Chapter 10

“What did you do?” Caine asked.

Janie hadn’t really noticed him come in. He was leaning in the doorway watching Janie blow out the candles in front of the mirror. She was disheveled and flushed after watching Bella work her oral magic on Captain Vex, and she definitely did not expect an audience for what she was thinking about doing next.

She was recovering from being startled, but Caine didn’t give her time to reply. “A customer says you stiffed him?”

“That isn’t true at all!” Janie said. “I did not accept his money.”

Caine’s brows furrowed as he watched her and thought for a moment. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. Well, no. Not completely, but I will be fine. Things got out of hand, but he did not hurt me. I suspect he isn’t happy with me though,” Janie sighed.

“That’s for sure. Why don’t you tell me what happened.” Caine said past the lip of his tankard.

“The mirror. We used it to watch Bella and Captain Vex...” She struggled with the words. “They were ... together. John thought they didn’t know we were watching, but they did.”

“John?” Cain asked.

“The customer,” Janie explained.

“That isn’t his name,” Caine said, looking confused and a bit amused.

“I know,” Janie sighed.

“Nevermind. That’s not the important part. Keep going,” Caine said.

“He thought he was watching them without their knowledge. I was trying to get him to see that was wrong and leave. I ... had a whole reward planned for him, but he just kept watching. Eventually I realized he liked that they didn’t know he was watching. It made me upset,” Janie said through pursed lips.

“So you argued with him, refused his money, and sent him packing?” Caine asked.

“Yes,” Janie said firmly. “He is not a good person.”

Caine watched her for a while, then let out a sigh. “You’re probably right. You’re still wrong though.”

“What?” Janie looked confused and a bit defensive.

“Ethically, I’m on your side,” Caine shugged. “Anywhere else, I wouldn’t be talking to you about it because you’re right. Here, things are different.”

“I am not sure I agree with that,” Janie said slowly, her eyes narrowing a bit in confrontation.

Caine sighed again. “Janie, this is a brothel.”

“Yes? So? Consent seems like should be especially important here,” Janie retorted.

“It is. That’s the point. He didn’t go spy on anyone on his own. He came here. Everything he did, you offered to him,” Caine said. “The whole thing was a fabrication. Bella and your Captain friend, they knew, right?”

“Yes,” Janie said warily, starting to see where Caine was going with this and not liking it at all. “But he did not know that.”

“You don’t think so? He’s not stupid. He just played along with the fantasy you’d built. He’s a regular. He’s never caused problems before with anyone. Now, he’s talking to Chance about how you tricked him.” Caine shook his head and took another drink.

“I don’t feel like I tricked him. I gave him every opportunity to do the right thing and leave,” Janie shook her head angrily.

Caine took another drink and thought for a bit, taking another pull off his mug. “We cater to all kinds. Some of it gets pretty complicated.” he sighed, trying to figure out how to get his point across. “For instance, there’s a thing called consensual non-consent. It’s about creating a fantasy of violation. Usually it’s something we make customers sign very specific contracts about. The only people who offer those services are veterans who really know what they’re doing.” Caine said sadly.

“That sounds horrible,” Janie said, suddenly much more uncomfortable.

“It can be, and that’s the point,” Caine shrugged. “There’s a lot that can go wrong in a fantasy like that. It’s definitely not something you should be creating on the fly on your second day.”

“You think I did that?” Janie asked. “Created a ... fantasy of violation?”

“Didn’t you?” Caine asked.

“Yes. I suppose I did. The purpose was to make him see the violation and refuse to participate,” Janie said. She sounded like she wasn’t even able to convince herself anymore.

“I don’t think he understood what you were going for,” Caine said quietly.

“Clearly,” Janie sighed.

“Remember the rule about how no one gets tricked?” Caine asked.

Janie felt defeated. She nodded.

“I’ll keep Chance off your back, but no more customers for you, alright?” Caine asked.

“That’s what I wanted anyway,” she said sadly.

“Good,” he said with a small smile. Then he ducked out of the curtains and was gone.

