Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Freya glanced at Auggie. “Ah. How thoughtful of you to have the bounty on hand. Quite convenient.” She turned back to me.
“You’re about to see what happens to people who cross me.
” She took a threatening step in my direction.
“Because not only will I kill you, very, very slowly. But even in death, you won’t be able to escape my wrath.
I will continue to inflict pain and punishment upon you, until I grow bored.
” She paused, tilting her head. “And I do not grow bored easily.”
“Um … what’s happening?” Auggie asked as the captain sprinted onto the deck, barking orders to her crew.
“Stay back,” I ordered Auggie, voice strained, eyes never leaving Freya, even as my hands slipped into my pockets, searching out ingredients. “She’s not Freya anymore.”
“More like a new and improved version, with a mind inside that is able to do what needs to be done: kill.” Freya reached back and pulled her swords from her scabbards and rushed me.
I managed to crush a gargoyle’s finger in my right hand before she reached me, making my arm hard as rock.
I held it up like a shield, bracing myself for the impact of her swords.
Her blades struck my forearm, sending sparks flying, but they couldn’t penetrate the skin.
She blinked, staring at the place where her missing arm had been previously.
Her axe-wielding arm. The necromancer hadn’t been aware that Freya had lost that arm.
If Freya hadn’t, I’d likely have been decapitated by an axe.
I blew the ingredients for the slow-motion potion into her face, shouting “Natare in harenae.” Freya cursed before leaping back, but she wasn’t in time, already slowing to a speed that made her appear as if she was fighting quicksand with each movement.
I let out a breath, swiping at my forehead. I sent a shaky smile back at Auggie, who was wide-eyed with concern. “Are you all right?” I asked him.
“Am I all right?” he rushed over and hugged me. “That was bloody brilliant.”
My eyes darkened as the world around us began to glow an eerie green. “Oh, it’s not over yet.”
A large black clipper ship swung alongside the Koriko, slimy with algae and covered in barnacles.
Seaweed hung from the mast where sails used to fly; the ship gleamed with wet, the scent of damp wood thick in the air.
Skeletal pirates watched us hungrily, their bones glowing that ethereal green color as rags of clothes clung to their rib cages and pelvises, while scarves covered their gleaming skulls.
A few of them had eye patches, and one boasted a hook for a hand.
But there was no mistaking the captain, a man with a large black hat, a skull painted across it, a black beard managing to remain on a face picked clean of flesh by fish long ago.
“Good Lord,” Auggie whispered, clinging to me.
The pirates worked as one, three planks raised and dropped over the edge of the ghost ship to connect it to ours.
Captain Mary’s crew tried to dislodge the planks, but they wouldn’t budge.
Of course. The planks were made of wood.
Dead trees. I knew all too well that Ambrosia could ensure they would remain in place.
The pirates began to cross the planks. Captain Mary stood firmly at the other side of the plank, ready with a sword, her men and women following suit.
Narcissa flew between the ships and released a barrage of flames, setting the planks ablaze, but that didn’t stop the pirates from crossing them.
They merely walked through the flames, undeterred, the fire extinguishing as quickly as it engulfed them.
“Ready!” Captain Mary shouted, lifting her sword as the pirates drew nearer.
“Do something!” Auggie demanded, yanking on the front of my cloak.
I was trying to determine how best to aid the captain, when the pirates leapt at her crew, clearing the distance between the ships with magnificent bounds.
I watched the woman who’d brought us to Captain Mary’s cabin initially, as a pirate slammed into her.
She didn’t fall under its impact as I expected her to, but rather, the pirate’s bones fell apart upon impact, dust exploding across her.
Perhaps Ambrosia’s subjects weren’t as strong as she’d imagined. But then I noticed that the green glow had left the bones … and now populated the woman’s eyes.
The same thing was happening to the crew.
As the pirate’s skeletal bodies shattered, the green energy was transferred to each of Captain Mary’s crew members.
I watched helplessly as the same happened to Captain Mary herself.
Studying the process carefully, I could make out that the green energy rose in a plume with the dust of bones, then rushed into the captain’s mouth and nose, as if she’d breathed them in.
When Captain Mary turned to me next, her expression was slack, and her eyes glowed sickly green.
“Um, Mr. Witch,” Therese said. “I don’t think this is good.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” I murmured.
I checked on Freya, who’d managed to finally turn her body back in my direction but hadn’t begun to make any headway yet.
I couldn’t keep the spell going forever, however, as the orb on my chest was slowly bleeding my reserve magic.
