Chapter 20. Annette #2
By the time the voice finished telling the story of how Blackbeard’s skull was plated in silver and turned into a drinking mug, I’d dismantled the remaining two pirates.
I tossed them over the edge to make sure they wouldn’t suddenly jump up and keep fighting, then crossed the deck to the captain’s cabin.
Inside was an odd blend of historical mock-ups and modern furnishings.
An antique-looking globe sat on a small wooden desk, along with stacks of partially graded papers and quizzes.
A digital clock hung from the wall next to framed parchment maps of the east coast. Narrow windows painted onto the rear wall showed a distant ship sailing a sunlit sea.
“Local pirates and privateers played an important role in the American Revolution. Many of these privateers operated from right here in Salem.”
The voice came from a ceiling-mounted speaker. I slashed the wires, then stabbed the front of the speaker for good measure. The voice continued from other speakers on the ship, but at least it was quieter.
I left the captain’s cabin and descended a narrow wooden staircase. A sign at the bottom encouraged visitors to explore the gun deck, galley, and crew quarters.
I checked the crew quarters first. Several more mannequins stood around or slept in rope hammocks.
These didn’t move, but I decapitated them anyway, to be safe.
There was also a TV and video game system hooked up in one corner, along with a mini-fridge and several beanbag chairs.
Just the thing for luring teenagers into your cult.
An aquarium bubbled and gurgled on a low table. The water was filthy, so the fish were little more than shadows moving through the algae and muck. I tapped the front with the tip of my knife.
A black shape three inches long slammed into the glass. The movement cleared the worst of the grime, giving me a brief glimpse of a black goldfish covered in bulging eyes, with small tentacles for fins.
My phone buzzed in my purse. Jenny had sent another message: Morgan is sleeping. He’s safe. Temple warded his room like Sage’s. Now tell me where you are.
Knowing Jenny and Temple were looking after Morgan eased a sliver of the tension in my muscles. After checking the rest of the room, I responded to Jenny: Thank you. Can’t talk now. Just found an evil goldfish.
I added heart and pirate-flag emojis and tapped Send.
· · ·
From one of the speakers I hadn’t yet stabbed, the automatic tour guide was going on about pirate treasures. If Alex was in the ship, the recording covered any noises he was making.
I crossed the gun deck and paused outside the galley. This door was cold to the touch. The latch and padlock looked newly installed.
I didn’t bother with my lockpicks. I slid my blade beneath the latch and pried it out of the doorframe, then pushed open the door.
Alex wasn’t there. I lowered my knife and stepped inside.
Alex had turned this part of the ship into a workshop.
Cans and vials like the ones we’d seen at the high school filled shelves that probably once held fake pirate cooking supplies.
Books and papers covered the counter, all held in place with souvenir paperweights from the museum shop.
A small, cleared area had traces of salt and sulfur.
A set of eight hammered metal symbols hung on the walls.
They had the same geometrically twisted wrongness I’d seen in Sage’s toy glyphs and Morgan’s drawings.
I didn’t recognize the metal, which had a thin layer of sickly blue-and-green corrosion.
Habit and experience made me pull out my phone to get pictures, but the cracked screen and dead pixels reminded me what had happened last time.
The feeling of being watched was stronger here, even though the room was empty of people, pirates, or mutant fish.
At the end of the counter, a silver platter held empty pill capsules. Beside it stood a sealed thermos. I opened it just long enough to get a glimpse of thick, putrid shoggoth goop, then screwed the lid back on tight.
Over the recording of the guide describing the typical pirate fare, I heard the creak of wood. I tightened my grip on my knife and turned toward the door.
“Annette Thorne.” Alex Barclay stood in the middle of the gun deck, leaning against a replica cannon.
I hoped it was a replica. He held a pirate cutlass in his hand.
I had no idea how he’d gotten so close without me sensing him.
Maybe his descent into R’gngyk-worshipping evil had dampened his human desires too much for me to pick up on them, or maybe I’d been distracted by the chill of the magic in the galley.
Alex’s stubbled face was narrow and drawn.
Deep crow’s feet by the eyes made him look older than his fifty-some years.
He’d acquired a little bit of a gut compared to the photos Jenny had shown us, but his frame remained on the slender side.
His short-cut hair was a dark, uniform brown that suggested hair dye.
