by R. J. Blain
The House Lost at Sea
R.J. Blain
The House Lost at Sea
The Tales of Catalina de la Corona Book One
by R.J. Blain
Cursed by the lover of her former captain, Catalina de la Corona, the Pirate Princess of the Seven Seas, has lived an unnaturally long life and longs for the day she can find eternal peace. Hiding in plain sight as an investment banker, she waits for the end of eternity and the death she has rightfully earned.
* * *
When a rich client's fascination with her captain and her lover threatens to exhume the watery grave of Catalina's past, she must take up arms against friends and enemies alike to protect her captain's legacy. Should the Calico's sunken ruins be discovered, Catalina’s one true treasure, the House Lost at Sea will be plundered, exposing the secret of Catalina's immortality, and guaranteeing she'll lose the only thing she has left: her freedom.
* * *
Copyright © 2020 by R.J. Blain
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by Daqri Bernardo of Covers by Combs.
Contents
1. Was my first offer not good enough?
2. I would spend the rest of my cursed days grumpy, miserable, and refusing to settle for less.
3. Over my dead body!
4. We’d both resented our need to return to our crews and the sea.
5. Living with the curse would be easier if I didn’t have to carry quite as many burdens around with me.
6. What sort of pirate wore lace panties?
7. Her captain had plenty of reasons to be proud of her.
8. I’d bite a hole in his new ship, too.
9. I loved the South African coast and its broken shores.
10. Ricardo would’ve been proud of me for contemplating a conquest.
11. They even broke into your walls.
12. Turnabout was always fair play
13. I thought you’d never ask.
14. I’m going to have to keep you on a short leash.
15. Get used to the idea.
16. At least one of you has a single grain of common sense. It’s a miracle.
17. Sometimes, I even went to their funerals.
18. He didn’t mind his temporary captivity
19. I had a mean streak at times.
20. Do you know how to fish, kid?
21. You’re loco, Captain Corona.
22. This is the only way up?
23. Nothing pissed me off quite as much as someone shooting me in the face.
24. Just sinking her wouldn’t be enough.
25. I told you I was tough to kill.
26. Well, maybe if your friend hadn’t shot me in the face, parts of it wouldn’t be missing.
27. There was no room on my ship for even more damned ghosts.
28. Who else was brave enough to beat sense into me?
29. Are all pirates so crude?
30. Time would tell. It always did.
31. I was wrong.
32. I didn’t think that through all the way.
33. Pirates shouldn’t return to where they’ve marooned enemy crews.
34. Somehow, my nightmare had become a dream.
About R.J. Blain
Chapter One of Hypnos: Seeking the Zodiacs
One
Was my first offer not good enough?
Instead of accepting my generous offer to get into the water-filled bag and come home with me, the octopus sprayed ink in my face. Leaning over the tank’s wall, I reached for his tentacles, waiting for the moment he cooperated and wrapped them around me. If he didn’t want to go into the bag willingly, I’d carry him around until he stopped fighting me, and then I’d stuff him in anyway.
“You’ll like it better with me,” I promised through clenched teeth, struggling to get a good hold on his slippery, slimy hide. “It’ll be fun. I’ll take you out to sea when you’ve been good, and we’ll have ourselves a great time.”
How many times could an octopus spray ink? More than twice, apparently. Spitting salty, black fluid out of my mouth, I made another grab for the newest love of my life. I expected my admiration for my unwilling companion would last however long it took the octopus to escape my clutches. Such interludes rarely lasted, but I would enjoy it while I could.
I gave it a few days—maybe longer if he accepted I’d transformed my entire dingy living room into a palace for him. Like me, he deserved better than being locked in a small tank and put on display for the world to see.
If anyone found out just how the sea had cursed me, my fellow humans would do exactly that, too. They’d lock me away and study me, and I’d never see the light of day ever again.
“Was my first offer not good enough? How about rations on me? A daily cap o’ rum? How about gold? I can do gold.”
I could, too. If the meager stash I kept hidden in my closet wasn’t enough to satisfy the cephalopod, I’d have to venture out to sea to raid my true hoard. I’d consider it a small price to pay for tolerable company.
Grunting from the effort of keeping a grip on my new friend, I hauled him from his tank and shoved him into the sack, sloshing water all over the floor. Tying shut a bag full of writhing octopus and water took a bit of work, but at least the thick, durable material protected me from another spraying.
We really needed to sit down and have a long talk about his inking habit.
With the main objective of my heist achieved, I needed to haul ass out of the area with my prize without getting caught. For some reason, the marine studies aquarium really didn’t appreciate when I liberated my friends from their prisons. One day, maybe one of them would stick around after their rescue, but until the octopus escaped from me, I’d make the most of the situation. The bronze placard adhered to his tank informed me his name was Maximus.
