Take Your Last Breath

  They looked at each other, utterly speechless.

  RUBY REWOUND EACH CASSETTE TO THE VERY BEGINNING, then she held her fingers over the two play buttons on the double cassette player. Clancy held his finger over the play button of the portable player. When Ruby gave the nod, they both pushed all three buttons at once, and then Ruby and Clancy sat there in amazement, listening to the clear voice that the three simultaneously playing static tapes had magically turned into.

  The three static messages weren’t three different messages, they were just one. Played together, the sounds layered on top of one another to form words.

  All of a sudden Ruby sat bolt upright, realizing something else too. The lullaby that for so many years had sent her to her dreams had now woken her up. The words — not just empty sounds but a message.

  A golden bird guards over you . . .

  Without explanation she raced downstairs and flung open the door to the living room.

  “Ruby!” her mother hissed. “I’ve just gotten him to sleep!”

  Ruby tried to whisper, but her heart was pounding. “I just have to know, where did that lullaby come from? Did you make it up?”

  Sabina looked surprised. “Oh no — it was handed down from my mother.”

  “And where did she get it from?” said Ruby.

  “From her mother,” replied Sabina. “It dates right back to your great-great-great-grandmother Martha Lily Fairbank. She’s the one who made it up. I just changed the word rubies to Ruby!”

  Ruby stood there in the doorway, stunned by this revelation. All these years the location of the Fairbank rubies was singing in their ears, just waiting for someone to really listen.

  When the stars begin to fall,

  You will hear the ocean call.

  In other words, when the asteroid comes, the currents fall still, and it’s possible to get to the cave.

  When you hear that whispered sound,

  You will know that you are found.

  A reference to the Sea Whisperer, which according to the criminal mastermind’s static code message, lived in the tidal pool below where the rubies were hidden.

  A golden bird guards over you.

  My little gem, my words are true.

  In other words, the cave should be just below the bird shape on the rock of the smaller Sibling Island.

  Ruby was breathing hard, and her mother was looking at her anxiously.

  “Honey, you OK?”

  Ruby nodded, turned, and closed the door. She stumbled back upstairs. Clancy by now was on his feet and his arms were flapping uncontrollably. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

  “I gotta talk to Spectrum.”

  Ruby radioed through to the only agent she could think might actually still be at HQ.

  “Froghorn,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Listen, this is real important.”

  “Look, little girl, the grown-ups are busy right now. Try calling back tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, well, they wouldn’t be busy if it wasn’t for me.”

  “Rather full of ourselves, aren’t we?”

  “Look, Froghorn, I’m trying very hard here not to call you a potato head, so could you help me out with that by not behaving like a potato head? I need to get some important information to Hitch, and unfortunately, I gotta talk to you to do this.”

  “They’re out of range,” came the reply. “You should know that. All radio transmission is dead. Besides,” he said unhelpfully, “they are a little bit too busy catching pirates to chat to schoolgirls. I —”

  Ruby clicked off before she felt compelled to go over there and sock him on the nose.

  She walked to her closet and pulled out a huge carryall bag that was already stuffed full of something bulky. She opened it, checked inside, and zipped it back up.

  “What are you doing?” asked Clancy.

  “What does it look like?” said Ruby. She was pulling on her hooded sweatshirt and scanning the room for her boots. “I’m going out.”

  “But it’s eleven thirty at night,” said Clancy.

  “Eleven twenty-eight, I think you’ll find,” said Ruby, checking that the rescue watch was secured around her wrist — it still kept coming loose.

  “Darn this strap,” she cursed. She grabbed the limpet lights and rummaged around for the sea-sting antidote, finally finding it in her desk drawer. She threaded it though an elastic hairband and pulled it onto her right wrist. She didn’t have time to fiddle with clipping it to a zipper right now — she was in way too big a hurry.

  “Now, where’s that breathing buckle?” she said, looking around.

  “This it?” said Clancy, picking the silver buckle — still attached to a belt — from a heap of discarded clothes.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “OK,” said Clancy. “Just where are you thinking of going at eleven twenty-eight at night?”

