by S. M. Welles
“I need to stay.” With the sheer amount of disappointment she’d felt coming from Amphitrite, she felt a need to stick around. Just like in the cave, she couldn’t bring herself to believe she’d done everything she could to help. “There has to be more I can do. What did the other avatars do?”
Rammus gave her a sympathetic frown. “I hope there is more you can do, but I’m not counting on it. As far as the other avatars, Amphitrite kept them after trips like this. You’re the first to come back out. Maybe you should count your blessings and find a nice place to settle.”
“No. I have to stay.”
* * *
They weighed anchor after eating the dinner Jessie and Sam prepared for the crew. They made a simple meal of grilled cheese and creamy tomato soup, followed by zucchini cookies, which actually tasted quite good. They were basically the same recipe as banana bread, substituting the bananas for the vegetable, resulting in a tastier way to get in some greens. Jessie helped Mido eat maybe half his dinner and dessert. He had a concussion from getting kicked in the head, so he stopped eating when he started feeling sick. Shortly after he stopped, it all came back up. Cancer stuck the bucket he’d anticipated needing under Mido’s face just in time.
Rammus piloted the ship for Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, where they’d collect themselves for a few days, pick up another shipment, hash out what to do with Jacobi, and go on as normal until Dyne returned. No one had any idea how long it might take for him to return. People either died and he returned alone, or he returned with everyone who’d accompanied him, shaken up but no worse for wear, like the five of them had recently been. Right before dinner, Rammus had explained to the crew that this scenario was a first. Dyne could be back in days or in years. For now all they could do was carry on and wait. Jessie felt a need to ask to go looking for Captain, instead of waiting, but the suggestion was ridiculous. The ocean was too vast to search for one cursed man who might even be hiding below the surface.
Jessie sat in a folding chair next to Mido’s bunk. Cancer sat in another folding chair in the doorway, reading a thick tome while Jessie stroked Mido’s hair and watched him sleep. Every so often she was overcome with the need to kiss him. She pecked his forehead, even though his lips called to her. She would’ve given in if Cancer wasn’t there. She felt it prudent to be mindful of his company.
“You make me miss my wife,” Cancer said quietly.
She looked up. Cancer watched her with his glasses low on his nose, his face serene yet filled with longing for his wife. “How often do you get to see her?”
“Two to four times a year.” He closed his book and pushed up his glasses. “Just for maybe a month at a time every three to six months. It depends on the shipping route and how busy things are. If business is good, we stay on the water. If things are slow, we get more family time.”
“Do you have any kids?”
“A boy and girl, both adults now—right around your age, actually. My son’s a carpenter. He’s been helping restore Boston to some of its former glory. My daughter’s in college now. Last I knew she wasn’t sure what she wants to do yet. It’s been five months since our last visit. We’re all due for a trip home, I think.”
“Maybe we should while we wait for Captain to find us.” Again, she felt a need to go find him, instead of wait, but she brushed off the thought. “Where’s home for everyone?”
“All over the coast of Not-So-New England and the Mid Atlantic states. I’ll run the idea by Rammus if nothing happens in Darwin. I’m sure you’re eager to find a new place to call home.”
“I am.” Paphos would regrow one year. People would repopulate it as well, but the thought of living where so many people she’d known and grown up with, when all of them but her were purportedly dead, it didn’t sit well with her.
“Coastal Maine is a far cry from the Mediterranean but maybe you’ll like it.”
“I hope so. I like my sense of purpose on this ship but I don’t feel like a permanent fit, curse or no curse. I’ll have to think of something one day. How do your families handle all of you being away so much with such a dangerous job?”
Cancer traced his book’s cover. “Some don’t,” he admitted. “More often than not, wives can’t handle us being away as much as we are. Kids look at their fathers as strangers. Divorce is far too common for sailors. We miss so much in the name of putting food on the table and a roof over our families’ heads, but we do our jobs because we love them. And we love the sea.”
“How does your wife handle it?”
