Ethan let a little groan slip, and he rolled his eyes before deciding to move on and read the rest:
That the undersigned have settled all debts, fees, and obligations, and shall forthwith have and hold the title of Captain for The Duchess for the entirety of service to her.
In witness whereof, the undersigned have hereunto set his Hand and Seal on this day and year.
Beneath that was a list of names, or at least, Ethan assumed they were all names. About a dozen existed, all made in varying inks and handwriting. All had a single line scratched through their middle, including the most recent, which read Lord William Belmont. That name was simple enough to read. But as Ethan looked at the ones that came before, the letters became more and more strange, and by the fifth one from the bottom, he couldn’t read them at all.
Ethan looked to the others, hoping they’d chime in on who these other mystery captains were. To his shock, all three of them stared at the page with mouths agape.
“What’s the deal with The Duchess?” he asked. “I take it she has some notoriety?”
“You might say that,” Zoey said, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Because…?”
“Because on the darkest of nights, when the waters are still, and the fog is heavy, she sends any ship she comes across to the bottom of the sea,” Zoey said. “The men who survive, what few there are, lose their minds. They ramble, incoherently for the most part, but all sing the same mournful song.”
“The tattle says just hearing the song will give you nightmares for a week,” Katryna tacked on. “Singing it…well, singing it is gambling with your life.”
Ethan felt his gut tense, and then again when he asked the natural follow-up question. “How’s that?”
“Because they say if you sing even a single note, you invite The Duchess to come find you within a fortnight,” she explained.
“You’re serious?” Ethan asked. He didn’t need a reply. He could see the look in everyone’s eyes that not only she was, but that Katryna hadn’t been more serious about anything else in her life. “Why the hell would you sing it, then?”
Katryna shrugged. “I wouldn’t. But it’s also supposedly the only way you can get a survivor to talk to you—to find out what happened. It returns their sanity for a minute or two—supposedly.”
“Others say if you sing the whole song, you’ll be granted a vision of your future,” Zoey added. “Not saying I’d be belting out those lyrics any time, but I can see how, if you were desperate, you might.”
Ethan drummed his fingers on the table and nervously looked around, half expecting the cabin they were in to twist into some horrific monster. But when it didn’t, doubt—or rather, denial—kicked in. “This ship can’t be her,” he said. “She’s the Victory. Says so on the little plate on the back. And she’s hardly see-through, and we’re hardly insane.”
“Unless we are,” Maii grinned. “Maybe all of this is in our head.”
“You’d just love that, wouldn’t you?”
“I respect that,” he said as if the clarification somehow made all of it better.
Zoey leaned across the table so she could give it a closer read one last time. When she was done, she read it a couple more times out loud and sat back down. “I have no idea whether or not the Victory is also The Duchess,” Zoey said, “but I’m a thousand percent sure that this deed is the real thing. As long as no one signs it, I think we’ll be fine.”
Ethan wanted to believe that. He really did. And as much as he tried to argue and swim in denial, one inescapable fact loomed. Ethan frowned, and his shoulders fell. “Except Azrael said what we’d find would be horrifying. Not sure how an unsigned piece of paper will give us nightmares.”
“Right,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “Forgot about that.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Katryna asked. “Abandon ship? Tell the crew? Sail on and hope for the best?”
“We can’t abandon ship, and I’d rather not spook the crew—at least, not until we have definitive answers,” Ethan said. “The race is tomorrow. I have to win it.”
“What do you think happened with Lord Belmont?” Zoey asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you think he signed the deed before or after he became a lich?” she asked.
Ethan shrugged. “No idea. Does it matter?”
“It might,” Zoey replied. “What if he was normal before he found her? What if The Duchess twisted his humanity, so he wanted to be a lich and conquer the world?”
Zoey’s questions, poignant as ever, ran rampant in Ethan’s mind. Pain suddenly erupted across both sides of his head as a crushing headache took hold of him. “Cripes, that hurts,” he said, spending a few seconds rubbing his temples.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just stress, I’m sure,” he said, only half believing his words. “At any rate, I think at the very least we need to consult with Marcus. He is, after all, our resident necromancer and expert in all things dead. Maybe he’ll know what to do.”
“Worth a try, but this isn’t a zombie ship,” Zoey said.
“I know. But you guys said The Duchess was a ghost ship, so we can only hope,” Ethan said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and he’ll do something or other, and this will turn out to be all one big misunderstanding. Should I toss some points into the whatever-lore roll we’re about to make?”
Maii took to his feet and stretched. “I’ll fetch him, but there’s no misunderstanding.”
Ethan cocked his head, finding Maii’s tone and statement both curious and troubling. “What do you mean?”
“Marcus told me the other night he’d sensed a spirit aboard,” he explained. “He’s been trying to speak to it for some time now, but to no avail.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Ethan exclaimed, slamming both palms onto the table and digging his fingers in. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were busy,” Maii said.
“I was not!”
“The moaning between the two of you and Zoey’s top hitting me in the face said otherwise,” Maii replied. “Besides, what would I have told you? That your precious new ship might be haunted? I honestly had no idea what we were dealing with, as Marcus had no idea what he was dealing with.”
