Chapter 12 = Ghost from the Past
(1911 A.D., The Forbidden Waters, South-Western Province, the Neverlands, the Realm of Ishrakie)
Two days after leaving the island of fog, Hook invites Smee to his quarters just after sunset. Smee closes the door and stands stiffly just inside. The Captain has his boots and jacket off, revealing his perfectly toned chest.
"Good evening, Mr. Smee. Care for a drink?" asks Hook, striding over to Smee and carrying a freshly opened bottle of spiced rum.
His aura of menacing power, and unabashed confidence radiates from him stronger than ever, causing Mr. Smee to take a few steps back against the wall by the door. Hook slides in close to Smee, gazing deep into his eyes. Smee's blood boils as he feels the Captain's breath on his neck. Hook drags the point of his good hand against the wall just off to the side of Smee's face. Smee's lips quiver against the feeling of Hook's thigh, rubbing gently against his growing erection.
"It has been a while since we had a moment as fine as this hasn't it, Smee?" coos Hook in Smee's ear.
"In… indeed it has c… c… cap'n." replies Mr. Smee, stuttering with rapidly intensifying arousal.
"I can feel a strange new power surging inside me, Smee. I can sense destiny drawing me towards absolute victory with you by my side to share it."
"I have noticed, you seem much more, shall I say, vigorous lately, more full of strength. I like it," replies Mr. Smee, wrapping his arms around Hook's neck tenderly.
"As do I, Smee… as do I," mutters back Hook.
Their lips lock and their bodies intertwine as the hours fade into passionate, lustful bliss.
******
Three days of smooth sailing take them deeper into the heart of the Forbidden Waters. Deeper into the unknown. Closer to the end of their great journey.
"Debris off the port bow!" calls down Blickstein from the crow's nest.
Smee extends his telescope and scans the waters.
"Broken boards. Pieces of cloth. Could be the remnants of a ship, Captain." He hands the glass to Hook.
Hook gives the wheel to Smee and looks through the lens. As he looks to the horizon, the clam in his pocket pulsates with burning energy. He pulls it out as a radiant beam of light erupts forth like a shimmering plasmatic blade stretched out before him. It glows red with searing heat, causing Hook to snarl, throwing the clam into the sea ahead of them. The clam fades beneath the waves, causing the ocean waters ahead of them to suddenly churn and glow.
The crew gapes slack-jawed as a wondrous glistening white tower rises towards the heavens from beneath the sea. The glowing megalith continues to ascend ever higher, piercing the sky, dumping unfathomable gallons of seawater from its stone seams and cracks. Near the top of the great looming tower is a skinny diamond-shaped hole. The hole gushes water as the tower grows to over a hundred feet tall, then two hundred, five hundred. Eventually, a grand door emerges in the tower's base. The Tower itself rests atop a wide, rocky island as its foundation. When the last water drips from the structure, the men realise the tower is not bright because of reflected light, but rather from a dull pale glow coming from the very material of the Tower's outer surface.
"There's our new heading, men! Adjust the sails!" demands Hook, his voice ringing with excitement.
Hook cranks the wheel, turning toward the massive pale spire. Then he stops. Smee, eye to the telescope again, grabs the Captain's arm firmly in warning, as from behind the tower creeps the skeletal figurehead of the Jolly Roger. Next comes the black hull with the red stripes along its portholes. The ship rounds the small island quickly, rushing straight for them against the wind.
"It's the Roger! She's back to reclaim us!" calls out Noodler, his tone raked with fear.
"How can it be? She was dashed apart by the storm!" declares Mr. Mason in contradiction of his own eyes.
The familiar ship takes an angle as if to cut off their path to the tower. Hook can't pull his gaze from the ship as he watches an all too familiar flag rise up the mainsail. The flag is light blue with a crude black shark sewn on it. Hook nearly drops the telescope. He looks at Smee with such a look of disturbed disbelief that for a moment Smee doesn't recognize him.
"What is it, Captain?" asks Smee.
