On the deck, the battle of the sea raged and swelled and hissed and roared and smashed against the hull. Wind howled in the rigging; rope snapped and whipped. The tatters of flags flung in the ferocious salt spray. Crashes of sea foam leaped into the air and slammed the boat to and fro, tossing it up and dropping it, plummeting down again into the tumult of waves.

A pair of headphones skidded across the foamy wet deck, connected to nothing.

A lumberjack's boot caught against the mainmast, soaked through and ruined by salt.

A slashed, bloodied and unraveled sweater -- bearing the letters [i]TSU[/i] -- was tangled wetly in the cannon ropes.

Thunder boomed and cracked open the sky with a violent flash of light. The ship thrashed; a cascade of water tumbled into the Mess through the grate, and with it fell the glimmer of a stopped pocket watch and a little silver key, two treasures that had until now been in the cat-boy's pockets.

These were all that were left of Dakota, Tommy, Samira and Elin.

Water sloshed thick and foamy against the walls of the Mess, crashing and hissing every time the floor shifted in a new direction. It fell in buckets through the open hatch and quenched the last of the flames. The bodies collected beneath it -- waiting to be hauled above -- were soon drenched.

Zosime -- after being dragged out from behind the boiler -- no longer breathed nor exhibited a pulse, but there appeared to be no injury to her person. She was, quite simply and incomprehensibly, dead.

Risa, on the other hand, continued to breathe but refused to wake. Her skin was cold to the touch.

Light accompanied a deafening crack of thunder. Throughout the ship, every unwitting passenger was blinded by brightness. By the time their eyes once again adjusted to the dark, TamTam had suddenly and silently disappeared.

And so, six remained.

The gray fox stood silent in the sloshing water, its fur matted and dripping, offering an intelligent stare to Connor, then Sidwell, Suichiro, Chris and Christopher. Its ears pricked and turned, listening to something no one else could hear over the waves and the wind.

The ship tossed. Cannons on the far side of the tilting floor strained against their straps. The cannon ball that TamTam had used to open the trap door rolled and rumbled through the hissing water and smacked the wall.

Lightning flashed once more; in that moment of light, only Christopher and Moss might see the spectral, translucent image of TamTam pressed back against the leafy wall of the Mess, her head thrown back in a silent scream of terror.

[i]R-r-r-r-ke-ke-ke-ke[/i]

A familiar growling, clicking sound filled the engine room. Although unseen, the dark lizard lurked somewhere in the shadows and smoke.

The vines that crisscrossed the machinery had been burned and frayed. Some of those vines snapped, and gears began to grind and turn. A few of the larger gears were jammed by the mangled bones of an old corpse caught in their metal teeth.

While the boilers remained cold, there was little the machines could do.