When René awoke, he knew they were moving—not simply because of years of experience with the tides, but because he felt the movement of the ship in less placid waters. Despite it being sure that this boat had a motor, the motor wasn’t running, and René came up on deck to see Captain Teague at the helm, pipe in his mouth. Mr Silver had on a little life-vest, and was balanced quite happily right on the very fore of the ship, nearly on the bowsprit, the wind in his silky fur seeming to please him greatly.
‘We’re in Delaware Bay!’ the Captain called in greeting, over the wind, as René joined him, sitting on one of the benches near the wheel. ‘Used the motor to get us through the canal double-quick! Now, I expect you’re quite a bit older than this style of boat, so…’ and he launched into explaining how the rigging worked “nowadays”, and René was glad of the distraction.
It took a long while to get up to Long Island, and they stopped a few times on the way up the coast, and in every port, Captain Teague had friends that welcomed René with open arms, trading tales and jokes; and while René could never talk about what had brought him to Teague’s door, he didn’t have to lie either, since nobody asked. There were deals made for small illegal things—drugs for personal use mostly—and René never had to be asked to turn a blind eye. He didn’t dye his hair after his first trick—a man on vacation in Atlantic City—said it was attractive.
‘Can I ask you somethin’?’ Captain Teague asked, while they were watching the sparkling shoreline of Long Island get closer, one night.
‘Aye,’ René said, eyes ahead, hands still steady on the wheel.
‘You gay?’
‘Aye,’ René said, cautiously. But the Captain was only nodding to himself, as he packed the bowl of his pipe.
‘Just wanted t’be sure you weren’t bein’ takin’ advantage of,’ he said, and René wasn’t sure how to answer; he’d been so afraid of punishment that he’d not even considered what turning tricks might have looked like to a kind eye.
⁂
Aix was still in awe at just how free and wonderful he felt, finally having his own wheelchair. Victoria had many, and had given him a beautiful motorized one that had been built for her by an uncle and aunt that built boats. It was sleek and Streamline Moderne, made of lightweight marine fiberglass that had been coated with hot pink that sparkled (‘I used to like pink’ Victoria had said when he’d been surprised, ‘it’s very rebellious, in my family, to like pink’), the motor enclosed and operating on parts easily replaced.
It went fast, turned on a dime, had lots of hidden storage on either side of the seat, accessible only from the person sitting in it, and Aix got compliments everywhere—though he was glad he still went about veiled or masked, and that he owned a big black portrait hat, considering how many people started filming or taking pictures of him without asking.
Lady Sitrinne and Michaela both wore their own obfuscating equipment—Lady Sitrinne simply went about in magnificent hat with a veil anyway, to protect her very fair skin from the sun; Michaela still masked, her masks made of fabric printed with the red prohibition symbol over a camera, one Aix had grown up seeing everywhere at theme parks. Having been gifted a black baby quilt by the resident clowns of the Averay estate, Pippin started carrying it around, covering herself when people held up their Fairy Box, wanting Aix to feel like he wasn’t alone, even though she didn’t fully understand what was going on.
Even so, it was marvellous, and people who actually came up to Aix and spoke to him were always so complimentary; even if sometimes they were discourteous, Aix didn’t get too bothered—he’d grown up in tourist country, he’d done customer service from birth. People were usually just ditzy, blinded by whatever had attracted them, like moths… when Michaela asked about the difference, Aix tried to explain.
‘I don’t mind being seen, that’s ephemeral,’ Aix said with a flutter of his hand. ‘I mind being recorded, because then I’m not in control of the narrative about myself anymore, and…’ he trailed off as he actually followed the thought. He realised he hadn’t been on social media in days, he’d been too busy travelling, and then when he’d been staying with the Averays there was always someone to talk to, something to read, research to do… ‘huh,’ he said. ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter so much, come to think of it. Well,’ he added, ‘I don’t want the cops to know more about me than necessary. There’s a certain safety in being homeless and transient, because it means I’m never anywhere long enough, nor am I rich enough, to form a paper trail.’
