Blood Moon (Blood Rain Book 2)

by Nancy Gray

  “What will happen if I drink the blood?”

  The creature smirked. “It will bind you to me and my host. You’ll be more attuned to him, more connected. You’ll even be able to tap into his power. The more of my blood that you drink, the more power you’ll gain. I’ll let you choose how much. It’ll be enough for you to have a taste of what it means to be a Weaver of Shadows.”

  “It’ll taint you, Mercy. It’ll start to change you. Please listen to me! You don’t want to do this!”

  “Only one drop.”

  The creature grinned and cut its palm with the claw of its other hand, and reached out to shake. “We have an agreement, and may the powers that be strike the one down that breaks this vow.”

  Mercy reached out and shook the bestial creature’s cut hand with her wounded one. The blood mingled for only a moment when once again she felt a strange, dark power swirling around her in response. Erebus shook his head and looked at the ground. Mercy saw a solitary tear run down his cheek as he turned away.

  The bestial version of Erebus held his cut above Mercy’s mouth and squeezed. A solitary drop dripped into her open mouth and she felt a surge of power. She could suddenly see into the pitch blackness of the cave, and saw Erebus’ beast in full detail. As she looked, it seemed to change into a more human appearance just for her. It looked confident, handsome, and dangerous and beckoned her to come forward. She shook her head. While she felt like the spider entrapping the fly before, she could see that walking into that chasm meant she would be walking into his domain. The cave wasn’t shallow like she expected, but a long cavern with many doors. She didn’t know how she knew, but she felt each door represented a certain power he could tap into, and she was intrigued in spite of herself.

  “Are you sure you only wanted one drop?”

  “Yes. Are you sure that you really want to give me access to your power at all?”

  “Absolutely! You would make a lovely bat.”

  “I somehow don’t think I’ll ever be one of you. I think I got the better part of this deal.”

  Erebus’ shadow regarded her for a moment, “Are you quite sure? I’ve tainted you now, you know. You’ll never be the same.”

  “I don’t feel any different. Just remember your end of the deal when the time comes. You go dormant the moment that Erebus gets enough blood to quench his thirst.”

  The shadow sneered and bowed slightly, “I intended to do that anyway. As you can see, I’m shackled to the wall. Erebus regained control as soon as you nearly lost consciousness. He was fighting against me the entire time, and he won. So, now I get a little more time with him, until he his thirst recedes.”

  Mercy snarled, “You bastard.”

  “Still, I’m very curious about your request for a favor. You’re clever enough that I might regret agreeing to that, but we’ll see. A favor from me could be very powerful and useful, so be careful not to squander it.”

  She said curtly, “Well, pleasure doing business with you.”

  He beckoned to her. “Come closer, I have a secret to tell you.”

  Mercy got to the lip of the cave and leaned in slightly. He tried to grab her without success. That didn’t stop him from skimming his tongue along her jaw. She shivered. It felt as though she was being caressed by an icicle.

  He whispered in a seductive voice, “I like you as well.”

  Mercy shoved the shadow back so hard that it nearly fell to the floor. She then walked in Erebus’ direction who was sitting by the bloody stream, staring into the water.

  Mercy asked, “Does it make you thirsty?”

  “I’m always thirsty. That’s why it’s so hard to stay in control.”

  “I see what you mean. I’m extremely thirsty right now, but I won’t touch that water. It must be like that for you all the time, always within sight of something to quench your thirst but not able to drink it.”

  Erebus turned abruptly, and his voice was shaking with anger. “Why did you make a deal with my shadow demon? What good could that possibly do?”

  “Because, I might need that favor. If you lose control, I could force him to back down, or maybe I can still figure out a way that you won’t have to deal with him any longer. Either way, if I want him to remove the “taint” from me, I could ask for that as the favor, and it’ll be like I never asked in the first place.”

  Erebus’ shadow shouted, “I can hear you, you know! Generally speaking, it’s wiser not to tell your nemesis what your plan is ahead of time.”

