No valid counter argument for that existed. “Very well. Carry on.”
Finished with his meal, Harwood wiped his face and tossed the napkin on his emptied plate. “Come, boy. Do the ole captain a favor and come have a look.”
Casting a look of longing to the plethora of desserts he had yet to enjoy, Phin obediently shoved his chair back from the table. Behind my eyes I saw him as I had in the mirror—dead and putrefied.
My hand shot out before I could plan my next move, and I caught Phin’s shoulder to hold him back. My every instinct prepared to put myself between him and the captain by any means necessary. “The boy has no business with the mirror.”
A blink and Harwood’s glare gleamed with reptilian hunger. Another, and it was gone quick as it came. “Is there a problem of some sort?” he asked, kind as you please.
Guiding the lad back into his seat with a firm insistence, I addressed the captain with my helmet of diplomacy firmly in place. “We were warded before departing on our journey. Prepared for that very mirror, in a manner of speaking. If anyone would see anything in it, it would be Sterling or myself.”
Head slowly swiveling at the mention of his name, Sterling’s lips parted with a pop. “The uninformed must improve their deficit or die?”
“Not quite to that extreme.” I said, and patted his hand. “Eat your biscuit.”
With a blissful smile, he obliged.
Fingers combing over his beard, Harwood leaned back in his chair to consider me through narrowed eyes. “In what way were you prepared?”
I brought my hands together before me, laced my fingers, and rested them on the table’s edge. “King Liam employed a High Priestess to enchant us with particular attributes. Hence me being able to manifest things in this realm, and Sterling … bringing food to life.”
“Hades’ wrath! Did it happen again?” Palms slapping to the table, Sterling frantically scanned the entrees. After breathing a sigh of relief that everything was as it should be, he returned to buttering his biscuit.
“Is that so?” Steepling his fingers, Harwood brought them to his lips. “How fascinating.”
“It is indeed.” Sating my nervous thirst with a swig from my own stein, I offered the captain a forced smile. “That said, if you’d like me to have a look at that mirror, if would be my honor.”
Before I could shift to move, Harwood halted me with the lift of one finger. “Tell me, what assurance have I—if that is the case—that you won’t take what you need from the mirror and leave me near death and wanting?”
“I have no reason to keep anything from you.” Bumping my newly appointed counterpoint with my elbow, I jerked my head in the captain’s direction. “And you, Sterling?”
“Often, I find myself distracted when I should be productive,” he stated around a mouthful.
“We’ll take that to mean the same.”
“I’m afraid that’s just not enough of a certainty for me.” Chewing on his lower lip, Harwood drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “I need a guarantee of answers … or one among you won’t make it out of this room alive.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What’s this then?” I rumbled, limbs tensed for battle.
“Oh!” Sterling erupted, stabbing one arm in the air and shaking it wildly. “I know! It’s a threat!” Leaning in my direction, he dropped his voice to a helpful whisper. “I get this a lot, it’s most definitely a threat.”
“Thank you, I noticed.” Glower never shifting from the captain, my lip curled into a snarl. “What I don’t know is why?”
Elbows propped on his armrests, Harwood wagged one finger in my direction. “Careful with the tone, boy. We don’t need any reptilian visitors to tarnish our perfectly pleasant evening.”
Feeling Phin tense beside me, his hand instinctively wandering to the wood flute nestled on his lap, I stifled the flames of my swelling rage down to a containable smolder.
“We agree to your …” I choked on the loathsome word forming on my tongue, “terms, and you allow us the time and opportunity to get our questions answered as well.”
A wry smile turning up the corners of his lips, Harwood attempted a mask of mock innocence. “I see no reason why not.”
Be it coincidence, or intentional, Malyn picked that moment to clear her throat.
Taking it as a sign, whether she meant it as such or not, I scanned the room. Casually as I could, I searched for items that could be used as weapons if the need arose for us to fight our way off the ship. “Then, we proceed as men of our word.”
“Splendid!” Harwood chirped, with a surprising spark of energy for someone so decrepit. “Let’s not waste another second. Come ’round the table, lad, let’s find out how to trap the crocodile once and for all.”
