Shadow of the Hook

by Erik Schubach

  We nodded and then my eyes widened. On the morrow? I blurted, “We need to find a containment cage for Mandy. The full moon of Neverland is every night, and she will shift upon its rising. We can't allow her to infect anyone here and start the nightmare of the lycan contagion in another realm.”

  She sat up straighter and looked at Amanda, eyes wide. “I hadn't thought...” Then she nodded, “We can come up with something, I'm sure my men can help in a Make-Believe of a box with silver bars.”

  She smirked and said, “And I'm sure we three could likely do it ourselves since, as the Pan said, girls from our realm have more imagination.”

  Mandywolf said as her tail twitched in humor, “Well you and I, elf-girl there isn't exactly mortal.”

  I scrunched my nose at the smug looking munchkin.

  Wendy looked surprised. “Not mortal? Elf-girl?”

  Amanda waved it off. “She's one of Perchta's children. Elf. Long story, but her pointed ears are what made the Lost Boys think she was a fairy. Then, poof, they fairy-ed her ass.”

  The pirate covered her mouth, I could tell she was smiling as she said, “Oh my.”

  Yes, very funny... not.

  Just then a furiously ringing bell sounded from outside, and a voice was calling out, “Sails on the horizon!”

  It was Wendy's turn to growl and echo some of Mandy's words, “For fuck's sake.” Then she looked at Amanda as she gathered her weapons from the table and put her cap back on, “Stay in the cabin where it's safe.”

  The determined look on the woman's face, and the fierce anticipation of a fight had me swallowing at how menacing and imposing of a figure she stuck that was at odds with the pretty woman's innocence and vulnerability she had just shown us. Just then, she wasn't Wendy, she was the Hook.

  Then that impression was swept away when she blushed as Mandywolf stomped to the door like a petulant child, tail swishing in annoyance while she growled out, “Not a little girl.”

  Wendy chuckled. “Right. Sorry.” Then we went out to face a new threat.

  Chapter 8

  The Magistrate

  Men were scrambling on the deck, and I could hear the telltale sounds of wheels from cannons being pulled forward below decks as the men prepared for a battle. The sails were being reconfigured for a chase as they caught the wind and snapped tight, the ship lurching forward with the force of it.

  I had been on many tall ships in my time, and I have to say that the Sea Devil put most of them to shame with her quickness.

  Wendy was shouting orders and men were rushing to comply, snapping out, “Aye aye Captain,” or “Yes Hook!” They were a well-oiled machine.

  Mandy asked, “What can we do to help?”

  The captain looked down at her, regarded her a moment, pursed her lips then said, “Fly to the crow's nest and call out distance and numbers?” Her eyes narrowed when she said that like she was looking for something in Mandy.

  My little wolf furrowed her brow then looked up and made a grunting sound, but nothing happened. Then before anyone could say anything Wendy was saying, “Listen to me Amanda, don't think. The moment you don't believe, you will lose it forever. Look at me.”

  Mandy did, and the Pirate Queen told her with surety, “Of course you can fly, you were doing it when you arrived on the ship. It is as easy as riding a bike. Just think of when you were happiest in your life, and imagine just gliding to it, because it makes your heart soar.”

  Amanda's eyes flicked to me and a smile which conveyed all her love, grew on her lips, and then she was in front of me, hovering off the deck her head at Wendy's shoulder.

  The woman looked at my mate with pride, I knew she was forgetting Mandy was not a child again, it was easy to forget. She praised her, “Well done, you. Now, remember that of course, you can fly, always. Never forget, or you will lose it.”

  Mandy smiled like a pleased chipmunk and nodded. Then she stopped and narrowed an eye at her. “Hey, you did that on purpose to see if I could.”

  Wendy booped her nose with a finger and winked. Then she said to the two of us, “Now you are ready to fight. Stay by my side, things are about to get rough.”

  We nodded, and I realized how quickly we were deferring to her, just like we did the Red Hood. She had that kind of presence and confidence.

  We turned to the horizon where three ships were falling far behind, casualties of our speed, but one giant four master was gaining on us. Wendy hissed, “The Magistrate. Will he never learn?”

