by Chris Howard
It must be a sailor thing, thought Corina.
Aldrich grabbed the knob and opened the cabin's big wooden door.
"Gentlemen? What can I do for you?"
Four of the crew crouched in front of the lock, staring up at the biggest baldest officer on board, shock and fear frozen on their faces. They had not expected Aldrich ... but the harpy.
Their surprise wore off in seconds, and they backed away to line up against the far wall, their eyes remaining with Aldrich most of the time, occasionally wandering off to the room behind him, trying to catch a glimpse of the vampire mermaid.
Aldrich's eyes stopped on each of them, taking their names, Jan Achille, Brendan Cortner, Elijah Doubrava, and Emilio Poma.
Achille, a first engineer, stepped forward and gave Aldrich a nod. “Sir, we were just ... discussing the trouble we are having with...” His voice trailed off and he jutted his chin over Aldrich's shoulder. “The ... er ... missing crew."
Aldrich, stepped aside, giving them a full view of McHutcheon's old cabin. Corina stood against the far wall, one hand pressed flat against the cool metal, the other clutching the bookcase for support. Aleximor was doing an exemplary job of radiating fear and vulnerability.
"Jan, you can see that Miss Lairsey is well, and not a monster."
Achille nodded, embarrassed. “I can see, sir."
Corina studied the expressions on the faces of the crew. Whatever you're doing, keep it up, Aleximor. Do not say anything unless they ask you a question—because you'll just fuck it up. Let Aldrich handle it.
Aleximor let tears come to his eyes, and let his focus drift left, listless, wronged, the accused victim in all the nonsense about the crew disappearing.
Aldrich glanced over his shoulder at Corina. “I have not left Miss Lairsey alone in a day and a half."
"But you know Phari's missing?” one of them asked indignantly.
Aldrich glared ast the man and nodded. “I do and I can tell you with all certainty that Miss Lairsey could not have been directly involved, because I have not left her without a guard in that time."
Corina tried to focus on Aldrich, who was a blurry human shape at the edge of Aleximor's gaze. Something was wrong with his speech. He spoke carefully, a little too slowly, even for someone wrenched out of sleep. His words weren't slurred or halting. Aldrich spoke them surely, but there was something wrong. Corina felt it in his choice of words and the spaces between them.
Aldrich took the lock-picking pins from the door and handed them to Achille. Then he gave each of them a stern look, nodded his head, and said, “Goodnight, gentlemen.” He closed the door firmly and turned the lock.
He only gave Corina a passing glance as he headed for the phone and called up a pot of coffee and rolls.
Mr. Wilkins knocked on the door twenty minutes later with a tray bearing a stainless steel pot of coffee, two mugs, and a plate of dinner rolls and butter. He was a thin old man with watery blue eyes. He'd dressed in a hurry and his shirt was untucked, the sleeves turned up. He wore sandals instead of shoes.
Corina didn't like the annoyed look Mr. Wilkins shot her, but the coffee smelled so good that she urged Aleximor to smile. Tell him the coffee smells delicious and thank him.
"I thank you, Mr. Wilkins, and I am terribly sorry for waking you at such an early hour.” Aleximor said nothing about the coffee. He didn't think the coffee smelled delicious. There was a thick toasty smell, but somewhere twined in with the rest was something that smelled like sour urine.
"Coffee, Miss Lairsey?” Aldrich flipped the mugs over, raised the pot, and stood poised to pour.
Yes! Drink some coffee. Everyone on the surface drinks coffee, so Aldrich will suspect something if you refuse.
"Cream and sugar?” Aldrich filled her cup then put the pot down. “How many?"
Two spoons of sugar.
"Two spoons of the sugar, if you please."
Where are you? Corina felt Aleximor's focus slip away as Aldrich stirred in the sugar and cream.
Aleximor?
He didn't answer or give any sign he heard her thoughts.
Aldrich was stirring cream and sugar into his own cup, talking about their location, just this side of the canal, heading into the Carribean. He took a sip, swallowed, and said, “It's not that hot,” when he noticed Corina sitting still, staring down into her coffee.
