The Mariner

by Ade Grant

  “Perhaps.” The Mariner didn’t see much point in trying to work out the insanity in which they lived. The Pope would tell them what the Oracle couldn’t. He placed his glass down with a hollow thud. “Done.”

  Not long later, Harris negotiated a second round.

  “I don’t miss him,” Grace whispered lightly over the crackling fire. It was towards the end of the evening, when most had crawled off to bed, leaving only those obsessed with the pursuit of oblivion chasing it like a dog after a butterfly. The Mariner had thought her asleep, her small figure, curled up in Harris’ coat, hadn’t moved for hours. McConnell, still by her side, had fallen asleep, lulled into unconsciousness by the disarming heat, and yet she’d remained awake, staring at the fire through slits so fine she’d appeared to slumber.

  “Who?” he asked, more as a delaying tactic than an actual question. He knew full well whom she meant: Tetrazzini. Who else? She hadn’t said a word since McConnell had mentioned the man. And now she wanted to voice those demons. Why couldn’t she keep them locked away, like he did? Surely that was best?

  “You know who,” she replied, calling him out in one swipe. “Him.”

  I guess I do, but I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to think about leaving him to burn for what he did, because somewhere deep inside I think I’m the same. And if that’s true then I should burn too. I should burn as surely as he did, as surely as Absinth was ate. But I’m scared. I’m far too scared to burn.

  “Christopher wants me to talk about... what he did, but I don’t want to, I don’t want to even think of him.”

  “Christopher?”

  “Yeah.” Her pristine forehead furrowed and realising she theatrically rolled her eyes. “The reverend.”

  The Mariner was surprised, McConnell had never told him his first name. Funny. Names were strange things, meaningless and yet given so much weight.

  “I understand. I don’t like to think about someone too.”

  “Who?”

  Everyone I’ve hurt. Everyone I’ve killed.

  “My mother. I don’t remember her much, but what I do...” he stopped, the alcohol in his system loosening his tongue enough to speak, but not his brain enough to prevent protest. “She wasn’t a good person.”

  “Like Dad?”

  “He wasn’t your father. Don’t dignify him with the title.” He meant it as a compliment, but tears quickly gathered in the young girl’s eyes.

  “He was my daddy, he was!”

  “Shush! Hush now.” He took her arm and gently rubbed it. The arm was so small in his hand. So delicate.

  Suddenly he recoiled. What had he just been doing? Where would his mind have gone if allowed to continue? He tried to force the confused revulsion down out of sight. Right now, Grace was upset and she needed his guidance. “Your father hurt you, and my mother hurt me, and I don’t think they get to call themselves ‘mother’ and ‘father’ if they do that. I think they lose the right. But that’s not something to be upset about, because a person doesn’t need a mother or father as long as they have someone who loves them. And we love you, Grace.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” Or at least McConnell does. Me? I don’t know what I feel, that’s a question best left unanswered. “And although bad thoughts can return and upset you every so often, they can’t hurt you. Not really.”

  Grace looked assured, and the Mariner felt guilty. He’d fed her a pack of lies. Sure his mother couldn’t hurt him, not physically, but the damage done to the boy then had turned him into the man, and the man saw to it he was hurt over and over again. Continuing her work.

  “Grace?” he whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “I understand there is pain, but I want you to do something for me?”

  “What?”

  “Let me take it. I will take the blame, the hurt, the anger. I will tend that fire if it must be kept. You don’t need to. And if you ever feel you are betraying the past by forgetting it, then remember I’m honouring the memory for you. Let me take the blame.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Yes. Yes I can.” He allowed himself to touch her once more on the arm, ever so briefly, and the young girl seemed to brighten, ever so slightly. “Now, Miss O’Hara, let’s get you to bed.”

  Each room was decorated with a simple bed, a small lantern, and a single grubby window behind thick iron bars. Outside the rain still poured down with a ferocity that made the Mariner feel rare gratitude for being on land.

