Chapter Three
Sam held her breath as footsteps sounded in the corridor just beyond the workroom. It was after midnight, and everyone was in their bunk except for the two men on duty. One was in the wheelhouse, and the other was walking the decks.
Once the footsteps receded, she turned on the tiny penlight she clutched in her hands. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was surprised the guard hadn’t heard it and come to check on the noise. She wasn’t cut out for this cloak and dagger stuff, but she was determined.
She crept over to the table where she’d left the smaller of the two jars earlier. Such a tiny thing to hide such a dangerous artifact. Inside had been a book, no more than five inches long and four inches wide. It was small. The kind of thing a man might keep tucked away in the inside pocket of his coat. It had been wrapped in oiled cloth before being deposited in the jar. Whoever had owned this book had gone to great lengths to protect it.
Now, Sam was taking desperate measures to make sure it stayed out of the hands of the Knights. When she’d unwrapped it earlier, she’d stuffed a necklace inside and hid the book in a desk drawer. It had been a gamble, but it had paid off.
Aaron hadn’t been pleased to discover the seals on the urn and vase broken and only a gold necklace hidden inside. At least that was the story she’d told him. Thankfully, he’d seemed to accept it.
Now she was back in the middle of the night to retrieve the book. She had to get off the ship with it or destroy it.
She eased the desk drawer open. The tiny volume sat there looking inconspicuous with the plain brown leather cover. There was nothing particularly exciting about it from the outside. Sam hadn’t even risked opening the cover of the thing. She didn’t have to. It positively radiated power. She didn’t question her instincts. They’d never been wrong.
She hesitated before lifting the book. The oils from her skin could damage the binding. She grabbed a latex glove but didn’t bother to put it on, using it to cover her skin as she stuffed the book into a small plastic bag. When it was secure, she shoved it into the inner pocket of her coat. She had much bigger things to worry about than damaging the cover of the book.
She’d debated whether or not she should wait to see if any other artifacts were brought on board before making an attempt to escape. But she sensed Aaron was getting impatient, and that probably stemmed from their employer also losing patience. Sam didn’t know how much longer they’d be here, or if she’d even make it back to shore alive if she stayed longer.
It was now or never.
She’d spent every day since she’d first stepped onto the Integrity studying the layout of the research vessel. She knew where the lifeboats and dinghy were and how to access them. It was crazy to think she’d be able to steal one without anyone noticing, but it was a chance she had to take.
She tucked her flashlight away and listened at the door for several minutes before cracking it open. The dim light shone in the hallways, showing her it was empty. Sam hurried toward the opening at the far end. The rubber soles of her sneakers allowed her to move silently.
The book in her pocket felt incredibly heavy for such a small thing. It would lead to her death if she was caught, of that she had no doubt.
She stepped out onto the deck and immediately slid to the left into the shadows. The closer she got to freedom, the more anxious she became. She was sweating now, her thermal shirt beneath her sweater and coat was stuck to her skin.
She shivered in the cold night air.
This was crazy. It was late November and she was contemplating escaping in a dinghy. If she fell in the water without a survival suit, she wouldn’t last long.
“Don’t think about it,” she whispered under her breath. She had to think about Brian, her mentor, and the other innocent people the Knights had murdered. This was some small measure of justice for them.
In the back of her mind, Sam knew there was no going back to the life she’d known. The Knights would be searching for her and wouldn’t stop until they found her. Her life had been forfeit the moment she’d agreed to take the position aboard this ship. Maybe it had been forfeit when Brian was killed, and she’d been living on borrowed time ever since.
She’d moved money into an offshore account under an assumed name and had a new passport and other identification with that name. All she had to do was get back to shore, grab her escape bag from the storage unit where she’d stashed it, and get out of the country before the Knights realized she’d left. A tall order, for sure.
At the very least, she could try to get the book to the people who’d recruited her in the first place. She didn’t know much about the Dragon Guard, but she knew they’d protect the book or destroy it after they’d studied its contents. Her contact at the Guard, Gervais Rames, had gone missing several months ago. She had no idea if he was dead, hiding, or on some mission of his own, but if she couldn’t find him, she’d destroy the book herself.
All this thinking and speculating wasn’t getting her off the ship.
She glanced around and found the sentry having a smoke up near the bow of the ship. She knew the man in the wheelhouse spent most of his time reading unless something came up. It was now or never.
She hurried down the port side toward the stern. She ignored the larger lifeboats and focused on the small inflatable dinghy the divers used. It was lashed to the ship just where she’d expected it to be.
She glanced over her shoulder as icy fear snaked down her spine. She couldn’t get over the sensation that someone was watching her. The rope was slippery from the water that occasionally splashed against it. Her fingers slipped, and she struggled not to start swearing.
