Lee nodded. Harper took off on her snowmobile, circling around to the north. He left his where it was and walked alongside Tess toward the ancient relic.
An old rope net hung from one side of the galleon, which Lee guessed might have been used by the crew to abandon ship once it was clear that it was well and truly stuck in the ice. He half expected it to crumble to dust as he took hold of it, but the cold had done a remarkable preservation job.
He climbed up to the ship’s railing and swung his legs over. Standing on the deck made it abundantly clear why Harper and Zoe had been so intrigued by the craft in their school days. A haunting whistle - similar to the sound of someone blowing across an empty bottle - sounded as the wind fluttered through the ship’s innards. Snow and frozen crystals coated nearly every surface, rendering the ship into a surrealist ice sculpture.
“Wow,” whispered Tess. “I wonder what happened to the ship’s crew. Do you think they survived?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. Judging from this ship’s age, it must have gotten stuck here before Primhaven was founded. I doubt Gillum was around in that time period, either, meaning they’d have to travel hundreds of miles to reach safety.”
“That’s so sad,” said Tess.
The mystery of the ship was intriguing, but Lee cared more about finding his sister. She wasn’t on deck, but there were small signs of the most recent layer of snow having been slightly disturbed in places. He followed the clues over to the ship’s hatch, which had been frozen stuck in its open position.
“Zoe?” he shouted. “Are you down there?”
No response came. Lee sighed, knowing that he’d still need to search the spooky ship to be absolutely sure. He checked on Harper in the distance. She was heading back toward the ship, apparently unsuccessful in her efforts to find any trace of Zoe nearby.
He started down the stairs that led to the ship’s lower level, holding Tess’s hand as she followed behind him. As soon as he reached the bottom step, he felt a sinister thrumming of magical energy on the air.
“Fuck.” He turned back to face the hatch and noticed the vague, mostly translucent glow of an alteration spell behind them. Instructor Daniels had shown them an example of this particular spell, a one-way barrier that allowed people to enter, but not leave.
“Oh no!” said Tess. “Was this a trap?”
Lee pressed his fingers against the immovable magical barrier, gritting his teeth in frustration.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Why? Was that note written by someone other than Zoe, or…?”
He turned his focus back to exploring the ship, hoping that he’d find the answers he needed rather than more trickery. Tess stayed within his mystic stream, keeping her arm looped through his as they took in the scene of their confinement.
The smell that Harper had mentioned wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. It was musty, similar to the smell of a men’s locker room, but undercut by the scent of sea salt and blunted by a hundred-plus years of cold.
Lee kept expecting to find long-frozen corpses, but each room he checked was empty. He made his way through a stripped-down sleeping area, with bunk-bed frames lacking mattresses or blankets lining all available space along either wall. Another set of stairs led down to the level below.
“Well, it’s not as though it really matters if there’s another barrier over this one,” he said.
“It would make it twice as hard for you to escape,” said Tess, in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You know what I mean. We’re stuck for now. Might as well see what’s in the bottom of the ship.”
The next level down was a wide-open space with dozens of oar slots. Most of them were empty, but a few were left in places where the crew had clearly been working to brute force their way through the ice and gotten the oars stuck. There wasn’t much else of interest, so Lee walked to the stairs on the far end and headed down into the ship’s lowest level.
He felt a chill run down the back of his neck as he descended into the galleon’s hull. It was pitch black, but Lee didn’t need to see to know that he was in the presence of a specter, a powerful one at that. He immediately adopted his illusion casting stance and worked a quick illumination spell, using the newly created sphere of light to reveal what he was facing.
A ghost of a man sat leaning against the far wall. He held a pistol in one hand and a curved sabre in the other. He wasn’t that old, or at least hadn’t been that old when he died, and a grisly head injury dripped blood from matching entrance and exit wounds.
“Lee…” whispered Tess. “He’s really strong. This is bad.”
The specter was already rising to his feet. Lee considered the situation as he reached inside his jacket for his kris dagger. If Zoe had written the note to Harper intending them to reach the galleon and pass through the alteration barrier, how did this play into her plan?
She’d had a small sensitivity for ghosts, but she hadn’t been a full-blown mystic like Lee. It was possible that she’d have missed an entity, especially given what Harper had said about the two of them not normally heading down into the ship’s lower levels. It was also possible that the specter was of the wandering variety and had only arrived at the ship recently.
The other alternative was that his sister had intentionally led him and Harper, the two people who missed her the most, into a trap.
CHAPTER 27
Lee’s first concern was not for himself, but for Tess. Some specters were more predisposed toward attacking lesser ghosts, absorbing them to build their strength. Lee had no intention of letting it get close enough to Tess to have a shot at that.
“Head upstairs,” he whispered. “I’ll handle this guy.”
“I can’t just leave you to—”
“Tess,” he said, firmly. “Fighting specters was my job before I came to Primhaven. I doubt this guy will give me much trouble.”
The specter had apparently overheard him, as it let out a low, rumbling laugh before flashing a toothy grin. It spun its pistol around on one finger. The weapon couldn’t do much damage to Lee. Even though a specter with a strong enough will could still technically make a gun fire, the bullets would usually go wide of their intended targets, lacking their normal precision.
