Death Whispers 9: Dire Warnings and Malcontents

July 25, 1722. Kingston, Jamaica. Headed to the merchant row along Port Royal Street north of the docks, where trouble swarmed like flies…

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 appear here later on!

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: Examining the black blood revealed it was “blood-ink” from a Death Whisper, a murderous, golem-like fiend constructed from books, ink, darker emotions, and even darker aspects of the Etherwave Arcana. But the accidental summoning of a Death Whisper revealed that Pedro Sangre’s curse or affliction can counter the lethal apparitions. Armed with a recipe from the Archbinder, Pedro and Lysander set out to collect the dire and dubious items on that list. All to fashion a potion that might just keep Pedro alive. Still, they are no closer to uncovering the truth of the Codex and its mysterious designs…

July 25, 1722. Kingston, Jamaica. Headed to the merchant row along Port Royal Street north of the docks, where trouble swarmed like flies…

We left behind the Archbinder’s studio and her morbid interests, while we retraced our steps down the street.

“Where to from here?” Lysander asked while he fell in step beside me.

“Waterfront,” I sighed, then pulled out Lyra’s ingredient list. “The booths and merchant shops are the best bet to find most of this.” A grimace fell over me. “Except for the burial shawl. That has to come from a gravedigger at one of the graveyards.”

“Look at it this way. Maybe you’ll get one that’s only slightly used,” he joked, then his expression turned serious. “Pedro, do you think that this,” Lysander waved a hand at the list, “will work? A potion made of all that, against your curse?”

I stared hard at the list, then nervously adjusted my shoulder bag that held my notebook and the journal paper while we walked through Kingston’s square.

“Yes?” I replied and winced. Slowly, I took a deep breath. “Really, I don’t know, my friend. A lot of what Lyra’s listed here would do fine to make a ‘necromantic repellant’. Just not one I’ve ever thought of before.”

We turned south toward the docks as Lysander said, “Well, the corrupted curse is eating you alive.”

I folded the list, then pushed it into my satchel.

“Yes, so Lyra said. Which means some part of the curse is necromantic. But that makes me wonder what else this corrupted curse will react to?”

Thoughts of necromancy and corrupted curses from Otherworld kept us company on the walk. We reached the docks ten minutes later.

The docks just south of Port Royal Street and its warehouses were the main shipping point for the city. Ships from all over the world came in through the Kingston Arcane Gate a half-mile off-shore. It made Kingston’s docks a hum of activity with its exotic offerings and the occasionally dubious back alley bargains.

Port Royal Street itself held rich, memorable smells of spices mixed with the sharp stench of saltwater, dead fish, cooked meat, and sweat. Midday meant the morning crowd had thinned out considerably. There wasn’t the constant press of people, just thick knots of visitors and dockworkers up and down the road. Booths, wagons, and tables, all shaded with brightly colored tarps, lined the roadside hoping to separate customer from coin.

I drew in a deep breath of the abusive aroma while it assaulted my senses. Personally, I enjoyed a walk along Port Royal Street. It was a good place to think, and right then I had far too much to think about.

“It’s almost noon,” Lysander said with an uneasy glance at the clouded sky, then the line of merchant stalls. “Less crowd, but still plenty of pickpockets.”

“More of the city watch is out, too,” I reassured him. “They’re always out in force at midday when the cargo offloads. It keeps most of the problems at bay.”

We strolled down the weathered, dingy footpath along the north side of the street, opposite the warehouses and narrow roads to the wooden piers.

“Fine by me,” he replied with a sour look. “We have enough on our list as it is.”

“You’re not the one having to make, then drink, a potion with rooster feet,” I replied.

Lysander gave me a sympathetic smile.

“It’ll keep you alive.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Besides, your right hand catches fire with green flames on a whim, and we’ve been attacked twice now by book fiends called Death Whispers. Rooster feet potions seem pretty ordinary by comparison, Pedro.”

I shook my head a little at that.

“Lysander, if that’s our new measurement of ‘ordinary’? My friend, I think we have a problem.”

“Pedro, you worry too much. I’m sure it’ll taste like chicken.”

“Feet,” I corrected him. “Feet, my friend. Chicken feet.”

“Staves off death,” he countered.

Our debate continued over the elixir’s future flavor while we mingled with the crowd and searched the merchant booths. The first three weren’t any help, but our luck changed with the fourth.

“That’ll be three pieces of silver,” a stout woman with gray-black hair at one booth told me with a broad grin.

She was broad-shouldered and square built, with thin lines of brass running through her deep olive-tan skin. Those thread-thin metal veins were like any other I’ve seen on grimlings I knew. Her clothing was a brightly colored style I last saw back in Córdoba. It was a nice reminder of home.

Now, was her price highway robbery? Oh, of course it was. But given my morning so far, I didn’t feel up to the customary haggling.

I handed over the coins with a sigh for a small bag of fire peppers and two rooster feet. Before I could drop the feet into the bag to join the peppers, the woman snatched up my right hand in hers. She stared intently at my glove, then fixed me with a stern, piercing look. I tried to pull my hand away, but her grip was like an iron vise.

“What is this?” I snapped in alarm while I struggled.

Lysander noticed my problem and lunged forward to help me. The woman made him back off with a ferocious glare. The wind off the bay blew with a sharp chill.

