The drive to Copp's Hill Cemetery is about fifteen minutes for me. I have driven up north on Charter Street as I have to make a loop around a few blocks to make sure I am not followed by the black suits from BOI. Once I felt safe and no one is following me, I made a quick pit stop at a gas station and filled the tank, along with taking extra fuel I have in a canister in the trunk.

I never liked the looks of old cemeteries, and Boston has plenty of them. Copp's being the oldest. The first corpse they threw in it was back in 1659. Copp's was the kind of place at dark in the late hours of the evening you'd want to avoid. It didn't help matters that there were tales of old witches from back in the Salem Witch Trial days who would have their magical rituals here, trying to summon the devil and give offerings of child sacrifices, tainting the burial grounds in something sinister. Whenever I had to come up to Copp's, it was mostly solving grave robbing cases. Last one was three months ago; a geriatric by the name of Edward MacGavin tried to dig up nearly three-hundred-year-old corpses and see if he could sell off antique jewellery so he could have something to support him in his retirement.

I finally made it to the east gate entrance of Copp's Hill Cemetery. The place always looked spooky at night driving up to it. The cemetery is walled off by an old stone wall that is chest high; anyone can really climb over it. The entrance has two lamp lights guarding it, and sitting right there on the sidewalk is Rudi and his cousin, who is taller by three inches. Both seem cold, trying to warm themselves up. Rudi wore his brown leather jacket and a scarf, and black leather gloves on his hands. I honk my horn at them, and they quickly rose up from where they sat and came to my car.

"You're here, good! Let's get going! Been freezing my ass off here," Rudi opens the back door and lets his cousin in, carrying another duffle bag.

"Enzo, I'd like you to meet my friend here, Detective John Lancy. Johnny, my cousin Enzo just got here from the old country." Rudi introduces me as I look back to Enzo, a Sicilian youth of seventeen years of age, who has brown eyes, freckles, and curly dark brown hair.

"Hi John," He says in a shy manner, speaking the best possible English he can in his Italian-accented tone. Rudi gets into the front seat and slams the door.

"Okay, let's get moving," Rudi orders as I drove away from the entrance of Copp's Hill Cemetery.

The drive to Portland took all night, one-hundred and eight miles. I drove through what seemed to be endless darkness in the seaside country and far up the north coast in the middle of the boneyard. No sensible ship's captain would venture on up to here, as there are many rocky hazards and narrow fjords that a ship of any size could be wrecked or run aground on a reef. There is not a small town or hamlet built for miles upon these forsaken forested coastal hills, only a highway that was recently built four years ago, connecting Massachusetts with Maine.

As I drove, a light snowfall blanketed the highway. Rudi and Enzo slept soundly in my car, hardly stirring awake, even when I stopped to refuel the car at 2 a.m. as it snowed. Places like these, out in the middle of nowhere, in the cold dark, give me the spooks. It gives me a foreboding feeling as I refuel my car that anything can jump out at you from the darkness and drag you into their lair, hidden in the woods and tall grasses that walls off the highway.

Didn't help matters much that I felt I was hallucinating or gone bat shit insane. I was driving up to a highway sign, covered in snow, at 3:33 a.m. and right under the sign, the Ghost of Emma Lewis, covered in her blood and staring at me. Her body, pale as the snow, floated above the ground before my sight, with dead blue veins all over her ghastly figure. Her horrific features illuminate by my car's headlights, which shine right off her black eyes and made them flare up with a glow of golden yellow, then burning embers. As I came closer to her, I swerve my car on the highway to avoid getting any closer to that thing. That ghost, or whatever the hell it is, raised its right arm and points a sharp finger at me as I drove right past her.

That spooked the shit out of me; I felt I was dreaming for a second, my mind wide awake from the sight of whatever horror that thing was. I floored the peddle, going faster down the rest of the highway, never looking back. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack! Yet, what bothered me, on top of the fright I felt, is the throbbing pain again in the middle of my forehead and the ringing in my ears.

As it's coming up to four in the morning, I felt somewhat at ease. The pain in my head settled down, and I didn't feel I was hallucinating or dreaming as I am reassured by the loud snoring of Enzo in my back seat and Rudi tossing and turning by my right side, giving a few mumbles from a dream he is having. Nevertheless, I felt a bit sleepy, and to maintain focus on the road, I popped in two cocaine tablets; glad that I brought my bottle of cocaine pills, sure gonna need it to where I am going.