He seemed more like a Ricardo to me. I’d known a smart, clever Ricardo some one or two hundred years ago, and just like Maximus, he had hated getting in the sack, too.
Why couldn’t men and women understand the simplest truths of life? Pirates plundered, and once a pirate, always a pirate. So what if a few hundred years separated me from sailing the seas in search of wealth, glory, fame, and a good fight?
I missed the days when I could take whatever—and whomever—I wanted without it making a single lick of difference in the grand scheme of things.
Damn it, despite the long years, I still missed Ricardo. He’d been the best of my conquests, and I’d left the good parts of my heart with him in a past I couldn’t forget. I tried, at times, to fill in the gaping wounds, but time hadn’t done me any good on that front.
I refused to forget his fire, his flare, his resentment of my capturing of his person, and everything that had made us work so well together. After a few weeks of my company, his resentment had become a reckless passion.
He’d been my sea.
I’d been his stars.
Then fate had bit me in the ass, and he’d been retrieved by his damned crew, dumping me into one hell of a mess. My captain hadn’t been pleased by my dalliances with a rival pirate, but how could she blame me? I’d taken a treasure right out from under a captain’s nose, and I’d kept him for an entire six months while waiting to return to the ocean.
Those had been the best six months of my life, and I wanted them back.
The real reason annoyed me. My captain had fancied women and had seen zero use for my Ricardo. Worse, she’d resented I’d paid someone other than her any attention at all.
Sometimes, there was only one force stronger than my love for my old captain, and that’d been my hatred for her ruining what might have been with Ricardo.
Maximus protested his captivity through ramming the thick bag, reminding me I had more important things to do than grieve what might have been had things just been a little different.
“First they’ll see the ink you sprayed everywhere,” I complained, dragging the unwieldy sack across the slick floors on route to the pier stretching out into the ocean. “Then they’ll call the cops, because heaven forbid someone liberate an octopus from his glass prison. After that? The cops will start sniffing around, causing me trouble again. Why is it they always blame me first? Just because I showed a lot of interest in that other octopus last year doesn’t mean I’m the culprit. It’s not my fault you all are so devilishly smart. Maybe if you weren’t so smart, I wouldn’t have to liberate you from their filthy clutches.”
Without fail, whenever I witnessed someone—or something—do something deviously clever, I got involved. Humans took work to approach, and for some reason, they didn’t appreciate my open advances, especially if they were women, too. They didn’t even care if I just wanted to be their friend. At least animals, especially cephalopods, made delightful companions. One day, I’d find one willing to stick around for more than a few minutes.
The instant I opened his bag, he’d be long gone, probably chasing down some octopus hussy so they could make lots of little babies together.
I sighed and dragged Maximus outside to the pier. It’d taken me at least twenty minutes longer than I liked to bust him out of the joint; the sirens of approaching police cars warned me of trouble headed my way. Too bad for them, I’d come prepared. Maybe one day the aquarium would learn to install a security system worth writing home about. Until then, I’d walk in and out of the place like I owned it.
Working my foot under the sloshing bag, I shoved it into the ocean. The waxed, waterproofed material caught on a nail, and before I could do more than sigh my resignation over my cursed luck, the sack tore open just enough to dump my squirming, tentacled bounty into the sea. “Well, shit.”
At least I didn’t end up with another stream of ink in my face, although the moonlit water darkened, evidence of Maximus’s displeasure. “Ungrateful wretch!”
Maximus didn’t stick around, leaving me to fend for myself and make my own escape. The sirens drew closer, and I heaved a sigh before jumping into the ink-stained sea.
The short swim along the coast to my motorcycle allowed me to dodge the cops. Within thirty minutes of losing my bounty to the sea, my bike roared while I skirted the coast of mainland Connecticut before cutting into New York to my house tucked deep in the woods. The tires crunched on gravel, reminding me I needed to get around to paving the driveway. I pulled up to the stone sidewalk, killed the engine, and grimaced at my home’s decrepit state.
Forget the driveway; if I didn’t do something about the roof or the siding, the next stiff wind would knock the whole thing down around my ears, and it’d serve me right. I could handle multi-million dollar accounts, but the instant I needed to buckle down and act like a landlubber, bad things happened.
Usually to my house.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Without an octopus to keep me company, I wouldn’t need the aquarium I’d set up in my living room. I stomped my way to the front door and stormed my way inside, wincing at the creak of abused wood and rusting metal. I really, really needed to do something about my house, soon.
Maybe I needed to give up masquerading as a human and make one last trip to the ocean, living out the rest of my life as a shark. Sharks had it easy. Humans expected sharks to eat them, so I’d be appropriately feared. A few pirates still existed, but they were mere shadows of the past and lacked proper pride and dignity. Most people hated them, and the so-called successful pirates didn’t last long before the various governments around the world dealt with them.
They were weak, and it shamed me that they polluted the seas.
