Page 32 of Don't Bite The Boss
“He did,” I reply, turning to look into his eyes, “and you would have too if Christopher hadn’t given you an arsenal to defend yourself against me. And if you didn’t have some pretty handy moves that only training with a true master could provide. Speaking of which…”
“Did you get to know this man, this man you killed?” he swallows, trying to divert me from my line of questioning. I know he is trying to act calm, but his heart is racing, I can hear it.
“No,” I sigh, “but I chased him across three continents. And when I caught him, he begged for his life.”
He frowns as I go on in a monotone.
“I remember every line on his face, every word he uttered, every detail of what he was wearing. The guilt has never left me. We kill them, you see, but we never forget them – we feel genuine pain from what we have done, as though we have wronged the universe in some way. And yet that is what we are, Tristan, wrong. We don’t belong, we are supernatural creatures. And I don’t ever want to feel that guilt again. Now tell me, where did you learn to fight? And why haven’t you used any of those moves I saw you pull on the plane during all our months of battles?”
He looks unnervingly deep into my eyes, frowning, and takes a deep breath. I get the feeling whatever he is about to say is not something he is comfortable speaking about.
“You asked me once how it was that I accepted vampires so readily as fact,” he says, running his hand through his hair.
“Yeah, you said you’d seen some strange things when you were sailing.”
“Mmmm, I saw a mermaid, in my first year of sailing, when I was in my early 20’s,” he looks at me quickly and then away, as though embarrassed to say such a thing.
“Bullshit,” I snort, leaning over to take another sip of water. “Tristan, Jesus, I’m really not in the mood for any more crap magic talk.”
He continues as though I hadn’t spoken.
“I knew you would say that. But, no bullshit,” he shakes his head. “There was a storm, a huge storm. I was about a thousand nautical miles off Japan, I thought for sure I was going to capsize, the waves were reaching over my sloop. I was on deck,” he frowns as he digs into his memories, “the mast had snapped, but ropes were keeping it slamming into the hull, I knew if I didn’t cut them the timber would pierce the hull and I’d sink. I had the knife between my teeth, I’d cut the ropes, but I was having a hard time getting back to the hatch. I was hanging onto the pitching deck for dear life when she landed on the deck with a thud.”
“A mermaid?” I can’t help but keep the scepticism out of my voice.
“Yes, an old one, really old, she was naked and stick thin, long grey hair, skin greyish and wrinkled with cold and age, I guess; her breasts hung down almost to her navel.”
“Eww.”
“I’ll admit, I was terrified at first, I thought I imagined her, or that a body had washed up on board. But she moved, and she looked at me with such helplessness, such sadness. I put my arm around her, and the next big wave pushed us towards the hatch, and we went down. I thought the fall had finished her, but she was still breathing. I wrapped her in blankets, tied her into a bunk so she wouldn’t get pitched out, and began bailing. I bailed all night by hand, the bloody bilge pump wouldn’t start. By morning the wind had died down, and the storm had passed. I could barely move I was so dog-tired, but I had to keep bailing, there was a hole the size of a basketball in the hull.”
He pauses, staring at the wall.
“And? I prompt, trying hard not to smirk, but failing. “Did she sing?”
“No,” he snorts, “she wasn’t fucking Ariel, Pru.”
I giggle, and he grins, shakes his head.
“I sent out a distress signal, I’d had it going from the moment the mast snapped, and in the early afternoon I was boarded, but not by anyone thinking to rescue me, by pirates.”
“Oh, this gets better and better,” I snort, “how hard did you hit your head during Solomon’s kidnapping? Has a doctor had a good look at you?”
“I’m not nuts,” he chuckles, “these were not the peg-legged, parrot-wearing pirates you are thinking of, these were modern pirates. Mostly from the African ports, they shoot you, or kidnap you, and steal your boats and belongings – nothing Jolly Roger about them at all.”
“Oh.”
“I had guns, of course, but mostly everything on board was wet, including my ammunition, so I told them I was a rich man worth a big ransom, raised my hands and surrendered. I had completely forgotten about the woman down below in the hold, I guess it was the fear and fatigue catching up on me.”
“The mermaid,” I remind him.
“But as the pirates went down, one by one, two by two, they didn’t come back up,” he ignores my interruption. “Eventually there were only two left, their boat wasn’t very much bigger than my own, their crew relatively small. I grappled with them and managed to throw one overboard, shoot the second. When I eventually went down into my sloop, which by now had taken on way more than I was able to pump out, and was sinking fast, all I found were bodies.”
“Huh?”
“The mermaid had killed them all. She looked much healthier, rosy even, and asked me to take her to Japan, to a particular temple, to deliver her at night. She said if I did so, I would receive a great reward. I told her it would be my pleasure, no reward required, but that we had to switch to the pirates’ boat because mine was sinking. She was terrified about going topside in the daytime, shaking in fear, so I covered her with a sail, head to toe, and led her aboard our ride and straight below decks, and motored us to Japan.”
“And the reward?”