I finally arrived in Portland, after eight hours of driving non-stop through the night, I didn't catch a wink, but I figured since it would be a twelve-hour ferry journey to New Bremen Island, I'd sleep on the boat. I didn't tell Rudi or Enzo what happened to me last night, but they can sense my twitchy demeanour.

"What's up with you, Johnny? You look a bit off?" Rudi asked with concern as I rub my eyes.

"Well, I took a couple of cocaine tablets at four this morning to help me stay focused," I answer back in a shameful tone that I felt dirty for confessing.

"You should keep your nose clean from that kinda shit. No good to have those hard drugs in ya." Rudi chastised me like he is my parent or something.

"Eh, whatever, Rudi. I've only been on it a few days. I needed it to help me power through my work, as I haven't slept well in a month now." I sighed, shaking my head, trying to get the grogginess out of my mind.

"Maybe some food will help get you feeling right and awake and get that shit out of your system," Rudi advised. We all got a bit to eat at the Waterfront Chowder House, waiting for the ferry boat. We all sat in a booth, quietly eating our breakfast and contemplating what we are about to undergo. Being away from US territory and in some foreign land just a-hundred miles off the coast that any of us hardly knows about, like it is some hidden secret or something, ya know?

It is an odd foreboding feeling, waiting around on the Waterfront of Portland; the sun rose, yet everything was overcast in grey. The waters around the city emitted a ghostly mist. Then I saw it! Creeping from the fog, the black bow of that horrid ship, the Leviathan sailed into port. The Old Clipper is still seaworthy, but it gives me the willies looking at it from afar. Has blood stains on it. Probably the owner tried to make it a whaling vessel but didn't get much profit from the venture of slaughtering oversized sea cows. It must have been over three-hundred feet long and has a single gun deck. A god-awful stink followed it, like something you'd smell at low tide, where fish would rot on the shore, baking in the sun.

The Leviathan came to moor at the docks of Portland's Old Port at 6 a.m. sharp. The cargo area of the hull opened up, and a forklift from a local warehouse began offloading crates, labelled and packed with what seems to be their special fish product, mainly New Bremen Island Sardines pickled in brine and placed onto trucks waiting for them. Though the crew of the ship didn't look like a friendly bunch, they all had that tough brute look about them. I can't put my finger on it. They're all a mixed breed of what seemed to be Indians, Pacific Islanders, Negros, Asians and some Whites, all of them mixed up and not in a good way, as their skin seemed like misshapen patchwork, with boil-looking lumps on their necks, and old black sutures that seems to have never healed.

Tall fellows were the crew members, averaging at six-foot-six and six-foot-ten. Their features are different, but all have the same characteristics of light or dark greyish skin, with big ugly noses, fat lips, large glass-like eyes, wide ears, pudgy bellies, wide shoulders, thick necks, and large chins with big underbites. The way they moved is not natural. When walking forward, they lumbered and waddled side to side in their strides, using their shoulder motions to help propel them forward; they shuffled like penguins it seemed. If I'm not mistaken, most of these fine specimens humanity has to offer might be the product of incestuous inbreeding, which has been passed on for generations on that island.

Then I saw the captain of the ship, a big burly brown man of Pacific Islander descent, standing seven-foot-eight, wearing a black blazer over a messy white shirt that hasn't been washed in some time. He also wore an old moth-eaten captain's hat with the name Leviathan in yellow thread. He had some similar features to his seamen, large glass amber eyes, a wide flat big nose, and a large chin covered in tribal tattoos along with his face; his fat neck has three or four folds that seem greasy.

"What the hell kind of people are they?" Rudi asked with sheer disgust that both he and Enzo gawked at the crewmen from afar.

"Let me do the talking and see if I can ask for passage on their ship," I said, summoning the courage to approach these foreign islanders.

"Hello there!" I called out to the captain that many of the seamen and the truckers gave me unwelcoming glances.

"What do you want?" the Captain asks in a loud, low, grave tone that sounds rather beastly; his larger lower jaw made him slur his words. The way he spoke was unnatural, and my skin crawled with goosebumps over it.

"Uh, I want passage to the Island of New Bremen, for you see, I am an archaeologist. I and my team would like to study the Muthulan Civilization." I answered back, hoping to convince the captain to let me on his ship.

"We don't take people on board anymore! We only bring canned food to Maine!" the Captain answered back; he turns away from me and returned to his ship. I stood near the pier and watched as the trucks and Leviathan quickly left at 6:10 a.m. The Leviathan slipped into the veil of sea mist and disappeared the way it came.