The crowd gave Jack and her entourage plenty of room. The Centurion immediately shifted his focus to the biggest threat. He moved much faster than one would expect from someone in heavy armor. With a gliding quick-step that seemed almost like a dance, he covered the distance to put himself right between Jack and the two priestesses. He stared right through his transparent shield, his eyes intense and warning. His hand began to raise towards his shoulder and Jack’s large gun went from a relaxed but ambient threat, to her shoulder, aimed right at him.

“Try it,” she said. Her smile never reached her eyes. The right half of her face was painted into a sinister looking skull now, which added to her grim demeanor. It looked like it hadn’t been finished, but enough of it was there to give her an intimidating countenance. “My bet is, the flames wash right around your fancy magic shield, and cooks you and everyone behind you too.” The Centurion stopped. His eyes flicked towards the priestesses. “What, that ward of thiers doesn’t stop fire?” Jack asked. “Seems like you have a problem.”

“Jack, back off!” Will called out. She ignored him.

“You’ll burn him too,” the Centurion cautioned.

“Why do you care? You think he’s some kind of monster anyway,” Jack shrugged.

“Jack, you’re not helping!” Will said loudly.

“Shut up, Will!” she snapped, her eyes never leaving the man in the golden helm. Something felt off. It nagged at the back of her head, but she didn’t have time to think about it.

“I don’t care, but you do,” the Centurion said. His hand creeped a little closer to the stock of the firearm slung on his back.

“I already did the worst thing I could do to him. A few burn scars won’t be much to add to the list,” Jack shrugged.

“She’s not bluffing!” Will shouted.

Jack took a step to the side to get a better angle on the priestesses. The Centurion stepped with her, his hand blurring and coming down with his weapon. It was a rifle with a short, thick barrel and a long bayonet attached to the end. It rested in his shield hand with professional ease. The barrel and bayonet protruded right through the shimmering field of his shield.

As soon as the Centurion’s weapon came to bear, Quinn moved. He stepped in front of Jack and ducked beneath her gun so it rested on his shoulder. One of his swords was suddenly in his hand. The Centurion’s bayonet was only a few feet from him. Jack raised her eyebrow at the Centurion. “How high do you want to escalate this?” The Centurion didn’t answer.

The priestess who had ahold of Will’s rope continued hauling on him. He was digging his heels in, but with the way the rope resisted him also, she was winning the tug-of-war. He tried to just go limp and turn himself into dead weight, but the rope felt like it was locked in the air. It didn’t fall with him. Instead it held his arms where they were. Trying to collapse to the ground just wrenched his shoulders painfully.

The crowd had closed in enough to block the priestesses retreat. They were looking cagey and a bit panicked. People were starting to shout “let him go” and “Magistrate get out.” The throng of costumed people, many of them with brightly glowing skeletons painted on their bodies, was impressively intimidating.

“He’s not human!” the Hammer priestess in purple barked. A bottle crashed into the ground next to her, shattering into shards at her feet. Apparently the shimmering ward didn’t stop improvised projectiles.

“Sister...” the Chalice priestess cautioned. More thrown objects began sailing in. Rocks. More bottles. A half-eaten turkey leg. The priestesses dodged as best they could, but couldn’t help being pelted. Their clean robes were quickly splattered with filth, and the Chalice priestess was bleeding from the brow where a rock had hit her.

“Why are you defending this monster?!” the purple priestess yelled back to the crowd.

The crowd shouted back. Most of it was unintelligible, but the sentiment was clear. More projectiles rained in. They turned towards each other, putting their back to the rain of stones and trash, wincing with the heavier impacts. The priestess in white suddenly grabbed the rope and snapped “liberation.”

Will instantly fell to the ground again as the iron-like rope suddenly went completely slack. His wrists hurt, but they were free. Some people in the crowd cheered. He stood up, rubbing his wrists, but before he could do more than stand the Hammer priestess put a pistol in his face. The crowd quieted a bit and the rain of rocks and garbage stopped. “You’re not going anywhere,” she gave her partner a sidelong glare.

Jack tried to quickly duck around the Centurion as the Inquisitor’s gun came into play. Quinn moved with her, somehow knowing right when she was going to move. The Centurion was quicker than both of them. He stepped too, sideways along Jack’s trajectory, but forward also, using his shield to push aside Quinn’s swords and bounce him back into Jack. The big green warrior was caught off guard and Jack stumbled back. By the time she’d recovered the Centurion had the two priestesses fully covered again. Quinn was furious, but Jack put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, then leveled her weapon again. It occurred to Jack that Lace was gone. She cursed under her breath as she realized her new crewmate had left them on their own when things got heated.

