by Sophie Avett
“It was your father's shop?”
“Yes. One of the first here in New Gotham. “
Marshall stifled a wayward sigh. “Your father was one of those true believers in the union between the species, wasn’t he?”
“No, nothing so noble.” She turned her attention to the snowy landscape. “My mother's people are proud. Their union was unsanctioned. My mother stayed with the tribe. He left.” She pursed her lips. “The shop is what is left of what he built after his life with her ended.”
“By saving his shop, you’re trying to honor his memory? That's…” his eyes flitted from side to side, “cute.”
“Don't be ridiculous. My father is dead.” Her jaw cemented into that stubborn set he recognized all so well. “I'm trying to save the shop to save the shop. I need an income. A roof over my head. Food in my belly.”
She spoke with conviction, but a shadow that passed over her face suggested she wasn’t telling the truth. Even to herself. Marshall nodded. He could relate. He pushed thoughts of Sir Henry Ansley from his mind and gathered the last of his paperwork and filed it into his briefcase. Why couldn’t she just walk away? She could sell what was left of her father’s stock and the building. Surely it would be enough to start over. Why did she stay?
If she could feel his scrutiny, she didn’t act like it. Her attention was firmly locked beyond the tinted glass, and she absentmindedly clasped the amulet hanging around her neck. Ornate and obviously ancient, a large ruby red gem gleamed amongst the silver setting. A gift from her father, maybe.
“You say the match between your parents was unsanctioned.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Yes? And?”
He studied her face, searching for a crack in composure. Anything that might offer yet another sliver of clarity. “Was it a difference in status? Or a difference in monster?”
Still as a stone, she studied him as if his intentions could be found written across his face. They couldn’t. “What are you asking?”
What are you? He didn't ask the question, but it hung in the air. Unspoken. Heavy between them. Instead, he tried for a different approach. “Am I to assume you are not wholly coven? Only a half-breed like myself?”
The car rolled to a halt.
Elsa gathered her cloak and drew her hood, casting her features in shadow. “Assume what you will, vampire.”
Chapter Six
There were too many. Way too many.
Moonlight did not penetrate the mist and fog so much as give the billowing cloud an eerie, haunting glow. Pain twinged in Elsa’s jaw and she ground her molars together as Marshall led her through the procession of monsters marching across the damp, rotted planks of the pier.
Sea and salt perfumed the air, matched only by the sticky sweet remnants of spectral dust and the lull of magic. Water lapped at the edge of the docks, the shrill cry of a seagull echoing across the shrouded indigo sky. They walked. Footfalls against deadwood. Most of them slick business wear and sharp heels. It was a parade of the rich, and there was no end in sight.
Why were there so many? Where were they going? Her nerve endings tingled. There was definitely magic here. This was a gathering spot of some sort, like the club, and yet, she had never heard of any such gathering spot on the docks.
Puffs of fur brushed against her cloak as a werewolf shuffled past her, murmuring an apology as he went. Sweat created a thin film across her brow and she fisted her amulet. Relished the bite of silver. Clung to it for calm.
Marshall worked her stressed fingertips out of his forearm. “Elsa.”
She twisted the ring around her middle finger. “My apologies.”
“Is everything all right?”
“I am not accustomed to so many.”
He caught her hand and tucked it back around his arm. “We’re almost there.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Elsa’s wide eyes roved around the crowd. “Have I given you the mistaken impression I appreciate surprises?”
“This one is worth it. Trust me.”
“I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”
His eyebrows knitted. “Exactly how far could you throw me?”
“If I find your surprise lacking, I will oblige your curiosity. Trust me.”
“John, stop it!” The girlish cry drew Elsa’s attention over her shoulder. A family of brownies came into view. A mother, father, and three children. Strange. Unlike other major factions, the fey did not usually deign to live amongst other men and monsters in Dante’s cities. They certainly did not consider themselves part of the political atmosphere, preferring to add to whichever global discussion they’d been hauled into in an advisory capacity only.
