Once I am under water I am struck by how clear the ocean is, which means that I can see with great detail the tiger and great white sharks circling me. Great whites are intimidating, looking like someone has shoveled bucketfuls of teeth onto their mouths, so many teeth that they're spilling over. I remember watching National Geographic on television with my dad, so I know that the exaggerated bend in the shark's bodies as they turn, and the wide side-to-side shake of their heads means that they're in a feeding frenzy. Judging by the keel of the ship slicing through the ocean, I'll never make it through the circling sharks to the ship without being torn up.

The circle is closing, as though this section of the ocean is going down the drain. We're at an abrupt drop off, where the corals and brilliantly colored fish have stopped at a cliff plummeting down to a black abyss, as though the deepest part of the ocean consists of ink. Like any other mob, the sharks circle and close, testing me. A tiger shark gets close, but veers off when I face it, which allows another shark to approach from behind, and the circle tightens.

I don't mean to brag, but a gecko tastes better than a fish, which concerns me. For one, we don't have scales, and number two, I'm not full of bones. The sharks have got to sense that, and are certainly not used to a prey item as big as I am.

A nagging thought occurs to me, “What if God has a bunch of vicars lined up?”

I picture Him appearing in blinding light, speaking to another troubled soul in purgatory. “Hey, I just had a representative get chewed up by sharks. Would you like to take his place?”

What's the guy going to do? “No thanks, I'd rather stay here and cook for a while longer. I feel like I'm underdone on my left side.”

Maybe I should enjoy the cool water while I can. I remember the Sunday school story as a kid, where the rich man in hell asks for Lazarus to bring him a drop of water—just a single drop of water. I can't tell you how many times I thought the same. In purgatory, you can cry all you want, but the tears never reach your lips, and I imagine the same is true in hell.

Now I'm completely underwater, awed by the immensity of the sea. This would be great if it weren't for the damn sharks. I'm forced to pop one in the nose when it gets too close. My tail moves more slowly through the water, but the thin tip slices cleanly, so I whip it into the eyes of another shark. Looking up to the surface, it seems to me that the ship is pulling away, when it should be slowing or stopping to pick me up. Liana and Taur have seen me swimming in the sea and notified the crew.

Now would be a good time to pray.

O God, You reign over the visible and invisible kingdoms.

By the power of Your death

and the might of Your resurrection into eternal life

Suffuse me with Your presence,

Grant me power that I may deliver

the oppressed and free the captives

Let me serve as a channel of Your energy

so that loss becomes victory

and death is changed to life

The part about loss becoming victory and death changed to life seems especially relevant for me at this juncture. The “oppressed” and “captives” I'd like to free right now is me.

I just kicked another shark in the snout. “Back off, buddy.”

For a moment I am the sun being circled by a swarm of planets in the form of sharks performing an exaggerated dance of death. I see the lightning bolt engulf the bronze bull and send current streaking outward in all directions, only now I am the bronze bull, the focal point of explosive energy. The water against my skin is vaporized by the heat and the raw power. The ocean flashes white, causing the clear eyelids of the sharks to shutter as a wave of voltage courses through the water, making it churn and boil. The salt water vibrates with unimaginable amperage, as though a gong has been struck. The vibration churns the guts of the sharks and scrambles their brains.

A second later, the water is still. Sharks are suspended inertly, like pieces of pineapple in jello, then slowly roll, twisting as they rise. As if the laws of gravity are suspended, the sharks revolve belly up as they drift toward the surface, where they bob with their stomachs facing the sun.

I have to swim through the corpses of dead fish to get to the boat, which has its sails unfurled and is sailing at full speed. I work to catch up, so when I reach the hull and cling to rest, I am gasping. The canvas pops as the wind ripples the sails, and an occasional salt mist spray is blown into my face by the prow striking a wave. I clamber a bit further up, hand over hand, and foot over foot. I rest while listening.

“D'ya see 'im?”

“Ah, the killers got 'im, that's for sure.”

It's show time. I quickly scamper the rest of the way up and leap over the gunwale, landing on the deck. There is a slight pitching of the ship, but my feet grip the planking beneath me tenaciously, and I can also use my tail to help prop me up if I start to go back over my heels.

The startled pirates let out strings of oaths that are impressive in their imagery and originality. Every crew member above deck has spun to face me, frozen in shock.

“Where are they?” I shout.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

There is silence, and they look at each other. These goons are too stupid to lie well.

“The albino girl and the horned man covered in scars. In a lifetime you'll never see the likes of them again.” I am looking them in the eyes to let them know I mean business, and I begin to sink into a fighting crouch.

“We ain't seen 'em.”

I turn as if I'm looking out at the ocean but accelerate the spin at the last second. My tail whips out, lashing the lying son-of-a-bitch across the face and knocking him over. Like a scuba diver, he does a backflip over the edge of the ship, only he hits the hull on the way down. Several crew members rush to look for him, and point.

“No sense getting him,” I tell them sternly, “because I'll just kill him.”

The crew spread out into a line, and that line slowly starts to encircle me. I see a few sink back onto the rear foot in preparation to strike, while others loosen their clothing or do a surreptitious weapons check. They think they're being clever, but it's pretty damn obvious that they think they have me outnumbered. I suppose they actually do have me outnumbered, but the point is that it won't do them any good.

