by R. J. Blain
“I cannot grant you such a wish, Mr. Smith. It is not for me to decide. You would need to petition another, and I do not believe he is as charitable as I am. I can provide you with chances, but no more than that. You will relinquish your cargo and those on this ship into my custody. Why don’t you wish for something you can afford? Perhaps a chance to save your life? If you leave the ship now, you’ll certainly die. You truly have made poor choices, little bonded. Very poor choices. I am not the aspect of maleficence, after all. If I were, I would not be bargaining with you now. I’d be eating you for your insolence.”
I scowled as the two dae discussed me like I were up for sale. The only dae I’d even consider allowing to indulge in such behavior was gone thanks to Smith—and possibly thanks to his cephalopod accomplice.
The golden eyes with their dark pupils focused in my direction. Samael winked and waved one of its tentacles at me.
Instead of suckers, the slimy, wiggly appendage was covered in eyeballs.
“Who would I need to petition?”
“There are a few who might grant you such a wish, if you’re willing to pay the price.” The subtle amusement in Samael’s tone wasn’t lost on Kenneth Smith, who straightened his back.
“You’re mocking me.”
“Oh, no. I’m not mocking you, Mr. Smith. I wouldn’t do that. You amuse me, and it has been a long time since someone has amused me so. Come now, though. You know the ways of this world. Nothing is free. What will you give me for the names of those who might grant you the wish you have always desired and cannot win for yourself?”
I sucked in a breath, remembering what Rob had told me about the nature of the bonded, the dae, and the dreams and wishes binding them together. Had Rob been telling the truth, or was Samael playing Smith for the fool?
Could the bonded wish for what they had sacrificed to create their dae and gain their powers? I shifted my weight, bringing my gun with its lethal bullet closer to the hole, careful to turn off the safety and keep my finger away from the trigger.
“A choice of anything on this ship for each name of someone who can—and will—grant my wish.”
“Intriguing. One day of your servitude and loyalty in addition to my choice of anything on this ship. A crate is a choice. A person—or a member of my crew, which I granted you in your wish, is also a choice.”
“I am not a choice.”
“Agreed, but I will not back down. One day of your servitude and loyalty in exchange for the names of those who can help you. I will be generous, and I will offer to tell you what they’ll likely ask for in compensation, should you give me two days of your servitude and loyalty.”
“And you swear these dae can fulfill my wish?”
“They can, for a price. I make no promise you will want to pay the cost, but that is not my problem. I can grant you your wish of a name and the price of their service to you. You know my price for this. Decide, bonded. I do not have an eternity to wait on you.”
“Fine.”
“Then make your wish,” the octopus ordered.
Being the object of a wish did not amuse me in the slightest, and I reconsidered taking the shot before finding out the names of the dae who thought they could hand me over without my consent. I relaxed my grip on the gun and engaged the safety.
Their names might be worth something, even if only to give me a stepping stone to figuring out how wishes worked, and just how much I could be influenced by someone else’s wish.
Why couldn’t people take matters into their own hands? Most importantly, why was Kenneth Smith so obsessed with me?
“I wish to know who could grant me the wish of having her for myself, and I offer a choice of cargo, of anything on this ship other than me, and two days of my service and loyalty in payment.”
“Munkar would demand your loyalty and service to him for all eternity, as well as your full obedience.”
I stiffened, opened my mouth to protest the absurdity of the dae’s proclamation, but before I could make a sound, something slimy slapped over my mouth and wrapped around my neck. The stench of seawater filled my broken nose, which functioned barely enough to let me breathe.
“I have laid claim over one object on board this ship, and two days of your loyalty and service belong to me, beginning now,” Samael proclaimed.
The bright golden eye of a rainbow-hued octopus stared into mine, and I could swear it grinned at me. The colors of its mantle shifted hues with its movement, and it nuzzled its head against my cheek.
