Will was surprised. He’d heard Bella talk about how bad hexes were before. “I thought you didn’t hex people.”
“I don’t, usually. It’s one of those things the Magistrate really frowns on, but against pirates trying to kill us I’m willing to bend the rules,” Bella smiled. She finished crawling around and drawing the second circle as Will tied the mirror to the mast. Inside the mirror Will heard Tonya arrive.
“Sorry it took me so long, I really needed to get cleaned up. What’s going on?” Bella’s apprentice asked.
“They’re being chased by pirates. Bella is going to use the mirror as an energy source to hex them, so we have to replenish the mirror from this side,” Janie explained. “Help me draw this circle.”
“Woah. Alright. What’s he doing here?” Tonya asked.
“Helping,” Caine replied.
“You look like you’re just sitting there drinking,” Tonya snarked.
“That’s how I usually help,” Caine shrugged.
“Good point,” Tonya conceded as she got down on her hands and knees to help draw a circle.
“You should just get a rug made,” Caine suggested. “Would save you a lot of time drawing on the ground.”
“Woah,” Tonya said, surprised. “Bella, would that work?”
“What?” Bella called from the other side. She was only about ten feet away, but the ship and weather were noisy.
“A rug! A big circular rug, woven as a spellbinding circle!” Tonya called from closer to the mirror. “Would that work?”
“I don’t know,” Bella answered. “I’ll think it through later.”
Will finished roping the mirror to the mast. Water steadily dripped off the tip of his tricorn hat. The rain was still slow and heavy, but it was picking up. “What now?” he asked Bella.
The naked witch was finishing up the second circle. “I’m going to run through my whole supply of paint on this,” she muttered. “Three more circles. Smaller, in a stack. One around the mast and the mirror, one in front of it, and one behind it.” She shortened the protractor rope and started the smaller circle around the mast.
“This is a lot more complex than things I’ve seen you do before,” Will said.
“It wasn’t my original plan to do things this way. I’m improvising a bit, but I think it will work well. It’s probably hard to tell, but there’s a lot of things that are coming together in very lucky ways right now.”
Will was suddenly very aware of his own equilibrium. Usually that was where he first noticed when his curse might be kicking in. It was automatic. He’d developed a habit of mentally checking in with his own balance anytime things seemed strange. It was a habit that grounded him and helped him stay focused when things started getting out of hand. Things definitely seemed like they were headed toward out of hand, and Bella’s talk of luck reminded him far too much of the conversation he’d just had about his curse with Jack.. It was possible that Jack was wrong, but his instincts told him that she was onto something. He couldn’t help but feel suspicious of anything involving luck now.
The deck was shifting and the wind was blowing too much for him to notice if he was feeling off kilter. The feeling of the curse shifting things was often subtle, and in the midst of a storm he just couldn’t tell.
Will looked out into the black in the direction the ship hunting them had last been spotted, wondering if purposefully trying to engage his curse might have had consequences he couldn’t see or feel yet. Or maybe he just had a guilty conscience.
“I hope you’re right.”
______________________
Lynch opened the door and Jack barged in without any kind of explanation. Lynch stopped her with a stiff arm, but she knocked it aside and kept moving. He reached for her again, but Morant stopped him with a raised hand. Jack gave Lynch a sharp look and finished walking into the room.
“What is it?” Morant asked. He finished buttoning his expensive black coat over his shirt and vest. “A storm?”
“And a ship. We’re being chased, and headed into the storm to escape,” Jack said quickly.
Lord Morant looked exasperated but largely unconcerned. “I will remain here. Mister Lynch, help see to the defense of the ship.” Lynch nodded and headed to a large chest against the wall and opened it.
Jack left, pulling the door shut behind her. She crossed the hold to her own cabin and walked in to find Doctor Kalfou still sleeping.
“Wake up, Doc,” she said loudly Doctor Kalfou’s face scrunched in discomfort. She rolled her head to the side and cracked an eye. The lanterns shone through the doorway casting Jack in silhouette.
“What?” the doctor asked unhappily.
“We’re headed into a storm and being chased by pirates,” Jack turned up the lantern on the wall, brightening the room.
“What?” The doctor sat up quickly, fully awake now, squinting and using her hand to shield her eyes from the sudden light.
“Get dressed, arm yourself, and get up top. There’s probably going to be wounded before the night’s over.” Jack opened up her footlocker and began rifling through it.
Doctor Kalfou tossed back her covers and pulled her own locker out from beneath her bed. “Where does the ship receive wounded?” she asked, quickly shimmying into her trousers.
“No idea. Ask one of the Norths,” Jack took off her belt and began sliding pouches, holsters and sheaths onto it one by one. She snapped a shoulder strap onto it and put the entire thing on again. The strap ran across her body from left hip to right shoulder, helping to distribute the added weight of the two pistols that now rode her left hip. The sheath of her machete ran lengthwise across the small of her back. She hefted her bulky firearm, settling its sling over her shoulder, and closed her footlocker.
Doctor Kalfou finished pulling on her boots and headed out the door at a run. Jack took a calming breath. “Quinn, I need you.”
_________________
Sailing into a storm, at night, at full sail was incredibly dangerous. The swabs were all tied in to the masts and assigned hauling duties. They had ahold of this lines running to the corners of the sails and were pulling under the direction of Mister Reeve. The sails had to be tilted properly to help steer and compensate for the wind, and also just to keep the gusts from capsizing them. Without the swabs helping the riggers would have had no hope of keeping the sails under control. The crew was in a tug-of-war with a thunderhead.
Lightning lit the night again. Will craned his neck around behind him and waited, hoping for another to follow. It did, right as the thunder from the first rolled. He could make out the black silhouette of the other ship. It loomed much larger in the distance than he’d hoped.
“Ship astern, due south!” came the call from above.
“She’s gaining, captain,” Will called over the storm.