Gone were the days a clever pirate could strike fear into the hearts of men around the world. Gone were the days when one good ship and a better crew could face off against the navy with a hope of victory. Gone were the days of gold, spice, and treasures hidden away on distant shores for another day.
I missed those times.
All thinking about that did was remind me that those I cared for most were gone, especially my fiery Ricardo.
Muttering curses my captain would’ve cleaned my mouth out over, I squeezed my way around the massive tank, already regretting the removal of my couch and coffee table. Getting the glass and metal monstrosity of an aquarium inside, piece by piece, had cost me a fortune, as had filling it with the absolute perfect water for my new octopus, who had made his grand escape out to sea. The filters and pumps mimicking the ocean purred, and a fortune in handpicked corals swayed in the artificial currents.
With so many of the sea’s corals dying, it’d taken a great deal of work to find good livestock. Any aquarium in the world would want my corals, each chosen to transform the huge tank into a reef worth praise.
There was even a nice flat rock for me to lounge on in the tank. I’d indulge, too, as soon as I got the ink off me. I headed to the bathroom, yanking off my clothes and dumping them in the hamper. From past experience, a lot of scrubbing would eventually get the black mess off.
I might not have any skin when I finished, but I couldn’t afford to show up to work dusky skinned or splotched. At least my hair escaped unscathed; octopus ink couldn’t dye black hair darker. My Spanish heritage gave me a bronzed skin tone, so if I scrubbed enough, no one would notice my run-in with Maximus.
If push came to shove, I could always take my motorcycle out on a ride and eat gravel; it took more than a crash to do more than inconvenience me, and if I had enough cuts and scrapes, no one would notice something as insignificant as a few ink stains.
One shower and half a bottle of body wash later, I decided I could model for a domestic violence magazine without working at it. The ink stains resembled bruises, and red ringed my eyes as a memento of Maximus’s very short time with me.
“Well screw me with a plank,” I muttered. Tomorrow, I’d have a lot of questions to answer unless I managed to figure out how to apply makeup without looking like a cheap whore. Sometimes, I enjoyed spending time with a cheap but smart whore, but modern society didn’t appreciate them the way us pirates had. Modern society also didn’t like when men whored themselves out for pay. I’d never understand the preference for female prostitutes.
A pity, that.
A soak would help, and since I’d gone through all the trouble of setting up a miniature sea in my living room, I’d enjoy the damned thing, with or without an octopus to keep me company. I made it halfway across my house before the phone rang. Sighing, I pivoted and stormed into my bedroom, eyeing the wretched device.
It rang again.
On days like today, I wanted to introduce myself as Catalina de la Corona Something-or-Other, Pirate Princess of the Seven Seas, First Mate of the Pirate Queen Louisa de la Something-or-Other, the Shark Tamer, along with some other string of titles I couldn’t remember. I’m pretty sure some idiot had dubbed her ‘the Shark Tamer’ after I’d gotten tossed overboard during a battle and spent the rest of the fight eating the enemy in my cursed form. I may or may not have eaten everyone tossed overboard, friend or foe, but I’d gotten a little better at controlling the blood frenzy since then.
I hadn’t eaten anyone in a long, long time.
Over three hundred years ago, the long chain of gibberish would have impressed someone, but now? Now I went by Cathy, and I couldn’t even remember how to speak Spanish anymore. I sighed, snatched the phone off its hook, and spat, “Cathy.”
“Girl, you need to lighten up.”
Of all the people who could have bothered me, Benny wasn’t too bad for a human. While he was a little dumb, his buckets of sweetness made up for it, which
was why I tolerated him around when I would have kicked any other human to the curb. It didn’t hurt the middle-aged man was handsome enough for a landlubber. “Long day. You don’t call unless you want something. What can I do for you?”
“Remember that cute little getup you wore last Halloween?”
“Yes. Why?” I arched a brow, glancing towards my locked armoire, which contained every last bit of my pirate apparel. Over the centuries, I had been forced to replace bits and pieces of it, upgrading the leathers and choosing silk over the rough linen meant to withstand life at sea. A few frills turned one of my shirts into something a bit closer to what a captain showing off would wear, and I tolerated the suffocating corsets Captain Louisa had favored when we made land and went on the prowl for a good time.
More often than not, she had done the prowling and I had done the kidnapping, which suited me.
She had been the looks, I had been the brawn, and together, we should have ruled the high seas. Then another pirate queen had come along and stolen Captain Louisa’s affections away from me. That damned pirate queen had been Ricardo’s captain, too, the kicker of the entire shitty situation. Their ill-fated love had ruined everything, and my captain and crew rested at the bottom of the sea while I suffered through the ocean’s curse alone.
My captain had charted a new course in her hopes of ruling the high seas with a woman who had, in the end, cost us everything. Somewhere far away, the other queen’s ship rested on the ocean floor, too.