Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Shipp’s Inn was an old pub directly on the river that Carys was guessing hadn’t been updated since the mid-seventies. It had Formica tables, red-and-brown-checked carpet, and framed photos of fishermen on the walls along with various trophies and a large blue-and-white football club banner.
Despite its dated appearance, Carys could smell that the pub was clean as a whistle, and whatever food they were cooking in back had her mouth watering.
Cadell noticed too. “I need to eat whatever it is that they are making.”
“Agreed,” Godrik said.
Not a minute later, a stout woman with red cheeks and a grey bun on top of her head walked out of the back. Her eyes went wide at the four massive men and three women in her bar.
“Now there’s a group of lads. I’m Bess, and I’m making shepherd’s pie. You hungry?”
“Yes.” All four men spoke at once.
Bess beamed. “Good thing I made extra tonight. You’re early for dinner, so you get the first batch.”
There were two men in a booth and one at the bar, but none of them seemed interested in anything but the drinks in front of them. And none of them looked like Wade.
Wada.
The sea god.
Laura said, “We’re meeting someone. A guy named Wade. Do you know him?”
“American!” Bess said. “Are you all American?” She looked at Duncan and Lachlan. “You two aren’t.”
“Scottish,” the brothers said in identical voices.
“Oh yeah. Ya sure are.” She looked at Godrik.
“Ang-lish,” he said. “English.”
She nodded. “Essex boy, I’d bet.” Her eyes moved over and up to Cadell. “And you’re a tall one, aren’t you?”
“I was born in Kernow.”
“Cornwall,” Carys said.
“Kernow,” Cadell said again.
“All right then.” Bess brushed her hands on her apron. “Why don’t you sit where you like and I’ll bring you seven servings of shepherd’s pie.” She glanced over her shoulder. “As soon as my man gets out here, he’ll get your drinks sorted.”
They sat at a booth and pulled over an extra table. Laura positioned herself so she could see the door.
“He didn’t tell us a time,” she said. “So we may be waiting awhile. Hope you guys really are hungry.”
Carys watched all four men staring at the kitchen door like baby chicks waiting for their mother to return.
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Carys said.
Naida had been silent since they’d loaded into the van, but her eyes were bright even if she looked a bit wan. “Did Dru’s pub in the Brightlands look like this?”
“Is this the first time you’ve been in a pub?” Lachlan asked.
“I’ve been inside a human pub in the Shadowlands. They don’t look like this though.” She was looking at the fishing photographs on the walls. “Is it a contest?”
“I think so,” Carys said. “Looks like it.”
“To catch the biggest fish.” She smiled. “That’s not bad.”
“Dru’s pub in Scone was more old-fashioned than this,” Duncan said. “It was in a very old building, so it was all plaster and wood. Beautiful old bar.”
Naida was still staring at the photographs on the walls. “Did he have fishing pictures?”
Duncan smiled. “No, but the Four Crowns did sponsor the local football club, so there were banners like that.” He pointed to the blue-and-white flag.
“I tried to picture him there so many times,” she said softly. “What would a prince do in a place like this?”
“He worked hard.” Duncan kept his voice low. “He made people happy. He liked making people happy.”
“Yes, he did.” Naida kept her eyes on the flag. “Wade is coming.”
Carys scooted closer. “You can feel him?”
“I can smell him.”
It wasn’t more than three minutes later that Wade walked through the door and made a beeline for their table. He was followed by a tall, bushy-haired woman wearing clothes that were nearly identical to his.
Bess was just bringing out the first of the shepherd’s pies when Wade and the woman sat down. “Can I get you two some food?”
Wade eyed the pies. “Two o’ those, Bess.”
“Course, Wade.” She beamed. “Good to see you again.”
Carys watched the woman walk away and looked at Wade. “We asked if she knew you.”
Wade shook his head. “She doesn’t remember me unless I’m here.”
“How does that work?”
He shrugged. “This is my daughter Frida.” He barked something at her in a strange language, and Frida sat down.
“I am Frida.” The woman looked even less comfortable around humans than Wade did.
She would have been in middle age if she was human, but if Wada was her father, she was a demigod at the least. She was tall and nearly as broad as the sea god, but there was a distinctly feminine curve to her features and her bearing.
Carys looked from her to Wade, then back again. “So you’re Wade’s daughter, which means you’re also a…”
Frida’s eyebrows went up. “A river reclamation biologist?”
“Yes.” Carys nodded. “A river reclamation biologist.”
“I am.”
“Great. That’s great.” She looked at Duncan, who paused long enough in devouring his pie to raise his eyebrows and shrug.