“Gaining, aye!” Vex called behind her, acknowledging him. They couldn’t really see each other because of the arrangement Bella had put Will in.
He was sitting in a chair that they had tied and nailed to the deck. Ropes were pulled tight across his lap, tying him to the chair so the waves wouldn’t toss him out of it. The tabletop was sitting across his thighs. It was wet, but the glass top had been smartly made to keep water from getting to the maps beneath. The lantern from the mast in front of him was more than enough to see by. He couldn’t move much, but he didn’t need to for his job. Tucked into his belt was a small silver hand mirror that Bella had given him. He had no idea what it was for, but she’d been very clear that he needed to keep it with him, and keep it safe.
He had to lean to the side to see around the mast in order to have a clear line of sight to Bella. She was in another circle, like his. The pattern she’d drawn was complex. There were three circles in a line. He was in the southernmost one, the center circle held the mirror, and the mizzenmast, the northern smaller circle was where Bella knelt. Around those three circles were the two larger circles she had drawn first. In the gap between the two larger circles she’d drawn a number of symbols Will didn’t recognize. The whole things had taken her almost all her paint.
“So, what do I need to do, Bella?” he called around the mast.
“Nothing! Just don’t leave your circle! If your curse starts feeling strange, ignore it!” Bella called back.
“Usually if I do that, bad things happen!” he replied.
“I know!” Bella called. “I’m trying to use that!”
“What?!” Will was suddenly nervous.
“It’s a fortune hex!” Bella called back.
“Report!” Captain Vex called out.
“Bosun!” Danica called.
“All present!” Reeve boomed
“Rigging!” Danica called again.
“All present!” Lace shouted down.
“Quarters!” Danica continued.
Up from the hold came Mister North’s voice. “All secure! Passengers accounted for!”
Danica came up the stairs, holding the rail as the winds and waves buffeted her. “We’re ready, Captain. Miss Hunter, Mister Quinn, Mister Lynch, and the rest of Lord Morant’s retinue are standing by below decks to help repel boarders should it come to that. I have Doctor Kalfou in your quarters preparing to receive wounded.”
“The crew fully armed?” Captain Vex asked.
“Almost. The crew that came up early to respond to the storm didn’t bring weapons with them. We need to run weapons up to the riggers. Other than that, we’re ready for a fight,” Danica said.
“I want Colin here with me. You head to the prow,” Captain Vex said, her eyes on the black horizon, focused in concentration.
“Aye,” Danica said curtly and headed back down the steps as quickly as she could safely go.
The winds and rain were picking up. Belita could feel the ship’s timbers beneath her feet and the straining of the wheel against the hands. Her ship was protesting the treatment she was getting. Captain Vex spared a glance over her shoulder, knowing she wouldn’t see anything in the blackness but giving into the impulse anyway.
“Sails to half!” she barked.
“Sails to half! Sails to half!” came the echoing relay of acknowledgements from Reeve and Webber.
It was extremely dangerous to head into a storm under sail, but they needed the extra distance from their pursuers. It was a risk that built the more the storm built and the deeper in the ship got. Belita was relying on the ship itself to tell her when things were getting to be more than she could handle. Reducing the sail might get them caught, but it wouldn’t matter if they snapped a mast or capsized first.
The riggers worked quickly, hauling up the lower sail beams and re-tying the lines to secure the sails at the halfway point. Suddenly Belita was wishing they’d been in a triangular sail configuration rather than square-rigged. Square sails had a higher top speed, but required more sailors to man and weren’t as quick to be adjusted. Triangular sails were great for navigating coastlines and tacking. They were more maneuverable, which is what Captain Vex needed most right now.
Speed was vitally important, but she could already tell that this race wasn’t going to be about speed in the end. All speed did was delay the inevitable. In spite of the grim thought her heart was pounding with excitement. A determined smile crept across her face and she patted the ship’s wheel encouragingly.
_____________________
Caine and Janie looked at each other with identical expressions of surprise and concern on their faces.
“No,” Caine said. Janie looked relieved.
“Why the hell not!?” Tonya barked, throwing her hands up. She’d just finished painting the transfer sigil on her chest and was ready to get started. She hadn’t expected Caine and Janie to suddenly become prudes.
“Because she doesn’t want to,” Caine said simply.
“We have to fuel this somehow! I can’t do it all myself,” Tonya snapped, frustrated.
“I shouldn’t even be agreeing to have sex with you,” Caine said archly.
“What? Why? I thought you liked me,” Tonya said, not understanding the reluctance the other two were displaying at all.
“I do. You’re a good kid,” Caine said with a shrug. “You’re just… way too young for me.”
Tonya yanked her dress down and let the entire thing pool on the ground. “Does this look like the body of a kid to you?” she said angrily. She cocked one rounded hip and rested her hand on it saucily. She had small, pert breasts and a round face that made her look younger than she probably was, but the rest of her body was unmistakably adult.
Caine sighed. “I don’t know.... That’s the problem. I don’t know and neither do you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tonya demanded. “You think I don’t know if I’m a kid or not?”
“How old are you?” Caine asked.
“Old enough,” Tonya said through clenched teeth, knowing exactly where this was going.
“Really? I thought you didn’t know how old you were,” Caine said, not letting the subject go.
“I don’t! I didn’t even learn to count until after I started my first moon-cycle,” Tonya said defensively. “We went over all of this when Chance hired me. Just because I look young doesn’t mean I am. I might be older than Janie!”
Caine raised an eyebrow. “Or you might be fifteen. That’s the problem. We have no way of knowing.”
“So what!?” Tonya snapped. “I fuck people for a living, Caine! I’ve been doing it for almost two years! If I was adult enough then, I’m sure as hell adult enough now!”
Caine sighed. “Yeah, I know. It just feels wrong, like I might be taking advantage of you. I’m old. Even if you are twenty five, that’s probably still too young for me.”
