(*This excerpt is the opening of The Marysburgh Vortex Volume 1. It immediately introduces the motif of “flying demons,” shipwrecks with stolen treasure and disturbing technology from the future that permeates the series.)

Preface: Inside the Maelstrom

23 September 1641

The Merchant Royal, fully-rigged but fatigued, squatted in the sea rocking gently like a great slumbering beast. Full of holes and broken pipes. Poor weather had plagued her all the way from Cadiz. The old girl, Captain Limbrey knew, was dangerously over-loaded, and if those small whitecaps picked up, she’d be in for real trouble. Behind them, some distance away their sister ship the Dover Merchant sat helplessly on the horizon. He grimaced and considered his cargo: five hundred thousand pieces of eight, a hundred thousand pounds of gold, four hundred bars of precious Mexican silver. Wages for thirty thousand hungry Spanish soldiers waiting in Flanders. A delivery with a hefty commission, and here he was, stuck in the doldrums struggling to stay afloat. God’s cruel joke. He felt it in his bones: the sea would swallow them all.

A cry from the lookout cut through this quiet and pulled him from his thoughts … something on the horizon. He felt the blood drain from his face, for there in the grey distance, a towering monster of a wave had risen into the sky and was pounding towards them like an army of angry warhorses. On the sea, monsters aren’t always kraken. On the sea, one had to keep his eyes peeled for what was coming because on the sea, it was difficult to stop anything. And that monstrous wall of water would rip them apart in seconds. “Ready about!” he screamed above the wind that had risen with rogue waves already pummelling the ship. “To the boats!” But the crew were already scrambling for the yawls, throwing oars about as they released the jolly boats from rusty hinges and let them slip from the side of the ship into the swirling mass below. Half of them landed lopsided and smashed into fragments as fearful crew members leapt overboard and fought for spaces in those remaining. Clawing, screaming and biting, fleets of stinging droplets tearing into their cheeks and eyes.

And then it struck.

Limbrey felt the massive jolt from the deck below his feet as everything tore instantaneously from its moorings. For a brief moment, he remembered his priceless cargo, enough riches for a thousand lifetimes, but then he was scrambling across the weather deck as the above-water hull began its inevitable plunge. His world was now at a forty-five degree angle, screams in the din competing with the sounds of the forecastle tearing loose and the sickening crunch of the foremast snapping followed by a dull groan as it slowly toppled over, a dying Jurassic remnant smashing into the weather deck. Clinging to some stray netting for support, Limbrey spotted something then even more terrifying than the Wave. Something not of this world. An ominous black sphere bouncing back and forth. And then another, and another. Commanding it. Commanding the Wave. Blue sparks illuminating their machine-like surfaces in short fiery bursts.

Flying demons.

And then he was swept overboard into the air like a helpless bug, over the swirling mass below and smashed into the hard surface of the waves. The last thing he saw before slipping into darkness were the flying demons plunging down into the sea after his sinking ship, after his dead crew. After the treasure.

(*This excerpt takes place after Jack has discovered he’s from the future and is being chased by a private army of drones, assassins and robots intent on capturing a small piece of tech called a “qubit” that will allow Dr. Huxley Volf, the leader of this army, to travel back and forth in time and manipulate history. Jack has taken refuge as a deckhand on one of the steamers on the Great Lakes but suspects Volf has spies on the ship.)

That night, as he lay in his hammock mere yards away from them in the dark, he knew McMahon and Bluewhistle would come after him now. They’d wait util the crew had drifted off in a haze of snores and grunts and then slip through rows of sleeping men in the dark with their fishermen’s knives and dig those around until they found the qubit. And when they were done, they’d toss him overboard like a sack of refuse. He lay there feigning sleep, eyes closed, a deafening scream inside. Get out! And then it came. A rustle in the dark that was foreign to the rhythm of the sounds of sleep. Bodies rising cautiously from hammocks. McMahon and Bluewhistle were on the move. He had seconds, if that, and he peeked open one eye to see two large shadows winding their way through the row of hammocks, knives in hand. He was up on his feet like a frightened deer slipping through the hatchway onto the main deck. Wind burrowed into his ear for a moment. What now? He heard muffled cursing behind him as the two assassins made their clumsy way through the sleeping others. What now? They’d be through the hatch in seconds, and the captain’s quarters lay on the far side of it.

Without thinking, he scrambled up the halyard attached to the main mast as below him, McMahon and Bluewhistle’s curses floated up in the dark, and then he felt new weight on the thick rope: they were climbing up after him. He pulled himself to the top and looked down to see McMahon already at the halfway mark with his blade tucked firmly between his black teeth and a grimace on his face. It was harder work for the much larger man, and he grunted with exertion each time he pulled himself closer. Behind him, Bluewhistle was also struggling. What now? Now there was nowhere else to go.

Call for help.

He screamed, at the top of his lungs he screamed, and the sounds of shuffling and cursing from below deck answered. A hatch near the bosns’ locker was flung open, quickly followed by another, and within seconds, the deck was flooded with sleepy cursing seamen wondering what was happening. Jack screamed again as McMahon clutched at his feet, and all eyes on deck turned upward. Captain Marshall was there shouting out a command for the three of them to come down immediately, but McMahon and Bluewhistle paid no heed. The sound of their grunts and the smell of their whiskey-laden breath was close as McMahon grasped Jack’s left foot again and pulled the fishing knife from his greasy maw with his other hand and …

… Jack jumped.

