chapter 22
INSIDE, THE CLATTER OF STEEL MUGS COMPETED WITH the roar of voices raised in laughter and anger. The air was thick with cigar and wood smoke. Did pirates smoke cigars? Didn’t look authentic, but obviously someone had decided it was, and that was good enough for them. A themed afterlife town should never be mistaken for a historical reconstruction. It’s a theme-park version, like Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride…before they sanitized it for the age of political correctness.
As we stepped inside, all conversation near the door stopped. The silence rolled across the room until every mouth had closed, every eye turned to check out the new arrivals. They went first to the male half of the party, and the testosterone wafted up thicker than the cigar smoke. In a dive like this, when a new man walks through the door no one wonders what kind of conversationalist he’d make or sizes him up as a potential poker dupe. No one even wonders whether they could con him into buying a few rounds of grog. Instead, the thought going through every man’s mind is “Hmm, wonder if I could take him in a fight.” And, as most turned away without so much as a second once-over, the overwhelming decision was “yes.” This wasn’t a contender—good size, good structure, but too old, too soft, and, my God, look at those hands—is that a manicure? Only the smallest and oldest of the men let their gazes linger, but even those soon recognized a Wall Street wimp, no matter what costume he chose to cloak himself in.
Attention went next to the living, breathing piece of potential pirate booty. A few looked away after the briefest glance. They liked their women smaller, cuddlier, blonder. But most kept looking, a few perking up enough to slide off their stools.
“That yer wench?” barked a big man, spattering rum in his thick black beard as he spoke.
“Uh, er—” Kristof glanced at me, checking to see how much trouble this would get him into later, then responded with a gruff “Aye” and steered me toward the dark end of the bar.
“Bit tall, ain’t she?” the man called after us.
“Not for me.”
A tall, rangy blond with a red bandanna slid off his stool and dropped into Kristof’s path. “Not for me, either.”
Kris led me around him. As we passed, the man glided behind me and grabbed my ass. Didn’t pinch and duck out of the way. Just grabbed with both hands and held on, chortling. I slowly looked over my shoulder, meeting the man’s grin with a baleful stare.
“Uh-uh,” Kris whispered by my ear. “Can’t break character. Allow me. Please.”
Kristof turned his best stare on the idiot. “Please remove your hands.”
The guy just gave a big “make me” snigger.
“And apologize,” Kris said.
A roar of guffaws rose from the audience.
“Hey, Pierre,” a pock-faced man called. “Are ye shivering in yer boots yet? I know I am.”
Another round of whoops and catcalls. Kristof waited for the laughter to wane, as calm and steady as a seasoned substitute teacher faced with an unruly class.
“One last time,” he said. “Please remove your hands and then apologize to the lady.”
“Oooh,” someone called. “Better listen, Pierre. He might—”
Kristof grabbed Pierre by the collar and hurled him along the bar, sending rum bottles flying like bowling pins. For the next five seconds, numbed silence fell over the tavern as the men picked their jaws up off the ground. The pock-faced pirate recovered first, snatching the stool nearest him and charging. Kristof caught the stool and swung it. The man on the other end was a bit slow on the uptake, not letting go of the stool even when his feet left the ground. For a big guy, he sailed over the bar with remarkable grace, though his crash landing sounded pretty awkward.
By then, Pierre had rolled off the bar and was coming at Kris. Kris swung the stool into the side of Pierre’s head. The pockmarked pirate stumbled from behind the bar and turned on Kristof, but a wiry old man jumped the pirate from behind, obviously deciding this seemed like a good opportunity for some personal payback.
Before you could say “bar brawl” the place erupted. I hopped onto the bar for a better view, using knock-back spells to stave off any stray bodies that flew my way.
As much as I prefer playing over spectating, there’s something to be said for sitting back and enjoying a good brawl. Especially if Kris was doing the brawling. Diving, ducking, fists flying, bottles smashing, wood splintering, he plowed through the room, grinning like a kid in his first schoolyard dustup, grinning through every blow—delivered or received.
The fight petered out as most brawls do, the instigators sneaking away or being dragged off by friends, everyone else crashing from that first adrenaline explosion, unable to remember what dragged them into it in the first place. Kristof emerged from the fray. He sauntered toward me, hair rumpled, shirt torn, a wide “damn, that was fun” grin on his face. When I smiled back, he picked up his pace, then swooped me off the bar and onto a stool. As he pulled another intact stool from the debris, a tankard was slapped onto the bar and we both jumped.
