“How are we going to get to the boat then?” Calum asked. “Call a taxi?”
“I think a taxi driver might object to a bunch of people carrying swords, accompanied by a talking dog,” Alexei said. “I’ve had problems with things like that before.”
“Of course you have,” Calum said in the tone of a man whose credulity has been stretched to its limits for one night.
“We’ll just have to take my bus,” Beka said. “It’s not exactly inconspicuous, what with having mermaids and ocean scenes painted on the outside, but once we get to the docks, I can use a ‘don’t look over here’ spell to make it blend in better. And it will carry all of us, plus Bethany once we get her back.”
Alexei heard the words she wasn’t saying: no matter what kind of shape Bethany was in when they found her.
“What are we waiting for, then?” he said, grabbing up the map.
Beka bit her lip, looking at Calum’s wheelchair. “The bus might be magical, but it isn’t exactly handicapped accessible. Sorry,” she said to Calum.
“No problem,” he answered. “This big bear has been carrying me around for weeks. He can carry me and the wheelchair onto the bus, and back off of it onto the boat.” He swallowed hard. “I might have let my pride get in the way of my pulling my weight around here up until now, but I’ll be damned if it is going to get in the way of my going to rescue my daughter.”
Chapter 18
Bethany was dozing lightly when she heard the hatch door swing open with a slam, jolting her fully awake. Her wrists jerked, making them sting where she’d been trying to work her way out of the ropes. All that her efforts had gotten her were bloody wrists alas; the ropes were too thick and tied too well. Note to self: never get kidnapped by sailors. They really knew how to tie knots.
She was hungry and tired and thirsty, although she had tried to make her water bottle last. She hoped they were coming down to let her go. Barring that, she hoped it was time for breakfast. Or lunch. She wasn’t sure what time it was.
But any hopes she had of a semi-innocuous visit were dashed when she looked up and saw the strange bearded man. Red, the other one had called him. He was wearing a strange pirate costume, for some reason, although she had to admit it suited him.
The skinny guy who had given her the water skulked behind his so-called partner and didn’t make eye contact with her. Instead, he carried a bulging, lopsided bag that clanked like it was full of some kind of metal, which he deposited against the side of the hold with a number of other anonymous and similarly odd-shaped parcels. The smell of fish was faint, as if the hold hadn’t been used to store its usual cargo for a while.
“What ya got there?” she asked, probably unwisely. “Lost pirate treasure?”
The big man laughed, the sound booming in the restricted echo chamber of the hold. “Exactly that, my lady,” he said, strolling across the floor to stand over her. He held a large pipe in one hand, puffing on it contentedly and wreathing his head in smoke.
“I do apologize for your less than stellar accommodations,” he said. “I am not usually so bad a host. My name is Hayreddin. Welcome to my ship, Miss McKenna.”
His less impressive companion came over to join them. “I think you mean my ship, don’t you Red?” He looked at Bethany’s bloody wrists and winced, but didn’t say anything.
“Of course, of course. This fine ship actually belongs to my friend Len here. Both he and it are quite indispensable.”
Bethany saw a glint in his eye that made her think that neither boat nor man were nearly as valuable as Len might suppose. There was something about this Hayreddin that made her skin crawl, although she couldn’t have said what exactly it was. Some atavistic instinct that screamed “danger” at her, despite the fact that he wore an old-fashioned sword buckled around his broad waist, and Len had a gun tucked into the back of his pants.
“Not that I don’t enjoy the smell of old fish and tar as much as the next girl,” she said. “But I don’t suppose there is any chance of getting out of this hold.” She hadn’t been able to find anything within reach that could help her escape. She hoped that there might be more opportunities up on deck in the open.
Hayreddin shrugged. “I do not see why you should stay down here. I have merely been waiting to see if your paramour the Black Rider would be sensible and leave town as I suggested, or if I would have to drag your dead body out to show him the error of his ways, should he be foolish enough to ignore my directions.”
There was so much wrong with that sentence, Bethany didn’t even know where to start. The dead body part, of course, but also, Alexei was most definitely not her paramour, and really, who the hell talked like that anymore? As for the possibility of Alexei being sensible? She ranked that up with little green men living on Mars and the fact that the polar ice caps were melting being a fluke that had nothing to do with global warming. Alexei, sensible. Ha. And also, HA. If he hadn’t shown up yet, it was only because he hadn’t been able to find her.
But if her host hadn’t figured that out yet, she wasn’t about to enlighten him. Probably it wouldn’t be smart to tell him that she meant nothing special to Alexei, either, since her value to her captors seemed to depend on that misconception.
She liked to think that their friendship would be enough to make him come after her. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to sit around like some damsel in distress and wait to find out.
“Thank you,” she said meekly. “I’m a little claustrophobic. And I think I might have heard a rat.” She gave a fake shudder and tried not to laugh when Len glanced around a little wild-eyed.
Hayreddin reached down and hauled her to her feet with no discernible effort, although she noticed he didn’t offer to untie her hands. He left it to Len to undo the rope around her ankles and then help her up the ladder to the deck, although once up top Red offered her a mug of tea, which she gratefully accepted.
“So,” he said, drawing on his pipe hard enough to make its interior glow cherry red. “It would appear that the Rider’s reputation was exaggerated. Or possibly it is true what some said, that losing their immortality under torture made Alexei and his brothers much less than they once had been.”
Immortality? Torture? Somebody was going to have some explaining to do when she saw him again. If she saw him again. The thought that that might never happen hit her like a fist to the gut, much stronger than any fear she had of her own death at the hands of those holding her. She shook it off, needing all her focus to keep either of those possibilities from happening.