Death Whispers 29: Bait and Bloody Portents

Aug 8, 1722. Kingston, Jamaica. Following the bait, but feeling a little baited in return…

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: Rest and recovery is never easy, but Pedro manages that back at his alchemy shop in Kingston. With a little help from Primrose Stewart he repairs his shop from the recent assault. At the same time, also works out a dubious plan to turn the tables on Captain Dryden Storm and the murderous Lucas Argall. That is, provided they take the bait…

Aug 8, 1722. Kingston, Jamaica. Following the bait, but feeling a little baited in return…

I had the potions ready in an hour. The trap was set in the warehouse after that.

Everything else was about spreading rumors concerning a working cure for the ‘petrify murder plague’. That dubious title that the broadsheets had recently settled on for Lucas Argall’s murder spree in Kingston.

Soon enough, word of the cure had spread along with Garvin Hall’s astounding recovery. It, and the boy, were the talk of Kingston. After that, all we needed to do was wait.

It was a lesson in patience across four tense days, especially for me. I was done taking hits from Dryden Storm and Lucas Argall, and wanted to give some back.

But those four days gave us time to rest and bandage our wounds. We patched up who and what we could in that time, including the Silk Duchess. She wasn’t back to full fighting shape, but it was a near thing. It felt like all of us, including the Duchess, were itching for another run at Dryden Storm and Lucas Argall.

“Another quiet morning on watch,” I murmured, hands stuffed in a new brown long coat. “At least it’s quiet so far.”

“It’s too quiet and this morning weather isn’t helping,” Lysander replied.

In the distance, a hint of sunlight woke the horizon with a lover’s kiss, making the sea blush in reply. A sigh of gray-white early morning mist traveled over the water like a hushed promise, rolling in over Kingston’s outer bay.

I watched the tendrils of that cool morning mist dance along the waves, wrapping its ghostly arms around ships at anchor. It covered them with a soft embrace, like the fond memory of a blanket. Nearby, the steady roll of the dark sea sent waves lapping against both damp shore and empty, wet wooden docks. The air tasted salty with the tang of rotten kelp scattered along the water’s edge.

Our warehouse with the potions sat at the far eastern end of Harbor Street where it crossed Lower East Street. Oddly enough, it was close to where Lucas had been killing people. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

Lysander fidgeted in the doorway of an abandoned livery stable next to me, giving it a dubious look. Brown paint flaked off old wood, split and cracked from both sun and salty air. Mildew played freely inside, fed by long rotting hay, apples, and forgotten dried manure shoveled into a corner. Feeble, yellow-white light from a nearby street lantern caught the thin sheen of nervous perspiration on his dark, olive-tan complexion.

“Pedro, are you sure we couldn’t just be inside the old livery? Maybe up in the loft?”

I raised an eyebrow at him before I glanced through the half-open door next to us. Thieves had broken off the rusted lock some time ago and the owner never replaced it. I shook my head, turning back to watch the warehouse across the road.

“As sure as yesterday, but go ahead. That ladder looked a bit rotten, but you’ll probably make it up there fine.” I gently raised my left arm a little, still in its sling. “There’s no way I’d manage it with this.”

Lysander gave the moldy, dark ladder a longing look. But eventually, he let out a resigned sigh and remained where he was.

“How are you healing, by the way?” he asked. “Getting stabbed in the shoulder twice by a cutlass isn’t a small thing. Most lose the arm.”

I shrugged with my good shoulder.

“It was close. Storm nearly ran me through on that second thrust. But Elara and I had healing potions. It took all I had with me to get the bleeding under control and repair the cut to something manageable. I’ve a few stitches still there, and an elixir I took for infection the next morning helped keep that problem at bay.”

A sigh tumbled out of me as I gently rubbed at my left shoulder. The stitches itched, ever so slightly.

“Lucky I’m right handed, so I can fight with a sword if I have to,” I admitted ruefully. “But it’s still awkward. Then there’s the pain. Healing potions never really dull that, even after the wound’s healed and the stitches are gone.”

