Still, Johnny liked to think that she wouldn't betray them, not because she was afraid of Galactus or worried for her daughter, but simply because it was not in her nature to be deceitful.

Johnny had pressed Ben for his opinion of Shalla-Bal because he hadn't been able to sort out his own feelings. She was quite unlike any woman he'd ever met, from the simpering ladies of polite society to the seductive women of the many harbor towns he had been through. While those women were falling at his feet, she never gave him the time of day, and that only made her all the more intriguing and alluring. And then there were her looks—with that elfin face, she wouldn't be called a beauty in fashionable circles, but there was something arresting about it that made Johnny unable to take his eyes off her. Watching her fish, with her white-blonde curls dancing in the breeze like they had a life of their own, seeing those eyes brighten with simple joy at each catch, was like watching the sea itself, with its rippling silver-crested waves and its water changing color under the sun, now a clear aquamarine, now a brilliant cerulean, now a deep sapphire. 

As if sensing Johnny's gaze on her, Shalla-Bal looked up from her lines. Their eyes met. Whenever Johnny caught the eye of a young lady, the girl would blush and turn away, but now, it was he who found his cheeks turning hot, and he had to cast his gaze to the horizon behind her, as if he had just happened to look in her direction.

"Stop that," Ben said.

"Stop what?" Johnny asked, the picture of innocence.

"Mooning at the pirate woman who we don't yet know if we can trust."

"I wasn't—" Johnny began to protest, but a look from Ben immediately silenced him. His family understood him all too well.

He knew he was in danger of falling in love with Shalla-Bal. And he knew it wasn't wise—even if she weren't a pirate and working for their arch-nemesis, he knew nothing about her family or her past, other than the fact that she was a widow with a young daughter. Besides, his nephew was missing. This was not the time to be losing his head and his heart to a strange woman who showed no sign of caring for him. But he couldn't help it. It was a terrible habit of his, always falling in love with the most unsuitable women.

"Herbie seems to like her," he pointed out to Ben.

Herbie never liked strangers, yet ever since Shalla-Bal set foot on the Excelsior, the little dog had attached himself to her. Now, he ran around her in circles, barking excitedly every time she caught a fish, tugging at the lines to help her haul them in. For her part, Shalla-Bal seemed to enjoy Herbie's company too. She spoke to him and petted him and even smiled at him once or twice, which filled Johnny with jealousy. What did the dog have that he didn't?

But playtime appeared over for Shalla-Bal. She suddenly looked up and slowly scanned the horizon with a frown, the fishing lines forgotten. At her feet, Herbie seemed to have sensed something as well. He stopped pushing his nose under her hand to demand pets and stood rooted to the spot, his nose in the air, his ears up, his hackles rising.

"What is it?" Johnny called down to them. Shalla-Bal didn't answer. Like Herbie, she was standing still, her whole body poised and her head tilted, as if she was waiting for something, or listening for something.

And then Johnny heard it—ethereal voices, singing that familiar, haunting melody. He hadn't heard those voices since leaving Nassau, and now they were here, much closer and louder, pulling at his heartstrings with a force so powerful that it almost hurt. Yet at the same time, he wasn't sure if he was really hearing them, or if they were simply in the back of his mind, like a song remembered rather than heard.

Sue and Reed were coming up. "It's Franklin!" Sue cried out, her eyes wide. Turning to Reed, she asked, "You heard it too, didn't you? He's calling us!"

"Yes, yes, I heard him," Reed said, clutching her hand. His usually calm demeanor was gone—his neckcloth was crooked, his hair was ruffled, and there was a fevered look in his eyes that Johnny had never seen before. "Franklin!" Reed shouted.

Sue joined him. "Franklin! Where are you? We're coming!"

Johnny strained his ears, but he heard nothing save for the wind and the waves and those voices. Behind him, Ben was saying, "Alicia, wait for me," and walked toward the bow, along with Sue and Reed, leaving the helm unattended.

Johnny joined them. Herbie was barking, but Johnny no longer heard the dog. The sun, the sky, the ship, his family, all disappeared. Nothing remained but the singing in his ears, drowning out everything else. He hit the railings and gripped them with hands that were literally on fire. The voices grew to a crescendo. He couldn't breathe. The deck under his feet and the railings were boxing him in like a jail cell. He had to break it apart, burn it down to the waterline if need be. It was the only way for him to reach the one thing that mattered—the sea.

***

Shalla felt the voices before she heard them, a vibration through the fishing lines in her hands, but as she wasn't in the water, the sound took a while to reach her ears. Herbie, with his canine hearing, was already growling by the time the singing came on the wind. The last time she'd heard it had been when she was approaching Nassau in the Silver Syren, though she hadn't dared to answer. Now, the sweet sound filled her ears and her heart, just as it filled the air. She recognized the melody—it was the one she had often sung to Elmar, and her mother to her before. The singing was different from her own, of course—each family had its own dialect and tone—but it was still achingly familiar, enough to bring tears to her eyes.

A warning bark from Herbie broke her reverie. The Four were walking toward the bow. Lady Susan and her husband were crying out for their child, Captain Grimm was calling to someone named Alicia, and Storm's eyes were glazed over and fixed on the horizon as though it held the key to life itself. He set his hands on fire and grasped the railing tightly, no doubt intending to burn it down. Already, the wood under his palms was scorched.

No, no, no... This would not do. Caught in a wave of homesickness, Shalla had forgotten that those voices were not singing to her. She might have recognized the song as that of a mother to her child, but to the humans, the song had only one purpose—to lure them to their death.

"Herbie!" she shouted, dipping a bucket into her barrel of seawater and nodding toward Storm. "Stop him!"

The dog understood her order perfectly—he always did, just as the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea understood her. He ran toward his master, grabbed the tail of Storm's jacket between his teeth, and pulled with all his might. As Storm stumbled back, Shalla doused him with the bucket of water, and another, and another. That should quench his flames for long enough for her to stop the singing.

"Hello there!" she called out in her true language. "Whoever you are, do not harm these people. They are my—" Shalla was not sure if she could call them friends just yet, so she settled for allies. "They're my allies! Please, do not harm them."

There was no answer. She turned around, searching for the speaking-trumpet that was often used to hail other ships, and found herself face to face with Storm. The cold water had momentarily shaken him out of his trance. His short blonde hair was plastered to his forehead, dripping water into his eyes, but he didn't seem to care.

"It's you," he whispered, reaching out a hand toward her. "It's you I heard."

Caught by surprise, Shalla stood there like a fool, while he caressed her face. What the devil did he mean? What had he heard? But his hand was warm on her skin, and it had been so long, too long, since she'd been touched in such a gentle way. Now it was her turn to be entranced, entranced by the feather-light touch on her cheek, by the look of awe and wonder in those deep blue eyes...

The deck lurched beneath their feet, sending her straight into his arms. Her forehead smashed into his chin, and Shalla saw stars. She scrambled to untangle herself from Storm's less-than-tender embrace and looked up. The ship was drifting off her course, straying dangerously close to the reef. Pushing Storm off, she ran for the helm and spun the wheel hard to starboard. But it was too heavy for her. A great groan came from the bowels of the ship as her hull crashed against some rocks, and the entire thing shuddered as though caught in an earthquake, threatening to rip the wheel from her hands. If she couldn't stop or turn the ship now, the rocks would tear through the ship like dried seaweed. The singing continued relentlessly. It was no longer sweet or melancholy, but had taken on a rather sinister tone, like the keening to mourn a dead man.

Shalla looked at the Four. They were useless—Storm was lying on his back like a beached seal, Lady Susan was blinking in and out of visibility, and she and Commodore Richards were close to collapsing over the phantom of their lost child, and there was more creaking of wood as Captain Grimm tried to tear out the deck with his bare hands, in search of the elusive Alicia. No, they were worse than useless, they were a danger to themselves and the ship.

"Herbie, some rope!" Shalla said.

The dog dragged over a coil of rope from the poop deck. Shalla wound some around the wheel and used the rest to bind Storm to the mainmast. To make sure that he couldn't set himself on fire and burn through the rope, she poured more seawater on him. As for the other three, Shalla knew she couldn't use the rope on Grimm, who would tear through it in a blink of an eye. Lady Susan might turn invisible and impossible to find, and Commodore Richards would be able to stretch himself long and thin enough to slip through the binding. She had to calm them the only way she knew how. She sang.

Her singing wasn't powerful enough to work on all of them, but she prayed that when she concentrated on just one person, it could overcome those unknown voices. She picked another familiar melody, one from a wise old woman to a young girl, to assure Grimm that his beloved Alicia was waiting for him, and convince him that he must stay at the helm if he wanted to see her again. It seemed to be working. Grimm's countenance turned blank and peaceful, and he let her lead him to the helm, like a child, and even suffered to be lashed to the wheel. That should keep the ship on a straight course. Then, running back to Susan and Richards, she sang to them with the same melody, telling them to go below and see to the damage in the hull. Because there were two of them, this took her longer, and she had to raise her voice to drown out the other singing. Once they went down the ladder, she shut the hatch behind them and barred it close. Even if the power of her voice waned and they didn't do what she told them, at least they would be out of the way.

The ship skirted past another outcrop of rocks. Thanks to Grimm, she returned to her original course after only a brief moment of hesitation. The other voices rose in panic, as though the ship had come close to their hiding place. Shalla looked over the larboard railing. There they were—they had ducked behind the rocks again, but her sharp eye caught some movements, flowing dark hair blending in with the rocks, a flash of iridescent scales.

Throwing a rope ladder over the taffrail, she climbed down and jumped into the water.

"Please," she called, swimming toward the rocks. Her voice was hoarse, breathless after all the exertion, so she cleared her throat and said, more loudly, "We do not mean you harm. I beg of you, let us go in peace."

The singing stopped.

"You are Shalla-Bal, are you not?" said a voice. "The one they have been searching for?"

Shalla was confused, but she answered anyway. "I am."

"And do you swear by Neptune and Thetis, by all the Nereids, by all the gods and goddesses of the sea, and by your blood, that you will not bring harm upon us?"

"I swear it," Shalla said solemnly.

A face appeared behind the rocks, and then another, and another, and more, until Shalla was surrounded. There was no hostility in their gaze upon her, only curiosity. They were darker than her people, with blue-black hair and skin as brown as the timber of a weathered ship. The speaker was doubtless their matriarch, an older woman with graying hair that flowed down her back and several strands of cowrie shells around her neck.

Shalla bowed to the old woman. Her human clothes hampered her underwater movements, making them rather clumsy compared to the free, graceful twists and turns of these people, but she did her best to show the appropriate sign of respect.

"My apologies for the damage to your ship, Shalla-Bal," the matriarch said, gesturing to the hole in the hull. "We thought you were bringing the Devourer upon us."

"How do you know my name?" Shalla asked. "Who has been searching for me?"

"Why, your family, of course," the matriarch said. The word sent a jolt through Shalla. "Your story is known throughout the seven seas. Ever since your sacrifice, your family has been looking for you, to express their gratitude."

Guilt and relief fought each other in Shalla's heart and choked her throat. She'd believed that if her family knew what she had done for Galactus, they would have nothing but contempt for her. But it turned out that they understood. It was why they used that melody, the song of a mother singing to her daughter, to call for her, the lost daughter. If only that understanding was enough to wipe out her crimes, to help her forget those screaming men...

"But tell me, child, why are you here?" the matriarch continued. "And who are the humans you're sailing with? Where is the Devourer? He was last seen in these waters not too long ago. Have you escaped him?"

Shalla shook her head. "I can only truly escape him once he is dead," she said. "The humans are helping me with that."

"Humans, helping one of us?" The matriarch sounded skeptical.

If someone had told Shalla this before she arrived at Nassau, she would have shared the skepticism. Now, having voyaged with the Four for several days, she was no longer so certain. But there was no time to explain her complicated feelings to the matriarch. The ship was drifting away, and she would need to swim fast to catch up with it.

"They have their good qualities," she said briefly. "Thank you for delivering my family's message. If I don't see them—" She broke off, not wishing to give voice to her fears. The matriarch nodded in comprehension.

"We shall spread the news," the martriarch said. "May Neptune watch over you, Shalla-Bal."

Shalla bowed again. With a flick of her fin, the matriarch and her family disappeared into the water, and Shalla turned the other way, swimming back to the Excelsior.

"Your flight from Nassau has spread on the four winds, Johnny my boy," Namor said. "You have every pirate from here to Cape Horn searching for you. They all want a piece of the Human Torch. And when I heard you were seen fleeing from Tortuga with a blonde in tow, I had to see for myself. Alas, your companion here, as easy on the eyes as she is, is no Lady Susan. She looks lively enough, I grant you that. Did you pick her up from one of Tortuga's brothels?"