“Oh you asshole,” Tonya stared flatly. “I should-”
“Stop,” Janie said.
The arguing pair turned to look at her, surprised and curious.
“This is not the time,” she continued. “Tonya, I can help you find out how old you are. Not now. It will take time we don’t have. Later. If you want to know, I can help you. Right now we have more important things to focus on. Caine, if you don’t have a problem with her profession in the abstract, you shouldn’t have one now. It’s fine if you just aren’t interested, but it isn’t fine to treat her like a child to give yourself an excuse to back out.”
“Fine,” Tonya agreed. “So are we going to do this or not?” she demanded of Caine.
Caine looked conflicted.
“The other option is Janie, and you two just said no to that!” Tonya threw up her hands. “It’s just sex, why is this so damn difficult?”
“There’s also you and Tonya. You two don’t actually need me for this,” Caine said, trying to change the focus off of him.
“Bella asked you to be here,” Janie said. “I don’t understand it either, but I assume you do.”
“Yeah. I do. She’s guessing about something. She’s not quite right, but she’s close enough that I can’t just leave,” Caine said with a roll of his eyes.
“What the hell does that mean?” Tonya said, still grumpy.
“It means I can help. I just didn’t think I was going to have to have sex with someone to do it,” Caine sighed.
“Oh, you poor thing. Gotta have sex to help a friend. Poor you,” Tonya snarked.
Caine looked pensive, then let out a small sigh. “Alright, good point.”
“Is sex the only way to do this?” Janie asked.
“It’s the only way I know how to do it,” Tonya shrugged. “Do you know another way?”
“Prayer?” Janie answered. “That’s the way I learned.”
Tonya laughed. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“I didn’t know how to transfer energy through sex until recently. You could both learn,” Janie shrugged. “Prayer isn’t very difficult, it just takes longer. There are certainly fewer distractions.”
“No,” Caine said in the same firm, flat tone he’d used earlier.
Now it was Janie’s turn to look confused and upset. “Why not?”
“Because I said no,” Caine repeated. “We’ll do it Tonya’s way.”
Tonya and Janie shared a confused look, then Tonya shrugged and turned to face Caine with a grin. She sauntered towards him. “C’mere old man.”
______________________
Doctor Kalfou lurched and tripped, stumbling into the wall of the stairwell and dropping the large armload of supplies she’d been trying to carry. “Dammit,” she cursed as the small boxed and rolls of fabric tumbled down the steps. Getting her balance under her, she headed back down the stairs again.
Jack and Quinn came out of the door to their cabin. Jack spotted Friday’s trouble and trotted over to help. Quinn followed at a more measured pace. As the doctor reached the bottom of the steps again, Jack handed a bunch of stuff she’d picked up over. “Where are you headed?” Jack asked.
“The Captain’s cabin,” Friday answered.
“Go ahead,” Jack said. “We’ll pick up the rest and follow you.”
Doctor Kalfou nodded and headed up the stairs. The buffeting storm made everything more difficult. She wasn’t used to walking while the whole ship was jostling back and forth. Just going up the stairs tossed her from one wall to the other more than once. She didn’t know how the sailors managed. They barely seemed bothered by the rolling of the ship at all. Come to think of it, neither did Quinn. Jack at least had the decency to stumble a little bit, but Quinn didn’t seem like he was even aware the ship was moving. She made her way across the deck, squinting against the rain, and threw open the door to Captain Vex’s room. She was surprised at how spacious it was. Ship’s cabins were usually cramped, but the captain had clearly spared no expense on her own quarters. It was an office, a den, and a bedroom all in one. The wall display of delicate cups and plates seemed strange to the Doctor, given wat she knew of the Captain. An impressively large bed dominated the center of the back wall, which seemed quite a bit more in keeping with the Captain’s personality. Doctor Kalfou unceremoniously dumped the armload of old sail patches, small cases of bottles and bandages, and other supplies onto the floor.
Jack came into the room and followed suit, adding the supplies she and Quinn carried to Kalfou’s pile. “Need help?” Jack asked.
“Not needed elsewhere, you?” Doctor Kalfou asked.
“If we get boarded we will be, but until then I’m supposed to stay safe and out of the way,” Jack shrugged. “Here seems better than our cabin. Closer to the action, and I might at least be able to help somewhat before any fighting starts.”
“Know anything about medicine, you?” the Doctor asked.
“Just basic field first aid,” Jack said. “I’ve had to stitch people up once or twice. They didn’t get infections, so I figure I did alright.”
“Good enough,” Doctor Kalfou nodded. “We need to prep for wounded. Get all the blankets off the bed and shove them underneath it. Take the big sail cloth and fold it a few times, then stretch it over the bed. Tie it off to the posts to keep it in place. That is where we work.”
Jack and Quinn took orders well. In short order the captain’s cabin was converted into a makeshift hospital room. Doctor Kalfou was not looking forward to the idea of having to do triage in a storm, but here in the captain’s cabin, at the back of the ship, the jostling and rolling of the ship was as minimal as it could be. She was thrilled to discover the water pump. Sea water was not as good as water that had been boiled clean but the salt brine was not a terrible method of cleansing wounds. In the short term, it would be fine. Doing the initial wash with sea water and finishing with a splash of alcohol would get any wound clean enough.
“Ready here, we,” Friday said once they were as prepared as they were able to get. “Who I should talk to about how I want to receive patients?”
“Reeve, the Bosun,” Jack said. “The first mate and the Captain should know your system too, in case something happens to Reeve.”
“Thank you. Will speak with them, I,” Doctor Kalfou nodded. She headed for the door.
“Quinn, go with her. Help her keep her feet under her,” Jack said.
Quinn followed without a word, offering the doctor his arm. She was a bit confused, but took it. Immediately she noticed that holding onto him was like having a handrail.