“Look, this is all a big misunderstanding. I’m just a guy with a curse,” Will said, slowly raising his arms and trying to talk past the barrel of the pistol.

“Yeah, sure,” the Hammer priestess scoffed. Her thumb was resting on the hammer of her weapon.

“Serious. I’m registered with the Magistrate and everything. My name’s Will Sterling. You can check with your librarians,” Will shrugged.

“Archivists,” she corrected angrily.

“If you’re human, why not just come with us?” the Chalice priestess in white asked, looking like she desperately wanted to find some kind of compromise.

“You mean besides the fact that you can’t just nab people off the street for no reason? The Magistrate is notoriously slow and my ship leaves in the morning,” Will said.

“You broke into someone’s house!” the Hammer priestess snapped. “That’s hardly no reason.”

“So call the Watch! I didn’t know the Magistrate still had legal authority here? I thought you got booted out about twenty five years ago,” Will said incredulously.

“We chose to leave,” the Hammer priestess said flatly.

“And yet you’re still here,” Jack interjected, “Trying to kidnap people you think aren’t real people.” She and the Centurion were still staring daggers at each other.

“He fits the description of spirits who cross over from the Ways Between during this holiday,” the Chalice priestess tried to explain. “I’m not convinced he isn’t one.”

“They’re invited! That’s the whole point of this festival!” Jack snapped. “Who the hell invited you?”

“The Warden,” the Hammer Priestess glared.

“I don’t think the Warden was invited either,” Will said wryly, eyeing the crowd. “You want to stop pointing that gun at me now?”

“No,” the priestess in purple said flatly. “I’m going to hold you here until reinforcements get here.” She smiled smugly.

Will’s blood went cold and he watched the glances and whispers run through the crowd. More Magistrate forces were on their way. He could feel his curse still tugging at him. It was getting stronger, making him feel like he was slipping. It was like when you leaned back to far in a chair. That very first moment when your body tried to instinctively keep you from falling over. This was in danger of getting very ugly. The Magistrate had a very dark history on this island. For most of the island natives, the occupation wars were in their lifetime. It was their childhood. The elders were almost all veterans of the brutal fighting. Many of them were in this crowd, right now, watching. It wouldn’t take much to turn this celebration into a battlefield. People were going to die if this continued. It might already be too late.

“Shoot me,” he said.

“Will!” Jack barked. Her whole world seemed to slow to a crawl. She wanted to rush the Centurion, but the gun to Will’s head held her feet like shackles. Her best friend, the only man she’d ever loved, was committing suicide and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “Will, no!” she screamed.

The hammer priestess looked at him like he was crazy. “Don’t give me an excuse, monster.”

“If you’re sure, do it. Why wait?” Will asked. He could hear Jack pleading, but he forced himself to ignore her.

“Because that’s not the way we do things!” The Hammer priestess snapped.

“It sure used to be. What changed?” Will asked pointedly. The Hammer priestess looked even angrier, but she didn’t answer. Will nodded toward the pistol expectantly.

“What are you doing?” the priestess in white asked, horrified. She looked like she was trying to figure out what Will was beneath the glow of the strange lattice across his skin.

“Math,” Will answered grimly. “What do you think is going to happen if Magistrate soldiers show up to help you here? How many did you bring? A squad or two? A company? A lot of these people are veterans of the war your forces fought on the other side of. If they start seeing red and gold soldiers breaking up their sacred festival with guns and shields, what do you think they’ll do? I was just a tourist until you showed them my curse, but look around. They’re all marked up to look just like me. They’ve decided I’m one of them. They’ll try to stop you, and a lot of people will die. I don’t want that blood on my hands, so you might as well just shoot me now. Then they’ll only kill you two and everyone else will be spared. Four lives is better to me than however many restarting the old war would cost.”

“Six lives,” Jack snarled. “They kill you, they’ll have to kill me too, and they’ll have to kill Quinn for that.” Quinn nodded once.