  He carried Grace up the stairs, stepping gingerly, afraid that at any moment he would slip and send them both back down, no doubt twisting their necks in the process. But his steps were true and once inside her room he laid the child upon her bed. Just as sleep claimed her eyes, he gave a her forehead a solitary kiss, bade her goodnight, and left.

  He found Heidi waiting in the corridor. She was leaning against the banister, smiling a drunken grin and swaying to the gust of an alcoholic breeze.

  “You’re awfully sweet to that girl. Both of you are.”

  “She’s had an awful life.”

  “Are you sweet to everyone who’s had an awful life?”

  “No.” He began to grin back, just as drunk as she. “Just those to whom my devils take a liking.”

  “Ah yes, the Tasmanian devils. The devil-whisperer! The man who can make devils do as he says!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that, but I did once get them to kill a rat, though I think they wanted to do that anyway. You should really call them the devils that can make a man go hungry.”

  She laughed and wagged a finger at him. “There’s something very strange about you!”

  He studied her face, high cheek-bones, piercing eyes and dainty chin. She really was very beautiful. “And you. You remind me of someone, though I don’t remember who.”

  She took his hand in hers and led him up a second flight of stairs. “Let’s see if this jolts your memory.”

  He followed in a drunken haze, stumbling as he stared at her hypnotic behind, lost in a sudden and powerful desire. At the top, outside her bedroom door, Heidi turned and pressed her lips to his. Despite the sour liquor, her mouth tasted sweet and inviting, and like a spooked horse, his lust reared, seizing all senses and directing them towards one goal.

  They fell against her door, the thin wood shaking with the impact, whilst their hands clawed at each other’s clothes. He felt a stiff nipple greeting his hand though her shirt as he pawed hungrily, urgent in desire. Heidi too, just as needful of intimacy, pulled him close and arched her back, pushing her breast into his palm. Hooking his leg with hers she ground against him, causing him to groan into her open mouth.

  Suddenly he pulled away, his eyes seeking hers. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for this,” he began, though his body eagerly betrayed the sentiment.

  Heidi put a hand gently on the traitorous appendage. “It’s the end of the world, Arthur.” Her voice was serious and her breath shallow. “What’s left to wait for?”

  With her other hand she deftly opened her bedroom door, kicking it wide with the heel of her boot, pulling him inside. He offered no resistance.

  They undressed in a blur, plunged into darkness as the door was locked behind. The Mariner’s befogged mind managed to register gratitude for that, he didn’t want her to see his scarred body, a multitude of self-inflicted wounds both ancient and fresh.

  “Come to me,” she whispered, and he joined her on the bed, climbing atop whilst she wrapped the blanket around them. The material was far from comfy, its rough thread itched and scratched his back, yet with Heidi warm and soft beneath he drifted away from discomfort. Gone were his aches, his sore wounds, his tortured self-loathing, now there was just her and he, locked together as one.

  Once again their lips pressed together, tongues dancing. She took his hand and guided it between her legs, groaning as he found the mark. Letting go of his wrist, now it had found its place, she clasped the back of his head and pulled him even tighter
, raising her hips against his fingers.

  He pulled her legs apart and gently entered her, moving together in time, united by their desire to escape their surroundings and go to the place only pleasure could take.

  She was whispering encouragement into his ear as they gained momentum, he felt the pleasure rising and suddenly he was lost, giddy from the alcohol, the sex and the bond. Reeling. Falling. He was speaking, words tumbling out, unstoppable. Something about love, but that wasn’t all.

  He said it again.

  “I love you, Grace.”

  They froze. The world froze.

  And a few seconds later, it all exploded.

  36

  THE FELLOWSHIP’S FUCKED

  A RAT SCURRIED ACROSS THE room. It stopped a couple of feet from the body, its nose twitching, excitement drawing it forward, yet an instinctual scepticism kept it at bay. A corpse was a prize indeed for a scavenger, and the rat was clearly famished, yet its dark eyes looked upon the Mariner and thought twice. It backed away, haunches skidding on the wooden boards as it dashed beneath the bed, somewhere it could out-wait the food’s guardian. Rats had patience, especially when a feast was at stake.

