I didn’t think he was going to answer, but as I neared the top, he whispered, “Kylen.”
Dorn reached down to take the boy from me, but I pushed his hand away. “He’s hurt. I’ll carry him.” Dorn helped pull me out and over the edge of the hatch. The other two children lay beside him, still as death. I glanced up at him.
“They need a healer.” He tensed as several gunshots rang out from somewhere near the loading platform at the back of the boat. He fastened his trident on to his back with effort, gathered up the girl child, then looked down at the boy, torn. “I do not want to leave him behind, even for a short period.”
Sebastian, are you coming or do you need help? We need to go!
I heard several grunts and then a paw reached out of the hatch, claws out, soon followed by another. The big cat pulled himself out and gave his body a violent shake. He looked at the child in Dorn’s one arm, Kylen in mine, then at the boy lying on the deck. This one is too close to death for me to try to move magickally. I will guard him until you return for him. Hurry.
Kylen lifted his head, staring down at the other boy. When his eye met mine, his lower lip quivering, I knew I wasn’t leaving the other child behind, not even temporarily. I ran to the high rail of the ship on the other side, searching for the Sea Witch. “Sebastian, let them know we’re coming over.” And what condition they’re in, I added mentally.
I have already warned them.
Can you call that orca to help? Or any others?
He tilted his head, then nodded. They come.
Trixie, can you help me carry both children?
Yes, just go.
I carefully shifted Kylen to my hip, supporting him with one arm, and then gathered the second boy up, barely containing my own grunt from their combined weight. Dorn stared at me. “Let’s go.” As I followed him to the stairs, the weight lessened and I sighed in relief. Trixie must have done something to help. She didn’t respond.
Sebastian prowled next to us silently. Momentarily, I worried about Rand, but we had to get these children over to the Sea Witch.
Your mate can take care of himself. Move! The cat’s urgency pushed me forward.
We moved down a half flight of stairs, hurrying toward the loading platform at the back. I had no idea how we were going to get the children and ourselves, well, Sebastian and I anyway, off this boat. Dorn would likely take to the water.
An engine started on the other side of the ship.
The balding man, he is trying to run away! Sebastian let out a snarl that made me want to make myself as small and unthreatening as possible and hide.
We can’t worry about him now. We’ll find him later, in the city, if we have to. We need to get these children to safety.
Still growling, the big cat stayed a few feet behind us, hugging the wall, his form little more than a shadow as he guarded our backs. Just as we skirted around the burned body and were about to pass the cargo containers, someone stepped out, gun aimed at us. Dorn and I froze. The man’s eyes flicked to the two boys I carried and his face hardened. Kylen lifted his head to see why we’d stopped moving, saw the man, and ducked his face back into the crook of my neck, his small body wracked with shivers. I didn’t think, I just reacted. I was only able to raise my hands part way without releasing my charges, but it was enough. The wave of magick I threw at him almost sent me stumbling backwards. Sebastian threw himself behind me to keep me from falling.
“What did you do?” Dorn asked, staring at the unmoving man in front of us. The gun was still trained on us, but his eyes were no longer focused.
“I think I froze him in place. Come on, I don’t know how long it will last.” I flexed the hand I wore the Defense ring on. I’d done this before, but it had always been an instinctive reaction and I’d released them within minutes. Plus, I’d worn it with the Power ring each time and I hadn’t been sure if it was the combined magick of the two rings or my own. I started to maneuver around the man then noticed the faint shimmer around his gun. There was a matching shimmer from the pendant hanging around his neck. Were these the magickal weapons mentioned earlier?
Sebastian, can you grab those? I pictured them in my mind for him. I didn’t know what they actually did, but I didn’t want to leave them behind and I didn’t have a free hand.