Wade was the one who cut to the chase. “We have a problem here. That’s why Frida called.”
Cadell was also devouring his pie, but he paused and looked up. “What is the problem?”
“There is a sea serpent,” Frida said. “He’s swimming up the Ouse and destroying boats. Eating pets. Things like that.”
The moment Frida said sea serpent, everyone stopped eating and looked at her.
Laura said, “So when you say serpent—”
“Monster,” Wade said. “Giant beastie-like. Not as big as the Great Serpent in London, mind, but not much smaller either.”
Laura’s eyes were as big as saucers. “Are you serious?”
“Serious as Sam,” Wade said.
“Who’s Sam?”
“That’s what they called him last time. The humans, that is. He slipped through a gate ’bout a hundred years ago. Mortals here tried to make a mascot of him, they did. Like that lovely beastie up in Loch Ness.” Wade nodded at Duncan. “But this un’s a bit more… feral.”
Naida said, “So a sea monster got through an underwater fae gate and is now eating human pets in Yorkshire.” She sighed. “Wonderful news.”
“Really not wonderful.” Frida narrowed her eyes. “Quite harmful. The humans on this side don’t know about sea monsters. If they did, I imagine they would find it quite upsetting.”
Apparently river reclamation biologists were not keen on sarcasm.
“You’ve got to stop it.” Wade pointed at Carys. “Got to stop it from getting farther upriver. Once he passes the Naburn Locks, he’ll have a clear shot to York city. And after that, there’ll be no stopping him.”
“Me?” Carys shook her head. “What are you talking about? I don’t know how to stop a sea monster.”
“Well.” Wade slapped his hand on the table. “It’s about an hour drive if we follow the river. You’ll have time to figure it out.”
“Figure it out?” Carys was nearly shouting. “I’m supposed to just figure it out? What the hell?”
They’d piled into the van so they could follow the old truck Frida was driving, heading upriver toward the Naburn Locks where the tidal River Ouse stopped and the river evened out.
“Calm down, Nêrys.” Cadell tried to soothe her. “There is one sea serpent and seven of us.” He grumbled. “Which is far more than we need, in my opinion, but no one listens to me.”
“I listen to you,” Laura said.
Cadell raised an eyebrow.
“I mean…” Laura continued, “I also ignore you a lot of the time, but I do listen to you.”
The dragon smirked.
Despite Cadell’s confidence, Carys had the urge to sit under her dragon’s long arm and hide.
“You have to do this,” Godrik said. “The god said that it was your task, and we will help you, but it must be your victory.”
“Why?” Laura asked. “Carys didn’t ask for any of this.”
“Because she’s the one who let the Morrígan into the Brightlands,” Naida said. “And she is the one the gods have named as the hero.”
Naida wasn’t wrong, and that was the most terrifying part.
Carys knew that none of this was going to stop until she figured out a way to get the Morrígan back across the gate and locked out of the Brightlands.
But first she had to figure out how to stop a giant serpent from destroying the city of York. Because that was completely in her skill set.
Laura was looking at her phone. “From what I can tell from reading online, once you get past the Naburn Locks, the river is no longer tidal. So the water levels are more even and recreational boats are more common.”
“That means more houses.” Duncan chimed in. “If the water is calmer upstream of the locks, there’ll be more farms and businesses too.”
“And far more opportunities for Sam the Serpent to cause chaos,” Godrik added.
“Locks,” Naida said. “How can they put a lock on a river?”
“Not a lock like on a door,” Lachlan said. “Locks are a Brightkin technology to move boats upstream. We don’t use them in the Shadowlands because they disturb the river spirits. But here, they build a series of walled channels where the river flows.”
“When the tide is high,” Duncan continued, “a boat can enter on one end of the lock, then a door is shut and another door opens on the opposite side to flood the chamber and even out the water level. That way a boat can move upriver even if the elevation changes.”
“So clever.” Naida smiled. “But yes, the river spirits would hate anything that disturbs the natural body of the river.”
Carys had already seen the map. There was a weir on the Ouse, a low dam to control the flow of the water and operate the locks, but that weir would be nothing against a massive sea serpent.
If Sam the Serpent followed the river far enough upstream, it would put him right smack in the middle of York, one of the most historic cities in the UK, where over 140,000 people lived and worked, completely oblivious to the fact that apparently a cranky and confused sea monster was heading their way.
“I wonder why he is doing this,” Cadell said. “Sea serpents are usually quite peaceful. Shy even. They would not eat dogs, cats, or humans when there is plentiful fish to eat.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Duncan said. “Slipped through that gate to the Brightlands, tried to hunt, and got confused because the ocean on this side is different.”