Hook doesn't answer. Instead, he vaults over the railing to the main deck and charges to the bow, almost knocking Bill Jukes overboard. At the bow, he lifts the telescope again, trying to see the man at the helm of the Jolly Roger. Slowly the Jolly Roger moves closer along their port-side until they are eventually nearly perpendicular to each other. As the sails change angle, they reveal to Hook the answer he seeks; the man captaining the other ship. He is a man of medium height and slim build. Despite not being overly tall, his aristocratic manner and straight-backed posture make him seem imposing. Hook immediately recognizes the long, raven hair and sharp moustache that he himself continues to emulate.
"It cannot be… Captain Pescaro, you bloody fop." Hook leans against the railing and grins. "Mr. Smee, alter course fifteen degrees starboard. Make him chase us," instructs Hook.
"Murphy! Grab two men and move the desk from my cabin out onto the deck!" orders Hook decisively.
The wind shifts for a moment, making the taut sails billow. The Stille Jäger moves into the Pale Tower's shadow. Waves hit the broadside of the ship, making it list heavily. The men moving the desk stumble and curse. Blickstein climbs down from the crow's nest as the Jolly Roger moves in closer, oblivious to the change in the wind.
"Blickstein! Noodler!" The men race over to receive their orders. "Hoist our reserve anchor up to the crow's nest. On my command, fling it off the starboard side," demands Hook.
Blickstein stares open-mouthed at the captain for a moment, but Noodler yanks him along. Murphy scoots the huge desk the last foot out onto the deck. His huge chest heaves. His helpers, Mr. Mason and Bill Jukes, pant and rub fresh bruises.
"Good form, men. Now move one of the main-deck cannons into my cabin and aim it out the back windows."
"But sir… this ship has thirty-two pounders on the main deck. How do you expect us to move it in these conditions?"
The slight insubordination triggers a deep cold anger. Hook skewers Bill Jukes with the granite stare of a killer. He thinks back to his early days as a captain when he had killed two crew members who refused his orders. But actions have consequences and those deaths nearly caused a mutiny. He quickly learned that if you want a crew of fearless killers, you can't use fear to ensure loyalty. You must gain their respect.
Hook strides to a cannon and releases the securing rope. Murphy raises a hand to protest but lets it drop. As the ship leans from a fresh wave, the cannon rolls toward the centre of the ship. At midship, Hook plants his feet and, using his good hand in the barrel, he spins the cannon ninety degrees.
The chitin running through his limbs acts like added muscle convulsing with raw force far greater than his actual body. Although it gives him a pleasant sensation of power, it also seems to make small slices in his skin whenever it is used. The constant pain keeps him alert and focused.
The men, much like Blickstein, watch Hook work dumbstruck as sea spray drags hair into their eyes.
"I believe you will figure out a way. Now get to it, you bloody bilge rats!" barks Hook, his demonstration done.
Hook returns to the helm, watching the Jolly Roger slowly approach them from behind. As it nears, he notices it is not the Jolly Roger he remembers. The bow of the ship is normally adorned with a polished pale skeletal mass pieced together from several men with a common skull at the tip. But not this version of the Jolly Roger, no. This Jolly Roger's bow is decorated with the massive smooth wooden effigy of a young boy's head. The Elven features and crown of leaves make it crystal clear to Hook, who the head is meant to depict. Pescaro always loved his games, none more than mind games during competition.
Pescaro steers the Jolly Roger wide to port before then cutting back to starboard. Hook knows they must act fast, for in moments they will be in range of the Roger's long guns. The wind continues to slam whitecaps against the port broadside of the Stille Jäger, causing the vessel to lose forward momentum and begin to slide sideways.
"Captain, we're going to be helpless if we let the waves beat us around any further," reports Smee.
"I'm well aware, Mr. Smee. Make the adjustments to keep a little taste of the wind as you must but keep the waves on our side."
The ship rocks farther and farther to each side. As the Jolly Roger closes in directly behind them, it cuts hard into the waves and lets its cannons rage. One shot makes a hole through two of the square sails and another bites a few feet above the waterline. The Roger weaves out to the side and then back, letting the opposite cannons have their turn. Three hit this time, shredding through one of the gun levels.
