Not the best way to go back to the future. I'd be better off with a lightning-powered Delorian. To go back home, our best chance was to go back to Marie's headshop time machine. I was reasonably confident, having watched Chad and Marie operate the skull, I could figure it out.
But first, we had to make sure Sephus got back to his girlfriend safe and sound.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ruach exhaled a massive blast of magic, creating a wyrmhole in front of us, and swam through it as quickly as he made it.
Sephus gasped. "What in the..."
I smiled. "Sorry, should have warned you about that. How far from here?"
Sephus looked around. "This is familiar. I think it's a little further east. Not far, though."
I nodded. I didn't need to tell Ruach what to do. I wasn't sure if he understood Sephus or if he read my mind, like Nammu often did, and heard what he said through my thoughts. Either way, Ruach continued moving eastward.
We were deep enough we weren't likely visible from the surface. But not so deep we couldn't see the surface ourselves. A small vessel of some sort wasn't far ahead of our position.
I could sense magic within it...
Could it be? The zombie-pirate ship that had Marinette's former host's body on board?
I didn't have Marinette's aspect. Odette is the only one I knew who did-and heaven only knew where she and Nico were at this point. But I had an idea...
I asked Ruach to slow down and maintain our current distance from the ship ahead.
I explained to Agwe what I suspected-what the ship likely was. "If Marinette's old host body is there," I continued, "could we use it in some way to draw on her power to manipulate her undead?"
Agwe pressed his lips together. "It's true. A Loa maintains a connection to all his or her hosts, present or former. In theory, it could work. I might be able to coak enough of her aspect through her former host to command the undead myself. It's tricky, though. When we wounded Conand's body, and she left him as a host, his body decomposed too quickly to use. How long has it been since her last host died?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Not long. I mean, how long was I in that dungeon? Couldn't have been more than a day."
"It was six months," Sephus said. "Took my father and I that long to arrange our posts so I could be in a place to take down the firmament."
"Six months?" I asked. "How is that even possible?"
"My father came to you shortly after you were captured. Said you took the kelp, and you went into a trance."
"Yeah," I said. "That happened. But six months?"
"You were speaking to Legba, correct?" Agwe asked.
I nodded. "I was."
"He likely took your consciousness into the crossroads," Agwe said. "Your body was likely preserved on account of his aspect."
"Come to think of it," I said. "I'm starving!"
"If the boat ahead had the corpse of Marinette's former host aboard, I suspect it's too decomposed at this point to be usable."
I shook my head. "But Odette had used a shrunken head to connect to Marinette before."
"Then she used a preserved head of a former host," Agwe said. "Preserved before it decomposed."
I nodded. "Well, if there really are zombie pirates on board, we can't leave them here... if anyone stumbles on them if they get bit... we won't only fail to stop a zombie apocalypse in the future; we'll expedite it, ending the world before I'm even born to stop it."
"Probably worth checking out at least," Agwe said.
I nodded. "Y'all stay here. I have enough magic right now with both of you here I can take a look from a distance."
"Just don't do anything dumb, Joni," Agwe said.
"Dumb? Me? I might be impulsive, but..."
"Don't do anything impulsive. That is what I meant. Regardless of how dumb you may or may not think it to be. Scout out the situation and report back so we can discuss it."
"Ten-four, hubby," I said, with a quick nod before dismounting Ruach. I kicked my tail hard to the surface. I needed to make a good jump, to be totally free of the water, before shifting. If I was still in the water, I'd become a miniature wyrm. But if I was in mid-air, the essence inside of me would grant me a dragon's form.
I blasted through the surface, and once I hit the height of my jump, I shifted into dragon form, quickly spreading my wings to catch the air before crashing back into the water.
I soared up over the ship.
Sure enough... zombies...
These were extra-creepy, primarily skeletal. Marinette had raised them from the depths of the sea. Their ship had sunk back in the days when pirates still terrorized these waters, and their flesh had probably been eaten by sea life long ago.