He shrugged. “She’s a painter. She needs a lot of alone time to work, so our lifestyles compliment each other. Hopefully it’ll work just as well for you and Mido. You’ve made him very happy.”
Jessie turned to Mido and began admiring the contours of his face—his straight nose, his soft lips, the stubble-covered line of his jaw, the shape of his ears, all of it. “As he’s made me. I hope everything turns out alright for all of us.” She ran a hand through his hair and refrained from mentioning her hopes to steal him from the rest of the crew. Maybe instead she could do as Cancer’s wife did and have a life of her own while Mido kept his job as ship cook, but she cringed at the idea. They’d been together for three quick months. She wasn’t sure that was anywhere near enough to be strong enough to go on without him for months at a time, but still, it was something to consider once the dust settled. “But this curse thing first. If we’re all still alive and I can do no more, I’ll start thinking about it. For now there’s no point. Is it time to wake him again?”
Cancer looked at his watch. “Fifteen more minutes.”
Chapter 27
Stuck
I was dimly aware of who I was and where I was going. I was Dyne Lavere, Captain of the Pertinacious, a cursed skipper, and on a collision course with the palace where the water gods dwell. And since I’d been forcibly transformed, I was overloaded with hormones. A small part of my mind was aware enough to feel humiliation and dread. The rest of me could think of nothing more than finding Amphitrite and bedding her over and over. I swam in my secondary demon form, a serpentine water dragon with no legs and instead a tail over twice as long as the rest of my body, making it possible to swim as fast as a race boat from the days before the Purge. Yep, my hormones were hell-bent on uniting me with her as soon as possible.
My mental haze made it impossible to tell how long it took to arrive at the underwater mountain range rising up before me. Could’ve been months. Could’ve been days. The small, humiliated part of me was curious, but the rest of me focused on navigating the mountainous seascape so I could hurry up and copulate. Two spires of lava rock jutted out among the range, a sign that I was close. I slowed my hellish pace and hunted for the next landmark.
Two more spires guided me deeper in the water. Rays of moonlight lanced all the way down to the seaweeds and anemones rocking back and forth in the current. I passed between the second set of spires and the reef below me became geometric in layout, like it was hiding a Greek temple underneath all that growth. Schools of various tropical fish flourished among the reef.
The water darkened as I swam into a pitch black tunnel without hesitation. My heightened senses kept my course visible. Soon I would be there. Soon my body would rock with hers. Very soon.
The underwater tunnel ended at a small pool—well small to my demon form—that sat at the beginning of an air-filled tunnel. Bioluminescent fish illuminated the pool and hall. My serpentine head broke the surface and paused to take in my newest surroundings. Two large veins of water lined the walls, and a third at the apex of the domed ceiling. Old divine powers held the water in place while schools of glowing fish swam to and fro inside. The place smelled like saltwater and rock.
I slithered onto shore and down the hall like a cobra with its head up and ready to strike. At the end of the hall, I braced my clawed hands on the ground while I reformed my legs. The partial transformation tingled and felt like I was peeling apart sticky fingers. I needed
legs so I could better balance my weight while I had my way with Amphitrite and her body. I rose upright and began jogging.
The hall ended at a gargantuan chamber that dwarfed me like the earth does the moon. I was a mouse inside a Greek-looking temple. Countless pillars stretched into the gloom of a ceiling I couldn’t see. Every pillar had a pictogram story carved into it, chronicling the divine past. More veins of water spiraled up the pillars and at intervals in the floor, casting the chamber in a pale blue light. I paid no mind to any part of them but their general shape, which made me think of aroused males. I jogged faster. The stone floor was blanketed in flat carvings of every creature living in the sea, plant and animal. Ancient Greece, though beautiful, was just a cheap knockoff by comparison.
I sped along the carved floor, an instinct guiding me across the chamber like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn. No one but me occupied the chamber. Even the giant throne at the end opposite the pool was empty. I jogged down another tunnel just big enough to allow me to remain upright, then flung open the double doors carved with coral patterns. They groaned, announcing my arrival.