This was the third time in less than a day she'd been called a whore. It was intolerable. However cruel Galactus might be, at least Shalla had never been insulted and degraded when she sailed under him.

"I'll show you lively!" she shouted.

She had managed to free the dirk, and now, grasping it in both hands, she brought it down on the leviathan's fist. The dirk's sharp point pierced the creature's thick hide, and dark blood, viscous and black under the moonlight, spurted out. Such a blow might feel like nothing more than a pinprick to the leviathan, but even a pinprick could startle it and make it let go. The grip around Shalla's waist loosened, and she was flung onto the sand, the air knocked out of her, while the leviathan shook its fingers, trying to dislodge the dirk that was stuck hilt-deep in its skin, like a person shaking off a mosquito. As it bent over and swept its palm across the sand, searching for its dropped prey, Shalla seized the dirk and pulled it out, before rolling over and hiding under a snapped coconut tree.

"Storm!" she screamed. "Put your flames on and fly us out of here!"

Storm lifted his head at her call, but his effort to turn into fire was unsuccessful—any flame he conjured up fizzled out and died in a cloud of steam. Namor saw this too, and shook his head at Storm.

"Oh no, we can't have that," he said, like he was reprimanding a child, and flicked his wrist at the leviathan holding Storm. The creature immediately plunged Storm into the sea, dipping him several times to make sure he was well and drenched. By the time it took him out, Storm's head was lolling back, his body was limp, and his face deadly pale. Namor watched it all with something akin to amusement in his cruel eyes. He was toying with Storm, Shalla realized.

Well, if Storm was indisposed, then she would have to save them both. The leviathans were mindless beasts, and there was nothing she could do to them. Their controller, on the other hand... Namor might be powerful, but there was only one of him, and her magic would still work on him.

Shalla opened her mouth. Before she could summon her voice, however, Namor lifted the seashell to his lips and blew into it.

A long, deep note sounded from the shell. It reverberated through the air, penetrating through Shalla's flesh and bones, reaching into her heart. Her voice died in her throat. She couldn't stand up, couldn't even move a finger. The leviathans were similarly affected. They stood stock still, slightly hunched over, their eyes blank, as if waiting for a command.

That command soon came from Namor. "Kill him," he said.

Storm screamed as the leviathan holding him began to tighten its grip, crushing him. To her horror, Shalla found herself getting to her feet, the dirk raised high in her hand, ready to strike at Storm. Her limbs, her entire body, were no longer hers. Invisible strings were tied to them, moving them according to Namor's command, and if she tried to resist, those strings would cut into her skin, her flesh, her bones, with a pain worse than that of keelhauling. Whatever the shell was, it had power over her, just as it had power over the leviathans. Storm's agonized screams echoed through her head until she didn't know if it was he who screamed or if it was her own mind fighting to stop herself from attacking Storm, to break free of this terrible magical prison. Was this how humans felt when they were under her magic? But her magic was always intended to soothe and calm, never to cause pain.  

Namor noticed this as well. He flew down to Shalla's eye level and watched her lurching movements, as her mind warred with her body.

"The Horn of Proteus can only control monsters of the sea, not humans," he said almost to himself, tilting her chin up with the tip of his trident. "You're no ordinary wench, are you?" he asked.

Shalla was saved from having to answer by a furious bark from further down the beach. A dog? It was such a strange, incongruous sound that it broke through the fog in her brain, and she wrenched away from the trident just in time to see a streak of white and brown rushing toward them, followed by three other figures.

"Why not pick on someone your own size, you cowardly lumps?" one of the figures shouted at the leviathans.

For a moment, Shalla thought she had lost her mind like the unfortunate Sancho, for the figure looked more like a roughly-hewn statue than a man. Then she remembered the picture of the Four that had been circulating the West Indies. This must be Captain Grimm. Storm's family was coming to save him.

Still locked in the trance the Horn of Proteus had put her under, Shalla could only stand and watch the battle unfold. Grimm punched the leviathan holding Storm, causing it to stumble and drop Storm onto the sand. Lady Susan and her husband were two blurs of movement, both converging on Namor. The pirate soared away on his ankle wings, flitting between them as quickly and gracefully as a butterfly.

"I appreciate your coming to visit me, my darling Susan," he said with a smirk, while stabbing his trident at Commodore Richards with the air of a person brushing off a rather pesky fly, forcing Richards to stretch away, "but this is not how I intended for our reunion to be."

Lady Susan responded by throwing an energy blast at him, which he easily dodged. Behind them, Grimm was facing the remaining leviathans. The little dog ran between their legs, biting and yapping at them. While the two monsters were distracted, Grimm seized the tail of one and swung it like a slingshot toward the other, knocking them down as though they were mere tadpoles.

Seeing this, Namor stopped smiling. He blew the Horn again, and, with a knowing glance at Shalla, said shortly, "Kill them."

The leviathans jumped back on their feet with roars that shook the entire island and ran toward Storm and his family. Their attention was all on the leviathans, so none of them saw Shalla's legs moving toward them, and her arm, the one holding the dirk, rising of its own volition—no, not of its own volition, it was being compelled—to stab them. No! She mustn't! They were her only hope to reach Elmar. If she was seen attacking them, they would never trust her again, and how would she explain the control the Horn had over her?

"The Horn!" she managed to scream at anyone who would listen. Even those two words sent ripples of pain throughout her body, as though the Horn was punishing her for her defiance. "Destroy the Horn!"

From the dune where the leviathan had dropped him, Storm propped himself up on his elbows, wiping the sand from his face. He took one look at the leviathans and the Horn still hanging from Namor's waist, and understanding dawned in his eyes. The sand underneath him started to smoke and bubble as it melted in his growing fire, and there was a loud whoosh as a funnel of molten sand shot toward Namor. Storm hadn't regained his full strength, and the funnel wasn't big enough to knock Namor down, but it sliced through one of his wings, cutting it off.

With a terrible scream, half of pain and half of rage, Namor plunged onto the sand.

"Reed, now!" Lady Susan shouted.

Richards stretched out his arm, snatched the Horn from Namor's waist, and threw it to Grimm, who crushed it in his fist. In an instant, the invisible strings controlling Shalla's body vanished, the pain ceased, and her mind cleared. The leviathans, too, seemed to be waking up from their trance. Their eyes were still blank, but it was the mild blankness of an animal, not that of murderous rage. One by one, they dropped to all four and crawled back into the sea.

Lady Susan engulfed Namor within an energy sphere and lifted him into the air, facing them.

"Fools!" he hissed, squirming helplessly inside the sphere. Having had a taste of the sphere herself, Shalla didn't envy him. "That Horn was the only thing that could control the monsters of the deep. Without it, they will run amok, as they have been for the past year. You stand no chance in these waters. And when your ship inevitably wrecks, my men and I shall be there, waiting."

"Tell me why I shouldn't crush you right now, McKenzie," Lady Susan said coldly.

Namor's angry grimace turned into a leer. "You wouldn't do that to your former betrothed," he said.

"Breaking off our betrothal was the best decision I ever made," Lady Susan said. "Now, if we let you live, will you give me your word that you and your men will not follow us?"

Richards looked shocked. "Sue, you can't possibly let him—"

"We already have the entire Royal Navy fleet after us, we can't afford another set of pursuers," Lady Susan said, before turning back to Namor. "Will you give me your word, with the honor of a Royal Navy officer?"

Storm muttered under his breath, "Former officer." Susan ignored him.

Namor looked at them, his face twisted in impotent rage. "You have my word," eventually he said.

"Thank you," Susan said.

To make absolutely certain, they tied Namor to one of the coconut trees with ropes from the destroyed periagua, and Grimm bent his trident out of shape for extra measure. Once this was done, they went down to the shore, where a launch was waiting to take them to a ship anchored just off the little island, its blue pennant with the Four's insignia on it snapping in the wind—the Excelsior.

Shalla went quietly with them, surrounded by the Four, with the little dog bringing up the rear. She was still a prisoner. But now, with a good ship and the Four together, at least she might have a fighting chance against Galactus.

***

Dawn was breaking by the time they were ready to weigh anchor and steam off. Ben gave Johnny a good sluicing to wash off the sand, and in his old cabin, Johnny found some dry clothes to change into, though it wasn't without regret that he parted with his pirate disguise. The leviathans' watery attack had left the skin on his face, neck, and shoulders red and raw, as though it had been scoured with sandpaper, and his body was sore and bruised, and the scratchiness of his linen shirt only exacerbated his pain. Plus, he couldn't forget the way Shalla-Bal's eyes had lingered on him when she'd first seen him in the black silk. Alas, it was torn beyond repair, so there was nothing to do but to discard it.

When he came out of the cabin, Sue was already outside, waiting. Johnny prepared himself for a tongue-lashing, but it never came.

"I ought to kill you," she said. "But I can't, not when you've almost died." She pulled him into her arms for a fierce hug, before pushing him away to look at him, as sternly as she had when they were children and she'd caught him at some mischief. "I trust you know how foolish you've been, and that you won't be doing anything like that ever again."

"I do," he said sheepishly. "And I won't." All that effort, and he'd accomplished nothing, learned nothing, except that some ships from Tortuga had fallen victim to Galactus somewhere off the coast of Brazil. Hardly the triumphant voyage he'd imagined. On top of that, he'd had to be rescued like a child. Perhaps he was doomed to always be a failure. "How much trouble are we in with the Governor?" he asked.

Sue shook her head. "You've already destroyed half of his fleet, so anything we did after that couldn't make it any worse," she said, though there was some wry amusement in her voice, which told Johnny that he might be forgiven sooner than he'd thought.

"I'm sorry, Sue," he said. "I was only trying to help."

"Did she tell you anything?" Sue asked, indicating the deck above, where Shalla-Bal was having her wound seen to by Reed.

"Only that Galactus's hideout is in the South Seas," Johnny said. "But I'm gaining her trust," he quickly added, lest Sue thought he was utterly incompetent. And it wasn't a complete lie either, he thought to himself, remembering how Shalla-Bal had reached for him when the leviathans were attacking him. He was certain that if he persevered, she would eventually tell them what they needed.

"Good," Sue said. "Then we're on the right course." Her hand went to the locket at her throat, which contained a coil of their mother's hair and a miniature of Franklin, painted by Reed just after Franklin's first birthday. Sue never went anywhere without it, but this gesture of rubbing it was new. It reminded Johnny of the way Shalla-Bal often touched her sea glass pendant.

At that moment, Ben came through the hatch with Shalla-Bal and walked her down the steps. She, too, had washed and changed into some of Sue's old clothes. If Johnny thought Shalla-Bal had looked fetching before in her stolen gown, then the sight of her in male togs—a white shirt, a waistcoat that molded to her slim waist, and her shapely legs encased in breeches and boots—quite took his breath away. He had to compose himself by turning his attention to Herbie, who was winding his way between their legs. Yet Herbie seemed more interested in the newcomer. After stopping briefly to let Johnny scratch his ear, he ran over to Shalla-Bal, sniffed her curiously but amiably, and licked her hand. Shalla-Bal looked bemused, but she gave him a few pats on the head, which sent the dog into a fit of ecstasy.

"Well!" Johnny said in mock offense. "It looks like I've been replaced." At least Herbie's antics had given him a chance to hide his flustered nerves, and he could now turn to Shalla-Bal and ask, quite calmly, "How are you feeling?"

"Better, thanks to the Commodore's ministration," she replied. Through the open collar of her shirt, Johnny could see fresh bandages peeking out, and she smelled faintly of something medicinal—Reed must have put his special salve on the bandages to prevent infection. Her face was still pale, but her eyes were livelier.

"Where are you taking her?" Johnny asked Ben.

"Reed suggested we put her in the aft hold," Ben said.

"You can't!" Johnny exclaimed, aghast. The aft hold was below the waterline, where the bilge stank most vilely, and it was only used for storage, never as a sleeping place, even when they sailed with a full crew. "Why can't she be in the fo'c'sle, where the crew's quarters are?"

Ben looked slightly uncomfortable, and Sue stepped in. "I'd prefer her to be somewhere we can keep an eye on her," she explained.

"She has a name, you know," Johnny said, irritated. "It's Shalla-Bal. And if it wasn't for her, I would still be floundering somewhere near the Exumas, so I don't think we should be treating her as a prisoner."

"I don't mind," Shalla-Bal chimed in.

"I do!" Johnny shouted.

Sue massaged her temple, a sure sign she was losing patience. "If you care so much, perhaps Mistress Shalla-Bal should stay in your cabin, then," she said. "That way, you can keep an eye on her." With that, she went to the upper deck, indicating that the discussion was over. With an amused glance at Johnny, Ben followed her.

