“We need to get off this ship,” Sha’ira breathed, snapping her head around to check for an ambush.
“Not till we find Ma,” I protested.
“’Tain’t a normal boat, child,” Romulus told me.
“Gee, really?” I shot back, getting testy from all the tension.
“He means that this is an Obverse vessel,” the dreamwriter said, bowstring half-pulled.
“So? More bad guys. I’m used to that.”
“You don’t understand.” She kicked at what looked like a dog’s food bowl on the deck. Looking in it, I almost lost my lunch (again). A half-eaten human heart lay in it, covered in maggots.
Something struck me as odd about an enormous pair of trousers lying across a sea chest. Stopping to take a quick look at them, I gasped, letting them fall to the grimy deck.
The pants had four legs. And a hole in the back for a tail to poke through.
“Wonder where he buys his duds. Satan’s Haberdashery?” snorted Jasper.
Sha’ira looked me in the eye. I saw fear there that she’d never shown an inkling of before. “This ship is crewed by monsters.”
I had little time to absorb that. A second later I heard my mother scream for her life.
40/ Lunch with Ma
An unladylike snort came out of Ma. “The sword’s named Jasper?”
“Hey!” he complained. “A little respect here, please?
You’re talkin’ to the Avengin’ Arm of Justice, lady.”
I came near to taking off Romulus’ ear sweeping Morphageus from my belt. Before the tip came clear my boots thumped across the planks as I rushed toward the sound. It had come from the far end of the berth deck, through a doorway that showed little light. Trusting my Stone-senses and ignoring my friends’ cries to stop, I burst through the low hatch and found myself in the galley. At least I guessed that’s what it had to be. Nothing in my twelve years had prepared me for the horrors in that cramped space. Bloody human torsos hung on meat hooks. Eyes stared out at me from a big yellow jar like so many boiled eggs. Hands and feet, alternating with potatoes and carrots on skewers, made sickening kabobs. Some luckless fellow had been wrapped up on an enormous platter, roasted like a pig. He even had an apple in his dead mouth. In a corner sat a huge black iron stove with the biggest stew pot I’d ever seen. Something foul bubbled away in it. And atop that stove Ma struggled to keep from being added to the mix.
She wore a Royal Navy uniform which hung too large on her and confined her movements against the unearthly thing that clutched her with four slimy tentacles. About seven feet tall, it stood on shaggy oversized goat’s legs. Its hairless bulging belly, sweaty and gray, made it look like it’d swallowed a beer keg. The monster’s blocky head, with no visible ears or hair, had a rhinoceros horn below three bulbous bloodshot eyes and above a drooling vertical mouth. A long forked tongue slithered out of it and across Ma’s cheek as if testing her potential flavor. To make the whole scene even more disgusting, the creature wore a tiny chef’s hat.
Seeing red, I raised my sword and charged, planning to lop off the arms that held Ma above the steaming cauldron. But the Obverse chef turned out to be a lot quicker and more aware than I’d counted on. He swept my feet out from under me with one squid-like arm while snatching a giant meat cleaver with another. I tried to make Morphageus into a shield as the blade came down. Nothing happened. My external magick wouldn’t happen on this ship. So I parried the death blow from my knees and rolled backward to avoid a third arm, which tried to crush me like a pesky fly with a tremendous slap. I fetched up against the bulkhead on one knee, breath half-knocked out of me. Now the cook from hell held a rolling pin the size of a small tree trunk in one suckered arm. Trying to watch both the cleaver and the new weapon, plus stay out of reach of that flailing third arm, I slipped on the greasy deck and went down. With what I took for a laugh, though it sounded more like wet mud splatting on a rock, the monster lunged on those goat hooves to finish me off.
But the wretched thing had forgotten about Ma, still struggling in its grip above the kettle. Bracing herself against the corner of the galley, she set both feet on the stew pot and pushed with all her might. Gallon upon gallon of scalding soup splashed onto the chef’s back and legs. It let her go with a horrible screech. As she landed on the stove, feet splaying to find purchase and not get burnt, I reversed my sword and thrust it over my head into the wall behind me. Hanging on for dear life, I wrenched myself up from the floor in a curl. The boiling liquid, full of icky chunks of human innards, rolled across the deck like a small tidal wave and sploshed into the space I’d just occupied.