‘Hence why I’m paying cash everywhere,’ Mike said.
‘You’re with me, pet,’ Lady Sitrinne said in her low, velvety voice, long white hand on his shoulder. ‘I have never been photographed successfully. One of the advantages of being part of our bloodline. The effect extends to those around me.’
‘Well now I’m curious. The only thing I’ve ever heard of that doesn’t photograph well is, like, uranium.’
She laughed, sipping her wine. ‘Not quite, we’re—’ she broke off as someone came up to their table, and it wasn’t the server. ‘Miss Anna Heeren,’ she said, coldly.
‘I didn’t know you were coming to town to do business, Ms Averay,’ said the blond woman about Aix’s age that had come up to them. ‘You should have called.’
‘Can a goth not come to Baltimore to visit Poe’s grave?’ Aix said, leaping to defend her, having heard the tone. He bit back the urge to snap What are you, a cop? at her, and swallowed down a growl. He thought he’d failed at the latter, before he realised it was Pippin doing the growling, from her place in his lap. Lady Sitrinne’s hand on his shoulder squeezed very gently in what Aix hoped was gratitude.
‘Why, sugar, has anything been goin’ on you need some li’l ol’ help with?’ Mike asked, in her thickest, most poisoned-honey Southern drawl. Heeren folded her arms.
Nothing happened but a pause, but Lady Sitrinne suddenly said, ‘Do not try your schoolgirl powers with me, young lady.’
‘Assaulting someone going about their business is a violation of the treaty, Heeren,’ Mike warned.
‘Some of us value human lives over monster ones.’
‘I am a human citizen of these United States of America, Miss Heeren,’ Lady Sitrinne continued to sound amused, and Aix admired her self-control; he wanted to scream and attack and run away like the cornered feral animal he was, and her calm kept him calm. Pippin was still growling, but she was all green for some reason, rather than the usual angry colour of red. Red was a cheerful colour to clowns, though, Aix figured green somehow wasn’t.
‘Yeah, and you’ve been one longer than any human citizen can be.’
‘Nonsense; women in my family have always lived a very long time.’
‘Lived a long time and looked not a day over sixty?’
‘Why, whatever are you implying, Miss Heeren? You would be implying it of Miss Dolly Parton too, you know.’
‘Get out of my town, Averay. By sunset. And take your monsters with you.’
Aix almost thought she meant him, but then realised… she thought Lady Sitrinne and the monster summoning were connected. He bit his tongue, petting Pippin and telling himself to take Lady Sitrinne and Mike’s lead. If they weren’t going to tell Heeren, there was a good reason. She was bad news, looping her in would only spell disaster, right? But why would it? If she went off half-cocked at Diedrich, they’d kill each other, wouldn’t they? Solving one problem with another?
But what about the collateral? All of Diedrich’s other vampires would die too, more than likely. So it was important to keep his mouth shut.
‘Is that a threat, Miss Heeren?’ Lady Sitrinne asked it like she was conversing about the weather.
‘It’s an order from Baltimore’s Hunter. For your own safety, ma’am,’ was flung like an insult, though Aix actually heard how little effect it had, despite the very clear and present danger—Heeren, Mike had warned Aix, carried a gun. It was actually quite odd of her to do so, considering how futile it was to shoot a lot of monsters with bullets.
‘Walk with me, then,’ Mike said, and there was no arguing with her—despite how scary everything about Heeren was to Aix—she was muscled, she was armed, she wasn’t masked, she was a natural blonde (Aix didn’t trust those, after many bad experiences)—she was, still, shorter than Mike, and Aix didn’t realise it until Mike said that, and was suddenly looming.
After they were out of earshot, Lady Sitrinne leaned over and kissed Aix’s temple, whispering something against it, and Aix felt safe in more ways than one; he looked at her, actually able to look up as far as her face, though not her eyes. ‘What was that?’
‘A spell to protect you, as all Averays are protected.’
‘I… did you just adopt me?’
