Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
All the way back to the ship, Sasha was silent and lost in thought. The sun was setting as they rowed closer to the imposing vessel.
The Jolly Roger.
It was anything but.
Painted black, it was faded and grayed by salt and sun.
It had been moored for so long in its location that its anchor chain had become a reef, covered in barnacles and coral.
The crew likely had to work around the clock to keep the rest of the ship afloat and in any semblance of sea-worthiness.
Most boats had to be put in dry dock and fixed every few years, otherwise they’d rot out from the bottom up.
Librarian. Random facts.
The figurehead of the Jolly Roger was the skull of what must have been a bull elephant.
They always looked like alien skulls to her, and this time was no different.
It was made even more bizarre and grotesque by the fact that its tusks were replaced with huge iron spikes that curled up toward the bowsprit—the part of the ship that stuck out in front, over the figurehead.
Each of the spikes were adorned with skulls like beads. Skewered on them like a grotesque shish kabob, the oldest skulls down at the bottom and the freshest at the top. A few pirates were clinging to the bowsprit, and were putting new severed heads on the tips of the metal tusks as she watched.
“Lost Boys, or any of the, shall we say ‘locals’ that give us trouble,” Hook explained with all the air of someone explaining to a house guest where the controls for their garage door opener were located.
As one of the pirates pushed a new head onto the spike, it crushed the oldest one down at the bottom, turning it to dust and shrapnel, sending it raining to the water below.
She didn’t imagine that they had all been there very long—the sun and weather, along with the ship’s rats and the seagulls would make quick work of anything left out to the elements. But…still.
With every passing second, she wished this was more like the Peter Pan she remembered. Any of them. They pulled the dinghy up to the side of the ship, and tied it off.
Hook was the first to ascend the ladder, and she followed after, feeling numb. Too much adrenaline and too much nonsense all in one day. She just realized…she hadn’t slept since all this had started. Blackouts didn’t count. Nor had she actually eaten anything, either.
“Mr. Smee.” A flick of fingers over his shoulder beckoned her to follow Hook down to his quarters. She followed, assuming she was about to get lectured for all the nonsense that happened at the mermaids' cove.
When they got inside his room, he shrugged out of his coat and handed it to her. Right. She was supposed to be his manservant. God, this sucks. Trailing after him, she took his things and put them away—which took a lot of guessing, but she got there eventually.
Hook was silent as he went behind a dressing screen and came out in a more relaxed outfit—just his white flouncy shirt tucked into distractingly well-fitting black pants.
He went to a table that was already set for two with a lavish feast set out upon silver platters.
Potatoes and vegetables surrounded a goose, all roasted to perfection.
Rolls, cheeses, cured meats, a decanter of red wine.
He sat down at the head of the table and began plating himself a meal.
She just stood there like an idiot. What was she supposed to do?
Pressing his flesh and blood fingers to his temple, he let out a beleaguered sigh. “Sit. Eat. Before you do faint like a wallflower. You may be in my world of fiction, but you are still a human and a mortal.”
“I figured it was supposed to be for Wendy. Or you’d stab me if I assumed anything.” She picked up a plate and served herself some food. It looked amazing. “And if the food is fake, will it actually do me any good?”
“If pain and death is real, the food can be real.” He sniffed dismissively. “The rules about what is and is not reality in worlds of make-believe are a bit blurry. Subject to your interpretation.”
“Much like Neverland.” She sat down across from him and poured herself a goblet of wine.
A thin and devious twist to his lips. “Now you’re getting it.” He picked up his own goblet and studied it thoughtfully. “Fiction has power over the real world. Otherwise, it wouldn’t upset people nearly as much as it does, would it?”
“I guess that’s true. A good story can save lives. A bad one can ruin them.” She took a sip of the wine and decided she should definitely eat food before getting hammered. She switched to the bread and the goose.
“I’d argue that a good story is one that changes lives either way—a bad story is one that disappears unnoticed.
” Hook shrugged. “Hm. Also, I must compliment you on that crocodile. Quite a piece of work, he is. I think I’ll remember that horrifying World War I-era technological monstrosity for a long time to come. ”
She looked up from cutting a piece of goose meat into smaller sections. “Huh?”
“I’m sorry, are you so shocked to receive a compliment from me that you would have me repeat it?” He rolled his eyes. “Really, you are impossible.”
