I couldn’t help but smile at his quip, but my mouth quickly straightened.
“We could really use your help,” I said, deciding to just drive to the point.
He looked at me for a long moment. Behind him, the horse nickered and began cropping grass. Crickets chirped in the blue pasture. My grandfather stepped forward and gripped my shoulders. “You are a powerful magic-user. More powerful, I believe, than you realize.” He slapped my back, then turned, thrust a boot into a stirrup, and hoisted himself onto the saddle. “I will ready the boats.”
He drew the horse’s head around with the reins.
Sensing I wouldn’t see him again, I blurted, “You’re a great man.”
He stopped. “It was good to meet you, Everson.”
My vision blurred, but I pulled myself together. There was something I’d regretted not telling him before his death that I wanted to tell him now. It would sound awkward as hell, but I didn’t care.
“I love you, Grandpa.”
Though his expression didn’t change, his eyes seemed to soften. With a nod, he turned and spurred his horse into a gallop.
35
An hour later, I was leading the team on a cross-country march toward the East River. Malachi hustled at my side, struggling to keep his priest’s robes from snagging on brambles. Gorgantha, still in a frilly dress, lumbered behind us, while Seay and her twenty friends took up the rear, most of them recovered from their possession. To avoid any run-ins with werewolves or undesirables from the Fae Wilds, such as goblins or night hags, I okayed Seay to conceal us in a light glamour.
As we crested a small rise, the East River appeared below shrouded in mist, the cover Grandpa had promised. I considered how, in the modern era, we would have been standing in the Lower East Side housing projects, not far from Container City. Now there were only salt meadows and shore—and five rowboats in a line.
I pumped a fist. Grandpa had come through.
To the southeast, points of light flickered in and out of the river mist like will-o’-the-wisps. Lanterns, likely. Disembodied voices sounded, more echoes than words. I hunkered low and signaled for the others to do the same.
“Is that the prison ship?” Malachi whispered.
“Has to be,” I said, wiping my brow with a sleeve. The air was damp, and I’d worked up a healthy sweat on our march. Anxiety was doing its part, but we had a good plan in place. Now it was a matter of execution.
I turned to the team. “Our boats are ready to launch,” I whispered. “Everyone should know their assignment, but if you have questions, ask. Sounds carry, so keep your voices to this level from here on out.”
I started leading the way down to the shore when the crackling of musket fire sounded. Balls hissed past. I threw myself flat, and peered into the mist, but the musket fire wasn’t coming from the direction of the ship. It was coming from behind us.
As I crawled back toward the rise, several of the half-fae poked their heads up and swiveled them back and forth like periscopes. Having spent most of their lives in fashion, this was their first action.
“Stay down,” I whispered as I moved past them.
I ended up between Seay and Gorgantha, Malachi off to our right. Through the grass, I could make out bursts of fire and smoke. The air glimmered, then hardened around us as I invoked a protective shield.
“It’s the soulless soldiers,” Seay said.
“Aw, man,” Gorgantha complained. “These jokers again?”
“A good-sized group too,” I said. “I’d guess fifty to a hundred.”
Must have picked up Seay’s glamour, I thought. But that’s on me.
And now our element of surprise was blown. Already I could hear shouts coming from the prison ship.
“What should we do?” Malachi asked nervously.
As I considered our options, cracks sounded from the ship. The British guards must have interpreted the musket fire as an attack. If we pushed ahead with our plan, we’d be in the middle of their crossfire while attempting to row the river. And if the assault became heavy, I would have to maintain a protection around all twenty-four of us, power I’d hoped to save for whatever we’d be encountering on the ship. On the other hand, engaging the soldiers could give the ship time to move the druids. But engagement was the only way I could fathom to stop the shooting. My magic seemed to agree.
“Listen, guys,” I said. “We’re going to have to take them out.”