‘We did that when you arrived, my dear,’ Lady Sitrinne said, making the server appear at their table—or at least, that’s what it looked like, because Aix hadn’t seen her even glance over at him. ‘The cheque, thank you, my dear sir,’ she said with her usual quiet charm.
‘I should like to see how things are getting on,’ she said, getting a tip from her pocketbook, which looked very old in design, even if it looked made of brand-new fabrics and leather.
Aix was pleased to see she tipped very well, leaving an entire hundred dollar bill at the table for the server. And, like Michaela, she paid in cash. Lady Sitrinne managed to get not one, but two passerby to help put Aix’s wheelchair in the back of the hearse, and soon they were in the car and on their way somewhere else.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked,
‘I should like to speak with the vampires,’ Lady Sitrinne said.
‘I’m frightened,’ Aix said, and Pippin patted his leg from where she was sitting, buckled into the middle front seat. Aix was still scared of admitting when he was scared (and, therefore, vulnerable and weak), but the Averays and Mike had all told him over and over it was important to tell them when he was frightened, so they could help. And they had, to be fair, done that, so far. Mike had too, even when it was something that felt as stupid to Aix as I don’t want you to leave me alone right now.
‘Diedrich knows I am not a Hunter, and he underestimates people with visible handicaps.’
‘I… I was gonna stay in the car.’
‘I need your insight, and your observation. He will ignore you, as Miss Heeren did, and that leaves you free to look around.’
‘What if he doesn’t?’
‘Then he will have one of his slaves speak to you, and that is, also, valuable. Miss Van Helsing intimidates far too much for us to find out anything from the monsters themselves, and she knows this. Miss Heeren fell into our trap; and now, we are free to investigate Mr Diedrich.’
They were driving further into the city’s heart, and the streets of Baltimore were not quite as busy as New York, nor quite as nightmarishly twisted as Boston. There was more blight here than in either of the other three cities Aix had ever lived or visited in, even though it looked a lot better than last time he’d been here.
Between Mike’s lack of title and Lady Sitrinne’s Plain Mister (and it was plain, that much was clear—she was classy enough that she could make a title into an insult), Aix wondered what he should call Diedrich, when the time came. ‘Is it connected that both of them are Dutch, or is that a red herring?’
‘It is only connected in that the Dutch maintained much power on this coast; they became part of White Supremacy rather early.’
‘Ah, okay. I don’t have a lot of experience with that part of history on, like, a… local, practical level.’
Despite being in what was probably the part of the city where the word ‘Baltimore’ would be on a map, and despite driving an enormous black Cadillac hearse from about 1964, Lady Sitrinne had no trouble finding a space on the curb big enough to park, and slid into the spot with a skill that made Aix, frankly, want to marry her. Competence was so very attractive, and competence was what the Averays seemed to be, just as a group.
Once again, she summoned bystanders to her aid with no trouble, and Aix unbuckled Pippin, put on his hat, and adjusted the veil while he was waiting for the door to be opened for him. Just as he was finishing, the door was opened, and a stranger with a beautiful smile and long red hair came to open the door and hold his chair steady while he settled into it, Pippin climbing across the bench seat and waiting, swishing her long tail as she perched on the edge closest to the front passenger door, watching Aix intently. He finally looked at her and opened his arms, and she leapt nimbly into his lap, and he pulled her little quilt from the Secret Pocket inside the wheelchair.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ Lady Sitrinne said, and Aix was surprised to find a long ramp along the side of the left building, which was painted black and had the windowless look of a nightclub. The two young men went down the alley, but not down the ramp to the main door; instead, they disappeared around the back of the building, where there was a full parking lot that was too small to accommodate guests, it was likely for employees only, Aix thought to himself. But then they were at the club doors, and the bouncer was a large Sikh man.
‘Hello,’ Lady Sitrinne said, ‘I am Lady Averay, I will be speaking with Captain Diedrich, if you please.’
‘I do please,’ the man said, his curled beard curling even more in a smile that crinkled crows feet all around his twinkling dark eyes. He opened the door wide for them both. ‘You and yours are welcome here.’
