by A. J. Aalto
“Uh huh,” I said, noting Batten’s jaw clenching and unclenching. I thought he was doing an admirable job of not objecting. Or laughing.
“When we get to court, you must not look at anyone but myself, your own prince, and the Being in the throne,” Harry continued.
I made an uncertain noise. “Okay…”
His voice dropped to a stern warning, and through the Bond, he pushed a healthy dose of caution. “There will be many eyes upon you, my pet, and there will be a great temptation to sneak a peek at them.”
“We should arrange an earlier meeting to dispense with the anticipation,” Batten suggested, and Harry ignored it.
“Removing your eyes from the Being on the throne would be considered disrespectful,” Harry continued, “and so you must resist.”
“Nah,” I teased. “I’m gonna bust that shit open, call out some bitches, and start chucking fists.” I showed them to him, air-boxing a little while dancing on the balls of my feet, and grinned. Despite my balls-out enthusiasm, the chances of me shadow-boxing into the throne room of the Falskaar Vouras without tripping over a rug or windmilling madly into a faceplant on the floor were pretty slim. Probably, if I made any sudden unexpected movements, I’d get dive-tackled by guards, anyway. At my best, I am little more than a handful of interesting swear-words, some serious character flaws, and a hardened shell of defense mechanisms swimming in a miasma of self-doubt. I do the best with what I have.
“Guess this is goodbye,” Batten muttered, “since we both know you’re too stupid to make it back.”
“Stupid is a tad harsh, Mark,” Harry said.
“Dammit, Harry, manage your ‘Sitter.” Batten gave me a jab in the shoulder with his forefinger.
“Listen Pokemaster B, your body may be bronze-statue worthy, and you may have a tremendous dong,” I allowed, “but you call me stupid again and I will beat your shitcan.”
“You’ll try,” Batten corrected, “which will prove my point.”
“Need I remind you that I put you on the ground after Ashcroft?” I said.
Batten’s smirk made an appearance. “Tough girl now, huh? Try it again, see what it gets you.”
Harry made a soothing noise and Batten and I settled back in our chairs. “We both know that Malas Nazaire will be in attendance and that he has been, in the past, a…” Harry struggled for a moment with his words.
“Giant, flatulating, one-fanged fuckface?” I supplied.
“I think you should find that I would have used more dulciloquent terms, my Own, but the spirit of your malediction is understandable,” Harry said. “He was barely held to mortal law in mortal lands; despite having ever been a friend to our prince, Malas is absolutely not to be trusted at Svikheimslending.”
Neither is Batten, I wanted to point out, but since Harry never wanted to bring Kill-Notch in the first place, I thought I’d better not push it.
“I can’t not look at Malas and keep an eye on him, you know,” I said. “As you may have noticed, I'm not a frigging chameleon. But since you always call me bird names, what's that kooky one with the huge mouth that can do the thing with its eyes going different ways? The potato? Potoo? Yeah, I can be your petulant, persnickety potoo.”
Harry did not look amused. “Mr. Batten will remain seated near the master of our house when we are presented before the court, and he will keep an eye on Monsieur Nazaire.”
“After seeing those things he made with that sick Prior, I wanna raise a whole army of ghouls on Malas’s withered ass,” I said.
“Do restrain yourself this one time,” Harry advised. He turned to fetch my Moleskine and a pencil from my go-bag, and while he was busy with that, Batten leaned over to me.
“You couldn’t actually do that, could you? The ghouls?”
I dropped him a wink. “Bet your tight ass,” I bluffed. Harry handed me the Moleskine and pencil. “Oh, am I taking notes?”
He nodded. “You will look only at the throne, or at me.”
I drew a dick and a big pair of balls. “Right.” As if.
“You will avoid eye contact especially with any revenant, and should you hear unfamiliar voices in your head, you will ignore their commands.”
I sketched a vagina, realized that I made it way too big, and erased one side so I could make it a little perkier. “Yup.”
“Underline this: You must never take the back door.”
I put an X where the anus was. “Never take the backdoor. That sounds like instructions for someone with different equipment.”
