Death Whispers 24: The Devil's Bargain

Aug 2, 1722. Fishing village of Westmere. Facing a wooden devil and his devilish bargain…

Author’s Note: Death Whispers of the Etherwave is a serialized fiction story that is a part of Legends of the Privateers. Each chapter will appear weekly.

Missed a chapter? (or ‘Episode’ if you like!) Well, never you worry, as we’re only just getting started! The full list of chapters will appears here!

Transformed by the cataclysm of 1712, Doctor Pedro Sangre and his four courageous privateer companions confront mysterious and evil forces that plague innocent people. Together, they grapple with uncanny forces and myths come to life, risking everything to preserve peace and set right what has gone wrong.

Previously: A shore party from the Silk Duchess puts ashore at the mysterious, and possibly doomed village of Westmere. Pedro is the first to jump onto shore and run into town, but finds a village of the dead. Worse, far more than one villager has been petrified. Many more have been murdered. Worst of all, they find Lucas Argall and Dryden Storm still in the village and that the whole thing may have been a trap…

Aug 2, 1722. Fishing village of Westmere. Facing a wooden devil and his devilish bargain…

Shouts and screams of the nearby fighting echoed through my soul, while Lucas Argall’s voice grated like a dull spoon dragged across a slate.

Never have I wanted to stab someone so badly in my entire life.

“No deals, Señor,” I growled, then turned away to free Durner from the enchanted ropes.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Doctor.”

It was the smug tone in Lucas’ voice that made me stop. He had something up his sleeve. I turned back to face him with a bitter glare. That smug tone was also spread over his face with a thin, superior smile.

I clenched my right hand and nearly shattered the glass vial I held. Ghostfire played over my fist and vial, bright and eager. Bottled frustration coiled inside me. Wounded shoulder or not, I stalked toward Lucas. Thunder rolled in the storm clouds overhead.

“Lunatic!” I snapped. “Stop this!”

“Ah ah,” Lucas chided, wagging a gloved finger at me.

Something about his manner made me hesitate. That or the fact I was about to charge at a wood wraith who, if the stories were true, could wither a victim with a touch. At least something like that.

Still, the shouts and yells of pain from far behind me almost made me not care and charge at Lucas anyway.

The wood wraith strolled a few steps closer, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Dire amusement twinkled in his burning coal eyes.

“I’ve worked far too hard to get you into this dead town, Doctor,” Lucas said with a casual, meaningless wave at Westmere. “So the last thing I want is to see some idiot with more sword than sense run you through. I should know, since I’ve a lot of those idiots at my disposal.”

Lucas nodded past the gray stone well toward the pitched battle over by the blue and gray houses near the beach.

“Besides, your Captain Blackwater seems to have things well in hand. Magnificent swordswoman and captain. She might even turn the tables on Storm and send him running.”

Lucas replaced his smirk for something a bit more feral. I fought down the urge to slam a fist across his nose. This wasn’t the time. Not yet.

“That is, if I don’t set my Death Whispers loose on her and your crew here ashore.”

I drew a long, slow breath. Whether it was to steady my nerves or my temper, I wasn’t sure. Lucas gestured past me, and I decided to glance that way over my wounded shoulder.

The six Death Whispers were clustered together outside the pitched battle between the pirates and my crewmates. It was like watching a pack of ragged undead dogs eager to run into a fight, desperate to tear everything to shreds. I could almost see them strain at an invisible leash.

“Mierda,” I swore under my breath between my clenched teeth.

Past the Death Whispers, Lysander and Elara had regrouped with the rest of the shore crew. They had retreated with the wounded into a nearby, two story blue-trimmed house, and barricaded themselves inside.

On one hand, if Storm and his pirates were distracted, my crew could make it to the longboats at the beach and escape. But the pirates were already trying to find a way inside. Pistol shot, and too few pirates, frustrated Storm’s attempts.

“So Señor, Dryden Storm and his crew are disposable?” I gave Lucas a sideways glance.

The wraith shrugged.

“I use what’s at hand.”

