The ghosts all stood stock still, barely visible in the tropical daylight, staring straight at Tessier, as if awaiting his command.
“Oh,” Barnabas said. “Oh, come on. You stole a soul from a necromancer?”
“A what?” Yuri said.
“Interesting ship,” Tessier said. “I didn’t notice the hauntings right away. I think I’ll have to keep it.”
“He’s a bloody necromancer,” Barnabas said, trying to fight the panic rising in his voice. “We’re fighting someone who can control the dead and we’re on a ship crewed by ghosts. I can’t actually come up with a worse possible situation right now.”
His eyes darted to Tessier, looking for any tells of how he was controlling the ghosts. No telltale mystical energies, no bone fetishes on his wrist or neck… but there, his right hand gripped like a claw, clenched tightly in an unnatural position. It wasn’t a spellcasting trick Barnabas had seen before, but he knew a mystical gesture when he saw one. And Tessier wasn’t releasing that hand gesture.
“He’s concentrating on a spell,” Barnabas said. “This isn’t an innate ability. This guy’s just a magician like me, we can work with this—what was he selling his soul for, Muireann?”
“There was some sort of bargain involved,” she said. “I don’t know with what.”
“With what, or with who?” Yuri said.
“Same difference,” Muireann and Barnabas said simultaneously.
“What do we do, guys?” Echo said.
“So, you’re not going anywhere,” Tessier said. “I can set your ship on fire right now if I’d like, but I think I want to keep it. So why don’t you all just jump overboard and leave the little nymph for me? You don’t have to die here.”
“We need to break his hold on the ghosts,” Barnabas said.
“And how do we do that?” Artem said.
“Hit him with something.”
“He’s a little far away for that,” Artem said.
“I’ll do it,” Yuri said.
“What?” Echo said.
“I’m fast, I’m strong, and I regenerate if he hurts me,” Yuri said. “Distract him for a minute and I’ll run over.”
“I should do this,” Echo said.
Yuri smirked at her.
“C’mon, you haven’t seen me in action since I got my powers under control,” he said. “Let me show off a bit.”
Echo grinned at him, then her smile faded.
“If we break free and start running, Yuri, I’m not leaving you behind again.”
“You also haven’t seen how flippin’ fast I am when I shark out,” Yuri said. “You get moving and I’ll catch up. Trust me, I don’t want to get left behind any more than you want to leave me. I just got you back. I’m not ditching myself without a fight.”
“Okay,” Echo said. “We just need a distraction.”
“I’m not a man accustomed to waiting,” Tessier shouted. “I do love your ship, but I will burn it to cinders if you don’t disembark. You have ten seconds—”
“Screw it,” Barnabas said and fired his pistol directly at the yacht.
The gun went off with a sound that, rather than a bang of gunpowder, was more akin to a thunderclap. A bolt of electricity burst forth from the barrel, arcing across the water to strike the side of the yacht. It splashed against the hull, creating a spider web of lightning across the front half of the ship. The men onboard cried out in panic as the lights flickered and dimmed. The blast left a blackened, melted burn mark on the hull, high enough to not leave the yacht taking on water, but clearly leaving structural damage.
Somewhere in the chaos Barnabas unleashed, he heard the faint sound of a body splashing into the water and hoped that Yuri had enough time to make the leap without being seen.
“Well, don’t say I didn’t give you a better option,” Tessier said. “Nice trick, by the way. I’ll be keeping that magic gun after I kill you. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of it.”
Barnabas began calling up a deflective spell as he watched Tessier begin tracing the air in the loose, languid shapes of a fire spell with his free hand. I’m not cut out for a magician’s duel, Barnabas thought. He caught sight of Echo picking up her trident, readying a throw, and wasn’t sure if even she could hit a target at this distance with the weapon. But then he heard Muireann begin to sing.
On the yacht, pale blue motes of light appeared around Tessier’s eyes. He cursed, the fire spell he was preparing lost as he waved a hand in front of his face, shaking off whatever distraction Muireann had attempted. He gritted his teeth and began chanting again.