Heat flooded Johnny's face, but he opened the door to his cabin anyway, and rushed in ahead of Shalla-Bal to tidy up some of the papers and clothes lying around—which meant shoving them under the bed. "You can have the cabin all to yourself," he said. "I shall put up a hammock on the deck. I prefer sleeping under the stars anyway." Even the idea of revealing his sleeping habits to her felt too intimate, and the heat in his cheeks doubled in strength.

"Thank you" was all Shalla-Bal said, while she looked over the cabin with a curious but not disapproving eye, stopping at his music sheets and the violin on the bed. Those he treated with more care by putting them in the trunk. She added, "I understand that you and your family don't quite trust me, especially your sister. I know how—" She seemed to catch herself, and corrected herself, "I don't blame her." She reached for her throat out of habit. Then her fingers paused just over her neck, and her eyes suddenly widened.

"What is it?" Johnny asked.

"My necklace!" That was when he saw that her neck was without its ever-present sea glass pendant. Shalla-Bal frantically patted her throat, her chest, even her waist, but came up empty.

"Perhaps it fell out when Reed redressed your wound, or when you changed clothes," Johnny suggested. He positively remembered the pendant still on her neck when they stopped at the little island, so she hadn't lost it in Tortuga.

"I don't know—it must have—" Shalla-Bal looked up in horror. "I must have dropped it when I reached for the dirk to stab the leviathan," she said. "I had the dirk in my bodice. The movement had snapped the cord somehow."

"Are you quite certain?" Johnny asked.

But Shalla-Bal didn't answer. The look of horror in her eyes turned into one of loss and heartbreak, and not for the first time, Johnny wondered what that pendant meant to her. Who had given it to her? A friend? A family member, a mother or a sister, perhaps? Or a husband or a lover? It didn't matter. What mattered was the terrible grief on her face, the tears brimming in her eyes, the helpless way she continued to clutch at the empty air around her throat, as if by doing so, she could summon the pendant back. Johnny couldn't stand and watch her cry over her loss like that without doing anything.

"Wait here," he said.

He ran to the upper deck. The island was but a speck over the larboard stern of the Excelsior. Could he reach it and return in time? Turning his flames on, Johnny took to the air.

"Johnny, where are you going?" Ben shouted.

"Go on, I'll catch up!" Johnny said over his shoulder.

It wasn't until the palm fronds sheltering the little island—those that survived the leviathans' rampage—were in sight that Johnny realized he'd been foolish again. Namor could still be here, and Namor's ship, the Atlantis, could be lying in wait on the other side of the island. But he couldn't leave without searching the place first.

Namor was gone. The ropes remained where they'd tied him, but the pirate himself had vanished, and so had the pieces of the Horn of Proteus. To make certain, Johnny rose higher in the air to get an overview of the island. There was no sign of any ship around it, save for a streak of white foam that was the Excelsior, heading south. Breathing a little easier, Johnny landed by the remains of the periagua. The signs of their battle were still there in the churned-up sand, with a densely packed patch here and there, made by the leviathans' footprints. Johnny went on his hands and knees, carefully brushing aside the sand to look for the pendant. The sun was bright now, but it was still quite the search for a needle in a haystack—the leviathans could have crushed the pendant into dust, or they could have pushed it so deep into the sand that there was no chance of unearthing it. Yet Johnny kept at it, with more patience than he'd ever given to any other endeavor in his life. Why should Shalla-Bal's happiness matter to him so? Was it simply because she was the key to saving his nephew, so he had to make sure she was happy and compliant, or was there another reason?

The hot sun beating down on his back reminded Johnny that his family was waiting for him on the Excelsior, and that they were in a race against time to save Franklin. With a sigh, he straightened up and brushed the sand from his palms and knees. He cast one last disappointed look around the beach—and saw it. The pendant, lying half-buried in a patch of sand he could have sworn he had already searched. With a silent prayer to whichever god that watched over lost objects, Johnny snatched the pendant up and flew away, double-quick.

Sue was furious when he returned.

"You gave me your word that you wouldn't do anything foolish again!" she shouted, as Johnny landed on the deck of the Excelsior.

"Sorry, Sue, won't happen again," he said without glancing at Sue, for he had spotted Shalla-Bal at the hatch. With a triumphant grin, he opened his hand to show her the pendant. Her face brightened up so much that Johnny would've gladly faced Namor and the leviathans again, if it meant bringing her such joy. He walked toward her and—

Wham! He ran straight into Sue's force field and went sprawling on the deck. Sue towered over him, her jaw clenched.

"If you do anything to jeopardize this voyage, to jeopardize our effort to save Franklin—"

"No, please!" Shalla-Bal said, running toward the two of them. "Do not blame him on my account. He only went back there to find my necklace for me."

This explanation, if anything, only angered Sue further. "A necklace?" she exclaimed. "You risked your life for a trinket?!"

"It's no trinket!" Shalla-Bal said, equally angry. "It's the only thing I have left of my daughter."

Johnny sat up, blinking at her in shock. Her daughter?

"Galactus has her," Shalla-Bal continued, her lips trembling. "I only wish to get her back."  

Leaving them still staring, she turned and went belowdecks, without even taking the pendant.

With one last glance at the look of shock on Sue's face, Johnny chased after Shalla-Bal. He found her sitting on the floor of the cabin. Silently, he offered the pendant to her, and she seized it like a drowning person seizing a lifeline.

Johnny's mind was a whirlwind of questions. If Shalla-Bal had a daughter, she must have a husband as well... or at least a lover. And here he was, thinking a brief glance or a single friendly word from her meant that she was interested. What a fool! Then he saw Shalla-Bal clutching the pendant in her hand, and shame flooded through him. What agony she must be going through, knowing her child was in Galactus's grip and being helpless to do anything about it, and here he was, thinking only of flirtation. He was no better than silly Dorothea and her parties.

"How old is your daughter?" he asked.

"Close to five years old now," she said, her voice muted. "I haven't seen her in nearly a year."

"Is this how Galactus forced you to scout for him, by holding your daughter hostage?"

She nodded. "Yes. He captured us both, and—" Her voice cracked, and she said no more.

"What about—what about her father?" Johnny asked, hoping he didn't sound too nosy. "Couldn't he help?"

She lifted her eyes to him, and the hopelessness in them squeezed at his heart. "He's dead," she said. "He died shortly after our daughter was born."

Johnny hated the tiny vein of relief that sneaked into the sympathy he felt for her. How could he be so callous as to be relieved that she was a widow, when she had suffered, was still suffering so?

For a moment, he didn't know what to say. Then Shalla-Bal held up the pendant and said, "I need a new cord for this. Do you have a spare bit of string I can borrow?"

"I have something better."

Glad to have something to do, he dug into his trunk and unearthed a silver pocket watch with a long double chain and the initials F. S. engraved on the back. It was the only thing Johnny had left of their father before Franklin Storm had died in a debtors' prison. Unlike Sue, Johnny saw no point in being sentimental about an old memento. With a little white-hot flame on the tip of his finger, he separated the chain from the watch and fed it through the hole in the pendant, where the cord used to be. The silver went nicely with the blue of the pendant, making it a very pretty necklace.

Shalla-Bal turned it over in her hand, examining the clasp curiously. "I don't know how to work that," she said. "Can you help me?"

His mouth suddenly going dry, Johnny put the chain around her slender neck and carefully did up the clasp. If his hands lingered on the nape of her neck a little longer than necessary, then that was because they were too close again, and even the medicinal smell of Reed's salve could not prevent Shalla-Bal's natural, sea-like scent from enveloping him, making him giddy.

"What's your daughter's name?" he asked.

"Elmar."

"It's a lovely name."

"We named her after her paternal mother."

Was it strange that he felt a pang of jealousy when she said we so easily? Her late husband was present enough in her mind that they were always we to her. But it would be petty of Johnny, very petty indeed, to be jealous of a dead man, and ridiculous too, for Shalla-Bal was nothing to him to be jealous over. So he banished the feeling.

"We're going to get her back," he said, making a promise to her and to himself. "We're going to get both of them back. You'll see."

She looked up at him then, caressing the pendant between her fingers, and Johnny could have sworn her eyes were as blue as the sea glass, the look of despair gone from them.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said softly.

Lieutenant. Well, it wasn't Johnny, but at least it sounded friendlier than the cold and condescending Storm. He'd take that as a win.

Chapter 8

"You're exhausted," she said, remembering that he hadn't slept in two days. She at least had had the benefit of the brief nap the day before. "Sleep."

His eyes, of a deeper blue than her own, darted to her face in a scrutinizing glance. It was only for a moment, and he said nothing, but Shalla understood the hesitation and doubt behind that glance. "Are you afraid that I might maroon you somewhere while you sleep?" she asked. "Or that I might steal your boat and money? Steer the boat into a trap?" He shrugged, as if to say it was a perfectly reasonable fear. "You have supernatural powers!" she reminded him, exasperated. "Even if I wanted to maroon you, I couldn't go far enough in this thing before you caught me. So sleep. Keep your strength. You're going to need it."

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around with bleary eyes.

"Must be near the Windward Islands."

"Wake me when we raise Caracas." 

Without waiting for an answer, he crawled into the flat bottom of the periagua, lay down, and was asleep before Shalla could reach for the tiller.

They were on a downwind leg now, and the sailing was a lot smoother than it had been the day before, giving Shalla plenty of time to think. She wasn't too worried about their failure at Tortuga. There were numerous ports along the coast from here to Cape Horn, where they could find a ship and crew. The real question was what to do once they reached Galactus's hideout... presuming that they made it through Drake Passage unscathed... presuming that Galactus was there... presuming both children were safe... Too many uncertainties, and she couldn't count on Storm to plan for all of them. It was clear that he had gone into Tortuga with no plan at all, and it had been pure luck that they had escaped.

No, it hadn't been only pure luck, Shalla admitted to herself. Storm had saved her. Of course, she might not have needed saving in the first place if he hadn't dragged her into his ridiculous scheme, but when it came down to it, he had not hesitated to jump to her defense—of both her body and her honor.

Shalla looked at the sleeping form by her feet. Despite the black shirt giving him a rather rakish look, he appeared even more boyish in sleep than in waking, with the thick, curly lashes over his eyes and the way he wrapped his arms around himself and bent his neck making him look strangely vulnerable. Without knowing why, without even realizing she was doing it, she folded up her old gown and wadded it under his head. He stirred but didn't wake up. Instead, he buried his face in the makeshift pillow and slept on, soundly as a babe in its mother's arms. Shalla shook her head, though it was at his oblivion or her own temporary folly she wasn't sure, and went back to the tiller.

The midday sun was hot on her uncovered head and shoulders. Shalla longed to take a plunge in the sea, but she dared not, for fear of being discovered. She had to make do with scooping up some seawater with the drinking ladle and pouring it over herself. The salt soaked into the bandage on her shoulder, stinging, but it would help to heal her wound.

Late that afternoon, the coast of Venezuela appeared as a dim band of blue, slightly darker than the water, on the western horizon. Shalla leaned down to wake Storm, but his eyes were already opening, staring into hers.

"Oh good, you're awake," she said, sitting up and turning away to hide her warming cheeks. "If you give us a push, we may make it to Caracas before dark."

With a yawn, Storm sat up as well. "We're not stopping in Caracas," he said.

Shalla stared at him. "You plan to starve your way to the South Seas?"

"Venezuela is under Spanish rule. The moment they learn we are English, they'll clap us in irons and sell us as slaves to one of their plantations or silver mines."  

"I'm not English," Shalla said before she could stop herself.

Storm tilted his head. "You sound English," he pointed out.

Damn and blast. She'd said too much. "I learned from English sailors," she explained feebly, before changing the subject. "What are we going to do about provisions then?"

In response, Storm roosted through what was left of their stock. A moment later, he let out a triumphant cry and held up a pack of hardtacks, which he opened and took one out to give to Shalla. She looked at the stale, crumbly biscuit with distaste. A small, pale creature wriggled out of a hole inside it and landed on her palm, making her recoil and drop the hardtack on the bottom of the boat.

"Have a care, this is all we have!" Storm said, picking the biscuit up and dusting it off.

"Is this how you treat all your prisoners?" Shalla asked coldly.

"You're not a prisoner," he said, nonchalant. "And besides, I gave you the one with fewer weevils." He showed her his own biscuit, which was practically squirming with those creatures. Shalla could feel the sick rising to her throat. Neptune give her strength.

With one last glare at Storm, she reached over the gunwale, dipping her hand into the water.

"What are you—" Storm began.

"Hush." She closed her eyes and quieted her breath, while the waves and the sun washed over her, and the wind and the many voices of the sea talked to her, telling her where to go, what to do. A moment later, she opened her eyes. "There, two points east," she said, pointing. "Keep that course for about five knots, and you'll find an island with fresh water and fishing."

"You learned all that from putting your hand into the water?" Storm asked, his blue eyes rounded with wonder.

