He gritted his teeth, trying to move his hand carefully in the dimly lit cell as he began pouring. The acid hissed as it dripped onto the metal cuff of his left hand. He poured it in a careful line, gently shaking the vial back and forth to coax it out. The acid was thicker than he’d initially assumed, which made it easier in some ways, and harder in others.
The metal cuff let out a sharp pinging noise and bent open as the acid finally melted a complete cut into it. He carefully pulled his wrist free, keeping his skin out of contact with the remnants of metal-melting liquid.
Jack repeated the process on his other wrist and each of his ankles. He hesitated, for good reason, before attempting to melt through the collar around his neck. He wouldn’t be able to turn his head in a direction that would let him see what he was doing. He felt the collar with his fingers, gritted his teeth, and poured the last of the acid onto the collar.
It was the most nerve-wracking minute of Jack’s entire life. He held his breath, not wanting to risk even the smallest movement if it meant putting his skin in contact with the acid. He could hear it hissing and bubbling against the metal, a sound reminiscent of the noise rice krispies make upon adding milk.
The collar snapped open as soon as the acid had done its job, and Jack instantly felt his blood magic flowing freely again. He twisted the collar open wider and tossed it across the cell. Then, he summoned his Spectral Sword.
With two clean, easy slashes, he cut his way out of the cell with such ease that it almost seemed unfair. It had been longer than the ten minutes Katie had suggested he wait for, probably closer to half an hour. He paused by the jail’s door, hoping he could still pull off the rest of the escape.
The hallway outside the jail was narrow, and pipes and wiring ran exposed overhead. There was nobody in either direction that Jack could see, but he still wasn’t interested in taking the risk of being spotted.
He cast Shadow Form and moved through the hallway as a wraith, up the stairs that Katie had told him about, and then outside. It was the middle of the night, which was a huge relief. He stayed hidden in the shadows as he surveyed his surroundings.
The S.S. Demeter was a large ship, at least a few hundred feet lengthwise, with multiple upper decks. Jack was on the lowest deck, and other than a few members of the Order who were resting against railings or smoking cigarettes outside doorways, there was little else to contend with.
He slipped along the edge of the deck, heading for where Katie had said the dinghies were. He spotted them as he made his way around a heavy storage container—and almost ran directly into a member of the Order as he did.
“Hey,” said the man. “Wait, who…?”
Jack surged forward before he could recover from his surprise. He covered the man’s mouth with one hand, and then slammed his head into the storage container. He put strength into the movement, but only enough to stun rather than kill.
A whistle sounded from one of the upper decks. Jack summoned his Spectral Sword and cut the restraints holding the dinghy in place. It was little more than a small skiff and almost tipped over sideways as it hit the water.
“The prisoner has escaped!” boomed a voice over a loudspeaker. “Lock down the ship!”
Jack leapt over the railing, cushioning his fall with Shadow Levitation as he landed. The S.S. Demeter was moving fast enough to immediately begin pulling away from the tiny dinghy, but Jack could see it slowing to a stop. They’d turn around, slowly but surely, and come after him.
He decided to try something he’d never done before, but considered a couple of times. He took a slow breath and pressed his hands against the dinghy’s hull. Focusing his blood essence, he cast Shadow Form, but he forced the effect outward. His own body dissolved into darkness, and he spread himself out, covering the dinghy in a manner that left it barely visible against the ocean, at night.
He waited for a few minutes before releasing the effect, knowing that it would take a huge toll on his blood essence reserves to maintain. It was long enough to achieve the purpose he’d intended it for. The S.S. Demeter had missed him in its search, and it was little more than a smudge on the horizon.
Jack’s relief only lasted for a minute as he started to consider his situation. He was in the middle of the ocean, on a tiny boat, with no food and no water. The dinghy didn’t have a motor, or even a basic paddle. He was adrift, at the mercy of the ocean and his own luck.