And that was when Yuri, fully sharked out, began dragging himself up the side of the yacht, his massive claws leaving heavy puncture marks as he stabbed handholds in with his fingers. It took only a few seconds for Yuri to haul himself onto the deck, at which point Barnabas heard real fear in the voices of the sailors on Tessier’s ship. Yuri was, even for someone who had faced were-sharks before, a terrifying sight, a monstrosity of muscle and teeth. Tessier at first didn’t seem to notice, but then whipped around just in time to see Yuri’s hand lash out to batter him aside. The necromancer flopped to the ground, sliding across the deck and out of sight.
Barnabas checked on the ghosts, who seemed to be sluggishly shaking themselves out of Tessier’s control. He could see resentment in their eyes, too—they might be long dead, but they knew when they were being manipulated, and they were willful enough spirits to have chosen to crew the Endless precisely because the ship allowed them the free will to choose their afterlife.
“Full sail, or whatever!” Barnabas said, for the millionth time telling himself he needed to buy a book on sailing. “Get us out of here!”
From the yacht, a gunshot rang out, and Yuri roared, more in surprise than pain. Barnabas could barely see what went on aboard the other ship, but it was hard to miss a crewman tossed bodily overboard and into the ocean, alive, but screaming.
The Endless picked up speed. Barnabas called out to Artem.
“Watch for Yuri,” he yelled. “I need to get us out of here.”
Barnabas ran to the front of the ship, remembering the arcane phrases he’d used to open the path that took them here. He wondered if the necromancer could do the same, but for now, there wasn’t much of an alternative. He silently cheered when he saw the barely visible break in reality, a sliver of light on the water, that would take them to the twisted paths where the ocean moved differently.
The ship shivered, and Barnabas feared they’d been hit, but instead, Yuri pulled himself onto the deck, bleeding from a small wound on his shoulder but otherwise as healthy as a massive were-shark could look.
Barnabas pointed the direction to the ghost crew and took aim at the yacht with his flintlock one more time. Again, it let loose an echoing thunderclap, striking the ship. He watched as Tessier, clutching one arm that hung limp at his side, stagger to the rail, but the lights on the yacht flickered and went out again. I don’t know if he can make that ship sail with magic, but all that modern technology just shorted out, Barnabas thought, watching the blue electricity dance across the yacht’s skin. Tessier might be a powerful dark magician, but a broken ship is a broken ship if you don’t have the right spellcraft to fix it.
The Endless, now moving at full speed, passed into the breach in reality, taking them to a distant route. Barnabas holstered his pistol and watched as Yuri transformed back into his human form, the bullet wound in his arm sealing up with an alarming ease.
Echo caught his arm.
“Will they follow?” she said.
“Probably,” Barnabas said, looking at Muireann, who stood on the quarterdeck alone, looking back at where they’d come from. “I’ll plot us a few more jumps like that to take him off our trail. Back to New Scythia, I assume.”
“Unfortunately,” Artem said, nodding at Muireann. “What about her?”
“She’s our responsibility now,” Echo said. “I’m not handing her over.”
Barnabas sighed heavily.
&n
bsp; “You know I don’t like sticking my neck out for anyone,” Barnabas said, ignoring the eye roll he inspired from Echo. “But the magic that guy’s into… having his soul stolen is the least of what he deserves. That’s the bad stuff. The worst. Poison.”
“That settles it,” Echo said. “Can you help us make sure we’re ready to fight him the right way next time?”
“Yeah,” Barnabas said. “I’ll do what I can.”
Chapter 35: You put him into soul overdraft
Echo waited until Barnabas had plotted an indirect course along the ley lines and they were well and truly moving before addressing what had happened. Muireann spent the first few hours staring off the back of the ship, waiting for this Tessier creep to show up again. When it seemed as though they’d at least temporarily lost him, the ondine went below deck. Barnabas, handing the helm over to the spirits of the ship, went below as well. Echo followed.