“How do you do that?” she asked, amazed.
“Do what?,” Quinn asked.
“Stay still with the ship trying to throw us around,” she said as though it should have been obvious.
“I feel the flow of the sea and do not fight it,” Quinn explained.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Doctor Kalfou scoffed.
“And yet it is true,” Quinn said with a small shrug.
_______________________
From high in the rigging, Lace saw a moment in time captured by quick ripple of sheet lightning lighting up the clouds above them. At the prow Danica North and Mister Lynch stood next to each other. Danica had a spyglass in her hand. Lynch leaned on a rifle that was as tall as he was. Doctor Kalfou and Quinn speaking to Mister Reeve on the main deck. Sailors all around hauling ropes and helping reposition the sails to cut the force of the winds. The Captain, resolutely manning the helm. Colin Strong standing next to her, ready to lend his strength to the wheel if she needed it. Behind her, the witch Bella, naked in the rain, clad only in the markings of her craft, sitting in a complex circle and beginning her work. Across from her, with the mizzenmast between them, was Will Sterling, sitting at a makeshift desk and looking over his shoulder at the churning black seas. Behind the Kestrel, bearing down on them, much closer than Lace had expected, was a black ship with dirty, shredded sails. It was close enough now that she could make out the tiny shapes of crew on her deck. She only had a moment to take a look at the ship, but she was an experienced enough sailor that the wrongness of it struck her immediately. None of the ship’s crew were moving.
Then everything was black again. The afterimage from the lightning hung in his eyes.
“Captain, they’re gaining fast!” Will called out.
“How long?!” Belita called back.
“No idea! Their speed keeps changing! I can’t measure it!” Will yelled.
“How far to the island!?” Belita shouted back.
Danica called something from the prow, but it was lost in the roar of the ocean and the howling winds. Reeve echoed it. “Rocks, dead ahead!”
“Aye, rocks!” the captain answered, confirming she’d heard.
“Keep them to our starboard! That’s the edge of the reef!” Will called.
“Rigging, tack to port! Keep an eye on those rocks!” The captain shouted.
“Aye! Tacking to port!” Lace echoed from above. “Swabs, mainsail angle to portside!”
Reeve barked orders to the swabs. They hauled the lines to help the riggers reposition the sails, and held them in place. “Tie those lines off with slip knots! Make sure they’ll come free with a good tug, but don’t let go of the lines!” Reeve bellowed to the swabs on deck. This wasn’t the first ship chase the big bosun had been through. When the sails were adjusted to where the captain wanted Reeve knew the most important part of his job was to make sure the crew didn’t waste unnecessary energy holding onto the sail ropes and fighting the wind. Exhausted crews made fatal mistakes. “Stand down, but stay ready!”
The Kestrel shifted course. Ahead, a jagged cluster of rocks came into view at the edge of the lantern’s beam. The waves crashing against the stones sent up huge sprays that glowed in the light. Around it they curved, rocking and lifting with the waves. The winds were in their favor at first, keeping them well clear and not trying to dash them into the stones, but then the island loomed at the edge of the light. The winds were pushing them right toward the beach.
“Tack starboard!” the captain shouted.
“Aye, tacking starboard,” came Lace’s answering call. The riggers and the swabs once again canted the sails, this time to try to fight against the direction of the wind. This was a much harder thing to pull off. It required that the sails be precisely placed so that they were almost parallel to the direction of the wind. It was a redirection of the force, rather than simply riding it.
The Captain and Colin were hauling on the rudder with everything they had to turn the nose of the ship away from the island shore. The Kestrel slowly reoriented herself again. The winds started hitting the ship from the broad side, shoving her sideways toward the beach. The looming rocks passed their starboard side and the seas immediately became calmer.
“Alright, we’re inside the reef!” Will shouted. “Keep the island to port, and watch the surface of the water on our starboard! The reef is pretty shallow here, so it breaks the waves. The seas shouldn’t be as rough as we come around the island, but we’re risking running aground on both sides!”
“Aye!” Belita called. “We’re inna good place now! I dinna think the other ship can catch us here! There’s not enough room tae come up on our broad side. If we drop sail right as we come out the other side of the reef channel, it might give us enough of a speed boost tae keep ahead of them a while longer!”
“Or it might rip our mast off!” Will called.
“Aye, we’ll need some luck!” Belita grinned over her shoulder. “Bella, whatever you’re going tae do, now is the time. ”
Bella dropped a small hammer back into her satchel and ran her fingers over the horseshoe she’d just nailed to the deck. “I’m ready.”
______________
On the other side of the mirror, the sounds of the shouting was muffled by the winds and the ocean. Janie, Tonya and Caine could make out what Will and Bella were saying, but pretty much everything else was lost to them.
They were distracted anyway.
“Holy shit,” Tonya said, staring as Caine. She had just pulled his tunic off, but had already forgotten she was holding it in her hands.
Caine’s body was covered in scars. Long, narrow lines, diamond shaped punctures and jagged tears were everywhere, overlapping in many places. He also had the most overly defined muscles either of the women had ever seen. Every part of him was corded. He reminded Janie of the statues in the Grand Cathedral of the martyred warriors.
“Get it over with,” Caine said, slowly turning around so they could see more closely.
“What happened to you?” Tonya asked.
“Swords, mostly. And spears. A few axes. Arrows, knives. Rocks. Some teeth. Oh, and a bit of fire. That’s the worst,” Caine shrugged.
“Who… are you?” Janie asked. It was the only thing she could think to ask.
“Just a soldier who managed to stay alive,” Caine said.
Tonya tentatively reached out to touch him. “Can I?” Caine nodded. Her hand brushed down the length of a scar that started at his shoulder, ran across his collar bone, and ended in the middle of his chest. “This looks like it should have killed you.”