"Now what?" Rudi said with annoyance as I stood on the pier, pondering my options, eyeing down the veil of mist where the Leviathan drifted into.

"I am thinking. I know a friend here who can probably help us." I answered, turning to both Rudi and Enzo.

We returned to the Old Port of Portland's waterfront and looked about for hidden operations formerly belonging to the Collins Crime Family. They were a rival Irish Mob, encroaching on the Wallace Family businesses in Boston two years back.

"I think this is it," I announced, looking down a familiar dark and dank alleyway, between a closed-up storefront and an old industrial building that hasn't manufactured much of anything since the end of the Civil War. I walked forward, with Rudi and Enzo following closely at my heel. This is new territory for Rudi; it's his first time being in Portland. I can tell in his grey eyes, glinting with interest, taking in every bit of detail he can report back to his boss in New York City.

I've been to Portland a few times, though the most recent was four months ago by ferry for a case I was on. I first came here two years back, during the Gang War on the East Coast. I took part in a joint law enforcement raid to help Maine's police force bust up some of the Collins Family business and their fleet of Rum Runners, who sailed from the Caribbean, hauling Cuban, Jamaican and Porto Rican Rum to be sold in their lucrative underground markets.

And there it is, Zadok's Tavern, nestled in the far back of the alleyway, upon turning to my left. From the outside, Zadok's Tavern looks like an abandoned storefront; windows are boarded up from the outside. The tavern has an old battered thick iron door with rusted hinges. The Tavern formerly belonged to the Collins Family, and I know an associate who frequented the joint. Yet, I had a few spats with the Wallace Family in Boston. Let's just say I am not on good terms with them, and they have a bounty on my head.

"Stick to my back and let me do the talking," I ordered Rudi, who nods his head forward. Rudi then spoke to his cousin in Italian, who nodded his head in earnest agreement.

There was a dragon bronze door handle with a tinge of sea green on the front door. I grabbed the handle of the knocker and gave it three firm hard knocks, in slow repetition. I paused for a moment and followed the three previous knocks with two quick ones that are just as loud. I stand there for another moment, and the iron slot slid open.

"What's the password?" a deep wispy voice asked from the darkness of the slot. The barrel of a sawed-off shotgun is hidden in the dark and pointed at all visitors if they don't know the password.

"The Siren sings a shanty upon sandy sole, where stony sailors whistle in the salted stings of squalling rains," I answer back. The slot closed quickly, and for a long pause, I waited; my ears then filled with the loud clang of a metal lock releasing, and the door opens inward into the bar area of the tavern.

The bar area is a large room with a stone floor and wooden beams holding up the roof. For illumination, it used lanterns with candles and old oil lamps. The Wallace Family cut the power and water to this building, so they didn't have to pay utilities and draw suspicion to their operation from local officials, who would think this place was abandoned. Jazz music played from a gramophone on the bar table, and the bartender gave me an unwelcoming glower as he cleaned a mug. Not too many friendly faces greeted me; most of the guys in here are Wallace gang members. They know me well, arrested a few of their friends, and they're still rotting in the clinks around Massachusetts. Any one of them can easily take me out without giving me a warning. I didn't make eye contact with any of them as I saw the man I want to talk to.

I walked right over to the back booths of the tavern and stopped before one, "Well now, ain't this be an intrustin morin ta start mi off!" Captain Jethro chuckled in his usual deep pirate accent.

Captain Jethro is an old-timer of a captain if I have ever seen one, age eighty-six, yet still fit as an ox. Claims he is a descendant of the pirate Jean Lafitte, a mix between Southern Mulattos and French Creoles, with wrinkly dark tan skin that gives him a leathery look. Captain Jethro always wore his typical navy-blue blazer with a blue and white striped sailor's shirt, got his old captain's hat with Sea Banshee written on with silver thread, and has a groomed grey anchor beard with long, grey hair made into dreadlocks.

He first got his sea legs during the Civil War, piloting the blockage runner, the Sea Banshee, for the Confederacy. I heard a legend saying the Sea Banshee was carrying Confederate gold in 1865 when it made a break for the Atlantic. Captain Jethro committed a mutiny with his loyal supporters and took command of the ship with its golden cargo before the Civil War ended. From then on, he sailed all the oceans and seven seas with hundreds of tales to tell. He sailed back up to the US, in 1922, from the Caribbean for the opportunities of smuggling that prohibition brought.