A square headed, long handled knife snaked into place against the Hammer priestess’ throat, it’s wicked hook pressing into her skin enough to send a trickle of blood downward. “Seven,” Lace whispered in the Inquisitor’s ear. “And you die first.”

The Centurion blurred. In a blistering display of coordination and speed, he tapped his heavy bracer, which somehow detached his shield from where it was anchored against his arm. He left it hanging there in space and drew one of his swords with his left hand. He swung it through the floating transparent shield, aiming the tip of the blade toward Quinn. When the pommel of the sword came in contact with the shield, the shield locked to it like an enormous bell guard. As that happened, he pivoted, opening his body up and swinging his rifle to level at Quinn’s head. He held it at full extension with one hand, as easily as though it were a pistol. His fearsome helm leveled at Lace and she felt a chill run through her.

“No,” The Centurion said calmly. “You die first.”

The Hammer priestess trembled in rage and shock as Lace put a firm, calloused hand on her shoulder to keep her steady. She raised her head to try to pull away from the knife, but she didn’t lower her pistol.

The sister in white blinked, her eyes flicking back and forth between Jack, Will, and the newcomer who had just taken her partner hostage, and her bodyguard, who looked like he was about to take this standoff into action.

She looked to her partner and gently pushed her gun down. “We aren’t doing this.”

“That isn’t up to you!” the Hammer priestess snarled, trying not to move her neck and bringing her gun back up. Lace pulled the blade more firmly against her neck. More blood began to run. The Centurion thumbed back the hammer on his rifle. The point of the bayonet never wavered. The priestess in white stepped in front of her sister’s pistol.

“We aren’t doing this,” she repeated.

“You’ll be Excommunicated!” the Hammer priestess barked.

“I’ll risk it,” the white-robed priestess said. “I came here to capture monsters, not to reignite a war that ended before I was born.”

The Hammer priestess stared at her for a long, tense moment, and then lowered her gun. “You’re free to go, Sterling,” she said tersely.

“Much obliged, ladies,” Will tipped his hat, then stepped around the Centurion and over to Jack. Lace removed the knife from the inquisitor’s neck and stepped back into the crowd. Jack raised her weapon skyward and the Centurion set his rifle against his armored shoulder. The Shield winked out of existence.

The whole festival had gone quiet.

After a few more tense seconds the Centurion and the two priestesses moved back toward the Magistrate stage. The crowd let them pass. A few people spit on the ground at their feet. Then they were gone in the throng.

“What. The hell. Was that?” Jack hissed.

Will looked around at the crowd that was still looking at him. He looked at the swirling runic web crawling across his skin and sighed. “I’ll tell you later.” He waved to the crowd. “Thanks everyone. Sorry about all the fuss.”

Beaming faces, scattered applause, and ever a few cheers returned his greeting. An older man with a few bands of glowing script of his own and eyes that seemed to light up from within threw his arms around Will’s shoulders. “Know I, that you are no Loa,” the man grinned. “But you walk wit’ dem, so you walk wit’ us.” The nearby crowd cheered. “Come, there be much drinking to be done!” the old man laughed. Will gave Jack a surprised look.

She rubbed her temples. Her mind was reeling. She’d had close calls before. She’d been in standoffs before. She and Will had faced death and disaster together more times than she could count, but this ... She’d never seen Will invite himself to be killed. That rocked her to her core. Will’s brows furrowed as he noticed the expression on her face, but before he could say anything the crowd was dragging him away.

Lace rejoined them, oblivious to Jack’s internal meltdown. She grinned as Will was swept away by the crowd. “Can’t leave him alone for five minutes.”

Janie was shaking. She sat down in Bella’s chair and tried to breathe. The knot in her chest wouldn’t release. She focused on her mantras from her days as an acolyte, her lessons in serenity and composure. She felt pressurized. She wanted to scream. Sob. Run. Panic. Anything except feel what she was currently feeling.

It had snuck up on her. She thought she was fine. After John had left she’d felt uncomfortable and drained, but she’d still been riding the chaotic energy of the experience. She’d managed to dismiss the discomfort until Caine had come to talk to her, and then it all came rushing back.