Knot of dread tightening in my gut, I resigned myself to having no other options and pushed my chair back. As I skirted around the table, the clomps of my boots were the only sound echoing through the room. I kept my chin to my chest and eyes down as I walked, waiting until I was in position before that infamous artifact to gaze upon it. Settling into an easy stance, I shook out the tension in my arms … and allowed myself to peer into the unfathomable.
There was no time to fear I hadn’t the gift for it. Upon first glance, I sank beneath the surface of its still façade. Breath slammed from my lungs, I found myself free falling in a pit of darkness. A minute or an hour later, I collapsed on the floor of a modest dwelling. Rolling onto my back, I greedily sucked in the air knocked from me. The home I found myself in had toys scattered across the room, and the smells of dinner filling the air. Sloppy slashes and splatters of blood covered every wall, dripping from the furniture and maliciously marring the happy family front. Which each inhalation the air’s coppery taste burned down my throat.
In the midst of the carnage, a young and robust version of Captain Harwood flopped into a chair at the dining table. Gore-painted boots clomping down on the tabletop, he pulled a flask from inside his coat and slammed it back with an appreciative gulp. He cared not for the body sprawled at his feet, her blood-crusted auburn hair fanned around her slumped head. Nor the second, a man with thick waves of ebony hair, pinned against the wall by three swords run through his core.
In the doorway from the back hall, a face appeared. A sweet silhouette of untarnished purity blinked impossibly long lashes at the violence splayed out before her. She was an angelic girl of no more than five, who didn’t cry out for her mama or papa. Crippled by shock, the shattered cherub could only stare. Stare at her fallen mother. Stare at her dangling father. Stare at the stranger oblivious to her presence who sat in her father’s chair after destroying her world.
Jerked from that horrific scene, I was thrust back into the dizzying nothingness. My quaking knees threatened to buckle, but … were they holding me at all? Here, I had no limbs. No matter that mattered. Once again, the world settled with stomach lurching force.
Flames licked and hissed around me, yet I felt neither their heat nor burn. I was untouchable, unlike the poor souls screaming and crawling in hopes of escape. Robed figures darted in every direction, their panicked paths zigzagging in frantic quest for freedom. When hope for a reprieve by earthly means failed them, the figures dropped to their knees and uttered desperate prayers to Mount Olympus. Only then did my sinking heart grasp the truth; I was in a convent. Each member of the trapped cluster wore a lightning bolt medallion fastened over their heart to proclaim themselves faithful followers of Zeus. These were Sisters of the Mountain.
No sooner did I place them, then the side door burst open. Convinced their god had heard them, the sisters scurried toward this act of mercy. In place of divine intervention, Harwood and his crew sauntered in through a cloud of billowing smoke.
Eyes blurring with tears, the sister closest to the door didn’t see the captain’s pistol until it pressed to her temple. A thunderous blast sliced through the hall, and her lifeless form crumbled to the ground.
The other nuns tried to scatt
er, but found nowhere to hide. Captain and crew laughing in sickening sport, they raised their weapons. Shots rang out. Body after body fell.
Somewhere in the funnel cloud of chaos, Harwood found himself face-to-face with a young nun. Something about her struck a note of familiarity with him he couldn’t quite place. Unlike the others, she didn’t run, scream, or even try for the door. She simply stared. Stared as if she could see every vile thought that filled his head and wouldn’t stop until she avenged each and every one.
Assuming a wide-legged stance, he swung the barrel of his gun to her forehead.
She didn’t shrink away, but raised her chin in acceptance of his despicable nature.
The two locked eyes.
Harwood cocked his pistol.
Face vacant of emotion, she blinked at the devil before her.
The desire to bring her to her knees wafted from him in heady waves. Even so, he saw that something dark writhing in the pools of her stare; a beast of brimstone and wrath that seemed capable of weighing his every sin and judging him in righteous fury.
Dropping his pistol to his side, he hollered over his shoulder to his men. Without so much as a glance back, he fled the chapel, leaving a stilled storm of bedlam in his wake.
