Read Online White Fangs by Tim Lebbon, Christopher Golden - Free Book Online

straining and splintering and splitting, hull vibrating with forces it was never designed to withstand. A whistle sounded somewhere and was quickly cut off. Worried voices turned into startled cries as people slipped and plunged into the water, and then there were the screams, the splashes, and drowned cries as those who entered the river were quickly tugged beneath its surface. The river runs red , Jack thought, and though he could not see the blood in the poor light, he could surely smell it. Amidst all this chaos, he suddenly became certain of what would happen.
    The tang of blood. The lure of meat. Others would smell it, too.
    "Vukovich," he said again, louder. The big pirate looked at him, and the others looked at Vukovich. Jack sensed the precariousness of that moment, as unsettled as the perches they all held on to. Things could swing. The men who made his crew could revert, fall, plunge back into the dark seas of their past where meat was everything and the hunt was the life.
    Vukovich quivered, his clothing bulging into unnatural shapes around his chest and limbs. "I smell . . . ." he began.
    "You smell damnation," Sabine said.
    Vukovich blinked, frowned, and with another slow blink he reverted back to being a man. Jack had often wondered at his history before Ghost had bitten and changed him. Now, when they were out of this he resolved to ask. He would ask all of them, because he realized now that though the future was theirs to mold, the past was important. It left a mark, and whether they wore that mark with pride or carried the stain of guilt could dictate how rich their futures might be.
    "I'm fine," Vukovich stated. "Let's go. Follow me!" He leapt through the doorway past the Reverend, then reached out his big hand for Sabine take. She did so without hesitation, and he pulled her inside.
    The skinny form of Maurilio went next, then the Reverend. Louis pulled Jack up to him, and the two men clung together for a moment, understanding that they should take this moment to pause. They looked into the river, then along the leaning deck at several other people attempting to hold on for their lives. Someone screamed. From elsewhere, a few hesitant gunshots.
    "What are we up against here, mon ami?" Louis asked.
    "I have no idea," Jack said. "What I sensed felt so . . . malignant and yet so lifeless ."
    "Something lifeless has no such hunger," Louis said. "I should know."
    "Whatever is in there is nothing like you," Jack said.
    "Nothing like I was," Louis corrected. "Although the urge . . . I cannot condemn Vukovich. I still carry the taint myself, and such smells . . ."
    "If he can fight it, so can you," Jack said. "And if something emerges, we might all have to fight." Jack heaved himself through the doorway, and Louis followed.
    The vessel was leaning at about thirty degrees, and they walked along the junction between the gangway floor and wall. The Reverend quickly kicked open another door in the wall above them, his natural understanding of vessels showing through as he followed his instincts. This gangway led across the ship, now sloping upward, and they climbed using the handholds of doorways and warped boards. The boat was under immense stresses. As Jack hauled himself up after the others, he could feel a thrumming through any timbers he touched. A more sustained volley of gunshots sounded from back the way they had come. Someone screamed. There were more splashes, and several hard, rapid impacts against the hull below the waterline. The air was split by a sound that made Jack's blood run cold — a terrible, rage-filled roar.
    The memory of the Wendigo flashed through him, with its slavering teeth and inhuman build as he and it clashed in their final, momentous combat. But though that beast had also roared, its cursed voice had sounded wretched. The cry that rang through the boat now was of something reveling in what it did.
    The bloodshed . . . the murder . . . .
    Maurilio looked back at him, eyes wide. Jack