“Back away, Navigator,” she spit out at him. “This isn’t for you, and you’ve seen why.”

I waved a hand at Lysander to keep back, then glared at the woman.

“What do you want, Señora?”

“Your time’s running short, Doctor!” My spine stiffened while I watched her brushed silver colored eyes deepen, then burn with a bright green flame. “You lost the book. Get it, and put it back where it came from.”

I tried to jerk my hand free, but her grip only tightened.

“The wood-boned man has it,” she snarled, shaking her head slowly. “He’s building the device and needs that page you have. The bloody fool doesn’t understand what he’s about to do. Mark my words, Doctor, keep it away from him. Do not let him build it!”

While she talked, her voice took on a lower tone. A smooth, polished sneer I had heard once before in a lone ruin on San Andrés Island in a swamp. Dread sank its talons into my back and skittered up my spine. A mist obscured the woman’s face for a second. Then it changed into the ghostly appearance of Captain Dryden Storm, complete with a ghostly red-streaked black beard. His sinister, steel-gray eyes stared holes into me.

“You!” I breathed, wide eyed. “It can’t be…”

I scowled, then tried to jerk my hand free. It would’ve been easier to overturn a ship with a spoon.

“Oh, it can be, Doctor,” Storm’s voice sneered out the woman’s mouth. “We’re connected, you and I. Joined at the hand, it would seem. Don’t let the master of the book get what he wants. Get the book. Put it back where it came from, and free my crew.”

The grimling woman possessed by Dryden Storm practically jerked me across the booth, scattering some fruits and other produce in the process.

“If you don’t,” Storm’s sneer dropped to a gravel tone, “I’ll kill you myself. That is, if the curse doesn’t take you. Then you’ll be a fine addition to my crew. I could use a good alchemist. Mark my words, Doctor. You’ve little time.”

The woman let go of my hand, and I nearly stumbled into Lysander. I glared back into the booth, but the older woman had stepped aside to sort an overfilled crate behind her. In her place, a square-built grimling man about the same age walked over to us. He brushed his hands against his worn blue coat that was draped over ordinary brown common clothes. Sunlight danced over the silver veins shot through his dark skin and his slicked back, cobalt blue hair.

“That all for you gents?” he asked brightly.

Lysander started for the booth with a scowl, but I quickly grabbed his arm.

“No. Wait. Look around,” I warned him.

Lysander did just that.

“At what, Pedro? It’s just the docks and people. But that woman… it was Captain Storm! We saw him die!”

I scowled at him.

“Look again, my friend. No one’s staring. That woman almost pulled me over the top of that booth. No one noticed. Not even the people in the next booth. They act like nothing ever happened, and they were two steps away.”

Lysander looked around again, while I glanced back at the booth in front of us. The blue-haired man squinted at us curiously, worry lines traced over his forehead.

I noticed not a single vegetable or fruit was out of place on the booth. But when the woman, or really Dryden Storm, yanked me forward, several had been knocked aside.

“Nothing’s out of place,” I whispered low so only Lysander could hear. “Not even Sebastian is bothered. It’s as if nothing happened.”

Then the woman at the crate stood up to press her fists against her lower back. Her eyes had returned to a polished silver, without a hint of what she had just done. At least, what Lysander and I thought she had done.

“But Pedro, how…?” Lysander stammered for words.

“I don’t know how Storm did that, or what happened,” I told him with a frown. “But Storm sent us a message. Now isn’t the time to figure it out, my friend. Not here. Not now.”

Down the road, I saw three of the Kingston city watch eyeing us warily. I shook my head at Lysander, then smiled at the merchant.

“No, Señor, it’s fine. This is all we needed.”

I pulled Lysander away before anything else happened, or the city watch decided to get involved. Once we escaped past the next booth, a young man raced over. Sidwell "Buttons" McGee was human, thirteen at best, in a slightly oversized, and worn out, dirty long coat. He was one of the many ‘street rats’ that lived in the area.

“Doctor! I was headed for your shop. Got a message for you.” He thrust a stained folded piece of paper at me.

“Gracias, Buttons. I appreciate it.” I dropped two silver into the boy’s hand, then patted him on the shoulder. “Get something to eat. Share it with the rest of your Rat Runners.”

Buttons bit the coins, then tipped his battered black felt hat.

“Anytime, Doctor!” He replied with a cheerful grin while he raced off through the crowd.

I dropped the bird feet into the bag of peppers, then tied that dubious mix closed. After that, I unfolded the note.

“Lucien has information about the Codex.” I looked up and down Port Royal Street, past the scattered crowds at the colorful booths and wagons. “He’s here among the booths. Says he’ll meet us past Jasper Finnegan’s Freakish Delights.”

“Fitting,” Lysander replied with a shake of his head.

I lightly tapped the note against my hand before I folded it closed, then put it away in an inner pocket of my long coat.

“At least there’s no mistake where to meet him.”

“How do we know this isn’t Captain Storm all over again?” Lysander asked, eyebrows knitted in concern.

“That’s just it, we don’t,” I replied after a deep breath. ”But I think Storm could’ve killed us right then if he wanted to. Just be ready and hope this really was from Lucien. We could use the winds blowing in our favor for once today.”

We picked up our pace while we headed down the street.

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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.