The familiar didn’t respond, but both the gun and the pendant disappeared. I had to half-run to catch up with Dorn, who had gone around the man’s other side and was almost to the water. Arella and another were waiting. Then I saw a dark fin rise from the waves and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Where is my mate?” Arella’s voice held a tremor of panic as she reached for the child Dorn carefully handed down to her. She slowly lowered the girl’s body into the water as Dorn turned to take the still-unconscious boy from me. When the girl was partially submerged, she whimpered, then cried out in pain. The horror on Arella’s face stopped us. “She does not change!” she cried out. “What have they done?”
Dorn looked down at the boy he now held, then back at me, unsure of what to do. I had no idea what to tell him, this was too far outside of my scope of, well, anything. “Maybe she’s just shocked by the cold?”
Dorn shook his head. “Our people are born in their natural form. They are unable to take human form until the age of three, sometimes four. Something is wrong. We may harm them more if they cannot revert to their natural forms in the water and insulate themselves from the ocean. This area is not as cold as the deeper areas, but it is still much lower than their body temperatures. They may not be able to handle the shock to their systems in this condition.”
I looked out at the dark fin circling behind the ship and tried not to think of sharks. Hey, Trixie? Can you help me manage all three children if that orca gives us a ride?
Yes. You must hurry, the female child wanes fast. The man is right that the water is too much of a shock.
“Arella, call the orca over, please. If he’ll give us a ride, Danai and Tess are waiting to heal them.” I wasn’t even sure he could support our combined weight, but we had to try.
The orca’s head came up out of the water before I’d finished speaking, then disappeared again only to resurface next to the boat. Arella climbed up the small ladder off the back, still supporting the whimpering girl in her arms. The orca pushed his massive body lengthwise against the platform. Unsure of how to go about getting on his back, I stood there, my arms around Kylen.
Arella must have realized the problem. “Give the boy to me and climb onto Rikshi’s back. I will hand you Larea. Dysak,” she looked at the water fae at her side, “will meet you at your vessel and hand her to the healer. Rikshi will bring you back for each of the others.”
I shook my head. “I can take them all at once. Just hand them to me.” I tried to disentangle myself from Kylen, but the boy only clung harder. It looked like I would have to do this holding him. Gingerly, I reached for Rikshi’s dorsal fin and stepped onto his back. I lowered myself down until my legs were wrapped around him and I sat just behind the dorsal fin. I could feel the effort it took for the orca to keep his body pushed against the boat. Hurrying, but still trying to be gentle, I shifted Kylen to my other side. Letting go of the fin, I held out my free arm. “Hand her to me.”
I stiffened as a scream sounded from somewhere onboard, cutting off suddenly. I also realized the boat engine from earlier sounded far away now. Had Harris escaped? I couldn’t worry about him now. As I’d told Sebastian, we’d catch him in the city. My anger boiled up as I thought about his part in this. He would pay, one way or another. Kylen lifted his head to watch as Arella handed Larea to me and I heard Arella’s breath catch as she saw the boy’s bruised, swollen face. With the spotlight from the Sea Witch, I could see the bruising more clearly and the tracks of barely scabbed over needle marks lining each child’s arms. Someone must have been bleeding them several times a day for their arms to look like this.
Arella made a distressed noise as she saw the full extent of the children’s
injuries, but she dutifully handed Larea over to me. “Now the last boy. Set him in front of me.”
Arella took the child from Dorn and situated him just in front of me, nestled between my body and Rikshi’s dorsal fin. I trusted Trixie to do whatever it was she did to hold them to me and said, “We’re ready.”
The orca pushed forward, careful to keep us above water. My legs were in the water all the way to mid-thigh, but it wasn’t as cold as I’d thought it would be. The Sea Witch had drifted further from the pirate’s ship, floating perhaps forty feet away now, but the orca made it there smoothly in what felt like only seconds. Tess and Danai were waiting to take the children. Nervously, I looked back at the other ship. I’d only seen that one last man with a gun, but we were completely unprotected back here and I could see the coven’s shield weakening.