But before I could say more, the grass swarmed up and swallowed the advancing soldiers. Their firing broke off as moans echoed over the meadow. Gruesome sounds followed, suggesting breaking bones and severing appendages.
“Jordan’s back,” Seay whispered excitedly.
I looked down to find the sigil on my hand glowing. He’d located us through the bond. Though I’d had my differences with the druid, joy broke through me.
“About damned time,” Gorgantha muttered, but I could hear her relief too.
With the shooting from the fields stopped, the firing from the ship tapered off as well. Moments later, wings batted the air overhead. I opened the shield to let Jordan in. He shifted from raven to human in a dusty burst of magic and settled in the grass beside us, one hand gripping his quarterstaff.
“Starting without me?” he asked.
Smiling, I punched his shoulder. “What in the hell happened to you?”
“I found the circle, but convincing them who I was took longer than planned. Had to pass a series of tests. Those druids of old are damn thorough. Same with their locating spell. The thing took six hours.”
“And it led you to the ship?” I asked.
“Sure did,” he said, peering into the mist. “You too, I see.”
“The locating spell actually led us to a prison in the city,” Malachi said.
“The demons had swapped out the soldiers for Seay’s friends,” I explained, cocking my head at the group of half-fae, who still looked largely bewildered. “When we learned the prison ship was the other place the Brits had turned out soldiers, we figured this was where they would be holding the druids.”
“Well, you figured right,” he said approvingly, but his gaze hadn’t left the half-fae. “And they’re … themselves?”
“They’re fine,” Seay assured him. “Fae magic restored them.”
“You took out those soldiers all by your lonesome?” Gorgantha asked.
“Not quite.”
Jordan was about to say more when magic broke around us, and two more ravens took human form. The man and woman were wearing cloaks like Jordan, except theirs were black. With their fair skin and reddish-blond hair, they could have been twins. I pegged them as Irish, where much of druid-kind originated.
“They’re of the Raven Circle,” Jordan said proudly. “They’re going to help us.”
“Excellent,” I said, knowing we could use all the support we could get.
The druids introduced themselves in thick accents, the woman as Failend and the man as Lorcan. Both wielded sturdy quarterstaffs.
“So what’s the plan?” Jordan asked.
The druids listened intently as I gave them a condensed version of our approach and attack strategy.
I braced for pushback, but Jordan surprised me by nodding. “Sounds good. The druids and I can fly ahead and check out the deck and surroundings. We’ll cover your approach, take out any threats. We need to get moving, though. Coming in, we saw a company of soulless soldiers about a mile south.”
“Everyone ready?” I asked the team.
Jordan had started to turn away, but he stopped and said, “I won’t miss anything this time,” referring to the ghouls that had escaped his notice on Governor’s Island, the ones I’d given him crap about.
Even though he was smirking, I clasped his hand. “No worries, man. I’m just glad you’re here.”
He pulled me into a hug and clapped my back twice with his staff hand. “Me too. Let’s do this.”
We separated, and he and the druids jogged off a sho
rt distance before taking flight as ravens. I led the team down the hill. As we squelched into the mud flats, the druids disappeared inside the mist. The rest of us boarded the rowboats and shoved out into the East River. Malachi and I were in one boat, Seay and Gorgantha in two of the others. The twenty half-fae filled the remaining slots. I shaped energy until our boats were shielded and bonded, careful to keep the manifestations above the salt water.
From a seat at the rear of my boat, I angled my sword toward the river and incanted. The emerging force sputtered upon hitting the choppy waters, but the thrust was enough to propel us forward. I sustained the incantation, upping the force slightly. Fortunately, the wind wasn’t an impediment. We slid through the mist like a ghost crew, much more quickly than if we’d tried to row.
So far, so good.
We were halfway across the river when Gorgantha swore. “We’ve got mercreatures.”
I stood and squinted around the mist-covered waters. “Where? How many?”