  Then she vaulted into the air to just below the Crow's nest, and Mandy followed, her tail swishing in anticipation of battle. I buzzed off of Hook's shoulder to the space between them. She said, “Now if you break the sphere of influence of the Sea Devil, you'll be susceptible to the Pan's magics again. You'll be ok so long as he doesn't show up. But it might be best if you stayed on the ship until we see Masika tomorrow. If anyone can protect you from his influence, she can.”

  I swallowed, animalistic fear of losing my will chilling my blood and making my sparkling dust sift off of me in dark purples and blacks. I saw my girl go pale too. She, more than me, hated the feeling of being a trapped animal while someone controlled her. She nodded.

  Then the Hook made a hand signal, it was inevitable that the other ship would overtake us. And with that signal, everyone went into motion. At the ship's wheel and the masts and sails, men went into a flurry of activity, and the ship started side sliding in the water we had turned about so quickly, using the kinetic energy and momentum already in the ship to turn us about.

  Sails pulled tight as they were reangled, and with a huge whupping sound of snapping canvas, we started tacking, sailing directly at the approaching ship. Sea battles were something I wished to never experience again. But here we were.

  My farsight could see the captain of the other ship, a vicious smile on his face as they came at us. They were the eyes of a zealot. I inhaled, steeled myself, and drew my bow. This was not going to be fun.

  I did a double take at Wendy, who was looking at me oddly. She caught me looking back, and she shrugged with an amused smile. “Sorry. It's just that I've never seen a fairy armed with anything other than a twig carved into a knife, or fairy steel before.”

  I opened my mouth to point out I wasn't a fairy when my smug looking mate clapped her hands saying, “I believe in fairies, I do, I do.” Two things happened at once as she smirked at me like the cat who had caught the mouse. I felt a surge of energy in me, and the Pirates around us clapped too repeating her words.

  What in the name of the Goddess just happened? And why did it seem they all knew something I didn't about my current form? I'll have to read this child's tale of Peter Pan if we ever get out of Neverland.

  I did my best impression of my Mandywolf pouting as I muttered to the smug and smiling little girl, “Not a fairy.”

  This did nothing to alleviate her smugness as she shot me a, 'now you know how it feels' look. We both looked over to some chuckling. The captain was shaking her head and asked us, “Do you know how strange it is to hear a child and a fairy bantering like an old married couple? You sound like my parents.”

  Her smile immediately dropped as soon as she mentioned her parents. By she who had breathed life into us all, you could almost reach out and touch the heartache surrounding her. Then she forced a smile and teased, “Just don't start flirting or anything, intellectually I know you're adults, but my eyes see something else.”

  I blinked at her, then looked at my mate and blinked again. What if we were stuck like this? What if we couldn't get whatever spell, whatever Make-Believe the Lost Boys put on us dispelled? We couldn't possibly be mates like this. My Mandy was stuck as a child, and I was tiny compared even to her. I swallowed. We'd have to adapt to our new reality if that was the case. Would I... lose my Mandywolf then?

  Wendy chastising Mandy knocked me out of my depressing spiral of thoughts. “Put those away, you're going to hurt yourself or someone else.”

  Amanda was just hov
ering there, her mouth hanging open, her guns drooping in her grips as Wendy mothered her some more. “There will be enough killing as it is, and you don't need to be...” She trailed off as Mandy's tail stopped swishing and her head drooped as she holstered the guns. “Oh god. Sorry. It's just hard to reconcile your reality. I didn't mean to... I'm just feeling protective about you.”

  I smiled, she had strong maternal instincts. She'd no doubt go into denial if someone pointed out she was likely acting like her mother had when she was growing up. Then I froze. By the sacred garden... I had an inkling why she was acting more and more the maternally toward my little wolf, who was starting to do as she was told by the Pirate Queen.

  This world was a dangerous one if imagination could warp reality. Was it my seeing Wendy and Mandy as mother and daughter influencing them in some way? And then it being bolstered by their own imaginations, snowballing it?