I jumped as a head appeared in the water beside us and began to haul himself out onto the boat. Dysak—fully clothed, thank goodness. He balanced on the ladder and reached out. I handed him the girl first, waiting as he carefully passed her on to Danai. She ran for the cabin with the girl. He lifted the unconscious boy from my arms next and handed him to Tess, who hurriedly followed Danai. When Dysak tried to take Kylen from me, the boy’s arms clutched me so tightly he nearly cut off my air supply.
“Kylen, it’s alright. Dysak is going to help you.” The boy wouldn’t even look up from my shoulder. “I promise, he’s going to take you to the other children and stay by your side.” I looked at Dysak, who nodded. “I have to go back and help fight the bad guys so they can’t do this again.”
A deep shudder went through the boy’s body, but his grip loosened enough for me to draw a full breath. Which I immediately regretted, because I was as covered in filth as the children were. He allowed himself to be pulled away from me, but he still grasped one of my hands. “No more bad people?”
My eyes teared up, and I shook my head. “No more bad people. I’m going to go help the big cat get rid of them.” And I wasn’t sure now if I would bother taking prisoners.
He released my hand and Dysak lifted him fully into his arms, rushing toward the cabin after Danai and Tess. Kylen’s gaze remained on me until he disappeared from my sight.
I looked up as Shay flew over us. She circled once and then landed, shifting as she did so. One of her arms was bloody and she limped. She grabbed the blanket she’d used to cover herself before, but didn’t seem overly concerned about her nudity. “The kids, they’re safe?”
“They’re with the healers. Where’s Jeremy?”
“He went after that Harris guy. He wanted me to see where everyone was at. I need to get back.”
“Wait, aren’t you hurt?”
She looked down at her arm. “I’ve had worse scrapes.” With that she shifted and flew off again.
The coven watched her go. I sighed, feeling the weight of the night hit me hard.
“Are you guys holding up okay?”
They nodded, but I could see their magick was beginning to flag. “I’ll hurry. If you need to drop the shields, do it. Save your magick. I don’t think anyone else is going to be firing on us. Go below if you have to.” I looked up at the cockpit. “That goes for both of you, too.” Sam gave me a jaunty salute.
I needed to wrap this up so we could get those children away from here as soon as possible.
Not sure if he would understand me or not, I asked, “Rikshi? Would you give me a ride back, please? I have business to settle.”
The orca circled around, waited patiently while I situated myself on his back, and raced toward the other ship. I clutched his dorsal fin the entire way, but I was thinking a dunk in the ocean might be a good thing at this point, if only to get rid of the smell.
I can help with that, Trixie said. Before I could ask why she hadn’t offered that earlier, a huge spray of water washed over me, leaving me sputtering. Oops! That wasn’t supposed to happen quite that way.
Rikshi rolled when he got to the platform, depositing me in a dripping heap on the deck. Coughing, I accepted Dorn’s hand as he helped me up. Wiping the water from my eyes, I looked around. “Where’s Sebastian?”
I hunt those that harm children, came the reply.
Arella pulled herself from the water and stood, clothed in some sort of form-fitting, flexible armour, looking like some sort of oceanic warrior goddess with her braids and her trident. “The small boat. There were two humans on it. Rikshi will go after them.”
Two? Who else had escaped with Harris? My blood suddenly ran cold. The person in the cloak—it had to be. There hadn’t been any more magickal attacks and she’d disappeared just before I’d boarded. “Will you warn him there might be a witch, or at least someone who can use magick, with the man? And a crow and a falcon following them who are on our side?”
She cocked her head at me, looked down at the orca, then back at me. “He understands what you say.”
A bit late, but that was good to know. “Rikshi, be careful. I don’t know what the one with magick is capable of and the man might have a gun.” I thought back to the pendant and gun the man who’d confronted us had. “Possibly a magickal gun.” The orca rolled to study me with an intelligent eye, then flipped around and sped off. I had no idea what the guns actually did, but forewarned is forearmed and all that jazz. I turned to Dorn and Arella. “Are we ready to hunt?”