Ethan’s lips pressed together into a tight line as he clenched his jaw. “Fine. Whatever,” he said. “Go get Marcus.”
Ethan, Zoey, and Katryna stayed quiet as the ahuizotl left the room with about as much speed and care as a housecat lazily wandering into the next room to find a sunbeam to lay in. Zoey broke the silence first, but only by a microsecond.
“We’re not actually keeping him, are we?” she asked.
Ethan dropped his brow. “Who? Marcus?”
“No, not Marcus. Maii,” she said. “He’s plotting something, I’m certain, and there’s no way in hell that ring still has control of him.”
“What do you think?” Ethan asked, turning to Katryna.
“I think your ring is worthless now,” she said. “It’s even more tarnished and corroded than before.”
Ethan held up his hand and inspected the band of metal. The edges had turned green and black, with some spidery veins working their way into the center. “Yeah. Yeah, it is,” he said reluctantly. “But even if it lost all its power, we can’t just get rid of Maii, can we?”
“I don’t see why not,” Zoey replied.
“Aren’t you the one who said we should keep him to begin with? That having an ahuizotl would be a good thing?”
Zoey nodded. “Yes, but I also figured he’d grow a lot slower so we could be a lot more powerful by the time you lost control,” she explained. “If he’s scheming against us now, it might not be long before we’re just another snack to him.”
“All the more reason we can’t get rid of him here,” Ethan said. When Zoey clearly didn’t follow, he explained. “We can’t just let him loose in the city. He’ll real
ly cause trouble then. Hell, he’d probably eat a couple dozen of the townsmen before just wandering off, bored of how easy it is to kill them all.”
Zoey frowned, conceding the point. Before she could say anything, however, Katryna jumped in. “Don’t worry about Maii,” she said. “I’ll keep him in line.”
“You sure you can?”
Katryna let out a snicker and playfully rolled her eyes. “I’m quite sure,” she said. “And you know what’s even more important than that?”
Ethan turned his hands up. “What?”
“Maii knows that, too,” she said. “He tried to sneak up on me the other night and failed—badly. He’ll behave as long as I’m around, and honestly, I still think it’s a good idea to keep him. He could come in handy during the race.”
Ethan blew out a tense puff of air and leaned back, folding his arms over his chest. “God, I hope so.”
“You hope so, what?”
Ethan spun around at the sound of the ahuizotl’s voice to find Maii and Marcus standing just inside the doorway. Ethan hesitated a moment, caught off guard at how both of them had gotten in without him noticing. Maii? Sure. Ethan had no doubt the monster could slip underneath the nose of a starving dragon, slathered in BBQ sauce if he wanted. But Marcus? The minotaur? The way he clomped around, owners of china shops halfway across the globe probably had coronaries every time he moved. So what did that mean? Had Maii done something so they could both slip in without being noticed? And if so, how long had they been standing there, anyway?
Those last couple of thoughts did not sit well with Ethan. But instead of being quiet on the matter, he tackled it head-on. “Does this still work on you?” he asked the ahuizotl as he showed off his ring.
Maii nodded. “Yes.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Are you lying to me?”
“No.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes even more. “Would you tell me if you were?”
With a slow, deliberate drawing back of his mouth, Maii showed off his razor teeth. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think you’re playing with fire,” Ethan said as he leaned forward.
“Ah, you’re so much more respectable when you’re like this,” Maii said. He dropped onto his haunches and used his right forepaw to clean behind his ear as he went on. “Look, Master Ethan, if it makes you feel better, I should probably remind you that you were never going to own me forever. With that in mind, what difference does it make if it’s now or later? The important thing is that we all get along in the meantime, yes?”
Katryna’s hand fell to the hilt of her sword. “How much effort are you going to make to see that happen?”
Maii eyed the swashbuckler for a few seconds, his ears flattening in the process. “You don’t trust me?”
“I have no reason to,” Katryna replied. “Furthermore, I know what you are—what your nature is.”
Maii nodded. “Indeed.” At that point, He turned his attention back to Ethan. “I suppose in the end, you don’t have to trust me,” he said. “You only have to realize, even if you think I’m quote-unquote, ‘evil,’ you also have to know I’m not stupid. I’m not about to take on the likes of her, and I’m certainly not about to do that while she’s paired with a couple of—”
“Of what?” Zoey interrupted.
Maii cocked his head and threw a quick glance at Marcus before grinning with understanding. “Ah, yes. We’re not all friends, are we? Can’t let the bat out of the belfry.”
Marcus snorted as he stomped his way to the table. “What’s he talking about?”
“Lovers,” Ethan said, jumping on the first thing that came to mind. “She’s not just the first mate.”
The minotaur grunted. “And?”
“And that’s it,” Ethan finished. “Crew from time to time don’t like it when the first mate gets…favors.”
Marcus waved a meaty hand at them both. “Bah. You humans have such ridiculous hang-ups.”
“Good; since that’s out of the way, there’s something you should know,” Ethan said, clapping his hands and leaning forward with his elbows resting on the table. “The ship we’re on apparently isn’t the Victory. It’s The Duchess.”