“The boy thinks he can tussle with Captain Thames,” said the specter. “Oh, we’ll see about that, aye. Confidence be a double-edged sword.”
Lee squeezed Tess’s hand, shooting her a plea with his eyes. She was clearly wracked with concern, but she nodded and headed up the steps, crouching near the hatch to the upper level in a position from where she could still watch.
“You’re dead, Captain,” said Lee. “That’s the truth of the matter. I’m a mystic. If you want, I can save you the anguish of what you’ve been enduring since your ship ended up here.”
“Who says it’s anguish?” snapped Captain Thames. “Who says I ain’t enjoying this? No body, no worries. No crew of cowards to keep sated with loot and ale.”
“You know you’re dead, then?” asked Lee. “You’ve accepted it?”
“Aye. I’ve accepted it. I’m dead, and I’m patient, and I’ll find my opportunity to take my revenge on the dirty, lying whore who sent me up on this expedition to begin with.”
Captain Thames stalked toward Lee, swinging his saber through thin air. His hair and beard were disheveled, but he’d been a muscular man in life, which would make him that much more annoying to deal with in death.
“Hold on a second,” said Lee. “While this line of communication is still open, can you tell me if you’ve seen anyone around here recently? A tall girl with brown hair, maybe?”
“That one? She’s why I came back. I thought I’d get the drop on her and finally have another body to play around with, but she left just as I arrived. Didn’t even take the time to give me notice. Another sorceress whore, just like that conniving cunt!”
Thames shouted and took the last few steps needed to draw within striking distance. Lee ducked under an ethereal saber slash,
countering with a quick, retaliatory stab of his kris dagger. Thames howled in pain, but he spun before Lee could follow up properly, landing a strike of his own as the tip of his saber slid through Lee’s thigh.
It was more of a cold, echoing pain rather than the sharp intensity that would have come from a physical weapon. Still, Lee knew better than anyone how easily the damage from specter attacks could accumulate. They sapped away at a person’s strength in a manner that would quickly lead to unconsciousness, and shortly after, death.
He did have the option of pulling the specter into his mystic stream, but the issues that would pose for him outweighed the advantages. He would be able to do more damage to the specter with its body made physical within the reality of his stream, but the same would prove true in reverse. He wasn’t interested in bringing a dagger to a sword fight, if it could be helped.
Lee jockeyed for advantage within the ship’s narrow hull, trying to strafe around to attack Captain Thames from the other side. The specter was far more comfortable fighting within the galleon’s confines than Lee was, which made sense. It was safe to assume that this had essentially been Thames’s home, back when he’d been alive.
They exchanged another quick series of attacks. Lee took a slash across the elbow which rendered his entire left forearm numb. He countered with two quick cuts in an x-shape across Thames’s chest. The specter staggered backward, dropping his guard for a moment.
Lee didn’t hesitate. He hurled himself forward and drove his dagger into—and then through—the entity. The usual cold tingle of making direct contact with a ghost rippled through him, making the inside of his bones and teeth ache. He persevered, focusing on one of his lesser-used mystic abilities as of late.
“You won’t find peace on your own,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, but this is what I must do.”
Lee inhaled sharply and used his mystic absorption, taking what remained of the ghost’s essence into himself. In the same way most spiritual entities like Tess could absorb essence from humans and supernatural creatures, Lee could do the same to ghosts.
There was a reason why he usually chose not to, however.
It was a messy process, and with the essence often came a surge of unwanted memories tied to the ghost’s past. Sometimes Lee could suppress the unwanted glimpses into the lives of the entities he absorbed, only getting occasional glimpses in dreams and feelings of déjà vu here and there.
Not this time. Lee felt the world spinning around him as the last of Captain Thames’s essence pulsed through his body. The memories were like thick honey, sticking to his awareness and overwhelming him with their sickly-sweet flavor.
***
“Do we have a deal, Mr. Thames?”
Lee was suddenly somewhere else, seeing the world through the eyes of someone else. He was lying on a heavily cushioned four-poster bed with silk curtains. Three young, naked women were gently massaging the body he currently inhabited, which was also unclothed outside of a thin covering of underwear.
“You ain’t gonna persuade me just by throwing whores at me,” he said, or rather felt himself say.
“They’re merely a warmup,” said the fourth woman in the room. Her hair was jet black, and her skin was pale. A small beauty mark stood out underneath her left eye, accentuating her already beautiful face. She was wearing a purple robe, but even through its modest fit, he could see large breasts and stunning curves underneath.
Lee recognized her instantly. She was the woman depicted in Primhaven’s central statue. Shay Morrigan, the college’s founder.
“You…” said Lee, through Thames’s body. “What are you suggesting?”
“If you and your crew make this journey to the cold north for me, I’ll owe you a favor,” said Shay. “Perhaps several favors, depending on the haul of arcanum crystals you return with. You’ll be paid handsomely for them as well, of course.”
“I ain’t no fool,” said Lee. “I make decisions with my head, not my cock.”
