“Of course.”
“Why do you call the captain Du?”
“’Tis his real name. Dón-Dueli. Du or Duel for short.”
Dón-Dueli … that name sent another shiver down her spine. It denoted a sense of evil even darker than the name Devyl Bane, and reminded her of the tales her father had once spun of his Irish homeland. Of the sinister fey and the dark bean sidhe who stalked the night and preyed upon the weak. “I’ve never heard of a name like that before.”
“Like me, he comes from an ancient race. Only, where my people sought tranquil peace, his sought war and domination.”
“Is he a demon?”
“Nay, child. That would be an easy excuse for him and his kind, when there is no reason for the brutality he embraced in his mortal lifetime. He reveled in the misery of those around him, and drank it in like mother’s milk.”
“Then why is he helping you and the others now?”
“I assure you, it’s not by any real choice or out of any sense of noble obligation. He was forced to this task against his will to right a wrong he once committed.”
“Against?”
“A girl like you. Sweet. Innocent. Until she met him and made the mistake of commending her heart to his most callous hands.”
There was no missing the bitter undertones in her voice.
Or the hatred.
“You?”
“Nay, child. My younger sister.”
* * *
“Did you sink that damnable ship?”
The lusca paused as he noted the anger in his lady’s voice. More grateful than ever that she had yet to breach the barriers that kept her locked from the world of man—and from reaching him—he swallowed hard. “Nay, my lady. They carry a Seraph with them now. When I tried to break the hull, it activated a shield of some sort around them all and the ship, and almost killed me.”
Vine shrieked in frustrated rage as she slammed her hand against the portal that kept her shielded from the world she was desperate to enter. And from the creature she wanted to disembowel.
The shield cracked more.
But not enough.
Only a mere fraction, teasing her like the merciless bastard who had trapped her here while the world of man loomed just beyond her reach.
Damn you, Dón-Dueli!
And damn Marcelina for her interference.
Sister or not, she wanted Mara’s heart in her fist every bit as much as she wanted his. Wanted to feel both of their organs beating against her fingers while their blood coated her flesh, until her need for vengeance was quenched.
And the world of man bowed to her feet and licked them clean.
Gathering her layered skirts, Vine turned to glare at the pathetic bastard her servants had managed to drag through the portal for her amusement a few months ago.
Weak and bleeding, he was barely recognizable as human now. While his strength had been formidable in the beginning, he was starting to fade beneath the barrage of their endless feedings from him.
Still, he refused to give them the location of the key they needed to open this damnable doorway so that she could walk the human realm again.
But the Seraph would break eventually.
They always did. No matter who or what had shat them out into this universe.
And that begged a very important question. “A Seraph sails with them, you said?” she asked the lusca.
“Aye, dearest lady. There was no doubt about it. I saw the transition myself.”
That could not be a coincidence.
She toyed with a crimson seam along the edge of her veined skirt. “Did you perchance catch a scent of its bloodline?”
“Nay, Lady Vine. I couldn’t get close enough for that.”
Growling, she flung her hand out and used her powers to drag the lusca closer to the barrier.
Its tentacles left a slimy smear across the earthen floor that smelled even worse than the sea monster itself. Or perhaps it was the piss the creature let loose in fear of her intentions for it and its realization that, though Duel’s magick kept Vine locked in, it didn’t completely protect those near the barrier from her wrath or powers.
Not that it mattered. It was good for them to fear her. Fear kept the lesser creatures in line. And they should be afraid. For, sooner or later, she would be free again and once she was …
She would rain down her wrath on all those who’d participated in locking her in here. And then she’d finish what she’d begun.
A new world order, where she reigned as queen and blood flowed freely to feed her and her blode sisters.
“Gather whatever it takes to sink that ship, and bring me the heart of the bitch it’s carved from. Do you understand? Or it’ll be your soul I drink next!”
She used her powers to knock the creature away.