And I now had a possessed crew to reckon with.
Could I do the same to them? Slow them so they couldn’t harm us?
No. My magic would run out far too quickly. I needed another solution.
The crew turned on us and strode purposely forward, closing in around us.
I licked my lips, thinking as I took a step back.
“Mr. Witch,” Therese repeated, voice rising in pitch. “Now would be a good time to do something witchy.”
I nodded in agreement, but my mind was blank.
I imagined potion after potion in my parents’ grimoires, but nothing seemed to fit this situation.
If I could concoct my own potions, I might have been able to do something.
Surely I had the right ingredients for something useful, but I just did not have that talent. I was utterly useless for the moment.
Narcissa swung down between the crew and us, once more loosing a steady stream of fire. This time, the heat did deter the possessed. Of course. These ones had actual bodies, with nerves that could feel pain.
While the crew was distracted by the fire, I called to Narcissa, “My broom!”
“On it,” Narcissa said, darting into the cabin behind us. Thank the Gods my familiar had had the foresight to prompt me into crafting another one before this voyage.
I took a moment to reapply the slow-motion potion to Freya, as she was our biggest threat. I saw a scowl slowly creeping over her face, but I already had my broom in hand by the time it had fully formed.
I leapt on the broom, Auggie slipping on behind me. “They’re not after you,” I told Therese. “They’re after me and Auggie. It’ll probably be safer for you if you aren’t with us.”
Therese gulped, but nodded, frog eyes large and unblinking.
I caught Narcissa’s eye once more. “Keep her safe until we can reconvene.”
“Aye-aye,” my familiar agreed, loosing another barrage of flames before the crew.
I lifted into the air, Auggie wrapping his arms around my midsection.
“But where can we go?” he asked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Land is still days away.”
“I just need a temporary reprieve. To think a moment.” I swung the broom around the back of the ship and up into the air, getting an aerial view of the scene below.
Auggie clung harder to me and buried his face in my back.
I chuckled. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Not even a tiny bit! Have I mentioned how much I hate flying?”
“Come now. What sort of attitude is that? Life with me is exciting!”
“I would say it’s dangerous. Very, very dangerous. I’ve never been so close to death so very many times.”
I laughed as I brought us down and around the Koriko, landing on the pirate’s own ship. It creaked and groaned all around us, and I reminded myself that this was a temporary moment of solace, that Ambrosia was controlling the dead wood of this ship and could very well use it against us somehow.
But where was the necromancer? She had to be nearby.
Freya said she had to be within a half kilometer of her subjects to control them when she was outside of her domain.
And if I could take out the source of the pirate ghosts and Freya’s possession, I could end all of this.
I only had to knock the witch out again.
I frowned and turned in a circle. There were so many holes in the skeletal ship that I could see straight through the rotting deck into the cargo holds and into the cabins that remained standing.
There was nowhere aboard she could be hiding.
But she couldn’t have been on the Koriko this whole time. So where … ?
My eyes sank to the ocean.
Of course. She was in the water. Very clever. She probably thought she would be safe from us there. And she could very well be right.
“Stay here,” I told Auggie.
Auggie’s eyes bulged, and he grabbed my arm. “You’re leaving me alone? Here?!”
“I’ll be back,” I told him. “Promise.” I kissed him on the cheek. “But it’s nice to know that you’ll miss me.”
“Only because I need you.” He crossed his arms. “Not like that. I mean, for survival.”
“I understand completely. You can’t live without me. I’ve heard it many times before.”
“That’s not what—”
I winked at him, then hopped on my broom. I took a circuitous tour around the ships, eyeing the water. Narcissa appeared to have things under control on the Koriko, having all but surrounded the crew with flames. That was good. One less thing to worry about.
I squinted, my eyes sharper than normal with the potion I’d taken earlier so that I could see farther into the water. And that was how I spotted the dome. It seemed to be fashioned of bone and was being ferried by a school of sharks.
Sharks. Of course it had to be sharks.
Ambrosia must have realized she’d been spotted, for the sharks suddenly dove deeper.
“Oh no, you don’t,” I muttered. I pulled a lock of mermaid hair from my cloak, as well as a vampire’s tooth. I’d been hoping to snack on that later. A shame.
I wrapped the hair around the tooth, then popped it into my mouth, holding it in my cheeks as a bubble formed around my head. Then I flew my broom just a foot above the water and stared down into the depths of the sea, where I could just make out the retreating tails of the sharks.
I stood upon the broom, balancing with ease as I walked to the edge. I took a breath, then leapt into the ocean.