“About time,” Junkyard said with a half-smile. “I could use a drink. It’s been a hell of a day around here.”
“Aye, it has.” Taeral pushed his plate away and folded his hands on the table. “I believe I will join you in your libations, Mr. Wilt.”
“Glad to hear it, mate.”
Sadie elbowed him. “What are you doing?” she said under her breath. “You can’t—”
“Refuse the generosity of our hosts? Of course not,” Taeral said, still as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. “I would not dream of it.”
Damn it. This was not even a little bit good. Taeral and alcohol had issues going back decades. He was a mean drunk, an angry drunk … and once he got going, he didn’t want to stop. This past year was the longest he’d been dry since he started drinking heavily — which he’d been doing for almost thirty years straight — and it seemed like he was finally beating the addiction.
If he drank now, it’d be harder than ever to really stop. And he’d barely escaped it the last time.
“Taeral, come on,” I said, low enough that no one else would hear me. “You really don’t want to do this.”
He turned a rigid smile on me. “Yes, I really do,” he said.
“Le do thíl, daartheír. Nach ag éighin bróhn.”
It wasn’t a spell. I’d just asked him in the Fae language not to do something he’d regret. But Alex cleared her throat loudly and glared at me. “What was that?”
“He said, ‘Please, brother, relax and enjoy a drink with our hosts.’ Which is exactly what I intend to do.” Taeral sent a calm stare at the captain. “Would you like to learn the Fae tongue, Miss Walsh? I could teach you a number of colorful expressions you could use to curse me in private.”
“Oh, I don’t need Fae words to curse you, and I sure as hell don’t need privacy,” she shot back. “We’ve got plenty of our own curses. Haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘Swear like a sailor’?”
The whole crew laughed at that, even Dom, and I managed to relax a little. But I was still extremely worried about Taeral drinking — and so was Sadie, judging by her tight expression.
Taeral reached over and patted her leg. “Do not be concerned, love,” he said. “I’ve enough restraint to handle a friendly drink or two with these men.
She sighed and looked away. That meant she was furious with him but she couldn’t do a damned thing about it, which pissed her off even more. Of course, Taeral knew that. But right now he didn’t seem to care.
Just then, Low Tide returned with two big bottles of cheap whiskey and a stack of glass tumblers. How perfect. Taeral’s favorite choice for getting black-out drunk. The engineer-slash-cook passed out glasses, opened a bottle and handed it to Mr. Wilt, who poured Taeral the first drink.
It was going to be a long damned night.
CHAPTER 14
A drink or two turned into five or six. By the end of the second bottle, Taeral had arm-wrestled Dom and claimed he’d let the big man win, shown off his lodestone pendant to Junkyard and said he could crumple the entire ship into a big metal ball if he wanted to, and gotten an invitation from Mr. Wilt to play cards with the crew below decks. Where, apparently, there were more bottles waiting.
Through it all, Alex had remained stone-cold sober and watched Taeral like a hawk. But she hadn’t tried anything.
Now the deck was cleared except for Sadie, Grygg and I. The twins were still at the helm. The crew had left the table and chairs, after clearing the dishes and leftovers, and they’d brought up three cots before Taeral and his new friends headed below.
There was a lot of noise down there. Gruff talk, raucous laughter. At least someone was having fun.
Sadie and I sat across from each other at the far end of the table, closest to Grygg. She was currently staring miserably at her folded hands and trying not to listen to the sounds of Taeral getting completely shitfaced. “I should’ve known,” she said softly without looking up. “I mean, he packed three bottles of elderberry wine. Said it was for ‘medicinal purposes’.” Her features twisted. “Yeah, right.”
“Hey, he probably meant that. At least at the time.” I patted her hands and glanced back to the three bags along the railing. Grygg hadn’t brought anything along. “You never know. Maybe we’ll need it,” I said. “As for this … uh, lapse in judgment …”
“Lapse in judgment?” she nearly shouted. “He’s down there destroying everything he worked so hard for. And why? Because some witch hates him.” Her teeth ground together. “As if there weren’t worse things trying to kill all of us, all the time. What the hell makes her a special case?”