Chapter 16
Mopping up
Dorn took point as we moved around and between the shipping containers, Arella between us. Trixie had managed to dry me off somewhat, but my salt-encrusted clothes stuck to me uncomfortably, chafing and itching as I moved. We’d just made it past the containers when Dorn held his trident out, stopping us.
I watched and waited for whatever had drawn his attention, my palms up and at the ready. Then I heard it—metal tapping on metal. Dorn pointed toward the large cargo bay door I hadn’t noticed before. I heard yelling, faint, but . . . “The pixies!” I whispered. Rushing past Dorn, I ran for the door. It looked like a garage door, but I didn’t see any handle or way to lift it. I tapped on the door as quietly as possible, trying not to draw attention. The voices on the other side of the door went silent. “Hey guys, it’s Roxie,” I said as loudly as I dared. The voices began talking over each other so fast I couldn’t make out any of what they said.
“Anyone know how to operate this door?” I asked.
Dorn and Arella approached, looking the door over. I tried pressing against it and pushing it up, but it didn’t budge. Dorn shook his head. “I am not familiar with this. Perhaps I can use my trident to pry it up from beneath.”
Maybe if he’d had two good arms it would be a possibility, but even then . . . I took a few steps back, examining the door and everything around it. There was a keypad on one side of the door. Did it take a code? I kept looking and then I spotted the pedestal. There were two buttons on it, one red and one green. I pushed the green one and cringed at the loud grinding noise as the door slowly rose. When it was less than a foot off the deck, pixies began streaming out from underneath, their swords held out in front of them, looking for all the world like a flock of angry hummingbirds.
“What happened?”
Rasta, the last one out, answered through gritted teeth. “We chased our prey into this place and then the door went down behind us. We could not escape.”
I leaned around the edge of the door to look inside and regretted it. The area was lit by dim emergency lighting. The first body sprawled across the floor was little more than a bloody mess. The pixies must have taken out their wrath on the person when they realized they were trapped inside with him. A few feet beyond lay another body, face down. Arella and Dorn looked at the bodies, but didn’t seem affected. In fact, Arella nodded in satisfaction.
“Where is the king?” she asked.
The tiny pixie queen scowled. “We were split up almost as soon as we arrived. Your man, the king, and the healer’s familiar were battling up there.” She pointed to the upper deck with her bloody sword. “
That is the last we saw of them before we were trapped here.”
That must have been long before Sebastian said that the king and Rand had gone inside the central structure. I eyed the stairs leading to the cabins. There were three levels above us. I had no idea how ships like this one were laid out, but we needed to start searching. Rand and Olen could be trapped, injured, or worse. Where was Sebastian?
The king and your mate are still inside. They are cornered, but uninjured. I am having trouble finding their exact location; there are too many doors with tiny rooms and they all look alike.
“Rasta, will you and your flight keep an eye out for any stragglers up here while we search inside?”
She nodded reluctantly. She didn’t want to be left out of any action, but she wasn’t ready to be trapped inside again, either.
As they flew off, I headed for the stairs, my legs beginning to feel like lead. Frankly, I was surprised I was still moving as well as I was. I felt a tingle from my wrist, and my legs seemed less heavy.
What was that?
I’ve been feeding you small amounts of energy—magick—to keep you going.
That explained a lot. Thank you. I wondered how it affected her, though.
They are very small amounts and affect me little.
We made it to the first level and I stood to one side as Dorn opened the door that led to the cabins inside. When nothing shot at us or sprang out, I peered around the edge of the doorway. Inside, there was the same low emergency lighting as there had been in the cargo bay the pixies had been trapped in, but no movement. We moved down the narrow hall, opening doors and looking inside each room, but they were empty. When we got to the end, there was a set of stairs so narrow we had no choice but to go down them one person at a time. Dorn started to take the lead again, but I stopped him.
“I can put up a shield.” He nodded, and I went down, trying to be quiet. When I reached the second level down and opened the door, I saw movement at the end of the hall and threw my hands up. Sebastian prowled out of one of the rooms at the far end.
MAKING MAGICKAL ALLIANCES: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel Page 20