Without warning, the far right boat canted nose down as the back leapt in a burst of planks. Three of Seay’s friends went overboard. Water splashed over my bonding invocation, dissolving it. Our boats began to drift off in different directions. Before I could pull them together and restore the protection, the boat to my left capsized, spilling everyone, including Seay. Fae light flashed underwater, showing the silhouettes of several circling mercreatures. In contrast, the flailing half-fae looked puny.
“The hell with this,” Gorgantha said.
She ripped her dress down the middle, tore off her boots, and dove into the river A moment later, the water began to roil. I shouted as our own boat was knocked into a spin. Shit was getting out of hand, fast.
“Malachi,” I called.
He crawled and joined me in the back, recoiling as a webbed hand with monstrous talons gripped the side of the boat. I hit it with two hard chops of my blade, drawing blood. The hand disappeared back into the water.
“We’re going to do what we did at Staten Island,” I shouted above the commotion. “Group exorcism.”
“Here?” he asked, fumbling open his Latin Bible.
I activated the banishment rune on my sword and plunged it into the water. Malachi gripped the hilt and began reciting the Latin exorcism. My invocations didn’t move well in water, much less salt, but I only needed to channel energy as far as the rune. My father’s enchantment, bolstered by Malachi’s exorcism, would do the rest. That was the theory, anyway. The boat Gorgantha had been inside capsized now, leaving only ours and one other upright.
“Faster,” I urged.
The sword shook as Malachi upped the cadence of the exorcism. The banishment rune pulsed with greater and greater energy. With Malachi’s final line, a powerful light detonated from the blade.
Then everything fell silent, our boat bobbing in a slow circle as the waters settled again. Half-fae began to surface, most of them sputtering and coughing up water. I spotted a head of drenched blond hair.
“Seay!” I called.
She wiped the hair from her face. “Help me get them back in the boats.”
“Are there any more mercreatures?” I asked.
“No. They went down like stones.”
From beside me, Malachi grunted out a disbelieving laugh. “It actually worked.”
“Good job, man,” I said, tousling his hair.
The first boat to have been attacked was damaged beyond repair and half-sunk, so we crammed the half-fae into the other four. Seay and her friends had been able to stave off the mercreatures with enchantments. As a result, their wounds were few and minor. Gorgantha surfaced as we fished out the final half-fae.
“That’s all of them,” she confirmed.
Cracks sounded from the ship. Musket balls smacked the boats bow and splashed around Gorgantha’s head.
“About a dozen guards on deck,” Jordan said through our bond. “We’ll take them.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “We’re on our way.”
Damn, it was good having air support. I shielded the boats and locked them into formation again. With balls sparking off our protection, I turned to Gorgantha.
“Mind playing motor?”
With a nod, she ducked underwater and surfaced behind my boat. Webbed hands pressed to the rear, she thrust with her legs and tail and off we went.
Before long, the prison ship grew through the mist. A onetime warship, the masts, sails, and rigging had been taken down, but the monolith that remained was colossal, and we were coming on it fast. I craned my neck back. Several thick ropes dangled past sealed gunports. From the high deck, shouts sounded and musket fire flashed, but the balls were no longer pinging off my protection. The druids had arrived and were engaging them.
“Take up the oars,” I whispered to Darian, who was in the boat beside mine. “We split here.”
I recalled my power and signaled to Gorgantha. She nodded and began pushing the boat that held Seay while pulling a second boat of half-fae around to the far side of the ship.
I aimed our own boat toward a platform that had been built for loading and unloading prisoners and cargo. About a half dozen tied-off boats bobbed around it now. When we knocked up against the platform, a half-fae leapt out and secured our boat. The rest of us joined her and helped the other boat, which had ended up with the most half-fae, to dock. Darian had taken charge of that crew, and I spoke with him now.
“Think you can have these other six boats untied and ready for evacuation?” I asked.
“Hey, I’ll do anything that will get me closer to losing this dreadful thing,” he said of his linen gown.