Our foe wasn’t out of the fight, despite its nasty burns. With strips of gray skin hanging from its back like old wallpaper, it tried to backhand Ma with an angry tentacle. She flinched to take the blow, but it never landed. Instead, the slimy arm jerked and slapped into the wall, pinned by an arrow shot from behind me. Good goin’, Sha’ira! Yowling in pain, the demon cook tried to yank the arrow out with another arm. That limb flopped to the deck, victim of a wicked slash from Romulus’ Bowie knife. The screams of agony were deafening now. Ernie added to them by bounding from Romulus’ shoulder to blind one of those three eyes, then back-flipped away and landed where he’d started. In miserable desperation the thing thrashed about with its other two tentacles. Before one of them could hit Ma I dropped back to the deck, now clear of boiling soup thanks to a drain. With a grunt of rage and effort I jerked Morphageus from the bulkhead and hurled it at the creature’s head in one motion. Guided by Stone-strength and Jasper’s aid, the magick blade hit my foul foe in its unnatural mouth, shattering jagged yellow teeth. Sliced tongue oozing out, along with thick black blood, the monster sank dead, still held up by the dreamwriter’s arrow.
In the silence that followed, broken by all of us panting from the fight (well, maybe just me), Ma cried, “Verity!” She leaped from the stove and snatched me up in her arms. Cuddling me like I was still her tiny newborn and not almost as big as her, she smooched me all over while spinning around the galley carnage. I hugged her right back, let me tell you, even though I couldn’t breathe she held me so tight.
“At least she’s not rubbin’ your head,” Jasper said.
As if on cue, Ma set me down, held me at arm’s length, and mussed my hair up something terrible, knocking my straw hat askew. I grinned, loving every annoying second of it. “My little girl…I’ve got my little girl back,” she whispered, tears streaming down her freckled cheeks. Channels formed in the dirt and soot on her face. Her blue eyes bore the bagged dark look that battle-hardened soldiers had on the streets of Washington. Mr. Lincoln, too.
I touched her face with trembling fingers, pained at the thought of what might’ve caused my cheerful mother to look so worn. Fear, pain, and despair were visible there, along with disbelief that we were back together. From her expression I figured that my features mirrored hers. Though it’d been a little more than a week since we’d been parted, I’d crammed a powerful lot of hard living into those few days.
She cast a glance around the galley, looking at my friends. “Romulus,” she smiled, voice breaking. “You looked after her. Thank you.”
The Marshal waved it off. “I did some. She mostly takes care of herself, ma’am. You raised her good, lemme tell you.”
Ma tickled Ernie’s fat tummy. “Master Ernest. Lovely to see you here, too.”
The plump mouse giggled. “Blimey, Miz Ellen. Wouldn’t have missed it. You okay?”
“I am now, thanks to you all.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Wait a minute. You know about Ernie? And you can understand him?”
I got a look that said she knew she had to patient with her idiot child. “Of course I know him. Who do you think asked to have him at the theatre?” She tickled his belly again. “As for understanding him, that’s always been a talent of mine. Sounds like I passed it on to you.”
“We really need to have a long sit-down and jaw a while about all the things I don’t
know.”
Sha’ira interrupted, head cocked as she listened. “That will have to wait. We can’t stay here. They’ll have heard the noise and will come to investigate.”
I answered Ma’s questioning look. “This is Sha’ira, a dreamwriter.”
Ma pulled back a step. “And a Shade.”
“No longer,” Sha’ira assured her. “I have broken with my sisterhood. Now I’m pledged to the Stone-Warden.”
“I’d never have found you without her,” I said. “She sent me dreams that guided me here.”
Softening, Ma smiled and nodded to her. “My thanks, then.”
Retrieving Morphageus from the monster’s corpse, I winced at the vile slurpy sucking sound it made. Somehow I just keep killin’ whether I want to or not. I wiped the blade with the silly chef’s hat. “Meet Jasper.”
An unladylike snort came out of Ma. “Jasper?”
“Hey!” he complained to me. “A little respect here, please? You’re talkin’ to the Avengin’ Arm of Justice, lady.”