***
The night slowly gave way to early morning. Jack used the majesty of the sunrise to distract himself from his circumstances. The dinghy swayed gently on the water, and it was hard for him to tell if he was moving at all or just sitting in the same spot.
There was nothing on the horizon. No smudges of land. No boats. Not even any birds that he could see. He leaned over the side of the dinghy and stared down into the crystalline blue ocean. The water looked inviting, but as hot as he was in the direct sun, he didn’t want to risk capsizing his tiny boat by attempting to climb back in after a swim.
He didn’t have his phone, but he still spent some time thinking about how else he could reach out to the world. He might be able to reach out to Katie with his Blood Sight, but she wouldn’t be able to help him in any significant way. Reaching out to Reese, on the other hand, wasn’t something he’d ever consider, assuming she and Mezolak could even find him in the middle of the ocean.
The reach of his Blood Sight diminished rapidly after he stopped feeding on someone, so both Mira and Ryoko were also out of the question. Jack rubbed his chin, remembering something Ryoko had told him the last time they’d seen each other.
She was basically a hybrid water nymph after the ritual Mezolak had used to return her to life. She’d told him that if he ever needed her and was near the ocean, he could call out to her, and she’d come if she was nearby.
“Ryoko!” called Jack. “Can you hear me? Ryoko!”
He tried again, cupping his hands together and bellowing as loud as he could. He tried leaning over the side of the dinghy and shouting the words at the water, and then into it, with his mouth partially submerged. He tried, and he kept trying, feeling more than a little ridiculous.
The sun was both relentless and oppressive. Jack was basically doing nothing other than lying on his back, and he could still feel it sapping at his strength. His meager craft offered no shade to speak of, and it drifted through the water as aimlessly as a leaf in a pond.
“Ryoko!” called Jack, for what had to have been the five thousandth time.
His throat was starting to feel dry and painful, and he’d been thirsty since even before he escaped the Order’s ship. A part of him felt personally attacked by the irony of the situation. He’d worked so hard to consistently find ways to sate his thirst for blood as a vampire, only to die of dehydration.
Did that have to be the case? His regeneration would be stymied during the day, but not completely. Come nighttime, he’d have the full breadth of it back and probably still have enough blood essence for his body to recover from any ills suffered during the day.
Including saltwater poisoning, perhaps? He was aware of the conventional wisdom that trying to drink from the ocean only led to a person becoming more dehydrated, not less. But was that still the case for him, as a vampire? It was theoretically possible that his body was capable of handling it better.
It was sound enough logic to convince him to take a few small sips. Jack cupped his hands, scooped up a small amount of saltwater, and brought it to his mouth. The taste was absolutely vile, and after a single gulp, he threw his theory out.
“Maybe it’ll rain,” he said. “And now I’m talking to myself. Not a good sign.”
CHAPTER 21
“Ryoko…” called Jack.
He’d called out to her enough times in the past six hours to do a fundamental dissection of the syllables of her name. Ree-Oh-Koh. Each noise was still beautiful to him, even if he’d gotten to the point where the sounds had become familiar enough to loop back around and be nearly unrec
ognizable.
“Ryokooooooo,” he called. He let out a small chuckle as he went silent.
Something connected against the dinghy’s hull underwater, shifting it off balance slightly. Jack sat up straight, feeling a flicker of hope that lived and died within the span of a second. Not Ryoko. He saw a massive, black shape under the ocean’s surface and felt his blood run cold, despite the heat.
Another shape moved in the water to the left and then surfaced. It wasn’t a shark, which was, at first, all that Jack needed to feel relieved. It was a large orca, easily recognizable by the white and black pattern coloring on its head.
“Hey there,” said Jack. “Any chance you can give me a tow to the nearest island?”
The orca let out a geyser through its blowhole in response. Jack leaned over the edge of the dinghy as he spotted more of them in the water. There was a whole flock, er, school of them. Family of them? He wasn’t entirely sure of the correct nomenclature.