‘Thank you,’ Lady Sitrinne said, and something passed between them, some frisson that had nothing to do with sexual attraction and everything to do with having said The Right Words.
Lady Sitrinne went in.
And, in a rush of strigian wings, Hell followed with her.
The nightclub wasn’t open yet—it was only the early afternoon—and all the chairs were still up on all the round tables of dark wood. This was an old building, Aix could tell from the huge ceiling beams and the wide plank floor and the high-backed settles along the walls. Despite this, there were modern track lights, and the walls and floor and ceiling were painted matte black, and there was a slightly raised cabaret stage with a catwalk and actual velvet curtains in red, with a plain black backdrop. The bar was an old solid wood creature, much dinged and scratched and held together with decades or perhaps centuries of polish on the dark wood, the back of the bar not mirrored with glass, the bottles lit with red LED lights on the shelves. It was somewhat unclear what kind of bar it was, though perhaps that was due to Aix only having been in gay bars or bars with some sort of theme.
They were met with a very jovial, sunburnt man with a straw-yellow walrus moustache and only one arm, his eyes a very pale blue. ‘Well, I don’t normally get women so stunning this early in the day!’
‘I am Lady Averay,’ Lady Sitrinne said, and allowed him then to kiss her hand.
‘Are you indeed? Are you indeed!’ he said, stroking his moustaches in wonder. ‘Well, come in, come in, make yourself comfortable! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’
After the shock of Diedrich not looking like he’d imagined, and then realising he looked exactly like Aix would have imagined had he put a little more thought into it, Aix realised yes, he was being ignored, and also there was some undefinable thing about how the man was being nice to Lady Sitrinne. Aix couldn’t really point out specifics, but there was just a very strong sense in his mind that if Lady Sitrinne hadn’t been rich and beautiful, he wouldn’t have given her the time of day. He was so angry, at first, that he forgot there was an advantage in being ignored.
Pippin did not beep, but she did pat his chest to get his attention, and then pantomimed for him to look around and listen around, and he remembered his mission. Quietly, and under the little quilt, he mimed back at her to play Chase Me with him. She seemed to grasp this ploy immediately, and suddenly leapt off his lap, scamping across the floor and to the stage, then behind the curtains.
‘Oh no, Pip! Gosh, I’m sorry, she’s normally so good—’ Aix wasn’t sure if he was babbling, but he started after her. ‘I’ll get her, please don’t trouble yourself…’
Lady Sitrinne helped by immediately engaging Diedrich again, and Aix parked the chair, getting out of it—making sure to limp on his bad leg, even though strictly speaking he didn’t limp on his bad leg (today at least) and following where Pippin had gone. ‘Pippin, come on sweetie…’
As usual, it was surprising how little barrier there was to getting places he wasn’t allowed; most of ‘don’t’ was fear of repercussion rather than physical barriers. He saw Pippin’s tail glowing her favourite blue, and followed it, until he was in a narrow hallway of old stone lined in doorways without doors, which gave him a chill of implication. There were little squeals and coos as the people inside the dressing rooms (they could be nothing else) saw Pippin go by, and come visit them.
‘Oooohhh, who is this sweetie baby!’
‘Hello, honey!’
Pippin was beeping cheerfully, running from room to room with her tail up and shaking like a happy cat, lighting up all colours of her Flash (and there were a lot of them, she must have been much older than Aix and Velquin had initially thought).
A blond head in makeup poked out of one of the doorways. ‘Hello, are you lost, poppet?’ came exactly the type of English accent that Aix loved.
‘She’s mine,’ Aix said, as Pippin scampered by again, on her way to another doorway.
‘Oh, well, no hurry then, no rush!’ The blond sashayed out of the doorway and pulled him into the dressing room, which was small and crowded but very tidy and organised even so. Aix was sitting down and behind a rack of clothes before he could react, the blond looking at him very carefully.
‘What do you know?’
‘That depends on what your intentions toward René are,’ Aix decided to say, not sure if he was fucking this up.
‘You know where he is?’
‘No,’ Aix said, filing away the information that René was, apparently, no longer here.
