‘Let’s just see how this one turns out first, eh?’ Jesse replied.
Lex said nothing but he already knew how it was going to turn out. He was going to win again. And gloriously, too! Some people were simply born to win and Lex was one of those people. He smirked smugly to himself. It was almost too easy.
But the next few minutes were where it all went horribly wrong.
They could see sunlight glimmering above now as the ship continued to rise and they could tell that they would reach the surface in a matter of minutes. The Gods would be waiting for them there and it would then be a simple enough matter of handing the medallion over.
‘Give it to me then,’ Lex said, holding out his hand for it.
But Jesse had suddenly gone stiff as a board and was staring over Lex’s head at something on the deck. He was motionless only a split second before racing past Lex, taking the medallion with him.
‘What the-’ Lex whirled around, thinking for a moment that Jesse was betraying him. But he saw, instantly, what the cowboy had seen.
Tess East was standing a few feet away in the middle of the deck? with the captain’s little Blue-Ringed octopus in her arms. It seemed that she had just picked it up off the deck, possibly in order to save it from being squashed by the many tramping feet of the sailors who were still running about all over the place.
Lex was horrified. One bite? one bite, the book had said? and those octopuses had enough venom in them to stop the hearts of twenty-six men within minutes. He knew in that moment that he should have told Jeremiah about the octopuses when he’d had the chance. But it was too late for that now. Lex started forwards towards Tess but Jesse got there first. The girl shrank away from the huge cowboy who was inexplicably charging straight at her but Jesse wrenched the octopus from her grasp whilst at the same time pushing her away from it so hard that she sprawled over on the boards. Then he spun round on his booted heel and threw the octopus as far as he could. It flew through the air in an arc? like a bizarre, upsetting sort of frisbee? and spun right out of the force field and into the sea where it smacked on to Gloria and, recognising its mother, promptly attached itself to her, happily.
Jesse then turned back around to Tess where she still lay sprawled on the floor and took a step towards her, saying urgently, ‘Hey, kid, did that thing-’
But that was as far as he got before Jeremiah leapt in front of her, eyes blazing with fury, and hit the cowboy so hard across the face that he staggered back and would have fallen flat on the boards had Lex not caught up in time to grab at his shoulders and steady him.
‘How dare you raise your hand against my sister!’ Jeremiah roared. ‘A defenceless child less than half your size! You are a coward, sir!’
Tess was on her feet now, staying close to her brother’s side. And clutching the medallion. Jesse must have dropped it when he’d grabbed the octopus from her.
‘Shut up, you prat!’ Lex snapped. ‘Don’t you know what just happened? Your sister was holding one of the most toxic creatures in the world!’ He looked at Tess and said, ‘It didn’t bite you?’
She shook her head silently, her eyes wide.
‘My companion just saved her life!’ Lex raged at Jeremiah.
Jeremiah? because he was, after all, something of a twit? looked suspiciously at Jesse, who was still nursing his jaw, and said cautiously, ‘Well, if that’s true then I… I’m in your debt.’
The cowboy shrugged. ‘Think nothing of it, kid. I-’
But that was as far as he got before breaking off to clutch at his chest with a horrible gasp. And that was when Lex first noticed the ugly blue rings rising up on the cowboy’s right hand.
‘Oh my Gods,’ Lex practically whispered. ‘It bit you!’
Jesse tried to croak a reply but no words came out. He was still staring in horror at his hand as his knees hit the floor and he crumpled to the deck.
CHAPTER TEN
The Scurleyshoo Death burst above the surface into the glittering sunlight. The force field above them vanished, the water all around them disappeared and suddenly the ship was floating on the surface of the ocean for the first time in hundreds of years. The toffs over at the teashop were cheering their fool heads off, clearly quite delighted by the sight of the ship shooting to the surface in an explosion of foam, especially as it currently had a giant octopus entwined all around it. But the only thing Lex was aware of was Jesse, crumpled motionless on the deck. No known antidote, wasn’t that what the book had said?
Of course people died in the Games. That was partly what made them exciting? there was genuine danger and genuine peril. But it was not supposed to be Lex’s companion who died.
A bare moment after the ship broke the surface, the captain succeeded in driving a spear right through one of Gloria’s tentacles and was standing there, roaring his triumph in the middle of the deck, when another tentacle suddenly curled around him and plucked him up and over the side of the ship. Suddenly all the tentacles were gone, Gloria was gone and Captain Jed Saltworthy was gone. A matter of seconds later, the crew all vanished: faded away like wandering ghosts. People said later that it must have been because Gloria had bitten the captain’s foolish head off and that his death, too, was sufficient to break the curse over the crew, who were finally free to rest in peace.
But Lex was aware of none of this, for he was too overcome with horror at the sight of Jesse, sprawled on the deck. One of the companions in the last Game had been killed by the medusa during the first round but Lex simply hadn’t cared. After all, the man had been a mean-looking gangster. He’d probably had it coming. But Jesse had only been trying to save a little girl. It wasn’t fair that he was dead. It wasn’t right.
Matters were not improved when the three Gods appeared beside them on the now-deserted deck. Kala practically snatched the captain’s medallion from Tess, smirking with glee over her prize whilst the other Gods stood by sulkily looking distinctly unhappy? as losing Gods usually did.
‘The first round goes to me!’ Kala crowed gleefully.
Jeremiah? to his credit? did not look particularly pleased about winning. His hand was gripped tightly around his sister’s and he didn’t appear to be able to tear his eyes away from the cowboy at his feet.
‘You humiliated me at the Wither City!’ Lex hissed in a voice that was full of bitterness. ‘You cheated me out of the first round! And now my companion is dead because of you! I’ll make you pay for this, if it’s the last thing I ever do!’
‘Give it your best shot, thief!’ Kala said with a horrible smile. ‘We’ll be ready for you!’ She placed her hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder and they, and Tess, disappeared. The round now over, they had presumably returned to Jeremiah’s ship.
‘Bad luck, my Lady,’ Thaddeus said with mock sympathy. ‘But you know what they say: there’s always someone who kicks the bucket in the first round. Just be grateful it wasn’t your player himself.’
‘At least my player came close to winning the round!’ Lady Luck snapped. ‘He did not fall at the first hurdle with those enchanted dolphins as your enchantress did!’
Thaddeus instantly looked less pleased with himself and disappeared from the deck with a scowl, presumably to go and retrieve his player. At the same time, the Goddess of Luck waved her arm and she, Lex and Jesse disappeared from the deck of the Scurleyshoo Death and instantly reappeared on the bridge of Lex’s enchanted ship.
‘How could you let this happen?’ Lex rounded on her at once.
‘Oh, my dear, I know it’s a horrible thing but… well…’ Lady Luck fluttered her hands miserably. ‘Little accidents do happen during Games, you know.’
‘Little accidents? Jesse is dead!’ He shuddered even to say it. The words were horrible in his ears, and horrible in his mouth. This was not the way it was supposed to be at all.