Dangerous Magic

by Alix Rickloff

  Conover glanced back up. “And the headland there is Finskillen. That puts us about ten miles southeast of Ballyroan, sir, and very near where yon man’s due to go ashore,” he said, nodding his head in Mackenna’s direction.

  “Heave-to and prepare to launch the gig.” Rafe cast his gaze to the sky. A haloed moon hung low in the west, while heavier clouds already obscured the dimmer stars. “We’ll send a crew ashore once the moon sets, or when those clouds move in. Whichever comes first.”

  The Cormorant held steady beyond the headland. The men knew their business. The ship’s lights were doused and any words were spoken in the softest whispers. Only the rigging kept up a steady hum in the warm land breeze blowing off the coast.

  Despite the tension winding him tight, Rafe was filled with an exhilaration he’d not felt since the night he took the revenuer’s bullet. Restrained in the confining atmosphere of his family’s home, he’d been surprised to feel frustration and boredom building to a fever pitch. But it had taken only hours aboard to shed the edgy pressure that had dogged him for weeks.

  The familiar roll of the ship beneath his feet, the excitement of what lay just over the wide silver expanse of horizon, and the surge of pride and power he felt bringing the ship beneath his command until she cut through the water like a knife. All these things made him realize he could never again turn his back upon the sea. Like a drug, it had worked its way into his system, and he wondered how he would live without it.

  He cast a long look at Gwenyth standing aft before turning his attention to the boat-crew. Better to think of the job at hand than too far into the future. It may all end here, if things went awry with this landing.

  Four seamen slipped over the side to take up oars. Rafe watched MacKenna check his gear, sliding an ominous dirk into a scabbard at his belt and a slim blade into his boot. A pair of pistols disappeared into his coat and he carried another pair from his waistband. The man was a walking arsenal. God help his prey.

  MacKenna slung his pack across his shoulder and put a leg over when Gwenyth approached him. Though she put a gentle hand upon his arm, still he spun as if she surprised him. She spoke softly, pressing something into his palm. He glanced down at the object. Then giving Gwenyth a hard sullen stare, he pocketed whatever it was and slipped soundlessly over the side to join the oarsmen.

  Gwenyth crossed to Rafe’s side.

  “What did you want with MacKenna?” he asked.

  Gwenyth slid her hands up to grip Rafe’s arm. Leaning against him, she put her head upon his shoulder. “A bit of cold iron to ward away the fairy-folk, and a scrap of my cloth should he need it.”

  Rafe’s brows lowered into a frown. “Any fairy would have to be out of his mind to tangle with MacKenna. The man’s a ruthless killer with the soul of a devil.”

  Gwenyth’s gaze turned to the darkness out beyond the ship. “It won’t always be that way. When he forgets the man he is, he’ll remember the man he was destined to be.”

  The landing boat slipped soundlessly away to drop MacKenna on the loneliest stretch of coast between Dungarvan and Waterford Harbor. With oarlocks muffled in scraps of scrounged tarpaulin, it would be as silent as the death it brought with it.

  Rafe wondered what the Witch of Kerrow saw in Ciarán MacKenna’s future. By the wistful expression on her face, it didn’t look like a violent, bloody death. That was good. Perhaps they’d all get through this thing with their skins intact.

  As the clouds thickened and spread across the sky, the wind began to gust, tearing at the sails. The remaining crew wrestled to hold the Cormorant for the returning gig. Rafe sighed with relief as the gray shape of the boat’s prow reappeared, the men rowing like demons.

  In moments, they had pulled in their oars and secured the boat before climbing up and over the Cormorant’s side.

  “He’s safe ashore?” Rafe asked, anxious to put this place behind him.

  The boat’s coxswain wiped a sleeve across his brow. “Far as I could tell, sir. We dropped him like you said. Coast was empty. Hills looked quiet. He disappeared soon as we beached. Not even a look back, just a nod and he was gone.”

  Rafe felt a pricking between his shoulder blades, a steady growing sense of unease. Something wasn’t right, but MacKenna was away. The man was on his own now, just as he liked it.

  “Captain Fleming!” Triggs shouted from the bow. “Coming round the headland. Two points off the portside bow.”