She had indeed, but it would not do to tell him that. Let him continue to think her an ordinary seaman... or, rather, seawoman. "I've sailed these waters," she said. "I know them well."

Just before sunset, they reached the island, a half-moon of pure white sand and swaying, emerald green coconut palms, surrounded by a coral reef. Storm flew ahead to make sure the island was safe. Once he gave her the signal, Shalla steered the periagua through a gap in the reef and rounded to a few yards from the shore, and together, they pulled the boat onto the sand. In the hold of the periagua, Shalla found a fishing line, and she set about catching some fish, while Storm gathered coconuts and hauled water.

As darkness fell, they sat down to a scrumptious supper of roasted fish and fresh coconuts. It was so warm that there was no need to build any sort of shelter—they simply sat on the sand, around a fire that Storm had built from dry coconut husks. The island was secluded enough that he saw no danger in having a fire, and the fish, having been roasted properly, tasted much better than the salt beef scorched by his hands. Shalla would've preferred to eat hers raw, but she didn't want Storm to think she was some sort of savage.

Both were so famished that they devoured their food in mere minutes, wasting no time for idle talk. Once supper was eaten, Storm laid the remaining fish over the embers of the fire to be dried out slowly. 

"Those will not last us until Cape Horn," Shalla said.

"Of course not, you think me a fool? But these, with what we can gather along the coast, will be enough to bring us to Brazil." He placed the rest of the coconuts in the periagua. "The Portuguese Navy may be sympathetic to our suit and give us a ship."

"And if they are not?"

"We shall have to take our chance with what we have."

Shalla shook her head. "That's madness."

"I'm not stopping until Franklin is saved, or I perish," Storm said, looking straight at her.

In the dusk, his eyes shone with a bright, determined look she hadn't seen before. "You're willing to die for your nephew?" she asked.

"Of course!" he said, as if there were no questioning the idea at all. "If you or your sister had a child, you would stop at nothing to keep him safe, wouldn't you?"

Shalla turned away to watch the pale moon rising over the horizon, so he wouldn't see how close he'd come to the truth. Her hand found her sea glass pendant, caressing it. "Of course," she quietly echoed his words.

"So perhaps if you tell me what awaits us in Galactus's hideout, I might be better prepared."

Shalla sighed. "There is no preparing. Avoid a direct fight and sneak past him if you can."

"I'll not go up to Galactus like a thief in the night!" Storm said, his eyes flashing.

"If you wish to die, then it's your choice," Shalla snapped back. "But if you're willing to die for your nephew, be willing to live for him as well."

That kept his mouth shut. For a while, they sat apart on the sand, with the dying fire between them, neither speaking. The tense silence was broken by the splashing of a pod of dolphins swimming by, their sleek bodies glistening under the moonlight. It must be a family—as they leapt and pranced in the water, Shalla could see several adults surrounding a smaller one, protecting it.

"How old is your nephew?" she asked, still watching the dolphins.

"Thirteen... no, fourteen months. Why do you ask?"

"No particular reason." So young. Younger than Elmar, even, when Galactus took them both.

The dolphins were gone now, and silence descended once more, until Storm spoke up.

"I've been wondering about those ships from Tortuga, the ones that were attacked," he said slowly, as though he was thinking out loud. "If they wanted to fight us, why would Galactus attack them? They were on his side."

"Galactus wants the four of you for himself," Shalla said. "He sees any other attack on you as an insult, a theft of his glory. That is why he took your nephew, to ensure that you come to him." It was true, though it hadn't been the reason Galactus had taken the Tortuga ships. For that, he had one reason, and one only—hunger.

"You didn't know Galactus was going to take Franklin, did you?" Storm asked. "You seemed surprised when my sister asked."

Perhaps he wasn't as dim-witted as she'd thought him.

"I am not privy to Galactus's plans," she said carefully.

"I thought you were his partner. Or are you—?"

Shalla understood the implication in his unfinished sentence, and blood rushed to her face. "No!" she said vehemently. She didn't know why, but it was important to her that Storm did not think ill of her. Not in this, at least. "I'm not his whore, if that's what you meant. I was a scout."

"Did you scout those ships from Tortuga for him?" he asked. "Did you lead him to them?"

There was no condemnation in his voice, only concern. Damn him and his beguiling eyes! For a man named Storm, who could create fire, she had expected him to be dark and... well, fiery, but those eyes were as blue and gentle as a calm sea, and when they turned upon her, full of interest as they were now, she couldn't help but tell him the truth. Or at least some of it.

"I—I don't remember."

It was only part of the truth. She tried to block from her memory the men she had sent to a watery death, the ships she had helped to destroy, but it didn't work. Almost every night, in her sleep, she was plagued by their panicked screams as they were devoured, and the eerie sights of those empty ships and islands, utterly devoid of life, floated before her eyes whenever she closed them. So while it was true that she didn't remember leading Galactus to the Tortuga ships specifically, she knew too well that she was responsible for their destruction, for the ruins of poor Sancho's mind.

"How can you not? Who else have you brought to Galactus?"

"Why does it matter? They were pirates!"

"So is Galactus. So are you. What makes you better than those pirates you killed? They were men. With families."

Shalla almost shouted that she, too, had a family, but stopped herself in time. Storm wasn't even shouting. He was calm, secure in the belief that he was right, and that righteousness angered her. How could he understand the terrible choice she had to make each day to ensure the survival of herself and her daughter?

"How admirable," she sneered. "Don't pretend the four of you are any better."

"We always try to capture them alive and offer them pardons when we can."

"Indeed? And out of those men you pardoned, how many are making honest livings now? How many went straight back to piracy? Do you even care?"

"I'll have you know that Mole Man and his people are doing quite well in Subterranea," he said. Then he added, conscientiously, "Granted, Mole Man was more of a fence than a true pirate..." 

But Shalla was no longer listening. A change in the air had caught her attention. Something was different. What was it? The wind suddenly blew colder, making the fronds of the coconut palms quiver, the moon was obscured by a dark cloud, and the waves rippled in an odd but horribly familiar way, as though there was a force under the sea churning the water up. The only time she'd seen such waves was when Galactus attacked. No, no, no... Had he come back for her after all? Had he found her?

Storm had noticed the changes as well—if not in the air and the sea, then at least in Shalla herself. His voice trailed off, and he stood up. "What is it?"

Shalla didn't answer. She turned in a slow circle, straining her ears, listening for the telltale rumbles that heralded Galactus's arrival. There was nothing. The coconut fronds were still quivering, but now she wasn't sure if it was from the wind. Was the ground also shaking under her feet, or were it her own trembling legs—?

The sea erupted behind her.

Whirling around, Shalla saw a giant creature bursting out of the coral reef—not Galactus, but something else altogether. Its gray head, with a square snout and blank, beady eyes, resembled that of a great whale, except when it opened its maw, the teeth inside were bigger and sharper than anything she'd seen in a whale. It chomped through the coral and made its way toward the beach, revealing that beneath the whale's head, there were arms and legs, as thick as tree trunks, dotted with barnacles and topped with claws, and a powerful body the size of a brig, ending in a long, heavy tail.

"It's a leviathan!" Storm shouted.

A leviathan... Shalla had heard of these monsters of the depths, but had never encountered one before, even when she sailed with Galactus. Storm ran over to her, and, just as he'd done in Tortuga, wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into the air with him, away from the monstrous whale. At the last moment, Shalla managed to snatch up Storm's dirk lying in the sand, where he had carelessly left it after gutting the fish, and stuffed it into her bodice.

The leviathan was now walking up the beach, making the entire island tremble. Hovering just above the coconut trees, Storm shot blast after blast of fire at it, but either his aim was suffering from having to hold Shalla steady, or the creature's hide was too thick, because it didn't react to the fire at all. With a swipe of its jagged claws, it crushed their periagua, stepped over their fire, and continued to kick at the sand, clearly searching for any sight of human prey.

"Aim for its eyes," Shalla said into Storm's ear.

This time, the fireball hit home. With a terrible roar, the leviathan reared back, clasping a clawed hand to its injured eye. The other eye swiveled around and homed in on the two of them with all the fury of a wounded beast. Storm threw another fireball, but the creature lowered its head, dodging the attack. A blast of water shot out of its blowhole, hitting them with such force that it knocked both of them out of the air.

Shalla's back collided painfully with a coconut tree, and black spots burst before her eyes. Next to her, Storm scrambled to his feet. Another leviathan appeared on the beach, and yet another, bending and snapping the coconut trees along the shore in the wake of their rampage. All three monsters opened their blowholes and spewed more water at Storm, a concentrated, relentless stream that pushed him into the wet sand and left him soaked to the bones. He got up on one knee, only to collapse again, unable to call up his flames, unable even to stand. Shalla herself could barely lift her head under the deluge. She stretched out a hand to help Storm. Somehow, beneath the deluge, he managed to grab her fingers. Straining with all her might, she pulled him out of the way of the jets of water. One of the leviathans quickly redirected the water at her. It hit her square in the chest and knocked her down on her back. It was like being hit with a giant whip, over and over again, with no break between the lashes, worse than the largest, heaviest wave she had experienced.

Two leviathans reached them. Each picked one of them up with its hands, as easily as a child picking up a toy, its claws wrapped around their middles like stocks.

"Well, well, well," said a voice. "It looks like I have captured the Human Torch."

Shalla looked up to see a man hovering just behind the third leviathan on two pairs of wings that sprouted from his ankles. Even without those wings, she could tell he was no ordinary man. The jewels in his ears marked him as a pirate, but not for him the simple gold hoop worn by most tars to ensure the price for a proper burial should they drown at sea. Instead, he wore large pieces of jade, the same of which covered the armored collar that was the only garment shielding his bare torso. His knee-breeches were also armored, leaving his ankle wings free. He had black hair and cold eyes set in a swarthy face, made darker by the sun and the wind. There was a trident in his hand, its tips glinting cruelly under the moonlight, and a spiral seashell hung from his waist.  

"Is your sister with you, Storm?" the man asked. His eyes flicked over to Shalla and back to Storm again, not seeing what he was looking for.

Storm coughed up a mouthful of water. With effort, he raised his head and blinked the water from his eyes to glare at the man.

"Namor," he spat. "We met again."

Chapter 7

Near the bow, Shalla-Bal sat wrapped in her cloak, impervious to the heat. She had been observing him throughout the night, and even now, every time he turned his head, he would see those strange, pale eyes fixed on him, wary, watchful, if not downright hostile, mixed with a hint of contempt, as though she was measuring him and found him wanting.

Under those eyes, Johnny became painfully aware of how lubberly he was handling the sails and the tiller, and how slow the boat was going. At this rate, Lord Evans would have time to repair the fleet and catch them before they could reach Tortuga. Why, oh why had he not listened more attentively when Ben tried to teach him about sailing? For all his love of the sea, Johnny had never been much of a sailor himself, and he had grown so used to relying on the Excelsior's propulsion that he found even a simple periagua like this difficult to maneuver. It didn't help that he hadn't had much sleep in the last two days, and the stupefying heat was luring him into Morpheus's gentle arms. His eyelids seemed to be getting heavier and heavier by the minute.

Johnny let go of the sheet and the tiller briefly, so he could lean over the side and scoop up some water to wash his face, hoping the coolness would wake him up. The moment he did, the wind threatened to blow them sideways, and he scrambled to regain his hold.

"I can help, you know," said Shalla-Bal. Those were the first words she'd uttered since she told him her name the night before. A strange name. No doubt some sort of moniker, like Galactus. "I can help with tacking," she said, pointing to the sheet, "so you can focus on steering."

How did a woman, and one so fragile at that, come to be a pirate captain sailing under such a fearsome leader as Galactus? Johnny asked himself that for the thousandth time. "And where did you learn to sail?" he said out loud, hoping for some clue to solve the enigma that was Shalla-Bal.

"You think a woman can't sail?" she retorted, lifting her chin. "You think a woman has no place on a ship—or a periagua?"

"That is not what I meant."

"I can sail as well as you." Her eyes flicked to the sheet as it trembled in his hand. "Or perhaps even better."

"No doubt," Johnny said dryly. "But I can handle this." He'd be damned if he let anyone—man or woman—mock his seamanship. "I need you to row," he added. "Some added speed would be a great help."

Obligingly, Shalla-Bal picked up the oar, turned around so her back was to him, and started rowing. For all her delicate stature, she was strong, and under her firm hand, the boat gained a steadier course. It was hard work, though, rowing against the wind, and it wasn't long before Shalla-Bal let out a strained cry, and the oar almost dropped out of her hand into the water. She barely managed to save it in time, while clutching at her shoulder with her other hand.

"What is it?" Johnny asked.

"My wound, courtesy of your friend the Governor." The hood of her cloak fell back, and her white-blonde hair blew free like spun silver around her pale face, turning it even paler.