Furious and determined, she returned to the man hunched on the floor. His breathing was shallow and ragged. Pain filled. They’d made good use of the Seraph bastard and still he wouldn’t give them what they asked.
His resolve and strength reminded her much of another man she’d known once. He, too, had resisted and fought against her. In the beginning, at least. To this day, she’d never met his equal. Not in face, form, or strength.
Only he had ever had the ability to fully resist her.
Only he had ever had the ability to defeat her.
It was why she’d been forced to cut out his black heart and feed it to him before he turned on her completely.
Damn you, Dón-Dueli of the Dumnonii!
But she wouldn’t think of her ex-husband. She’d deal with that devil later. Right now …
Right now, she had a Seraph to torture and a gate to crack. She was done with these games. Her patience was through.
4
“Nah! None of that, now. You’ll be bunking with us.”
Cameron paused as Valynda and Belle practically kidnapped her from her assigned cabin and dragged her off to their quarters, which they shared with Sancha and an affable Trini named Janice Smith.
Valynda twirled Cameron toward a low-lying bunk that was covered with a dark blue quilt. The peculiar design of the bed was more like a crib, so that it would keep her from being tossed about in a storm. “You can sleep between me and Janny.”
With a wealth of long, wavy black hair flowing over her shoulders, Janice looked up from the Tarot cards she had spread out across her bed to smile at Cameron. “Welcome aboard, Miss Jack. Nice to have another woman in the mix. There be too few of us here as it is. We need to stick together in this testosterone stew where we’ve been tossed.”
Cameron opened her mouth to thank her for the welcome, then scowled as she saw the Death card in her spread. “Is that not a bad omen?”
Janice wrinkled her nose, which somehow made her even more beautiful. “Bah! Nay! Only to those who don’t know the cards. Only means a change is coming. Death to one thing is the birth of another. The cards to fear are not so obvious in their meaning, and it takes more than one bad card to make a bad fate.”
“That’s good to know, and applies to more than just a reading, eh?”
Janice winked at her. “Truth to that, me girl.” She held her hand out to her. “Be nice meeting you, Miss Jack.”
She shook her hand. “And you, Miss Smith. What brings such an elegant lady to this rowdy bunch of miscreants?”
“Janny be our necromancer,” Sancha said as she offered Cameron a mug of rum. “Like Lady Belle, she has powers that are frightening beyond belief. The kind they burn the witches for.”
As Cameron took the mug, she noted the burn mark on Sancha’s wrist that was identical to the ones they all bore—a strange Celtic cross ribbon, with a circle in the center that held a skull and crossbones.
Inclining her head to the mark, Cameron scowled at it. “Might I inquire about the source of that?”
Sancha pulled her sleeve back to expose more of the mark. “Sure you want to know?”
They all seemed to hold the
ir breath in expectation of her answer.
But Cameron wanted to understand this new place she seemed fated to call home. “Aye.”
Sancha pulled the dark wig from her head, showing that her hair beneath was snow white. The color most wore wigs or heavily powdered their hair to achieve. Cameron had never seen a human being with hair that pale before. Especially not a young person, nor one whose skin and eyes were so dark. Sancha couldn’t be more than three-and-twenty, or five-and-twenty at most.
She tossed the wig down on her own bunk before she drained her mug and spoke again. “That be the Deadman’s Cross we bear.”
“Pardon?”
“We are the dead, Miss Jack. And the damned. Every jack and molly here.” She fell against her bunk and let her insanely long legs fly up. “It’s why all who sail on this ship are known as Deadmen. The Deadman’s Cross be the mark of our bondage to a beast they say is the son of the devil himself.”
“The captain?” It would make sense, given his name.
Sancha laughed. “Nay, love. The real and true Lucifer, who sits on a fiery throne in hell and rains down his wrath on those poor souls he’s taken in.”
Cameron glanced at each woman in the room. Belle, Valynda, Janice, and Sancha. “I’m not sure I follow.”
