Chapter 17 #3
A commotion behind us made the woman pause before reaching the door. She turned and squinted into the sky at our backs. I followed her gaze and sighed as a black figure fell from the sky and landed lightly on the deck at my feet.
“I think you forgot someone,” Narcissa said, tucking in her wings and glaring up at me. “Imagine my surprise when I returned from a lovely game of hide-and-seek with a family of field mice, only to find I’d been left behind.”
I put a hand to my face. “Narcissa, I meant to keep you safe.”
She licked a paw. “Yes, well, we’re partners, remember? Which means you don’t simply give me orders to follow. We come to an agreement. And I did not agree to this.”
I grumbled. “Very well. But don’t say that I didn’t try.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Plus, you’ll want me around when that horrid ice woman returns. You saw how she was petrified of my fire.”
That was rather true. I just wished she wouldn’t risk her life to prove her worth.
“Oh, I’m so glad that’s settled, Mr. Witch,” Therese said, appearing from under the folds of one of Narcissa’s wings.
I narrowed my eyes at Narcissa.
“I was worried for her safety,” Narcissa claimed with a shrug. “That horrid zombie doesn’t need teeth to swallow this one whole. It’s frankly a miracle those succulent little legs of hers are still attached.” Narcissa coughed, then gagged and spit up a black furball.
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re cleaning that up,” the woman at my side told me. Then looked around us, pointing at the man who’d stopped to gawk at the scene. “Back to work, all! Show’s over.” To me, she said, “If you do stay on, I expect you’ll be less of a distraction to the crew.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
The woman knocked sharply on the door before us as Therese hopped up to my pack, where she nestled into her preferred pocket.
I couldn’t say I was happy to see Therese.
She would have been much safer under Lexi’s care, but I was glad to have my eyes on her.
Xander had been a niggling worry. Now I only had to worry about all of the other things that could kill her.
“If it’s not whiskey, I’m not interested,” came a muffled reply to the knock.
The woman rolled her eyes and opened the door, gesturing us inside. “You should consider yourself lucky. You caught her in a good mood.”
“Thank you,” Auggie told the woman, who quickly returned to her duties, washing her hands of us.
I stepped into a dimly lit room that stunk of cigar smoke. As I walked farther into the room, blue smoke swirled around me, burning my eyes. Freya waved her hands in front of her face to clear it, but it did little good. Auggie merely smiled politely.
“Ugh,” Narcissa grumbled. “I detest smoke. It dulls the senses.”
“Then why do I still hear you lot bumbling through here like a herd of rhinos?” came a husky voice from deeper in the room.
Narcissa’s tail twitched. “I said it dulls them,” she clarified. “But Callum is a rather heavy walker.”
Was I a heavy walker? I tried to step more lightly across the room.
A woman sat at a desk before a porthole, light streaming into the room from behind her so that I couldn’t make out her features until I was much closer.
She was middle-aged with blonde hair and hazel eyes, the lines around her mouth pronounced, likely from partaking of cigars, one of which was currently dangling from her mouth.
As we drew nearer, she stubbed the cigar out in an ashtray and leaned back in her chair, arms folded across her lap.
“And what have we here? I’m guessing two witches, a virgin boy, a flying cat, and a talking toad. ”
I glanced at Auggie. “Are you a virgin?”
“That’s none of your business.” He gestured to the woman. “And how would a total stranger know anyway?”
“She doesn’t know everything,” Therese protested, pushing herself out of the pocket of my bag. “I’m a frog, not a toad. There’s a big difference.”
“Is there?” Freya asked.
Therese hesitated. “I assume so.”
“How did you know about us?” I asked the woman, crossing my arms.
She ashed her cigar. “Erik told me to expect you.”
“Oh. Right. So, he told you we were coming? And that we needed passage to America?”
She nodded. “Oh, yes. And good timing too. We were going to shove off in just a few hours. I hope you have everything you need on you.”
“We do,” I said. “And how much will this cost us?”
“Oh, look at the pretty fish,” Narcissa interrupted, leaping up onto the captain’s desk and lifting a paw to an aquarium. “Such lovely teeth, like little warriors. What good sport it would be to battle one.”
I glanced at the aquarium, then did a double take. It contained a dozen silvery fish with red bellies; they clumped together in a group and seemed to be staring out through the glass at us hungrily.