"Let me take a look."

She went over to the stern and lifted her cloak just enough for him to glimpse a row of ragged cuts, like the claw marks of some animal, on her shoulder. Johnny cursed under his breath. He knew she'd been injured in the interrupted keelhauling, but he hadn't realized how bad it was. The guards at the fort hadn't even bandaged the wound, and the rowing must have torn the cuts open, so they were bleeding again, fresh, bright red drops mixed with the dried blood caked to the torn fabric of her gown.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have asked you to row."

"I offered," she replied with a shrug, and winced.

The wind had calmed by now, so Johnny let go of the tiller and sheeted the main sail home. He then took off his neckcloth—it was clean and would make a serviceable bandage—and asked Shalla-Bal to uncover her shoulder, so that he could bind the wound. Carefully holding the neckline of her gown with one hand to keep it from gaping and exposing her chest, she drew the injured arm out of her sleeve, grimacing as she did so. The gesture revealed a pendant dangling on a cord around her neck, a piece of blue glass worn smooth by the sand and the waves. Johnny occasionally saw similar ones buried on Nassau Beach, washed ashore from some wrecks. He had never thought much of them—it certainly hadn't occurred to him that anyone would wear them as jewelry—but now, looking at Shalla-Bal's pendant, he had to admit it was rather pretty.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, reaching for the pendant without thinking.

She shrank back, closing her fingers around the pendant protectively. "Don't touch it!" she snarled. "Don't you dare take it from me!"

"I'm not trying to take it," Johnny said quickly, raising a reconciliatory hand. "Pardon my question, I didn't mean to be intrusive."

Still watching him like a cornered animal, she tucked the pendant back into her gown. He thought she would refuse to let him go near her after that, but she sat still while he wound his neckcloth over her shoulder twice, taking care not to let his hand linger over her bare skin. A hiss escaped her as he tied off the makeshift bandage under her arm.

"It isn't too tight, is it?" he asked anxiously.

She shook her head, mouth pressed into a hard line, and shrugged her gown and the cloak back on. This would not do. The bandage might stop the bleeding, but they must reach Tortuga and find her some proper care before infection set in.

Johnny looked at the sails flapping feebly in the wind and the oar lying useless on the bottom of the boat, and made up his mind.

"Hold on to something," he told Shalla-Bal.

"What are you doing?" she asked with some alarm, as he got to his feet.

"Giving the boat some propulsion."

"Some—what?"

The periagua might not have the fancy boilers and paddle wheels of the Excelsior, but it had Johnny. He took on his fiery form and went to the stern, where he put his hands on the frame and started pushing, careful not to let his flames scorch the wood. The little boat shot forward, throwing Shalla-Bal back and pulling a muffled cry of shock out of her. Chuckling, Johnny flew on, hovering parallel to the water and pushing the boat ahead of him. He had thought of doing this the night before, but the fear that his fire could be clearly seen in the dark had held him back. Now, in bright sunshine, there were fewer chances of being detected. Though he couldn't fly at his full speed due to the weight of the boat, he could keep it fairly skimming over the waves like a dolphin, while the sandbars of the Exumas passed by on the starboard side. In just about an hour, they had covered a distance of over a hundred sea miles.

Shalla-Bal held on to the mainmast with her uninjured arm, her hair and the cloak whipped wildly about her. Her mouth moved, but the wind was blowing in Johnny's ears and drowned out her voice. He slowed just enough for the wind to die down a touch. "Did you say something?"

"When you promised I would go free if I help to save your nephew," she said, "did you mean free from the Navy, or free from Galactus as well?"

Was there a particular reason she was eager to be free from Galactus? Galactus must not be the most pleasant captain to sail under, and if she was willing to help save Franklin from him, then perhaps she owed him no fealty.

"I meant you would be free to do whatever you choose," Johnny replied carefully. "Free from the Navy, certainly. And free from Galactus as well, if you so choose." He didn't tell her that he had no idea how to defeat Galactus yet. But he'd promised her, and he intended to keep that promise, no matter the cost. "Do you choose?"

Shalla-Bal seemed to realize she had said too much and closed her mouth without answering him.

They flew on in silence for a while, only stopping for a quick meal of hardtacks and salted beef. The beef should have been boiled to remove the salt, but they only had two meager barrels of fresh water, which must be saved for drinking, so Johnny roasted the beef in his hand instead. How horrified Ben would have been if he'd seen it! The thought made Johnny laugh quietly to himself. Whenever they set out on the Excelsior, Ben never let anyone but himself into the galley, regardless of how busy he was with his other duties, and always made sure the officers and the crew had good food for the entire voyage. Johnny was not so fussy himself. He didn't care what he was eating, as long as it was edible and gave him strength. Shalla-Bal wrinkled her nose at the charred beef, but she ate her portion without complaining.

The beef, hardtacks, and water were courtesy of the Marvel, or rather, the late Marvel, for Johnny had convinced Wingfoot to let him commandeer the vessel and sacrifice it for the fire ship. He had convinced Wingfoot's men to tie themselves up as well, to make it look like he'd taken their ship by force, so they wouldn't get into trouble with Lord Evans and the Admiralty, and he'd promised them a frigate in exchange for the Marvel—that is to say, if he survived the fight against Galactus. Yet another promise he didn't know how to keep.

Johnny flew until the sun dipped low on the horizon, and they had a glimpse of the shipwrecking reefs of the Great Inagua Island on the starboard side. The wind was backing now, putting them on a broad reach, so there was no more need for extra propulsion. Johnny returned to his seat by the stern, doused his flames, and trimmed the sails, setting the periagua on a course for Tortuga.

Shalla-Bal was sleeping. Whether it was because her wound no longer bothered her and she had a full stomach, or because she was lulled by the smooth glide of the boat, or because of mere exhaustion, Johnny didn't know, but for the first time since they set out, she let her guard down. Lying there, curled up under the cloak in the middle of the boat, she looked not much older than Miss Evans. It was her eyes that aged her, Johnny decided, those strange, pale eyes, always staring, scowling, judging. Now, with her eyes veiled by long lashes that shone gold under the setting sun, her face looked gentler, less like the angry nereid he'd pulled out of the water and more like an ordinary young woman, thrown into a journey against her will. 

Her sleep wasn't peaceful, though. A frown line remained carved into the skin above her nose, and she twitched and squirmed, as if struggling against some invisible bond. Then the slowing of the boat woke her. She sat up, blinking in confusion.

"Why aren't you flying?" she asked.

"We're almost there," Johnny replied. "I thought it would be better to arrive under the cover of darkness."

Shalla-Bal glanced at the dark coast of Tortuga looming ahead of them, with only a few specks of light here and there. "That's wise, I suppose."

She seemed to be in a genial mood, so Johnny ventured to ask, "Don't you think it's high time you tell me where Galactus is? If I'm to acquire a ship and a crew, I'd like to know where I'm taking them."

A look of hesitation crossed her face. "His hideout is in the South Seas," she replied. "That is all you shall get for now."

"I could have told you that!" Johnny scoffed. "Everybody knows Galactus fled there after we destroyed his flotilla."

"Yes, but you don't know where he is exactly, do you?" Shalla-Bal said evenly. "Once we round Cape Horn, I can point you in the right direction."

Johnny tightened his grip on the tiller, trying to hide the tremble of his hand. All those names—Cape Horn, Strait of Magellan, Drake Passage—were bringing back old horrors, those that he hadn't thought of or felt in four years. Although the incident with the Fantastic had not left Johnny as overly cautious as it had Reed, he couldn't stop anxious knots from forming in his stomach at the memory of that fateful day.

Did Shalla-Bal know this? Was she deliberately trying to stir up those horrors, to trick him or frighten him away? The thought brought Lord Evans' warnings back to Johnny's mind.

"But how do I know that you're telling the truth?" he said.

Shalla-Bal shrugged. "You don't," she said, grimacing slightly as she fixed the bandage around her wound. "You simply have to trust me."

Johnny looked straight into her eyes, shining like shards of ice from an ancient glacier, and found that, strangely enough, he did indeed trust her. Perhaps not with his life, but he trusted her not to cross him or stab him in the back. He nodded. "It is as you said. We are stuck together."

By the time they landed in a quiet cove north of Tortuga, it was full dark. Johnny had chosen Tortuga instead of the more prosperous and populated Port Royal because he didn't want to be recognized—he was now as much a fugitive as Shalla-Bal was, and Tortuga, being a pirate haven, would be more willing to turn a blind eye.

"You know Tortuga well?" Shalla-Bal asked, as Johnny tied off the boat and helped her onto the sand.

"Quite well. We have been here on several occasions in pursuit of Mole Man, back when he was still running his fence business from these shores."

"Aren't you worried you might run into one of your former foes here?"

"Very few of them have seen me in my no-flame form," he said with a shrug. "Those who have, like Namor and Barracuda, aren't known to frequent even Hispaniola, let alone Tortuga."

Shalla-Bal gave him a critical look from head to toe, making him squirm. "Still, better safe than sorry," she said.

Before Johnny could ask what she meant, she was walking down the beach, toward the hulking shape of a ship in the distance, her strides purposeful. Johnny followed, keeping close to her heels. As they approached the ship, he could make out several tents set up around it, from which came the raucous sound of merrymaking. The ship itself was lying nearly on its side, lanterns swinging from the ropes anchoring it to the grove of coconut trees overlooking the beach. The ship must have been stopped here for a careening before returning home, and those were the pleasure tents that always sprang up around such a ship, whose crew was not given long enough shore leave to visit the brothels further inland.

This crew was currently so drunk that none of them paid any attention to Shalla-Bal and Johnny. Dodging between the coconut trees, Shalla-Bal approached the largest tent, from which most of the laughter and shouts and moans of ecstasy, the men's real, the women's mostly pretended, were coming.

"Wait here," she whispered to Johnny, and disappeared into the tent.

There was a brief moment of panic, then Johnny reminded himself that the beach was wide open, and unless she sprouted wings and flew away, there was nowhere Shalla-Bal could have gone. Either way, his fear was quickly assuaged when she came back a few minutes later with an armful of clothes.

"Here." She tossed a black silk shirt, a leather jerkin, and a wide-brimmed hat at him. "Change your linen shirt and jacket for these."

"What's wrong with the clothes I'm wearing?" Johnny asked, affronted.

"You might as well wear a sign that says Royal Navy on it," she said.

Johnny couldn't argue with that. He accepted the shirt and jerkin, and they retreated to the periagua to get dressed. For some reason unknown even to himself, Johnny felt rather shy at the thought of undressing in front of Shalla-Bal, even though she certainly wasn't the first woman to have seen him in such a state. For her part, Shalla-Bal displayed no shyness. She quickly and matter-of-factly stripped down to her shift and threw on a gown of dark blue damask trimmed with silver lace. When it came to the lacing, though, her hands were clumsy.

"Damn and blast these things!" she muttered under her breath, before beckoning to Johnny. "Can you help?"

Johnny stared at the woman in front of him. The gathering dusk had softened the hard glint of her eyes, and they were darkened by the blue of her gown to a clear azure. The ruffles around the neckline helped to hide the bandage on her shoulder, and she had pinned her hair back under a veil of silver lace, which rounded out the sharp angles of her face, and, when it caught the starlight, shrouded her in a soft, shimmering glow. If it hadn't been for the half-laced bodice, she would've looked quite presentable. No, not just presentable. She would've looked beautiful. She was beautiful.

Shalla-Bal cleared her throat, and Johnny remembered himself. Beautiful or no, she was the enemy... or at least someone he should keep at arm's length. He would do well to keep that in mind. Was this an attempt to seduce him? The gown had lacings down the front, and no hooks on the back—no doubt its original owner needed to get in and out of it with ease and speed—so there was no reason she couldn't manage it on her own, even injured as she was. But as he examined Shalla-Bal's face, he found no hint of seduction. She wasn't even looking at him. She was scowling at the lacings, tugging at them, and making a mess of them.

"Stop, before you tangle them up tighter than a double fisherman's knot," he said, prying her fingers from the lacings and unraveling them so he could sort them into their correct positions.

Though he had rather more experience with undressing women than dressing them, he tried his best. To tighten the bodice, he had to pull her close, close enough for him to feel the heat emanating from her skin and smell the salty scent on her hair. It reminded him of taking a dip in the sea at midday, drifting lazily on the warm current, not having a care in the world...

"Thank you," Shalla-Bal said as he knotted the laces into a bow. "I can never get used to these."

There was a touch of warmth in her voice that he'd never heard before. For a confused moment, Johnny stood looking at her, not knowing what to say. Then he realized he was staring at the low-cut neckline of her gown—or rather, what that neckline was showing. Christ, what a fool he was! One minute, he was reminding himself to be wary of her, and the next, he was gawping at her chest like some jack on his first shore leave in months. Spinning around to put his back against her, he fumbled to take off his own shirt and jacket and don the black silk. As he finished putting the jerkin on and turned around, he caught Shalla-Bal gazing at him, her eyes inscrutable.