  “Don’t you mean where are we going?” said Ruby, slinging the carryall over her shoulder. It was heavy.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Clancy.

  Ruby shrugged. “So I’ll go on my own.”

  “Are you crazy? You can’t go on your own, wherever you’re going.”

  “So come with me,” she called as she climbed out of the window.

  “Oh, brother!” grumbled Clancy as he scrambled to his feet. “Sometimes I really hate you, Rube — you know that?”

  CLANCY AND RUBY WERE WALKING down the harbor road: it was dark, and though a few of the bars were still open for business, on the whole it was pretty quiet.

  “What’s in the bag?” asked Clancy.

  “You’ll see.”

  “So apart from trouble, what exactly are you looking for?”

  “Rubies,” replied Ruby.

  “What, you’re gonna rob Keller’s jewelry store?” said Clancy in a rather sarcastic tone.

  “Ha-ha, funny,” said Ruby flatly. “I might bust a gut laughing.”

  Clancy stopped walking. “Don’t tell me you’re going alone on this. Man, are you totally out of your mind? You don’t even know if the rubies actually exist, and if they do, then they’re most likely in the hands of a psychopath.”

  “So?” replied Ruby.

  “So you just get a kick out of doing stupid things?” said Clancy.

  “As a matter of fact, I think I would be pretty stupid not to.”

  “Really? How’d ya figure that?” Clancy was standing with his hands on his hips; he looked somehow comical when he was all indignant, like an angry teapot.

  “Look, Clance, what you gotta see is that there’s a pretty villainous guy, in fact at least two of them, who seem to think there’s something to this legend. Now, what you gotta ask yourself is why?”

  “’Cause they know something we don’t know? Is that what you’re trying to suggest?” said Clancy. “Have you not considered that these guys are as crazyfied as all those other folk who believe in the Twinford treasure?”

  “I have considered that, Clancy. Yes, I have,” replied Ruby calmly. “But even if these ‘bad’ fellows are mistaken about the gems and gold, even if there is no treasure to find, it doesn’t change the fact that these bad guys will be there in the caves looking for it and, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we are looking for bad guys.”

  “You are looking for bad guys,” corrected Clancy.

  “OK, I am looking for bad guys, and if I locate the treasure caves, I’ll find them.”

  Clancy frowned. “Have you considered just how bad these bad guys might be?”

  “I have; as a matter of fact, I have a feeling I know one of them quite well.”

  Clancy shivered. “You’re not thinking of a certain someone are you? Italian shoes, beady eyes, slow, agonizing deaths?” His voice sounded thin.

  Ruby nodded.

  Neither of them wanted to actually say his name, but they were both thinking of him. Count von Viscount: a man so deadly that once caught in his clutches, few ever escaped. In fact, only two: Br
adley Baker and Ruby Redfort. And Ruby hoped that she’d never lay eyes on him again.

  “Why are you so sure?” said Clancy.

  “A couple of things,” replied Ruby. “First, all that drama of the pirates and the old-fashioned-looking pirate ship — like from some old B movie. It’s the Count’s style: theatrical, cinematic.”

  “OK,” said Clancy, “but that doesn’t make it him.”

  “No,” agreed Ruby, “but that last message, the static one, it was like an order the way it said, I don’t need to count on your loyalty, just remember you cannot tell a lie. I think it’s a message to the Count, not from him, warning him to be careful. Don’t double-cross me because I can make you drink the truth serum so you cannot tell a lie.”

  It made perfect sense, and as a result, Clancy wasn’t feeling so good. Just a few weeks ago the Count had almost succeeded in burying Ruby alive under several tons of sand. When that didn’t work out for him, he’d given permission for one of his cohorts to cut her throat. And Clancy wasn’t forgetting his own narrow escape from extinction by the hand (or rather diamond revolver) of Nine Lives Capaldi, the Count’s most deadly assassin. Though at least now she was all out of lives.

  “So will you come with me?” asked Ruby.