It was a bloody stalemate. If this was a game of chess, that might have been ‘check’, but not ‘checkmate’. Not yet.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Durner slowly wriggle free of one of the enchanted ropes. He gave me a quick solemn nod while he worked, trying to avoid attention.

I subtly inclined my head in return, then sighed after a deep breath to cover it up. The taste of rain was on the air from the forward edge of the coming storm, sharp and electric with anticipation. I glared at Lucas. The wraith hadn’t seemed to notice Durner in the least.

“So all this? For what?” I snapped with a quick gesture at Westmere. “Bait for me, or another failed attempt to power your arcane engine? Another failed summoning?”

The wraith wasn’t bothered in the slightest. He just shrugged.

“Oh, you’ve been paying attention. Very good. You know the rules, Doctor. The law of balance,” Lucas explained casually. “All magic from the Etherwave comes with a price. I’m just trying to pay it. Only, this one is rather steep. I probably need something larger than a town, or even a city.”

Shouts and clangs of metal on the other side of Westmere made me twitch. My crewmates, my friends, were fighting for their lives while I was stuck talking to a monster.

“Call them off, Señor,” I snapped. “Both your horrors and Storm’s cutthroats. Then we’ll talk.”

“No,” he mused in that bone-on-wood rasp. “I don’t think so.”

Lucas slowly shook a gloved finger at me again. That feral smile still spread across his rotten wooden lips. The two pirates with him, honor guard at best given Lucas was a wraith, looked more uncomfortable with each second. I wasn’t sure what bothered them more, Lucas, my hand being on fire, or something else entirely.

“You’re a very hard man to kill, you know?” the wood wraith said casually. “Your companions didn’t worry me, but you did. You might read the Codex Luminari, and I couldn’t have that. So, I hoped that the corrupted Bindweaver Curse would kill you in hours, maybe a day.”

“I’m hard to kill, Señor,” I growled.

He nodded, then slowly paced in front of me.

“Oh, I noticed. I didn’t expect you to be so resourceful.” Lucas gestured to the ghostfire around my hand. “Neither did I expect Captain Storm’s trapped trinket to latch onto you, either. It took some doing to convince the captain to just ruin your shoulder, instead of gut you in the warehouse.”

He knew we visited the warehouse. We had been set up from the start.

That fact shot a cold chill through my spine, but I fought down the shudder. What else did this monster already know? A part of me wondered if the posturing was to cover up that he knew less than he let on. I didn’t rise to his gloating, but set my jaw and glared.

Lucas paused in his pacing with a disappointed expression.

“Now, Doctor, don’t be like that. I’m past trying to kill you. You’re far too interesting. We’re both men of learning, yet here you are swimming in foul waters, playing with pirates and privateers. Come now, we’re above that.”

“He’s stalling,” whispered the voice in my mind, the one I suspected was inside the ghostfire.

I silently agreed with it and felt a brief pulse of warmth back.

Behind me, I could hear flintlock fire and the clash of metal. Each second, every sound, felt like a new needle in my skin. A cold breeze raced off the sea, while the first splatter of rain fell. But I needed to stall to give Durner a little more time.

“What do you want, Señor?” I asked bitterly, emphasizing each word.

“Oh, nothing much,” Lucas replied with a casual wave and another of those feral grins. “Just the Codex page, and you.”

“Me?”

His smile widened, and I felt a sudden urge to bathe.

“Yes, you, Doctor,” Lucas repeated. “You must’ve discovered my humble attempts at potion brewing in the warehouse. I did have to leave in a hurry,” he sighed regretfully.

“No matter what else I am, I’m a master wavebinder. A spellcaster. But you!” He gestured at me with both hands. “You, my good Doctor, are a true alchemist.”

“You want me to fix your potion,” I guessed aloud as I narrowed my eyes at him.

The man waggled his finger at me again, pacing near his bodyguards.

“But of course,” Lucas replied, voice as smooth as slime. “Give me the Codex page. Let me put it back in the book, then free Tristam Greenholm. Between his knowledge of the Codex Luminari, my skill in channeling the Etherwave Arcana, and your mastery of potions, we can change the world.”

The wraith’s voice had dropped to an unholy whisper.

“Erase the disease of death itself.”

