Ruby Redfort Take Your Last Breath (34 page)

She scrambled onto the ledge, wriggling forward on her stomach. She was sweating, and it wasn’t just to do with the effort of it. Time was a factor, and time was getting scarce.

As she sat there catching her breath, Ruby scanned the rock wall and there, almost invisible, lodged in a small crevice, was a decorative casket of oak, reinforced with ornate iron bands.

Very carefully, she lifted it from its hiding place, undid the catch, and slowly, slowly, creaked the lid open.

So that’s what all the fuss is about.
She held her breath for seven or eight seconds before lifting Eliza Fairbank’s rubies from the treasure chest.

My, were they beautiful. Ruby held them in front of her, and they sparkled even in the semi-darkness.

“So did you find anything?” hissed Clancy.

“Yeah, I found something all right,” said Ruby.

“Well, could you get yourself back down here before someone finds
us
!”

“OK, OK,” muttered Ruby. She threaded the ruby necklace through the back of her dive belt and stuffed the casket into her bag. It was awkward and difficult to manage the climb with the bulky bag; she glanced down at the drop below.

“Do you think you can catch this?” she hissed.

“No problem,” said Clancy. He caught the bag without trouble, and Ruby began to edge her way over the perilous ledge, feeling around for a foothold.

“Get on with it,” urged Clancy. “You need to be quick.”

But as bad luck would have it, it was already too late.

“I hear something,” she whispered.

Clancy looked up at her queryingly.

It was whistling.

Clancy’s eyes widened.

Ruby’s heart skipped a beat.

The tune was familiar. It had been sung by her mother and her mother’s mother, and her mother before that, notes that echoed right back to Martha Lily Fairbank herself: the lullaby of the rubies.

THERE WAS NO TIME TO HIDE,
no apple barrel here, just time to imagine the end.

Clancy squeezed himself behind a rock. If he stood on one leg, he was almost out of view. He closed his eyes in a hopeless attempt to disappear. Ruby balanced there, both hands clinging to that ancient ledge, her feet not quite securely positioned on the slippery wall. Silently she begged the sun to stop rising, for the cave to remain in semi-darkness.

The footsteps echoed around the walls and there he was, this shadow of a man. This Count, this conjurer of fear who could make even a battle-hardened warrior tremble. He looked around and saw nothing . . . but he felt something; something was not right. Breathing. He was sure something was breathing, maybe two things. And then a drip. It came from above. The smallest of droplets from Ruby’s still wet hair, just enough to make him look up.

He seemed almost pleased. “Ms. Redfort, not
dead
? Once again you surprise me. You really are quite the Houdini. Don’t tell me you escaped all on your own?”

Ruby said nothing, but her eyes told the truth; the slightest glance in the direction of one slender rock was enough to betray her friend.

The Count set down his attaché case, and then very slowly walked toward the rock. He stepped to one side, he stooped, and there he saw the wobbling left foot of Clancy Crew.

“And your little helper . . . why, it’s Master Crew! We met at the museum function — isn’t that so?” He said this with a wave of his hand as if remembering some pleasant and perfectly happy occasion. As if this was not the
same
occasion when he had attempted to steal a priceless jade Buddha and in the process almost succeeded in murdering Clancy’s dearest friend.

The Count pulled a silver flashlight from his pocket and shone it up so that he might see Ruby better. The light bounced off the rock, and behind Ruby there was a sparkling reflection, like a mirrorball flickering across the ceiling of the cave. Ruby saw his puzzled expression and then understanding.

“The rubies,” he said. “How fitting that you, Ruby Redfort, heir to the Fairbank fortune, should retrieve them.” He beckoned her down. “I was planning to use a ladder, but you have saved me the trouble.” When she reached the cave’s floor, he held out his hand. Ruby, without drama, without words, took the ruby necklace from her dive belt and handed it to the Count.

He examined the rubies carefully, reverently. “Flawless,” he uttered, turning them over and over in his elegant hands. “Exquisite beyond words.” His long, perfectly manicured fingers glided across each stone. Clancy and Ruby stared on; the Count was no longer aware of their presence, so wrapped up was he in the rubies’ beauty.

The spell was broken by Clancy’s sneeze.

“Damp, isn’t it?” commented the Count. “I detest the damp; it does so penetrate one’s bones.” He smiled. “Could you be so kind as to pass me the casket? Surely you don’t expect me to think that this necklace is all there is. I believe the other jewels must be in that bag young Master Crew is holding.”

Clancy looked at Ruby as if to ask, “
What now?
”

Ruby looked back at him, her eyes intense. “Listen to me,” she urged. “Do as he says.” She was tapping her foot nervously for she could see the bulky shadow of Mr. Darling lurking in the passageway.

“Very wise, Ms. Redfort,” said the Count.

Clancy lifted the casket from the bag. The threat of Mr. Darling became all too obvious as he lumbered into the cave.

“Listen,” repeated Ruby.

