Damon’s fishing boat, the Sea Hook, was a toy in the grip of a giant. The storm Blackmane summoned was a living entity, a whirlwind of fury that turned the ocean into a churning, black cauldron. Sharp, angry waves slammed against the hull, sending plumes of frigid spray over the deck. The wind howled, a high, mournful scream that tore at their clothes and tried to rip the words from their mouths.

  This was not a storm for sailing. This was a storm for dying.

  And Damon navigated it with a skill that bordered on supernatural. He stood at the helm, his knuckles white, his face a mask of intense concentration. He was not just steering; he was dancing with the tempest, reading the chaotic rhythm of the waves, anticipating the lurch and sway of the boat, keeping them from being swamped, from being capsized.

  Ted hunched over a large plastic cooler in the center of the boat, his face a sickly shade of green. Not seasick. He guarded his creations: four makeshift bombs, cobbled together from household chemicals, fertilizer, and a prayer. They were packed in sand, wired to cheap digital kitchen timers. They were crude, unstable, and terrifying.

  Frankie stood at the prow, a silent, grim figurehead, the wind whipping her black hair into a frenzy. The storm did not bother her. The cold did not touch her. Her curse had burned all of that away. Her senses were a razor's edge, cutting through the chaos. She could taste the ozone in the air, feel the pressure shifts that heralded the biggest waves. And she could feel something else. A low, evil thrum of energy emanating from the coast ahead. They were getting close.

  “Killing the engine!” Damon yelled over the roar of the wind. “It’s gonna get rough!”

  The chugging roar of the boat’s small engine died, and the sounds of the storm instantly became a hundred times louder. The Sea Hook was at the mercy of the waves now, rising and falling on the huge, black swells. Ted clutched his cooler of bombs, his face pale.

  “Paddles!” Damon commanded.

  They grabbed the emergency paddles and fought the ocean, their movements digging into the churning water, propelling them silently, slowly, toward the dark maw of Black Rock Cove.

  The entrance to the sea cave was a jagged wound in the cliff face, a place of profound darkness that seemed to swallow the stormy grey light of the sky. As Damon expertly guided the small boat through the treacherous rocks and into the relative calm of the cave’s mouth, the world changed.

  The roar of the storm was instantly muffled, the howling wind reduced to a low, distant moan. The air became still, heavy, and cold. It smelled of a thousand years of brine and decay and something else… something metallic and vaguely sweet. The smell of old blood.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The cave was a massive natural grotto, its ceiling lost in the darkness high above them, studded with what looked like giant, stone teeth. And floating in the eerily calm, black water at its center was the impossible sight of The Crimson Thirst.

  Even more horrifying up close. A ghost. A corpse. A skeletal vessel that radiated a palpable aura of malice. Its timbers were blackened and swollen with seawater, its tattered sails hanging in rotting shreds like shrouds. A faint, supernatural green light seemed to emanate from the ship itself, casting a sickly glow on the surrounding water. Not a wreck. A monster sleeping in its lair.

  “Okay,” Frankie whispered, her voice a dry rasp in the sudden, tomblike silence. “This is it.”

  The plan was simple. And completely insane.

  Frankie would stay on the boat, a lookout posted near the cave entrance, ready to start the engine for their escape. Damon and Ted, the demolition team, would handle the explosives.

  Damon pulled a bag from under the console. It contained two wetsuits, fins, and a length of rope. And the bombs. Ted carefully transferred his creations into the waterproof bag, his hands trembling slightly.

  “You ready for this?” Damon asked him in a low voice.

  Ted looked at the ghostly glowing pirate ship. He looked at the bag of unstable homemade bombs. He looked like he was going to be sick. But he nodded, his jaw tight with a resolve he did not know he possessed. “Let’s go blow up a ghost ship.”

  They slipped into the wetsuits and then into the water. The cold was a shocking, physical blow, a frigid darkness that seemed to suck the very air from their lungs. The water was black and opaque, so cold it felt thick, like oil. The supernatural green light from above didn't penetrate; it only seemed to make the shadows deeper, turning every drifting piece of seaweed into a reaching, spectral hand.

  There was no telling how deep it was, or what else might swim in the darkness with them.

  They swam toward the ship, their movements slow and deliberate, trying to make as little sound as possible. The only noise was the soft splash of their fins and the frantic pounding of their hearts.

  Reaching the hull of The Crimson Thirst was like touching the skin of a dead leviathan. It was slimy, slick with algae, and covered in sharp, crusty barnacles. The supernatural green light from the deck above cast shifting, underwater shadows, playing tricks on their eyes.

  They worked quickly in the murky darkness, their fingers clumsy with cold and fear. Damon, the stronger swimmer, held them steady against the hull while Ted wrestled with the bombs. Ted’s job was to set the timers and attach the charges to key structural points below the waterline—the rudder, the main mast support. It was a terrifyingly tense process. The cheap kitchen timers were not designed for underwater use. The duct tape they were using to attach the bombs to the slimy hull kept threatening to slip.

  They got the first charge set. Then the second. Then the third. They were almost there. The plan, against all odds, was working.

  Ted was setting the last charge, his numb fingers fumbling with the last roll of duct tape. He adjusted his grip on the awkward bomb.

  And a tool slipped from his belt.

  It was a small, metal wrench he had brought just in case. It tumbled through the black water, glinting once in the eerie green light, and hit the side of the hull.

  Clang.

  The sound was not loud, but it traveled through the water, through the hull of the ship, through the very bones of the two boys hiding beneath it. In the dead silence of the cave, it was a gunshot.

  They both froze, their eyes wide with horror, staring up at the surface.

  For a long moment, there was nothing. Just the gentle lapping of the water against the hull.

  Maybe no one had heard it.

  And then, a light appeared on the deck above them. A bright, swinging lantern, its yellow glow cutting through the green, supernatural haze.

  A voice called out into the darkness of the cave. A rough, angry voice.

  “Who goes there?”

  The time for stealth was over.

  They had been heard.