Lucas stopped in front of his bodyguards, turned to face me, then gestured at himself.

“Even cure this,” he said in a low, threatening voice. “In return, I call off Storm and his pirates, and dissolve the Death Whispers. All of it. Then once all this is over, and we’ve succeeded, you never set foot in my affairs again.”

A whisper of movement caught the corner of my eye.

Just to my left, I noticed Durner slip free of the last enchanted rope. He held them close against his chest with the pretense of being bound. Thirty feet beyond that, Lysander crouched behind a barrel with Elara’s flintlock pistol. Sweat gleamed along his dark cheeks, cutting streaks in marred smudges of soot.

How he escaped the house, and Storm’s pirates, I’ve no idea. But I was so glad, I nearly cheered.

“If I refuse?” I asked carefully, raising my eyebrows.

In a blink, Lucas yanked off his right glove, then slapped each of his bodyguards in the chest. Both men tried to back away, but barely managed a step. They screamed, but their voices drowned in the sound of cracking wood. In seconds, they petrified in place, clothes and all.

“Simple. Your friends die, then I have you ripped apart.”

Then a pistol’s lead shot punched Lucas in the throat the instant after he pulled on his glove and glanced up. Amber, resin-like blood, coated his throat.

Shock exploded on the wood wraith’s face. He tried to talk, yell, anything, but his throat was too savaged to work. At least, it was for the moment. Wood wraiths had a nasty habit of being diabolically durable, even from a mortal wound.

Lightning flashed, and the rain fell harder. We might only have minutes before Lucas healed.

Durner was on his feet in an instant, recovered his own flintlock and fired at the wood wraith. The shot went high and to the right, but still slammed into the monster’s shoulder. Lucas staggered back, hate boiling in his glowing orange eyes.

Nearby, the six Death Whispers turned toward us and charged, but Durner met them halfway. Even though he stood four foot six, he was three times stronger than anyone I knew. Brass veins glowed under the lightning, and his copper eyes flashed hot as he lunged.

The gearwright hauled the lead Death Whisper into the air, then slammed it against the rest. Some fell, others darted aside.

Over by the house, I realized how Lysander got free. Somehow, Elara and Lysander had led Storm and his pirates on a fool’s errand through the house. While the pirates invaded the building, Elara led our crew out through a root cellar door, partially obscured by sand grass. I saw her wave her glowing ghost blade at me.

That lone pirate who stood guard over that door never stood a chance.

“Tell Elara!” I shouted to Durner and Lysander over the thunder. “Get everyone and the captives to the longboats!”

“What about Storm?” Durner roared back in a craggy voice, grabbing another Death Whisper to pitch it down the town well. Then he jabbed a calloused finger at Lucas Argall. “What about that?”

“Leave Lucas Argall to me,” I snapped, then smashed my vial on the ground.

Fog boiled up between myself and the wraith like ghostly claws greedy for air.

I locked eyes with the wood wraith.

“No deals, Señor!” I snapped. “You can keep your devil’s bargain. I’ve made enough on my own.”

A grin brushed my face as I tugged at my tricorn hat, singing in a low voice to call down the magic.

“I’m a privateer of the sea, of the waves and wind, with my ship and crew, I sail the ocean without fear…”

The Etherwave Arcana’s power replied before I barely finished the verse, then roared through me like a wave.

Lucas tried to scream in rage, but I clouded his mind. We vanished into mist before his eyes.

For more about Legends of the Privateers, Hoist the Colors, or any of my other works, please consider subscribing as I would really appreciate the support, sometimes I post behind the scenes on writing, worldbuilding and more. If you’re wanting a deeper look at Hoist the Colors, take the plunge here at the link: Hoist the Colors.

Hoist the Colors is a work of pure, unabashed fiction. Actually, when it's not swinging off the rigging, or shivering some timbers, it's rather shy and retiring. Did I mention it enjoys baking? Names of characters, places, events, organizations and locations are all creations of the author’s imagination for this fictitious setting. So he really is all to blame here.

Any resemblance to persons living, dead, shoved overboard, or reanimated is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author's, since the characters and the author tend to disagree a lot.