I leaned against the stained, tan wooden crates, eyes searching the silent, dark warehouse across the road from us.

“They’ll come for it today,“ I murmured.

“You sure?” Lysander asked.

I nodded toward a nearby dock, still draped in deep black and gray morning shadows. A longboat with five sailors hunched over the oars, silently slipped through the water. Wet oars glimmered in the half-light, rich with malicious promise. Those sailors were silent, but I could just make out the shape of flintlock pistols and swords.

“Positive,” I whispered. Carefully, I waved a hand to Ari and Durner, hidden on the other side of the warehouse. After that, I moved deeper into the shadows with Lysander.

The longboat bumped lightly against the dock, before four of the sailors in dark clothes eased out. They raced along the wet planks through the light fog for our warehouse. I glanced at Lysander, who raised his eyebrows with a smirk.

“This just might be them,” he hissed.

It was.

The pirates were in and out in minutes, loaded down with two boxes of what I hoped was the fake cure. We had stored other cargo around them, just to sell the ruse.

Once back in the longboat, the pirates rowed for the bay. Lysander and I eased out of the livery, slipping across to meet with Ari and Durner.

“Did you hear anything?” I quickly asked. “We were too far back from the warehouse.”

Durner nodded, but he didn’t look happy. Which was, honestly, practically normal for him, but this time here was a harder edge to his burning copper eyes.

“We did,” he replied in his usual craggy voice. “They were mostly cursing the new lock. But one was downright scared over getting skinned alive by Cap’n Storm. Seems they needed to be back within a few hours for the ritual.”

Lysander looked alarmed.

“Ritual? They can’t be thinking of putting another town to the torch.”

“No idea,” Ari replied sternly, fluttering her dragonfly wings irritably. “But whatever is happening, they’re doing it today, in a few hours.”

“It could be that ritual needs to be done at a certain time,” I mused. “Probably has to do with the Codex. Why at a certain time, escapes me.”

Something about that idea stuck in the back of my mind. It was like a splinter worrying the end of my finger. Scowling, I let my thoughts churn on that while I waved to the others.

“In any case, they have the boxes. Let’s get back to the Duchess so we can follow.”

We hurried up Lower East Street, then along Harbor to keep from being seen. After that, we ran to a waiting longboat from the Silk Duchess several docks away. Once away from the shore, we tried to keep pace with the pirates, but not draw attention to ourselves. We were partway back to the Duchess when my thoughts settled on a likely conclusion.

“Whatever ritual Lucas has cooked can’t be close to Kingston,” I explained. “It would be aboard the Rising Eel at the least, and we’ve not seen her at anchor in the bay.”

“That being the case, that lot won’t row out to sea,” Durner rumbled. “I mean they could, but if they’re expected back at a certain time, rowing a longboat won’t do. They’ll need something faster.”

My thoughts were sprinting faster than I could catch them in words.

“That means there’s a small ship waiting.” I frowned, squinting into the fog. “Something quick and small to get them to the Eel. Lysander, is Elara’s tracing dust still on those boxes?”

The navigator closed his eyes, humming a soft tune under his breath while he traced a circle on the palm of his right hand. A soft blue light flowed into the flat drawing of a compass like a tattoo. Lysander opened his eyes, holding up his hand. The compass spun, then went still, pointing a glowing blue arrowhead toward the pirates.

“Yes,” he replied with a smile. “I feel the pull.”

Since I couldn’t row because of my shoulder, I looked to starboard. Past the dark water, through the thinning fog, stretched the brown, bleak, sandy shoreline east of Kingston. It was mostly undeveloped land and scrub trees, save for the local hospital and a few houses close to the water.

“Are they just headed down the shoreline?” Ari asked while rowing.

All of that land was owned by one Robert Dukinfield. A member of the Jamaican Assembly and former slave owner nearly lynched when magic returned like a tidal wave in 1712. He was also an arrogant British scoundrel.

