I was already running forward yelling, “Enid!”
The other two reavers were distracted by the commotion, their attention back on the Water Pixie. I was on them before they could react. One whip of threads unbreakable by anyone but a Fate wrapped around the legs of the lead reaver. I yanked, pulling his legs out from under him as I whipped at the face of the second, causing him to jump back out of the way.
Mother had already isolated their leader's thread and was holding it taut as Atta masterfully slid her scissors along its length severing the shadows that tied it to other threads of unsuspecting people. The skill she had as she nipped each of the leaching tendrils never ceased to amaze me.
The man bounded back to his feet and charged the last couple steps between us, screaming in rage as we clashed. His sweeping claws sparking against the glowing cable stretched between my hands.
We stood, deadlocked for a moment when we saw a woman cloaked in the shadow of the night rise up in the water behind the second reaver who looked poised to leap at Drey. She clamped her hands around the reaver's ankles and yanked. With a gasp from the man and a surprisingly quiet splash, he was physically pulled into the water and didn't resurface.
By the stitch and nap! What just happened?
I didn't have time to ponder it, I was in the middle of exchanging blows with the other reaver and blocking kicks with my shins. It was all I could do to keep his claws away from my flesh. I may be immortal, but this shell wasn't.
If I had to start back at the ruin of the loom and find a nearby thread to follow to get back here, it could take hours or even days. The rest of our group could be dead by then as well.
I was surprised at how well I was fighting, it was as smooth as the flurry of strikes Andreya had exchanged with the hunter at the library. Then I realized that I have fought like this for eons. I started to smile as I pushed the man back with a spinning back kick and windmilled my glowing cords, striking him across the chest twice.
I hesitated when I heard two more loud clangs from the cabin, followed by a woman's agonized scream. I blurted, “Enid!”
The reaver smiled, but I saw that his hands were human now, the shadows that shaped him were gone except his fangs, and they were rapidly shrinking. He teased cruelly, “Her blood is now on your hands Clotho, if only you had come peacefully.”
Lachesis and Atropos moved up into my peripheral vision working on a thread coming from me, and I dove at the man. I ducked under his grapple as I wove my hands through the air, looping the rope of life around his neck and arms. I pulled my arms wide, pinning his hands easily to his side as he started choking. He was just then realizing that he didn't possess the superior strength which the shadow binding of the Adumbrates gave him anymore.
I placed both of my lashes in one hand and yanked. He came face to face with me, and I whispered to him, “I know your fate.” For the first time, there was fear and doubt in his eyes.
With that I could feel the last of the shadow being cut from his thread, then Atta did what Atta does, and I heard a snip. The man fell limply to the ground, dead. I had no compassion for someone who would give themselves over to be a monster just to cheat death like this.
My eyes still on the body at my feet, I blindly held my hand out to the side and Mother laid the two strands across my palm. As it is my purpose to spin new life from the ether so that the other Fates might weave it into the fabric of the world, it is also within my ability to send it back to whence it came.
I clenched my fist over the threads, and they brightened with a blinding flash, leaving behind charred and blackened thread which drifted away into dust on the wind, the former reaver's body doing the same.
I calmed my anger and looked toward the cabin, where the last reaver was. We heard a couple more clangs. Just what was that sound? I didn't have time to think about it. If I had, I would have checked to see if Enid's thread was still intact or severed.
I went running to the boat and jumped onboard with Drey at my side, her weapon still drawn. I swung the cabin door open, calling out, “Enid!”
The four of us almost stumbled over each other as I staggered to a stop and stared in shock, when with another loud clang, Enid slammed a cast iron frying pan down on the unmoving form of the last reaver, who had iron burns all over her face. Enid was hissing, “Take that you insufferable bitch!”
I was still dumbly staring at my mousy little roommate and friend as she stood over the reaver, clutching the frying pan handle like she was choking up on a bat because the pan was too heavy for her. Her eyes were wild as she hauled back again.