Still, the girl stared.
Yet again, my essence was hurled farther into the looking glass. This landing thrust me into the center of a makeshift village, comprised of shanties, wagons, and lean-tos. Every structure was eerily vacant, a scattering of bullet holes and cannon blasts blown through walls hinted at the horrific tale that had unfolded.
Spinning at the sound of approaching footfalls snapping through branches, I found a hodgepodge band of rum-soaked pirates stumbling out of the foliage.
“Cap’n?” the one leading the pack, with an eye patch and missing teeth, called into the camp.
“Where’d he get off to?” the stick of a man behind him asked, rising up on tiptoe to see over the brush and saplings.
“Saw that maiden that’s been haunting him, he did,” a third among them slurred, catching his stumbled steps by hooking a hand on a tree trunk. “Went running off in search of her.”
Harwood picked that moment to appear, bursting from one of the wagons with the force of an enraged bull. Nostrils flaring, his heaving chest rose and fell in frenzied agitation. “She was here! I saw her!”
Shifting on their feet, his men exchanged nervous glances in their silent deliberation over which among them would speak on their behalf. When none among them volunteered, Patched Eye was shoved forward by the other two.
“Cap–Captain,” he stammered, hands anxiously twisting together. “You claim to see this mysterious lass at every port, yet the men and I have never laid eyes on her. Is there a chance …”
Harwood’s head whipped around, daggers of murderous rage stabbing in the direction of the insolent bilge rat that would dare speak against him.
Stare drawn over his captain’s shoulder, the pirate’s one good eye widened in disbelief. “… that she’s standing right behind ya?”
Harwood tensed, as if feeling the prickle of her presence, and slowly turned on the heel of his boot. She stood no more than an arm’s distance from him.
The nun.
The raven-haired child with a forest of lush lashes, all grown up.
“You followed the path I left for you, Captain Harwood.” Taking a brazen step closer, the harsh punch of her tone could have hammered spikes into a timber to string him up. “Accolades, for those are the last kind words I will ever speak of you and your miserable black heart.”
Movement rustled all around. Members of the Roma camp appeared on every rooftop and surrounded the pirates from all sides. Dressed in flowing fabrics of every color, they were adorned with shiny bangles and hoops, and armed with an impressive assortment of weapons. Everything from slingshots to pistols were pointed at the slack-jawed crew, who had fallen right into their trap.
Seemingly oblivious to the shift in power, Harwood bubbled with giddy delight. “She’s here! Can you see her? Tell me you all can see her!” the captain demanded of his crew.
“Oh, we can see her.” The fumbling drunk staggered in a circle, blinking hard to focus on the coming fight. “And we see him, and her … with that, and … them with some sort of nightmarish pointy contraption.”
“Spirit, speak!” Harwood boomed, throwing his arms out wide as if he were communing with the dead. “Why must you haunt me?”
Tilting her head, waves of ebony hair swayed to her waist. “You think me a ghoul, yet can’t fathom why I would torment you? Do you claim to have led a virtuous life? That the blood of many doesn’t stain your hands, and tarnish your soul with the filth of an oil slick?”
Arms swinging slack at his sides, he humored her claim with a snort of laughter. “Many have committed atrocities far more vile than I. Why dub me the villain?”
With a glance to her rooftop brethren, the girl planted her feet before him. “I was barely out of swaddling clothes, when you left me stewing in my parents’ blood. Can you provide a word more fitting for such a man? Perhaps diavol is more fitting? It translates to devil.”
Tipping his chin, Harwood peered up at her from under his brow, a sly smile twisting back one corner of his mouth. “It’s vengeance, then? Shall we play it to the death?”
Cued by the promise of violence, his men pulled their swords in a menacing hiss.
Not an ounce of intimidation marred the girl’s exotically beautiful features, she brought her hands together over her head in a sharp clap.
Her clan moved in response as one unified unit. Each lifted their right foot, and brought it down in a forceful stomp. To that, the earth itself answered their call to war. A wall of dust and leaves swelled from the ground, cocooning the captain and his accuser in a cell of nature’s choosing.