‘Good.’
‘What happened?’ Aix said, ‘I’m here to help.’
‘Leave Peasepetal here then, and meet me at the shelter when they call you.’
‘I am not leaving her here with that man,’ Aix argued in a hushed voice.
‘He won’t hurt her, he’s afraid of clowns now. Go. Say you couldn’t find her.’
Aix balked at being given orders, but tried to tamp that instinctive response down. ‘How do I know you won’t turn on me?’
‘You don’t, but I can say the same of you.’
‘That’s fair,’ Aix said. ‘I’m not much of an actor,’ he confessed, ‘I’m scared.’
‘My dear, he can’t control you, and neither can she who must be obeyed,’ was said with a combination of flippance and melodrama. The exact phrasing put Aix in mind of something familiar, and he calmed a little—enough to think, anyway.
‘He can hurt me though,’ Aix said, as always feeling extra vulnerable because his inability to walk far was new and acquired from a work injury that had never and would never heal. ‘I can’t even stand for more than thirty seconds without being in pain, let alone run or fight. A regular human could snap all my joints, let alone a vampire.’
He didn’t know why he was telling a strange vampire who might turn hostile this, but it just spilled out. He hadn’t had trouble with things just spilling out in a while…
He wanted to apologise, he realised, for not being able to save them. For being useless—
Pippin hopped up on the vanity stool in front of the mirror, beeping to get the Magic Dottie’s attention. She knew him, she’d seen him before, a long time ago, when he’d been alive and small. He knew Pantolari, which was faster and different than regular Pantomime. She used it to tell him the things Friend couldn’t: Her new Friend had called The Harlequin God, Loki, had called him to Make Mischief for the Bad Padrone. New Friend was a powerful Witch, like the Dark Lady in the other room, only he didn’t seem to Know it in his Heart yet. He could help them. Pippin repeated this last part three times, because it was Important.
Roseblade watched the little clown he’d known as Peasepetal, whom he’d last seen at The Globe when he’d been a boy. That had been centuries ago, and it was a shock to see her again—especially looking exactly the same, still a little foolie of a thing. She was older than him, and clowns were Innocents, they could be trusted—that’s what Roseblade had been raised believing, anyway. He had no reason to believe they weren’t truthful and wise little animals, even now.
What she had to say both slotted into place the missing reasons most of the werebears that had been his master’s goons for this decade had been killed, and why he had let Roseblade out of the cage so unceremoniously, and not said anything more about extra power since dragging René away. But whether René was still, as it were, alive… Roseblade wasn’t sure of that.
Aix knew some of what Pippin was saying, but he figured it was better for her to explain in her silent way, to keep people from overhearing.
Roseblade was just about to start making plans when he heard his gaoler’s voice, and it had the echoing that meant everyone was hearing it.
‹Put him in the cage.›
Roseblade—and many of the others—knew what would happen if they didn’t comply. If you resisted when the Heeren did it, you blacked out and couldn’t stop your body doing what she wanted; but when Diedrich did it, the order came with a more old-fashioned threat—he’d just take you apart himself, or leave you weighed down in the swamp to suffer undying for however long he saw fit, or he’d encase you in concrete—a new torment he’d learned from a film.
Roseblade hesitated, and even if Aix didn’t see it in Roseblade’s face, Pippin did.
‘I’m so sorry about this,’ Roseblade said, as the other pirates came to the door. The mortal finally looked at him, those big blue eyes hidden behind his heart-shaped glasses; but while there was fear in his scent, he looked strangely relieved, and held out his hands.
‘Just don’t throw me around, okay? My rigging is loose all over. And please don’t destroy my chair, even if you don’t give it back.’
‘Christ’s balls,’ Roseblade muttered under his breath, gently taking the boy’s arms. ‘Of course he’d go after a cripple—there, treasure, is that alright?’
‘Yeah. I don’t walk well, it might be more efficient to carry me if it’s a long way or there’s stairs.’