"What?" he asked.

Without answering, she came straight at him with her arms outstretched.

"What are you doing?" he asked, taking a step back.

"Loosening you up a little." She pulled at the strings tying the front of the shirt together until it gaped open, showing a good three inches of Johnny's bare chest underneath.

"For someone who has trouble tying up laces, you certainly seem handy at undoing them," he quipped.

Usually, such a line from him would earn him at least a deep blush, a fluttering of eyelashes, and a giggle. Here, all he got was a silent, withering glare from Shalla-Bal. To hide his embarrassment, Johnny turned his attention to his dirk—it was more decorative than functional, but the pirates of Tortuga did not know that—and strapped it to his belt, while Shalla-Bal looked him over with a satisfied nod. "There," she said. "Now you may pass for a pirate."

"And what would my pirate name be?" Johnny asked.

Shalla-Bal thought for a moment. "How about Black Jack, the Terror of Madagascar?" she said, indicating his black shirt.

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Black Jack?" he repeated. "And why Madagascar?"

"The further our origin is, the less suspicion we raise."    

Johnny had to admit there was sense in that. "Do you think we should mention Galactus?" he asked. "Perhaps if we say we're trying to join him, it would win us some favor."

"You know the town," Shalla-Bal replied. "You do the talking."

After stowing their old clothes in the periagua, they walked into town. The borrowed garments made Johnny feel more conspicuous than ever, like a child at a masquerade. The hat rested heavily on his head, the jerkin felt hot and sticky, and he kept tugging at the open shirt until Shalla-Bal told him sharply to stop fidgeting. "You're a pirate, for Neptune's sake," she hissed. "Act accordingly!"

Flustered, Johnny tried to remember how Namor or Barracuda or even Galactus had walked and imitate their movements, though he couldn't say how successful he was.

He needn't have worried. They saw no one on their way from the beach into town. Johnny remembered Tortuga as a wild place, full of energy, excitement, and chaos, where people were either spending their latest prize or looking for the next big score, where anarchy reigned supreme, unlike Nassau or Port Royal, where there was at least the semblance of government. In the few times he had been here, the dock had crowded with ships and boats bringing in booty and supplies, the streets teeming with men drinking, gambling, and whoring away their hard-earned prizes, and women too gladly helping them with all three.

There was none of that hustle and bustle now. The main street was all but deserted. The few people they saw were slinking away in the shadows, not talking to anyone, not even looking at anyone. The whole town was quiet, most of the businesses closed for the night, but it wasn't a restful quietness. It felt strangely familiar to Johnny, and then he realized—after the attack, Nassau, too, had been enveloped in the same quietness, the quietness that came from fear and exhaustion, like that of an animal being chased into the ground. Something had happened here. Had Tortuga been visited by the same strange wave, or was it something else?

Eventually, they came upon a tavern that still opened for business, though the noises coming out of it were decidedly more subdued than those from the pleasure tents on the beach. The moment Johnny and Shalla-Bal stepped through the door into the torch-lit, smoky interior of the tavern, all eyes turned toward them. Johnny cursed inwardly. In a crowded place, they might have escaped attention, but there was no chance of it here. At least the patrons didn't seem hostile... yet.

"What'll it be?" said the barkeep, a large black man with an eye patch, who was standing behind the counter polishing a pewter tankard with a filthy rag.

"Ale, please," Johnny said, putting a coin on the counter. "And information."

The barkeep poured the ale, which looked, smelled, and tasted like piss, and went back to polishing. "Ain't seen you round here before," he said, eyeing Johnny and Shalla-Bal suspiciously. "What sort of information?" 

"I'm called Black Jack, and this here is—Mistress Sally," Johnny said, aware that the patrons around them were watching and listening closely. "We've just lately arrived from Madagascar, and are looking for a ship and crew to join us on a worthwhile venture—"

The barkeep let out a bark of a laugh, cutting Johnny off. "A shippin' crew? Here?" He shook his head. "Might as well build the ship and crew it yourself. There ain't no crew here."

"Why?" Shalla-Bal said. "Where have they gone?"

"Inland, logging. Since New Providence fell under English rule again, no one wants to be a pirate no more. Too risky."

Johnny cursed again. When he decided to stop in Tortuga, he hadn't considered how their effort to eliminate piracy might have affected the place. 

"What we offer is not without risk," he said carefully. "But the reward could be immense."

"What's the offer then?"

"A chance to rebuild an empire for the Brethren of the Coast, far away from English and Spanish rule."

At the name of the old pirate consortium, several of the patrons turned their full attention on the two newcomers with glints of interest in their eyes.

"To rebuild the Brethren, eh?" the barkeep said with a sneer. "And why would anyone follow a pup such as yourself?"

"They wouldn't be following me," Johnny replied with much more confidence than he had. "They would be sailing with the most powerful buccaneer there is—Galan of Taa. Galactus himself."

The name fell on the silence of the tavern like a cannonball. Those who had been eyeing Johnny and Shalla-Bal with mild curiosity or interest were now staring at them in full, open hostility. Some were even on their feet, as if preparing to pounce upon the two strangers at the slightest hint of provocation.

"Galactus?" the barkeep spat. "What'd you know about Galactus?"

"Only that he's back and intends to make his stand against the Four of the Fantastic," Johnny replied, trying to sound nonchalant. "We're to join him in the South Seas and—"

The barkeep threw down his rag and the tankard he was polishing. He seized the front of Johnny's shirt with an arm like a log and pulled Johnny across the counter, scattering ale everywhere.

"How'd you know where to join him?" the barkeep growled, the stench of his breath enveloping Johnny like a miasma. "You sail with him?"

"No" was all Johnny could squeak out, for he was being held in such a tight grip that it was hard to draw a breath, let alone speak. What was going on? He had counted on finding Galactus's supporters amongst these pirates, but apparently, he had been mistaken. But then again, strategizing had never been Johnny's strong suit. Sue was the strategist of the family.

Behind him, Shalla-Bal said quickly, "We only heard of his recent attack on Nassau and wish to find him and join him, that is all."

The barkeep tightened his grip on Johnny's shirt. "Anyone who sails with Galactus or wants to sail with him is no friend of Tortuga," the barkeep said. "We'd lost five ships to him. Five of our best. Sent to Brazil to recruit men and gather supplies for a war against Nassau. Ain't never returned. Five frigates and sloops. Nearly a hundred guns. Over two hundred souls. Gone."

So that was the eerie emptiness of the town accounted for.

"How did you know it was Galactus, if they didn't return?" Shalla-Bal asked.

The barkeep pointed. "Sancho there lived to tell the tale," he said, his face grim.

Following the barkeep's pointing hand, Johnny saw what he'd thought was a pile of rags, but turned out to be a man, sitting hunched over in the darkest corner of the tavern, his face covered by a filthy, dilapidated hat, shivering and muttering to himself. Johnny shook free of the barkeep's grip and walked over.

"What happened?" he asked the man, Sancho. "What did Galactus do to you? Where did he go?"

"He only knows Portuguese," said the barkeep.

"Let me try," said Shalla-Bal. Leaning toward the other man, she said quietly, "What do you remember?"

She still spoke English, but there must be something in her voice that moved the hapless Sancho, for he looked out from under the hat with one beady eye, like that of a frightened animal, and started speaking rapidly in Portuguese. Like all who had been brought up aboard Royal Navy ships as young midshipmen, Johnny knew his Latin, Greek, and French, but Portuguese was not part of a classical education. The years in the Bahamas had taught him a smattering of Spanish, and he could pick out a few words here and there amongst the man's ramble—something about eating, or consuming, or even destruction, something about a vortex or a maelstrom, and "God save me", over and over again. But he didn't need to know Portuguese to understand the fear in the other man's voice.

"Can you understand him?" he asked Shalla-Bal. "What is he saying?"

She turned around to look at him. "His mind is gone," she said, shaking her head.

"There ain't a person here who ain't lost something in that trip," the barkeep continued. "Either they lost a share in the ships, or they lost a brother. Or a son." His voice dropped, and Johnny wondered if the barkeep was talking about himself. "You ain't gonna find anyone willing to join Galactus here," he concluded.

"But we can pay!" Desperate, Johnny pulled out his purse.

The barkeep shook his head. "There ain't enough money in the world," he said. "Since you're strangers here and ignorant of our losses, I'm gonna let you leave, quiet like."

Shalla-Bal tugged at Johnny's shirt. "Perhaps we'd better go," she whispered.

"But—"

"Listen to your wench," the barkeep said. "Go. And don't ever think of finding Galactus again."

Johnny was too upset to even notice that the barkeep had called Shalla-Bal his. They beat a quick retreat from the tavern, with the barkeep and the patrons' eyes burning holes into their backs.

"Did you know anything about those lost ships?" Johnny asked, once they were far enough. "Did Galactus take them to attack Nassau?"

"Does that matter?" Shalla-Bal replied, a touch impatiently. "Where are we going to find a ship now?"

Johnny looked down the main street toward the dock. It was empty, save for a pitiful fishing vessel. The only ship they had seen was the one being careened on the beach, and even if they managed to steal it, there would be no crew to sail it. No. Their best chance would be to go further south, to Port Royal or even Venezuela. Perhaps he would be able to find a ship there.

He turned to tell Shalla-Bal so, but she was no longer by his side. For a second, he thought she had deserted him. And then he saw her—being dragged toward the entrance of an alley just off the main street. It was so dark that he couldn't see her assailant, just the glint of a knife at her throat. He moved toward her, only to find the cold tip of another knife at his back, cutting through the thin silk of his shirt.

"Give us yer purse, lad," said a hoarse voice in his ear, breathing stale rum across his cheek, "or the whore dies."

"She's not a whore," Johnny said.

There was a sharp sting as the knife pressed a little harder into his back. "Shut yer trap and give us the purse!" the voice grunted.

Johnny looked at Shalla-Bal. The other man was also pressing his knife so closely against her neck that she had to hold herself completely still, for fear of getting nicked, and there was nothing in her eyes or her expression that told him what to do. So he did the only thing he knew how to do.

"This purse?" he said, holding it up. As the man behind him reached out a hand to take it, Johnny set the purse on fire.

The fire didn't burn, of course. Johnny had mastered the art of creating fire without burning himself or his clothes, just as Reed could stretch without tearing his clothes to pieces, just as Sue could turn everything she touched invisible. The robbers didn't know that. The one trying to take the purse let out a yelp and dropped it. Johnny snatched the purse back and, with the fire still burning in his hand, ran to Shalla-Bal.

"He's the Human Torch!" the robber shouted to his accomplice. "Get him!"

The one holding Shalla-Bal tossed her aside and went straight at Johnny, knife held aloft. Johnny threw a fireball at him and wrapped an arm around Shalla-Bal's waist.

"Hold fast," he told her, and took to the air.

They landed at the beach a moment later. Men were streaming out from the town, chasing after them, shouting about the Fourand their thirst for revenge. It seemed the citizens of Tortuga were too afraid of Galactus to go after him, but they were all too happy to chase down a member of the Four.

"What are you doing?" Shalla-Bal screamed, as he dropped her on the sand. "They're right behind us!"

"I can't fly forever!" Johnny said, running to the periagua. Someone had rifled through it, but there was no time to check if anything else was missing. At least the sails and ropes were intact. He untied it and pulled it into the water.

Another shout went up from the direction of the careened ship, and more men came out of the tents, running toward them. "There! Those thieves stole our clothes!"

"Hell's fire," Johnny cursed.

Two more fireballs, and two coconut trees fell, bringing with them the ropes holding the ship to the tree line. More ropes snapped, and there was a great groan and panicked shrieks as the ship fell over, rocking the sand under their feet. Seizing the moment, Johnny took flight and started pushing the periagua in front of him again, so abruptly that Shalla-Bal lost her balance and fell in a heap in the middle of the boat. By the time she looked up from under Johnny's discarded shirt, they were already off, away from Tortuga, leaving a fiery path like the tail of a comet in their wake.

Chapter 6

Johnny glared at the Governor. While the people of Nassau were breaking their backs cleaning the town, repairing damages, tending to the wounded, and burying their dead, the Governor was sitting here, comfortable in his banyan robe, enjoying his morning chocolate. The previous night's attack had not touched him other than interrupting his sleep with the noise of cannons and clanking swords, and his house, being on the tallest hill in town, had escaped the wave unscathed. Yet here they were, having to ask his permission despite knowing much better what had happened and what needed to be done.

"With all due respect, my lord," Reed said, "our son is missing, possibly kidnapped. We cannot leave until he is found, and that woman is our best hope of finding him."