I sighed and murmured, “I wish I knew.”
“This isn’t right, Gideon. If I lose him to the bottle again—”
“You won’t,” I said firmly. “You’re the reason he stopped in the first place.”
She let out a long, shuddering breath. “I’m just so worried about him.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
I was just about to try changing the subject, maybe take her mind off it for a few minutes, when I realized Grygg must’ve been walking toward us for a while now — he’d almost reached the table. “Are you all right, Miss Sadie?” he rumbled.
She looked around with a start and pulled a half-smile. “I’m fine,” she said.
“No, you’re not.”
“Maybe not, but I will be,” she said. “How are you holding up? You haven’t said much about being out here, and I thought you didn’t like water.”
Grygg appeared to consider this. “I don’t,” he finally said. “But this is necessary. I need answers.”
I decided now would be a good time to try finding out why Grygg had gone all Magic Eight Ball cryptic back at the docks. “How do you know you’re going to find whatever you’re looking for on this trip?” I said. “I mean, we’re going to some random shipwreck to find Lady Tethys’s dead ancestor or something. You don’t even know her … do you?”
“No,” he said. “But I recognized the harbor.”
It took me a few seconds to realize he meant the marina. “Where we boarded the ship,” I said. “You’ve been to those docks before?”
“There were no docks when I came. Only a few ships.”
Sadie cocked her head slightly. “Uh, when you came where?”
“To the harbor, to this land. Four hundred years ago.”
“Whoa,” I said. “You came to America on a ship way back then?”
“Not on a ship.” He gestured toward the railing and the night-black expanse of water beyond. “From the ocean.”
“You just … walked out of the ocean,” I said slowly.
“Yes.” Grygg closed his eyes, gray as the rest of him, like he was searching his mind for something. “It’s the first thing I remember,” he said as he opened them again. “The endless cold, endless black crush of water. I walked through it, never stopping, knowing there must be light and land. I had to protect…” His gaze unfocused for a moment, and then he shook his head. “I don’t remember what, or who. Just that single word. Protect.”
Well, that sort of explained Grygg’s near-fanatical dedication to protecting everything around him. One vague four-hundred-year-old directive, and he’d hung his entire life on it. Maybe that was why he wanted answers so badly. “How long were you in the ocean?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Weeks. Months. I walked until the blackness softened through gray, then blue, and finally, light. I came to the harbor. And I protected … him.”
Sadie frowned. “Him who?”
A mildly troubled expression washed over Grygg’s stone features. “His name was stolen from me,” he said. “But he taught me to shape the magic. He gave me the Hive to protect, and told me to keep the Others there. To keep them away.”
Okay, that sounded kind of ominous. “Away from what?” I said.
Before he could answer, the commotion from below decks increased sharply. It sounded like a bunch of them had started banging
their fists on a table in unison. Above the pounding, a single voice rose in a bellow, muffled but recognizable. “Fine, then! I’ve warned the lot of you what the sight of a Fae’s true form can do to a man. Look on me and be damned!”
Taeral sounded a hell of a lot drunker than I ever thought it was possible to be.
The pounding stopped all at once, like a flipped switch. There were long seconds of silence — and then a round of rough cheers, laughter, and scattered applause.
“Oh, my God,” Sadie gasped, pushing her chair back sharply as she shot to her feet. “He dropped his glamour. We have to get him out of there.”
I was halfway to agreeing, but I took my time getting up. The noise was already dying back down to a dull roar. “Doesn’t seem to bother them too much,” I said. “Maybe we’d better be a little diplomatic about this. You know, less demanding to take him away and more suggesting he get some sleep.”