‘Stop being helpful,’ a woman with red hair said, but her surliness covered a real plea. Don’t be a person, don’t be nice when we’re being cruel to you.
Aix considered, and then said, quietly. ‘Oh no, Mr Capitano Sir, don’t throw me over that wall, oh please don’t,’ hoping they’d understand. Now that the hour was upon him, he was as calm as he always was when the crisis actually came from outside.
Pippin was green again, and her Mask was all in a mischief smile, her two little Ears curled forward, like a harlequin’s usually were. That was interesting, Aix thought, as the blond, English vampire—that didn’t seem scared like René had been, instead he seemed put-upon and sarcastic, in a very English understated response to very real danger—carefully hefted Aix over his shoulder. Like with all queenly types, his actual height and breadth was surprising.
As they walked further down the corridor, Aix found he had breath enough to sing, and he felt the situation was perfect for a particular song that always gave him courage:
‘The king and his men stole the queen from her bed,
And bound her in her bones
The seas be ours and by the pow’rs
Where’er we will, we’ll roam…
His voice wasn’t high enough anymore to echo on the stones, as they went from brick to carved rock, but it still echoed enough, he hoped, to give the others the kind of hope that wasn’t a star so much as wiping the blood off your mouth and getting back up after being punched down….
‘Yo ho, haul together
Hoist the colours high
Heave ho, whores and beggars
Never say we die!’
Pippin was walking beside them, giving them soft green light from her tail-puff, and she listened. Clowns heard the world in stories and symbology, heard language not as sounds but thoughts made Real—and singing was chief of these, more than talking. She listened, and by the second chorus, she could sing the notes with Friend, even if she didn’t sing the words.
Roseblade had heard the song before—Diedrich didn’t ban them from having free time, and the turn of the millenium had seen him feeling particularly magnanimous—mostly because of the fearful scene that had gone with the song: countless souls, all lined up for the gallows, all charged with piracy, children alongside adults. And yet still, they sang together.
Roseblade didn’t sing, anymore, but he had, once, had a booming voice, good for leading a worker’s chorus on his ship; it was why he’d remained Bo’sun even when a captain wasn’t exactly much needed and so didn’t exist. He wondered what had transpired, what this witch knew that he didn’t; but a witch being crippled, in a story at least, usually meant other things about them were stronger to compensate.
He hoped René had escaped; he was sure Diedrich would have been far less angry had that not been the case, he was sure the bastard would have gleefully shown Roseblade the boy’s dead body….
⁂
When Diedrich had suddenly had his men come up and bind her, Lady Averay made no sign that she was anything but a high born lady of a Certain Age, and therefore not at all capable of fighting back. She allowed herself to be shackled with iron, and pushed down a smuggler’s tunnel; the only thing she did not allow was for them to see her cowed. An Averay never bowed their head, nor showed anything but calm amusement to those who would subdue them. Nothing annoyed the subjugating sort more than when you were both calm and treating the whole matter as an entertainment.
For an Averay, it usually was—no matter what their captors believed about their godly—or, such as now, ungodly—power, it was nothing to one of those descended from He Who Watches. Her black eyes could see the same as her ancestor’s in the dark, and she only grew more powerful the darker it became. She had already called Him into this place, for He followed her every footstep, waiting to be invited in.
And the bouncer at the door had known her, and invited Him in. Now, like the animal shape He took, He waited patiently to strike from above. If she had been alone, she would have called Him down sooner—but she was not, there was a younger witch here, one that was from gods older than even He Who Watches, and so the Lady Averay waited, and Lady Averay watched, as Diedrich had his vampires lay Aix on the table, Aix oddly silent, and Pippin nowhere to be seen; though there were plenty of places for a small clown to hide.
She watched Diedrich lay down not a Circle, but a Triangle around the altar in the usual way, though it was clumsily done, and sand was not best for the task, even wet sand. A Triangle, interesting. Lady Averay watched Aix, wondering again what he was thinking. She’d known him only a small while, but in those few days she had met a person that surprised her at every turn.
When the Working began, she listened, and even through the accent of the conjurer, she knew what was to happen due to her own experience. Spells could only take so many forms, even from unfamiliar pantheons….