Belle answered in her own lyrical accent. “You know about me Valynda there, and how she died her death. Sancha and I lived less than auspicious lives. Unlike poor Valynda, we earned our damnation with both fists, brawling every step of the way to our deaths. As did the rest of the men on this ship. Hell-bound from crib to grave we all were.”
“But each of us committed at least one decent act that brought us to the attention of a…” Sancha screwed her face up as she reached for more rum. “How would you describe the beast?” she asked Belle.
“The devil is the beast,” Belle said blankly. “And the beast is the devil.”
Cameron cocked her head at the casual way Belle spoke, trying to make sense of it all. “Captain Bane or the other?”
Belle let out a low, evil laugh. “The other.” She reached for Sancha’s rum to drink it. “This one gives our fair dark captain a run for his money when it comes to his evil aura and badassery.”
“Thorn be this beastie’s name, though.” Valynda picked up the tale. “As Sancha noted, they say he’s the son of Satan himself. For true. As in Lucifer’s very spawn. And it’s a story I believe. He has the air of it. And the power to pull souls from hell itself—which would make sense if he is the son of Old Scratch. ’Tis how some of us have come to be here. The Deadman mark is what allows us to stay on this side of things and not be sucked back to whatever dark realm he pulled us from. It’s a binding spell that holds us on this side of the barrier.”
Sancha lifted her cup. “And to keep other creatures from returning us to whatever dimension we came out of until either Thorn wills it or we earn back our freedom.”
“Aye, and he has the power to remove the Deadman’s mark at will should we do something wrong and fall from his favor.” Belle took a swig from the bottle. “It’s the bargain Thorn made with the lot of us. We serve his needs. Police his demons back to their respective cages. And should we survive our trials and battle, we’ll earn our salvation and be returned to the land of the living as full mortal beings.”
Cameron suppressed the chill that ran down her spine at the very thought of what they described. “If you fail?”
A shadow darkened Sancha’s gaze. “We’re cast back to the demons that were torturing us when he saved us.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
Belle scoffed at Cameron’s puerility. “Fair’s got nothing to do with our sorry lot. Never did. Never will.”
Sancha nodded. “Truth be to that.” They clanked mugs.
Cameron paused to consider everything they’d told her. Which made her wonder one particular thing … “So how many demons does it take to redeem yourselves, anyway?”
“Depends on the severity of the deed what got us damned and our remorse for it. Each has his or her own path to follow.” Sancha pulled back her sleeve to show her emblem to Cameron. “The mark lightens as we get closer to earning our freedom. When it’s gone completely, so are we.”
“How do you mean?”
Sancha reached for her drink. “We’re set free and given a chance to screw up anew.”
“Even Valynda?”
Valynda nodded. “That’s what Thorn promised me. A brand-new body as a woman, once more. I pray he’s not lying. I would love to be human again.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “To have a real human body!”
“And Janice?” Cameron asked. “Did you earn your freedom already?” Unlike the others, she didn’t bear the Deadman’s mark on her wrist.
Janice shook her head as she gathered together her cards. “I be a little different from them, me lovey.” She pulled her shirt up to show a double bow mark on her hip. “I was not damned, per se. Me mistress be a Greek goddess, and me soul be held by her for all eternity, under an entirely different set of rules and conditions.”
What the blue devil? Cameron gaped at the last thing she’d expected to hear. Even among these preposterous tales. While her father, who had been enamored of the Classics, had taught her and Paden much about ancient Greeks and Romans and their beliefs, she’d never believed any of it to be real. “Come again?”
“I gave up me soul for vengeance over a wrong what was done to me and mine. Technically, I shouldn’t be here with the Deadmen, as it’s not really allowed for a Dark-Huntress to mingle with them.”
“Which tells you how dangerous our mission is that Acheron would allow her to live and work among our crew,” Valynda whispered. “Even the Dark-Hunters have a vested interest in our success.”
“The Dark-Hunters?”