  “Uh-uh, no way.” Clancy was sure on this point. “You’re not getting me in a little sailboat hunting for a crazy murderer, and that’s final.”

  “But it isn’t a sailboat,” assured Ruby.

  “It isn’t?” said Clancy.

  “No,” said Ruby. “It’s what they call a dinghy.”

  “What!” spluttered Clancy. “You have to be kidding! No way. Not now, not ever.”

  “Oh, come on, Clance. Live a little,” said Ruby in her best Ruby Redfort persuader voice.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I want to do, and that’s why I absolutely am not coming. You’re not using me as fish food.”

  They walked out to the farthest part of the harbor, past a man who was settling in for a night sleeping rough on a wooden bench. He was busily securing his bag of possessions underneath the seat and took no interest in the kids who should be all tucked up in bed by now.

  The two of them walked and argued. Ruby the persuader, Clancy the resister.

  After fifteen minutes and forty-seven seconds Ruby had broken him down, and Clancy found himself stepping into the little yellow dinghy that was sandwiched between fishing boats.

  “Don’t expect me to get out of this boat until it’s time to step back onto dry land,” was all that he asked.

  “Sure.” Ruby was checking the scuba equipment stored in the dinghy. “I reckon I can promise that ’cause I think my dad mended the holes,” she said casually.

  “What!” said Clancy, desperately attempting to scramble back out.

  “I’m fooling with you, Clance. This is a Spectrum dinghy; it travels faster than you can imagine and is pretty tough. D’ya wanna turn your humor switch up a notch?”

  “Ha-ha,” said Clancy — no hint of a smile. He peered into the bag. “By the way, why have you brought two wet suits and two pairs of flippers?”

  “Thought you might enjoy a dip, check out the scenery.”

  “Ha-ha,” said Clancy again.

  They used the paddles until they made it out of the harbor, bickering the whole way, and then Ruby pulled the engine cord and their voices were drowned out by the buzz of the motor. The little vessel headed out to sea. The man on the harbor bench looked up for a minute or two and watched until the dinghy became a speck on the horizon and finally disappeared completely from view. He yawned, sat up, and rummaged for something in the yellow bag he was using for a pillow. He took from it a leather scabbard, unclasped it, and pulled out a jagged knife.

  “Now where do you think you’re going, Ruby Redfort?” he muttered.

  RUBY HAD TURNED OFF THE ENGINE, and the little boat was bobbing about on the dark water, the moon partly obscured by slow-moving clouds, most of the stars faint or invisible. It was not a pretty night; there was something menacing about it, and the sea not as calm as it had been two days previously.

  “Why have we stopped here?” Clancy was looking around him; the Sibling Islands were still a way off.

  “We don’t want anyone to hear us coming, do we?” Ruby was tackling her wet suit, not the easiest of things to get into while bobbing in an unstable craft. While she wrestled with the suit, she talked. “I’ll swim out there. It’s not so far.”

  She looked out at the silhouette of the smaller island. The unmistakable shape of the bird was just ahead of her. If the lullaby was right, the cave entrance was just beneath. Ruby didn’t expect to see the cave mouth — according to Martha’s account, it had probably been covered by a rockslide. But Martha had also said that the pool in the cave had turned into a whirlpool when the currents started up again, had sucked her down and spat her out in the sea outside.

  And an underwater exit was also an underwater entrance. So Ruby was pretty sure there was a way in.

  Clancy grimaced. Ruby knew what he was thinking, and she couldn’t help thinking it too, but she had to do this so she would just make herself believe it was going to be OK. RULE 12: ADJUST YOUR THINKING AND YOUR CHANCES IMPROVE.

  “Sea monsters aren’t all bad, Clance. I mean, they’re just going about their sea-monster business, same as you.”

  “Well, not quite,” said Clancy. “’Cause I don’t go about eating people who accidentally cross my path.”

  “It’s not their fault if they mistake us for lunch.”

  This little pep talk wasn’t helping Clancy one bit. “I’m still not going in, Rube.”