Andreya slipped quickly past me and caught the frying pan in one hand, arresting it's punishing blow as she chuckled. “It's ok slugger, I think you got her.”
Eeen looked around in shock and fear then nodded dazedly and let go of her impromptu weapon.
I smiled as I let go of my lashes, and stepped up to her as all the threads pulled back under my skin, I knew I had a new frying pan tattoo on my forearm without looking. I pulled her into a tight embrace. “Enid!”
She was shaking as she hugged me desperately. “Sloan. They... they aren't human... What are they? They took me, they say you have something of theirs. I was so scared.”
I pulled her to arm's length for a moment and looked at her as tears flowed down her cheeks. “It's alright now Eeen. They are monsters. I'm sorry you got mixed up in all of this.”
She glanced over to where Drey was cuffing the unconscious reaver to a tarnished brass rail by the door. Then my harried roommate looked wide eyed at Atta, who was working on untangling the shadows from the reavers thread which Lach measured out for her. Then her eyes followed the thread of light to where it was being pulled from a tattoo on my neck, just under the collar of my jacket.
She asked very carefully, “Sloan, what is that? Are you... like them? Tell me what's going on, or I swear, I'm going to lose my mind.”
I didn't have a clue where to start, how could I convince her that she wasn't going crazy when I wasn't entirely sure that I hadn't beat her to it. My mouth worked soundlessly, then I sighed and said almost meekly in question, “We're Fates?”
Eeen blinked, then visibly relaxed and smiled, “Oh. That's ok then.”
It was my turn to blink in surprise at her reaction. “Really?” I smiled back at her.
Then she pulled out of my grasp and blurted as she started patty caking my chest in windmilling slaps, “No! Not really! Are you insane?”
I don't know what the heck was wrong with me because I started chuckling as she went on a tirade. “Seriously, just what the fuck Sloan? What do you mean you are Fates? I thought you were just a normal girl with amnesia, like any other run of the mill girl with amnesia! Well, not run of the mill, I mean, look at you... the pretty girls never hang out with me. But you have glowing threads coming out of you! And...” She motioned over to the others.
Then she narrowed her eyes and asked in shocked recognition, “Mrs. Ramos?”
Atta blushed a little and waved with her scissors, her task almost complete.
Enid asked incredulously, “Why is a librarian involved in all of this?” She gestured to Drey. “And I suppose you're a vampire or a siren or something. I mean, with a body like that.”
Andreya looked a little smug, which made me grin as she said, “Nope, one hundred percent, grade A human here. Unlike these ladies.”
Enid's eyes settled on Lach, and her rage slipped away as she started blushing and looking bashfully at her hands. Eww. Why was everyone panting over my mother? That was just... eww! Well at least that calmed her back down again, with her mind someplace I didn't want to think about.
Then she shook herself out of her thoughts and looked quickly to Drey, one eye on Mother. “What do you mean ladies?”
Then Detective Andreya Lisbon smiled broadly at her and said in sighing resignation, “It's a long story.”
I grinned at my short friend and said, “You're pretty badass, Eeen. Taking on a supernatural pre
dator, with a frying pan. How did you know to use cast iron?”
She shook her head and blushed again, looking away and admitting, “I didn't. I saw the frying pan hanging above the stove, and remembered watching Tangled.”
Then she looked warily over at the now fully human reaver, who was laying unconscious with second-degree iron burns on her face and hands where she had tried to defend against the fiery reaction that cold steel had on shadow.
She shouldn't have let her guard down around someone she viewed as no possible threat. I cocked my head at Eeen. Humans never cease to amaze me, even after all these centuries.
I noted she was now looking at me expectantly as we heard sirens in the distance, approaching the marina. I took her hand and sat at one of the long cushioned benches on either side of the cabin and started to share with her what was going on and what I could remember.
Drey went out and released the lines mooring us to the dock and then came back in and stood at a column near the front window of the cabin. With a deep thrum, the motor came to life, and we started moving toward the open seas.