This was taking far too long.
Finally, the knot gave way, and she lowered the boat into the water. It hit with a splash. Still, no one called out or raised an alarm.
She quickly went over the side of the boat, landing hard in the dinghy. Where was the paddle? She was almost blind here in the darkness. Why hadn’t she secured the paddle before lowering the boat?
She frantically patted the side of the dinghy. A wave of relief hit her when her fingers wrapped around wood. She lifted it and dipped it over the side and into the ocean. Then she began to paddle as though her life depended on it. Because it did.
…
Ezra was in his human form about twenty feet from the boat, trying to decide on the best way to sneak onboard, when he first caught sight of the woman creeping along the port side. With his preternatural vision, he could see perfectly. It was obvious she was trying to hide. She had a black wool hat pulled down over her head, was swathed in a large dark coat, and moved furtively along the deck, keeping to the shadows.
He glanced at the bow of the ship where the lone guard stood, cigarette in hand. Ezra had circled the boat twice already, and this seemed to be the only man keeping watch outside.
Who was the woman, and what was she doing?
His dragon stirred inside, wanting him to move closer. He glided until he was only about fifteen feet away. She glanced over her shoulder, but he knew she couldn’t see him in the dark.
He watched while she untied the rubber dinghy and dropped it into the water. Was she leaving? Curiosity piqued, he drifted closer and watched her frantically trying to find the paddle. He sensed her relief when she finally found it. Seconds later, she began to paddle.
A spotlight came on, shining right at the dinghy. Ezra managed to duck beneath the waves and swim into the shadows before it caught him in its glow. By the time he surfaced, a man was standing on the deck with a gun pointed at the woman.
A slow anger began to burn inside Ezra.
“You didn’t really think I bought the whole story about there being nothing in the urn but a necklace, did you, Sam?”
To give the woman credit, she didn’t stop paddling. “You wanted gold, Aaron. Now you have some. That necklace is worth a small fortune.”
“But it’s nowhere near as valuable as what you have in your pocket.” He laughed when her hand went to her jacket. “I knew the second you went back to the lab. There’s nowhere on this ship you can go without me knowing about it. Now stop.” He fired a shot that landed just in front of the dinghy. Sam set the paddle down on the floor of the boat.
“I can’t let you have this.”
Ezra could tell the woman was terrified but was trying to appear brave. He wondered what she had that was more valuable than gold. Whatever it was, it was probably what he’d come here to retrieve.
She pulled a small plastic bag from her pocket and opened it. The angle she held it at made it impossible for Ezra to see what was inside. The man on deck began to swear. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned her. “We can talk about this.”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I’ve always known you planned to kill me. Just like you killed Brian.”
“Who the hell is Brian?” the man demanded.
She held the open bag out over the rim of the dinghy, perilously close to the waves. “Brian was my mentor. He was the only family I had. Well, you can all rot in hell before I’ll give you this book. If I can’t have it, no one can.”
What had Ezra stumbled into? A power play among members of the Knights? Those in the lower ranks of the society frequently jockeyed for position, often killing one another to move upward. There was little honor among them.
He didn’t like thinking that about the woman, but he didn’t know what else to believe. His dragon didn’t like her talking about another man, even if she spoke of him as though he was family. He struggled to keep the creature in check and stay in his human form. Now was not the time to shift. Not yet.
“Come on, Sam,” the man called Aaron cajoled. “We can work this out. There’s no reason for you to do this.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head and looked resigned.
“That’s really too bad.” Aaron raised his weapon.
Ezra realized what he was about to do and rocketed through the water, shifting on the fly. His dragon became a living torpedo with a single target.
A shot rang out just as he rammed the Integrity. He heard men yelling as the boat shuddered and shook and began to take on water from the huge hole in the bow. Ezra circled and rammed the ship again, this time driving it onto its side.
He used his powerful wings to propel him underwater and back to the side of the dinghy. It had also taken on water when the bigger vessel faltered. The woman—Sam—lay on her side on the bottom of the small boat, blood mixing with the seawater puddled around her.
There was no time to waste. He grabbed the line from the dinghy in his mouth and began to swim, cutting through the water. He had no idea how badly she’d been wounded. He wasn’t even quite sure why he cared, but he did.
He couldn’t let her die. He needed to know more about her, why she was with the Knights, and what was in that bag she’d been holding. He hadn’t noticed the plastic bag in the boat. Oh well, if it was there, he’d find it, and if she’d dropped it overboard, it had already sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
The crew from the Integrity wouldn’t be retrieving it tonight. They’d be too busy trying to save their own lives.
Once Ezra had Sam settled in his home, he could swim back and check on the wreck and the artifact, if need be.