“I got lucky,” Caine said, trying to dismiss their concern. “Look, I really don’t like being the center of attention like this, and we have work to do.”
Tonya let out a breath and laughed. “Right. Work.” She tossed Caine’s tunic to Janie and started drawing a sigil on his chest. He stopped her.
“What’s this for?” Caine asked, guarded.
“It’s a transfer sigil. It will let us move the energy we gather into the mirror,” Tonya explained.
Janie caught the shirt without thinking about it, then set it aside, still watching with a combination of amazement, horror and arousal, her eyes exploring Caine’s impressive but terribly scarred body while Tonya convinced him to let her draw on him.
“Alright,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know if this will work, but we can try it.”
“I’ve never seen it not work?” Tonya reassured him. “As long as you can imagine the transfer happening, it will do the rest. It’s supposed to be something that anyone can do, even if they don’t know anything else about spellbinding.” She quickly finished the sigil. “Just be careful not to smudge it.”
She ran her hands down his hard stomach but Caine stopped her hands as she started pulling his belt free. “Wait.” Caine looked over to Janie. “You sure you’re comfortable with this?”
Janie nodded. “Just… pretend I’m not here.”
“That doesn’t seem right,” Caine shook his head. “You and I don’t have to do anything together, but I doubt we will be able to ignore each other. Seems like it would be uncomfortable to try.”
“It’s ok. I… like watching. I even like being watched. Seems only fair. Just don’t push for more than that, alright?” Janie said a bit shyly.
“I would never,” Caine said with a small, reassuring smile.
“You two are adorable!” Tonya grinned. She tossed Janie the grease-stick, then yanked Caine’s pants downward like a magician revealing what was hidden behind the curtain. Caine’s legs were just as scarred as the rest of him, but Tonya wasn;t really paying attention to them. She took a gentle grip on his manhood. He wasn’t hard at all, but he quickly started to respond to her touch. “Looks like you managed to avoid getting scarred where it counts.”
Caine actually chuckled. “I guess I’m more careful with some parts of my body than others.”
“Lucky me,” Tonya grinned and dropped to her knees.
Janie felt her cheeks redden as Tonya engulfed Caine’s hardening cock. She bit her lip and stared, feeling herself responding too. Caine was a very attractive man, even with all the scars. He wasn’t particularly handsome. His proportions would have been a dream come true for a sculptor, but his features were best described as rough. Still, he had a competent and self assured presence to him. He was clearly dangerous, but in a way that was reassuring rather than threatening. She still didn’t want to have sex with him, but she was already enjoying watching.
His eyes closed in pleasure and he rested one hand on the back of Tonya’s head. She had to back off as he hardened fully. Soon she could only take about half of him in her mouth.
Tonya had seen a lot of cocks. Caine’s was around average length, but was nicely girthy. He’d never been circumcised, which Tonya preferred slightly. There was something fun about the reveal of the head as she pulled the foreskin back.
Janie had never seen an uncircumcised penis. Both Thomas and Will were circumcised, as were most Imperial Mainlanders. Janie had thought Caine came from the mainland too, but now she wasn’t so sure. As Tonya slowly pulled on his shaft and revealed the head of his cock, Janie’s brows rose. The mechanics of the whole process probably shouldn’t have been surprising to her, but they were.
Then his hard cock was in Tonya’s mouth again. The pretty young apprentice bobbed enthusiastically, making satisfied noises in her throat. Caine groaned. Janie’s hand ran up the front of her stomach and squeezed her breast through her bustier. She shivered a little with anticipation and pleasure, then went shock still as Caine turned his head and met her eyes. She knew he might be watching her. She was watching him right then. Still, something about the unexpected eye contact surprised her. Embarrassment flushed through her as he caught her playing with her breast. He gave her a small, knowing smile, then turned his attention back to Tonya.
Her arousal thundered through her. Then confusion. Why had Caine catching her playing with her breast been exciting? There was an element of shame to it, and she certainly didn’t like that. Or did she? She knew there was nothing to be ashamed of. Not really. If Tonya and Caine were comfortable with her watching them, why should she feel any kind of embarrassment at the idea of them watching her while she watched them? No, that wasn’t it. It was being caught reacting to watching them. It was the fact that Caine knew that watching them was turning her on. Still though, that wasn’t wrong. There was no shame in that. It hadn’t been long since she’d been forced to confront it, but she’d already made peace in her mind with the fact that she was a voyeur. So where was this sense of embarrassment coming from? And why did it excite her?
As she continued to watch Tonya’s energetic blowjob, Janie turned her Magistrate training inward. She picked apart her own reactions, feelings, motivations. She applied her ability to understand people’s reactions to herself. It was always harder to turn that skill inward. Internalized justifications and deflections were natural, and sometimes hard to see for what they were. As she traveled down the many branches of her internal self-analysis, she glanced at the mirror.
Bella was kneeling in the rain, lit from above by the lantern hung from the mast. The only thing she wore was her red headscarf to hold her hair back. Her body was covered in painted sigils. The rain ran down her naked form in rivulets. Her arms were spread wide and her eyes were closed, and she was mouthing quiet words that Janie couldn’t hear. She was wild and untamed, and achingly beautiful.
Behind Bella, Janie could see Captain Vex’s back. Her blue coat was flapping wildly in the wind, but she herself was rooted in place, unmovable in spite of the heavy winds and the tossing of the ship’s deck. She stood undaunted at the ship’s wheel, shouting orders and steering the ship through the narrow channel between an island beach and a reef.
These were women at the height of their own power. Unchallenged. Confident. Janie admired them both and wished she could be more like them. She glanced to Tonya with a small smile and admitted to herself that she wished she could be more like the brazen young apprentice too. Tonya was shameless in a way that Janie thought of as brave.
Tonya stood up with a saucy look in her eyes and sat back on the small round table. She rolled her body back until her legs were raised and she was leaning back on her elbows.