  A shape heaved up out of the dark. No more than musket shot range off their port side, it seemed to come from nowhere. The lonely sea was suddenly alive with light and shouts and the ominous sound of the running out of guns.

  “’Ware!” came a shout from the other ship just before its cannons opened up on the Cormorant.

  A rolling boom like thunder echoed around Rafe until his ears rang with the sound.

  A customs sloop passed across the Cormorant’s bow. Obviously assuming Rafe was off-loading contraband and worried he’d dump his cargo and make a run for it, the sloop’s over-eager captain had spared no time for questions. Instead, he’d opened up, raking the Cormorant’s deck with her cannon.

  The shot smashed and splintered wood and tore through the sails as it passed the length of the deck from bow to stern. Rafe cast a panicked glance around for Gwenyth. She’d ducked beneath the railing, the white of her eyes showing her fear.

  “Get below! Now!” he shouted.

  He spared no time to note whether she heeded him or not. The crew scurried to rig the damaged lines and tackle and were putting on as much sail as the wind allowed. The Cormorant slid from beneath the sloop’s barrage.

  Where the hell had that bloody, great ship come from? The only place it might have hidden was beyond the headland. No doubt the customs guard had discovered this treacherous piece of shoreline and decided to keep a closer watch. This was an overlooked drawback to being away for so long. Normally, he would have known where the revenuers were stationed. He would have kept his ears to the ground and been one jump ahead of any coastal patrols.

  Tacking, he pulled the Cormorant ahead of the slower, less maneuverable sloop. The guns still fired, but the shot fell short and useless. The Cormorant’s square lugsails grabbed the wind, pulling the lugger wider of the revenuer’s fire. With luck the captain would give up the chase to search for the casks he expected to be hidden beneath the waterline.

  The sloop heaved about, steering on a course that brought the two ships once again near enough to exchange fire. Tom Vingoe took up position at the swivel gun, preparing to release his own volley.

  “Hold!” Rafe ordered. “I want no cause for them to chase us.”

  Vingoe glowered his frustration but dropped his hand. The sloop’s cannons opened up again, and there was a flash of pistol and musket fire from the bow. Splinters of wood and metal sprayed the deck like bullets.

  Behind Rafe, Triggs caught his breath upon a gasp of shock and pain. He slumped over as the lugger with every inch of available sail turned to catch the wind, pulled ahead, leaving the sloop behind. Even with the foresail’s spars and rigging half shot away, the Cormorant put more and more distance between them, soon losing herself in the open sea and the moonless night.

  “Conover, take the helm. Set a course for Polperro.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Rafe pulled Triggs to the deck. Feeling over the man’s still form, Rafe’s fingers encountered the sticky wetness of blood. He cursed as his stomach clenched with nausea. Bending over the hatchway, he called down to Gwenyth. “Triggs is hit! I need your help!”

  Rafe dragged Triggs below where Gwenyth was dropping the glass over a hanging lantern. A black stain spread across Triggs’s chest. Rafe’s stomach lurched, and his skin grew clammy with sweat.

  Gwenyth tore at Triggs’s waistcoat and shirt, exposing the wound. The skin of his chest on the right side had been sheared away as if someone had taken a flail to it. Red, raw, the pearly-gray muscle showing between lumps of offal that had once been a shoulder. A s
plintered edge of bone jutted out at an unnatural angle—Triggs’s collarbone, Rafe realized with a fresh roll of his stomach.

  “Do you carry surgeon’s tools?” Gwenyth asked.

  “There’s a bag in the aft cabin,” he said, forcing the vomit back down his throat. “I’ll get it.”

  He stumbled away from the sour-sweet stench of blood back through the main hold. Standing for a moment beneath an open hatchway, a soothing breeze and a steady drizzle of rain cooled his flushed face.

  Once in the aft cabin that served as crude captain’s quarters, he crossed to a locker, trying to breathe deeply and evenly. Within the locker, and beside the bag, sat a dusty bottle. Fumbling with the cork, he tipped the bottle up into his mouth, gulping down long swallows of the burning rum. It calmed his nerves even as it tore down his throat to eat at his belly.

  Grabbing up the bag, he raced back to Gwenyth, shoving it into her hands. “I’ll leave you to it. The men will need me—”

  Gwenyth grabbed his wrist before he could turn. “I’ll need your help to hold him in case he rouses.”