I had spectacular eyesight in this form. I can't say it was quite the vision I might have if, for instance, I managed to take an eagle's form, but it was better acute than normal human eyes.
The zombie skeleton pirates wandered around the ship as if in a trance. All it would take, I imagined, was the slightest scent of flesh, and they'd go into a rage. I needed to keep my distance.
Or, at least, avoid detection.
But I didn't see a corpse. Nobody that looked like it might have been Marinette's former host. Not even a pile of bones.
Hard to say how much her body would have decomposed over the last six months. For all I knew, she might have become one of the skeletal zombies.
Six months... still couldn't believe what seemed like mere moments to me was actually half a year.
Marinette probably assumed I was dead. Hell, she was probably in cahoots with a bokor somewhere trying to get him to bind me and evoke me at this very moment.
Sorry to say, they'd be disappointed. But that had been her plan.
There was a small hatch on the stern of the ship. I wondered if, perhaps, Marinette's former host's body was in there...
Nothing impulsive, Joni...
That is what Agwe had told me.
But this wasn't exactly impulsive. It was still reconnaissance. I couldn't totally scout the ship without a complete view, inside and out. This was what I told Agew I was going to do. Besides, he wasn't the boss of me.
Thankfully, the zombies were all on the front of the ship. If I was careful, I could sneak in there, get a quick peek to confirm that Marinette's old host was there and what condition it was in and dive back into the sea.
Badda bing. Badda boom. In and out. No harm, no foul.
I circled the ship several times to make sure I knew what I was dealing with. I also needed to come at it more or less coasting, with my wings spread, to land at the stern as gently as possible. Didn't want to alert the creepy zombie pirates.
My dragon feet gently touched the rear deck of the boat...
And everything changed.
The mossy surface of the boat turned dry. The rotted boards were solid again. I looked up. The zombie pirates... not zombies anymore. Not even skeletons. They looked... human...
What the...
I moved around, still in dragon form. They didn't seem to notice me. The men moved around the boat, wearing high-socks and knickers, vests, and some of them with bandanas on their heads.
Except for one... she wore a black hat. The captain? A female pirate captain? Who woulda thunk?
"Captain Bonny!" one of the pirates said. "Methinks there may be a treasure, of the magical sort, near. Me compass... it's spinning."
I snorted. Hopefully, I wasn't what they were detecting.
The pirate showed his compass to the captain. She looked at it carefully and cocked her head. "We may have a visitor on board from the land of the living."
Well, shit...
Before I could spread my wings to leave, the captain turned and looked at me. Her "first mate" did the same.
"There be a dragon, aboard, cap'n!" the mate shouted.
The captain shook her head. "It isn't a dragon. But it is what we require..."
She extended her hand. Something like a black energy flowed from
her fingertips toward me.
No time to waste. I spread my wings and leaped into the air.
Whatever it was that hit me felt like death itself.
I flapped my wings hard and, once I was over the surface, released dragon from and dove headfirst, as a mermaid, back into the water.
I turned back... the ship was back in its previous form. Covered in moss. Most likely, the inhabitants aboard, skeleton zombies again...
I kicked hard down to Ruach, where Agwe and Sephus waited for me.
"What did you see?" Agwe asked.
I shook my head. My heart was still racing. Whatever that magic was, it felt like if it had lasted a second more before I got out of it, it would have sucked the life right out of me. "That is not a normal ship."
"What do you mean?" Agwe asked.
"When I landed on it..."
"You what?" Agwe asked. "I said don't be impulsive."
"It wasn't," I said. "It was a calculated move. Anyway, when I landed on it, it was like the whole ship came to life. Those weren't zombies. They were living, breathing, humans... at least once I was aboard."
"Ever see anything like that in these waters before?" Agwe asked Sephus.
