After enjoying the view for a while, I went down to the hold, where I found the captain enjoying the hospitality of the rotting tuna. I pulled up an empty crate. “So,” I said. “How about you tell me who hired you to fish me out of the water, Josue?”
“Vai pro Inferno,” he said. “Foda-se.”
“Want to see a magic trick?” I asked, and put my hand out, palm up. Nothing in it. I turned it palm down, then over again.
Lightning danced along the skin, clung to my fingertips, and dangled from my knuckles like a handful of tangled string.
Josue sat back.
“You know anything about Tasers? This is the same thing, only without the delivery system. Oh, and the batteries. And you know the best thing?” I leaned forward and smiled. “It never runs out of juice.”
There’s no such thing as a loyal pirate. “He was a man,” Josue said.
“Name?”
“I don’t ask names. He gave me cash money.”
“White hair? Big, blue eyes? Red nose? About this tall?” I indicated Bad Bob’s height, but Josue was shaking his head.
“No, never seen that one. This one, he was weird. Shaved head. Wearing leather like out of some motorcycle movie. Scary.”
My heart took a running leap. “How’d he pay you?”
“You won’t believe it: gold. Sunken treasure. He said he’d just found some.” Josue laughed and shook his head. “Crazy people out here. All crazy. I thought I’d find you, see if you were worth keeping. He shows up again, I shoot him if I like you and keep the money anyway.”
Josue had no idea what a bad idea that would have been. “Did he say what to do with me when you found me?”
“Yeah.” Josue’s smile was a model of impish delight. “He said tell you Kevin said hello. And to take you back to port and let you go. Crazy. Like I said.”
I let out a slow sigh. “And you figured you’d threaten me into giving you something else? Or just rape and kill me?”
Josue shrugged. “It’s the way things are.”
“You are such a lucky man that things didn’t work out your way,” I said. “If they had, you’d be screaming your way to hell right about now, along with everybody else on this ship.”
He didn’t believe me, but he should have. I was in no mood to be Ms. Nice Guy, but compared to the fury that David would have unleashed on them if they’d hurt me, there was literally nothing I could do to them that would be anywhere near as horrible.
“My offer’s still open,” I said. “You take me where I want to go, and I’ll pay you enough money to make you king of the pirates forever.”
He tried not to look interested. “How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”
I turned my hand over again. Lightning flashed and crawled. “You know I’ll keep this one.”
Josue sat up straighter, his eyes flicking around as if he was trying to figure out an exit strategy. He finally nodded. “It’s a deal,” he said. “Just—put that away, bruxa.”
“Hey, Josue? Call me a witch again, I will Taser the holy shit out of you.” I felt the black exhilaration creep over me once more, the stealthy march of Bad Bob’s influence running through my veins. “Oh, hell, maybe I’ll just do it anyway.”
I didn’t, but it was fun watching him think I would.
I paced the bridge as Josue ordered the crew around. I had nothing to do, really, except wait and think.
Think about Kevin sneaking around behind Lewis’s back to let David out of his bottle, sending him to pluck me out of the ocean.
Why?
Cherise, I thought. I couldn’t imagine Kevin getting the initiative to come running to my rescue any other way. We’d always cordially hated each other.
I was even more surprised that David hadn’t tricked his way out of the bottle again by now. It wouldn’t take much slack for him to snap the rope that bound him; Djinn had been doing it for millennia, and they were very, very good at finding loopholes to exploit. Either Kevin had been very specific about what he wanted him to do, or David didn’t really want to get free just now.
Maybe because he knew that if he did, he might end up fighting me, and neither of us wanted that. He’d wanted to save me. Kevin had allowed him to do it.
Kevin, you’re a romantic. That made me smile. I supposed I’d have to thank him some way.
Maybe by not killing him. That was a gift that kept on giving, right?
The sun was putting on a spectacular evening display, all clouds and blood, when the lookout called a warning. At least, I thought it was a warning—Portuguese wasn’t exactly my strong suit, but the tone definitely sounded urgent.
“What is it?” I asked Josue, as he left the bow rail to head toward the stern.
“A ship,” he said. “Coming up behind us, and moving fast. Big, maybe a military ship or a tanker.”
“Tankers don’t move that fast,” I said.
Josue continued to stare over the stern rail, frowning. “Could be more trouble than you’re worth, mermaid. I’m thinking I throw you back.”
“You want to go downstairs again, talk it over?”
He gave me a scornful sneer. “You can’t sail the ship alone. My men won’t work for you.”
“Want to bet? Just do what I tell you, Josue. If I feel this ship slow down, you’re over the side, and your crew goes with you. That’s a promise.”
He knew I meant it. He nodded. I had no doubt that later on, he’d try to stab me in the back, maroon me, or otherwise screw me over, but for now he was treading carefully—partly because I was a potential payday, but equally out of sheer morbid fear. He’d seen a sample of what I could do, and he didn’t want to see more.
I didn’t really blame him for that. I wasn’t wild to see it, either.
I locked my hands behind my back and kept my legs spread wide, riding the bucking of the waves with the ease of a long-practiced sailor. We both watched the dim shape on the horizon take on edges and definition.
Definitely a ship. Big.
The lookout called another warning. Josue looked up, frowning, and blinked. He cursed in Portuguese—no, I didn’t recognize the words, but the flavor’s the same in any language. “Storm,” he said. “Coming on fast from the south.”
My friend the storm had hung back, content to let me run; I wasn’t sure anymore whether I was holding its leash or it was holding mine. But something had changed. Maybe it sensed that the containment around the mark on my back was fading again, or that I wasn’t following my approved script.
It was heading our way. Fast.
The blood sunset had disappeared behind a boiling, rising mass of clouds—iron gray ones, with greenish-black underpinnings. It was already crawling with lightning inside. Power had been poured into it—an awful lot of power.
“Hold course,” I said. I didn’t think all that effort Bad Bob was putting out was meant solely for us. We weren’t that hard to sink, frankly.
As we sailed steadily toward it, the storm spread out, flattened, swirled, consolidated, gained density and deeper color.
Then it started to spin around a center axis—slowly, majestically, unevenly at first, then spiraling out like a deadly galaxy. The blender of the gods, taking shape right in front of me.
“We need to get out of its way!” Josue shouted. I felt the first breath of wind sweep over us, vivid with the smell of rain. The clouds were whipping toward us. He cursed me in Portuguese, and ordered his men to follow his instructions.
I locked the rudder in place with a burst of Earth power. They worked frantically to free it, but they weren’t getting anywhere.
As the wind increased, so did the amplitude of the waves, and the small ship was nowhere near as able to crush through the turmoil as the Grand Paradise had been. The vessel was battered, and when it slammed bow-first into the rising waves, the spray fractured into foam and coated everything on board in slippery, unpleasant slime.