There stood a plump, dark-haired woman a few years older than me, squeezed into a barmaid costume several sizes too small, her breasts barely contained by her tight bodice. She smiled and held out a second tankard and a dusty bottle of rum.
“House tradition,” she said. “Victor gets the last bottle left unbroken.”
Kris murmured his thanks as she opened it.
“Not bad fighting,” she said. “For a sorcerer.”
Since Kris hadn’t cast any spells, there was only one way she could know he was a sorcerer.
“Blessed be, sister,” I said.
Her grin broadened, revealing a missing canine. “Haven’t heard that in a while. They still use that up there?”
I shook my head. “Only the humans.”
“Well, blessed be, sister.” She patted my hand. “Been a long time since I saw a witch, too.” She glanced at Kristof. “So that’s all over, then? The feud?”
“Between witches and sorcerers? Nah. They’re just as arrogant and nasty as they ever were.” I smiled at Kristof. “But sometimes you can make an exception.”
She poured our drinks.
I looked around the tavern. “Have you…been here long?”
She let out a long whoop of a laugh. “You mean, what the hell am I doing in a shit-hole like this?”
“I wasn’t going to say it.”
She leaned over the bar, lowering her voice. “You wanna know why I’m here, hon? Take a look around. See the male-to-female ratio? This place is Alaska without the snow.” She capped the bottle. “So are you folks visiting? Or passing through?”
“Passing through. We were hoping to visit someone over on Roatan, but…” I glanced around. Most patrons had either scurried off into the night or were still finding a place to sit, free of broken glass and splintered chairs. No one was paying any attention to us. “Seems we’ve run into a problem renting a ship. I don’t suppose you know any way we could rent—or ‘borrow’—one.”
“Borrowing’s your best bet.” She lowered her voice and set about wiping the counter. “Not easy, but there’s one possibility. The Trinity Bull. Owned by Pierre, the half-demon with the wandering hands. He keeps it in a bay west of here, down the coast a bit. Secluded spot. Usually only one guard—a new guy.”
We thanked her and she slipped away to tidy the bar, conjuring up a fresh stock of rum and making the broken bottles vanish.
As anxious as we were to get that ship, we couldn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to leave. So we hung around for a half-hour before slipping out. We headed down to the wharf, this time giving a wide berth to the triple-parked galleons at the main dock, and instead slinking through the empty huts lining the beach to the west. We cut through a stand of tropical forest. On the other side, we found the bay the barmaid had mentioned. In it was a boat, not much bigger than Kristof’s houseboat. Didn’t look much like a galleon. More like a yacht…with a Jolly Roger flag on the mast. I sharpened my sight and read the name on the side. The Trinity Bull.
The bay was a pretty place to dock your boat, if you didn’t mind the security risk. As I scanned the deck, I bit back a laugh. There was indeed only a single guard, a slight red-haired man sitting on a chair on the deck, his feet propped on the rail, a bottle at his side.
“Easy pickings,” I murmured to Kristof.
We advanced on the boat, sticking to the shadows. When we drew close enough to see the deck without Aspicio-boosted vision, we both stopped short. The guard was talking. I saw no sign of another person. Kristof motioned for me to listen.
“…weeks in this f*cking town and I’m still guarding this f*cking ship,” the guard was saying. “‘Sorry, Danny-boy, them’s the rules.’ Danny-boy.” He let out a snarl.
“Next son-of-a-bitch who calls me that…”
The rant fell to a mutter. There was no one else on the ship, just one very bored, very angry, slightly drunk guard. So much for any hope of a sword fight.
Danny-boy leaned back in his chair, tipping the front legs off the deck, and closed his eyes. Kristof and I crept along the shore, keeping out of the guard’s sight in case he opened his eyes. I considered blinding him, but if he did open his eyes, he’d panic and know something was wrong.
We reached the dock. The slap of the waves against the boat’s hull covered our footsteps as we trod across the wooden boards. We made it all the way up the gangplank and the guard didn’t so much as twitch.
“Asleep?” I mouthed to Kristof.
He waggled his hand, giving it fifty/fifty odds. Then he motioned for me to circle around and approach the guard from the rear. I had taken one step in that direction when the guard let out a soft sigh.
“Are you guys almost on deck?” he said, eyes still closed. “Take much longer and I really will fall asleep.”
