Read The Death-Defying Pepper Roux for Free Online Page B

shared the fourth glass. The drink scorched Pepper’s throat like poison, but Duchesse folded the boy’s small, ice-cold hands around each glass and held them there until thebrown liquid stopped slopping. “ Santé , Captain.”
    “You should have gotten off with the others! Why didn’t you get off? Why didn’t you?”
    The Duchess sat back comfortably in his chair. “Life hasn’t suited me lately,” he said, as if life were a fashion trend and his hips too broad to carry it off.
    When Pepper said that he was going to be sick, Duchesse insisted a glass of rum would settle his stomach. Five .
    The sixth glass no one drank, because it—or was it the ship?—had tilted too far, and trickled the contents onto the floor. Pepper rested his head on the pillow and began to count. By the time he reached fourteen…
    …he was deeply unconscious.
     
    When Pepper woke the next day—or was it the week after?—he knew, from the chugging of engines, that he was still on board ship. But he also knew this ship must be bound for Hell. Scarlet-and-green demons were squatting around all four edges of the ceiling. Their claws gripping tight to stacked plywood crates, they squawked and tutted, peering down at him from behind huge beaks. Aunty Mireille had taught Pepperlots about demons and how they loved to rend and tear the souls of the damned, but she had not mentioned the beaks. These were what she must have meant by “birds of ill omen.”
    There were demons inside his head, too, tearing at his brain, and he felt very, very sick. Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured L’Ombrage on her slow plunge through transparent darkness and cold toward the bottom of the sea. Was he still aboard her and breathing water? He wondered if information was allowed in Hell, because more than anything, Pepper wanted to know whether Duchesse and the rest of the crew had been saved. The demons clacked their beaks and fluttered, but they wouldn’t answer his questions.
    While he had lain there unconscious, every piece of braid had been laboriously picked off his uniform jacket—who by?—leaving him drab. That was fair, he supposed. It probably said something in the Bible about gold braid: Vanity of vanities, all braid is vanity, saith the preacher . Naturally, ranks were not allowed in the underworld, he quite understood that. No rank, no escape, no saying sorry. But it was strange to find Aunty’s prayers still in his pocket…along with aslender roll of banknotes that had not been there before.
    Demon droppings fell like hail as the door opened and a Malay sailor brought in a bowl of rice and a cup of water.
    “May I ask questions?” asked Pepper.
    But the Malay only bowed and smiled, set the food down, and bowed again before leaving, no more able to understand the French language than he could the squawks of the parakeets tethered to the cargo crates.
     
    When Pepper went up on deck (the door of the cell was not locked, but two days passed before he thought to try it), a sight rose out of the sea that was very like the Gates of Heaven, shimmering. Perhaps, after all, the angels had caught him in their nets and were drawing him home according to plan.
    But the vision proved to be only the city of Marseille, gilded yellow by its usual pall of pollution. After the ship docked, the crew presented Pepper with a gift of small macaroons and an umbrella, gesturing toward the shore, smiling and bowing. Pepper descended the gangplank.
     
    All Pepper lacked now was a reason to set one foot in front of the other. For what use is a sea captain without a ship—or a crew—or a steward with an array of jolly costumes? Anyway, he did not want to be Captain Gilbert Roux, defrauder of insurance companies, drink-sodden sinker of ships. There must have been better lives to hide inside.
    It was a bright, sunny day, but as he walked down the street, he felt water drops on his face and put up his new umbrella. The water was coming from fire hoses at the end