I shrugged. “Well, Morphageus is a mighty big mouthful. If you could hear him talk you’d know the name suits him.”
Romulus tugged at us both. “Gots to go. Now.”
Booted feet clumped down steps to our front. You didn’t need witched ears to know that somebody came our way. As tough as the chef had been I didn’t want to think about meeting their real fighters. Romulus rolled the immense cook pot to block the far galley door. When Sha’ira snatched her arrow out of the wall, freeing the dead demon, his great blubbery bulk made for even more of an obstacle to our pursuers. We backed out the way we’d come, keeping our eyes peeled for surprises. Romulus dashed to lock the berth deck’s topside hatch. As soon as he’d shot the bolt heavy fists, feet, and weapons started hammering at it. Harsh voices sent threats and curses our way.
“Somebody’s got potty-language,” Jasper laughed. “Maybe your ma should wash their mouths out with soap. Teach ‘em some manners.”
“Not if their mouths are anything like that cook’s,” I said, picking up the pace and heading for the passage back to the master’s cabin.
“You have a way out?” Ma asked, panting as she ran.
I nodded. “Yep. Maillon line between the two captains’ quarters. Ships are lashed together while they parlay.”
She gasped. “No! We have to get them apart. It’s no parlay. The Obverse plan to search for the Stone, at sword’s point if need be. Whether they find it or not, they’re going to kill and eat everyone on that ship. It’s what they do.”
“Well, it’s a lot easier to search folks if they’re turnin’ on a spit, I guess,” Jasper said. “Suppose ‘parlay’ means ‘parboiled’ around here.”
While I tried to absorb that bit of good news an even worse thing happened. We found out that the berth deck had a lower hatch, leading down into the hold. Right in front of us it burst open and half a dozen…things leapt out to block our way. Not a one of them looked anything like a human, nor did they look like one another. All had odd numbers of eyes. Instead of hands they waved lobster claws, paws, hooves, insect parts. Tails whipped around, some prehensile and some with stingers or blades. Slime glistened in the low light. Gummy drool dripped down chins. Every type of tooth, fang, and weird jaw
arrangement a twisted brain might think of. Wolf-like snouts, pig noses, and faces that made my giant tick’s look like an Annapolis debutante’s snarled at us. I heard more grunting, hissing, and slurping in ten seconds than in a whole day at the zoo. Of course, all of them held swords, axes, knives, and all manner of nasty cutlery.
“Ick!” Jasper gurgled. “The Obverse really needs to work on its breedin’ program.”
Our time had run out. We’d have to fight our way to the Kiss. Pretty soon the galley barricade would come down and the crew would batter through the top hatch. Every second would bring more bad guys down on us. If we didn’t want to end up in an Obverse oven then the time to begin the dance was right now.
Sha’ira started it off, of course. A squat, warty, toad-like beastie on monkey legs went down with a green arrow in what I guessed was its neck. Slaying demons didn’t count in her personal no-kill contract? Humans only, I guess. Unlucky for us it sagged and lay still right in front of our way out. We’d have to worry about that later. Surviving its five friends came first. I dodged a double-bladed axe swung by what looked to be the spawn of a praying mantis and a rattlesnake. It thunked into the oak planks beside my foot. While I tried to move Ma into a safe corner, if such a thing existed here, Romulus sheared off the claw holding the axe. With a shrill greasy hiss the snake-bug snapped its huge horizontal fangs at him, just missing as the Marshal as he front-rolled away. Popping up, my giant guardian, looking puny next to the even taller demon, gave it a one-two punch and a belly kick. The thing folded up and slithered away. A jackal-faced scorpion man aimed its stinger at Sha’ira, but she spun into the attack, got inside the venomed spike, and slammed the point of her wicked curved dagger into the side of its furry skull. Two small things that looked like winged crustaceans, on six legs each, rushed Romulus together, bearing him down with their combined weight and crushing a table.
I didn’t see what happened after that because I had troubles of my own. Snarling and grunting at the same time, an attacker with a tusked wild boar face, long pointed ears, and a long leathery tail bounded at me, cutlass in hand. Looks like a cathedral gargoyle. Shouting at Ma to stay put, I met the monster blade-to-blade. But it moved awful quick and knew how to use a sword. Only the boost in agility given by the Legacy Stone prevented me from being skewered. To make things worse, the tail served as an extra hand, grabbing at me, punching, slapping. I leaped, rolled, spun, anything to avoid the sword and the tail. Boy, I need to get me some sword lessons. I must’ve survived Venoma that first night only with Jasper’s help.