Mostly I was thinking about my brother’s nasty temper and what kind of spells he’d blast me with if I tried to interrupt his fun. But Sadie wasn’t having it. “He doesn’t deserve diplomacy,” she half-shouted. “He’s taking this way too far. When he sobers up, I’m gonna kick his ass.”
“All right.” I knew better than to stand in the way of Angry Sadie. When she really got going, she could out-temper any Fae. “Let’s go demand to take him away.”
Just then, there was a strangled shout from below, followed by shattering glass. Then some thumping and banging, yells of confusion, the sounds of a scuffle.
And in the middle of it all, a gun went off.
CHAPTER 15
I was already sprinting for the door. About half a second after I flung it open, Taeral stumbled through and fell face-first onto the deck. He was glamourless, gasping for breath, and he’d definitely been shot. There was a ragged, bloody hole in the front of his shirt, about halfway down and slightly to the left.
I barely noticed the knot of crew people blocking the bottom of the stairs, or the string of curses Alex was unloading between demands for them to get out of the way. I was so angry, I was literally seeing red.
“Taeral!” Sadie shoved me aside hard enough to bang into the open door and crouched, already getting his arm around her shoulders. “I’m going to kill her myself. I swear to God,” she snarled. “Gideon—”
“Not now. Those bullets are cold iron, remember?” I went down on his other side to help get him up, trying to avoid the wound. It was pretty much impossible. “We have to get it out of him before we do anything else.”
Taeral groaned sharply, but he came up with us and started limping along as we led him toward the railing. “Witch … poisoned me,” he gasped.
“I know.” His shirt was already drenched in blood, and he was leaving a trail on the deck. So much for miracles. Now about the only miracle that’d happen here was if I didn’t kill her before Sadie could. “We’re going to get the bullet out.”
“Not just…” Taeral coughed, and then visibly bit back a scream as his body jerked stiff. “She gave me wine. Laced with mandrake oil.”
My gut drew itself into knots. Mandrake oil wasn’t just poison — it was torture. If a Fae drank even a drop of the stuff, it amplified every sensation to about a hundred times above normal. Including pain.
And I thought I couldn’t possibly get any more furious.
When we reached the side railing, by unspoken consent we lowered him gently down into a seated position. I had two blades on me, since knives had always been my weapon of choice. I hated guns, and I wasn’t all that great at aiming. Wouldn’t use the dagger because it was enchanted to cause extra damage. But the folding knife in my back pocket would do.
Just as I pulled it out, the noise from below decks changed from loud curses and arguing voices to pounding feet and shouts to stop. Alex had broken through. I slapped the blade into Sadie’s hand and looked hard at her. “Take care of him,” I said. “I’ll handle the captain.”
She only hesitated for a second before she gave a tight nod.
When I turned and started back toward the door, Alex was already out and coming at me gun-first. “Move it,” she spat. “Or I’ll shoot you, too.”
I held a hand out. “Dei’ahmael caen.”
The gun wrenched itself from her hand, flew straight into mine. And I whipped around and threw the damned thing, up and over the railing to drop somewhere in the ocean. There was probably a splash, though it wasn’t audible over the sound of the ship’s engine.
The momentary shock on her face turned to absolute rage. “Fine! I know plenty of ways to kill you,” she shouted. “If you don’t get out of my way—”
“Na boegth!”
She froze in place.
I ignored her for the moment and addressed the rest of the crew, who’d piled onto the deck and stood gaping at the scene. “I’m going to assume you all tried to stop her,” I said. “And I’d better be right about that.”
Junkyard stepped forward, holding up both hands. “Yeah, we did,” he said. “I don’t know what got into her. Taeral’s all right, you know?”
The rest of them murmured agreement.
“Okay, then. Thank you,” I said.
“You got it, mate.” Mr. Wilt moved around from the back. “Anything we can do to help out, then? We don’t want him dyin’ on us.”