Its slimy tentacle, stuck halfway in my mouth, muffled my shrieks of protest. Another octopus joined the fray, curling several of its pale tentacles around my gun and walking away with it.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? If I wouldn’t pay you two years, do you really think I’d pay this Munkar the entirety of my life?”
“An eternity is far longer than merely your life, Mr. Smith. Your life could end tomorrow. It could end in five minutes. You do not know. I spoke the truth. I told you, you would not like the price. Truly, I offered you a very competitive rate for such a fascinating creature. Will you make another wish?”
Samael toyed with the drug lord, his tone both a taunt and a challenge. Part of me wanted to flail and try to dislodge the octopus stuck to my face, but my body froze in place, and I was unable to tear my gaze away from the two below.
When I stopped making frantic noises, the octopus’s tentacle slid off my mouth, allowing me to breathe easier.
The fishy tang of the sea on my lips left me shuddering and tempted to gargle with an entire bottle of Sullivan’s whiskey to kill the taste.
“Fine. I wish to know who could grant me the wish of having her for myself, and I offer a choice of cargo, of anything on this ship other than me, and two days of my service and loyalty in payment.”
Had Kenneth Smith always been so stupid? I shifted to grab the second gun from its holster to discover it, too, had been stolen. The thieving octopus skittered out of my reach, leaving suction-cup prints in its wake.
My eyes widened as I realized it had also pilfered the tiny gun stashed in my cleavage.
“You wretched little slimy sea rat,” I hissed at it.
It sprayed ink in my general direction, leaving the floor black and shiny. I considered myself fortunate it hadn’t hit me with any of the strong-smelling, salty fluid.
“Netzach. His price is, after a period of one year of your undying loyalty and servitude, to have the enjoyment of ripping your right kidney out through your left nostril while ravens feast on the remainder of your internal organs.”
Before I could laugh, the octopus slapped its tentacle over my mouth.
“Preposterous!”
“I have laid claim over one object on board this ship and have added two days of time to your owed loyalty and service.”
When my silent chortling grew too much for my strained nose to handle, the octopus released me long enough to catch my breath. It winked at me with its luminescent eye.
“This is bullshit. Why would I agree to cut my lifespan to a year?”
“She’d be all yours until Netzach had fun with your internal organs?”
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t make a sound, sparing myself another stint with an octopus tentacle shoved in my mouth.
“That’s not what I want!”
“I am merely serving as the relay, granting you your wish for knowledge at the agreed upon price, Mr. Smith. I have no say in what they demand. Will you make another wish? You want something very difficult to obtain.”
He stared at the octopus, sighed, and said, “I wish to learn who can grant me the wish of having her all to myself for as long as she lives, and I offer a choice of cargo, of anything on this ship other than me, and two days of my service and loyalty in payment.”
Apparently, Kenneth Smith had sacrificed his common sense to create his dae. I groaned at his idiocy, wondering how such a complete moron had become so influential in Baltimore.
At least he had made
the attempt to word his wish in a slightly more favorable fashion—for him. I clenched my hands, glaring at the thieving octopus who had stolen my gun. “Give that back so I can shove it up his ass and fire,” I hissed through gritted teeth so my boss wouldn’t hear.
The octopus wrapped around my face silenced me with its tentacle again. I tried to bite it, but while it was slimy, it was like trying to chew on a steel cable wrapped in rubber.
“Israfil. He would grant you your wish, but at the price of you and your dae transforming into kittens in both body and mind whenever you are in her presence. Should either one of you approach within fifty feet of her, you will be so cursed.” Samael coughed, and I heard the laughter in his voice. “Orange kittens.”
I tried to imagine Kenneth Smith as a kitten and lost all grip on my dignity, rolling as I clutched my stomach, unable to voice my laughter thanks to the octopus stuck to my face. Once again, when my broken nose couldn’t handle my lungs’ demand for air, the tentacle lifted enough for me to gasp for breath. “Kittens,” I wheezed.