  “OK, but it means you’re gonna have to wait here on your own — in the boat — on your own,” said Ruby. “In the boat — alone.”

  Clancy didn’t take the bait. “Fine,” he said.

  “OK,” said Ruby. “If you’re staying here, then stay here. Don’t go taking off with the boat or anything, OK?”

  “Of course I won’t,” assured Clancy. “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. You might get chicken or something and make for the shore.”

  Clancy folded his arms. “I told you I will be here and I will.”

  Ruby zipped up her wet suit and put on her mask. “So you’re sure about this?”

  “You bet,” said Clancy.

  Sitting on the edge of the dinghy, she said, “This is your last chance . . .”

  “Good,” said Clancy.

  Ruby let herself fall backward and disappeared under the surface of the water. Clancy stared in after her, but all he could see was dark water and all he could hear was the thwack of the waves against the side of the boat.

  Ruby swam through coral reefs that towered up like castle turrets, fish darting past her, the more confident ones following at her side. As she swam, she dropped the phosphorescent limpet lights, which told her where she had come from and would lead her neatly back to the boat — they should last a few hours at least.

  What was she looking for? She didn’t actually have any firm idea, a sort of vague one maybe, but no coordinates, only the rock’s golden bird to navigate by, and when she surfaced, she found it was too dark to make that out. She would just have to trust her instincts.

  Clancy bit his nails. He wasn’t feeling so good. It wasn’t seasickness. Clancy didn’t suffer from seasickness; he had good sea legs. What Clancy was suffering from was more akin to anxiety sickness, but right at that moment he couldn’t tell the difference; all he knew was that he was feeling pretty queasy and it had a lot to do with being on the ocean. The best way to treat seasickness was to get into the water, but there was no way Clancy was going to do that.

  Which, as it turned out, was just as well.

  Ruby found herself in a forest of slick seaweed. She swam blindly, pushing her way through, and then quite suddenly she banged her hand on a sheer wall of rock. She had reached the smaller of the Sibling Islands, the one known to sailors as Little Sister. If Martha was right a
bout what she had seen, then this was the island where the treasure was hidden. The cliff face rose up high out of the water all the way to the bird, and seemed to sink down many miles below the surface.

  Ruby stopped and pointed her flashlight, casting light up and down, methodically looking for a fissure in the rock’s surface, an entrance, but there didn’t seem to be one. She realized she wasn’t exactly where she hoped she’d be; the current was beginning to return and must have gently carried her a little to the east. She was going to have to work her way around. She looked back at the trail of Hansel and Gretel lights she had dropped in her wake. They twinkled in the dark, inviting her to swim back to Clancy — beckoning her home.

  At first Clancy thought the boat had somehow hit a rock. The bump to the underside of the vessel nearly knocked him off his feet. He steadied himself; his legs felt very weak, and he sat down heavily in the center of the dinghy. Maybe it was nothing, just his mind playing tricks on him. Sailors said being alone at sea could make you half crazy, maybe that was what was happening to him. He began to think about Ruby — it seemed like she’d been gone an awful long time. How much air did she say she had?

  Ruby had been searching for some time now, way longer than she had expected, and her oxygen was getting low. She checked her tank: she had just about enough to get all the way back to the boat, nearly anyway.

  A huge jolt catapulted Clancy from his musing, and he had to snatch quickly at the dinghy’s ropes or he would have been flung into the dark water. His breathing was so loud he could hear nothing else. His head was hanging over the side of the boat and he was staring down into the depths.

  And that’s when he saw it.

  CLANCY WAS CROUCHING OVER THE ENGINE, the ignition cord in his hand. He paused, not because he didn’t have every intention of pulling it, but because he didn’t know which direction to go in.

  Ruby had told him to stay put. But that was not really an option anymore. The only choice he had was the direction he took. Ruby had been pretty clear that the boat should not be taken too much nearer to the caves because you never know who might hear the motor or spot the dinghy. Clancy would have considered rowing, but that option (in the form of the oars) had been devoured by the thing in the water.