"Morning, Captain." I returned the greeting, looking down at Jethro's shaded face. He offers me his dark left hand, which I shook firmly. On his index finger, he wore an old-looking gold ring that the glimmer caught my eye. I am familiar with the article of jewellery, as it's his personal Masonic Ring, fitted with a red gemstone and the eastern star gilded in an engraved surface of the square piece of the gemstone. I forgot the details of it, as it's been a while since I asked. Still, it was an impressive piece of solid gold jewellery that Jethro never took off.

"O'Brian! Get mi a round of rum for mi guests, and bring the bottle too!" Jethro ordered as I took a seat, followed by Rudi and Enzo.

"So what brings ya to this far forsaken den of dastardly drunkards?" Jethro asked as O'Brian came over with a tray and served our shot glasses with dark Jamaican Spiced Rum, leaving a bottle of the stuff.

"I've come on an investigation of sorts," I explained, taking my shot glass and downing the sweet smooth rum.

Sure enough, it was authentic stuff; beats Rudi's Bathtub Bourbon any day.

"What yar investigatin par?" Jethro asked intriguingly, stroking his beard as he leaned forward; his greyish-blue eyes squints, yet I can see the glint of eagerness in them.

"Well, it's a long story, involves two missing person's cases and a covered-up murder. The investigation has led me here, that I seek passage to New Bremen Island." as I uttered that island's name, I heard a few gasps and hushes from tables nearby, that the gramophone stops playing suddenly.

"Ya must be jokin?" Captain Jethro said with disbelief, taking the bottle of rum and pouring himself another shot.

"No, I am not. A man by the name of Victor Warner von Ostermann the 2nd interests me." I stated plainly, yet now I felt the stares intensify, holding an interest as all around me is still and quiet that they seem to want to listen in.

"Yar askin a fool's errand, lad! That Island is a cursed place that the Almighty himself has forsaken!" Jethro shook his head, looking down at his shot of rum and slugging it back.

"Can't be that bad, can it?" I asked, ignorant of the caution I felt in Jethro's tone.

"Ya don knows the half of it." Jethro began as a long sigh escapes his lips.

"Ostermann is an evil feller! The right hand of Satan himself! Said to be immortal, lived fer over 150 years now. When he came back from thar Pacific in 1846, he found new Gods from them strange old Chinamen over down yonder of the far-east. Began worshippin em, and strange things started ta happen over on his ancestral island home. The fish stock became plentiful; people were well-fed and wealthy too. But thar was a terrible price ta pay fer such miracles. Sacrificed his firstborn son to em New Gods! And soon, all of his people did the same! Sacrificed thar eldest daughters and sons, turned the waters around the island red fer years! When thar new Gods weren't satisfied with the young blood of thar brood, they sent strange fellers over to the mainland and kidnapped virgin lasses and abandoned children fer thar devilish Gods ta feast upon." Sitting there and hearing this coming from Captain Jethro was rather unbelievable.

If I heard this from the mad ramblings of a hobo I'd passed on any street, I wouldn't give it much thought. But no, Captain Jethro, I trust. He has a clear mind and knows many things well. Hell! He sailed the whole world many times, for god sake! Hearing this terrible tale sent my spine in an uncontrollable shiver of fear that I felt a cold sweat breaking on my forehead. Even Rudi held a petrified look of silent horror in his silver eyes.

"Sailors unfortunate ta be marooned on that hell hole of an island met the same fate. Ya, never hear hide nor hair of em. So whatever it is yar lookin fer on that island, forget about it, Lancy! Thar all probably dead, yar better off alive, livin on the mainland with yar detective life than to even set foot on that island. But if ya want me to take ya to that island, I won't unless ya can beat me at a single hand of one-hand jack." Jethro reaches into one of his coat pockets and puts up an old worn card deck on our table. Rudi and Enzo both cleared the table of their drinks.

"What's the wager?" Rudi asked as he licked his lips.

"Only me and Lancy will be playin. The wager be, if ya win, Lancy. I take ye on mi ship to that Hell Island. If I win, I take whatever be in yar pocket, along with yer friends here too, and that I'll make sure you'll leave this tavern safe and sound and return to Boston. A fair bargain, ay?" Jethro smiled at me, flashing a gold tooth in the front row of his teeth.

"What! That's a lousy deal! Lancy, let's leave this pirate!" Rudi got up in protest.