“I have laid claim over one object on board this ship and have added two days of time to your owed loyalty and service. Do you care to make another wish? Israfil’s offer is quite generous.”
“That is not having her all to myself!”
“Is it not? Kittens hold the hearts of their human keepers, do they not? You would have her attention, and I’m sure she’d take very good care of you. Perhaps if you are a kitten, she might forget your betrayal of her. Or not. The whispers on the wind tell me she is not so quick to forgive.”
Never was a long time, and I had zero intentions of harboring even a thought of forgiveness for Smith’s crimes.
“Again, again! Grant me my wish again. Do it, Samael. I demand it.”
“You would dare demand anything of me? You, a pitiful bonded who has no understanding of the value of your wishes? Do you not understand you desire the will and body of another? The price must match the wish.”
“She’s always been mine, right up until that fiend took her from me.”
“Will you make another wish? You may want to before the chance is lost to you. The dae willing to barter with you lack patience. You are not the only one who seeks what you do.”
I turned my full attention to the octopus holding my gun. “Please give it back.”
Sliding its way across the floor, leaving inky streaks in its wake, the octopus left the gun with its special bullet within my reach.
I wrapped my fingers around the grip, double-checked the safety, and wiggled closer to the hole in the floor. “I’d tell your friends down there they might want to clear out.”
“Time’s up, little bonded. Have a nice day. Do come calling if you’re ready to deal.” Samael laughed, and before the sound faded, he vanished in a burst of seawater. In the glow of the fading light, I took aim at Kenneth Smith and fired.
Light blossomed and mushroomed below, accompanied by a wave of heat and pressure. Metal creaked, and before I could do more than recoil, the floor collapsed beneath me and dumped me into darkness.
24
Snow shimmered in the haze of an obscured moon.
I hit the crates below hard enough the breath whooshed out of my lungs. My ears rang and throbbed with my heartbeat, and my entire body ached from the impact with the steel cargo container.
“I’ve really got to stop falling from things,” I groaned, rolling onto my stomach so I could get to my hands and knees. “At least I didn’t hit face first this time.”
The octopus wrapped around my face clung to me with all eight of its arms. At least I hadn’t ended up with a slimy blindfold or a sucker up my broken nose. Shaking my head, I squinted in my effort to see in the darkness. While there had been light in the hallways, it had been extinguished. Water gurgled nearby, and the groan of strained metal accompanied the sway of the cargo containers beneath me.
I had no idea what the bullet bomb had done, but I really didn’t like sounds of water below me. I’d been on the shore during a storm often enough to recognize the surge of the river entering places it wasn’t supposed to.
“Think the bastard survived that?” I muttered.
The octopus squeezed my head, and I was proud of myself for not flailing and screaming.
“I’ll take that as a no, because that’s what I want to hear.”
It blew bubbles in my ear; I squealed at the rush of air against my hurting eardrum. I tried to get a hold on the slippery thing, but each time I got my hands on its body, it slimed its way out of my grip.
I ended up with the octopus’s body sitting on top of my head like a hat, its appendages tangled around my throat, in my hair, and covering most of my face. I sighed and decided I could peel it off after I got off the ship.
I was grateful it avoided my broken nose.
Too bad the river wasn’t as considerate. Icy water sprayed against me, and I shuddered as it soaked through my clothes. I shivered within moments and had no doubt Netzach’s warning had been reality. If I fell in the water, knowing how to swim wouldn’t save me. The water temperature alone would be my final straw.
The only thing I didn’t know was how long it would take.
Staggering to my feet, I reached up to feel for the hole above. My fingers swiped through empty air.
“Fuck.”
Unless I figured out a way to get off my haphazard perch and to the upper floors—and the deck—I’d join the ship at the bottom of Baltimore’s harbor, tens upon tens upon tens of feet below. Without any light, I didn’t dare to move much. All it would take was one misstep for me to end up in the water flooding the ship.