Piranha. I needed piranha teeth for the spell that would reverse Therese’s condition. What luck!
“Be careful,” the captain warned, watching Narcissa with a frown. “They haven’t been fed yet. And I hear that curiosity doesn’t end well for your kind.”
Narcissa scoffed. “I believe I can best a fish, thank you very much.”
“This variety can eat the flesh clear off a man’s bones in under ten minutes. They’ve been spelled to be utter killing machines.”
Narcissa paused at that, dropping her paw. “On second thought, it wouldn’t be very fair for a clearly superior creature to grapple with a mere fish.”
The captain grunted knowingly, turning her attention back to me. “As for payment, it’s been taken care of.”
My eyebrows shot up. “By Erik?”
She smirked. “I know. The little weasel can be surprisingly generous when it comes to offering the services of others.”
I frowned. “The services of … whatever do you mean?”
The captain grinned. “Erik has some very important cargo aboard. He would like it in America within the week.”
I nodded. In order to make my own deadline, nine days was all I could afford on this voyage, so the sooner, the better for all of us. “Go on.”
“She wants me to use runes to fill their sails the whole way there,” Freya said, speaking for the captain. “I was wondering why Erik was so interested this morning in what runes I knew. He was very interested in how I could manipulate air. But I can’t just wave a hand and control the wind.”
The captain frowned. “No? That might be a problem then.”
“Wait.” Auggie put a hand on Freya’s shoulder. “Your runes deal with matter, right?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“Can you teleport air molecules? Create a loop with the … uh, small particles in the air? Move them quickly, creating thrust?”
“What is the human babbling about?” Narcissa asked.
“Shh,” Therese scolded. “He might be on to something that can help us.”
Freya was frowning, mulling over Auggie’s words. “I … yes, I think that’s an option, if I create a rune for a series of small teleports, one after another.” She blinked. “Oh, Gods. Don’t tell me that came to you in one of your dreams.”
Auggie smirked. “Not to me. Alchemists talk to other people though, you know.”
“Alchemists are the descendants of saints,” Narcissa reminded us. “You can’t just become one, just as humans can’t become witches. Although I suppose anyone can use what alchemists learn from their dreams.”
“So, you think you can do it?” I asked Freya.
Freya hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. I know a rune that can do what he says. I haven’t used it for such a purpose before. I’ll have to direct the air into the sails, but it’s doable.”
“Excellent.” The captain clucked her tongue and winked at Freya. “If you can keep us moving in the right direction for the week, your stay aboard the Koriko will be quite pleasant.”
I gestured to Freya to step aside with me. I lowered my voice, watching the captain clip the end from another cigar. “Would that be a strain on you? Is it too big an ask? You were just on the verge of death.”
“Death?” Freya sputtered. “Callum, I already told you that my rune won’t allow me to die.”
“Well, on death’s door then.”
“It’s a good thing that Lexi is so good at what she does then, even if she does have the most annoyingly cheerful bedside manner I have ever seen in my life.”
I grinned. “Aw, you like her.”
Freya flinched. “What?”
I hadn’t been expecting that reaction. But … that was a tell that I’d nearly hit the nail on the head. My grin widened. “Ohhh. You don’t just like her. You like like her.”
A muscle twitched in Freya’s jaw. “Come off it. Lexi is far too … delicate and flighty for my tastes.”
“Aw, but opposites attract, don’t they? I’m going to be rooting for you two.”
Freya slapped my shoulder playfully, but it actually rather hurt. “So, you can do it?” I asked her.
Freya sighed. “Yes, I can do it. I’ll have to refresh the rune every three or four hours, but it’s actually a relatively easy one, not too draining.”
“If you’re sure …”
She nodded.
I turned back to the captain. “How did you fall in with a blood witch like Erik anyway? You see what a manipulative character he is.”
The captain straightened. She looked as if she was going to say something but grimaced instead. “Times are tough. Having a witch as a benefactor makes things much easier.”
“Fair enough.” My eyes lingered on the aquarium. “You have a deal, but I have one condition.”
The captain raised an eyebrow as she puffed her cigar until she was obscured by smoke. “You have my attention, witch.”
I gestured to the aquarium. “I require one of your piranha. Just the teeth, really.”
Captain Mary barked a laugh and leaned forward. “Tell you what: I’ll cook one up for you tonight and keep the teeth on the side.”