Sephus bit his lip. "Not often. I mean, I haven't personally. But there are rumors of ghost ships. Pirates lost in time, bound by an enchantment that keeps them alive in another realm as they wander the seas, appearing to us as if they were dead already."
"And it didn't occur to you before I went up to check this thing out this might be what it was?" I asked.
Sephus shook his head. "Like I said. They're stories. Tales. Meant mostly to scare children, I assumed, from going into the open waters outside the firmament."
"Welp," I said. "Apparently, they weren't just stories."
"Any sign of Marinette?" Agwe asked.
I shook my head. "Not at all. But I didn't get a chance to look inside the hull. Either way, I don't think she was there. I mean, not her or her former host."
"So Sephus," Agwe said. "According to these stories, what is it they seek?"
"The magic of Fomorians," Sephus explained. "With it, if they can acquire it, they're supposed to be able to come back to life."
I winced. "Makes sense. The captain, she shot something at me. It was black as night. Felt like death itself when it hit me."
"Did she get any magic out of you?" Agwe asked.
I shook my head. "I got out of there quickly enough. I think she didn't have a chance. Didn't feel any of my magic leave me, anyway."
"We should cast it into the void," Agwe said. "If they do end up finding a Fomorian, eventually..."
"I agree," I said. "Still, it doesn't help us when it comes to tracking down Marinette."
"Maybe not," Agwe said. "But if this was the boat where her former host was before... it must be connected somehow."
"We should go back and try and find Odette and Nico. That's the caplata who helped me before. Also, the vampire that Marie sent with me. They might know more."
"I agree," Agwe said. "But first, can you draw some of my magic, amplify it enough to combine with Ruach's portal to send it into the void?"
"Cant' you do it?" I asked. "Seems you didn't have any problem at all getting into the void yourselves before."
"I could," Agwe said. "But as a siphon, it's far more efficient if you do it. Takes less magic that way."
"Don't you have an endless supply anyway?" I asked.
Agwe nodded. "But do you really want to release that much magic into these waters with that ghost ship floating ahead? At least if you do it, you can channel the magic directly into the portal precisely."
"You can't be precise with it?" I asked.
Agwe shrugged. "Not with the same potency that you can, Joni."
I sighed. "Alright, Ruach. You ready to do this?"
Ruach grunted. He was a wyrm of few words. But He clearly understood me. He exhaled a portal and, with my trident summoned in my grip, I drew magic from Agwe and channeled it, amplified, into his gate.
I turned from a golden hue to something more black... and it enveloped the ghost ship completely.
"That is that," Agwe said. "At least they can rest in peace in the void. And we have one less thing to worry about."
I snorted. "Sure."
I wasn't convinced. I mean, did we really solve the problem that quickly? We weren't entirely sure what we were dealing with. But you know, Agwe was the demigod. At least the one with experience in demigoddery. If I was one, I'd only been one a few short months. If he thought this would handle it, why question it? Still, the fact this ship was tied to Marinette... it couldn't have been a bad thing to get rid of it.
Chapter Thirty
We dropped Sephus off at the exile mer colony. Had it not been for him, the merlegion would have been guarding the dungeons. The only way we could have gotten out of Fomoria would have been with a fight.
Especially with Agwe at my side, we probably could have held our own. But so far as I knew, King Conand hadn't seen me yet. I suppose he could have come to see me while I was in my six-month-long daze. Still, if he hadn't seen me yet, I was inclined to keep it that way. I wasn't sure if he recognized me later when I came to him to help Merlin in the future if he would still help me.
I had my issues with Conand. No doubt. But if it hadn't been for him welcoming me if he hadn't at least tried to help me become the Wyrmrider of legend, I not only wouldn't have been able to save my son, I wouldn't have been able to save Fomoria from the voidbringer.
We needed to find Odette and Nico. The problem? Agwe wasn't exactly a land-walker. He could go ashore, technically. But with his host being a full-blooded Fomorian merman, he had little tolerance for the air. He could shift himself some legs, but then he'd have to constantly sponge himself with salt water to prevent himself from turning into a raisin.