“I want that thick cock inside me,” she grinned.
Caine raised an eyebrow and surprised her by putting his hands on the backs of her raised thighs, rolling her back even further, and kneeling down to put his entire mouth on her bare womanhood.
Womanhood? Janie squeezed her thighs together as she listened to Tonya gasp with surprise and then roll her head back in pleasure. Womanhood seemed like a word her mother would use. It was… proper. There it was. The introspection she’d been working through about the connection between her embarrassment and arousal snapped into crystal focus.
“Oh, fuck yes!” Tonya groaned. “Lick my clit, old man,” she put her hands on the back of Caine’s shaved head and pulled his mouth harder between her legs. He raised his eyes to look up her body and give her a challenging stare. Then he did something that made Tonya’s whole body go stiff. Her legs straightened and her back arched. “Fuuuuck! Oh fuck me,” she practically snarled.
There was nothing proper about this. Janie couldn’t help but laugh. Tonya rolled her head and looked at her. Janie covered her mouth, but it was too late.
“He really knows what he’s doing,” the young apprentice grinned. “You sure you don’t want a turn?”
Janie shook her head, but bit her lip. She was frustrated, but she was enjoying it. “I’ll focus on the ritual part.”
“Oh, right! I should be doing that too,” Tonya said. She closed her eyes and started to concentrate on converting her pleasure into an internal reservoir of power. “Don’t stop, old man.”
Janie tossed off her sheer black shawl and looked down the valley of her own breasts. Her ivory bustier exposed more than enough of her chest to draw the transfer sigil. She just had to get it right. Last time Tonya had drawn it. This time she was going to have to do it herself. It didn’t seem that hard. She was well practiced at carving wards into stone and wood.
She quickly drew a circle on her chest and immediately knew she’d gotten it wrong. It wasn’t centered, and one side was flatter than the other. She pursed her lips in frustration, wiped it away and started again. How had Tonya drawn it? She’d started with dots. “To measure,” she said quietly to herself, suddenly understanding the method behind the way Tonya had done things.
She quickly dotted out a cross shaped framework, carefully connected them with arcs, and was fairly well satisfied. Now came the hard part. She looked at Tonya’s chest. Her small breasts were shaking as her body trembled. Both of her hands were behind her knees, pulling her hips up and her legs wide apart. Her head was off the edge of the small table, rolled back with her short hair hanging toward the ground. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” she chanted like a mantra.
Janie realized she was going to have to get closer to get a good enough look at the sigil to copy it and had a moment of anxious panic. Then defiance ran through her. She walked forward as confidently as she could. The room wasn’t large, so it was really only a few steps, but they felt like leagues. She found herself at Tonya’s shoulder, looking down at the shuddering apprentice’s chest. Caine glanced up at her from between her legs and gave her a questioning eyebrow.
“Ignore me,” she said, embarrassed again under his gaze. He made an affirming noise and dropped his eyes down again to focus on Tonya’s pleasure. Tonya gasped. Her head snapped up and she looked at Janie.
“Decided to join us?” she asked hopefully.
“I needed to see the transfer sigil,” Janie explained.
“Damn,” Tonya tisked. She tilted her shoulders to hide the sigil and gave Janie a playfully defiant look.
“Oh come now,” Janie said, exasperated. “We don’t have time!”
“Then you should speed things up,” Tonya smirked.
“What do you want?” Janie asked, playing along for the moment.
“I want you to join us,” Tonya said, her eyes full of promise and lust.
“We already talked about that. Caine and I aren’t going to be… doing anything together,” Janie said firmly.
“But you can both do things with me…” Tonya looked like a cat with canary feathers sticking out of its mouth.
Janie was a bit surprised, but gave the apprentice a level stare, saying nothing.
“We have to work fast, right?” Tonya bargained. “And we need as much energy as we can muster? Seems like a bad idea to leave you out.”
Janie had to admit Tonya had a point. They had no idea how much energy Bella needed, but it seemed like a lot. They needed as much as they could get, quickly. Was she actually adverse to the idea of sex with Tonya? No. Clearly not. They’d already been together when they’d charged the mirror the first time. That was with Will and Bella though, which made the whole situation much different. Their presence always made Janie more comfortable trying new things. The apprentice witch had many of the same qualities as Bella, which Janie certainly found attractive, but this wasn’t the same. Tonya was pushy in a way that Janie felt naturally resistant to.
She didn’t like feeling coerced, and Caine’s presence made her even less comfortable. She knew she and Will didn’t have any kind of claim on each other, but she knew she wasn’t interested in other men. That was a self-imposed limitation, but it was still valid. How far did it go? Was she comfortable with the idea of Caine seeing her naked? Surprisingly, the idea didn’t bother her. She felt like she could trust him. She was naturally shy about revealing her body, but she’d spent days now wearing practically nothing around men she didn’t even know. Clearly her standards of modesty weren’t what they used to be. What about sex? She was already watching Tonya and Caine together. She was already involved, even if it was peripherally so far. If she decide to accept Tonya’s advances, Caine would be inches away at times. Was that too close? They might not be having sex with each other, but they would certainly be having sex with the same person, together. That did sound somewhat exciting, but…
_______________
“What do ye mean, gone!” Captain Vex shouted.
“Not behind us anymore!” Will called. There had been two lightning flashes. He’d checked to be sure. The tattered back ship was nowhere to be seen. “They didn’t follow us into the channel!”
“Good!” Vex called back. “That should give us a big lead back when we come out the other side!”
“Hopefully they’ll just give up!” Will agreed.
“You mean I did all this for nothing!” Bella shouted over the winds.
“This isn’t over yet!” Captain Vex called behind her. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it ready.”
