Bootstrap held onto the wooden plank as the ocean tossed him about, and his stomach heaved with each new wave. Cold rain pelted his face and his fingers felt like ice. Land may have been inches away or thousands of miles—he couldn't see anything through the fog and doubted his weakened muscles would let him swim any distance at all. It would be so easy to let go, but his wife… little William….

"God help me," he said. "I'm not ready to die."

"God needn't have anything to do with it." Bootstrap had no idea where the voice came from, but then he thought he saw a flicker of light. He'd heard people often saw strange things right before the end: visions of angels, or the terrifying waterlogged specter of Davy Jones.

"I just want to live!" he said wildly. "I won't die—it's not my time, it can't be!"

"It never has to be your time." Though the voice was quiet, the winds had stilled, and Bootstrap felt each word as though it had pierced through his skin.

"What?"

The light came closer and Bootstrap saw it was a lantern on a lifeboat. Only one woman was on board, and the light seemed to frame her without illuminating any features. But she was beautiful—he had no question of that.

She stretched an arm toward him and pulled him into the boat, lifting him up and setting him down in the stern as though it was no effort at all.

"It would be a shame to die," she said, "when life is so precious."

He shook—not just from weakness and the cold. "I don't understand."

"Give me your soul and you can live forever."

He thought for a moment as he watched the clouds shift across a moonless sky. But he knew his answer—had known it from the moment he saw her. "Yes."

She smiled. The lantern light glistened off her sharp teeth, but cast no warmth on her skin. "Close your eyes," she said.

He did, although it was dark enough that it made little difference. Her breath warmed the skin on his neck. Then he felt a piercing pain, and blood trickled down. Life ebbed away from him, slowly at first, then in torrents that rivaled any hurricane.

He forced his eyes open and had to fight the dizziness. "Why…?"

She looked up at him, her mouth rimmed with blood. Without a word, she pulled a knife from the sheath at her side and stabbed it into her palm. "Drink."

Bootstrap knew little of God's matters, but this was clearly blasphemy. He formed a wordless prayer for forgiveness he did not deserve, and drank her blood.

Life and strength flooded back into him. He stood up and bared his teeth to the sky with a growl. He felt invincible as the sea itself, immortal as the sky.

"Nothing can hurt you now," she said. "Unless your heart is pierced or your head severed, you cannot die. Light may hurt you, but cannot destroy." She smiled. "I've found sunrises a small price to pay for eternal life. Cheaper than the church, that's certain."

"Thank you," he said. "I'd have paid any price not to die, but to receive this gift… which I can pass on to those I love…" His chest tightened, but no tears would come.

"Land is two miles that way." She gestured. "Go. The sea has no power over you now."

Bootstrap smiled, the new fangs piercing his lower lip, and dived over the side of the boat. She watched his progress, idly tracing her fingers over the surface of the water. It bubbled under her.

"You're too late," she said. "I won this one, and a better bargain for him, too."

A tricorn hat emerged from beneath the waves, followed by a tentacled face. "The sea and its victims are my domain, Antoinette," Davy Jones said.

"And seekers of life are mine," Antoinette said. "Call it a draw."

His voice clicked in annoyance. "You never had a sense of fair play."

"Nor did you," she said. "But this comes out even. Though his soul is mine, his heart belongs to the sea. Just as yours does, and ever did."

"You know whom my heart belongs to."

"And you know my heart no longer beats. These are nothing but words, Davy Jones. Does it comfort you to say them still?"

He reached out and took Antoinette's clammy hand in his. "Perhaps it does. Do your small victories in this old game comfort you?"

She let his hand go. "You know they don't. Good-bye, Davy."

He tipped his hat to her. "Smooth sailing, Antoinette." With that, he sank once again beneath the waves.

The winds howled, or perhaps it was something else. Antoinette opened the lantern's door and let the winds extinguish the flame.