The tall blond leaned down to her, whispering low, ‘What’s he doing?’
‘Attempting a Conjuration, I believe.’
‘I worry for the boy. He gave indication he was being taken exactly where he wanted, but…’
She hummed; Aix was calm, not drugged. ‘What were his exact words?’
‘ “Oh no, Mr Capitano, sir, don’t throw me over that wall” et cetera.’
Lady Averay gave a small smile. ‘Then I suggest we sit back and enjoy the show, pet.’
That was when the sky suddenly opened up, darker than night, a void with something gargantuan beyond—
And then Aix started to sing.
Home is behind, the world ahead
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadow, to the edge of night
Until the stars are all alight
Mist and shadow, cloud and shade
All shall fade, all shall… fade
It was soft, and unheard in the crash of surf echoing, the much louder voice of Diedrich—but Diedrich had put Aix on an altar before the Sea, and that was his first mistake.
The sea began to glow with mareel, first, so slow it was nearly unnoticeable, before the foam becan to sparkle with glittering blue where it churned and crashed against the rocks and the sand, and the hole in the sky was suddenly…
Oh, Aix thought, laughing to himself, they were just like an octopus, because what had seemed a hole with something beyond had really been something already coming through, but disguised, as an octopus was, until it suddenly wasn’t. The sort of visual equivalent of missing a step down stairs to look at, and very Upsetting in a visceral way that would have turned to terror in anyone else.
But Aix had always liked optical illusions, and octopodes, and all manner of odd animals that lived in the sea. Orange eyes he’d only seen in his dreams opened all over the mantle of his new friend.
K’na yhzrog.
‘Yhzrog,’ Aix agreed, then realised as he felt a much clearer connection from his friend, an indication that him saying it was a declaration, not simply agreement, because of pronouns being a lot less reliant on position, in this tongue. ‘Yhzrog!
‘Yhzrog! Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ia!’ he added at the end, rolling his eyes back and arching for show—because being a priest was half showbiz, anyway—remembering all the theatrical symbols of Summoning Eldritch Horrorterrors…. ‘Yhzrog! He who lies beneath! Ia! Ia!’
The noise that shook the weave of reality rumbled in the bones in the earth; and even Diedrich, arrogant in his ignorance, dropped the book and drew his sword.
Aix let his voice get really unhinged, letting cry a twisted shatterglass shriek of laughter.
‘Yhzrog! Yhzrog! Yhzrog!’
There was a wild, ululating cry that echoed, mixed with the low, liquid cry of something that reminded Aix of a whale, and weird shadows undulated their weird silhouettes in the mareel of the water, which had gone weirdly still, a dark mirror reflecting a sky that wasn’t there.
Aix felt something that felt deliciously like tentacles in every orifice, writhing slowly; and he couldn’t help the images, the feelings, that evoked—and one in particular was frontmost.
This was the one that appeared, suddenly, behind Diedrich, who had no time to even scream before the tentacles were wrapped around his skull, two of them digging into his eyes, another two into his ears, another two into his nose and out of his mouth and his scream was muffled as he felt a mouth pierce his skull, felt the bone crunch like the shell of a crab, felt the blinding, searing pain as something that had never been a beak pierced the soft flesh of his brain, felt the warm liquid running down his skin… not blood but cerebral fluid, and then felt—nothing.
Roseblade, frozen in something he couldn’t define—horror? Anticipation? Hope?—watched the strange, violet, octopus-headed being that had appeared as suddenly as the massive creature with tentacles filling up the tear in the sky had disappeared attack his gaoler, as suddenly as an octopus with a crab; he watched, and held the mareel, not knowing who had caused it, but knowing it from his days at sea, and knowing his power of Storms could call it, could make it stay. It was a comfort to see it now, like an old friend; and even a vampire needed a little bit of light to see with.
He had long wanted to see Diedrich die, he had long wanted to see him afraid, and suffering, and this being seemed to be granting that long-held wish, tentacles finding purchase in the holes of Diedrich’s skull, the scream—Roseblade had never heard Diedrich make such a sound—the crunching of bone….