Dukinfield and I weren’t on the best of terms. But I knew him well enough that he’d never tolerate ‘filthy magic’ on his lands. Especially since he regularly sent armed hunters to make sure that ‘filthy magic’ didn’t happen.

Wavebinders had learned to avoid the place if they wanted to keep their skin intact.

“No. That’s Señor Robert Dukinfield’s land,” I muttered harshly. “He’d never let a ritual go on there, no matter who was creating it.” My voice turned bitter. “He has a deep grudge against any sort of wavebinder.”

I left off the part where he hated alchemists, too. But we alchemists were a ‘necessary evil’ in his eyes.

“Then where the hells are they headed?” Durner growled.

We had our answer by the time we reached the Silk Duchess.

Out of sight of Kingston bay, I spotted a black-sailed sloop anchored past a small thumb of land to the far east of Kingston. Smaller than the Duchess, she was a sleek, trim craft with only one mast. Also, sloops were agile and fast, especially near coastlines.

By the time I painfully climbed aboard the Silk Duchess, the pirates had already moved their stolen cargo and set sail.

“Lysander!” I called out over the scramble of the crew around us, then pointed out the sloop.

He joined me at the bow, squinting at the black-sailed ship.

“That’ll do it. Sloop’s are fast. If Captain Storm isn’t much farther out than Port Royal, they’ll get there quick enough. Easily before us.”

He shrugged.

“On time? Can’t say. It depends on how fast they were told to get back. Now, if that sloop has a portal platform?”

He shot me a worried look from the corner of his eye, pursing his lips.

“An Arcane Gate would be enough power to get them there in a blink.”

That stirred an idea in my head I’d been trying to pin down for days. Icy fear prickled at my nerves.

Power. Raw, primal power.

Suddenly, I had a very nasty idea of where the ritual was being held. What exact insane thing Lucas was about to try this time. The tattoos on my right hand flared for a brief second in response.

Across the water, a faint glimmer of golden light formed into a round ball on the deck of the sloop. I thought I could feel the light crackle of arcane power drawn down from the Etherwave Arcana across my skin.

“They’re opening an Arcane Gate,” Lysander snapped.

“That’s it!” I ran for my cabin in the stern.

The Codex page in my satchel might have the calculations I needed to confirm this horrible theory. Aches rattled through my joints, especially my shoulder. I hissed from the nagging pain, but ignored it. There was worse about to happen.

“What is?” Lysander called out. “Pedro!”

I stopped partway across the deck and fixed Lysander with a haunted look.

“How Lucas is going to get the power for this insane ritual of his. What he’s going to break down to get it,” I said with a scowl. “It’s a wild guess, but damn if it doesn’t feel horribly right.”

I gestured to the sloop and the first stirrings of an Arcane Gate appearing near the small pirate ship. Already, she’d started to come about for their temporary Gate.

“He’s planning to somehow wreck the natural Arcane Gate off Port Royal to steal its power. Maybe even shatter it to pieces so he can rip away the veil between life and death.”

Lysander scrubbed his hands over his face.

“Pedro, if he does that,” he shook his head, “God, if he does that to a Gate… I’m not sure what would happen. Those pirates could be burned to pieces, but the Gate could also erupt.”

“Yes,” I snapped, words clawing at my throat. “It also means he might turn loose every nightmare from free roaming ghosts, specters to the drowned dead. Maybe even worse to devour the living. I’m not sure how we’d stop them.”

My frown deepened as I shook my head.

“We need to get to Port Royal’s Arcane Gate.”

I spun to face Elara at the helm. Her frown said she’d heard the entire conversation.

“Captain…”

“I heard,” she replied, cutting me off.

In my mind’s eye, I saw legions of the damned crawling out the sea. Undead horrors painting Kingston in sheets of blood.

Elara punched the railing with a fist, then took a breath, eyes blazing.

“Lysander! Open a Gate!”

She punched the railing again. The Duchess seemed to creak back with eager anticipation.

“Durner! Call to quarters! I want those cannons manned and ready! I’m done with subtle. Let’s send a monster to hell.”

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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.