  Amanda punctuated my thought as she pouted, “But, I was just...”

  Wendy stopped her. “Don't but me. I know what you were...” She hesitated then exhaled, knowing she was doing it again as I tried to curb my imagination.

  She said more patiently, “It's fine. I think we have a problem that is influencing us that we need to sort out later. But right now, stay with me when we engage ladies. We don't want any bloodshed, but there inevitably is when Captain Horton is involved.”

  She dropped to the deck of the ship, and we followed suit as she said, “The Sea Devil never fires first. And we try to disable the enemy vessels and then run for the Nothing. And same with our side arms, if we are boarded.”

  She patted her flintlock pistol on her hip and nudged her chin to Mandy's guns. “We fire to defend and repel.”

  She looked at Amanda and had that protective look again as she looked to debate what more unpleasantness she should share. Then she crouched and reached back behind my girl to tuck her ponytail into her jacket saying as she laid a hand on her cheek, “That could be grabbed and used in hand to hand combat.” Then she stood and exhaled telling us the unsavory part, “Any dead receive a sea burial to feed the mermaids. It is the boon I owe them.”

  Then with her face painted in worry, she asked, “Maybe you should hide in the cabin, would you be effective in combat if we are boarded?”

  Mandy growled in frustration and punched a bollard on the deck, splintering it, a look of indignation on her face.

  Wendy flicked a finger to point at her as she squinted one eye and grinned, “Right. Wolf. You make a persuasive point, I always heard how strong the cursed were. But as I said, I had never met one before I was kidnapped by the Pan.”

  She turned to me. “A fairy would make a grand prize for the Magistrate. Since you don't have any experience being one, you can't be much help except as a distraction, and you can drizzle some burning and itching fairy dust on them. So keep out of reach of...”

  With a quick whistling sound, an arrow plunged through the cracked bollard, the projectile regaining it's full size as it left my bow, and I had a second arrow nocked and ready.

  She blinked twice as other pirates gasped or made grunts of alarm. “Alrighty then. Never mind.”

  Her toothy grin had us all chuckling.

  Then with a sweeping motion with her good arm, she pulled Mandy behind her as we completed a tack and were pointed directly toward the bow of the oncoming vessel. She said as Amanda peeked around her long pirate's coat, “Get ready.”

  I could see two cannon barrels slide out of ports on the front of the enemy ship as the two vessels lumbered toward each other like a slow-motion game of chicken. We were close enough now to hear Captain Horton yelling out, “Fire!”

  Then in puffs of black and grey smoke, the cannons fired on us. One shot hitting the water to port the other one hitting our bow, but a ripple of amber energy attuned like the ringing of a huge bell, deflected the shot.

  I glanced at Wendy, who was looking at the bow of the Sea Devil through the loop of her hook. Had she done that? I didn't get the chance to ask as she was pointing her cutlass at the enemy ship, yelling “Fire!”

  Not two, but four cannons boomed. Through the puffs of hazy smoke produced by the expended black powder, I saw two holes torn in the sails of the oncoming ship, and one cannonball struck the crow's nest of the center mast. I noted with approval that the Sea Devil gunners were trying to disable the oncoming enemy, not sink her.

  The captain leapt to the ship's wheel, moving her first mate from it. We followed as she shouted, “Loose the sheets! Hard to port! Ready cannons!” Then she was spinning the huge wheel like it were nothing in her hand and hook. The move ate up all the kinetic energy in the ship as we side slid at the same time the approaching ship did.

  It was fast, but it felt like time slowed as I watched the ships present their broadsides to each other. I could see the ovals of the cannon barrels become rounder as the ships swung into position to fire, as the ships almost came to rest.

  I could hear the simultaneous commands to, “Fire!”

  It was deafening, and the ship shook and rolled up slightly from the force of so many cannons being fired at once. Through the thick choking smoke I saw two of the enemy ship's masts reduced to splinters as amber energy thrummed in a long drawn out tone as Wendy looked through her Hook.

  She gasped as a couple shots made it through, one taking out a railing, the other hitting the heavy timbers the ship was made of. And its reduced velocity had it just bouncing off the hull. I could tell by the look on her face, she couldn't do that particular trick again.