Kristof charged, sword raised. The guard sprang to his feet and feinted out of Kris’s path. I swung behind the cabin before he saw me. As Kristof wheeled, the guard yanked his cutlass from his belt. He parried Kris’s first thrust, but missed the second and danced out of the way seconds before being slashed.
The two men sparred for a minute. Kristof was obviously the better swordsman, but the smaller man had an easy agility that kept him out of sword’s reach. Finally, when the guard’s back was to me, I slid from my hiding place and pressed the tip of my cutlass between his shoulder blades.
“Take another step and I’ll skewer you like a shish kebab,” I said. “Won’t hurt, but it could be damned uncomfortable.”
He glanced over his shoulder, gave me a slow once-over, and smiled.
“Always was a sucker for a girl who can take care of herself,” he said. “Let me guess, you two want this boat.”
“Yes,” Kristof said. “And either you let us or—”
“Take it.”
When Kris hesitated, the man shrugged.
“What the f*ck do I care? It’s not mine. If you take the boat, I can take my leave of this dump, and believe me, I don’t mind having the excuse. Don’t mind seeing Pierre and his bunch lose this barge, either. Serves them right. F*cking pirates. Not nearly as much fun as you’d think.”
“So you’ll just leave…?” I said.
“Sure. But I will ask for one favor, though. Give me twenty minutes before you cut ’er loose. Once you set sail, someone in town will see, and I want a good head start before Pierre and his buccaneers come after me.”
Kris looked at me. I shrugged. We set the guard loose. True to his word, he loped off down the shore and disappeared into a patch of jungle. While Kris checked out the boat, I stood watch, making sure Danny-boy didn’t circle back to town to warn the pirates.
“We good?” I asked Kristof when he returned to the deck.
“Very good. It’s a modified cabin cruiser. No motor, of course, but she’ll run fine on wind and spell-power. Dad bought me one just like it when I went to Harvard.”
“You took a yacht to college? Most kids get a car, Kris.”
“Oh, I got a car, too. Two, actually. The Lotus wasn’t made for Northern winters.”
I shook my head. “Can we shove off, then?”
“Just let me check a few things, then we’ll—” He stopped and squinted into the darkness. “What’s that?”
At first glance, all I saw was what he did—a flash of something running from the woods. I concentrated, invoking my night and distance vision, and saw that the “something” was a ginger-red dog running full out along the shore.
“Some kind of dog,” I said, frowning. “Big one, too. More like a wolf. That couldn’t be…Oh, shit! It’s the guard!”
“He’s a werewolf?” Kris squinted at the fast-approaching canine.
“Cut the ropes!” I yelled, running for the front of the ship.
“What?”
“The ropes, the lines, whatever. Cut them!”
Kristof hesitated only a second, then he lunged forward and sliced through the rope at the rear of the boat. I cut the one at the front. The boat didn’t budge.
“It’s anchored,” Kris yelled, leaning over the side.
He grabbed hold of the anchor chain. I sailed across the deck and grabbed it from him. “I got this. You get the sails up and shove off, or whatever you need to do to get this baby moving.”
As Kris raced around the cabin, the wolf reached the dock. The gangplank was still down. I dove for the ropes, seized them, and heaved. The wolf’s forepaws landed on the edge of the gangplank, jerking the line from my grasp. I grabbed the rope, heaved again, and yanked the gangplank out from under him. He stumbled back, snarling.
“Double-crossing son of a bitch!” I shouted down at him.
Don’t know whether he understood me, but it made me feel better.
The wolf gave a soft chuff of a sigh, and headed back down the dock.
“Yeah, you’d better run,” I muttered.
I walked back to the anchor chain. I’d just gotten a good hold on it when a blur of motion caught my attention. I looked up to see the wolf tearing back down the dock, running hell-bent for the boat. Oh, shit. He was taking a run at it.
“Eve!” Kris shouted.
“I got it! You just get us moving!”
I wrapped the chain around my hands and pulled. The anchor barely budged. Where the hell was the windlass on these things? The wolf was almost at the end of the dock now, running full out, tongue hanging, green eyes fixed on the rail. I threw myself backward and felt the anchor lift just as the wolf launched himself. He shot toward the rail. I dropped to the deck, dragging the anchor higher.
A strong wind whipped around from the south—a magical wind. The sails billowed, the boat lurched from the dock, and the wolf’s leap fell short. His front paws hooked the railing, but only for a second before the weight of his falling body sent him plummeting into the dark water below. I hauled the anchor over the side, then looked into the swirling dark water below.
