3. Hook
Cool air swirled in the darkness of the caves. The sea witch had always been fond of keeping herself hidden down here, away from prying eyes. Whether that was because she was forever trapped mid-shift or just purely from the nature of her inner beast? Well, that was anyone’s guess.
“Eylarue!” My bellow echoed back at me, set to a symphony of waves crashing against the stone walls outside.
“Captain.” She slithered out of the black at the far end of the cavern, her reptilian eyes glowing an eerie green in the dim light. “How lovely to see you.”
Rue was a demi-gorgon, the forgotten daughter of Medusa and a warlock. Theirs had been a powerful union that had imbued Rue with the rare gift of a seer. If the stories about her were true, she was one of a handful in all of existence with the ability to call images from beyond the realm she inhabited.
That was a claim I intended to put to the test.
“The pleasure is mine,” I said, offering the witch a deep bow.
We weren’t friends, but we also weren’t enemies. In fact, we’d found something of a working balance through the years. Though the occasions we’d interacted in that time still numbered in the single digits.
She moved with a lazy kind of grace, weaving her long, scaled body between the stones littering the cave floor. I wondered, not for the first time, why she didn’t at least clear the space given her form. The mass of snakes crowning her head writhed and slithered, with a great many of those unsettling eyes landing on me.
“I like the stones,” she said, a warm smile lighting her face.
Right. I’d been so focused on getting my questions answered, that I’d almost forgotten her magic wasn’t limited to seeing. She could also hear thoughts if one wasn’t careful enough to guard them.
“Come now, Captain. You know I would never use your inner musings against you.”
I wanted to believe that, but we weren’t that close. Considering there was a very real chance one of my dearest friends had betrayed me, it was also possible that I wasn’t as good a judge of character as I’d once imagined.
Still, I dipped my head respectfully, letting my hand rest loose on the pommel of my cutlass. “I appreciate that, Rue. Just as I hope you can appreciate that I’m here on a time sensitive matter.”
Her throaty laugh filled my mind as she moved, as though she were standing right beside me and all around me at once. “Time in this realm is an animal all its own.”
She slid to the side, taking a seat on a rough stone throne built into a rise in the center of the cavern. Shafts of moonlight spilled in through the holes dotting the ceiling, reflecting off the fine metallic details of her leather top. Her long tail caught those streams of light as well as it coiled almost lazily beside her.
“Indeed. Which is why I’m here. I need to know—”
She held up a hand. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Sending the shadow was part of the demon’s plan.”
I blinked at her. It shouldn’t have been so unsettling that she knew exactly what I’d intended to ask. Still, there was no denying the unease working its way through me.
“To what end?”
Petra had been summoned to the human world in her physical form on many occasions, but her shadow had always remained anchored to this realm. That was the way the magic damning the demon to this enchanted realm worked.
She shook her head gently, a hundred tiny snakes swaying with the movement. “You know the boy wouldn’t give up his soul, correct?”
I nodded.
“Were you aware the demon tried to take it by force and failed?”
That was news to me, but it did offer some explanation as to why Matty had been unconscious when he’d arrived on my ship in Leo’s arms.
Petra had once delighted in ripping children’s souls from their bodies when they wouldn’t play along with her twisted games. In doing so, it weakened the soul a great deal, which meant the power left for the creature to consume was minimal. That tiny detail hadn’t stopped her from taking what she wanted after other methods had proven unsuccessful.
“How did it fail?” How could it have failed? Stealing souls was the demon’s specialty.
“The boy’s tie to Wendy is just as strong as his sister’s,” she said. “Moira.”
“Never.” Saying her name aloud tore open a wound inside me that hadn’t existed a day ago.
Rue settled back, huffing out a small breath as she drummed her fingers on the stone beneath her hand. “I’m rarely wrong about anything, my dear captain.”
That pulled a bitter chuckle from me. “Trust me, her name is Never.”
She watched me with a kind of motherly affection one showed while watching someone else’s children play. Like she had a soft spot for me but wouldn’t go so far as to sacrifice herself on my behalf. “I suppose you would know.”
I shook my head before the rush of recent memories of the woman had a chance to flood my mind and dull my senses. She was trying to pull those thoughts from me. She was gentle about it, I would give her that, but I wasn’t in the mood to be manipulated.
“What about Leo?” I asked, a harsh tone coloring the question.
“What about him?”
I bit my tongue to stop the sharp retort that tried to slip out at her deliberate ignorance. “Is he part of the demon’s plan?”
She continued studying me, but after a moment, it was as though she was looking through me. Hopefully to a world beyond the Nassa and the twisted magic of this cursed realm.
The silence stretched, interminable seconds ticking by, testing the limits of my already tattered patience. After what felt like a lifetime, she pulled in a heavy breath and let out a disappointed sigh. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I can see forward, not back. While I did enjoy watching the Darling woman, my vision of her was lost to me shortly before you arrived. Leo of the shifters was also lost at that time.”
“You can’t see them at all?”
She tipped her head to one side. “Not enough to give you the answers you seek. Unless knowing they are both still alive helps you in some way?”
My grip on my cutlass tightened. If I hadn’t already been able to feel Never’s pull tugging at something deep in my being, that might have been helpful. As it was, I knew she was alive. Just as I would know when her time in the world of the living ended.
We were connected now. It was a fragile connection, granted, but it was there. If she was feeling a fraction of what I was...
I couldn’t let myself think about that. Not when I had much, much bigger problems to contend with. Like what Petra had planned.
“Can you see what the demon means to accomplish by sending its shadow to the human realm?” I didn’t have high hopes, given the witch couldn’t see Never in her world, but I had to ask.