Aleximor snapped back into control a moment later, lifting his eyes to Aldrich, and blinking. “I am sorry, Officer Aldrich. I appear to have dozed off right in the middle of what you were saying. I beg your pardon."
"No need to apologize. We'll be in open sea in a few hours and will then take an easterly course."
"East.” Aleximor breathed the word in a pleased tone. He picked up the coffee cup delicately and touched the surface of the brown fluid with the tip of his tongue. He blinked, scowled, and dipped his tongue in further, tasting the hint of sweetness. “This coffee is good, very good."
He watched Aldrich drinking, and copied him, letting a small amount pour into his mouth, even copying the little gasp after swallowing the sweet liquid.
I told you coffee is good. Now, where were you? She didn't want to say she was scared. She hadn't considered the possibility of Aleximor leaving her body without first allowing her to regain control. What would happen if it went on for an extended period?
Answer me! Where did you go? Corina started off angry, but all the tone dropped from her thought as she felt the stabbing pain. She knew where Aleximor had been. He had somehow communicated with his slave Pinnet, who had just killed someone.
Aleximor set the coffee cup down roughly, nearly tipping it. He grabbed his host body around the middle, wincing as another stab of pain rammed his insides.
Who is Pinnet killing? Corina screamed the words in her thoughts. She felt a burn in her chest, not painful, but hot and living—and knew it wasn't Pinnet alone taking lives. She sank into herself, part of her dropping softly into her soul-space. Another part of her remained in her body, shuddering at the thought that the pain had not been as severe this time, that she was getting used to it.
Aleximor blinked at Aldrich and said, “I am not feeling well. This coffee is delicious, though.” He opened his thoughts briefly, enough to tell Corina, I had Pinnet lure the four below the deck where your slave McHutcheon was hiding. They have killed all of them. I am sorry to say that I didn't receive Mr. Wilkins’ sneer very well, and I sent Pinnet to kill him as well. It is unfortunate, because this coffee is exceedingly flavorful—and now, I fear he will not survive long enough to make us another pot.
You ... animal!
Thinking that Corina was upset about his error, the sudden loss of the coffee maker, Wilkins, he lifted his eyes to Aldrich, and asked, “Is coffee difficult to create?"
Aldrich stood up with his mug and walked to the small portal window over McHutcheon's bookcase, frowning at her use of the word “create” to refer to making coffee. He pointed at the pot with his mug. “That'll last us a while, but we can always call Wilkins for another pot."
No we can't.
"Sun will be up in less than an hour. Do you want to get some fresh air?"
"I would love to, Officer Aldrich. May I bring the coffee?"
He indicated, with tightening fingers, that he was bringing his mug, but Corina picked up the whole pot, and carried it with them to the deck.
The sun was just burning through the haze at the horizon when they reached the bow. The wind was light, but the morning was too cool to be outside for long. Aldrich looked over at Corina, who appeared not to feel it, while he huddled over his mug of coffee, trying to hold onto any stray warmth coming off it.
Both of them turned at the sound of hurried footsteps. A thin dark-haired man in blue coveralls ran up, breathing hard and looking behind him fearfully.
Aldrich crouched, set his mug on the deck, and shot to his feet, stepping forward in one motion. The morning chill vanished, replaced with a hot rush of adrenalin.
"Bhav
esh? What is it?” He grabbed the man by the shoulder, but leaned right to get a better view between the containers.
Bhavesh tilted his head back and forth, pointing back the way he had come. “It is Pinnet. I saw him. What remains of him."
"Where?” Aldrich was already heading down the aisle between the double stacked containers. He glanced back, waving Corina to follow him.
Aleximor set the coffee pot and mug on the deck next to Aldrich's, singing lightly as he straightened. He twirled his fingers in a rhythm, tapping his palm.
Bhavesh folded his arms, faced Aldrich, and shook his head vigorously. “I am not going back."
Aldrich stopped. “What did you see?"
"Pinnet, sir. I saw Pinnet! He jumped on Wellard outside the laundry. He broke Wellard's neck.” His hands trembled as he touched his own neck. “Pinnet wrenched Wellard's head around till the neck snapped. I heard it snap."