  Rafe’s heart sank, but glancing at Triggs’s gray, pain-lined face, he knew he couldn’t leave. This was Triggs. Rafe had crewed with him since Cador’s death. He’d eaten at his table, danced at his wedding, and stood as godfather to his eldest son. He couldn’t turn his back upon him now. He bit down hard on the inside of his mouth until the pain took his mind from the trembling in his hands. “Very well. Just tell me what to do.”

  Jagged, flying splinters had caught Triggs on the right side of his chest. Like bullets, they had ripped into him, breaking ribs, tearing through muscle. Gwenyth pressed on the area with a wad of rags to stanch the bleeding, but dark blood still streamed between her fingers.

  “Is it bad?” he whispered.

  “Have you ever heard of a good wound?” Gwenyth snapped. She shook her head, the bite gone out of her voice. “Here.” She took Rafe’s hand in one of her own and guided it to the rag. “Press hard with both hands. I need to see what tools you’ve got.”

  Rafe pressed hard on the bandage, trying not to think of the maimed and bloody flesh beneath his fingers. To drown out the pounding of his own heart, he concentrated on the noises around him. Gwenyth muttered to herself as she rummaged through the bag. The crew called back and forth. The wind moaned through the sails, and the rain beat hard on the overhead of the cabin. Beneath this noise, hardly noticeable over the workings of the ship, Rafe detected a gurgly whoosh—steady, wet. It sounded each time Triggs took a breath.

  “Gwenyth? I hear something. It’s quiet, but it’s there. Listen.”

  Gwenyth dropped the bag, still holding a curved scalpel, the blade dull with disuse. She bent over Triggs, her ear cocked. Her face paled, and she snatched a new rag. “It’s his lung. By all that’s holy, he’s pierced it.” She dropped the scalpel and pressed down. The noise stopped. “Here, move your hand over and press here. I need to probe the wound, find out what I can before we go further.”

  Rafe had never been as close to panic as he was now. Every sense screamed at him to flee. To escape the smell of blood and flesh and sweat and fear. His hands shook as they pressed upon the rag over Triggs’s lung. I must do this. I must do this, he thought. He recited this over and over in his head, blocking out the darker thoughts telling him he would die if he remained here one more minute. His heart raced, pounding in his ears. His tongue felt thick in his dry mouth.

  Gwenyth stole a glance up at him. “Do you need to leave? To send someone else down?”

  Rafe wanted to holler, Yes, for the love of God, yes! But this was Triggs and Gwenyth. He couldn’t let either one of them down. “No…just…just…do what you have to do.”

  Gwenyth bent forward, fingers sure and swift as they dug down into Triggs’s chest. “He’s nicked a vein. See the blood there? It’s dark—slow-moving.” She shook her head. “In this sea and with the tools you’ve got, there’s naught much I can do beyond packing the wound and praying.”

  “If I could reach a safe harbor? If Triggs could be brought ashore and—”

  “Mayhap he’d have a chance…” Gwenyth dropped her gaze to the saturated rags. “But Polperro is too far—over a day’s journey.”

  Rafe rose, his jaw hard with determination. “Leave that to me.”

  Now that his mind was made up, the doubt and fear within him withered and burned away, leaving nothing but a crystalline sense of purpose. He felt Gwenyth’s touch upon his mind. Like a spark, it danced across his consciousness and then was gone. He knew she sought answers, worried about what he planned. Her dream had foreshadowed stormy skies, boiling seas and a race for the coast. With each decision made, the prophecy unwound before him. He tried not to dwell on it. He could see no other way.

  He gave a harsh bark of laughter. He’d be damned if Triggs died for DeWinter and his bloodsucking cronies.

  Perhaps, he was.

  Chapter 35

  Gwenyth touched a hand to Triggs’s hot forehead. Unconscious in a hammock, he rocked like a babe in a cradle. If one didn’t note the stained and sodden bandages or his shallow gasping breaths, one might almost envy him his undisturbed slumber.