“Be the term for what I am, Miss Jack. Acheron be me boss man.” Janice covered her mark. “Deadmen pursue demons who’ve escaped their prisons or who be preying on humanity and return them to their place of origin. Dark-Hunters are a band of warriors what hunt demons known as Daimons.”
“There’s a difference, then?”
“Oh, aye to that. Our demons be born of an ancient race, cursed by the Greek god Apollo.”
“Cursed why?”
“’Tis said their queen was once a beloved of Apollo’s and that she lost his favor, after her miscarriage of Apollo’s child, to a beautiful Greek princess who bore him a son. So jealous was she that the queen ordered her soldiers out to slaughter Apollo’s mistress and son, in the most brutal of ways. She wanted them ripped apart as if an animal had done it.”
Cameron cringed at the horror. No wonder the god had cursed them. She’d have wanted revenge herself had someone dared take the life of her child. But only on the ones who’d done it. She certainly wouldn’t have gone after other innocents over it.
As her mother had so often said, two wrongs never made a right. Especially in a tragedy of this magnitude.
Janice placed her cards aside. “To thwart his curse, some of them Apollites done learned to steal souls so that they could feed from them to elongate their own lives. But the problem is, when they do that, they destroy the soul forever. Our goal is to kill those Daimons and free the stolen souls so that they can restore themselves and go on to their eternal rest. If we fail, those souls vanish forever.”
Cameron crossed herself at what Janice described. “Was it Apollo who made the Dark-Hunters, too?”
Belle shook her head. “It was Apollo’s sister, Artemis, who used her own blood to create the first Dark-Hunter to hunt the Daimons and kill them. That original Dark-Hunter, Acheron, is now their leader, and he’s the one what trains them whenever Artemis makes a new Hunter.”
“That’s why Janny has fangs and we don’t … different Hunters, different abilities.” Sancha winked at Janice.
Cameron let out a nervous laugh, hoping that was a jest. Surely the woman didn’t really have fangs.
Did she?
“W-w-what?”
> “’Tis true.” Janice opened her mouth to show off her unique dental features.
Holy mother of God!
Cameron shot off her bed to move closer to Belle, who laughed at her overreaction.
“There now, girl! No fear of our Janny. She only bites male posteriors.”
Janice grinned. “Truth be to that. And that I do with great relish. In particular, wouldn’t mind me a piece of a few of the ones what be sailing on this very ship, or me boss, Acheron. Oh, that one…” She sucked her breath in sharply between her teeth—or fangs, rather. “He’s got the finest backside what’s ever graced a man. If ever there be a one you want to sink teeth to…”
“And pray for lockjaw?” Cameron added, remembering what the prostitute had said to her earlier.
“Hear, hear,” Sancha laughed. “Wouldn’t mind a romp in the sheets with Acheron meself. Can you imagine the skills he must have after all these centuries?”
“Or Bane?” Belle said with a laugh. “I’d lay money he’s not one to be shy or timid. Rather, he’d no doubt set fire to the bed, what with his passions.”
Janice grinned wider. “Or our dear William or Kalder.”
“Or Bart.” Sancha purred. “Hell, sign me up for a piece of that Wild Kat or Zumari! Would love to offer up a salutation to their flagpoles and change their religions.” She winked.
“Aye!” Belle and Janice agreed in unison.
Sancha took a deep quaff of rum and sighed. “One day, me ladies, we’ve got to find some way around the captain’s ban on crew fraternizations. Even if it means all of us seducing our good captain at once to change his mind on that particular law that chafes me all the way to me nether quarters.”
Valynda laughed. “Stop it now, you’re scandalizing our Miss Cameron. Look at the poor thing! She’s as red as a British officer’s jacket.”
“I’ve heard worse.” She cleared her throat, even though her cheeks were scalding hot. “Work in a bawdy tavern at home.” Cameron returned to sit on her bed before she spoke to Janice. “So how is it that you’ve come to live among the crew if you’re not supposed to be here?”