  “Sorry, you just don’t seem that threatening to me. Plus, if you really are part of Erebus you probably already guessed my intentions.”

  It cackled, “The most dangerous adversaries are the ones that don’t seem threatening at all. It would be wise to remember that.”

  Mercy snapped, “Point taken. Now please shut up. The adults are talking.”

  The shadow rolled his eyes and scoffed but was silent.

  Erebus wrapped his arms around her again and sighed. “Kylas is going to be angry with me, but he never trusted me anyway. Is the favor the only reason you bargained with him?”

  “No. He’s still a part of you. Even if he’s a part that you never wanted me to see, I would have eventually seen him anyway. If you and I are going to be together, I need to know more about you, even about the things that might cause us problems in the future.”

  She glanced at the cave. Erebus’ shadow demon was watching them in silence, drinking from a wine bottle. He paused, looked forlornly inside of it, and then, out of frustration, smashed it against the wall of his cave because it was clearly empty. Mercy knew that it was blood he wanted to drink, not wine. Despite the large amount of blood Erebus had taken from her earlier, it wasn’t nearly enough.

  “I think we can handle him together.”

  Erebus shrugged. “Well, what’s done is done. Just promise me that if you have any problems from drinking that blood that you’ll use the favor to get him to remove it from you.”

  “I promise that if it gets bad enough I will.”

  “That isn’t want I asked you to do, any problems, do you understand?”

  “This was my decision. I take full responsibility for it. I know that in some ways it was probably a mistake, but I think that it was the right thing to do. Now if he gains control again, you won’t be able to attack me.”

  “I guess you’re right about that. He was able to attack you before because he didn’t make the deal with you, he only witnessed it. Now that you’ve made a blood pact with him, I don’t have to worry about him hurting you.”

  Mercy could feel Erebus’ relief. For the first time since the vision began, he smiled.

  She said, “You told me once that you thought that I should be the one who does all the talking since people tend to listen to me. I like to think there’s a reason why you said that.”

  Erebus reached out and stroked her cheek, “I love you, Mercy.”

  Mercy ran her hand through his hair. “I love you too.”

  “I wish we could stay like this longer, but I think it’s time for you to wake up. Something major is going on. This might be the last time I can kiss you for a little while, since I’m kind of tied up right now so.”

  Erebus leaned in and gave Mercy a passionate kiss. Before she could ask him what was going on, the image of the forest faded around her and she found herself in her hammock looking at the ceiling of the women’s quarters. She felt a slight stinging sensation on her palm and looked down. What she saw made her shiver in fear. The scar from her blood pact with Erebus had reopened and fresh blood was welling up in her hand. Any doubts she had about whether it was just a dream faded with the sick realization that her deal with the shadow demon was sealed in blood.

  14

  Mercy groaned. Her entire body felt heavy, and she found even the thought of getting out of her hammock frustrating. She heard people running around outside and she could feel their worry like the clinging moisture of fog on a rainy jungle morning. When she heard the wor
ds “siren shark” she suddenly found the energy to stand.

  She remembered Pyron’s words. “It’s the siren sharks you need to worry about. They’re about as long as a ship and could shatter the hull with one well placed shriek.”

  They were the stuff of nightmares, and apparently Mercy was no longer asleep. She fought off a light-headed dizzy feeling and began heading towards the deck.

  The whale carcass was no longer attached to the boat, but it was floating close by. Mercy glanced over the side and saw the sharks swimming around it like ash gulls circling a fishing boat. The stench of decay was still on the wind, but it was bearable. That wasn’t much comfort, though, when she saw the condition of the ship. Many of the sailors were still working hard to mend the ship’s sails. Mercy couldn’t have been asleep for very long, because the sails weren’t even close to being finished and the ship was still dead in the water. If there was a siren shark after them now, the Serpent Queen would be an easy kill.