Chapter 10 – Momentary Reprieve
We motored through the slightly choppy Pacific for about an hour. With the ship's running lights off on a moonless night, we shadowed the road lights in the darkness, along with the finger of the peninsula and around Ledbetter Point. Once we were safe in the protected waters of Willapae Bay, we dropped anchor.
It guessed it to be well after midnight. I wasn't quite sure since I didn't have a cell to check.
Drey announced to everyone, “We need to sleep, or we'll be worthless tomorrow.” She looked at me. “We good?”
I was already absently searching the heat of the shifting ink under the skin of my wrists, for the telltale signs of compromised threads, and unnatural weaves. I nodded once at her in affirmation. I could feel some moving around both northeast and southeast of our location, but they were all quite distant.
It felt like no more than a couple dozen. The Adumbrates couldn't have much more than that in this area, as it would tax their own shadows to control so many.
She said, “There's a bed down that hatch and a tiny bathroom. It can sleep two.” She pointed at the bench seats where Enid was already snoring away on one. “Those fold out to really uncomfortable bed platforms. I'll take first watch. Maybe we can get some answers from the reaver once she regains consciousness.”
She pulled a blanket and pillow from under one of the benches for me, motioning to our sleeping whirlwind, and I tucked the pillow under Enid's head and covered her. I smiled at the girl and bent to kiss the top of her head and smoothed out her hair a bit. She took everything I told her in stride. I knew it would take some time to digest it all, but she accepted what was shared and wasn't running screaming from us like we were some sort of monstrous freaks. I really had lucked out the day I answered her want ad, but now that put the crosshairs on her.
Mother and Atta stretched and yawned, then headed down to the bed. I crinkled a nose at them like a petulant child. Of course, they'd get the bed. I looked at the other uncomfortable bench then sighed and looked at Drey as she started for the cabin door to go sit watch on the deck. “I'll join you.”
She nodded once, and we sat on the deck, our legs hanging over the side of the boat as we crossed our arms on the low brass rail that went around the perimeter of the boat. We rested our chins on our arms.
We were silent for a bit, just sharing a quiet camaraderie. Then I rolled my head on my arms to look at her and asked, “Water Pixie?”
She shrugged and rolled her head in a similar manner to look at me, her keen green eyes searching mine. “My sister, Bree, and I were like little fish as we grew up. We were in the water swimming every chance we got. Dad called us his little Water Pixies. When he bought the boat, that's the name he gave her.”
I nodded and smiled softly at that, she looked immersed in the memory of a loved one lost. I understood that feeling intimately as I had seen countless people I had loved, family, friends, lovers, age and die before my eyes over the years. The heartache was worth all the good times, all the... love. That's what kept me coming back to the mortal world again and again.
Then she changed the subject abruptly. “You catch what happened at the dock to that other reaver?You saw what happened?”
I nodded.
She asked, “What... who was that. That woman. She just pulled a reaver into the water, she never resurfaced. One of yours?”
I chuckled softly at her. “Not all inexpiable things are related to me you know.” Then I shrugged and thought of it. I offered almost as a question. “That water lady that's been in the news? The one who saved that boy?”
She lifted her head from her arm long enough to wiggle her fingers toward me, “Can't you like, do some oggity boogity shit or something and see?”
I had to stop my chuckle from becoming a giggle as I shook my head. “It doesn't work like that. The farther away someone is, the deeper they get lost in the weave. If I had thought to feel out her thread while she was there with us, I might have been able to tell you more about her. But I was just as surprised as everyone else, and didn't think to.”
I reached over and shoved her shoulder before laying my head back down and teasing, “Oggity boogity shit? Really Detective Lisbon?” Enunciating each syllable of her name.
She smirked as she scanned the black outline of the shoreline, responding in kind as she over enunciated, “Really, Miss Tesha. I don't know what you can or can't do.”
My amusement bled away as I admitted, “Neither do I.” My voice sounded far away, though I knew now it was just a matter of time before I remembered it all. I shimmied closer to her, and she automatically reached an arm around me and pulled me into her so I could share her warmth in the cool night breeze.