Amphitrite lay on her bed at the far end of the room, naked. Smiling. A tiny part of me begged my demon form to turn around as I crossed the room, my eyes tunnel visioning on a body of divine perfection the same size as me. I stopped at the foot of the water bed, instinctively waiting permission to join her, my muscles taut with eager anticipation.
“Welcome, Dyne Lavere,” Amphitrite said in a sensual voice as she ran a hand along her voluptuous curves. “I’ve been waiting for you. It’s time for you to please me.”
The tiny part of me yelled in protest as I climbed onto the bed and up to her body, each touch of the bed under my clawed hands soft as a woman’s breast. She smelled delectably of sand and an ocean breeze. My hands began to explore her body, eager to find ways to make her moan in ecstasy. She held my reptilian chin with two fingers, making me go still. I looked into her dark eyes and could barely contain my need to take her as her lips flushed with desire and parted slightly.
“Eat of my honey, my pet, and be energized. You have swam a long way to unite with me.” Her fingers slid away from my chin as she reclined on her mound of silk pillows.
I gently parted her legs and lay down to my feast. The tiny part of me tried to block out what my demon form was doing.
* * *
Regrouping in Darwin didn’t have the positive impact Jessie had hoped for. She and Mido had spent the whole week trying to relax, but not knowing where Dyne was, what had happened to him for pissing Amphitrite off so bad, or when he’d be back killed her ability to think about much else. On top of that, Mido couldn’t move or breathe without causing pain. Making love was out of the question; she’d spent most of the time paying attention to his breathing to make sure he didn’t come down with pneumonia. Her constant nagging and his constant pain made them both a little cranky but they still spent every waking and sleeping moment together.
All that aside, something just plain felt wrong to wait around for Dyne to return.
When the vacation came to an end, he still hadn’t showed. Sauna secured a shipment to New Zealand, so once the whole crew gathered on the bow, Rammus announced that they’d cross to South America, work their way up whichever coast generated more business, then head home for some family time, unless Dyne appeared and decided to change plans.
Since the thought had been weighing on her mind all week, Jessie stepped forward from the semi-circle. “Rammus, are you sure you don’t want to try looking for him?”
Rammus fell silent and bowed his head, deep in thought. The rest of the crew remained quiet too, even Jacobi. He scowled from the other end of the semi-circle, Ed and Ted guarding him closely on either side. He’d been royally pissed when he woke up chained inside the lockdown container. His concussion had curbed his rage but they hadn’t let him out until they reached Darwin, just to be safe, and they hadn’t let him disembark until Jessie and Mido had sent Ed and Ted back with the name of the hotel the rest of the crew was to covertly ban him from. The plan had worked well enough to push him from Jessie’s mind until now.
Jacobi said, “Don’t do it. It’ll mean more trouble.”
“Shut it,” Rammus snapped. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you unless I tell you to speak.”
He lowered his gaze and fell silent, scowling at the deck.
Rammus took a calming breath and faced Jessie. “I must confess the idea to look for him has crossed my mind. However… the more I thought about it, the less appealing it became. Where do we look for him? How will we even find him. Is he even in a place we can reach? On top of that, would Amphitrite do anything to us for trying to find our Captain?” He took in the crew. “I think this is something us mere mortals need to stay out of for now, so let’s just work our way home to our families.”
As relieving it was to know she wasn’t the only one who’d considered the idea, she still felt crestfallen.
“But if any of you come up with any ideas on how to find Captain, I’m all ears. The sooner he’s back, the sooner we can start resting easier.” Many nodded and a few voiced their agreement. Jacobi looked like he wanted to speak. His jaw muscles flexed with tension. “So this brings us to one last bit of business before we push off.” Two fingers threaded in the belt loops of his pants, he marched over to Jacobi. “After your attempt to throw Jessie overboard, your job is on the line. I’ve given you all week to clear your head and think about things. We will hear you out, then decide your fate as a group. Speak.”