I gave him a thumbs-up. From the platform, a ramp climbed steeply to the deck. Above, I picked up detonations of druid magic and the sounds of bodies thumping.
“Follow me, but stay back,” I whispered to Malachi and the half-fae from our boat.
As I hurried up the ramp, I could hear planks snapping on the opposite side of the ship. Gorgantha and Seay were in place and doing their part.
I arrived on the edge of the deck just as Jordan drove his staff into the chest of the final guard. A burst of magic knocked the musket from his hands and the man from his feet. He nailed the side of a cabin and landed in a sprawl. I scanned the red-coated guards scattered across the deck, all of them out cold.
The druids hadn’t held back.
“There’s a hatch over here,” Jordan said when he spotted me. He was already running toward it, the two druids following him. I waved for Malachi and the other half-fae to come on deck. I joined Jordan as he inserted the end of his quarterstaff into a padlock and blew it apart. He was reaching for a rusted ring to draw the hatch open when Gorgantha spoke through the bond.
“We’ve breached the hull,” she said. “We’re inside.”
“And?” Jordan asked anxiously.
“It’s empty,” Seay said.
36
I cast a ball of light ahead as Jordan and I descended a ladder into the ship’s hull. A foul stench rose past us, and I pressed the sleeve of my priest’s robe to my nose to keep from gagging. The sugar house had been bad, but the ship’s hull was worse. It was the lack of ventilation. There was so little oxygen that I was having to push more power into my light ball to keep it from sputtering out.
Rats scattered as Jordan jumped the final few feet into the hull. I released the ladder and, cane drawn into sword and staff, followed him.
“Down here,” Seay called.
Jordan and I made our way toward a glowing orb of fae light. We passed filth buckets and opened shackles. Dirt had been spread over the floor, as if we were walking through some kind of animal enclosure. Jordan prodded the occasional straw pile, but only succeeded in producing more rats.
He shouted his wife’s name: “Delphine!”
The rocking ship clicked and creaked in answer. When we reached the others, I observed the hole they’d ripped through the ship’s side. Damp, salty air pushed past me. Beyond the opening, several of the half-fae manned r
owboats in the fog, ready to start evacuating the druids—who weren’t inside.
“Druid magic led us here, dammit,” Jordan said. “And there was nothing leaving when we flew in. There’s no way they got them out of here that fast.” He cupped his hands to the sides of his mouth and shouted his wife’s name into the cavernous hull. The anguished strain in his voice was hard to bear.
“We’ve already searched—” Seay started to say.
“Then we search again,” Jordan cut in. “And we keep searching till we find them.”
I nodded and addressed the others. “We’re dealing with a demon, remember. They’re masters of deception. We’ll do another sweep. Gorgantha, why don’t you check the river. See if there’s any sign of them out there.”
“You got it.” With three running steps, she dove through the opening and into the water.
Using the bond, I called Malachi, who had remained on deck, and asked him to send down the druids and any spare half-fae to help. When they arrived, we dispersed throughout the hull, each of us attuned to our own preternatural frequencies. I opened my wizard’s senses to the ship’s astral patterns.
Remembering the cloaking effect of the Harkless Rift, I focused past the brightest patterns in search of voids. There were a few small ones around the shackles, the surrounding energy slowly reclaiming those empty spaces. Jordan was right. The druid prisoners had been here too recently to have been moved. I scanned the hull until my gaze locked on a massive void near the ship’s front.
I approached cautiously, shifting my vision back to normal. I was facing a wall. But the fact I was at the nose of the ship meant there had to be a good chunk of space beyond. I called Jordan and Seay through the bond.
“Might have something,” I whispered.
As I waited for them to arrive, I studied the plank wall more closely. Sweeping away a layer of dirt from the bottom exposed a groove in the floor. This thing wasn’t a wall; it was a door.
“What do you have?” Jordan asked when he arrived. Seay was behind him, along with the two druids and several half-fae.
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