Page 115 of Cursed

We hauled out the Elder’s corpse and followed Titus toward the pier.

Tall freighters loomed over us, waiting for their cargo to be loaded. Titus dropped a weight and some ropes onto the concrete docking and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What’s your job?” Bastian sneered. “Supervisor?”

Titus’ lip curled, and he bent to pick up the ropes. “I’m here to make sure you don’t just leave him on the beach.” He threw the ropes at me and I caught them awkwardly with one arm and Bastian let out a grunt as the dead man’s weight shifted.

“Hey!”

“Get to work,” Titus growled. “We don’t have much time.”

We fastened ropes around the body and secured the weight.

“Will it be enough?” I asked.

“Until the fish eat through his ankles and the body floats away,” Bastian grinned.

“Shut up,” I grumbled.

Titus wasn’t amused. “Get on with it.”

We lifted the body again and Titus uncrossed his arms and lifted one hand. He muttered the words of a spell that I’d heard before—a spell to hide the body, conceal it from outsiders, and wipe it clean of any evidence of our involvement.

As I watched, the pale green smoke of Titus’ magic trailed over the old man’s corpse and the wound in his throat closed over, leaving only the smear of dried blood behind. The salt water would wash that away soon enough.

“Drop him,” Titus grunted.

I glanced up at my elder brother and noticed the tightness of his jaw.Was he struggling with his magic, too?

Bastian lifted the old man’s feet in one hand and picked up the weight.

“Heave-ho,” he muttered.

The weight hit the water with a splash and we heaved the body out and released it. It flew a short distance through the air until the weight dragged it down.

The old man’s nightshirt billowed up, white and stark against the dark water.

“Oops,” Bastian laughed. “The poor fish will have to stare at his shrivelled cock—”

“Shut. Up,” I muttered.

Dried blood still marked our hands, and I dropped to one knee and dipped my hands in the water to wash them off. Bastian did the same, but this time he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

But not for long.

“So,” Bastian said in his deceptively playful tone as he clapped the water from his hands and stood. “Should we get breakfast?”

The suggestion was absurd given our recent deeds, but it was equally tempting to normalize the horrifying events of the last few hours. It almost amused me how easily Bastian was able to discard his actions to satisfy immediate pleasures.

“I could eat,” Titus said, equally unaffected.

Ghouls.

As we walked back to our bikes, I turned back toward the water. The harbor was just starting to hum with activity. Soon enough, it would be swarming with dockworkers, longshoremen, and cargo transfers. I couldn’t help but keep my eyes on the patch of water where the Elder had disappeared into the depths. A pale shadow seemed to linger there. Was the water deep enough to keep the body hidden? Messana’s harbor was deep, but was it deep enough to conceal what had been done?

How long would it be until news of the old man’s kidnapping swept through the streets?

Bastian had wanted to kill the Elder’s wife—perhaps we shouldn’t have left her alive.

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