Into the black water below. The drop went on forever, a faint rush of wind in his ear and the cries of the crew who looked on in surprise, pointing and calling out in a panic. Then a large crash as he hit the surface and sank down down down into the liquid darkness. Bubbles tickled his cheeks as he descended, the cold hitting him a few seconds in as he clutched at his secret pocket and felt for his pendant. And then it hit him, the danger of his situation, the depth of the water, the struggle he’d need to get back to the surface with so little air in his lungs, and for a moment he panicked. At that moment, he felt a slight vibration in his secret pocket, but then it was gone and he was sliding back up to the surface towards the muffled shouts and banging on the deck above, confusion and chaos, but he couldn’t reach it, he couldn’t get to air fast enough, and then he was drifting into a another place, a place where the water massaged every muscle of his aching body, relaxing him, pulling the light from his eyes and whispering for him not to be afraid. Then his head broke through the water and he sucked in cold wet air, shoved roughly back into life and groping at some loose rigging on the hull. The wind had suddenly risen into an unnatural tempest as the schooner was being tossed about like a toy by a storm come from nowhere. Everywhere waves crashed to and fro and slapped into his face as he clung to the rigging, and as blood pumped through every inch of his body, parts he’d never even been aware of, the sounds of the awful struggle above kept on through the wind and waves. Something terrible was happening. Up on deck, they’d forgotten about him, and as the schooner’s hull shifted madly, he heard moorings ripping and barrels crashing about. Curses and grunts floated over the side as he clung to his lifeline and heard the sounds of groans as ribs were squeezed and cracked followed by gunshots. Captain Marshall. Someone yelled “Stop it!” but Jack sensed the “it” was something strange, and glancing up, he caught a glimpse of Bluewhistle farther down the deck peering over the sides, searching for him in the chaos of storm and battle. He took a quick breath and slipped under again staring up through the water at the old sea hand, who was yelling into a small box, a box with lights, screaming at it as if it were alive. Volf technology. And then Bluewhistle was gone again and Jack surfaced for air. Volf technology. And then there were faint mechanical sounds from the dark skies above, and he saw three black drones closing in on the schooner from above, long groping mechanical arms flailing as they careened down onto the deck.

Jack felt terror in the air as bodies began splashing into the water portside. The crew were abandoning ship. He slipped under again and clung to the rigging as he felt the hull grind and vibrate, felt the rush of water push into him as bodies plunged into the deep mere inches away. Clinging to the barnacled hull, he watched the submerged men flailing as long and groping mechanical arms plunged in after them from above and snapped each of them back up out of the water. Mechanical octopi with one-eyed tentacles searching for him, for the qubit. He struggled not to scream as the others had, not to lose his remaining breath. Bluewhistle had somehow drawn them here with that mechanical box, and as they wrapped themselves around the crew members in the submerged silence of the water with horrifying speed and accuracy, Jack pulled himself back around to starboard still clinging to his lifeline and dreading the terrible black mechanical eye that would slither around the hull and find him crouching in the shadows at any moment.

But that moment didn’t come.

As he clung to the hull and felt the last of his air disappear inside his lungs, he realised the sea had calmed. The chaos suddenly gone. No more splashes, no more bodies, no more eerie tentacles, and when he surfaced for air, the sounds of the skirmish had dissipated. Everything in eerie silence save for his beating heart and the gentle lapping of the waves on the hull. He waited, bobbing in the black water and clinging to the hull for a very long time before realizing he’d have to climb back up while he still had some strength. Up he went, his bare feet scraping across barnacles as he clutched the rigging carefully so it wouldn’t snap because if it did, there was no way back up that hull. But it held, and within seconds he flopped over the side onto the main deck and lay there panting. Eventually, he sat up and took in the carnage. Everything was torn and shredded. Canvas sails ripped to pieces, masts toppled, even the anchor was bent. In the eerie quiet, he peered into the shadows of the helm, which lay crushed under the fallen foremast, and waited for survivors to crawl out from the dark, but no one did. He was alone in the aftermath of a terrible struggle. The entire crew was gone, even McMahon and Bluewhistle. But where? The drones. Those otherworldly mechanical arms with the piercing mechanical eyes … they’d taken them all to the Octogrotto. Or maybe the entire crew lay somewhere at the bottom of the lake in the inky black water. All of this to find the qubit tucked away in his own tattered coat. They’d missed the one thing they’d come for, which meant … the Volf Division had flaws. It wasn’t invincible.

There was hope.

But first, he had to get off the remains of The Picton before they realised what they’d missed. He felt for the qubit tucked safely away in his pocket and remember for a moment how it had vibrated when he’d jumped from the main mast, but there wasn’t time to loiter. Limping to the stern, he knew that the one timid jolly boat had surely been destroyed along with everything else, but there it was bobbing in the dark water a few yards away like a lost child, torn free from its moorings. Like him, it had survived. He dove in to retrieve it, and after tying it securely to the rudder tiller, scampered back onto the main deck where he spent a few tense minutes of searching the bosun’s locker. Loading with whatever water and food he could scrape together, he lowered it gently onto the jolly boat, cut the line, and then he was gone, rowing into the dark as the Bavaria drifted off towards Main Dock Island.