Back on the Leviathan
A few days after the end of Goliath
A raging gale blew over the ship, sending a sheet of icy raindrops over the starboard engine and straight into Deryn's face. She sputtered a bit and wiped her face with her wet sleeve. It didn't help much but at least it got the barking water out of her eyes. Chilled to the bone, Deryn wrapped her arms tighter around herself and turned to face her back to the wind.
She wished Alek was with her. Last time it was raining this bad they were climbing topside, struggling daftly to attach Tesla's dumb wireless antenna. Alek may have rattled his brains that night when he clunked his head open, but she had also been able to kiss him.
She had stolen several kisses since then, and it made her smile to think about it. Hell, she must have been smiling all the time lately. Even now, on a dark stormy night when she was supposed to be on first watch duty, she was too busy thinking about Alek instead of paying full attention to her post.
Deryn sighed. It would have been nice to have Alek with her. He probably wouldn't mind helping keep her warm. But her prince was probably fast asleep, curled up with Bovril and snoring away.
A flash shot through the sky as a tendril of lightening broke through the clouds and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean below the ship. Deryn shuddered. Standing in the rain was barking miserable enough but on top of that she had to be reminded of hot air balloons exploding every time a lightening bolt struck.
She closed her eyes and tried to push her mind back to happy thoughts about Alek and kissing, but the storm seemed to be getting stronger. The wind changed directions and spattered more freezing water into her eyes. Turning around again, she now faced the wooden doors behind her. They were bolted with heavy steel bars, probably the only things on the ship, besides the engines, that were made of metal.
The door had been a focal point of interest over the past few weeks. Since she had arrived on the Leviathan for the first time, Deryn had seen and memorized almost every inch of it. She would bet she knew the ship as well as the captain and the shipwright combined. Every room had been drawn in detail in her sketchpad. Every room, that is, except for the one that lay behind the steel bolted doors. It had simply been called the 'contact room', and no one was allowed admittance. Not a soul.
It was mysterious all right, and everyone aboard had their presumptions about what could be inside.
Dr. Barlow claimed it was only more intestines of the airbeast that were too delicate to be bothered. The kitchen staff guessed that there were valuables inside such as diamonds and emeralds as large as apples. Newkirk thought it might be a horrible beastie waiting to attack the Clankers, while Mr. Rigby went on about thousands of pounds of gunpowder and high explosives. Even Alek had his opinions about the contact room.
"It's probably just paperwork." He had told her that evening. "Every ship has important documents in case of emergencies."
"What kind of documents?" She had asked.
"Deeds mainly, or legal testimonials about the ship in case someone was to take us hostage or there was a mutiny. That way they would always know that the Leviathan was originally a British air vessel."
Deryn snorted at that. "Well that's awful dull. Seems pretty stupid to have someone guarding it all the time."
Indeed, someone was guarding the contact room all the barking time. Even on blistering cold nights such as this one. She didn't want to believe that she was freezing her bum off for a couple of papers, but even so, she didn't have much choice. The captain had someone on guard duty at the doors of the contact room every second of every day. She recalled that even during battle he had made certain that there was at least one soldier standing in front of the wooden doors making sure that no one opened them.
It would probably remain a mystery. In three days time they would be back in London and Deryn would disembark from the Leviathan for good. She had hoped her last few duties wouldn't include standing out in the rain. At least it beat swabbing out the latrines.
Another draft of wind brushed over her face. It was warm this time, like she had walked through the gastric chamber of the airbeast. But the breeze didn't smell of hydrogen. Instead, it was a putrid scent of decomposing meat. Deryn wrinkled up her nose and took a closer look at where the smell had come from. It didn't take her long to notice that the steel bolted door was open ever so slightly. It was just a wee crack but it was enough to let the gust of air float through.
She was confused as to why she hadn't noticed it earlier, but didn't stop to ponder it too much. Slowly, Deryn reached out to close the door but stopped herself when a noise penetrated from the contact room.
It sounded like a moan, a human moan, something between a painful cry and a desperate yell for help. Puzzled, she ended up pushing the door open instead of closing it.
"Is there someone in there?"
"Yes." Said a soft voice. "Get in here and give me something to eat."
Deryn gulped. After all this time they were keeping people locked up in there.
"Ummm… so sorry, captain's orders are to keep the doors…."
"Do I sound like I give a damn what that fool of a captain wants? Now, are you just going to stand out in the rain or are you going to make yourself useful and bring me a snack?"
She should have run away. She should have shut the door, turned around and ran straight back to her warm room and gone to bed. But Deryn was too curious to leave it at that. She had been wondering for a long time what was behind these doors. And the person inside was only asking for food. Who knows how long they had been sitting there without a proper bite to eat?
Slowly she bumped the door open with her foot and tiptoed into the dark enclosure. Immediately she had to cover her mouth and nose with her hands because the stench was so horrid. Trying not to gag, Deryn allowed her eyes to adjust to the dim room.