“Is that so?” Shay flashed a seductive smile and waved a hand to the girls that were already caressing him in earnest. Lee watched through Thames’s eyes and felt what he had once felt as the hands of a stunning redhead with massive pale breasts began running over his crotch.
He let out a low moan as another woman, a petite blonde with a short haircut, started planting kisses up his thigh and then along the bottom edge of his underwear. The third woman was another blonde, and she started kissing his neck and nibbling on his ear.
“Even…” Lee took a pleasured breath. “Assuming I agreed, what would this favor from you entail?”
“You know my reputation,” whispered Shay. “I am a sorceress. I have many followers, these three among them. I could lend you a spellcaster for your crew. I could destroy an enemy for you. Or…”
Shay reached down to the drawstring of her robe and gingerly untied it. A small smile danced across her pouty lips. The two women down by Lee’s lower half began sliding his underwear down. Lee felt each sensation as vividly as though he was truly there, like a sex dream that didn’t burn out before it got interesting.
The redhead giggled as she stuck out her tongue and slowly began licking his shaft. He set one hand on her head and the other in the hair of the petite blonde’s, pulling them both in close to smear their hot lips and mouths against his manhood. Shay let her hands linger on the inside hem of her robe, raising a questioning eyebrow at him. Was he sated with the three women already pleasuring him, or would he like to see what a sorceress could offer?
He nodded, and Shay pulled her robe open and let it fall to the ground. She was naked underneath, and though her face was that of a woman in her late thirties, her body was curvaceous and perfect. Her breasts were large and taut, with nipples that pointed slightly off on the diagonal. Lee remembered a perverted joke that Toma had once made about the Shay Morrigan statue on campus, and he felt as though he was now experiencing the punchline firsthand.
She dropped to her knees and brought her mouth to the tip of his shaft. Lee felt her begin to suck as the other two women continued licking lower down on his shaft. He ran his hands through their soft hair, still kissing the fourth woman who’d focused her attention on making out with him.
Shay led the others, swaying back and forth as she sucked Lee off and caressed the inside of his thighs. She slowly let her lips and tongue build up speed and intensity, suckling and kissing, paying attention to every pleasurable inch of his cock.
The pleasure was enough to overload his senses. His entire body was throbbing as he watched Shay slide forward, rubbing her ample breasts over his cock as she wiggled up to straddle him. Lee seized the future founder of Primhaven by the waist and pulled downward, thrusting as deep into her as he could go.
He’d read an informational pamphlet in the Seruna Center about how Shay had served as Primhaven’s first Head Wizard for nearly thirty years, creating many of the rules that still held sway over the college in the modern era.
She’d created the system that harnessed the arcanum crystals for the climate shield. She’d worked tirelessly to attract capable, responsible teachers and educate students from all backgrounds. She’d even raised the Zephaphine Islands into the sky, a process he couldn’t begin to imagine the difficulty of in physical and magical mechanics.
She rode Lee’s cock like a high-class courtesan trying to earn a sizable tip. Her breasts jiggled forward and up with each movement of her hips, causing her nipples to angle to the side as though they were trying to bounce their way to freedom. Lee ran his hands up the sides of her body and over her buttocks, trying to burn the memory, Thames’s memory, into his mind for future reference.
He didn’t last long. No man could have. Shay milked his cock with her hot, tight lane, and she kept riding even as he began to unload his seed deep into her.
“Do we have a deal, Captain?” whispered Shay.
CHAPTER 28
Lee groaned as he slowly woke up, shivering from the cold and back on the derelict
ship. He groaned a second time when he noticed Harper kneeling next to him.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Fine,” he mumbled. “I was hoping I’d get the chance to warn you before you came past the alteration barrier.”
“I found you passed out on the level below this one. It might have been a result of the noxious gasses that tend to accumulate in locations like this. We’ll need to have the nurse check you over once we make it back to Primhaven.”
Lee sighed, but he kept his thoughts on that particular issue to himself. Tess was also sitting next to him, and she gave him a resolved smile as he slowly picked himself up.
“You looked like you were having fun while you were unconscious,” said Tess.
Lee gave her a small shrug and resisted the urge to let his grin break through. It was incredibly rare for him to absorb a specter and have it result in an enjoyable memory, let alone one as intense as the one he’d just experienced.
“Any thoughts on our current situation?” he asked, turning back to Harper.
She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. His thoughts were already heading in the same direction, circling the same conclusion.
“She set a trap for us, Harper,” said Lee. “This was obviously no accident.”
“We don’t know for sure that it was her,” said Harper. “You say you saw her in Gillum, but maybe…”
“It was her. You admitted that the letter was in her handwriting, and how would anyone else have known about this place?”
Harper was silent for a minute or so. She pulled her blonde braid out from her parka and began running her fingers over the end with anxious movements.
“We can’t be sure that she did this willingly,” she said. “It’s useless to make assumptions until we have a complete picture of what’s going on.”
Lee wasn’t sure he agreed, but it made no sense to argue the point. He felt manipulated, betrayed, even. Worse, the pain and confusion served no purpose other than to weigh down on his mind and distract him from their current circumstances.
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