One of them rammed into the dinghy, rocking it back and forth hard enough to nearly eject Jack. He let out a small, startled gasp as he felt another thunk against the dinghy’s hull, and then another. This time, the dinghy all but capsized, turning sideways for an instant and righting itself only after taking on a few buckets of saltwater.
“Hey!” called Jack. “Stop it! You jerks!”
He splashed his hand against the water. The orcas circled the dinghy as a unit a few times, and he got an idea of why people called them “killer whales.”
Fortunately, they chose to move on rather than torture him further. Jack was faced with a new problem in the wake of their departure. The dinghy was flooded. He started slowly cupping water in his hands and tipping it overboard, but it only took a minute or two for him to realize what a long and frustrating process it would be to return the dinghy to a state that even resembled being dry.
“Fucking orcas,” he muttered.
It gave him something to do, which distracted him from the heat and the gradually worsening sunburns on his face, neck, and arms. He’d stopped feeling quite so thirsty. Probably a bad sign. He’d also stopped calling out for Ryoko.
Over the next hour, he started to feel increasingly light-headed. It built up slowly, until his general sense of the situation was foggy and a little manic. He thought about climbing out of the dinghy and into the water, just to cool off for a minute or two. It would be a trade-off. It would cool him off, which was good, but it would also…
It was hard for him to focus his thoughts clearly. One thing he was sure of was that, as unpleasant as it would be for him, dying wasn’t necessarily the worst outcome. It would free him from being Mezolak’s tool, albeit in a way that was pretty final and dark. It would be a trade-off. It would keep him from having to kill more people, which was good, but would also…
“Ryoko…” Jack mumbled. “Ry…oko.”
He let out a thin cough and tried to shield his eyes from the sun. It had started to set over the horizon, which was good, but the colorful display its reflection left across the water was playing tricks on his eyes. He could see her ahead of the dinghy, slowly gliding through the water, hair slicked back in a single wet lock.
She looked so elegant as she cut through the water with effortless ease. Jack even felt the dinghy shift a little as the hallucination of her gripped the side of it with her hands, and then…
“Ryoko?” He said her name as a question this time, and he received a small nod from her in return as she rose up in the water and climbed into his small vessel.
She’d changed, from the last time he’d seen her. There was a confidence in her eyes that made her seem like an evolved version of the shy, quiet maid that Jack had come to love so fiercely.
Her skin was still pale, but it had taken on the slightest hint of blue, more like one would expect from someone left out in the cold than an obvious hue. Her hair was down, which had been rare for her back when she’d always insisted on dressing for work, and it fell across her shoulders and back like beautiful strands of seaweed.
She wore a simple blue bikini, lending a sense of modesty to her otherwise enticing appearance. Her body was petite and girlish, with a trim waist, small breasts, and toned, proportional butt. Her face was round and cute, and it was currently set in a very worried expression.
“Mr. Masterson!” she cried.
Jack let out a single, soft chuckle. With those words, she’d dispelled all of his lingering doubts over her just being a hallucination.
“It’s Jack, you dummy,” he said. “Why don’t you try to get my name right… next time you… save my life.”
She came to him in an instant, cradling him in cool, wet arms. Jack frowned a little at first. Was he really that bad? The way his arm flopped ineffectively when he tried to cup her cheek told him that yes, he absolutely was. He added sipping saltwater and getting sunstroke to the list of things he’d never try again.
“What happened to you?” asked Ryoko. “How did you end up here?”
“It’s a long story,” said Jack. “Captured by the Order. They put me on a ship. Katie helped me escape.”
A smile danced across Ryoko’s lips.
“Katherine is doing well, then,” she said. “I’m glad. I was worried about her. I was worried about you, too, of course. So much more than I can explain with words.”
“No need to worry about me,” said Jack. “I’ve been doing swimmingly. That’s a great word to use on a boat. Swimmingly.”
He felt his mouth moving and was pretty sure he’d just said something ridiculous, from the expression on Ryoko’s face.