It was much larger than she had expected, nearly twice as big as the middy mess. The place was littered with garbage. Broken wooden crates were scattered across the floor along with hundreds of dead fish which seemed to have the meat sucked out of them, leaving nothing but bones and skin. Her eyes adjusted more and she made out what looked like a large cage toward the back of the room. Inside was a long glass tub filled with murky water. A woman sat in the tank. A very odd looking woman.
She was completely nude and her skin had an eerie hue to it, almost green. There was no hair on her head, and it looked like she didn't have ears, only large brown spots where the ears should be.
"Close the door, idiot, I don't want to freeze to death." The woman spoke. "And bring me one of those sea bass, I'm starving."
Deryn shook her head. "I think I should go." She managed to mutter. This was too barking strange. She shouldn't be here and she shouldn't be talking to this woman.
"NOOOO!" The woman shrieked. It was such I high pitch cry that Deryn was afraid she'd gone deaf. "You aren't going anywhere until I get something to eat! It's been hours since my last feeding and if you don't bring me one of those God damn fish right now, I'm just going to start screaming again."
Deryn moved toward the door and was about to leave when the woman let out another screech, this time even louder.
"STOP! You don't want me to scream again, pal, or else I'll wake up the entire ship. And I don't think they'd be very happy if they found you in here."
Deryn froze and turned around to face the woman.
"I can't…"
"Get over yourself; it's not that big of a deal. All I need is for you to grab me some grub and carry it over here."
Deryn paused a moment to think it over. It wasn't like the woman was asking her a huge favor; she could handle giving her something to eat. "Okay," She said. "Where's the fish?"
The creepy woman smiled and pointed toward a crate on the far left side of the room. Deryn had to swallow down a gasp when the woman lifted her hand to point. She didn't have fingers, but webbed froglike toes.
"Hey dumbass, are you just going to stand there and stare, or are you going to get me my food?"
Deryn finally was able to move and headed over to the crate of fish. It was stuffed with rotting sea bass and she grabbed one quickly before having to smell any more of the rotten odor.
"You really are a slow one, aren't you?" The frog woman said.
Deryn gave her a slight scowl before getting up the nerve to cross the short distance to the cage on the other side of the room. As she walked closer, Deryn realized other very odd things about this woman. For example, she didn't appear to have legs. They were more like flippers that bent sideways at the knee joint and large fan shaped feet. Her skin was grey and scaly looking in her arms and torso, but beneath her hips it became slimy in texture and green in color. The pool of water she sat in came up to her waist and she stunk of death.
"Barking spiders!" Deryn swore. This woman was a fabrication, a human fabrication.
"You need to get a bit closer, dummy." The woman snapped, but Deryn didn't want to get any closer, she was about ready to throw the fish away and bolt toward the door. Unfortunately the frog woman seemed to notice her hesitation and reached out one of her long nasty arms to snag Deryn's wrist through the bars of the cage.
"LET GO OF ME!"
"I thought I made myself clear!" She grumbled, pulling Deryn closer to her with ease. "If I don't get what I want, I'm going to scream. And believe me; you don't want to hear me scream."
Deryn was about to scream herself but couldn't. She was now inches away from the frog lady. The woman reached out with her other webbed hand, snatched Deryn by the neck and yanked her in so their faces were almost touching through the bars of the cage.
"Well, boy?" She mumbled. Deryn managed a nod and the woman let go. In an instant, she had thrown the fish into the enclosure and taken a good three or four steps back away from the cage.
"I have to…." Deryn began to speak, but then stopped. For some reason her throat felt like it was on fire. She reached up with one hand to touch her neck where the woman had grabbed her. It was clammy and cold to the touch, like she had suddenly lost circulation. It also hurt like barking mad.
"ACHHH!" Deryn screamed, for when she pulled her hand away from her throat, her fingers had also gone strangely cold. "What did you do to me!" She shouted.
The woman wasn't eating her fish. It lay abandoned in her lap as she stared at Deryn in horror.
"NO!" She gasped. "This can't happen to you, it's not possible! You aren't a…. unless…heaven's no! What have I done?
"What do you mean…" Deryn started to speak again but choked. Like the rain crashing against the side of the ship, a shot of pain ran through her body. It started at her throat and ran into her stomach. Her insides felt like they were being ripped out of her and pulled back out of her mouth. The stench of the room was making her head spin so she turned and bolted out the door.
By the time she reached the deck she couldn't walk any more. She fell to her knees and crawled across the wooden floor boards, ignoring the ice cold water that pooled around the deck. She had begun to wretch up bile from her belly and tried to crawl to the railing so she could puke into the ocean instead of all over the ground. She never made it that far, though. Instead she managed to find a pile of rope to crumple into and continued to shudder and vomit between gasps.
What's happening to me? She thought.
From the contact room she heard a distant scream that sounded like someone was shouting for help. She realized she never did manage to close the door after all.