The mouth of the curved passage around the island loomed. The two brightly painted Akula buoys floated erratically on the thrashing waves. The calm seas between the island and the reef had given them a brief respite, but they were headed into angry waters again. Between the two bobbing markers was where it was most dangerous. An errant wave might shove them in either direction, right into the reef. They needed speed and luck. “Lace, give me as much sail as she can hold!” Captain Vex, “then get them furled again as soon as we’re clear of those buoys!”
“Aye, Captain!” the Rigging Master’s voice came from somewhere above. The sails began to lower, every new foot of cloth putting more strain on the masts. The Kestrel creaked loudly, protesting the sudden pressure. Everyone aboard could feel their speed starting to build again.
They passed the final curve of the island and were in the straightway toward the buoys. The ship rocked suddenly, a solid gust tipping the whole deck starboard. Swabs slid and tumbled, clutching at each other and their ropes. Riggers held on tightly, riding the sudden movement. The Captain braced herself, her legs wide, trying not to let the wheel turn with the ship. Behind her, Colin Strong grabbed the railing and clamped a strong arm around her waist to steady her. Bella tried to stop herself from sliding, but the deck was slick and the sudden change in angle was too steep. She scrambled ineffectively and found herself clinging to her horseshoe with her fingertips. Will fared better. His chair was firmly anchored. He just clamped down on the desktop with one hand and the chair with the other, bracing his legs wide like he was riding a horse.
The Kestrel tilted back the other way, finding its equilibrium and righting itself again. The crew regained control of their balance and quickly double checked their various lines that kept them safe. Bella scrambled all the way back into her circle. She swore. Sliding across the paint had smeared it badly. She pulled a grease stick out of her satchel and started trying to fix it as best she could.
“Ship ahoy! Dead ahead!” Danica called from the prow.
________________
“No,” Janie said firmly. She’d been tempted, but it didn’t seem right. “I admit I’m enjoying watching, but I’m already questioning how far I want to go. I don’t want to feel like I’m letting myself be talked into something I might regret.”
Tonya sighed. “It was worth a shot. Fine.” She rolled her shoulders so the mark on her chest was in view again. Caine gave Janie an approving look without surfacing from between Tonya’s legs. She gave him a small smile in return and started replicating the symbol.
Tonya gripped the edges of the table and tried to hold still so Janie could copy the sigil. Her lower body was squirming, but Caine had his hands clamped down on her hip bones and was holding her firmly in place.
Janie finished the sigil and decided it was good enough. She knelt down so her face was right next to the side of Tonya’s head. Tonya eyed her suspiciously. “Whatcha doin?” she asked. Janie ran her fingers into the apprentice’s hair and put her lips near Tonya’s ear.
“I might not be joining you, but I can do this,” she said in a throaty whisper. Her lips brushing Tonya’s sensitive ears and her soft tickling breath sent shivers down the apprentice’s spine.
“Oh fuck!” Tonya gasped, her eyes wide. Her hand came off the table and clutched uncoordinated at Janie’s shoulder and the back of her head. “Oh wow!”
“Do you like it?” Janie whispered, letting the tip of her tongue lick the outer edge of Tonya’s ear.
“Why is that so good?” Tonya asked, surprised and confused.
Janie’s fingers knotted, gently but firmly tugging at the back of Tonya’s scalp. Her laugh was a silken whisper. “Didn’t Bella tell you about all the different places that feel good?”
“Well yeah, but most guys just focused on the big ones. That’s usually enough,” Tonya writhed.
“You need to listen to your mistress,” Janie breathed, her lips grasping at Tonya’s earlobe at the end of her sentence.
“Yes mistress,” Tonya gasped.
Janie froze. That was not what she’d meant. That tight anxiety rose up in her again. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head without thinking. Caine was looking at her again across the length of Tonya’s body. His eyes rose above Tonya’s mons and met Janie’s from above Tonya’s shoulder. She knew he could see the panic behind her eyes. He was shaking slightly and she realized that he was silently laughing.
She glared at him. He quietly laughed harder. She made her choice in that moment. She didn’t want to back out completely, and she was already feeling defiant after thinking about her mother’s sense of propriety. In for a penny, in for a pound. She pulled a bit more firmly on Tonya’s hair. “Does it feel good, apprentice? Do you like his tongue between your legs?”
“Oh fuck yes,” Tonya graoned. “I’m getting close.”
“Hold it in.” Janie commanded. “Let it build.”
Tonya whined but nodded. One of Caine’s hands let go of her hips and disappeared behind the curve of her butt. Janie knew the exact moment that he added his fingers to Tonya’s pleasure. She chose that moment to bite Tonya’s ear. The apprentice’s whole body went stiff and trembling. “Fuuuuck!” she cried out.
“Not yet.” Janie’s voice was velvet and iron sending trails of shivers down Tonya’s shaking body.
“Can’t…” Tonya gasped.
“You will,” Janie whispered.
“So full,” Tonya whined through clenched teeth. The sigil on her chest began to glow softly.
“You can take so much more,” Janie breathed. “Take it. Hold it.”
Tonya thrashed her head back and forth against Janie’s grip. The light from her sigil got brighter. Janie reached up with her other hand and gently took hold of Tonya’s nipple, rolling it between her thumb and fingers as she nibbled her earlobe.
“Are you connected to the mirror?” Janie asked, letting each consonant pulse with with her breath against Tonya’s sensitive ear.
“Yes! Fuck! Oh fuck me!” Tonya swore, clutching spasmodically at Janie’s neck and back.
“Caine, give her what she wants,” Janie ordered. Tonya’s eyes went wide.
Caine stood up, still holding in his laughter. He brought his fingers to his mouth and then down to his hard manhood, rubbing saliva across his length. Then he rubbed the head of his cock gently back and forth against her clit. She opened her eyes and rolled her head almost like she was in agony. His thumbs pulled her wide open. His cock head slid down to her twitching entrance. He rolled his hips forward and thrust his length into her with one long, hard stroke.