Harry inspected my drawing and gave me a tsk. “Have you heard the term mare tenebrosum?”
I nodded. “Ancient sailors felt they couldn’t sail into the unknowable sea of the Atlantic and gave it this name, but it’s also known as a mythical fog that is haunted and causes ships to sink.”
“That fog is no myth. It is a Talent of the Stormbringers, revenants who have a telekinetic-like ability to summon aspects of storms: wind, rain, lightning and the like.”
The eighth Talent, one rarely spoken of because it was so rare. I understood now: Konrad Rask was a Stormbringer. Tempestakinesis; it was tricky on the tongue but musical in the ear, and didn’t sound nearly as scary as it was, when you thought about it. Their DaySitters would make bitchin' TV meteorologists, I thought.
“It isn’t a common power,” I said, hoping Harry would fill in the gaps in my learning. “Preternatural scientists haven’t been able to study it.”
“Only the king and a single house have the talent. Perhaps you have already discerned that House Rask is the home of the Stormbringer. Alas, he is the only one of his bloodkin. It has come to this: he is, at last, an elder with no young, homeless, a drifter, forever on the sea. Crowned Prince of an empty house. The master of a bloodline that goes nowhere. House Rask has no allegiance with the noble houses. He lives apart.”
“Did he never make Youngers?” I asked.
“House Rask was once one of the most powerful houses among the Falskaar Vouras and maintained a stronghold at Svikheimslending. Prince Rask is, in fact, one of the eldest of our kind. He had many Youngers, as many crewmen as he has now. They remain to this day as his DaySitters, the mortal guardians of his late Youngers.”
I wanted to ask what happened to the Youngers of House Rask, but the look on Harry’s face was answer enough. Batten needed it voiced. “Staked?”
“Just the one,” Harry said lightly, though there was nothing light about the implication. “Rask had only ever turned one of his own, but Erasmus, the second eldest of his house, turned dozens. A fierce and glorious power was his. He repelled a thousand thousand ships during the last troll war and stayed the traveling eye of many a Viking scout ship. No one had ever guarded Svikheimslending with more enthusiasm than Erasmus, and the sea responded to his furor by being perpetually uncrossable. No Norseman could even approach as far as Svalbard for decades. And then Erasmus was staked, and in an instant, all of House Rask but for Crowned Prince Konrad fell to dust.”
“Who staked him?”
“I think you must know the answer to this already, my carrion hunter.”
Batten jolted guiltily, and shook his head. “Not me.”
“No,” Harry said, licking his lips, avoiding our eyes. “You hadn’t even been born yet, lad. Colonel Jack Batten, on one of his northern raids, a young man just making his name.”
I picked up on Harry’s stirring anger. “He thought he was hot shit, hunting vamps like he was entitled to do so. They’re just monsters. Isn’t that right, Kill-Notch?”
“I won’t defend something my grandfather did before I was born,” Batten said, though his eyes had become wary, and I wondered if he was worried Rask would know him, or seek revenge for his emptied house.
I said, “It’s something you still do.”
He opened his mouth to protest that things had changed, and the sentiment must have surprised him enough that the words got stuck. He blinked rapidly, looking confused.
Harry turned slowly to face us. He was s
miling beatifically, flashing lots of teeth but no fang. “Say it, Mark.”
Batten’s jaw snapped shut, and while he didn’t shake his head no, his eyes said it for him.
“Please do.” Harry’s voice was a tug, a subtle slither through the room. I wasn’t entirely sure it would have been audible to anyone without him pushing it with his audiomancy.
The confession snuck out on Batten’s breath. “Things are… different now.”
Harry’s smile grew, and his eyes shone with victory. “Are they indeed?”
Hunger roiled through Harry and grabbed me low in the belly. It was distinctly uncomfortable, and it felt like it was suddenly a million degrees in the little room. “Hate to break up this bro-love moment, boys, and I’m sooooo glad you two are getting along better, but I need another dose of cold air. Is it safe to leave you two alone?”
Harry’s smile slid sideways into a distinctly seductive grin and he purred, “I think you should find it is not.”