“Hope you can swim, ya scurvy cur!” I shouted down at him.
Kristof laughed behind me. I waved at the wolf as he surfaced.
“Do you believe that?” I said. “He double-crossed us.”
“Shocking. Absolutely shocking. Pretty clever, though.”
“Damned clever…for a werewolf.” I eased back against the railing. “So do you need to navigate this thing or what?”
“I’ve set her on a course for Roatan. My wind spell won’t last long, but we’ll get there.”
“No rush. We can’t visit Luther Ross until morning. We should probably keep watch for a few minutes, though, make sure we aren’t followed.”
“I’ll cover that, if you don’t mind covering us with a fog spell.”
I cast the sorcerer spell. Fog billowed up around the boat, and we sailed out to sea.
Edinburgh / 1962
THE NIX SAT ON A BARSTOOL, STARING AT THE BOTTLE of Scotch. Close enough to touch—to drink. In the old days, she’d never have considered such a thing. But now she was reduced to this, staring at a bottle of alcohol, imagining the burn of it down her throat, the pleasant numbing amnesia that followed.
She’d been inside plenty of partners with memories they’d wanted to forget, and most had indulged in alcohol to do it. She’d always despised them for such weakness. She’d suffered through the effects, with gritted teeth, hating every moment that her thoughts were dulled. And now she could think of nothing better than to partake of that same temporary oblivion.
She concentrated and reached for the bottle. Her fingers passed through the glass, through the amber liquid, leaving not so much as a drop of it on her skin. Once she’d have roared in frustration, cursed every demon she could name for not freeing her from this spirit prison. Now she only moaned and sank into her seat.
She hadn’t fed properly since Dachev had left her. Oh, she’d taken partners, dined on her share of chaos, but it hadn’t been the same. She’d come halfway around the world in search of something better, and hadn’t found it. Every new partner was but a wretched substitute for him.
There would never be another like Andrei Dachev. A true partner of the soul. Though only a supernatural shade—and from an inferior race, at that—he’d understood the power of death and chaos the way only a demon usually could. More than that, he’d appreciated the craft of chaos more than most demons, and he’d opened her mind to possibilities she’d never considered, to the true beauty of physical and mental suffering.
He’d been content to watch, but they’d always talked of finding a way, not only to bring him inside her partners, but to impose their will on those partners, to force them to carry out Dachev’s visionary ideas. Had they accomplished that, the Nix knew she would have felt an emotion she’d never experienced: happiness. The happiness of complete satisfaction.
If only she hadn’t betrayed him.
She betrayed all her partners eventually, for that final satisfaction of seeing them fall. She’d told herself that was the reason she’d turned on Dachev, because she was so accustomed to doing so that she had acted without thinking. The truth was far more unforgivable. She had betrayed Dachev because she’d tasted another emotion she’d never encountered before: fear.
While she’d been inside a partner, an angel had come for Dachev—the same one who’d taken her soul from the Marquise’s body and transported her to hell. She’d recognized him, but when Dachev saw the angel, dressed in contemporary clothing, acting human, he’d mistaken him for a corporeal being. She could have warned him. All she had to do was jump out of her partner. But to do so would have meant exposing herself. Fear had paralyzed her, and she’d left Dachev to his fate.
She’d had time to repent her cowardice. Fifteen years of finding only serviceable partners, nothing like Agnes or Jolynn or Lizzie, and certainly nothing like Andrei Dachev.
The pub door opened, and a boy crept in. As he slipped over to a table to deliver a message to his father, his gaze darted about, taking in everything about this forbidden place. A young blond woman across the room watched the boy. Nothing strange in that—everyone had turned to look at the child, the normal curiosity of the bored. It was the way this woman looked at him that caught the Nix’s attention. There was a glint in her eye, not the hunger of a perverse human who lusts after children, but the truer lust of the predator.
The woman said something to her table-mate, a lank-haired young man. His gaze slid to the boy, and he smiled, his eyes lighting with a dimmer spark. Another predator, but a follower, a willing disciple. The woman was the leader. Interesting.
The Nix slid from her seat and moved closer. She hesitated, dreading the rush of disappointment that would come if she was mistaken. Finally, she met the young woman’s gaze. And after only the briefest dip into her thoughts, the Nix knew her luck had changed.