“No, I mean, I don’t understand it. What do you mean you’re complimenting me on the crocodile? I had nothing to do with him.” She grimaced. “It’s awful.”
“And it’s—” Hook sat back in his chair, watching her as if seeing her in a new light.
“I thought you understood—all this—” He gestured at the world around them, then swept his hand-and-hook down at himself.
“And myself as I sit here. We are your creations. You dreamt this up. This version of the story belongs to you and Sidney. Not to us.”
Snorting in laughter, she shook her head. “Bullshit. That turbine-o-dile didn’t come out of my goddamn head.”
“Oh, yes it did, my dear. Yours and yours alone. Sidney is to blame for what my brother is wearing and the Lost Boys, but all that you see that is unpleasant comes from you!” Laughing, he raised his goblet to her in a toast. “And what a twisted mind it is! I cannot wait to see where else it takes us. Your sister seems to bring the debauchery and you seem to bring the horror. I don’t believe my brother is prepared for what is about to happen to him.
I myself cannot wait. I have been waiting for horror romance to become a thing for decades. ”
“No. You’re lying. We’re not the ones doing this.” She waved a fork at him. “You’re making that up.”
“Therein lies the rub, my sweet Sasha. Don’t you see?
I quite literally cannot make anything up.
Not now, not ever.” He stabbed a roll with his hook and picked it up, taking a bite from it before plucking the doughy ball from the jagged piece of metal.
“We’re mirrors of humanity’s creation. We didn’t even name ourselves. ”
“Who did?”
Captain Hook chewed another piece of bread, letting the moment linger in the air in suspense before answering. “The archangels and their fallen kin voted on it.”
“The what?” She didn’t mean to shout that last bit, but hey. She just suddenly learned that religion might be legit, so she had a reason. “Now I know you’re fucking with me.”
“I am doing no such thing!” He honestly looked offended. “Either you want to hear the story, or you don’t. Make up your mind.”
Sighing, she thought it over. She couldn’t trust him. But she really did want to know the story anyway. “I’m sorry. Please tell me.”
“There you go. Manners will get you far in life.” He hummed, looking off as he clearly went back to a place long ago in his mind.
“It was in humanity’s earliest days. You were just beginning to learn how to spin a yarn, grunting tales at each other of death and rebirth, just starting to think about the soul and the afterlife.
Whispering about the wolves in the darkness who took the weak and the young and the old, using the flickering shadows of your fires to portray monsters upon the walls of your caves. ”
“And that’s when you and Virtue were created?”
“Mmhm. We were fledgling creatures, then. Barely knew what we’d become. Certainly nothing as sexy or as stylish as I am now.” He flashed her a grin and a wink.
She decided to ignore it and take a deep swig of her wine.
“But we were godlings on a planet that was watched by others. And we were there when they arrived. Fourteen of them in all, wayward children of an already missing thing your lot calls God.”
“Already missing g—?” She frowned. “Wait. You’ve met archangels and fallen archangels, but there’s no God?”
“They don’t know if there is or not, or at least that’s what they said. They didn’t stick around long enough to chat.” He shrugged. “We aren’t exactly friends, you see. Though I do have quite a few versions of them rattling around in my brain.”
“I was going to ask about that. The line between religion and story.”
“Let’s use a more modern example to help draw a clearer line.
Take a serial killer. Someone with a good amount of mythos and lore scattered around his name—Jack the Ripper.
Somewhere, the real killer is long dead and gone.
But the stories of the killer, fantastical and not, all live within me, even if some of them are accidentally true.
I couldn’t even tell you which ones those are, so don’t bother asking. ”
Pondering that for a moment, she nodded. “So, there’s a real Lucifer out there. And he has his facts, and his real history. But you have his stories that people tell about him, even if those intersect with fact?”
“Precisely. And I cannot divine the difference between the two, because to me, they are all the same.”
“But they have to be told as fiction, though. People believe the Bible is literal.”
“Not everyone.” Hook shrugged. His eyes were glowing purple again. He was far more Vile than Hook in that moment. “I don’t need a consensus.”
“Can we skip the Jack the Ripper section on this tour?”
He snapped his fingers in mock disappointment. “You’re no fun. Fine. No Jack the Ripper.”
“And no serial killer stories.”