  What a sight to wake to. A dead body sprawled out on the floor of the small bedroom, face upturned and bloody. There’d clearly been resistance; she’d fought him, or at the very least tried to escape, but death had rigged the contest from the start. He’d won in the end. Or some part of him had.

  He tried to move, but couldn’t. His body was caked in sick and blood, yet despite all the bodily fluids ejected, there was still enough alcohol within to keep him grounded. The demon drink had gotten the best of him again, and from the evidence sprawled on the floor before him, it seems this time the demon had shared its ward with another more deviant monster.

  Outside the night sky had turned from black to grey. Dawn was coming, and soon they would find him. He knew he had to get up, get his things and escape, abscond with the supplies and weaponry onto the moors. For a moment he thought about simply heading to the Neptune and sailing away to the endless ocean where no-one could find him, but he knew he had no choice but find the Pope. That his monsters could come to the fore was a sign the truth was near. Truth within. Truth without.

  The Mariner looked into her dead eyes and tried to remember just how he’d killed her. He could see the signs: the battered face, the bite marks, the semen smeared about her bloody crotch, and yet he remembered nothing of the process. The act was beyond him, lost in a fog of booze and destruction.

  A cockroach, not as wily as the rat, scuttled towards the body and the Mariner lashed out, almost hitting it, sending it fleeing beyond his reach. There it stopped, calculating its next move. Man and insect sized each other, knowing each owns limitations and resigned to them. Eventually, weakened by distress and loathing, he fell onto his back, unable to prop himself any longer. The cockroach had won.

  Face against the boards, he looked once more into that of the corpse, eyes level with his.

  You were supposed to take away the pain, they accused.

  “I’ll take the blame,” he muttered. “Let me take the blame.”

  Not enough. You lied to me. You didn’t take enough.

  And then he finally understood, properly comprehending the girl that had kissed his cheek on a port an era ago, the child who’d been removed from a beast and placed into the hands of a monster.

  Grace.

  Raped.

  Dead.

  He screamed, long and hard until there was no more air in his lungs to expel. His voice broke, the sound not constant, but rising and falling wildly. It was the scream of a madman, the howling of a wounded wolf, enough to wake the dead, but not enough to wake Grace. She was beyond that now and could never return.

  He found his knife in his pocket and drew it out, plunging it into his thigh. Blood bloomed around the wound, yet the pain barely registered. It would take more than a stabbing to pay for this. There was no coming back, no redemption, he’d taken a loan he could only default.

  The door to Grace’s bedroom flew open, smashing into a corner of the bed, sending small splinters showering through the air.

  And now a second scream joined his, Heidi, her face white and horrified, hands clasped to her mouth. She saw the nightmare. The deed was witnessed. It was true.

  Jolted by her presence, a memory surfaced, that of Heidi kicking him out her bedroom, calling him a pervert. She’d been vicious with her tongue, hissing accusations, yet now he wished she’d gone further. If only she’d attacked him, struck him, tied him with ropes and reported his desire to the others, then perhaps he wouldn’t be laying here with a dead child at his feet? Perhaps then he’d still be able to take the pain away.

  After his ejection he’d plundered the downstairs bar. Misery and self-loathing guiding him to oblivion. And then...? This.

  Harris joined her side, his shotgun drawn ready for trouble, yet it was lowered, the owner in shock.

  “Arthur?” he asked, voice trembling. “What have you done?”

  But the Mariner was beyond answering. He just stared at the dead girl who’d given so much trust.

  The eels knew, he thought as numbness crept through his mind. What did the Oracle call them? Ethusmanier? They knew what was going to happen, and I should have let them stop me.

  Another door was opening, and footsteps thudding down the stairs. Heidi turned and dashed to the steps, grabbing McConnell as he rounded, soon enough to drag him to the ground, yet not enough to avoid the sight.

  Now it was McConnell’s turn to scream, and he did, the way only a man who realises he was wrong can.

