Fork suspended over his potatoes, Harwood leaned one elbow on the table. “I heard rumor of what was needed to access the mirror’s well of truth. Knowing what it required, I chose to spare her. Wouldn’t it have been poetic if that slight lass fighting for her life was the key to all knowledge? Sadly, poetry is not the way of magic. At least not in this case.”
Whatever Sergeant E’toil felt at this revelation, she managed to keep her face blank of emotion. Only a series of rapid blinks clued she heard anything at all.
Beside me, Sterling slapped at a biscuit, fearing it would come alive.
“Stop it,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth.
Utensils scraping over his plate, Hardwood topped a slice of ham with a dollop of potato and popped it in his mouth. “Since then, I have taken in several wayward youths during my travels—such as Potchis there—and brought them here under the pretenses of joining my crew. Each I gave an attempt to glance in the mirror, without ever telling them the real reason why. Saw no purpose in that, they had a home here either way. After all, even a currently landbound ship needs tending to. A captain is nothing without his crew.”
Unlike his sergeant, a shadow of hurt drifted over Potchis’ features before the demands of his duties could chase it away.
“If I’m to tell the truth of it,” picking up his stein of ale, Harwood treated himself to a hardy swallow, “I fear my time is growing short. The change is taking a harder toll now than ever before, my body failing to recover as it once did. My prayer is that the winds of fate blew you here for a reason. Mayhap we could have the boy peer into the mirror? See what he can see?” Stein returned to the table in a slosh of auburn liquid, the captain snapped his gnarled fingers at Potchis. “Lad, bring the mirror over. I don’t have the strong back I once did to retrieve much of anything of weight.”
Venturing to the far side of the room, wood floor creaking beneath his feet, Potchis tossed aside the black velvet shroud. Beneath was an oblong frame etched with gold scrolls and leaves. Hoisting it off its pedestal, he swung it around, giving me a momentary glimpse at its surface. The images I saw reflected were of those in the room with me, yet somehow … not. Sterling’s eyes were glowing feline slits, faint stripes of blue wisped over his cheeks. Harwood’s croc reflection I had to check against the real thing, fearing the beast had made a sneaky return. Disturbed as I was by both of these glimpses, they in no way prepared me for Phin’s likeness. His sunken eyes were lined with dark shadows. Skin, the grey pallor of death, cracked and oozed with rot and decay. Lifeless eyes stared back at me, beseeching me to save him.
Then it was gone. The mirror turned at an angle I could no longer see into, much to my soul’s relief. Propping it up on the table beside Captain Harwood, Potchis dutifully held it in place.
“Well done.” Harwood barely looked up from his plate, dragging his last bite of ham through the remnants of his potatoes.
To my right, Sterling stabbed his fork into his ham with merciless strikes. Pausing his attack, he tapped his index finger to it, as if trying to resuscitate the lump of meat.
Twitch developing behind my eye, I gave him a sideways glare. “If you keep playing with your food, I’m going to take it away.”
Aghast by the mere thought of simply eating, Sterling stabbed a hand at the window. “The goose flew away!”
No valid counter argument for that existed. “Very well. Carry on.”
Finished with his meal, Harwood wiped his face and tossed the napkin on his emptied plate. “Come, boy. Do the ole captain a favor and come have a look.”
Casting a look of longing to the plethora of desserts he had yet to enjoy, Phin obediently shoved his chair back from the table. Behind my eyes I saw him as I had in the mirror—dead and putrefied.
My hand shot out before I could plan my next move, and I caught Phin’s shoulder to hold him back. My every instinct prepared to put myself between him and the captain by any means necessary. “The boy has no business with the mirror.”
A blink and Harwood’s glare gleamed with reptilian hunger. Another, and it was gone quick as it came. “Is there a problem of some sort?” he asked, kind as you please.
Guiding the lad back into his seat with a firm insistence, I addressed the captain with my helmet of diplomacy firmly in place. “We were warded before departing on our journey. Prepared for that very mirror, in a manner of speaking. If anyone would see anything in it, it would be Sterling or myself.”