The whole energy of the crew shifted from casual to tense. Everyone turned their attention to Jacobi as he thought out his words. Jessie braced herself for lots of arguing and maybe even more flying fists. Her presence was controversial in a sense. Jacobi was angry but at least he was smart enough to not run his mouth. “I’m not throwing away my job because of her.”
“The duration of her crew membership is uncertain, which is the only reason why you’re even getting a second chance. You know it’s forbidden to physically harm another crew member.”
“She’s not even a real crew member!”
“Wanna have Sam show you her registry in payroll? She is. There’s no excuse for what you did to her.”
Jacobi shook his head. “This is insane. Why are you all going along with this? What do I have to say to get you to see things my way?”
“What do we have to say to get you to see things our way?” Scully said.
Rammus held up a finger at Scully, getting an apology out of him.
Jacobi said, “I’m not interested in seeing things your way. I know I’m right. She’s not worth the trouble to keep around for Captain’s sake.”
Rammus said, “I will not run the risk of you undermining mine or Captain’s authority just because he’s not here. You either need to accept and respect Captain’s decision to make Jessie a part of the crew, and convince me you won’t harm her again, or you need to pack your bags and find another ship to work on. I respect his decision to hire Jessie, as does everyone but you.”
“Then you all must be under Amphitrite’s spell or something. I can’t believe not one of you agrees that she doesn’t belong on this ship.”
“Her position isn’t up for debate. Yours is. Right now all I see is you digging yourself a bigger hole.”
Jacobi let out a resigned sigh. “I’ve shut up and put once already. I can do it again. I refuse to lose my job because of her.” He looked at the crew, his eyes falling on Jessie last. “But if things get worse, I’ll say I told you so.” He folded his corded bronze arms.
Rammus waited a moment, then said, “Anything else you wish to add?”
“If my past actions aren’t proof enough that I can’t coexist, then I don’t want to be a part of the crew anymore.”
“Alright then. You—” he pointed to Jacobi “—have a seat.” He pointed to the weapon crate. “I’ll see each of you individually in the wheelhouse. You will not discuss your decis
ion amongst each other while you wait your turn. I want unadulterated decisions. Come back down here when you’re done. No one is to leave the bow until I tell you to.” Jacobi plopped on the weapon crate, arms still folded, and Rammus headed for the stairs. “Scully, you first since you’re closest.” Scully followed him up and shut the door behind him.
The rest of the crew, except Jacobi, lined up along the railing and waited in silence. O’Toole hovered near Sam and watched Darwin’s residents mill about the dock, which had been recently renovated with fresh wood. Mido stood behind Jessie with his arms wrapped around her and his body brushing against hers. She refrained from leaning against him because of his broken ribs. She’d forgotten now and then during vacation, inadvertently causing him pain. Within a few days she learned to be just as delicate with him as he had with her for weeks. She loved him all the more after realizing how mindful and restrained he’d had to be.
Darwin was one of the rebuilt ports, but on the conservative side with technology. No solar panels, no paved streets, no watermills or windmills to generate electricity. Just traditional wood and stone buildings with lots of fireplaces and candlelight, and streets full of kinetic bikes zooming alongside horse-drawn carts. It was the past with a dash of the present.
Jacobi glanced Jessie’s way now and then but kept all thoughts and glares to himself. She did her best to ignore him, then reluctantly left the comfort of Mido’s arms when it was her turn to go in the wheelhouse. Sauna popped her a friendly smile as he waved for her to go up. “See you in a minute,” Jessie said to Mido, then ascended the steps and closed the door behind her.
Rammus flipped over a marked piece of paper so Jessie couldn’t read anything, then swiveled the chair and folded his hands in his lap. “So Jessie, is there anything you wish to discuss, or have you reached a decision?”
“I’ve reached a decision.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I don’t want the crew to fall apart because of me. I wish to let him stay.”