She wasn’t sure if she’d find them together or apart, and was somewhat relieved to discover the latter. The last thing she needed was the two magicians onboard conspiring. Muireann hunkered down in a dark corner, eyes closed, meditating. Barnabas had left his cabin door open, and Echo walked in without announcing herself, catching him uncorking an unlabeled bottle of booze.
“Seriously?” she said.
“Judge me all you want,” Barnabas said, drinking directly from the bottle. “We just outran a necromancer. I’m celebrating.”
“You keep saying that word,” Echo said. “I’d like an explanation. Muireann, could you come here please?”
The ondine rose immediately from her meditation as if she’d expected Echo to call her. Together, the trio sat down in Barnabas’ cabin. Echo almost laughed when she spotted Yuri eavesdropping from the steps leading up just outside the cabin door, and then saw Artem’s leg barely in view, the Amazon clearly trying to feign disinterest. Well, we should all hear this anyway, Echo thought.
“So, this is the man you stole from,” Echo said to Muireann. The ondine nodded. “And you stole… his soul.”
“A piece of it. He wasn’t using it,” Muireann said, repeating that same excuse she’d used before.
“You keep saying that like it makes any sense,” Echo said.
“In a way, it does,” Barnabas said.
Echo waved a hand at him impatiently to go on.
“Okay, crash course in magic,” Barnabas said. “There’s different kinds. People like me, who learn magic. We read books, we use mystical tools to focus our magic, we build a skill that we don’t necessarily have innate in us. A lot of us have some natural gifts—I’m the son of a nereid, I’m inclined to magic by nature—but not the ability to just cast spells at will.”
He gestured to Muireann with the same hand he held the bottle with.
“Then you’ve got natural talent, like our friend here. You’re an ondine. Pure sea spirit. Magic’s in your veins. You cast spells without thinking about it. It’s a part of you from birth.”
“That’s right,” Muireann said. “I’m surprised even with a human father you don’t have more natural ability.”
Barnabas shrugged.
“Learning magic came naturally to me, so maybe that’s my genetics chipping in,” he said. “I was a terrible student because I learned too easily.”
“You two can talk shop later,” Echo said. “I want to know more about what we’re up against.”
“After the learners and the naturals, you’ve got the people who bargain for magic,” Barnabas said.
“Bargain?” Echo said.
“They make deals. They receive their powers in exchange for something.”
“Like their soul,” Echo said.
Barnabas gestured at Echo with the bottle.
“Got it in one,” Barnabas said. “So, my question for you, Muireann, is: was this Tessier bloke not using his soul, or was he planning on selling it and you pilfered it from him?”
“It seemed like a tragic waste of a perfectly good chunk of eternal life force,” Muireann said. “He was going to trade it away. I figured I needed one, and I didn’t want to take it from a good person, so…”
“Can I interrupt?” Yuri said, leaning in awkwardly. The cabin was getting crowded.
“You live here, too,” Echo said. “Also, you saved our lives. You have the floor.”
“Who could he possibly have been planning to sell his soul to?” Yuri said.
“Oh, any manner of terrible things,” Barnabas said. “Demons, devils, hell spawn, a lich, an ancient unfathomable evil.”
“All of those things are real?” Yuri said.
“You, who can transform into a shark-man, sound surprised,” Barnabas said.
“Sorry, were-sharks are easier to believe than demons.” Yuri said.
“Eh, ‘demons’ is more of a catch-all term,” Barnabas said. “Don’t take that literally.”
“I can’t take it literally, because as of two minutes ago, in my world, demons didn’t literally exist,” Yuri said.
“Yuri, don’t panic,” Echo said.
“I’m not panicking. I’m questioning my entire belief system, but I’m not panicking,” Yuri said. “Question two: If he still had his soul, did he not sell it yet? Where does he get his powers?”
“The soul is part of a long series of bargains,” Muireann said. “Tessier’s not stupid. Only stupid people sell their souls immediately. He’s bargained for money, and power, and access to dark magic. The soul is the cherry he is dangling before whatever vile thing or things he’s made deals with. And as I said, this is only a piece of his. He’s likely been doling out bits and pieces of his life force his entire life. This is just the last part.”