The scene she’d created for John had been exciting at first, but had quickly changed. Spiraled. Nothing about it had gone the way she hoped. Beneath the mask of Sister Evangelina she’d felt like she’d been running on a collapsing bridge, trying to stay one step ahead of disaster. There hadn’t been any time to look back or stop to think. When it was over, it hadn’t really felt over. It had felt like being held hostage. Something had happened that she’d faked her way through, and seemed like she’d been in control the whole time, but inside she’d been falling apart.

The difference was this time she’d done it to herself.

It was too much. She’d wanted to try something new, something daring, to have an adventure. She’d been denied the one she had her heart set on, and she was suddenly in a place that felt like the exact opposite of her cloister back at Fort Deliverance. Mary’s was a place that felt like there were no real rules. She’d always cloaked herself in rules. They were comforting. They’d trapped the wildness inside her in a way that made her not have to think about it. Now, they were gone. Mary’s had the same effect on her that Bella did. It made her feel like anything she dreamed or wanted was alright. The difference was Bella was also a safety net. Bella never failed to check on her, to nudge her in the right direction when she felt like she was getting out of control. Mary’s didn’t. Caine had become something of a guardian, but he definitely wasn’t a guide. Tonya was no help either. The apprentice witch seemed to enjoy the chaos this place seemed to sow. Janie knew she could still talk to Bella, but something about the mirror put distance between them. Feeling and connecting through it was hard.

If they’d been together in person, Bella might have been able to tell how far out of control things had gotten, and how much Janie wasn’t saying, but through the mirror Bella hadn’t seen it. She’d been focused on other things at the time anyway. It was impossible for Janie to be upset about that. She had always been good at keeping up a mask of composure, and now was painted and dressed to disguise what she was feeling. She was wearing a veil for the express purpose of hiding who she really was. Who could really be expected to notice her struggles when she was doing her best to hide them in so many ways? Besides all that, it wasn’t really Bella’s job to look after her. She shouldn’t have been relying on Bella for guidance in the first place. All that, plus the mirror it was no wonder no one had noticed Janie wasn’t nearly as in control as she’d been pretending. She never was.

She hadn’t really wanted anything to do with John. He was just a way to try something new. She’d used him, and hadn’t even gotten what she wanted. Maybe he deserved how he’d treated her? No, that was irrelevant. She was rationalizing. Still, she found herself on the verge of hating him. It wasn’t fair and she knew it, but he’d come to represent something she did not like at all. He was a regret now, and a part of herself she didn’t know what to do with. Was he really a bad person? She’d been the one to put him into the situation. That was the key deception of this place. Everything here was a fantasy. It was just about the worst place she could be choosing to create situations of questionable ethics. If she’d have thought about it more she might have considered that, but she hadn’t. She’d created a no win situation to justify punishing him. Didn’t that make her that bad person? Or was it alright because it was what he’d told her he wanted? Was she bad for not punishing him in the right way? Usually in hindsight things were clear, but this situation still clouded her mind. She was angry at herself. She had always taken pride in being a moral person, but in a matter of days she’d become ... a whore.

In her mind, she could see Bella’s arched brows as the word came. Whore. It was different, she tried to justify it to herself. She didn’t think of Bella that way, or any of the girls at Mary’s. Or the boys either. They were just doing jobs, providing a service. They seemed to be good people. A little rough around the edges, obviously, but still good.

Whores were something else. Something bad. She couldn’t come up with the right words to describe the difference in her head. She just knew that in this brothel, the only one she truly thought of as a whore, was herself.

She could see Bella’s questioning eyebrow in her mind’s eye again, this time wondering if she was being dramatic. How had the voice in her head come to have Bella’s face so quickly?

Perhaps she was being overly dramatic. She just hated what she’d done. She felt dirty. She felt like she’d betrayed someone.

All her training, her composure, all her pride in her self-control, her dignified mask, it all finally cracked. She’d handled being taken hostage twice, having her dreams of adventure dashed, losing Will, and making an enormous transformation she couldn’t have imagined a week ago. She’d managed to maintain her composure through all of it, but it had all caught up to her. She felt like she was trying to fight the tide. Tears began to leak down her face, and once they started they didn’t stop.

She stared at Sister Evangelina in the mirror and hated her.

“We’ll get it back to your cabin,” the Norths said covering the mirror and passing it over the railing to a pair of sailors on the other side.