This world and those who would protect it were beneath them and their ancient civilizations. Many of the ones who did live amongst other monsters in the cities did so because of extraneous circumstances. Others like herself had simply been born in this realm and stayed. Those who did regularly cross over The Veil either did so temporarily out of fun or as a part of illegal smuggling.
The short brownie with meaty hands and a fraying ball cap tugged at his sister’s flaxen pigtails once more and she swatted him on the cheek, “Ma! John won’t stop it.”
“John, stop bothering your sister.” The mother glanced over her shoulder and her wide mouth dipped in a frown. “Help your brother, John. Don’t let Timothy fall too far behind.”
John rolled his eyes and yanked his brother off of his feet by his arm as a way of forcing him to keep pace with the family. Timothy’s little legs could scarcely keep up, sweat poured from his brow, and his pale, ashen skin flushed with exertion. But his face was empty of anything but wonder. Bright brown eyes roved from one monster to another. The sea. The foggy sky. The moon.
Timothy met her gaze. Startled brown eyes widened as color touched his cheeks. His pointed ears were still too big for his head and they flapped as he ducked his mouth behind a threadbare scarf. Her senses tingled and she tilted her head. A glamour? For what?
“What are you looking at?” The mother slid into view, her eyes slitted, her hackles raised by Elsa’s sudden interest.
Marshall cleared his throat but didn’t offer comment.
“Nothing,” Elsa muttered and schooled her attention to the bobbing sea of heads before her.
“John! Ma!”
“Hush, Sally. You’ll raise the dead.”
“Miriam,” said Father Brownie. “How much farther do you suppose it is?”
“The Maker’s knickers, Harold, I don’t know. John! Watch your brother.”
Soon, they’d overtaken the creatures. She could still hear them. Her senses were still tingling. She peeked at the vampire and bit her lip as she looked over her shoulder and murmured an incantation.
Demon. Its putrid green aura glowed to life. It had no doubt managed its way into their family undetected. A malevolent spirit, slowly poisoning its host.
Shimmering red threads were woven around the boy’s tiny waist, connected at the spirit’s belly button. A magical umbilical cord. It was no wonder his tiny body had to work so hard. The parasite grew in an angry web across the boy’s back, its roots puncturing holes in his fraying sweater, anchoring into his flesh. Insidious. Black. Shining tentacles. Her calves flexed as she drew more magic and read the seams of the pact that bound spirit and fey together.
It had offered the power to cure him of what ailed him and the boy had made a deal he did not understand.
Their gazes met. Timothy wasn’t there. Gone for a while until the creature weakened and was forced to relinquish control of the host’s body. His legs strengthened beneath him and he ripped his arm out of his brother’s grasp, who was only too happy to be freed of the burden so he could tug at his sister’s pigtails.
“John!” hollered the girl.
Timothy swiveled his head like an owl, his wide mouth split, revealing sharp spindly teeth capable of gnawing diamonds to dust. The mist thi
ckened and swallowed his tiny form in darkness. “Don’t forget, I can see you too,” it spoke in a booming voice that betrayed it for the ancient it was. He cackled and the shadows rattled like windows against turbulent wind.
Fear wormed its way down her spine, blood pounding in her ears so loud she was surprised the vampire walking next to her didn’t offer comment. She bared her blunt teeth. Try me.
The procession halted and Elsa nearly stumbled into the witch in front of her.
“What—”
Marshall checked his fob watch. “Shh, wait for it.”
In the distance, the clock tower in the middle of the city center marked midnight. Magic quickened in the air, parting the fog in tattered rags to reveal an inky black sea. Dread dropped in her stomach. Her kind wasn’t meant to sail. The ocean was a tricky thing. It was odd—shifting, cursed, unpredictable. Not like the trusty stone or the solid earth.
“Are we waiting for a ship?”
He chuckled softly as if her curiosity was strangely endearing. “Hush and find out.”
Sails flapped in the wind, mast creaking, the shudder of an anchor. She frowned, searching for the source of the sounds. Nothing. The crowd’s murmur assured her she hadn’t been the only one to hear phantom noises. And yet, there was nothing. Nothing but the ocean reaching back toward the misty horizon.