  She cursed under her breath, something about being too close this time. And she yelled out, “Hoist the sails!”

  What was she... my thought was cut short by dozens upon dozens of ropes with hooks on them being tossed from the decks of the enemy ship. The deck was lined with men! Hook was calling out, “Philipe!” And a grizzled man with long stringy black hair ran along slicing ropes with a cutlass as they tightened, while other pirates tried to dislodge the hooks that had gained purchase.

  The men on the other ship tied the ropes off as the sails of the Sea Devil caught the wind. The lines tightened, some snapped, but we were caught, instead of breaking free, our increased momentum swung us into a collision with the other tall ship.

  Men cheered on the other ship as they fired flintlocks then pulled cutlasses, ready to board. A thunderous wave of return fire came from our deck, then our men started diving over the railings to engage the enemy with their daggers, cutlasses, and clubs.

  Hook looked to her first mate who took the wheel. I saw men running along trying to disengage the two ships while others on the other side were slapping more substantial grapples onto the pirate ship.

  Swords clashing and clanking and men yelling filled the air. I remember this sort of fight. Bloody in comparison to modern engagements. Wendy called to us through the din of battle, “Stay behind me, Amanda.” And she flew toward the enemy vessel.

  I shook my head at the futility of her words as my Mandywolf, in her adorable pirate's outfit, flipped through the air over Wendy, landing with one little pink gun drawn and one baton, growling and snarling her intent.

  Wendy hesitated, just an instant, and blinked in surprise as Mandy caught a cutlass on her baton and shoved her pistol up in the soldier's gut. It lifted him off the ground and running forward, Mandy bowled over three or four other men as she emptied a magazine through the man's gut in a non vital area, striking the others as she went, yelled out, “Bangbangbang!”

  She spun in place as she reloaded, striking kneecaps with her baton, causing more men to fall. Then she winked at us in her cocky manner and then just started walking forward, ignoring the battle around her as she screamed out a challenge, firing her gun the whole time, shooting out the kneecaps of man after man as she headed toward the captain.

  I smirked at Wendy, and she smiled, a look of pride on her face, then we nodded and chased after our tiny pink whirling dervish. I fired arrows over and over, pinning men to railings or kn
ocking their swords from their grips.

  I tried sifting dust on some, to do that burning itching thing, but I had no clue how it worked. The most I got was one soldier sneezing violently. I tried kicking him in the face, but even with my enhanced strength, he out massed me by order of magnitude, and it only sent me flying back in the air.

  So... I went back to my bow as it seemed to be the only way I could affect anyone in this world of giants I now lived in. I thanked the Goddess for her gifts as I drew back on the bowstring and fired into the raging battle.

  I followed the trail of men groaning on the deck, some in danger of bleeding out, toward the captain's cabin. I had lost track of Wendy. I flew higher into the air avoiding shrouds and ratlines of the rigging.

  I glanced down and saw a man swing his flintlock toward me, and I loosed an arrow just as he pulled the trigger. The tip of the arrow glowed with a brilliant white light as the power of the goddess imbued in the arrow cleaved the musket ball in two, before the arrow embedded itself in the barrel of his weapon.

  In the din of battle, I could hear the clanging of one cutlass over them all as it hit with unmatched force and ferocity. I looked down to see Wendy, shrouded in her long coat and cap, her heavy boots trudging forward one step at a time without slowing. She parried blows, slashed with incredible force, disabling all the men who tried to stand against her. I admired the immense skill she exhibited as she alternated between slashing with the cutlass and parrying with her hook, that none of her strikes were killing blows.

  With single-minded purpose, she followed the trail of men on the deck, with wounds from their waists on down. A lot holding legs that were bent at unnatural angles, as if their kneecaps had been smashed backward. That would be my Mandywolf, and Hook's destination.

  I buzzed down quickly to land on Wendy's shoulder. As soon as I landed, she instinctively hung her sword on her hook to reach up and snap out the leather collar of her jacket, causing it to shelter me before re-engaging the enemy.