“Thank ye. I’m going tae take a walk around t’ see the festivities, but I’ll be back shipboard shortly,” Captain Vex said to the pair.

Mister North hopped the railing with an agility that belied his blocky frame and set out after the two sailors, helping them get the big mirror back to the ship. His wife sunk down into a chair and sighed. “When we got here I thought we were going to have to scrounge for new crew, not drive them off with sticks. Things almost turned ugly in there when I announced we were full up.”

“Did ye hear anything else about the ship disappearances?” Captain Vex asked.

“Oh, plenty. Nothing useful though. Ghost ships. Pirates. Grindylows. Sea monsters. Lots of stories, each one dumber than the last. I even heard someone claim it’s a Skinsail” Danica siad with a shrug.

Belita snorted. “The Blood Tide is, what? A month away onna fast ship? That’d be pretty damn far for a Skinsail to roam.”

“That’s what I said. The sheer number of disappearances would mean it would have to be more than one, too,” Danica nodded.

“Those creepy bastards ain’t known for bein’ subtle or stealthy. If there was a flotilla of Skinsails around, someone would have gotten a look at them,” Belita said. It was a troubling thought, but not one that was actually likely.

“Best realistic guess is, probably just pirates with more skill than average.” The First Mate picked up Captain Vex’s half-full cup and downed the whole thing in one drink.

Captain Vex gave Bella a long-suffering look. “D’ya see what I put up with?”

Bella snickered. “I think she’s earned it.”

“Mutineers, the lot of you,” Belita huffed.

“What’s a Skinsail?” Bella asked.

“No one is really sure,” Danica said. “They’re what we call the raiders in the Blood Tide. They sometimes come out of the red waters, but not far. So mostly we see them in the distance.”

“So they’re easy tae avoid. They’re just another seaward boogeyman,” Belita added.

“They’re really more of a coastal problem. When the Blood Tide comes in contact with some new stretch of coastline, the Skinsails raid villages and towns. The aftermath is said to be awful,” Danica explained. “Piles of severed heads. Weird rituals. Crucified, skinned bodies. Real penny dreadful scary story stuff.”

Bella looked horrified. “And they stay in the Blood Tide?” Bella asked. “Where is that, exactly?”

“On the other side of Nival, mostly,” Captain Vex said. “It’s been slowly spreading, so now it’s pretty close to the Western Passage, but during the warmer months the winds keep it far enough away that fast coastal ships will still make the trip pretty regularly.”

“And we aren’t going to be going anywhere near there, right?” Bella asked.

“The Western Passage is right on the horizon from Drifter’s Key. Ye can see th’ entrance tae it pretty well with a good spyglass. I doubt we’ll see any red waters through. It’s the wrong time of year,” Captain Vex said, trying to be reassuring. Bella did not look very comforted.

“The sirens seem to do a pretty good job keeping the Skinsails at bay,” Danica shrugged. “They migrate in winter though, so there has been a Skinsail ship spotted in the passage once or twice in the last few years. With the Tide spreading, it’s something sailors try to keep aware of.”

“It’s one of the reasons the Magistrate is trying tae put down strongholds and spread its power base in the islands so quickly. They’re the closest ones wit’ the naval power tae fight the Skinsails, and it’s really looking like there’s an invasion coming at some point,” Captain Vex added.

“Captain,” a voice from the shadows said, distracting them all from the macabre story. Doctor Kalfou stepped into the dim light at the edge of the railing. She looked a bit less put together than the last time they had seen her. She’d removed her skeletal makeup, but remnants of it still remained around her eyes giving her a smokey, unkempt look. Something about her seemed frayed. “Can I impose on you to let me move my things into the cabin you’ve offered now?”

Captain Vex tended towards relaxed and easy going, but it would be a mistake to think that made her complacent. She knew the look of someone in the middle of trouble. She raised a blond eyebrow. “That depends. You want tae tell me what’s going on before I bring it ontae my ship?”

“Being hunted by the Magistrate, I,” Doctor Kalfou said without any hesitation.

Captain Vex glanced at Bella, who looked a bit pained. “Well tha’ was fast,” the Captain said. She gave Danica a small nod.

“Tonight is full of surprises,” Doctor Kalfou said with a small smile.