The crate lurched beneath me, and a startled shriek burst out of my throat as the whole thing bobbed and bounced, flattening me to the water-slicked metal. The swaying sent me sliding down as I scrambled for purchase, the crate’s metal grooves slicing my fingers. My feet splashed into churning water and went numb moments following being soaked.
I pulled myself up and flattened against the metal, my teeth chattering together. I splayed my fingers against the frigid shipping container, searching for a handhold. One of the metal ribs had roughened edges, and I gripped it as tight as I could.
For a moment, I thought it’d even work, but the river had other plans for the ship. The tear of metal heralded a thunderous roar of water, and the world flipped upside down.
Water closed over my head. I screamed at the shock of the cold enveloping my body. At least, I tried to scream. A tentacle squeezed over my lips and kept any sound from emerging, while also preventing water from flooding into my mouth. Pain lanced through my head when the octopus constricted around my broken nose.
Panic smothered my ability to think of anything other than struggling in the water as it cloaked me in impenetrable, freezing darkness.
Something coiled around my ankle, squeezed with crushing force, and pulled me deeper into the water. I kicked in my effort to escape, only to end up with my feet bound together. A stabbing in my calf shot up my leg, and when the jolting pain reached my head, every muscle in my body stiffened and froze, leaving me to drift in the current.
The numbness sweeping through me dulled the fire in my air-starved lungs. A hard yank at my hair anchored me to consciousness, and the cold bite of the winter wind against my face startled a gasp out me.
The gasp led to a body-wracking cough, and water splashed into my mouth, frigid and salty. I choked on it, spitting as much of it out as I could. The octopus’s tentacles shifted around my neck, tangling in my hair and forcing my head back.
Snow shimmered in the haze of an obscured moon. Was floating how someone swam? Movement should have been required, but my legs were weighed down, as were my arms, and I couldn’t feel anything beyond the stab in my nose and the chill of the water crashing in waves around me. Was there ice? I hadn’t remembered any floes bobbing on the white caps. The back of my head rested against something solid—too solid to be the sea.
It wasn’t squishy enough to be a
n octopus. My tentacled attachment remained perched on top of my head, slapping its rubbery appendages against my face as though it tried to keep me awake.
Maybe I was already dead—or dying—and was hallucinating bobbing in the river. It made as much sense as any other theory. I couldn’t swim, and I had fallen into the winter-chilled harbor with an octopus stuck to my face.
I should have just used the regular gun and riddled Kenneth Smith’s body with holes instead of blowing him—and the hull of the stupid ship—to pieces. Was the afterlife really just a continuation of life without having a real body?
I wasn’t even cold anymore, which I liked. Without my teeth chattering and my arms and legs jerking in chill-induced spasms, floating wasn’t too bad. I would’ve liked it a lot better if my nose wasn’t throbbing with my heartbeat.
Dead bodies weren’t supposed to have heartbeats. The nagging pain in my nose was definitely throbbing in rhythm with my heart and doing a stellar job of distracting me from the warmth seeping through me from my upper back, shoulders, and neck.
The octopus slapped me hard enough flashes of white danced in my vision.
Something brushed against my legs, and I jerked in a feeble attempt to escape it, kicking out at whatever it was. Visions of skeletons clawing at me and dragging me back into the water choked off my breath.
A wave crashed over my head. When I surfaced, the moonlight reflected on the harbor’s retaining wall. A second wave slammed me into it, smashing my shoulder into the barricade hard enough my teeth rattled in my head.
The current should have swept me back into the river and carried me out to the ocean. Instead, it pounded me into the concrete, knocking the air out of my lungs. Something anchored me to the wall, and I gasped out each time the waves battered me.
I couldn’t tell how many seconds, minutes, or hours went by before a pair of hands grabbed me under my arms and hauled me out of the water. The octopus shifted away from my head, slithering down my arm to wrap itself around my wrist.