“You stole the remaining balance of his soul,” Yuri said. “You put him into soul overdraft.”
“And you made it impossible for him to pay the man.” Barnabas said.
“What happens if you can’t pay a demon what you owe him?” Echo said.
“Bad things,” Barnabas and Muireann said at the same time.
“For the record, I was just getting used to being the heir of Atlantis and believing all the weird stuff we’ve seen in the past few months actually exists,” Echo said. “My best friend is a were-shark. It’s taken some time to let that settle into my reality. I was not prepared to deal with bargains with demons on top of all that.”
“You need a minute?” Barnabas said.
Echo ignored him.
“So Tessier doesn’t get what you stole from him back, and like, demonic leg breakers come and take it out on him?” Echo said.
“He’ll wish they only broke legs,” Barnabas said.
“I’m failing to see how this is a bad thing,” Yuri said. “Sounds like he has it coming to him.”
Echo turned to Muireann.
“What do you need it for?” Echo said. “Can’t you just give it back?”
Muireann stared at her, but said nothing.
“How much time do you have left, kid?” Barnabas said, apropos of nothing.
Muireann moved the dead-eyed stare from Echo to Barnabas. Then she turned her eyes to the floor, defeated.
“A few years,” she said.
“Before what?” Echo said.
Muireann remained silent. Echo whipped around to Barnabas.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Ondines don’t live forever, the way my mother does,” he said. “I don’t think we explained before clearly—I know we said they need to borrow that life force from someone, but it’s not just for their magic. They need that life force—usually given freely—to live, or they fade away like dreams.”
“What do you mean? How is it given freely?” Echo said.
“It’s stupid,” Muireann said.
“Try me,” Echo said
“Out of love,” Muireann said. “And Echo, I’m tired of this myth I’m forced to be a part of. I don’t want some poor clod to fall in love with me and give me some of his eternal life force. I’d rather take it from terrible men instea
d.”
Echo bobbed her head with an impressed expression on her face.
“I can totally respect that,” Echo said. “So we should just assume this horrible man is chasing us until we deal with him.”
“Until I deal with him,” Muireann said. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. This isn’t your fight. You don’t need to help me.”
“You’re part of our crew now,” Echo said. “We take care of each other. So shut up and let us help.”
Muireann appeared simultaneously both relieved and offended, settling on an uncomfortable, if grateful, smile.
“But in the meantime, we need to basically stop Godzilla from destroying thousands of people. So let’s see if we can’t avoid this Tessier guy long enough to deal with the giant sea monster first. Then him.”
“I can live with that,” Muireann said. “Thank you.”
“Hey, why don’t you come topside with me,” Yuri said. “You look like you need some air.”
Muireann placed a hand on Yuri’s shoulder and the two headed up to the deck. Echo heard them talking to Artem in muffled tones.
“How are we going to fix this, Barnabas?” Echo said.
“I’m working on something,” Barnabas said.
“Other than that bottle?”
“I said I’m working on something,” he repeated. “Have I ever let you down?”
Echo twisted to get a better view of him, her eyebrows knitting together in curious surprise.
“Weirdly, no you haven’t,” Echo said. “You’re shockingly reliable for a scoundrel.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” Barnabas said. “It’s bad for my reputation.”
Chapter 36: First contact
The Endless arrived just outside the illusory protections of New Scythia like a ghost, drifting out of the cloudy reality-warping effects of ley line travel like a half-forgotten memory.
What they found, what they saw, caused Artem’s heart to beat so hard he felt it hammer against the inside of his armor.
Fresh blood stained the deep blue waters outside his homeland. Broken ships as well. Several of the Amazonian attack skiffs they’d seen running security earlier were shattered like eggs. And bodies in the ocean, some of whom were not even remotely human. Creatures, half-man, half-fish, malformed and covered in scales of black or green or a pinkish color reminiscent of rotting meat. There were human bodies too, Amazon warriors clearly identified by their armor, though far, far fewer in number. It had been a bloody battle, Artem saw, but judging by the corpses, his people had been victorious, if bloodied.
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