Brisk wind surged and howled, battering against the hushed crowd, and her hood was knocked back on her shoulders. Saltwater crashed against the pier, spraying against upturned faces, and the icy currents nipped at her exposed cheeks.
The ship appeared seemingly out of thin air. One moment, there was nothing but the impenetrable briny blue deep. And the next, a spectral ark pierced the nebulous atmosphere and pulled into port. A ghost ship. Palatine Light was inscribed on its spectral hull. Soft snowflakes billowed from the skies and will o’ wisps clung to its long elegant body in ghostly garlands of blue, white, and violet.
Marshall motioned to the ship. “Well?”
She refused him a reaction beyond, “Not bad.”
“Please stop, Ms. Karr, or you’ll inflate my ego.” He smirked, but sobered rather quickly as monsters began to shuffle to allow room for the gangplank to be lowered onto the docks.
“Ms. Karr,” Marshall grabbed her hood and pulled it up over her head, “from this moment on, you’re mine.”
She swallowed the urge to remind him once again that she didn’t need his protection, and allowed him to loop her arm in his.
“Follow my lead and stay close,” he added.
At the time of its maiden voyage, the Princess Augusta, known now as the Palatine Light, was already considered a luxury ship. A gorgeous, full-rigged barquentine with four masts, it was to be home to two hundred and fifty monsters, a third of which were seasonal crew. Embroidered with thousands of blinking will o’ wisps, it was a beacon on Bethesda Bay…and one hell of a place to spend the holiday.
Men and women, monsters of all kinds, shuffled off the snowy docks into the atrium—the very heart of the ship. The spectral hull, majestic, gleaming, and ethereal was nothing compared to the majesty below the deck. Church-like, steeply pitched ceilings, cross gables, pointed gothic arches, it spoke of a time long past. Bellhops rushed past with glimmering carts. Skeleton maids dusted castle-like parapets and hauntingly festive decorations. It was magical, medieval, and irrevocably dark.
Marshall and Elsa slowly made their way to one of the check-in kiosks set up in a row to allow for a quicker check-in rate. Behind the cherry wood podium stood a creature with the most beautiful opal orbs for eyes and a welcoming smile. Wet, pale blonde hair was matted to her head and leaked glistening drops down her airy white dress. The uniform’s fabric moved with her, wisps swaying with a life of their own. She was ghoulish. Dead. And so very pretty.
“Princess Augusta welcomes you aboard the Palatine Light and bids you both a warm season’s greetings.”
Setting his bag on the shining oak floors, Marshall pulled an envelope from his pocket. He fished out two tickets and slid them across the waxed wood counter top.
“I have a reservation.”
“Wonderful.” The ghoul held her hand over an antique datebook, magically paging through it. She checked it against his tickets and stamped them. “Merry met, Mr. Ansley. Have you ever traveled with us before?”
Something yanked at the hem of Elsa’s cloak and tightened the knot around her windpipe. She glanced over her shoulder. Nothing. Just a long line. Maybe a small creature had trampled it on accident.
Glittering crystal caught Elsa’s eye and drew her attention to the left. She had glimpsed the forms carved into the walls upon her entrance—they were not carvings at all. Ice had fused petrified man and beast to the wood. Dead. Frozen in mid-movement, each face painted a different picture.
Hysteria. Panic. Anguished desperation. Hope. Every emotion locked and preserved in a dazzling sheet of ice wallpapering the atrium from its gilded baseboards to the top of its domed ceiling. Chills seeped through the protective velvet of her cloak. What happened here?
Something tugged. Again.
Jaw clenched, she threw a frown over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at the small culprits. John, that terrible little boy from the docks, Timothy—though, she knew very well that creature wearing his skin was not Timothy—and another smaller creature.
Barely a foot tall, the diminutive nisse lifted its dreary blue cap and wiggled its bushy green eyebrows.
Fantastic—Christmas elves. Little drunken bastards.
John realized he still held her cloak, dropped it, and put his hands behind his back like others.