“Now,” Janie pinched, pulled, bit, and whispered all at once.
Tonya’s mouth opened wide, but no sound came forth. Her wide eyes washed over with bright red light. Her back arched. The sigil on her chest and every carved emblem in the mirror flared to blinding brightness.
______________
In the dark before them the ships lanterns were lighting up the black outline of a damaged ship bearing down on them at full tattered sail.
“What the hell?!” Captain Vex swore. She forced herself to keep calm and not to turn the wheel too soon. “How did it..? Will, tell me when the buoys are even with our mizzenmast!”
“Aye, Captain. Five seconds!” Will answered, setting his eyes on the dimly-lit colorful balls the ship was just passing. “Two! One! Now!”
Captain Vex spun the wheel taking them off their collision course. At the edge of the ship’s lantern light she could make out the black ship. It was roughly the same size as the Kestrel, but rose far higher in the water. It looked like it must be completely unladen. “How, you bastard?” Vex snarled. “How are you doing this?” It was under full sail with no load in a storm. It should have capsized long ago.
They were caught. If this ship was fast enough to go all the way around the reef and come about to face them in the time it took the Kestrel to get through a gently curving channel, there was no hope of escape. “Lace, get those sails up! Reeve, prepare to repel boarders!” Vex yelled.
The crew scrambled. There would be no tacking, no rope hauling now. The rudder would be the only way of directing the ship. She hoped their momentum was enough to carry them all the way clear of the reef. The sails were pulled all the way up and tied off. The riggers swarmed the deck, tying off and drawing weapons to join ranks with the swabs.
“Bella, if you’ve got some kind of magic up your sleeve, now’s the time!” Captain Vex called over her shoulder.
“Almost ready!” the witch answered as she finished repairing the smudged circle. It would have to be good enough.
She reached her metaphysical senses to the mirror and pulled.
______________
Luck is, obviously, unpredictable. Even to someone like Bella, who had made understanding and trying to influence luck her life’s work, it was still a largely unfathomable force. Sometimes things happened that defied any explanation. Even afterwards with the virtue of hindsight, it was sometimes impossible to sort out why and how events had transpired the way they did. Being able to predict was the key to good planning. The fact that so many plans fall apart so easily is a pretty good indication of how awful humanity is at predictions, and the inscrutability of fortune.
For instance, those seeking to understand the nature of luck often run into a lot of trouble when they try to comprehend destiny. For many, their frustrations are enough to cause them to dismiss the concept of predestination altogether. It simplifies things if we come to the conclusion that randomness doesn’t have cosmological qualifiers.
As with most things, the simple answer is of course, wrong.
Destiny exists. It is just misunderstood. Destiny is a byproduct of divine power. It is the result of the gods shaping existence to a plan no human can comprehend. Sometimes people can catch glimpses of it. These people are often called mad, or prophetic. People do not have destinies. Gods have destinies, and sometimes people are a part of it, or become caught up in the wake of that power.
It is unfathomably rare that someone manages to manipulate destiny for their own designs. After all, that is the exact opposite of how destiny is supposed to work.
It is even rarer that someone manages to do such an incomprehensible, powerful, stupid thing on accident.
It can be said that luck bends itself to service of destiny. Every once in a while, luck demands that destiny return the favor.
__________________
The circles of paint on the deck had begun to glow slightly. Bella was drawing power out of the mirror through the central circle and channeling it into the two circles that surrounded herself and Will. Binding circles weren’t only for containment. When connected together they could be used to safely move the flow of power between them. Moving power like this was dangerous, and Bella was pulling that power as hard as she could. There was a great deal of resistance. The mirror did not want to give up what was bound within it, but Bella was the one who created it. It belonged to her, as did every drop of energy it held. To the laws of magic, ownership was sometimes very important. The larger outer circles bound and stabilized the whole ritual. Without them, the energy would probably have become uncontrolled and dissipated, or worse, very quickly.
“Light up that ship!” Bella yelled. “I need to see it!”
“Danica, get those lights on that ship!” Captain Vex repeated. Reeve echoed the order as well. All the prow lights refocused as the swabs aimed them at the oncoming vessel.
It was a wreck.
There was a gaping hole in the prow right at the waterline. The waves were crashing against it causing frothy water to gush in and out of the breach. One of its lower cross beams was clearly broken and swinging limply across the deck like a pendulum, the tattered sail slowly ripping more and more.
On its deck were figures, kneeling, holding onto rails and ropes, hardly moving, waving their free arms back and forth in a classic sailor’s sign of distress. Their faces were masks of desperation. Their mouths gaped wide, calling wordlessly for help.
The distance was closing far too quickly. The other ship was trying to ram them. It loomed in the black.
“Will, break your mirror!” Bella shouted. “Then aim it at the other ship!”
Will didn’t waste time wondering why. He pulled the mirror free and smashed it down on the corner of the desktop, then lifted it’s shattered face toward the looming wreck.
Bella put both her hands on the horseshoe and let the energy fully connect and release.
The mirror was a passageway. Its entire purpose was to connect things that should be separate. Aligned with its purpose again, the resistance Bella had been feeling ended. The flow from the circles and sigils in Bastard’s Bay to the circles and focuses on the Kestrel became one solid conduit of power.
The black ship rose on a wave, it’s prow rose high above the Kestrel’s deck. The breach in its hull gaped like a fanged maw. Then it descended.
If Bella had fully understood the forces she was dealing with she never would have attempted this desperate plan. She was filling in the blanks of her understanding with guesses and trusting her own good luck to see her through. She was a fortune witch. Gambling was her nature.
The black ship crashed into the Kestrel with a sickening crunch.
Mortals should never meddle in the affairs of divinity.
Definitely not twice.
Definitely never twice at the same time.
Destiny bent.
A great deal happened all at once, and Tonya paid the price for it.