The crew struggles to keep the sails from tangling in the wind with so few men. Waves splash over the sides. Hook looks up at the Pale Tower. The lambent stone beckons and challenges him at the same time. Claim me, if you are strong enough, it whispers to his soul. It wants me. I can feel it, but only if I can make it there alive. I must. I will.
"Cannon in place, sir!" shouts the men after, at last, getting the cannon into position in the captain's cabin.
"Mr. Jukes!" bellows Hook.
"Yes, Captain?"
"On the Roger's next pass, send it a kiss from the cannon!"
"Aye Aye. Give her a big smooch, I will!" replies Mr. Jukes, scurrying to fulfil the order.
The Jolly Roger continues its serpentine attack strategy, but as it moves in close to fire its next volley, Bill Jukes lights off the secret cannon. The blast blows out most of the windows and sends the cannon ten feet backward onto the deck. The shot hits the Roger dead centre, smashing between two of their frontal cannons.
After that, the Jolly Roger instead goes wide in order to circle back. The ship closes in once again for a close-up drive-by-style attack. By this time, the Stille Jäger is going almost directly sideways. When the Jolly Roger passes by them, the sideways movement of the Stille Jäger brings the ships within boarding distance. The ships both rock, aiming their cannons up into the afternoon sun, then down into the waves. Hook looks at the half opaque crew manning his old ship with vague recollections. Some are fallen rivals. Some are dead friends. Others are people from his childhood. His grade school teacher. The salty fellow who bought the fish he used to catch on his first boat.
Hook knows he only has enough men to fire two cannons at a time, but the Roger can probably let loose ten to fifteen shots on a single pass. He has to take the ship's brain to win. The moment has come, and Hook seizes it.
"Cannon's fire, and loose the anchor!"
Bill Jukes and Mr. Mason light off the two deck cannons. They angle down through the main deck and out the back of the opposing ship. Noodler and Blickstein hurl the anchor from the crow's nest towards the deck of the Roger as their ship leans past forty-five degrees toward their enemy. The cast iron anchor busts through the deck and the cargo portal but doesn't get down to the bilge of the Roger. The Jolly Roger fires its own cannons, gouging hole after hole into the Stille Jäger's starboard side. The Stille Jäger drinks the sea.
Hook bolts towards the railing.
"Captain, where are you…" begins Smee.
Hook doesn't hear the rest of Smee's question. He leaps over the expanse between the two vessels. The sound blocked out by the crashing of waves, the creaking of breaking wood and the rushing of wind. He lands on the deck of the Roger, his sword unsheathed and at the ready. The phantom crew doesn't move to attack him, they just stare at him from their posts. Hook strides through them as they bombard him with demoralising insults.
"You know no one grows up in Neverland. That means you haven't grown at all either," shouts the ghost of his old schoolteacher.
"Still the same child in an old man's body." jeers the phantom visage of an old classmate.
"You hate children because you want to bugger 'em! You want to bugger Pan the most!" chides the phantom of a bruised, broken and bleeding boy who Hook knew all too well but would prefer stayed buried.
Hook lets the words soak in, fueling his anger. His rage burns blue hot deep within him, spreading flame through all the black tendrils that have intertwined themselves within his muscles. He finds Pescaro at the helm garbed in loose silk pants, dark red with a silver stripe down each leg, and a white, sleeveless tunic belted with black leather. Pescaro's face is delicately sculpted, his hands strong yet with fingers meant to play ivory keys. Next to him stands the translucent image of his mentor's old first mate, Fernando. Pescaro relinquishes the wheel to Fernando and, with a flourish of his wrist, bows to Hook.
"Buenos días, James. Good to see you are finally starting to expand your horizons; fighting big boys now. Not just snot-nosed fairy ones," declares Pescaro tauntingly.
"Actually, in all honesty, I find it very difficult to distinguish the difference between yourself and a snot-nosed fairy boy, Pescaro," responds Hook with a smirk of subtle menace.
Pescaro laughs, "Well, in your mental state I'll bet you are starting to see children everywhere." He gestures behind Hook.