Just as things looked as bad as they could be, Ma showed for the second time that she was a master of the sucker punch. Right in the middle of bringing down a slash that I knew would end me, my opponent burst into flames. Okay, I was wishin’ for that but I sure didn’t think it’d actually happen. Ma had hurled one of the oil lanterns at the thing. It squealed and rolled on the ground, thrashing. Sha’ira, free of the scorpion demon, stilled it with an arrow.
I grinned at Ma. “Did I ever tell you that you’re my favorite mother?”
She mussed my hair up again. By now I’d almost grown immune to it. “You never had to, sweetie.”
Romulus needed help with his matched set of monsters. They’d split up and used their wings to half-fly around him, staying out of reach while stabbing at him with their nasty crab claws. His Bowie sang as it cut through the air. A couple of times it had scored, for drops of black blood stained the already grimy deck. But the Marshal couldn’t always watch two places at once, and he’d been hit, too. His back bore a long red gash. Sha’ira drew back her bowstring, but any shot she took risked hitting Romulus, so tangled up were the three fighters. Behind us the iron kettle clanged as something big knocked it out of the way. Above our heads splinters started to rain down as the hatch began to give way. We were about to be overwhelmed.
Forsaking my clumsy swordplay, I used my Stone-strength to take a more old-fashioned approach. I picked up a heavy bench and swatted one of the demons right out of the air as if it were a pesky fly. It splatted against the wall, legs twitching. When the other one made the mistake of looking at its ally to see what had happened, Romulus made it pay by slicing its claw off with his knife, then spinning and kicking its ugly face in.
“Move, move, move!” Sha’ira shouted, sending an arrow whizzing toward the galley. Somebody grunted and fell down. An enormous unseen presence behind it growled like all the lions of Africa. Not wanting to look back and see what new horror might be gaining on us, I shoved Ma in front of me. We all stampeded into the passageway, retracing our steps back the way we’d entered. As I passed the hatchway used by the six demons we’d just defeated, Ernie and Gracchus hopped out of it, followe
d by the Marines.
“Hey, Verity!” the tiny Marshal announced, “Gracchus says the hold is full of---” He started as he lay eyes on the heaps of creature flesh behind us. “Uh, never mind. Guess we’re leavin’, huh?”
“Yep, party’s over,” I said. “What’s chasin’ us?”
“Don’t know. I think I need a bigger vocabulary.”
The top hatch crashed onto the berth deck planking and ordinary-looking humans began dropping through it. Well, that’s sort of a relief. My qualified happiness didn’t last long. The new enemies had guns and commenced to using them. Pistol balls snapped past us as we threw ourselves against the wall. Romulus kicked a bench at the shooters, tripping several of them. That bought us enough time to get into the master’s cabin and bar the door. Boots started kicking at it.
“Out the window!” I hollered, guiding Ma to the maillon line. “Go! Climb across.” I pantomimed how to do it and gave her a little push. Without a second thought she clambered out and started shinnying just like I’d shown her. Sha’ira knelt in front of the door and just to the side, bow aimed at whoever might be foolish enough to come through first. Romulus jammed a chair beneath the knob and shoved a heavy chest behind it. On a shelf behind the chart table he found a percussion pistol, capped and loaded. Taking up station opposite the former Shade and mirroring her pose, he laid the gun across his arm and shouted for me to go.
Ma had already made it across. Her feet were just disappearing into Pitcairn’s cabin window. I hung onto the shimmery golden line and pushed out onto it. While I made my way between the two rolling ships, hoping my panicky hands didn’t slip off, all of the rodents scurried across the top of the thin cable, tickling my fingers as they went.
“Chin up! Cheerio!” Ernie said when he passed me.
“Huwwy it awong, now!” Gracchus added. They all stopped on the far sill to wave me toward the Kiss, as if the horde of Obverse monstrosities chasing us wasn’t motivating enough. In a few more seconds, which seemed like as many months, I’d made it to safety.
Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Page 42