Agwe was old. Older than I probably realized. Not that I had a problem being with an older man, but if he looked his actual age... well... we'd probably never end up consummating this marriage.
"Stay with Ruach," I said. "We can meet back at this location in two hours."
Agwe shook his head. "They'll be looking for us. The merlegion."
"Did Conand have the enchanted map in this century?"
Agwe nodded. "I believe so."
"Well, shit. I guess that explains how they found me before."
"It means that Conand also must've known about the ghost ship. I mean, you said you sensed its magic. If that is the case, it would show up on the king's map."
I shook my head. "I don't get it. When he betrayed us during the whole voidbringer crisis, he was desperate to save his nephew. Before that, I mean aside from some of his backward views about outsiders, I was under the impression he was a generally good king."
Agwe nodded. "And you seriously didn't see him once the whole time you were in the dungeon?"
I shook my head. "I mean, by my reckoning, it didn't feel like I'd been there more than a day. I was in a trance with Legba for most of the time I was there. I can't say he never came to see me in my condition. Only if he did, I didn't know it."
"Marinette certainly must have," Agwe said.
"Maybe. She came to me when I was first captured. Mostly to gloat. She thought I'd be dead soon. That I'd starve to death. I don't think she knew I had Legba's aspect. Or, if she did, she didn't think I was likely to figure out how to access it."
Agwe sighed as he gently stroked Ruach's neck. "Something about this is fishy."
I snorted. "Fishy. Seriously? You're going to go there?"
Agwe shook his head. "I wasn't trying to make a pun."
"Sure you weren't," I said, rolling my eyes. "But I get your point. A ghost ship sailing freely through the Caribbean. Marinette off doing whatever she was doing. She said she and Conand had a bond. A history. But she might have been making shit up to throw me off."
Agwe winced. "She wasn't lying. They did have a history. When she was still a human. But she also betrayed the Fom
orians."
"How did she do that?" I asked.
"It's a long story," Agwe said. "And while we're sitting still, we risk the merlegion tracking us down."
"What do you suggest?" I asked. "I mean, we can't just leave Ruach here to fight off the merlegion alone."
"I'm not suggesting we should," Agwe said. "But if you give him enough magic, if we charge into the skies, he can become a dragon."
I bit my lip. "So you want to fly him as a dragon through New Orleans? Won't that cause a panic?"
"Probably," Agwe said. "But these days, it isn't like they'll be able to take a photo. Anyone who sees us flying probably won't be taken seriously if they tell anyone."
"But we're not talking about a few people, Agwe. If we go into the French Quarter, where Nico lives, people will see us."
"Then we avoid the city until nightfall. We go to the caplata first. She's at your old family plantation, correct?"
I nodded. "That is where I found her before."
"Then we'd better get going. I suspect that it isn't Conand who is commanding the legions."
"If he isn't in charge right now, then you think it's Marinette?"
"She's surely involved. But someone has likely taken his appearance. Who it might be, I cannot say."
"Maybe Odette will know something," I said, reaffirming my grip on Ruach. "You ready for this, buddy?"
Ruach snorted. I inhaled, drawing in as much magic as I could. For Ruach to shift, it was going to take a shit ton of power. I needed to let that magic percolate in my body, amplify as much as possible.
"Take as much as you can," Agwe said. "I can't channel it as potently as you, but I have a pretty deep supply."
I nodded. Agwe's magic was seemingly unlimited. But he had a Fomorian host. He could only wield at once as much as his natural form allowed. It was almost like he had an ocean's worth of power in a massive container, but he could only draw it as quick as it might drain from a single pinhole.
Not enough magic to provide Ruach to shift alone. But with my ability to siphon it and amplify it, it was more than enough.
Wyrmrider Vengeance: An Underwater Magic Urban Fantasy (The Fomorian Wyrmriders Book 2) Page 16