  Captain Morrissey, Ailfrius, and Lavirin were in a heated discussion in hushed tones. Pyron and Beryl were looking through the spyglass on the other side of the deck and were also in a very tense conversation, but despite their grave expressions, they were also speaking in whispers. She couldn’t make out what they were saying over the creaking and straining of ropes. The tension and fear felt like a viscous wall that she had to push through the moment she set foot on deck. She knew the situation had to be dire, since no one had even noticed that she was awake. It made her feel as though she was a ghost wandering away from her body. Just to be sure that she wasn’t, she pressed her fingernails roughly into the wound on her hand. The searing pain verified that she was indeed awake and alive.

  Mercy thought, “I have to hear what they’re saying, but I don’t want to interrupt them. If I just walk up to them they might not want to tell me anything, afraid that I might tell the others and start a panic. If I really do have some sort of power, then maybe I can listen in from here.”

  Mercy took a step back into the darkness of the stairwell and glanced around at the shadows closest to the captain. There was a shadow cast by the mast next to him. Mercy remembered her time in the prison of the stealer wings and what her informant, Mered, told her to do. To use magic, she needed to visualize the effect that she wanted. Even though the place wasn’t charged magically, for some reason she felt confident that it would work. Mercy closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the shadow of the mast and being one with that darkness or changing places with it. After only a few minutes, she began to hear muffled whispers. The sound was strange, like she heard it with water clogging up her ears, but she was still able to make out the words.

  Captain Morrissey asked, “Are you sure, Ailfrius?”

  “You know that I’m sure. I was a whaler for ten years. This beast was killed by a siren shark. But it isn’t like them to leave a carcass that big. While I was retrieving the oil, I noticed that there weren’t just teeth marks in it, but harpoons too.”

  Lavirin whispered, “But who would kill a whale without harvesting the oil, and why?”

  Mercy could hear the sound of Morrissey pacing and could almost visualize it as well. “That’s what’s worrying me most about this. I think that whale carcass was the bait and we bit on it. I think that was meant to lure a siren shark right to our boat.”

  Ailfrius said in a whisper, “I would’ve thought that too, but so far everything is quiet.”

  Lavirin said darkly, “The quiet before a dust storm. Captain, something just doesn’t feel right about this whole situation.”

  “I know. But for now all we can do is be very quiet and hope for the best. As long as everyone knows there’s a siren shark close by, they’ll work faster on those sails and do what they can to get us back into working order.”

  “What about Mercy? Should one of us go and stay with her? She’ll need to know to be on her guard when she wakes up.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to wake up any time soon, Ail. She didn’t look good the last time I checked on her. I swear I want to string that bat up by the neck!”

  Ailfrius grunted in agreement. “I hope she’s going to be okay. He’s going to have hell to pay if she dies. I’ll string him up myself!”

  Mercy stopped listening in. She didn’t want to hear them speaking fondly of her, especially when she was spying on their conversation. Also, the fact that everyone knew what Erebus was and no one trusted him didn’t make her feel any better.

  It was amazing how easy it was to sense the shadows around them and to make her mind somehow meld with them. If this power came from one drop of the shadow demon’s blood, what could she have done with more? She decided it was probably best she didn’t know. Something about the power was too easy, too addictive, and the demon was all too eager to give it to her. She decided it would be best to concentrate on gathering information so that she could stop using the power as soon as possible.

  Mercy glanced out and noticed a shadow from the railing close to Pyron and Beryl. She closed her eyes and reached out with her senses, trying to picture the scene and what they would look like from the railing. Once again, she heard the strange, muffled sounds like someone talking through a bundled up cloth.

  Oddly, after picturing what she thought they would look like from the shadow, she was actually able to see them as well, though the vision was in gray. She noticed a bright crimson stain on a bandage on Beryl’s arm from where Erebus’ shadow had lashed out at him. The only thing that wasn’t in gray was the blood. It made her shiver slightly to think of the implications of that, so she decided to focus on what they were saying instead. It was more difficult to hear them since their tones were even more hushed than those of the Captain, but she strained and somehow managed to piece together the words.

  “I swear she’s closer than she was an hour ago,” Pyron said, handing the spyglass over to Beryl.