Finding myself on the outside of the blockade, I simply stretched my essence to pop my way through.
Within, I found Harwood scanning his prison with mild interest and nonexistent alarm. “How is this done?”
“This is what your kind would call gypsy magic.” Turning her head, the girl spat on the ground as if ridding herself of the foul taste left by such a word. “In reality, it is the strength of the Roma people rallied in a way you couldn’t begin to fathom.”
Hooking his thumbs in his belt, Harwood rolled his shoulders back in an easy stance meant to taunt her. “Gypsies, are ya? Then I encourage ya to drop this little act before you get yourself hurt, lass. I’ve traveled enough to know the only magic your people can conjure is of the smoke and mirrors variety.”
Her head twitched in an avian fashion, eyes widening with manic rage. At the second jerk, an invisible hand closed around Harwood’s throat. Clawed fingers grappling for freedom from the unseen force, his face transitioned from red, to purple, to blue.
“Does that seem like a sleight of hand?” she snarled. “Or would the sensation of the life being choked out of you convince you further?”
“What ... do … you … want?” Harwood gasped, watering eyes sending tears streaming over his cheeks.
“I want my parents back. I want my awakening into a world tainted by violence not to have come at such a tender age.” As she spoke, she rolled her fingers into a fist and blew a gentle breath over her knuckles. “I want not to have spent the majority of my years tracking you down, and honing my skills to lure you to me. Most of all, I don’t ever want you to scar another innocent soul as you did mine.”
Her hand opened to reveal the embryo of a crocodile balanced on her palm. From nose to rump it was no more than the length of a finger, yet already its tiny snout sniffed at the air. Bulbous black eyes battled the heavy blinks of sleep. Its tail, still in the transparent portion of development, curled in to its body to show off newly acquired spots.
Raising her free hand, she brushed one finger over the croc’s delicate skin. “The blood was so thick, it splattered up my ankles with each step. Not knowing what else to do, I curled up next
to my mother’s lifeless body until help came.” Her stare, black with rage, shifted to Harwood. “It took two days. Their bodies had begun to swell with stink.”
With a delicate touch, she brought the fetus to Harwood’s cheek and cradled him there. Her wee cargo’s snout twitched, rustling in the coarse hair of Harwood’s beard. The pirate recoiled as much as the force holding him would allow. Drawn closer by the warmth, the croc nosed upward, moving in the direction of Harwood’s bulging eye.
Harwood could manage little more than choked gasps as the croc wiggled into the corner of his eye socket, and began burrowing into his skull. Muscles spasming, his arms and legs locked out straight, shock setting in. As the last glimpse of the spotty tail disappeared behind the captain’s eye, the girl released him. Slumped to the ground, he screamed his lungs raw. Digging at the back of his head, Harwood ripped his hair out in chunks as he felt every wriggle of the critter within.
All the while, the girl lorded over him, watching with hypnotized interest. “Your passenger will not take your life. He will not harm you or cause you any further pain … unless you plot, scheme, or attempt to commit any malicious atrocity. If you do, he will burst forth and stop you in a magnificently grand display.” Lifting the hem of her skirt, she crouched down beside Harwood to breathe against his ear, “Know this; every time he is called forth—each situation that demands he intervene—he will leave a bit more of himself behind until there’s nothing left of you, at all.”
Forcing his head up, Harwood’s red-rimmed eyes pleaded for mercy. “Every curse can be broken! Please, speak of the key that will unshackle me from this prison!”
“Years I have spent preparing this punishment and tolling over the intricate details. What makes you think I would offer such a prize so easily?”
Gritting his teeth, Harwood tried to lunge for her throat, only to be halted by a lightning bolt of pain rocketing through his brain. One eye rolled skyward, the other squeezed shut. The left side of his face locked in a spasm. After a beat it passed, leaving Harwood on his hands and knees panting.
Entombed in Glass (Unfortunate Soul Chronicles Book 2) Page 12