"Pinnet's alive?"
"Alive? Can you call a man with half his face rotted off alive?” Bhavesh shook his head again. “There's ... something—sour-smelling, gray—dripping from him when he walks. That should make it easy to follow him, but I won't do it."
"But...” Aldrich's eyes went to Corina. He turned to go, then spun back around and pointed a shaking finger. “What have you done?"
Aleximor just smiled, finishing up his shifting dance, his arms swaying, fingers spreading, webbing tight, until all the movement passed through his body.
A worried look came over Bhavesh's face. He gestured toward Aldrich's head. “Sir, you have something on the back of your neck."
Aleximor sang a command and Aldrich's body stiffened. His eyes bulged. His jaw fell open. His eyes shifted to one side then the other, trying see what held him in place.
Aleximor used Corina's gentlest voice. “Not yet, Officer Aldrich. Your time has not come."
Bhavesh turned slowly around, realizing his mistake too late. One of Aleximor's hooks fired from a point in front of his fingers, flattening out as it crossed the space between them. The point caught Bhavesh in the throat, tearing half of it away with a spray of blood and tissue. His head snapped back with another gush of dark red.
Bhavesh turned as he fell, eyes staring, his arms spiraling, his fingers clawing at the air.
Aleximor stepped over Bhavesh's body, up to Aldrich's frozen form, lifted one hand to his face, and with the flaking blue polish still clinging to the nails, ran the tips of Corina's fingers along his cheek. Aleximor sang another song, and the muscles in Aldrich's face relaxed. The officer turned to the right and Aleximor released him.
The metal crab peeked above Aldrich's collar, four of its front appendages burrowing into the skin at the nape; another two had burned right through the bone at the base of the skull. Skin mushroomed around the hard tubes of metal as if adapting to the foreign invader, growing over the legs inserted up to the middle joint into flesh and bone.
Aleximor turned away from Aldrich, and walked back to the bow. He lifted the coffee pot, invitingly. “Another cup, Officer Aldrich?"
Before we kill the rest of them.
Corina sang a song, a variation on one of Aleximor's, pleading with him to spare Captain Teixeira, to send him instead to the Sea.
Corina copied his dance in her soul-space, snapping her webbed fingers into her palm. Her voice passed from her inner throat into her living muscles, causing Aleximor to flinch in surprise.
But he was also curious, and he let the words and tones flow from his lips, aloud, into the cool morning air.
Aldrich nodded slowly as if he was agreeing before he had finished comprehending the command. “I will pass your offer along to Captain Teixeira, Miss Lairsey."
Aleximor stared at Aldrich, picking at his teeth with his tongue as he thought it over. “Corina, I have underestimated your intellect and musical abilities. Strange that you should choose to reveal them to me in such an honorable way. I will see it is done, if the captain chooses that course."
He is a surfacer in name only. You heard him. He has lived on or near the ocean since his birth. If he is to die here, it is only fitting. He was meant to be with Her.
"You have deprived me of another soul, Corina, but in a manner that is not unpleasing.” He looked up at Aldrich's compliant features, and filled the officer's coffee mug. “Come, Aldrich. To Captain Teixeira, the one you claimed could not be fooled. We have granted him a wish. When I can arrange it, he will get his chance to feel the embrace of the Sea."
Aleximor up-ended the mug and swallowed the last of the warm sweet coffee, then threw the empty mug over the side into the Caribbean. He handed the pot to Aldrich, waving him away. When he had some room, he swayed forward and back, pulling in an invisible net, singing into his hands, extending his fingers and blowing the song into the wind.
Pinnet shuffled forward between the containers toward the bow. His hair was pasted down on one side with someone else's dried blood. Half his jaw hung loose, broken down the middle. His skin was transparent in places, speckled with maggots growing large on subcutaneous fat. His blue coveralls hung off his shrinking shoulders.
McHutcheon followed him, his eyes colorless, the whites dry and caved in. His hair was still relatively neat, parted on the left and combed over. His face was gray, lumpy in places where decomposition had begun. The bacteria in his mouth had chewed through the palate and his brain was leaking out, globs of it oozing over his lips and off his chin.
