Page 115 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

The first thing I saw were reflections in the canal, which had me gasping in thirst with Bodil’s brief drink long gone. Alphonse must have heard because he swung me down, where I wobbled a little but stayed up. Causing him to give me an approving slap on the back that almost knocked me into the water.

“Hey,” he called out. “Give it a minute. We need a rest.”

The others stopped, possibly because the water looked good to them, too. It turned out not to be fit to drink, being brackish from the flow outside, but Bodil filtered out some balls of the stuff that allowed us to quench our thirst. After which, we sat on the steps leading down from the quay and washed some of the dirt off.

The mud from outside had turned into dried chunks that caked everything, including my hair. I shook it as clean as possible, then felt fingers combing through it from behind, pulling free the bits I couldn’t see. I glanced up but already knew who was there.

I covered one of Pritkin’s hands with mine, and he sat beside me. We just stayed there for a minute, glad to be alive but unsure what this fresh hell was. He didn’t ask if I had any ideas— he knew I’d have mentioned them if I did—and I didn’t offer anything.

I still had no idea what was going on.

Enid ran past and jumped into the water, splashing us, and came up smiling. I suddenly wondered how old she was, as that kind of resiliency was rare. Not to mention that she looked about sixteen suddenly with that exuberant hair plastered against her skull.

Alphonse sat down on the other side of me a moment later and sighed, his eyes on Enid. “I’m officially a dirty old man,” he proclaimed.

“You are dirty,” I agreed. “Maybe a swim?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Why? She’d curse your balls off if you got out of line.”

He laughed suddenly, a brief bark. “That’s half the attraction.”

“And the other half?” I wondered if it was just her strange, almost ethereal beauty.

But she looked a little more real now, splashing about and causing the mud in her hair to trickle down her face in dark rivulets. She’d also dropped the glamourie, probably to conserve whatever magic she had left. And when Æsubrand, who had sat on the other side of Alphonse, noticed, I heard his indrawn breath.

“Exactly what you think,” Alphonse told me. “Takes lady balls not to have your spirit broken someplace like this, and triple that after what she went through.” He glanced at our silver prince. "One word,” he told him. “One goddamned word—”

“I am not a monster, vampire. I leave that to you.”

“See that you do.”

“Or?” Æsubrand bristled. He didn’t seem to take orders well.

Alphonse draped a very large arm around his shoulders. “Ask Cassie.”

Æsubrand looked at me, appearing startled for some reason. I guessed well-brought-up fey women turned deaf at times like these. Too bad I wasn’t one.

“Which story should I tell him?” I asked Alphonse, who had found a toothpick in his borrowed guard’s outfit and was picking at his fangs. He shrugged, and I glanced at Æsubrand, who looked like he wanted to throw off the brotherly hug but wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

“He has something of a reputation,” Pritkin commented idly as if he’d know. And maybe he did. It had been his job to check out anybody hanging around me, and Sal and Alphonse had been at Dante’s, the casino where I had my court, a while back.

“So do I!”Æsubrand bristled.

“Yes, but your opponents are usually in one piece at the end.”

That took Æsubrand a minute, then he scowled and got up before huffing off. Alphonse grinned at us. Enid splashed some more.

And Bodil did what she had been doing all this time after quenching our thirst. And stood at the top of the steps, looking around with a frown, maybe wondering where the seahorses were. I didn’t see any.

I didn’t see much of anything except the canal itself, which looked odd for some reason I couldn’t immediately name. Then I realized the shimmering, ever-changing cascade of emerald light from the suspended river wasn’t there. I peered upward but couldn’t see what was in its place, as the ball of spell light Enid had parked on the pier didn’t reach that far.

Whatever it was, it was dark.

Pritkin glanced up, and I saw him noticing, too, but he didn’t say anything.

“Why didn’t you want me to say anything to Enid?” I asked him after Alphonse went off to smoke a cigarette.

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