Rue’s upper body rocked gently side to side, like she was listening to music only she could hear. “The demon wants to leave this place, and it is working to put all the pieces in place.”
“What pieces? Where?”
“In the human world, of course. A human boy with the blood of a demon running through his veins, the demon’s shadow, and an amulet containing the power of the gods. It’s a simple equation.”
A thread of ice weaved its way down my spine. “You’re not talking about Never’s brother, are you? Is he the one who carries the blood of a demon inside of him?”
She tipped her head toward me. “As does your woman.”
“What?” Surely, I was misunderstanding something.
“The original Darling made a wicked deal to come to our world.”
Oh, I knew Wendy had been working with demons, but a demon couldn’t simply infuse a human with its blood. That kind of infection couldn’t be wished or cast or spelled into existence. The only way Never and her brother could have demon blood inside them was if they were born with it.
Had Wendy truly been so foolish?
Remembering the girl who’d come to Nassa riding a storm of demonic power, perhaps the answer to that question was obvious. She’d been sweet, but dangerously na?ve. Though, she must have had some worldly experience to not only summon but also strike a deal with a demon capable of sending her to my cursed realm.
Then there was the last piece of the puzzle. Calling that gruesome hunk of what looked like a raw gem an amulet was a kindness. It made it sound like a simple piece of jewelry when it was something else entirely.
I’d sent that part of myself with Never so that she could get home. And, selfishly, so she would always have a piece of me resting close to her heart.
It was supposed to keep safe, not put her entire world in danger.
“You’re sure?”
Empathy softened the sea witch’s vaguely reptilian features. “Nothing is certain, Captain. Any moment that has not already come to pass may yet be changed.”
I’d forgotten how frustrating it could be dealing with her. Helpful and utterly unhelpful all at once.
“The demon means to use the shadow and the power of the amulet. But how?”
“By becoming the boy.”
“No.” The word slipped out before I could catch it.
Is that even a possibility?
“With the right magic, just about anything is possible.”
My heart sank. Opening the portal that had sent Never and her brother home had required the power of a god, or a demigod. It wasn’t unreasonable to think that the same power could have fused the shadow to the boy.
This is bad.So much worse than anything I’d envisioned. If the shadow managed to take over the boy’s body and get its hands on my power, it could draw the demon’s physical form into the human realm.
The catch? That kind of summoning of a powerful demon always required a sacrifice. Painful. Bloody. Deadly.
I couldn’t let that happen. Not just because I’d been tasked with keeping Petra locked up safely on that island. The demon’s sacrifice would inevitably be Matty and losing him would kill Never. There was still a great deal I didn’t know about her, but I was certain of that much.
In the off chance losing her little brother wasn’t enough to do the trick, the demon would gladly finish the job. Slowly and with an enormous amount of pain. Because as powerful as Petra was, she held a grudge like a school child. She would make an example of Never and make sure I felt it when it happened.
That was unacceptable. “I haven’t spent millennia in this realm, keeping that creature locked in this tropical cell, to have it end like this.”
Rue eased back in her seat, the tip of her tail flipping lazily against the stone. “What do you plan to do about it?”
There was only one thing I could do. “I need to travel to the human realm.”
She shook her head. “You know the terms of your sentence, Captain.”
I did. Just because Never and Wendy had used my power to leave this place, it didn’t mean I could. I was bound here by a different decree, one set down by my father himself. A titan who hadn’t answered my call since damning me to this forsaken place.
“There are always exceptions. The demon’s shadow should never have found its way back to the human world, but it did.” Maybe I could do the same.
“Ah ah,” Rue said, raising an index finger and ticking it side to side like I was a disobedient child. “That you cannot do.”
“Would you be so kind as to stay out of my head, Rue?” I did my best to sound polite, but inside a storm was brewing.
“I would, but your thoughts are so very loud.”
Thoughts were tied to emotions, and emotions needed to be controlled. Gripping my cutlass, I pulled in a deep breath and let it out slow. Then I did it again.
“See.” She said, once again offering me that mothering smile. “You’re letting your feelings for the woman weaken you. If you’re going to do what needs doing, you’ll need to keep those walls up, Captain.”
“And what exactly needs doing?” She knew something that she wasn’t telling me. Since she couldn’t see Never—supposedly—that meant what she was seeing would happen outside of the human realm.
“I’m afraid I have nothing more to offer today.”
I stood there for a long moment, staring her down as she stared right back. Her expression was one of concern, but the resolve in it was as solid as the stone throne on which she rested.
“Is it just me, or are you being more cryptic than usual?”
Her gaze danced across my face, her expression shifting into something more guarded. “My power has limits, the same as yours. Remember what I said. The future is not written in stone, Atlas.”
My lip curled at the sound of my name. Since Never had used it, I’d had no desire to hear it fall so easily from another soul’s lips. Then again, I would give just about anything to hear my fiery little human call me anything. Even Hook.
Reluctantly, I bent in a bow. “Thank you, Rue. I appreciate your help. What do I owe you?”
Money didn’t exist in the Nassa, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other means of payment. Anything of value could become currency. It was simply a matter of demand.
She studied me. Her fingertips resumed their steady drumming on the arm of her throne. “Call it a favor.”
I lifted a brow. “I would be happy to pay you.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I know.”
That rankled, but the slip was my fault. I knew better than to deal with a bargainer like Eylarue without setting the terms first.
Just more proof of how tangled up I was inside.
I nodded and turned on my heel to leave.
“And Captain?”
I paused, only half-turning back her way. “Aye.”
“A little friendly advice,” she said, her smile tinted with sadness. “Brace that ship of yours for a storm.”