I sighed and just laid my head on her shoulder. And we looked out into the night, knowing that somewhere out there... there were monsters.
***
Lach and Atta came up to spell us a couple hours later so that we could get a couple hours of shuteye. I had fallen asleep against Drey. I felt bad about that. Fat lot of good I did her. But I was secretly sighing over the fact that she hadn't moved from where she sat, just letting me use her as a warm pillow that smelled of gun oil and now sweat. I took a moment to enjoy the momentary reprieve.
When we moved into the cabin, we noted that the reaver was awake, she just silently watched us, her eyes narrowed. If I ignored the burned and bubbled skin that was in overlapping crescent shapes from the edge of the pan, she wouldn't have looked out of place teaching in some fifth-grade classroom somewhere. She was dressed in a relaxed, professional skirt-suit with her hair tied up in a bun. She had sharp, intelligent eyes which tracked us in the darkness, but I couldn't tell what color they were.
I wanted to ask her a million things, but Andreya nudged me toward the door to the lower cabin as she looked warily at the second padded bench. “There will be plenty of time for questions. Right now you need sleep. It'll take a couple days to sail around the Olympic peninsula.”
I nodded and then snagged her hand when she started to move toward the uncomfortable looking bench. She looked over at me, and I nudged my head toward the lower cabin, “I don't bite.” Then I added with a smirk. “Unless you want me to.”
She moved past me without meeting my gaze and held the lower door open for me as she teased, “Don't make promises you aren't prepared to keep.”
The reaver groaned at us, and we both snapped our gaze to her and said in unison, “Shut up.” Then I headed down the steep and narrow stairs that could have doubled as a ladder, into a space dimly lit by a little nightlight at the head of the bed, and flopped onto that self-same bed which took up three-quarters of the space.
She ducked her head as she got the lower deck and grinned at me, rolling her eyes as she unslung her shoulder holster, put it on a ledge built into the wall by the bed then flopped face first onto the other side of the bed.
She l
aid there a moment, then exhaled and turned toward me. I turned toward her, and we just stared at each other as she pulled a light blanket up on us without speaking. Then she reached up and turned off the little light.
I was asleep before my eyes could adjust to the darkness, feeling oddly safe and protected by this mortal whom I should be protecting instead.
I swear I had just closed my eyes when my eyes fluttered open as someone gently shook me, a familiar detective's voice prompting gently, “Sloan, wake up slacker. The sun is up.”
I absently pushed a mouthful of my own hair out of my mouth with my tongue; a hazard of having long hair. I felt good and warm with the full body pillow beneath me.
My eyes snapped wide when I realized that warm pillow smelled awfully arousing. I pulled myself quickly up from where I had been sprawled across Andreya, my head nestled on her chest. I blinked the at the bright sunlight streaming in through the small slotted windows in the hull as I sputtered, “Sorry. I get a little clingy when I sleep.”
The smile on her face, biting the tip of her tongue, told me she hadn't minded one one bit. I shoved her lightly, and she overbalanced and fell over the side of the bed as I muttered, “Don't get smug lady.”
She got up on her knees, overly amused, then cocked her head at me and reached up to run a hand through my hair, her fingers feeling amazing on my scalp as she said, “You're a mess, you might want to clean up a bit before we go topside.”
I growled at her. “You're no fresh spring daisy yourself.”
She nodded in reluctant agreement and pointed out as she said, “And we're all going to get riper as we go. I have no shower onboard, so we'll have to settle for cleaning ourselves the best we can in the sink. I'd prefer not to go ashore if we can help it. I'm sure a lot of people besides the reavers are looking for us after what happened in Ilwaco and back home. I need time to think, and I need to call my captain, he's probably cursing ever meeting me about now.”
I noted the utility of her pixie cut now. Even messed up a little, her hair looked amazing as she headed up to the main deck. Ok, I hated her for that.
Fate: No Strings Attached Page 9