She flashed her teeth at them. “Stop.”
The lady ghoul bent and scanned the rows of hooked keys. “Excuse me, Mr. Ansley, while I fetch your room key.”
“Room?” Elsa tapped Marshall’s arm. “We are to share a room?”
Marshall looped an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. “Yes. How else would we maintain the illusion?”
The ghoul surfaced with a piece of paper and a brass skeleton key with a white tag. “Please sign this…”
He plucked a quill out of an ink well and signed his name on the dotted line with quick, confident lines.
Another tug against her throat, followed by hushed, hissing giggles. Her spine bowed like an angry cat’s as she bunched her shoulders and curled her fingers into white-knuckled fists. Thor’s bleeding hammer, I will start to crack skulls if these little…
“Perhaps we shouldn’t…” she recognized John’s lilting accent.
“Ha! She can't catch me.” The tiny rigging voice of an elf. “Too fat and slow…ugh, and ugly. She’d have to roll if she ever wanted to catch me!”
“John! Tim! What are you doing?” the mother demanded.
“Wait, Ma! There was a—well, he was just right here. I swear it. Tell her, Tim.”
“Whaaa? I just got here.”
Elsa forced herself to count backwards and consoled herself with the knowledge that their mother had returned to exact some kind of control over her brood. The ghoul behind the counter filed the paper into the datebook. “Thank you, Mr. Ansley. Since this is your first time aboard our ship, would you appreciate a brochure and some other literature?”
Marshall plucked the key from the ghoul’s dainty hand and tilted his head to catch her gaze. His lush mouth curved. “Yes, thank you…?”
“Adriane,” she supplied, her arched cheeks colored with a blush. Elsa bit the inside of her lip—hard. The look in his eye. That irritatingly devilish smile. All of it was vaguely familiar.
The ghoul noticed her regard and slanted a polite, however dismissive, glance her way. “A room for your friend, Mr. Ansley?”
“That won’t be necessary.” He pointedly lowered his gaze to the stacks of brochures assembled neatly on the table. “The literature, love?”
“Oh, right.” She set to work collecting one of each. His breathy chuckle riled the shadows beneath her desk and she bit back a little lau
gh, shifting as if the brush with darkness tickled.
“The itinerary will give you a rundown of all of the activities planned for this voyage. The rest are little packets, extra information about the ship. Like the ship’s history…” she giggled and shifted again as he leisurely undressed her with his eyes, “main attractions.”
Nauseating. The entire scene was nauseating. Lowering her chin, Elsa folded her arms across her chest. Why should she care? It was not as though being eclipsed was new to her. A ghoulish bellhop slipped between Elsa and Marshall to collect his bags, and pointed to the carpet bag in her grip. She allowed him to take it. He raised an eyebrow as he noted the band on her finger.
“Ma, put me down!” John wailed, he and Timothy trapped beneath their mother’s arms like two squirming sacks of flour. She paid the boy no mind, her mouth hanging open at the exchange happening at the counter.
Curse the fey—they always had an opinion.
Apparently, it was one shared by anyone else who had correctly deduced what the ring seated on Elsa’s finger meant.
The ghoul leaned forward on the counter and used the tip of her quill to signal directions, silver pentagram swinging between the valley of her breasts. Marshall told a joke and the once-witch laughed.
The throaty purr grated its nails across Elsa’s mind like crosses on a chalkboard. Echoing through her mind to remind her never to trust her guarded heart to the likes of the vampire flirting so shamelessly in front of her. He was a heartbreaker. And he’d already torn through one woman who’d been foolish enough to wear his ring. She dropped her eyes to the circlet on her middle finger and closed her hand. Enough.
“Sir Ansley, you flatter. As you can see—”
“Are you finished?” Elsa snapped.
The ghoul’s grip tightened around her quill as her opal eyes flittered between them, but she wisely kept silent. Marshall’s expression darkened, but he managed a polite nod as he gathered the literature off the counter top. “Please, excuse me, Adriane, and thank you for all your help.”
She nodded, eyeing Elsa warily. “No…problem.”