Clancy hesitated, because suddenly he realized that with the tapping of her foot came another message, a message Clancy Crew heard loud and clear:

Clancy held the casket in front of him as if about to hand it across and then all of a sudden he threw the contents high in the air just as Ruby had told him to, causing a glittering cloud of exquisite jewel-drops to rain down into the waters below. The Count froze for exactly one second, just time enough for Ruby to snatch Eliza Fairbank’s necklace from his loosened grip.

Mr. Darling lunged forward, stumbled on the Count’s attaché case, and in so doing knocked Ruby off her tiny feet so she was flung high into the air and down into the tidal pool.

She resurfaced, her face ashen as she lunged out, trying to grab at the pool’s edge, but to Clancy’s horror she suddenly vanished beneath the water.

The Count watched as, in the blink of an eye, both Ruby and rubies disappeared from his reach. “Gone, gone forever to the deep!” he cried. He spun around to face Mr. Darling. “You incompetent fool!” he bellowed.

Mr. Darling, realizing his terrible error and fearing his master’s wrath, stepped backward, a step too far, and with an almighty splash crashed into the water. He flailed around spluttering, trying to reach out for help. But help didn’t come.

He gasped a last lungful of air before the ocean took him.

“Unfortunate,” said the Count in a chilly tone. “Dear Mr. Darling’s not much of a swimmer. I fear that will be the last we’ll see of him, and no doubt
her
too.” He spat out the word her. “Take your last breath, Ruby Redfort.”

“Ruby won’t drown!” shouted Clancy. “You’re wrong about that!”

The Count smiled, his head cocked to one side, looking for all the world like a kindly uncle.

“Ordinarily, I would agree with you, Master Crew. But that octopus doesn’t take prisoners.”

Perhaps for a split, split second Clancy’s blood stopped still in his veins; he had forgotten a giant octopus lurked there in the tidal pool.

. . . it can strangle the breath from the strongest man.

Ruby didn’t stand a chance.

“Could I trouble you to pass my case? Oh, and just a warning, I wouldn’t do anything stupid this time. I
will
kill you; make no bones about it.”

Trembling more than a little, Clancy carefully passed the case over: it smelled of highly polished leather and a strange scent he couldn’t identify. The Count unclasped and examined the contents, and his face fell.

“All broken?” he whispered. “Every one?” And then quite suddenly his face relaxed and he lifted out a small glass flask of dark liquid. He inspected it carefully and breathed a sigh of great relief. “One survived,” he said. “And one is enough.” He placed the flask gently back in the case. “The rubies were mere trinkets, but the main prize is saved.” He picked up the bag. “Farewell, Master Crew. I do hope we shall meet again.”

Clancy was stunned. “You’re
not
going to
kill
me?” He didn’t mean to say it, it just came out.

The Count smirked; this evidently rather tickled him. “I don’t as a
rule
murder children, not unless they become particularly irksome. One a day will keep my temper at bay. And as you have witnessed”— he gestured toward the pool —“I’ve reached my daily quota, so I believe this
is
your lucky Tuesday.”

He turned to leave, paused, and said, “Also it is so much more dramatic, don’t you think, to leave one soul alive. If you should ever make it back to shore, which I somehow doubt, then perhaps you would be kind enough to pass on a message; tell LB ‘the truth is safe with me.’ She’ll understand.” He clapped his hands. “Now, hurry, hurry. There’s no time to lose. The hours tick on, and the asteroid moves farther away, too far to exert any gravitational pull.”

“What?” said Clancy. “What does that mean?”

“Ah,” said the Count, his voice tripping lightly. “It means if you don’t move quickly, you’re going to die.”

Clancy glanced down at the rising water. It was beginning to hiss and fizz.

He turned back to the Count, but the Count had gone, and in his place the rescue watch lay. A bitter joke. For what use was a watch when what you really needed was an apple barrel?

The sea was cold; its chill ate into her very bones. But the temperature was not her immediate worry: a twenty-foot tentacle was.

She felt a sharp jolt, and it coiled around her. It was strong, it was crushing, and it was determined. Together the thing and Ruby traveled downward; turquoise became blue and blue became indigo and beyond that was a place without color.

Ruby held her breath and felt the pressure build inside her lungs.

She was drowning.

She had felt the sensation before. She had met the
thing
before: the dream was not a dream, it was a memory; she realized that now. She’d encountered this monster before, long, long ago.

The thing was an octopus so huge and so powerful she wondered how her three-year-old self had ever escaped it. Why had it let go its grip that day? This time she knew it would not; this time she knew it would drag her to the place where all the other children dwelled at the very bottom of the ocean; silently resting on the cold seabed.

Clancy counted the milliseconds. Ruby could hold her breath for 61,000 of them, he knew that very well. Sixty-one whole seconds, but not a second more. He watched as the numbers pulsed on his digital watch, tenths of seconds growing into whole seconds. Time so nearly up. In a fit of frustration, he picked up the rescue watch and tossed it at the cave wall; what use were all these life-saving gadgets if the one thing you needed was air? If only he could throw Ruby some of that, then she might have a chance.

And then he remembered — he could.