  Misjudged me eh? The Mariner’s mind was giddy in its sorrow. Is this what you expected from your Jesus Haych Christ? Is it?

  Harris raised his gun, so the barrel no longer pointed to the floor, but straight to the Mariner’s head.

  “Shoot him!” Heidi said, holding the wailing McConnell tightly, his tears soaking her nightshirt.

  But Harris didn’t shoot, his face was stiff with resolve. “Get up,” he growled. When the Mariner failed to move, he commanded him to rise again, loud enough to match McConnell’s screams.

  The Mariner rose, body shaking with the effort and trauma, eyes wet with tears.

  “Leave now. Go up onto the moors and wait there. I will send four men to meet you, that’s all you’re getting for this search of yours. Not because I think there’s anything to this bullshit about islands and wasps, but because I want this Pope dead. And once he is dead, I don’t want to ever see you again, got that?”

  The Mariner didn’t nod. There was no need to.

  “Now go. Because I don’t think I can control myself any longer.”

  With a juddering gasp, the Mariner turned to look at Grace’s body. He wanted to apologise, to offer to carry her pain, but Harris was having none of it.

  “Don’t look at her, you sick fuck! Get out! Now!”

  Harris backed up, keeping the shotgun raised. The Mariner walked into the hallway, heading for the stairs, but McConnell’s voice stopped him first.

  “I failed her, Arthur.”

  “My name isn’t Arthur. She called me that, and she’s dead.”

  Besides, Arthur was the good one. What was the other’s name? Traill? Yes, that sounds more like me.

  “I thought there was good inside you.”

  “You were wrong. And I told you what I was from the very beginning.”

  “You’re a monster.”

  “Yes.” It felt so terrible to acknowledge the truth. “I never pretended to be anything but.”

  The Mariner walked down the stairs, eager to be out into fresh air, eager to be away from those that hated him, eager to put distance between him and that corpse, the mess that he had caused.

  McConnell shouted from above, his voice gaining anger where once there’d only been shock. “I’ll kill you! I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you!”

  Let him go Heidi. Let him go and have at me. Let’s p
ut an end to it all now.

  But another part of him was glad she was holding the reverend back. It sounded like he meant the threat, and the Mariner didn’t want to die. Not with the Pope so close.

  Pain bit flesh and guilt whipped mind, the Mariner stumbled out into the grey morning, once again alone. He looked up, between the tightly packed buildings, towards the ascent. And beyond that, the moors.

  It was time to find the Pope.

  Carefully Harris selected the four he would send after the Mariner, putting them under the charge of Barnett, a man he could trust.

  “Have you heard what happened?”

  “Yes sir,” Barnett seemed just as shocked as everyone else. “The sick fucker!”

  “You’re going to have to put that aside for now, I want you to catch up with him and help find this Anomenemy.”

  Barnett wrinkled up his nose in disgust and Harris waved his hand to halt any protest.

  “I know, I know! I don’t like it either. But I think this man might be some sort of Anomenemy himself, and he’s going to lead you to this Pope character, and we can’t miss the opportunity to take out two with one stone.”

  “Sir?”

  “We’re going to return to the Beagle. Heidi and McConnell are too distracted to continue. Best we stream-line the mission, just you four and he. I’ll send a ship back for you, it’ll be here when you return.”

  “How long will it take?”

  Harris shrugged. However long it took.

  “And you want us to kill the Anomenemy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about the pervert?”

  “Once you’ve got the Pope, kill him too.”

  Barnett shook his head sadly. “It’s a fucked up world, isn’t it boss?”

  “Yes,” Harris agreed. “Yes it is.”

  37

  HIS HOLINESS

  [THE MARINER] WAS BACK ABOARD the Neptune, except the ship was no longer made of wood and metal, but neatly folded paper. Great strips of the stuff with enormous printed writing, as if a giant had gotten bored of his book and did some origami. Yet it was still his ship and he had a duty to man it. Except the paper hadn’t been treated! The pages needed a coat of wax to glide through the water, and without it they were becoming soaked and limp, losing definition. The Neptune was sinking.