  Beryl took it and looked through it and said under his breath, “Damn, I think you’re right. At this rate, she’ll be on us in maybe thirty minutes. What should we do?”

  “Well, the captain is aware of the situation, but I think he’s more worried about that siren shark. This seems a little too coincidental doesn’t it? First, the storm, then that whale carcass, and then Erebus’ blood supply being gone…”

  “You don’t think that Erebus could be in on this?”

  “Of course not! Erebus wouldn’t have intentionally put Mercy in danger. He’s blood bound not to hurt her. You saw the condition he was in when we chained him up.”

  Beryl frowned and said in a lower tone, “Do you think Mercy is going to be okay?”

  Pyron winced. “I don’t know. She lost so much blood and that venom...”

  “The others are furious, Pyron. They think he did it intentionally.”

  “Erebus had better hope that she survives, then. I can only do so much to protect him, especially now that the others know what he is.”

  “I thought you didn’t like Erebus.”

  Pyron sighed. “He means the world to Mercy. Having him lynched on the ship wouldn’t be a good way to honor her memory if she dies. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that nothing bad happens to either of them.”

  “Well, if Erebus didn’t sabotage the barrel then it probably was Tolbert. Do you think he might be the spy?”

  “I don’t know. Tolbert doesn’t seem smart enough to be a mole, but someone could be manipulating him. That storm didn’t seem natural, the whale carcass drew sharks to us, and after the incident with Erebus we have two men down. And now, The Knave is closing in on us when we’re most vulnerable. This isn’t just bad luck. Someone did a masterful job of setting us up.”

  “But what can we do about it?”

  Pyron began to pace, playing nervously with his necklace.

  “We can’t trust anyone on the crew other than the people we brought onboard ourselves. I’ll trust Morrissey because you do, but you keep your eyes open.”

  “In thirty minu
tes, that ship is going to close in on us and we need to be ready. We have no choice but to trust the crew right now.”

  “Either way, we need to be ready to bring the fight to her. Get Incenda and tell her to start loading the cannons. I’m going to have another chat with Morrissey.”

  Mercy quickly stopped listening. The moment that the power subsided, Mercy almost sunk to the floor in exhaustion. She leaned back against the wall and breathed deeply for a moment. She felt as though she had been running for miles. Mercy realized it had to be a side effect from using her new ability. She wondered if that was how Erebus felt when he didn’t have enough blood. After a minute of staving off her fatigue, Mercy forced herself to run down the steps towards the brig, knowing that would be where they were keeping Erebus. She had to talk to him. Even if she didn’t have the key to his cell, she needed to know he was okay.

  Her mind kept going back to Pyron’s statement. “You saw the condition he was in when we chained him up.”

  The blood was still splattered across the ground in the hold from where she had fallen and from the empty blood barrel. Cleaning up wasn’t a top priority with everyone on board afraid that there might be a siren shark attack. Plus, she doubted anyone mending the sails could be spared for such a menial task until the ship was moving again. Mercy moved past the hold and into the brig.

  She was surprised at how well she could see considering there was hardly any light in the corridor. There were a couple of iron-barred cages in the very back that made Mercy feel ill if she looked at them for too long. There were dark feelings that still lingered there of anger and pain. She wasn’t sure if the cages were for unruly sailors or for slaves, and after her experience at Crevane, she decided that she didn’t want to know.

  It took Mercy a moment to find Erebus even though she could see in the dark. His figure was so haggard that he looked like a skeleton hanging from the manacles of his dingy cell in the corner. His chest was covered with blood, and he was making a slight choking sound as he coughed up more onto his tunic. His necklace clearly hadn’t been spared either. The violet and blue scale was stained a bright crimson that she wasn’t sure would ever wash off. Everything seemed to be in grayscale, but once again the blood showed through in a sickening vibrant red. She slowly approached the cell. When he looked up his eyes were glowing crimson, and she knew that it wasn’t Erebus who was about to talk to her.