  She tried not to dwell upon what she’d seen when she had slipped between the chinks in Rafe’s mind. He intended them to seek shelter in Kerrow’s harbor. So much closer than rounding The Lizard and heading for Polperro—but so much more perilous. Gwenyth knew the hazards as well as anyone. To run the narrow middle ground between the shoals and reefs guarding her harbor was always difficult. An attempt during rough seas when the combination of wind and wave, tide and current could smash you to kindling was foolishness. But Triggs would never last the longer trip. Rafe knew it, and Rafe would chance his skills and his ship against Kerrow’s challenges.

  Gwenyth closed her eyes and saw again the man standing upon the deck as the mast and sails dropped upon him. She saw the cold, angry sea pulling him away from the safety of the boats. She saw the slithering coil of rope drag him under.

  With a shuddering breath, she opened her eyes, forcing herself to focus on the unconscious man, the clank of the pump, the smooth wood pressed against her back. It eased the gnawing bite of panic. Still she felt as if she stood at the brink of a great precipice. She couldn’t turn away, but remained poised at the edge to await whatever happened next.

  “How does Triggs fare?”

  Rafe stood within the hatchway, one hand braced on the beam overhead. He was soaked through from the steady rain, but his eyes gleamed in a face sharp with stubborn persistence.

  She shrugged. “He lives. More than that I can’t say until we reach shore.”

  As Rafe crossed to Gwenyth’s side, he stole a quick worried glance at Triggs. “Kerrow’s cliffs are within sight. If this wind holds steady, we should be home by nightfall. Your worries were for naught this time.”

  “You forget. I’ve lived these moments a thousand times. I’ll not breathe easy until we drop anchor.”

  Rafe bent down beside Gwenyth, taking one of her hands between his own. His touch was cold, and she shivered as he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ve plied this coast for the last eight years. I may not have sailed into Kerrow Harbor before, but the deeper waters off her coast are well known to me.”

  “If my dream was a true seeing, it won’t matter.”

  Rafe’s mouth turned up in a faint smile. “I’ve thought on it, and I think we may be safe this time.” When Gwenyth arched a brow in question, he continued, “On Burhunt Down, there were two visions. My…” he paused as if reluctant to speak the words, “my death. In the other, my life. But in both there was a child. Our daughter. We’ve yet to create her between us. Until that occurs, the vision can’t come true.”

  Gwenyth choked on a throat suddenly gone dry. She started to tell him, warn him. But the words wouldn’t come. If Rafe’s confidence depended upon this idea, would knowing she carried his child undermine everything?

  In his sudden doubt, he might falte
r when he should be strong. He might hold back when boldness would win them safety. Her warning might be the very hinge upon which all that followed swung. Like a shifting boggy moorland, every step she took and every minute that passed seemed fraught with unseen hazards and no way of knowing which path led her to safety and which led to tragedy. Her heart beat painfully within her chest.

  Rafe cupped her cheek as he kissed her. His hands and face were cool and wet, but his lips were warm and tasted of saltwater and rum. His kisses eased the tight knot in her stomach.

  “So you see?” he whispered. “Secure as if we lay together in our bed at home.”

  Gwenyth tilted her head up in question. “At home?”

  Rafe sat back, his smile turned to a mischievous grin. “Goninen’s hedge of ash deserved its very own witch. I spoke with a land agent before we embarked. I’ve put in an offer for the house and whatever lands ride with it. It’s no Swiverton Park, but…” He shrugged.

  Gwenyth sat speechless. The haunted gardens of Goninan would be hers to cultivate and tend. The cold, empty rooms would ring with the sounds of laughter and family. It almost made her believe in the future he dangled before her. It almost made her forget aught else.

  A growl of thunder rolled over the sea, and a slash of white lightning cut across the cabin. The rain pounded upon the boards above their heads as the storm that had chased them since the headland of Finskillin finally caught up with them here—now.

  A sudden heave of the ship threw Gwenyth into Rafe’s arms. He caught her and held her, but his eyes were no longer upon her face, and his mind had already snapped back to the clear and imminent dangers of the Kerrow breakwater. Releasing her, he rose to his feet. He studied Triggs for a long moment, the dark bloodied bandages, the skin stretched tight over angled bones. Rafe’s eyes, as sharp and clear as a frothing spring stream, flashed to Gwenyth. They shimmered with regret. “There’s no other way. If it’s fated to happen, I can’t fight it.”