"Please, be assured that I shall do everything in my power to find your child. As a father myself, I greatly sympathize with your concern," the Governor said, putting a hand to his heart.

Concern! Johnny scoffed. Lord Evans made it sound as though they had mislaid some trinket.

Sue leaned across the table, and for a moment, Johnny thought his sister was going to throw Lord Evans' chocolate in his face. "If you think we're going to leave our son's fate to anyone else—" she began, but the Governor held up a hand to stop her.

"Do not vex yourself, Lady Susan," he said. "You shall have your say in the matter, quite soon."

While the Four exchanged puzzled looks, the Governor scribbled a note and had a valet deliver it to the captain of his flagship. This done, he resumed his breakfast and had his butler bring extra chocolate for the Four, ever the attentive host. Glancing at his sister, Johnny noticed a slight wavering of the air around the fists held clenched in her lap, which suggested that Sue was putting all her will into stopping herself from throttling the Governor. Johnny could well understand her anger. He was feeling like throttling the Governor himself.

The valet came back about a quarter of an hour later. "They are ready for you, m'lord," he informed Lord Evans.

"Excellent," the Governor said. "Bring me my coat, Thomas. Lady Susan, gentlemen, if you would join me at the dock."

Still puzzled, they followed him out. In the hall, they ran into Dorothea coming downstairs, looking fresh as a daisy in a pretty morning frock. It was clear that she had no idea of the events of the previous night.

"Lieutenant Storm!" she exclaimed upon seeing Johnny. "I didn't realize you called. Did I hear we're going to the dock? What—" She took in their grim expression, and her voice trailed off uncertainly. The day before, Johnny had found her naïveté charming. Now he found it as irritating as her father's officiousness.

Thankfully, he was saved from answering when Lord Evans told his daughter sternly, "This is no social outing, Dorothea. Stay home."

Ignoring Dorothea's pouts, he took the Four in his carriage down to the dock, where they boarded a launch and were ferried to the Governor's flagship. The captain, the crew, and a small detachment of Royal Marines were already there waiting, along with—

The imprisoned captain of the Silver Syren. She was still clad in her loose, grimy gown, though the manacles on her hands and feet had been replaced by ropes. She glared at the Four as they climbed aboard. What was Lord Evans planning with her?

"I am the Governor of Nassau," Lord Evans said imperiously to the prisoner. "I understand that you told the Four that you have information pertaining to the whereabouts of young Master Franklin Richards."

"Yes," the woman replied. "And as I also told them, if they want to find their son, put me on a ship, and I shall show them the way. I'm saying nothing else."

"That is your final answer?" the Governor asked.

The woman nodded, her eyes like two blades of steel. The Governor turned to his captain. "Go ahead," he said.

The captain gave a signal to his crew. At this, the woman was hauled into the air. The bindings at her hands and feet were connected to two lines, one slipped over a yardarm to keep her arms above her head, dangling her from the mast like it was a gibbet, the other holding her legs, both forming a loop that disappeared over the gunwales, like a pulley that wrapped around the ship.

That was when Johnny understood.

Keelhauling. They were going to drag her under the ship's keel, letting the sharp barnacles and wood splinters there cut her skin into shreds. Do it enough times, and the victim would either bleed to death, or the blood would attract sharks, which would come to finish off the victim. Johnny had never witnessed a keelhauling, but he had seen the aftermath of it, when they saved a merchant vessel from Captain Barracuda. Barracuda's men had keelhauled the merchantman's purser to force him to divulge where the valuables were hidden. By the time the Four found the ship, the purser was beyond help.

And now Lord Evans and his men were going to do it to this woman.

"Where is Galactus?" Lord Evans asked.

She said nothing.

"Where is he taking Commodore Richards' son?"

She said nothing, only stared back at them with those steely eyes.

With a sigh, Lord Evans nodded at the captain. "Now!" the captain shouted.

The men holding the rope heaved, and the prisoner was pulled overboard with a rough splash.

Without stopping to think, Johnny blasted a fireball at the rope, burning it through.

"Wait—!" Ben shouted, though Johnny didn't know if it was to him or to the men. He didn't bother finding out. He jumped into the water, where he found the woman thrashing under the ship with her hands and feet still bound. The keel had scraped her shoulder before he cut the line, and red bloomed in the water around her wound. Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny could see dark shapes darting toward them, drawn by the smell of blood. He grabbed her waist and pulled her to the surface, where they were met by Reed's outstretched arm, reaching over the railing to help them up.

"Lieutenant Storm!" Lord Evans said indignantly the moment they dropped down on the deck. "I'll thank you not to interfere with my questioning of the prisoner."

"You were going to torture her!" Johnny said.

"It's the only thing that works on these pirates," the Governor said inexorably.

Johnny stood in front of the prisoner, as if by doing so, he could shield her from the Governor. "And if she dies, the key to saving Franklin dies with her."   

Sue stepped up. "Enough of this!" she said, and they all fell silent, like little boys being scolded by their mother.

The air around Sue's hand shimmered, and once more, the prisoner was lifted into the air, this time by the invisible force emanating from Sue.

"I can snap every bone in your body," Sue said to the woman. "I can reach through your chest and stop your heart." Johnny stared at his sister, aghast. He had never seen her so angry or so deadly. Even Reed and Ben looked taken aback, and the hardened sailors and Marines turned positively green at her threats. But Sue paid no attention to them. Fixing her eyes on the Silver Syren captain with a hard glare matching that of the other woman, she continued, "Tell me where my son is, or I shall make you suffer."

The other woman only looked back at Sue without a flicker of fear. "Make me suffer, and you shall never see your son again."

Sue flexed her hand. Johnny couldn't tell what she was doing, but from the way the other woman strained and gasped, it was not gently done.

"Sue, no!" he exclaimed, pushing his sister's hand away. "If we do this, it makes us no better than Galactus and his ilk."

Reed was next to him, also trying to pull Sue back. "We're going to find him, Sue," he said softly. "But not like this, my love."

Reed's voice seemed to wake Sue from a trance, and she looked between them and the prisoner, her eyes widening as though she was only realizing what she had done, or was about to do. She dropped the force field. The other woman crumpled on the deck, and Sue clenched her shaky hands into fists.

A moment later, she looked over at the Governor, still pale but more composed.  

"My apologies, Lord Evans," she said. "I didn't mean to undermine your authority. Now that Nassau is under England's protection again, we must do things the civilized way."

"What do you have in mind, Lady Susan?" the Governor asked.

"Allow us to take the prisoner to London, where she shall stand trial for her crimes," Sue said. "The threat of the noose may loosen her tongue. Meantime, we trust your men to carry out the search for our son."

Why would Sue give up so easily? Johnny glanced at Reed and Ben and saw the same question in their eyes. The Governor, however, did not know Sue and found nothing suspicious in her capitulation.

"Very well, my lady," he said, inclining his head. Then he straightened up, and a cold glint came into his eyes. "In that case, I would like you to escort my daughter back home to her mother as well."

Sue opened her mouth and then closed it again. Johnny could almost see the workings of her mind, whirling and turning like the wheels of the Excelsior, as she tried to remain impassive.

"Miss Evans?" she said. "But she only recently arrived."

"I made a mistake bringing her here, I can see that now," the Governor said. "This is no place for a lady." He looked straight at Sue, making it clear that the jab behind his words was intentional. "I should warn you. If you four and the prisoner do not arrive in London at the expected time, I shall have no choice but to brand you traitors and have you hunted down. Do not, for one second, believe that your superpowers exempt you from the King's laws."

"I wouldn't dream of it," replied Sue with a tight smile.

They returned to shore, and Johnny personally saw to it that the prisoner was put safely back into her cell under the fort. It was on the tip of his tongue to apologize to her for her treatment, to assure her that they were not all barbarians, but a glance from those strange, pale eyes, and he clamped his mouth shut.

He kept his mouth shut in front of Sue as well, despite still being shocked and frightened by her display of callousness. Although he had never been a parent, he knew how anxious she must be. It was natural that she would unleash it upon the only person she could. He shared those feelings, even if his were only a fraction of Sue's. 

"We're not really taking her back to England, are we?" he asked once they were in their own drawing room. He kept his voice low, even though there was no chance of being overheard in Baxter House.

"No," Sue said. "As soon as we clear the harbor, we'll throw the Excelsior into full steam and lose the rest of the fleet. They can't catch us."

Kidnapping the prisoner from under the Royal Navy's nose? Reed shook his head slowly. "No, they can't. But it's a big risk, Sue. You heard the Governor."

"It's a risk we must take," Sue insisted.

"What of Miss Evans?" Johnny asked. The girl would not take kindly to her father using her as collateral, and it would not be a pleasant voyage for them with her aboard. Still, as irritating as the girl was, Johnny didn't wish her harm.

"We can deal with her easily enough," Sue said.

"You can't be thinking of dragging her with us to face Galactus?" Reed said, alarmed.

"I'm not thinking anything," Sue said grimly. "There are plenty of islets around the Caribbean. We can simply... drop her off. The fleet will not be far behind. She will soon be found."

"And the crew?" Ben chimed in. Even though the Excelsior could be managed by a skeleton crew, or just the four of them if needs be, it would look suspicious if they set out with no crew at all.

A hint of doubt crept into Sue's expression, which was quickly wiped away by a shake of her head. "The crew is loyal to us," she said. "Anyone who feels otherwise can join the maroons."

"Is that wise?" Ben asked. "We're going to need the fleet's support." As the others turned to him, Ben explained, "If Galactus had indeed taken Franklin, then it is not for ransom. If it were money or ships he's after, he would've sent his demand by now. And if he wanted to, uh, harm the boy"—here Ben cast an anxious glance at Sue and Reed, and Johnny knew Ben meant something much more permanent—"he would have done the deed already." Sue shivered at the thought. Ben concluded, "That leaves only one option."

"He wants us to follow him," Reed said. "He's holding Franklin hostage to lure us to him. Perhaps this woman, this prisoner, has let herself be captured on purpose for that very aim."

Ben nodded. "Which is why we're going to need support from the Governor's fleet, or even the entire Navy, if we can get it. We're sailing into a trap."

"No, no." Sue's golden hair had come loose from the knot on the back of her head, but she didn't seem to care or notice. "Lord Evans would not risk his fleet for Franklin. England would not risk her Navy for one boy, not with Spain on the horizon. If we are to save him, we must do it ourselves."

Now they were at an impasse. To stay with the fleet or strike out on their own? Both Reed and Sue turned to Johnny, waiting for him to cast the deciding vote.

"Sue's right," Johnny said slowly. "Lord Evans is a politician. He has no regard for anything else save his own power and ambitions."

That decided it. Ben got to his feet. "Well, I guess I'd better see to stocking up the ship's store," he said, putting his coat and hat back on to make his way to the warehouses. "Herbie, stay," he added when the dog tried to follow him. Herbie always knew when they were preparing for a voyage. The moment Ben brought out his charts, the little terrier would start running around, full of excitement, waiting for the moment he could follow them aboard and chase the ship's rats to his heart's content. Yet even the dog seemed to sense the subdued mood in the room, for at Ben's admonition, he quickly lay back down and put his nose between his paws, instead of clamoring to follow Ben to the warehouses as usual.

Reed sighed, knowing he had been overruled. "I'll chart the course," he said, only to remember that they wouldn't know the course until the prisoner told them where to go. "Can we even trust this woman to tell us the truth?" he asked no one in particular.

"If your theory is correct," Sue said, "and she is sent here to lead us to Galactus, then I suppose we have no choice but to believe her."

"What if we go to where Galactus is and Franklin isn't there?" said Reed.

"Galactus will lead us to Franklin, one way or another," Sue replied, and went off to make her own preparations.

That left Johnny with Herbie in the drawing room. Johnny's eyes fell on the palm fronds outside the window, drooped and broken, a grim reminder of the rogue wave that had taken Franklin. He could not remember another voyage that had started in so somber a fashion, and with so much uncertainty. For all his support of Sue's plan, Johnny didn't fully agree with her. And though he was often frustrated at Reed's insistence on doing what was correct rather than what was right, he had to admit Reed had a point. Sue's plan was too big a risk, depending on too many things that were out of their control, involving too many people. The Governor's threat was still ringing in Johnny's ears. I shall have no choice but to brand you traitors and have you hunted down... That meant any crew members who followed them on this voyage into the unknown would be deemed traitors as well, not to mention the harm they would bring to Dorothea, and Johnny couldn't have that on his conscience. He couldn't drag so many innocent people into it. He couldn't drag Sue, Reed, and Ben into it, for that matter.

After they had first gained their powers, there had been a fair number of skeptics who claimed they were the Devil's disciples, accused them of witchcraft, and demanded that they be burned at the stake. The uproar had died out once they started using their powers for good, but Johnny still remembered those times too clearly. He knew how quickly society's affection and opinion could turn. What would people say when they found out the Four had turned their backs upon their country, leaving them to the threat of the Spanish, to save their own child? He couldn't force his family through something like that again.