I gestured toward the back railing where we’d left our bags. “You can grab that black duffel and bring it up here,” I said. “He brought … a kind of antidote along, and it looks like he’s going to need some.”
“On it.”
As Mr. Wilt hustled along the deck, I glared at the spellbound Alex and then turned to Sadie. “How’s it going?”
“Got the bullet out.” Her voice was ragged with concern. “He’s still conscious, so that’s something.”
“Feeling better already, love,” Taeral murmured.
“Sure you are. You know, if I didn’t—”
“Aye, I know.” He tried to smirk. “You would kick my ass.”
“Damn right.”
A little of the tension eased. At least I was pretty sure Taeral wouldn’t die, though it was going to be a hard recovery. Now, I had to do something about Alex.
I faced her with my jaw clenched, so I wouldn’t throw any of the more painful spells I’d recently learned at her. “You’re either insane, or you’ve figured out why Taeral seems familiar,” I said. “So I’m going to release the spell, and you’re going to explain yourself. And if you try anything that isn’t talking, I will knock you the hell out. Understand?”
She couldn’t answer, and I didn’t expect her to. But I could see she got the point.
I gestured at her. “Saohram iahd.”
Her body slumped slightly as the spell released its hold. She shivered, crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. “It was him,” she said in a grating voice. “That blue-skinned thing. He’s the one who stole my mother.”
“Um. What?”
I couldn’t help sounding dumbfounded. That made absolutely no sense. But before I could clarify my question, she said, “He stole her! Put a spell on her, enchanted her, took her away to fairyland. I saw him in our house!” Her eyes darted a poisoned glance at Taeral. “And when my mother left, my father told me she was under the thrall of a Fae. It was him. But … his eyes were silver.” She shivered again. “They aren’t now, but it doesn’t matter! You assholes can obviously change your appearance.”
For a moment I couldn’t respond at all. There was exactly one Fae whose true form bore a strong resemblance to Taeral, but with silver eyes instead of black and gold.
Daoin.
“Alex, it wasn’t Taeral,” I finally said.
“Yes, it damned well was!”
“Be quiet.” I started toward her, and she backed away in alarm. “It wasn’t Taeral,” I repeated, lowering my voice so that only Alex could hear me. I didn’t want Taeral following this conversation just yet. “It was his father.”
“Bullshit,” she hisse
d, though there was a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. “The Fae I saw wasn’t old enough to be his father.”
“The Fae don’t age the way humans do. Taeral has looked exactly the way he does now for at least two hundred years.” It was probably a lot longer than that, but I’d gotten my point across. “Without glamour, Taeral and Daoin are practically twins, just in different shades of blue,” I said. “And Daoin has silver eyes.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. Finally, she glared hotly at me. “Is this Daoin guy your father too, then?”
“Technically, yes.”
“Where is he?”
I sighed. “Alex—”
“Damn it, where? I’m going to hunt that bastard down and end him.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. He stole my mother. And he murdered her!”
I almost couldn’t breathe. The suspicion that’d started forming when I realized Daoin had “enchanted” her mother was approaching full-blown possibility. I didn’t believe that was what actually happened, since if I was right, Alex couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old at the time. She wouldn’t have understood what was going on. And again, if I was right, Daoin didn’t kill her mother.
Milus Dei did.
“Alex,” I said in halting tones. “What was your mother’s name?”
She sneered. “Are we friends now?” she said. “That’s what you told me when I asked the same question, isn’t it?”
“Jessamyn Rose Hadley.”
The color drained from her face. “How the hell do you know my mother?” she rasped.
I closed my eyes and tried to fight past the tangled swell of emotions that threatened to choke me. The name I’d first seen on a gravestone in a tiny church cemetery, the woman I’d met for the first time as a voice in my head, twenty-eight years after she was already dead.
“Because…” I swallowed hard, and at last managed to look at her. “Because she was my mother, too.”
CHAPTER 16
The Scrolls of Gideon (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 7) Page 6