Batten jumped up, clearing his throat and wiping imaginary dust off the thighs of his jeans. “Should go check my room. Pack. My things. Pack. Things.” He fled the room faster than I’d ever seen him move.
I snuck a peek at my Cold Company. The smug victory was still there full force.
“Happy with yourself, Harry?”
He didn’t bother to hide it. “Oh, yes. You may go ahead and indulge in that one to your heart’s content, ma raison de vivre.” He chuckled low, and it vibrated through me to the core, awakening all sorts of hungers. He shooed me with his fingertips. “I do believe the dreadnaught has realized that he is, at long last, our own.”
***
I opened the door to the tiny cubby of Batten’s room, swept in, and promptly laid down flat on my belly on the floor. There was just enough room for me, and the press of the wood against my forehead felt firm and reassuring, like nothing was shifting beneath my feet, even though the whole ocean was, and indeed my whole world. I figured if I flopped there long enough, things would make sense again. I used the toes of my Keds to make sure the door shut securely behind me, blocking out the strangeness.
“Must be serious," I heard Batten remark to himself. "She's gone to floor."
“I can’t take any more vampire nonsense and yammerty-hammerty.” My voice was muffled against the planking. “Not today. Tonight. Whatever.”
“Isn’t that your business?” Batten asked. “Isn’t that your whole life? You’re a DaySitter.”
I sighed and turned my face to look at him. “Harry’s being creepy,” I explained. Batten was scribbling notes in a small spiral notebook. He snort-laughed at me as if to point out he thought Harry was always creepy. “I’m sorry if he spooked you.”
“I get it,” Batten said, brushing it off like it hadn’t disturbed him. The look he gave me, though, was wary caution. Batten hadn’t looked at me that way since he’d caught me folding a brownie around another brownie and trying to force my mouth around both of them like a chocoholic snake. “He likes to play with his food. Just so long as he keeps his fangs to himself.”
“Harry would never force a feed,” I promised, and then repeated, “Never. Nor would he seduce to feed, or mindfuck you into believing you wanted him.”
I could see by the flinch around his mouth that he was remembering a revenant mindfuck, and there were two that I suspected he’d had, but there could have been any number I didn’t know about; I knew Jeremiah Prost had mindfucked both of us in that alley in Buffalo, and Aston Sarokhanian had done the same to him in Niagara.
But my Harry wasn’t like that. Right? I couldn't believe I even had questions on that score. I said, “Mark? He wouldn’t.”
Batten met my eye, found the honesty he sought, and nodded that he accepted my word. Experience would tell him the same; Harry had never tried to win Batten over with revenant trickery. He’d given Batten a goddamn Bugatti, but he’d never seduced him.
I got up, brushed myself off, and asked, “What are you writing?”
“Notes for the PCU.” He held up a hand before I could object. “Not directions. Observations. Chapel was curious about what we might run into.”
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously and peeked at his notes. It was basically a list of the same things that were bothering me, some punctuated by question marks, which I considered fair. Orcs? Trolls? Revenants. Faeries. Shadow wolves? Moving rocks? Recently, he had scribbled: Manticore?
“That hurts my head. Mostly the brain part of my head, but areas of my face hurt, too. Like here.” I pointed between my eyebrows and rubbed the flesh there. “This hurts, here.”
Batten put his lips close to my forehead and made a gruff little coo. “Poor baby,” he said, and kissed me there.
I swatted him away, trying not to smile. “Don’t make me like you, freak.”
“Too late,” he let me know, as if it were bad news. He didn’t look sorry about it. He tossed his notebook aside. “Say, we’re both stressed out and have time alone. What should we do?”
I cocked my head and searched the kindling, frisky light in his eyes. “You have ideas,” I accused.
“They’re all dirty,” he confessed.
“With, like…” I squinted at him. “Nudity?”
“For the most part.”
“Partial nudity?” Getting warm and mostly naked with Batten sounded like all sorts of wrong and exactly what I needed. Batten gave me a wicked little grin; the sight of it derailed my brain for a second, nuking my heart and setting my hormones into overdrive. When he smiled like that, Batten was death-blow handsome, criminally sexy. I imagined pouncing and body-slamming Kill-Notch against the wall. He saw it in my face and the glint his eye encouraged me to try.
