Heart of the Kraken (Tales from Darjee) Read Free Page A

winced as Yusuf dumped the items back into the locker but palmed the duck into his pocket. "We only brought items of sentimental value, not financial."
    Reis grunted and kicked the lid shut with one boot. His gaze scanned the room and alighted on the door behind Wyman. "Let's look behind there."
    The slight tremble in the man's hands became a visible shake as he slid the door to one side on its track. Beyond lay their storage room. Electric lights in metal cages hung from the ceiling and cast their glow downward. Shelves with netting fronts, lined the walls. Bottles, boxes and vials were crammed on the shelves. The floor was bare, except against one wall sat a large metal crate. Seven feet long, three feet wide and three feet high. A padlock held the lid closed.
    Reis zoomed in on the unusual sight. "What's in there?"
    "It is a temperature controlled coffin." Another swallow sent his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "It contains a crew member who died on the journey. We are taking him home for his widow. The metal stops the body from smelling."
    "Taking him home?" The captain looked around at his men. Yusuf and Dinger laughed on cue. Fenton held his silence. "A strange practice. Why did you not consign him to the sea?"
    The other captain spread his hands, words not coming to his lips. Or perhaps more correctly, no lie sprang to his paralysed mind.
    "Open it," Reis said.
    "I really don't think we should disturb the deceased—"
    A pistol materialised and pressed itself to Wyman's nose. From a cross eyed gaze, he followed the barrel to the hand and along an arm to an unhappy Captain Reis.
    "Open the coffin or I open your skull," Reis said.
    Wyman's hands trembled as he shoved them into his pockets, one withdrew an iron key and shaking fingers held it aloft. The pistol waved toward the strange crate. Wyman unlocked the padlock and it dropped with a clang. Yusuf and Dinger stood at either end and lifted the heavy lid. A soft gasp came from within and all the men stood back, expecting a corpse to arise.
    Pale fingers wrapped around the edge and the body sat upright. Water streamed from long black hair and plastered it around head, shoulders and chest. Wide eyes of azure blue glanced at each man while lungs drew deep breaths of warm, stuffy air.
    Reis arched a black eyebrow and gestured with his pistol. "It seems your dead man has turned into a rather alive woman or is it something else?"
    Fenton moved closer and stared in the crate. Why would they trap a woman in water and what did Reis mean by her being something else? Dark water swirled in the metal container and the woman's naked skin glinted through the half-light. A splash at the foot end and flashes of green caught his attention.
    "What the—" he took a step back and glanced at the captain.
    Wyman let out a deep sigh of defeat as the pirates surrounded the crate. The woman tried to shy away but had nowhere to go. She pressed her torso into the wall side of her cage and held her hands up before her face as though expecting a downward blow. Beneath the water, hues of green swirled from the scales encasing the lower half of her body. She had no legs or feet but a tapered shape that ended in two wide separated fins.
    "You captured a mermaid and you weren't going to share that little titbit of information with your guests? Shame on you." Reis dropped his pistol back into its holster. "Did Lady Alise send you out here to find her one?"
    "Yes." The man's shoulders slumped. With his secret exposed, there was no point in further denials. "There have been rumours for decades and occasional sightings. Many years ago, a desiccated corpse sold for an enormous amount of gold, although many think it simply a fine example of taxidermy fakery. It took us five months of scouring the outer reaches to find and trap it."
    Fenton frowned as his gaze remained fixed on the exotic woman. "It? You speak of her as though she were another specimen when she is obviously a woman." His hands curled at