Seven more of the dead followed, two more officers in their uniforms, the first engineer, and all four of the men who had come to pick the lock and stake the vampire, Achille—still holding the lock picking tools, Poma, Cortner, and Doubrava, terror in their dead faces. Combined with Bhavesh, Aleximor's crew outnumbered the living crew.
They stormed the bridge, killing those who remained. They shut down the engine, and turned the ship into a northeasterly course. One of the deck officers attempted to get to the portside lifeboat, but Pinnet caught him at the launch controls. Captain Teixeira was the second to the last to die, his skull crushed, one eye shattered, his shaking hands open, pleading for Corina Lairsey to stop the pain. She pulled her braids off her face, nearly as much white as reddish-brown in them, and smiled down at him. Then she waved to Aldrich to proceed. The second officer asked the captain if he would like to see Akast?, the Sea.
Aleximor took the lack of an answer as an affirmative.
Trevor Aldrich was the final living member of the crew. Aleximor ordered his crab device to extract itself; he allowed Aldrich to have a few moments of horror, his will restored, his mind his own, then took his life swiftly.
Aleximor ordered his slaves into the lifeboats, and they rode the drop cables into the water. He cast off and then took them all over the side, beneath the waves, leaving the Maria Draughn to drift free in the Caribbean.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gathering Forces
It is common among the Seaborn to believe the Wreath-wearers are mortal gods, with powers bestowed on them by the greatest of immortals, the god who was the Sea itself, Poseidon—the “Earth-encircler.” The wearers possess much of the knowledge of their ancestors, ready in their minds. They have direct, sometimes “merged” access to the knowledge and power of those ancestors, ancient kings and queens, the past wearers who have awakened in the new Wreath-wearer. Beyond these abilities—known to almost all Seaborn—what the Wreath-wearers can do is clouded in rumor and exaggerated tales. The belief that the wearers cannot die—cannot even be killed—is strong, and that each has selected his or her own time to pass the crown on to the next generation.
—Michael Henderson, notes
* * * *
Nicole threw her arms out to catch her balance in the Thin. She was getting better at pushing the water from her lungs, moving between the sea and surface and coughing up seawater, but this time the lack of substance in the air caught her by surprise.
Her brain spun around in her head dizzily. She looked d
own, as if by the strength of her will she could tell her feet to keep her upright. She discovered that she was standing on gritty painted metal, the deck of a ship. She said “Oh” out loud without meaning to, realizing that it was the movement underfoot that had hit her equilibrium wrong.
Nicole looked up at Kassandra. “Where are we?"
Her sister moved cautiously between the towering stacks of orange and blue painted steel shipping containers, wiping seawater from her mouth with the back of her hand. “A ship in the Caribbean Sea. Something happened here. I feel it—I've felt it for days."
Looking over her shoulder, following the trail of water to the railing, Nicole asked, “How did we get here? I mean, so high up?"
Kassandra crouched to peer around the corner of a container into a wide aisle that ran up and down the ship's deck. She straightened, satisfied that the coast was clear, and turned around, scanning the high steel walls. Then she looked directly at Nicole, put a finger to her lips, and fed her a long stream of words.
Nicole jerked back, found herself nodding, taking in the information, then caught up to her sister, who had turned on her heel and walked down the aisle between the containers toward the stern.
They stopped at one point, and Kassandra went to her knees, smelling something, running her fingers along the deck to smear what looked like blood—wet blood—swirling it into various shapes, letters, whispering a song that Nicole couldn't catch over the background roar of the sea.
Kassandra jumped to her feet and marched on.
Nicole followed, hopping over the mess, staying close, glancing behind her repeatedly. They jogged through the lower decks, up brightly lit stairwells where even the soft touch of their bare feet made loud brushing noises against the metal walls.
The ship was empty or, Nicole surmised, had been emptied by someone or something, probably from the sea. Kassandra's motives for being here still baffled her, something about “hearing the call” and that the Ocean told her hints of things going on in its realm—things that were wrong. But wasn't this above the Ocean's realm? A ship on the surface?