"No, settle down, Rudi. I got this, friend." I said with assurance as Rudi sat back down, his face fuming red.

"If you lose this game, Lancy, I'm taking your car for compensation! For the five Benjamins that are about to be stolen!" Rudi growled at me as Enzo looked at him with confusion and worry towards his cousin's outburst.

"Oh, a lucky day far me, har! And I'll take ya car too, Lancy. But I won't take every little thing. I'll make sure ye has enough fer the bus back ta Boston." Jethro chuckled as he began to shuffle the deck.

"Why, you lousy son of a bitch! Why I outta!" Rudi spoke in a threatening, loud voice, attempting to draw his colt 1911. Yet, the clicking of other guns behind his back halted him from said drastic actions, as many Wallace Family affiliates have him in their sights.

"I'd settle down if I wer ya, ya wop! Ya sit back down, you and yar guinea goombah and have a drink! I'll make sure to let ya leave with a bottle of mi Jamaican Rum so as to give to yar rat face bosses back in New York to try and probably have me for their operations, deal?" Jethro glanced, giving a friendly smile to Rudi.

"Whatever." Rudi rolled his eyes, huffing in a breath of annoyance. Jethro shuffles his old deck of cards seven times.

"Ye do the honours, par?" Jethro offered the shuffled cards to Rudi, who took them up and acts as our dealer.

I got my first two cards, a nine of spades and an ace of spades. I look nervously up at Jethro as he ponders his next move.

"Hit me." Jethro requests as Rudi tosses him his third card.

Jethro nods his head, stroking his beard slowly as his lips move side to side.

"Stay," Jethro says as he placed down his three cards and looks at me with a stony face.

"Are ya gonna call?" Rudi asked impatiently.

I was hesitant.

"Hit me." I bite my bottom lip as my right knee nervously shook.

Rudi tossed me my third card, and it was the seven of spades. I am stuck at eighteen; I can't go any higher, or else I would risk losing this game.

"Stay." I sighed disappointedly, shaking my head, that I can see the anger and hate flare up in Rudi's silvery eyes, borrowing holes into me.

"Let's show our hands now," Jethro ordered as he showed his hand, having the ace of diamonds, ten of spades, and four of spades.

"Well, I could of won if I stayed. But I be a risk-taker. And you've won fair and square, Lancy." Jethro said in respect, and Rudi lets out a loud relaxing sigh of relief that I can see his lips praise Jesus for this easily won victory.

"But, I made mi warning very clear! This be yer last chance Lancy, to back away from this and go back ta Boston and forget about everything ya came ere for or heard of. Whatever it is yar wantin ta see in New Bremen Island. It ain't worth it, and it's best left thar. This is yar last warning." Jethro states firmly as I looked down at my cards, thinking deeply about the story that my finger visibly taps nervously on my cards.

I made up my mind. I am going to that Island alone. I stood by the old harbour pier, seeing as Captain Jethro has his crew ready the ship, the Sea Banshee, a hundred-and-twenty-foot-three-mast Bermuda Sloop that has been well-maintained since it was launched back in the 1850s. A beautiful ship Jethro owns. It is coming to mid-morning, about a quarter past nine. I still haven't slept, but I highly doubt I will since Jethro shared that old sailor's tale.

"Well, this is where we part." I turned my back and looked upon Rudi and Enzo. Rudi was cradling a dark brown bottle of Jamaican spiced rum in his right arm.

"Yea," I said coldly, having given Rudi my car keys.

"If you ever make it back, Johnny, you know where to find me." With that said, he left me, watching him drive off in my Ford. I never held anything against him. Sure, Rudi was into women and lavishing them, but he wasn't gonna risk his neck and possibly die for a blonde broad he hardly knows, not like me. I guess I am just vastly different from all other men these days; something of a relic. Though, it kept me optimistic in some small way. Knowing he'll take good care of my car if I ever return from this expedition. I only took one duffle bag that held the Tommy gun, rope and hook, two bundles of dynamite sticks, and food supplies.

"We're ready ta ship off, Lancy; ya comin' onboard, or ya changed yar mind yet?" Captain Jethro called down from the boarding ramp to his ship.

"I'm ready, captain," I answered in the strangest way possible, calm as if I am accepting the dire fates to come from this expedition. Yet, I also knew if I am to hang out here in Portland any longer, Wallace's men would put me in an early unmarked grave. With that, I step on board the Sea Banshee and watched the shores of Portland become distant before being swallowed up by the morning veil of sea mist.