Head slowly swiveling at the mention of his name, Sterling’s lips parted with a pop. “The uninformed must improve their deficit or die?”
“Not quite to that extreme.” I said, and patted his hand. “Eat your biscuit.”
With a blissful smile, he obliged.
Fingers combing over his beard, Harwood leaned back in his chair to consider me through narrowed eyes. “In what way were you prepared?”
I brought my hands together before me, laced my fingers, and rested them on the table’s edge. “King Liam employed a High Priestess to enchant us with particular attributes. Hence me being able to manifest things in this realm, and Sterling … bringing food to life.”
“Hades’ wrath! Did it happen again?” Palms slapping to the table, Sterling frantically scanned the entrees. After breathing a sigh of relief that everything was as it should be, he returned to buttering his biscuit.
“Is that so?” Steepling his fingers, Harwood brought them to his lips. “How fascinating.”
“It is indeed.” Sating my nervous thirst with a swig from my own stein, I offered the captain a forced smile. “That said, if you’d like me to have a look at that mirror, if would be my honor.”
Before I could shift to move, Harwood halted me with the lift of one finger. “Tell me, what assurance have I—if that is the case—that you won’t take what you need from the mirror and leave me near death and wanting?”
“I have no reason to keep anything from you.” Bumping my newly appointed counterpoint with my elbow, I jerked my head in the captain’s direction. “And you, Sterling?”
“Often, I find myself distracted when I should be productive,” he stated around a mouthful.
“We’ll take that to mean the same.”
“I’m afraid that’s just not enough of a certainty for me.” Chewing on his lower lip, Harwood drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “I need a guarantee of answers … or one among you won’t make it out of this room alive.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What’s this then?” I rumbled, limbs tensed for battle.
“Oh!” Sterling erupted, stabbing one arm in the air and shaking it wildly. “I know! It’s a threat!” Leaning in my direction, he dropped his voice to a helpful whisper. “I get this a lot, it’s most definitely a threat.”
“Thank you, I noticed.” Glower never shifting from the captain, my lip curled into a snarl. “What I don’t know is why?”
Elbows propped on his armrests, Harwood wagged one finger in my direction. “Careful with the tone, boy. We don’t need any reptilian visitors to tarnish our perfectly pleasant evening.”
Feeling Phin tense beside me, his hand instinctively wandering to the wood flute nestled on his lap, I stifled the flames of my swelling rage down to a containable smolder.
“We agree to your …” I choked on the loathsome word forming on my tongue, “terms, and you allow us the time and opportunity to get our questions answered as well.”
A wry smile turning up the corners of his lips, Harwood attempted a mask of mock innocence. “I see no reason why not.”
Be it coincidence, or intentional, Malyn picked that moment to clear her throat.
Taking it as a sign, whether she meant it as such or not, I scanned the room. Casually as I could, I searched for items that could be used as weapons if the need arose for us to fight our way off the ship. “Then, we proceed as men of our word.”
“Splendid!” Harwood chirped, with a surprising spark of energy for someone so decrepit. “Let’s not waste another second. C
ome ’round the table, lad, let’s find out how to trap the crocodile once and for all.”
Knot of dread tightening in my gut, I resigned myself to having no other options and pushed my chair back. As I skirted around the table, the clomps of my boots were the only sound echoing through the room. I kept my chin to my chest and eyes down as I walked, waiting until I was in position before that infamous artifact to gaze upon it. Settling into an easy stance, I shook out the tension in my arms … and allowed myself to peer into the unfathomable.
There was no time to fear I hadn’t the gift for it. Upon first glance, I sank beneath the surface of its still façade. Breath slammed from my lungs, I found myself free falling in a pit of darkness. A minute or an hour later, I collapsed on the floor of a modest dwelling. Rolling onto my back, I greedily sucked in the air knocked from me. The home I found myself in had toys scattered across the room, and the smells of dinner filling the air. Sloppy slashes and splatters of blood covered every wall, dripping from the furniture and maliciously marring the happy family front. Which each inhalation the air’s coppery taste burned down my throat.