As Diedrich was dropped, they saw the empty husk of his skull, the top, and the brain, completely gone. The being looked at the altar table next, where Aix was no longer writhing like one possessed, but sitting up, swinging his legs over the edge of the table with only a little difficulty.
‘Querida!’ he said, beaming, opening his arms, and the being mirrored him, slowly. Aix gestured, not seeming upset. ‘Closer, closer—yes! Yes!’ he said, wrapping his arms around the being’s chest and squeezing.
Roseblade finally ventured forward, then, and Pickersail, Bonnet, and the others followed. Lady Averay followed at her own more sedate pace, not needing to examine the body to know. As his mates examined the limp and brainless corpse, Roseblade only had eyes for Aix, and the strange being—who opened new eyes on the side of its mantle-like head to look at Roseblade.
Orange eyes.
‘…You’re… the same being as up there?’ Roseblade asked, gesturing up to where the sky had resumed looking like itself again.
‘The same,’ Aix said, pulling back, laughing when it was a little difficult, the tentacles seeming not to want to let him go, but Aix got the impression it was more in the sense that Hug was nice, and we liked Hug, and didn’t want it to end. ‘Aw,’ he said. ‘I gotta talk though,’ he said, using Pantomime, of all things, along with his words. And yet, it seemed to be something this being understood.
‘You can command those… strange beings?’ Bonnet asked, hesitantly, and Aix’s deep brow furrowed in a way that showed he didn’t frown with his mouth.
‘I didn’t command anybody, Cthulhu and I have been trying to get him free—that’s what “yhzrog” means—for about a week now. Yon Dutchman just offered a perfect opportunity. Did most of the work for me. Now, where’s Pippin—Pippin!’ he called into the dark. ‘Pippin!’
He couldn’t hear her beeps, they were too small; but he saw her light, in a corner of the grotto near where the tunnel let out. She hopped over the rocks lightly, her Mask cheerful, until she could land on the stone table Aix was sitting on, throwing her hands up in the air, before turning to the other vampires and clapping her hands, to get their attention.
‘Be cheer! Hip hip!’ She put her little fist up.
‘Huzzah!’ Roseblade cried immediately, fist in the air.
‘Hip hip!’
‘Huzzah!’ cried more of his compatriots, the ritual starting to let happiness take hold.
‘Hip hip!’
‘Huzzah!’ rang, at last, louder than the waves.
Lady Sitrine smiled at Aix as she simply emerged from the edges of the group, the copy of the Necronomicon in her arms. ‘Well done,’ she said to him warmly. ‘Now, there is one more thing to do—come, young man,’ she said to the tall, alien being, ‘help our witch down.’
Aix looked at Cthulhu, thinking about what he wanted to happen, imagining the idea very clearly… and to his surprise, it seemed to work; Cthulhu picked him up, exactly like in his imagining, and set him gently down.
‘Thank you,’ he said, before turning to the pirates. ‘Pick that up,’ he said disdainfully, gesturing to the corpse. ‘And put it here,’ he pointed to the stone table. ‘Dis Pater is owed, and that debt will be paid, this night. Good, thank you. Now,’ he said, ‘anybody got a match?’
Lady Sitrinne snapped her fingers, and the body went up in flames. Aix lifted up his voice in the only song he knew that called to this god,
‘And if you ride that train to the end of the line!
Where the sun don’t shine and it’s always shady!
It’s there you’ll find the King of the Mines!
Almighty!
Mister!
Hades!’
Nothing happened, nothing dramatic, but regular religious rituals weren’t flashy. Aix merely felt it done, and nodded. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘we going back down that tunnel? Because if so, I need to be carried. That was a long walk.’
‘Where’s René?’ asked the blond vampire.
Aix looked at the water, out of the mouth of the cave. ‘I don’t know, but I know who does,’ he said. ‘Get me back to the bar, we can sacrifice some good booze and see if he’ll come tell us the tale.’