“You’re dehydrated,” she said. “And you probably have heatstroke. I can help, at least when it comes to getting you a drink.”
Her hand went to her neck in an unconscious movement that Jack had seen many a time before.
“…What?” he said, shaking his head. “Ryoko, I’m thirsty in the normal sense. I don’t need blood, and I don’t think it will help.”
She gave him a small, secretive smile.
“I’m different now, sir,” she said. “Trust me. You’ll be able to drink from me. Fresh water, not blood.”
He was skeptical, but even just hearing the words “fresh water” spoken in the air was enough to make his mouth wish it still had enough moisture left to salivate. Ryoko helped him sit upright and then slid herself in between his legs facing away from him, as though they were both riding on a sled. She pulled her hair to the side, which had somehow dried completely in her short time out of the water.
Jack leaned forward, slowly inhaling through his nose. Ryoko did not have the same type of smell that she’d once had as a human. In fact, it was more like the ambient smell of the ocean, except without the salt. A crisp, neutral, refreshing scent.
“Are you ready?” he whispered.
Ryoko shivered. “I’m ready.”
He let his fingers trace a soft circle against her neck. Despite mental fatigue and fog shrouding his thoughts, he still very much enjoyed the process of feeding. Especially off Ryoko. He wanted to enjoy it, even if it was a little different, this time. He’d missed her so much. Her and her supple, flawless neck.
“You’re teasing me,” whispered Ryoko.
“Maybe a little,” said Jack.
He planted a soft kiss on her neck. Ryoko was shivering slightly, and it became more pronounced as Jack let his warm breath tickle the spot he was about to bite. He waited until the anticipation was almost too much to bear before sinking his fangs in and taking a sip.
She’d been telling the truth. Ryoko’s “blood,” if it could be called that, was clean, crisp, drinkable water. It had a fresh, unadulterated taste to it, like drinking from a cold mountain stream. It was pure and delicious, and Jack felt his body reacting to it immediately.
Ryoko shuddered and clutched at the side of the dinghy with one hand. Jack had been expecting her reaction to his bite to be diminished or completely absent, but the way her body pressed back against his, back arched, muscles tens
ed, was the same as it had always been.
He took a few deep sips and then stopped, for the sake of both of them. He didn’t know how much he could safely drink from her, and he also didn’t know how much his body would be ready to handle immediately. He’d only been at sea for a little under a day, but the effect of the sun and his experiment with seawater made it feel like far longer.
“Oh…” whispered Ryoko, as Jack pulled back. “I… wasn’t sure if it would still feel like that.”
“Like what?” Jack held her in an embrace from behind and gently ran his hand over her taut stomach.
“Like…” Ryoko looked over her shoulder at him and blushed. “It’s embarrassing to say out loud. It’s just… a full-body experience.”
Jack chuckled. Ryoko turned around completely, and they shared the first real kiss they’d had in months. It felt like a dream, and only the soft, gentle sucking sensation of her lips against his dispelled his doubts.
“Wait a second…” said Jack, as the kiss ended. “If you felt the sensation of my bite that strongly, it’s possible that it also affected you in other ways.”
Ryoko frowned, scrunching her face up a little. “You mean enthrallment? Do you think that really could be an issue?”
“Only one way to find out,” said Jack. “Here, I’ll tell you to do something as a test. Take your bikini off.”
Ryoko let out a mock gasp and shot him an exaggerated glare. Jack waited a couple of seconds and then nodded. He was glad that she wasn’t enthralled. It wasn’t like part of him had been kind of hoping that she was, just for a chance to see her adorable, naked body again. Of course not.
“I can only assume that different supernatural types have varying susceptibility to enthrallment,” said Ryoko. “It’s a good thing, in our case.”
“Yeah,” said Jack. He ran his hand over her cheek, feeling his heart soar as he appreciated her presence. “I still almost can’t believe it. You’re here, with me.”
“Yeah,” said Ryoko, with a smile, “and you’re here, with me.”
Loyalty Oath Page 12