In the midst of the carnage, a young and robust version of Captain Harwood flopped into a chair at the dining table. Gore-painted boots clomping down on the tabletop, he pulled a flask from inside his coat and slammed it back with an appreciative gulp. He cared not for the body sprawled at his feet, her blood-crusted auburn hair fanned around her slumped head. Nor the second, a man with thick waves of ebony hair, pinned against the wall by three swords run through his core.
In the doorway from the back hall, a face appeared. A sweet silhouette of untarnished purity blinked impossibly long lashes at the violence splayed out before her. She was an angelic girl of no more than five, who didn’t cry out for her mama or papa. Crippled by shock, the shattered cherub could only stare. Stare at her fallen mother. Stare at her dangling father. Stare at the stranger oblivious to her presence who sat in her father’s chair after destroying her world.
Jerked from that horrific scene, I was thrust back into the dizzying nothingness. My quaking knees threatened to buckle, but … were they holding me at all? Here, I had no limbs. No matter that mattered. Once again, the world settled with stomach lurching force.
Flames licked and hissed around me, yet I felt neither their heat nor burn. I was untouchable, unlike the poor souls screaming and crawling in hopes of escape. Robed figures darted in every direction, their panicked paths zigzagging in frantic quest for freedom. When hope for a reprieve by earthly means failed them, the figures dropped to their knees and uttered desperate prayers to Mount Olympus. Only then did my sinking heart grasp the truth; I was in a convent. Each member of the trapped cluster wore a lightning bolt medallion fastened over their heart to proclaim themselves faithful followers of Zeus. These were Sisters of the Mountain.
No sooner did I place them, then the side door burst open. Convinced their god had heard them, the sisters scurried toward this act of mercy. In place of divine intervention, Harwood and his crew sauntered in through a cloud of billowing smoke.
Eyes blurring with tears, the sister closest to the door didn’t see the captain’s pistol until it pressed to her temple. A thunderous blast sliced through the hall, and her lifeless form crumbled to the ground.
The other nuns tried to scatter, but found nowhere to hide. Captain and crew laughing in sickening sport, they raised their weapons. Shots rang out. Body after body fell.
Somewhere in the funnel cloud of chaos, Harwood found himself face-to-face with a young nun. Something about her struck a note of familiarity with him he couldn’t quite place. Unlike the others, she didn’t run, scream, or even try for the door. She simply stared. Stared as if she could see every vile thought that filled his head and wouldn’t stop until she avenged each and every one.
Assuming a wide-legged stance, he swung the barrel of his gun to her forehead.
She didn’t shrink away, but raised her chin in acceptance of his despicable nature.
The two locked eyes.
Harwood cocked his pistol.
Face vacant of emotion, she blinked at the devil before her.
The desire to bring her to her knees wafted from him in heady waves. Even so, he saw that something dark writhing in the pools of her stare; a beast of brimstone and wrath that seemed capable of weighing his every sin and judging him in righteous fury.
Dropping his pistol to his side, he hollered over his shoulder to his men. Without so much as a glance back, he fled the chapel, leaving a stilled storm of bedlam in his wake.
Still, the girl stared.
Yet again, my essence was hurled farther into the looking glass. This landing thrust me into the center of a makeshift village, comprised of shanties, wagons, and lean-tos. Every structure was eerily vacant, a scattering of bullet holes and cannon blasts blown through walls hinted at the horrific tale that had unfolded.
Spinning at the sound of approaching footfalls snapping through branches, I found a hodgepodge band of rum-soaked pirates stumbling out of the foliage.
“Cap’n?” the one leading the pack, with an eye patch and missing teeth, called into the camp.
“Where’d he get off to?” the stick of a man behind him asked, rising up on tiptoe to see over the brush and saplings.
“Saw that maiden that’s been haunting him, he did,” a third among them slurred, catching his stumbled steps by hooking a hand on a tree trunk. “Went running off in search of her.”
Harwood picked that moment to appear, bursting from one of the wagons with the force of an enraged bull. Nostrils flaring, his heaving chest rose and fell in frenzied agitation. “She was here! I saw her!”