Hook glances over his shoulder and sees that the crew are no longer grown people from his past but instead young boys covered in dirty clothes and jungle debris. They are all the Lost Boys that he and his crew have killed over the years battling Pan. Seeing them again spikes his rage to new levels. He wants to dig his good hand into their guts and hoist them all up among the sails so that their blood may paint the deck red.
Hook screams savagely until the crowd of phantom boys slowly parts, clearing a path for a young boy unlike the others but still familiar, not a Lost Boy but rather the ghost of someone he had killed long before the Neverlands, long before Pan ever came into his life and changed it forever. Hook stares at the boy, his heart flooding with emotions of a time he had thought long behind him; his first kill, the first of many, his one real regret… his original sin.
"You may have thought these ghostly tricks, wise Pescaro… playing with my emotions, but you see my sins are not my weakness, they are my strength." Hook turns violently back towards Pescaro.
There is a quick shuffle of feet as the song of Pescaro's blade unsheathing fills the air. Hook lunges his blade at Pescaro. Pescaro dodges gracefully. Hook parries a little late as Pescaro's sword slashes down upon him, grazing him down his left shoulder. A minor wound. He counters with a set of quick thrusts that Pescaro easily evades.
"Bad form, bad form indeed, even from you; an effeminate dandy who spends more time playing games. You're even more worthless than the dull ilk you had for a crew. I was the only useful one in the whole damn lot of them," presses Hook, scolding Pescaro.
"You haven't learned anything, James. This is all a game, don't you see? We're all just pawns being shuffled around. All games have a pattern, and the more games you play, the more patterns you recognize. Sooner or later you start to realise there are only so many patterns that will allow you to win." Pescaro attacks again swinging wide to the side, then down diagonally.
His blade strikes at Hook; straight thrust, downward swipe, upward swipe. Hook coolly defends against each blow.
"The world is made of little games. The game of love, the game of business. Each has their own set of rules, and each one a winning pattern."
Hook thinks back to his time on the island of fog. Rocketing through the forest canopy, playing hide and seek with Pan before finally sinking his good hand into the little bastard's heart. Then back further to the Stille Jäger's flight over the coral reef.
The two captains exchange attacks. They flow around each other, down the stairs to the main deck. They duck, and sidestep, parry, rush forward. Hook feels the new power of the carapace jolt through him like pure bittersweet energy, however, even with his new power, Pescaro manages to keep up without even breaking a sweat.
"Even death is a game, and you start playing long before you cash in. Trust me. James, my boy, you couldn't beat me in checkers. How do you think you will beat me at this?" presses Pescaro mockingly.
Hook makes wide horizontal swings, driving Pescaro back, then grabs a line with a large tackle block near the end and swings it at Pescaro's head. Pescaro leaps back and smirks, sheathing his sword as Hook snags a small sack from inside his trouser pocket.
"What's this, James? Trying to pay me off?" jokes Pescaro taking note of the small sack.
"No, old friend, your bribes always required a pillow on which to bite. I'm just borrowing a winning strategy." Hook up-turns the bag over his head, letting twinkling dust dance down upon his body.
Reaching down deep inside himself, Hook channels every happy thought he can muster, lifting his body into the sky. He stares down at Pescaro smiling. Hook winks at him, then takes off flying circles around the Jolly Roger.
Hook strikes out with his sword, slicing his way through the Jolly Roger's rigging. He targets the sails' support lines, sending the sails crumpling onto the deck. Hook laughs, but not a menacing or hateful laugh, instead one of pure hilarity of fun. He watches the phantom crew scurry about, trying to repair the lines as they seemingly lose what little solidity they have, causing the ropes to simply fall through their hands. Hook cackles, returning to the real battle at hand as he dives toward Pescaro.
He lashes out, slashing some of the rigging above where Pescaro stands, covering him in restricting ropes and debris. Hook finishes his dive with the killing kiss of his blade through Pescaro's heart. Pescaro falls, and with him, the Jolly Roger and her phantom crew fade to ash and dissipate into the waves below. Hook bolts towards the monolithic shimmering tower, absent of all thoughts but one. He must get to the tower before it is too late. He burns it all, desperate to increase speed, all his joy, all his rage. He pushes himself harder than he ever has before as darkness overtakes his vision and his mind numbs. All goes black.