He wore a flannel shirt, brown cargo pants, and black leather hiking boots. A black patch covered his missing eye.
“I know,” he said. “Eyepatch, pirate ship, cutlass . . . it’s all a little too on the nose.”
I readied my knife, grabbed the platter from the counter, and strode toward him. “I’m not Jenny. I don’t do the banter thing.”
“Fine by me.” He shrugged his shoulder and raised the sword. “How’s your grandson?”
He was trying to make me angry. Bad idea. I was already angry.
I whipped the platter at his head like a frisbee. He batted it aside—good reflexes, and quick—and then I was inside the reach of his sword and stabbing at his gut.
He twisted so my knife caught only flannel. His knee struck my hip and doubled me over enough for him to slam the pommel of the sword down on my back. Before I could recover, he was tossing me across the gun deck like I weighed nothing at all.
I reevaluated the situation as I got to my feet. Alex was significantly stronger than the trio I’d fought the other night.
“I’ve read all about you, Annette,” he said. “You spent your glory years enjoying life, slutting it up with vampires and demigods and sorcerers, but at least you embraced your power.” He attacked again, and I barely dodged. His sword shattered the wooden boards of the wall behind me.
“Is that what you’re doing? Trying to recreate the glory days of your childhood?” I lunged and thrust my knife toward his heart.
He actually laughed as he slapped my attack aside. “Why would I recreate that dysfunctional shitshow?”
“Jenny’s told me stories,” I said. “Raj was the tough one, right? Jenny’s backup brawler. Kayla was the smart one. And you were what, the comic relief?”
I’d lied. I did do the banter thing occasionally, if I thought it might knock an opponent off balance. Especially when that opponent was turning out to be more of a challenge than I’d expected.
He snarled and circled to his left, backing me toward a corner.
“Then there was Jennifer Winter,” I continued. “A little brown girl who was stronger than you in every way. Is that what’s been eating at you all these years, Alex?”
“She had the power of a god, and all she did was wallow in angst and throw it all away!”
As he was talking, I slapped the flat of his sword with my knife, knocking it aside long enough to slash a shallow cut across the front of his thigh.
He staggered back a step and scowled at the blood darkening his pants. “Not bad.”
“You’re not the first angry man-boy I’ve gone up against.”
“Why don’t you put down that knife and we’ll talk about this like adults?”
Jenny had mentioned that Alex might have access to persuasion magic. Trying to use it on a succubus was laughable, like trying to fight a bonfire with a pocket lighter. But if he was dumb enough to try . . . I lowered my knife an inch. “What is there to talk about?”
He brushed his leg. Black blood flaked away.
The cut had already clotted. “You’re the weakest of your little trio.
I wanted to test myself against you before I go up against Temple or Jenny.
I hate to admit it, but seeing how long it’s taking me to end you, I’m not quite ready for them.
Jenny would have finished you off in thirty seconds. Sixty if she was in a quippy mood.”
“Fifteen if she was pissed.” I relaxed and lowered my knife, hoping he’d mirror me and give me an opening.
“R’gngyk stirs, but I can only touch a sliver of his power. Our bond isn’t strong enough yet.”
“Gods have different appetites. Maybe Ring-guck isn’t into bondage.” More banter? Jenny had been such a bad influence on me.
“R’gngyk,” he snapped. “The god of a thousand names, who exists between dreams and death. His power is beyond anything Artemis could grant.”
“Why would he grant that power to a middle-aged burnout like you?”
“Because I’m the first in more than a thousand years to bring him gifts and worshippers.
” He still hadn’t dropped his guard. Not enough, at least, given his strength and speed.
“Put away your knife and come with me. You’re not the sacrifice I’d planned to give him, but you’ll make a nice appetizer. ”
I sheathed my knife.
It was an impressive persuasion charm. The magic intertwined with my own motives and desires.
Was I obeying him because we needed more information about Alex’s plans, and playing along was the best way to get it?
Or was that all a rationalization my brain had come up with to make me do what he said?
He pointed his sword to the ladder in the floor. “Climb down to the cargo hold.”
Below, LED lamps hung from the cargo hold ceiling, brightening a low area with scattered barrels, crates, and coils of rope. Tied to a thick pillar in the middle of it all was a hearth devil. A pair of steak knives protruded from his chest.