Shifting on their feet, his men exchanged nervous glances in their silent deliberation over which among them would speak on their behalf. When none among them volunteered, Patched Eye was shoved forward by the other two.
“Cap–Captain,” he stammered, hands anxiously twisting together. “You claim to see this mysterious lass at every port, yet the men and I have never laid eyes on her. Is there a chance …”
Harwood’s head whipped around, daggers of murderous rage stabbing in the direction of the insolent bilge rat that would dare speak against him.
Stare drawn over his captain’s shoulder, the pirate’s one good eye widened in disbelief. “… that she’s standing right behind ya?”
Harwood tensed, as if feeling the prickle of her presence, and slowly turned on the heel of his boot. She stood no more than an arm’s distance from him.
The nun.
The raven-haired child with a forest of lush lashes, all grown up.
“You followed the path I left for you, Captain Harwood.” Taking a brazen step closer, the harsh punch of her tone could have hammered spikes into a timber to string him up. “Accolades, for those are the last kind words I will ever speak of you and your miserable black heart.”
Movement rustled all around. Members of the Roma camp appeared on every rooftop and surrounded the pirates from all sides. Dressed in flowing fabrics of every color, they were adorned with shiny bangles and hoops, and armed with an impressive assortment of weapons. Everything from slingshots to pistols were pointed at the slack-jawed crew, who had fallen right into their trap.
Seemingly oblivious to the shift in power, Harwood bubbled with giddy delight. “She’s here! Can you see her? Tell me you all can see her!” the captain demanded of his crew.
“Oh, we can see her.” The fumbling drunk staggered in a circle, blinking hard to focus on the coming fight. “And we see him, and her … with that, and … them with some sort of nightmarish pointy contraption.”
“Spirit, speak!” Harwood boomed, throwing his arms out wide as if he were communing with the dead. “Why must you haunt me?”
Tilting her head, waves of ebony hair swayed to her waist. “You think me a ghoul, yet can’t fathom why I would torment you? Do you claim to have led a virtuous life? That the blood of many doesn’t stain your hands, and tarnish your so
ul with the filth of an oil slick?”
Arms swinging slack at his sides, he humored her claim with a snort of laughter. “Many have committed atrocities far more vile than I. Why dub me the villain?”
With a glance to her rooftop brethren, the girl planted her feet before him. “I was barely out of swaddling clothes, when you left me stewing in my parents’ blood. Can you provide a word more fitting for such a man? Perhaps diavol is more fitting? It translates to devil.”
Tipping his chin, Harwood peered up at her from under his brow, a sly smile twisting back one corner of his mouth. “It’s vengeance, then? Shall we play it to the death?”
Cued by the promise of violence, his men pulled their swords in a menacing hiss.
Not an ounce of intimidation marred the girl’s exotically beautiful features, she brought her hands together over her head in a sharp clap.
Her clan moved in response as one unified unit. Each lifted their right foot, and brought it down in a forceful stomp. To that, the earth itself answered their call to war. A wall of dust and leaves swelled from the ground, cocooning the captain and his accuser in a cell of nature’s choosing.
Finding myself on the outside of the blockade, I simply stretched my essence to pop my way through.
Within, I found Harwood scanning his prison with mild interest and nonexistent alarm. “How is this done?”
“This is what your kind would call gypsy magic.” Turning her head, the girl spat on the ground as if ridding herself of the foul taste left by such a word. “In reality, it is the strength of the Roma people rallied in a way you couldn’t begin to fathom.”
Hooking his thumbs in his belt, Harwood rolled his shoulders back in an easy stance meant to taunt her. “Gypsies, are ya? Then I encourage ya to drop this little act before you get yourself hurt, lass. I’ve traveled enough to know the only magic your people can conjure is of the smoke and mirrors variety.”
Her head twitched in an avian fashion, eyes widening with manic rage. At the second jerk, an invisible hand closed around Harwood’s throat. Clawed fingers grappling for freedom from the unseen force, his face transitioned from red, to purple, to blue.
The Unfortunate Souls Collection Page 34
