Bethany noticed Alexei listening intently to the conversation, so when she brought his a refill for his coffee, she asked, “Do you think what they’re talking about has anything to do with your hypothetical kraken?”
Interest sparked in his eyes for the first time since the night of the bar fight. “I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, think about how big a kraken is. It has to eat something, right? Probably a lot of somethings.”
Bethany shuddered, envisioning a great monster lurking under the ocean’s surface, just waiting to grab a passing dolphin. Or maybe one of the fishermen who went out every morning, no matter what the weather, trying to keep their families fed.
“Should we tell the scientist from Woods Hole?” she asked. The research institute was widely respected locally, even by people who usually had little patience with what the other man had called “science geeks.”
“Or warn the fishermen?” Although what they’d warn them about, she wasn’t quite sure. She’d seen the sucker marks on the cod Alexei had found, and against her will she believed there was something large and dangerous in the waters off the Cape. She doubted it was a kraken, or anything else mythological. Still, even a real life giant squid could clearly take out a sizeable boat.
Of course, there was probably no need to spread the word among the locals. The fisherman’s grapevine had probably already done that. Nonetheless, the ships still set out every morning. They had to make a living, no matter what.
The light went out in Alexei’s eyes again. “There is nothing to do,” he said, sounding unusually bleak. “It’s not my job anymore.”
What the hell was he talking about? “What do you mean, not your job anymore? Did you used to work with oceanographers or something? How was tracking sea monsters possibly your job?”
But he just grunted at her and gouged a large chunk of wood out of the chair leg he was working on, sending it flying through the air to land in someone’s mug. Bethany sighed and gave up for now, reminding herself yet again that the big man was Not Her Problem as she went to get the poor guy staring into his beer a new mug.
She had watched her mother practically twist herself into a pretzel for years, trying to please a man who was determined to be discontented. Hell, Bethany had done it herself for the first couple of years after her mom lost her battle with the cancer. Bethany was still a teen, trying to fulfill a deathbed promise that it would have taken a saint crossed with a fairy godmother to achieve. It had taken her a long time to realize that you can’t make someone happy if they are set on being miserable; all you can do was make yourself miserable too.
Then she’d spent another few years dating men who were so undemanding, they were practically catatonic. That hadn’t been much better, although it was less exhausting. But at least it was better than beating your head against a brick wall over and over again.
Bethany liked Alexei - hell, if circumstances were different, maybe more than liked him. But there was no way she was going to turn into her mother. If the man wanted to sit in the corner and brood, she had better things to do than try and talk him out of it. All those drinks weren’t going to pour themselves.
*
Len had been out to sea every day for a week, trying to get the damned talisman to work for him again and failing miserably. He’d done everything he could think of to recreate the moment it had called up the monster, but nothing had worked. If it weren’t for the solitary gold coin, hidden securely under his mattress, he would probably have decided he’d imagined the entire thing.
Just his luck. He had finally caught the break he deserved, only to have it let him down. Figured. Wasn’t that always the way?
He staggered home from the dive bar he frequented, pretty sure he’d been running his mouth off when he shouldn’t have been, but equally certain that none of those cretins had believed a word he said anyway, when he suddenly became aware that he was being followed. Or at least, that there was a set of loud footsteps echoing his own. If someone was following him, they weren’t being subtle about it. Len wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.
He stopped under the street light closest to his house, leaning against it slightly for support, and turned around. “Come on out, whoever you are,” he said. “I don’t know what you want, but I got nothin’ worth stealin’, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
A man stepped out of the shadows and took a confident step in Len’s direction. “No worries, my boy. I don’t mean you any harm. In fact, I think we might have some business together that will benefit us both.”
Ah, someone who needed a smuggler. That would explain why the guy followed him, instead of approaching him in public.
Len peered blearily into the darkness. The man was a stranger, an odd-looking fellow with a faintly menacing air. He was large - burly, tall, and wide - with a third of his head shaved and the rest with straight graying hair combed over so it dropped to the edge of his chin, along with a slightly wild beard, hooked nose, and cold gray-silver eyes. Gold hoops hung from each ear and tattoos peeked out from the top of his navy pea coat and on the skin of his wrists. As he took another step forward and lifted a pipe to his mouth and lit it, Len spotted one on each finger, which read Black on one hand and Beard on the other. Smoke drifted toward him on the night wind, smelling like cold iron and bitter ashes.
Ha, Len said to himself. Another guy who grew up wanting to be a pirate. Len thought maybe the fellow had taken the look a bit too far, but he wasn’t about to say so out loud. Not if the guy was a paying customer.
“What can I do for you?” Len asked cautiously. The guy looked pretty wild, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t some kind of undercover cop.
“It is more a matter of what I can do for you,” the man said smoothly, taking another step forward. For a second, Len thought he saw a huge shadow of something with a long spiky tail stretching out into the night, but another step brought the bearded man into the shining circle of illumination from the street light and the illusion disappeared.
Still, the hair stood up on the back of Len’s neck. “I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s late and I’m tired, and whatever it is you’re selling, I’m not in the mood to buy. So buzz off.”
“Buzz off?” the man repeated, sounding puzzled.
Len swayed, holding on to the lamp post. What was this guy, stupid? “You know. Buzz off. Fly away.”
The man laughed, a great big guffaw that came up from his belly and shook his whole body, such a natural sound that for some reason it put Len more at ease.
“Fly away,” the stranger said. “How amusing. You know what would be even more amusing? If I made you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.”