Marcus tilted his head before his eyes went wide, but instead of abject terror being reflected in them, what shone brightly was something more akin to total mania. “The Duchess! Of course! Any other spirit would have yielded to my call, but not her…oh, no. Not this one,” he said, chuckling. “The Duchess is a tempest no one can tame.”
“Perhaps, but what do you make of this?” Ethan said, showing him the deed.
Marcus took the parchment, and once he was finished studying it, he slid it back across the table to Ethan. “I think one of us will be visited by her shortly,” Marcus said. “She doesn’t reveal this deed until she’s fancied herself a new captain.”
“Reveal? No, you don’t understand. We found it,” Ethan said. “The three of us, after Azrael made a few comments back on the docks.”
Marcus chuckled darkly. “If that’s what you want to believe. So be it.”
“How and why we found it doesn’t matter,” Zoey said. “We really need to know if we’re in danger. All of us.”
“We’re always in danger,” Marcus replied. “But from The Duchess? I don’t think we are, at least, not until someone’s accepted her call. What happens after that? I have no idea.”
“Right,” Ethan said, clapping his hands together. “Then as the first order of business, or last, or whatever, as captain of the Victory—and only the Victory—I am hereby ordering everyone not to accept said call under any circumstances. Okay?”
Everyone agreed without the faintest hints of objection, after which they all left, save for Zoey. Once they were gone, the vampire closed the door and waited for a few beats to ensure no one was returning before asking Ethan one last question on the matter. “What are you going to do with that?”
Ethan looked down at the deed, unsure of the answer himself. “I think it might be best if I keep it on me,” he said.
“You don’t want to lock it up? Or maybe burn it?”
“Someone could still find it, and I’ve got a feeling burning it might be the worst of all our options.”
Zoey bit on her lower lip, her face awash with anxiety. “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“You know I don’t,” Ethan replied, forcing a smile. “But hey, we’ve been through worse, right? We’ll figure it out.”
Chapter Nineteen
The Duchess
“Ethan…it’s time…we…spoke,” spoke a slow, raspy voice. The words barely reached his ears, as if hissed by someone using their last breath. And though there was no force behind the words, the ancient power they exuded ripped Ethan from his dreams and sent him rocketing out of bed.
His feet hit an icy floor, and he felt like he hadn’t slept for a week. For the next several seconds, he watched his breath hang in the air as his brain tried to wrap itself around what had become of his cabin. Pale-yellow light filled the center of the room, muting all the colors to give it a surreal appearance. Shadows blotted out the corners, while dark tendrils seemed to grow from their depths and retreat a few seconds later in a tidal fashion. Seated on the other side of his table was a ghostly woman, translucent and white. Soulless eyes stared at him, while long, brushed hair fell well past her shoulders, and a teardrop pendant hung from a chain around her neck. A flowing dress with long sleeves and a delicate cape covered her frame with an intricate bodice cinched about her top.
From her lap, she drew a long dagger and motioned with it to the chair opposite her. “Sit.”
Ethan didn’t. Not even when his brain restarted. He jumped back and fumbled for weapons at his side that weren’t there, all the while trying to raise the alarm. “Zoey!” he shouted. “Zoey, wake up.”
“Sit,” she said once more with a
n eerie calm.
Ethan still didn’t. “Zoey, wake up!” he yelled once more. When she didn’t, he dared a look over his shoulder to find that only darkness filled his bed and not a sign of her could be seen anywhere. He raced over, clawed at covers that disintegrated in his hands.
“Ethan, sit,” she tried once more.
Ethan spun, backpedaling as he did. His heel struck the corner of the bed, and he nearly toppled but found the wall in time to keep from going over. All the while, the ghost kept her unnerving gaze upon him, sending icy shivers up his spine.
“What did you do with Zoey?” he demanded.
She didn’t answer.
Ethan glanced to the door. “Katryna?” he yelled. “Maii? Marcus!”
No one answered, and so Ethan did the only thing he could think of. He ran out as fast as he could. He yanked open the door with such force, it was a small miracle that he didn’t rip the handle off the door in the process, and before it was fully open, he’d already barreled through.
Ethan froze two steps into his stride. He stood, dumbfounded, two steps inside his cabin, with his back to the door and the ghost sitting, as it had been, watching him patiently.
“What the actual hell,” he stammered.
“Sit, Ethan,” she hissed. “Or run…if you like…in the end…you will…sit.”
“The hell I will,” he said, shaking his head. Again he pivoted. Again ran out the door. Again, he found himself right back where he’d started. His legs weakened, and he dug his fingers into his scalp, trying to ward off whatever insanity had taken hold of his psyche. One last time he went to the door, trying to tell himself this was some sort of nightmare he could break free of if he ran fast enough. But this time, when he flung open the door, he didn’t rush headlong through. He simply stood there to see what was on the other side.
She was. Unmoving. Uncaring. Seated at his table inside his shadowy cabin, exactly as she was if he turned back around.
The corner of her mouth drew back, ever so slight. “Sit. Ethan…We have...much…to discuss.”
The Crew (Captains & Cannons Book 2) Page 18