The one movie cliché that really ticks me off is the romanticizing of pirates. Pirates are just sea carnies. Maybe the crew of this ship aren't officially pirates, but a jolly roger flag is the only difference between a bunch of pirates and any other group of ignorant, unwashed, otherwise unemployable riffraff who go to sea. Look at all the homeless in Santa Monica or San Francisco: no matter how drunk, addicted, or insane they might be, they still understand that as long as they're near the sea they won't freeze to death in Chicago or die in a blizzard in Minnesota. So you can think of pirates as “homeless” bums, and their ship as a big shopping cart they're pushing around.

“Who's in charge here?” I'm moving to place my back to the sea so no one can get behind me.

“I am,” the biggest of them says as he steps forward. His face is tan and wrinkled, as soft as old leather. He points at me with the tip of his sword, a cutlass with an exaggerated curve. “Nobody's seen your friends, but if you've got money, you just might be...”

My tongue shoots out of my mouth, hitting him with the force of a pitched softball and knocking his head back. His voice is cut off, muffled by the blob of flesh at the end of my tongue. I retract my tongue, reeling him in and yanking him toward me. He stumbles off balance, shooting his hands forward and nearly falls when the tip of his boot hits a board in the deck that has come loose and curved upward like a wooden shoe. He shoots his hands out to catch himself, because the fleshy bulb of my tongue is blocking his vision, and he's falling.

I reel him in until my snout yawns open and clamps onto his head like a rat trap snapping shut. I lift him up off of his feet and slam him down into the deck. I whip him from side to side, continually whipping him into the deck like I'm beating a dirty blanket. I'm gripping his head securely, so I'm just breaking his legs, until I hop to the mast and start slinging him into the mast, which pulverizes his spine and ribs. He's yelling down my throat, so no one else can hear him, but it tickles, and makes me want to cough.

Once my rage has been spent, I take several steps like I'm an Olympic athlete throwing the hammer and hurl him out into the ocean. When I was alive on earth I never was strong enough to throw anybody for any distance at all, although I have to admit I never tried dwarf tossing. I've found in my brief time as a gecko that when you throw a human they tend to spin or cartwheel, which is why all those old movies where someone supposedly falls off a cliff, it's obvious they've just tossed over a dummy, because a dummy folds and flops as it falls. But this captain I just flung out into the ocean doesn't spin like a wagon wheel: I softened him up so much and broke so many bones that he just rolls through the air like a wobbly medicine ball.

“Who's the captain now?” I ask and see that some of the crew are still staring in disbelief at the spot where their leader splashed into the ocean, which doesn't last for long until sharks begin chewing him up.

I'm waiting to get everyone's attention. “Who's captain?”

“You are,” one crew member stammers. He is trembling and looking for all the world like he's about to crap his breeches.

“Thanks for that vote of confidence. Is everyone else okay with that?” I ask, and spin to look them all in the eye.

They all murmur in agreement, nodding their heads vigorously.

“Great! I'm Captain Vic.” I go to rest my hands on my hips, but I can't do it, because my arms are too short to reach where my hips would be if I had hips. “Go get my friends.”

Someone starts to hesitate, gathering in his breath in preparation to speak. I drop from a standing position to all fours, which enables me to whip my tail overhead like a scorpion. My tail, which is eight feet long, lashes the man across the cheek, causing a scarlet welt on the side of his face and landing on the back of his kerchiefed head with an audible crack. The pain drives him to his knees, and he looks like a bum who has just spotted a cigarette butt on the sidewalk.

The other crew members immediately jump into action. All of them hustle down the stairs to the hold. Following the clanking of irons and the screech of rusty hinges, footsteps pound up the stairs until I see Taur and Liana on the deck.

“What happened?” I ask them.

“We paid for passage,” Liana explains, “but they must have seen how many coins I had in my purse.”

“I had the best fur cloak and club money could buy,” Taur adds.

“They took everything from us and locked us in the hold.” Liana looks around her, but none of the crew want to meet her eyes. “I think they planned to sell us to slavers.”

Taur nods in agreement.

“All right! All you motherless curs get on deck, right now!” I shout. “Everybody in the hold, up on deck now!”

I see several crouching, or kneeling. “Asses on the deck!”

One crew member is slow complying, so I whip out my tail. He falls flat to the deck, allowing my tail to pass over him, but I have continued the spin, turning 360 degrees and dashing toward him. When I reach him he is starting to raise his head back up, so I throw repeated kicks into his head with my manacled ankle. I'm careful to restrain myself because I don't want to knock him out or kill him: I want him to suffer and bleed conspicuously.

He sits on his butt with blood streaming down his face, swaying from his light-headedness.

My thrashing of the crew member has all of their attention fixed on me. “I want to kill every single last one of you, but I need a crew. I'd like to kill a few of you just to sate some of my blood lust, but I'm afraid I might get carried away, kill too many of you, and then we wouldn't have enough to crew the ship.”

I walk among the group, letting them know I'm not afraid of them, even en masse. “Less than a week ago I was burning in purgatory, when God the Empowerer gave me a second chance. I'm giving you all a second chance. But just so we're clear, I want to kill you all, so don't give me an excuse. You'll wait here while my friends collect the weapons. From here on out, anyone seen with a weapon will be executed on the spot.”

I nod to Taur and Liana. “Gather up all the weapons and lock them in the captain's quarters.”

As they move among the seated group collecting weapons I continue my speech. “Once the weapons are secured, we need to get to shelter, because the storm of the century is headed this way.”