This whole trouble, the kidnapping of Franklin, had been Johnny's fault.

"And I'm going to fix it," he said to Herbie. And then he, too, went out, leaving the little dog to whimper sadly by himself in the empty room.

***

Shalla-Bal shivered in the damp, cold air of the cell. She didn't know how long she had been in here. Since she had been hauled out of it that morning and thrown back in shortly after, she had tried to keep track of time, but it was an exercise in futility, for there was nothing here to mark the passage of the day—the prison was so deep underground that no sunlight nor moonlight could penetrate its labyrinthine corridors. The only noises she heard were from the workmen above, as they shouted to each other and dragged stone and timber across the courtyard to repair the holes left by her guns, and the quiet bodily sounds of the guards outside her door.

At some point around midday, or perhaps later, the grill in the door was opened, and a wooden bowl with some sort of pottage or stew and a piece of bread in it, along with a jug of water, was pushed through. Shalla had accepted the food and water gladly and forced them down, even though the pottage was burned and the bread was stale, knowing she needed to keep up her strength. The wound on her shoulder had stopped bleeding, but it was still smarting. Who knew what they were going to do to her next? It seemed the Four of the Fantastic were willing to let her rot here. She had counted on these people's concern for their child, hoping they would take her up on her offer for the child's sake, but perhaps she had overestimated them.

The child... That was a nasty surprise. When Galactus gave her the task of blowing up Fort Nassau, he'd only said it was for revenge. He had made no mention of a child or a kidnapping, but Shalla saw now that it had been his true intention all along. Her master often talked of finding an heir, someone to inherit his cursed throne. Could it be that he saw the Richards boy as his successor? What could be a more exquisite revenge than to make the son of your mortal enemies your heir? And as Shalla knew from personal experience, Galactus was not beneath using children to torment their parents. Her fingers closed around the sea glass pendant at her throat again. Elmar, Elmar... Why must children always pay for their parents' sins?

A commotion from above made Shalla drop the pendant.

"Fire!!!" someone shouted.

This was followed by footsteps, above her and in the corridor outside. She went to the door and put her face to the grill. Through it, she caught an acrid whiff of smoke, different from the greasy stench of the tallow-dipped torches on the wall, and saw the guards running toward the stairs. Did they mean to leave her here to die? The walls of the cell were made of stone, so it was unlikely to go up in flames, but she could very well suffocate on the smoke.

A head, covered by a black cowl, popped up behind the grill, making Shalla step back in surprise. A hand reached up to sweep the cowl back, revealing the Human Torch under it.

"Stay clear of the door," he said.

"Why?" The word was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. She'd be damned if she let another man order her about.

The man shrugged. "Suit yourself." There was a sizzling sound, and the door hinges started turning red, scorching the frame. Redder, redder they went, until they turned white and melted with such intense heat that Shalla could feel it all the way from her corner of the cell. A moment later, the door was lifted off and cast aside. The Human Torch held out a dark cloak, not unlike the one he was wearing, and said, "Come, we don't have much time." 

Shalla had been expecting some form of prison break, but now, facing it, her natural distrust rose again. Where were the rest of his family? Perhaps they were getting their ship ready to pick her up, and they had decided to send their youngest member to spring her out of prison because he was the least threatening. They weren't wrong. Certainly, Shalla would not want to face his sister again.

"If you think I'm going anywhere with the man who captured me, then you're a bigger fool than I thought," she said.

"I didn't capture you so you can be tortured," the Human Torch said indignantly. "And if you recall, I saved you from a painful keelhauling just this morning."

"Only for your sister to threaten me." Shalla didn't blame the woman, though. If she'd had in her grasp someone who had helped to harm Elmar, she wouldn't have hesitated to do the same. 

He let out an impatient huff. "We can stand here debating all night, but if you wish to stay until the guards put out the fire and come back..."

 "Very well." Shalla snatched the cloak from him and threw it over her threadbare gown.

"Wait." He pointed to the broken chain still stuck around her torso. "Why are you wearing that? You're going to give us away, rattling away like a locksmith like that."

She shrugged. "I can't take it off. It's welded closed."

"Stand still." Carefully pulling the chain away from her waist, he heated it in his palm until the silver links melted and the whole thing broke apart. He threw the chain to the ground. "Come."

Shalla stared at the remnants of the chain, the reminder of her enslavement. Then, without another word, she followed him out of the cell.

The Human Torch led her down a different set of tunnels from the one the guards had taken. They followed these tunnels for a long time, with only the flames in his hand held aloft to illuminate their way. These flames were vastly superior to torches or lanterns, for they released no smoke, and when a padlocked gate barred the path, he simply turned the flames white-hot and melted down the lock, just as he'd done with the door hinges of her cell. A neat trick, that. Even Shalla had to admit it, though she had seen more than her fair share of how wondrous and terrible the world could be.

They walked in silence, for which she was also thankful. Eventually, after so many twists and turns that Shalla lost count, the path started to slope upward, and the tunnel led to a natural opening in the hill on which the fort had been built, hidden behind a large boulder. The opening was so narrow that the Human Torch had to turn sideways to slip through it, before turning back and extending a hand to help Shalla. She ignored his hand and nimbly stepped through the gap into a warm, starlit night.

They were standing on a hillside, looking down at the town, where its people were sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, the empty beach, and Nassau Harbor beyond, where ships on watch were bobbing in the water more thickly than usual. That was her doing, Shalla realized. Hers and Galactus's.

"Where is your ship?" she asked the Human Torch.

"Down there," he said vaguely, not looking at her.

"How do you suggest we get past those patrols?"

He turned to her then, a mischievous grin lighting up his boyish face for a moment. "Wait and see," he said, nodding at the harbor below.

Shalla peered into the darkness, but the starlight was faint, and she couldn't make out what it was he wanted her to see. Just as she was turning to the Human Torch in exasperation, he took her hand and pointed. "There," he said.

Ignoring the fact that his face was mere inches from hers, she looked again. Now she saw it—a ship was moving into the harbor, toward the fleet of sentries. It moved rather listlessly, like it was simply drifting on the waves. On its deck were strange, crouching dark shapes.

"What are those?" she asked, squinting.

"Guns," said the Human Torch, almost gleefully. "Double-loaded with two cannonballs each and all the powder they can hold."

She stared at him. "What are you planning?"

He grinned again. "Wait and see," he repeated. Flames engulfed his entire body then, and he jumped into the air. Almost too fast for her eyes to follow, he flew down to the harbor. Shalla saw a fiery streak through the darkness and gave up the notion of running away from him. In water, she might hope to match his speed, but on land, with these clumsy legs, she would have no chance. Just as he'd done to the Silver Syren, he threw a fireball at the drifting ship and was back by her side in a flash. 

The strange ship didn't explode, though—not right away. Instead, flames shot up all along its deck and riggings, turning the whole ship into a candelabra. And it was headed straight for the fleet at the mouth of the harbor.

"What have you done?" Shalla asked in horror. 

"Only a bit of tar and pitch," said the Human Torch. "And don't worry, there's no one on board. I rigged the helm."

On the patrol ships, the men were shouting at each other to move out of the way. "Fireship!" they screamed. "Fireship!" But it was too late. The fireship, stuck on its course, collided with the first line of the fleet, and its guns discharged with deafening booms that could be heard all the way at the fort. Some of the further ships swung about with the wind to their backs, fleeing toward the open sea, but those at the mouth of the harbor were abandoned to their fate by their crews. The candelabra turned into a conflagration as the fireship claimed several victims.

No wonder they called him the Human Torch.

"Now is our chance," he said to Shalla.

Without waiting for an answer, he seized the edge of her cloak and raced down the hill, toward the east entrance of the harbor, pulling her with him. Fumbling, Shalla pulled up the hood of her cloak to hide her pale hair and followed him to the dock. Cries and shouts of alarm went up all around them, from townspeople who were roused from their sleep and no doubt thought they were under attack again. Window shutters were tossed open, and some people even ran into the street in their nightgowns. In the chaos, no one paid them any mind.  

"Here, get in!"

He untied a small boat at the dock and all but shoved Shalla into it. Spurred on by the urgency in his voice, she climbed in without looking. He unfurled the sails and pushed the boat from the dock with an oar, and they were off, heading south, while the fleet crackled and collapsed into fiery wreckage behind them. 

Only when they were far enough from the fire did Shalla realize they were utterly alone. She had assumed the other three were waiting in the safety of the bay to pick them up, but there was no sign of another ship. On their port side, Nassau Harbor continued to burn, and ahead of them, there was nothing but the dark sea, dotted with the reflections of stars.  

"Where are the others?" she asked. The Human Torch suddenly became very interested in a patch in the sail and refused to answer her, or indeed even look at her. A horrible suspicion dawned in her mind. "Oh Neptune," she breathed out. "They're not coming, are they?"

"No," he admitted. "Look, my sister's plan to take you to England to stand trial, it's not going to work. The fleet would be on us like a hawk. This way, we would draw a lot less attention. And if anything goes wrong, I'm the only one taking the fall. Not that anything will go wrong," he added quickly. "If you help me save my nephew, I promise that you shall go free."

Free. Did he mean free from the noose, or free from Galactus as well? For all he knew, she had willingly sailed in consort with Galactus and was now eager to return to her life of piracy. She noted that he'd said "help me save my nephew", rather than "help me defeat Galactus." Perhaps he was not as foolish a fop as she'd thought, after all. Perhaps he very well knew that he stood no chance against Galactus and was only trying to save his nephew. And besides, it mattered not to her what he did, as long as he brought her to her daughter. For a brief, guilty moment, Shalla realized she might be condemning another child for the sake of her own, but she closed her fingers around her sea glass pendant again and steeled her heart.

Turning her eyes away from him, she looked at the boat more carefully. It was flat-bottomed, with two masts and a stern-mounted rudder, sleek and fast, the type preferred by pirates for stealthy raids. It would never hold up in a face-to-face battle against the Taa II, but in such a battle, perhaps brute strength would not matter as much as speed and secrecy. The only question was, would it survive a trip to the South Seas?

"You plan to save your nephew... in a canoe?" she said.

"It's a periagua, to be precise," he said, as proper as a scholar. "And no, I plan to get to Tortuga, where we can get a bigger, better ship, and a crew to sail it. This is just to get us out of Nassau."

Shalla raised her brows. "How are you going to pay for this ship and crew in Tortuga? Have you any money?"

"Of course," he said. "I'm not a complete imbecile." He took a small purse out of his jacket and jiggled so she could hear the clinking of coins inside, before tucking it back into his pocket.

"Unless that purse was filled with pure gold or gems, it's not nearly enough," Shalla scoffed. She had been around pirates long enough to have a good idea of their prices. "Have you anything else? Any leads for prizes they can score? Maps to hidden treasures?"

His face fell. "... No."

"Then what are you going to do?"

He shrugged. "There are always men who are desperate enough."

"Desperate men don't make for a very loyal crew," she said skeptically.

"I don't need them to be loyal. I just need them to bring me to Galactus."

As do I, thought Shalla. Outwardly, she sighed. "It looks like I'm stuck with you then, Human Torch," she said.

"You can call me by my name, you know."

"And that is—?"

He doffed his hood with a flourish. "Lieutenant Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm of the British Royal Navy, at your service," he said, bowing to her as best he could while still keeping his hand on the tiller to steer the boat.

Shalla refused to be impressed. "That's quite a mouthful," she said dryly. "Pray that you never go overboard, or you may drown before your rescuers know who you are."

"My friends and family call me Johnny."

"Seeing as I'm neither, I shall stick to Storm." Not the most auspicious name for a companion on a sea voyage, but Shalla had never paid much attention to the old suspicions of sailors.

"And what do I call you?" he asked.

Shalla hesitated. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to be so familiar with her. Seeing this, Storm extended a hand toward her. "Oh, come. I have saved your life twice. Surely that entitles me to your name."

Eventually, she relented. "My name is Shalla-Bal."

He frowned slightly at the strange-sounding name. "But what do I call you?" he asked. "Shalla? Mistress Bal? Lady Bal?"

Only her family called her Shalla, and she had not heard that in a long time. 'Mistress' or 'Lady' sounded pretentious, like she was reaching above her station. "Call me Shalla-Bal," she said.

"... Shalla-Bal it is."

He stretched out his hand again, and this time, Shalla understood that he wanted her to take it. Hesitantly, afraid of getting burned by the flames she'd seen shooting out from that palm, she put her own hand in it. His hand was warm, his grip strong and firm without crushing her fingers. A dependable hand. Well, she hoped the man was as dependable as his hand, for she had to depend on him now.

Chapter 5