“You strip. I’ll get the eye patch,” I said.
“Pirate themed sex?”
“We’re on a ship, duh.” I waggled my eyebrows. He shook his head slowly. “I'll let you wear the captain's hat.”
Batten made space for me on the bed, watching me carefully as I invaded his territory. The springs creaked. “Parrots aren’t a good look for me.”
“Got a peg leg?” I asked with an answering smile.
“That's not exactly my leg.” His breathing was getting faster, and hearing that made my own pulse quicken.
I kissed him softly, exploring his mouth for a long beat. “Make me your cabin boy, Blackbeard.”
“Ugh,” he said, drawing back.
“Too far?”
“Way too far.”
I tried, “Walk my plank?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” he said, and his hand played with the zipper on my parka, “but it’s better. I could probably shiver your timbers pretty good, too.”
The coat slipped off and I hardly noticed the cold in the room, my brain blurring pleasantly the way it always did when Batten’s hands started roaming.
“Swab the deck, me hearties!”
“Must you do that?” he murmured, nuzzling my throat. His hands made fast work of the tie on my hoodie, and his breath was hot against my skin. His bristles tickled, sending a rush of prickling heat down my chest.
“We’re role-playing. I’m adding spice to your sex life, you land-lubber. You’re welcome.” I let my head fall back with a sigh as I felt the press of his teeth along my collarbone. I felt his hand slide up my shirt. Soon his warm palm cupped my left breast. “Land ho!”
Batten cracked up, letting his full weight fall on me. “I give up. You’re too ridiculous to fuck.”
“That’s not possible. I have, in fact, had sex with you before, if you’ll kindly recall. And recently.”
“You weren’t this weird.”
“I’m always this weird.” I traced my fingers down his back. “Sometimes, way weirder. And if you’ll excuse my malapertness, I will suggest that you like my weirdness. I think it turns you on.”
“That’s just sick,” he said with a hot laugh into the crook of my neck. “What the fuck is malapertness, anyway?”
“You know? I do
n’t ask for grammar lessons when Harry does that anymore,” I said. “Easier to just roll with it.”
“And what about this?” He picked his head up from my shoulder and gazed down at me. For a moment, his eyes were unguarded and vulnerable, seeking clarity. “Is this easy? Are we just rolling with that, too?”
I cringed. “This what?”
“Nice try.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Want me to say it?” he challenged. “Cuz if you need me to say it, I’ll say it.”
“Jeez, Kill-Notch.” I groaned. “Are we really going to have this conversation?”
“Shouldn’t we?”
I shifted out from under him so I could tuck my shirt back in. “Probably, but it makes me feel funny.”
He hooked me with one arm and dragged me back into bed, folding me in against his body. “Can’t have that.”
I allowed myself to melt in his nefarious but hunky clutches, rolling over so I could nestle my face against his chest, all warm and snug for a moment. It felt good. It felt right. Too good? Too right? I was afraid to get used to it. I reminded myself of Buffalo, and what a dink he’d been after we’d had sex the first time, and what a dork I’d been, and the needless emotional turmoil that followed for both of us, and how our inept, broken attempts at communication only managed to drive us further apart while frustrating us both to no end. We really did need to learn how to have an adult, emotionally-mature conversation that didn’t involve our private parts mashing together in delicious ways. He seemed willing to try, but I felt mightily out of my league.
He cleared his throat, and I felt his voice rumble under my cheek. “You drive me nuts, you know that, right?”
I nodded against his hard pectorals.
“Is Harry…” He clamped that off then tried again. “Harry hasn’t…” Apparently, that line of conversation didn’t work for him, either. “He’s fine with…?”
I sat bolt upright. “See? Not so easy, is it?”
What I wanted him to say was “Everything will be okay,” or even, “we’ll work it out.” Even some hideous cliché like “love will conquer all” would have given me something to cling to. What he said instead was, “No, it’s not. I’ve staked a hundred and eight revenants, and you, Snickerdoodle, are the only thing that has ever scared me.”