“I don’t speak dolphin,” Alexei said automatically. Then he thought about it for a minute, listening to all the chaotic noise. Besides the shouts of “Baba Yaga, it is the Baba Yaga!” he heard the words “boat,” “big man,” and something about fish.
He blinked. “Oh,” he said. “Maybe I do speak dolphin. Huh. I guess I wasn’t going crazy after all when I thought I was hearing Lulu tell me she wanted to go outside and dig in the dirt.”
“Well, this is an interesting development,” Beka said. “I can speak dolphin, but only because I did a spell for it, and it works a lot better when I am actually in the water with them. I was going to go in, but the water on this side of the country is damned cold and I’d just as soon not get into my wetsuit if I don’t have to.”
Alexei gave her a look.
“Hey, there’s surfing on Cape Cod. Did you think I wasn’t going to bring my wetsuit along? What’s the point in living in a magical traveling hut turned painted school bus if you can’t use it to tote along all your stuff?” She grinned at him. “We’ll have to go out later. We haven’t surfed together in ages, and I do so enjoy watching you fall off a board. But in the meanwhile, why don’t you ask our new friends if they have seen any sign of a sea monster, or anything else unusual?”
“Um, how?” Alexei asked. “I mean, I can make out some of what they’re saying, but I don’t exactly speak dolphin.” There was no way he was going to start making random clicking and whistling sounds. With his luck, he’d probably say something rude or obscene by accident.
Beka laughed, tossing her long hair back out of her face as the wind picked up. “When you talk to Lulu the dog, do you bark at her, or just speak normally?”
“I do not go around barking,” Alexei said, scowling at her. As usual, the look that would have made a grown man quake just bounced off the blonde woman. The Riders had helped raise Beka and the other Baba Yagas from the time they’d each been adopted by their mentor Babas, usually around four or five years of age. Despite his strength and ferocity, they all tended to view him as a quirky kindly uncle who happened to be good in a fight. It was annoying.
“Then clearly part of your new gift, if that’s what this is, makes it work both ways. You can understand animals - at least dogs and dolphins so far - and they can understand you. It seems to have worked with your pal Lulu. Go ahead, try it.”
Alexei rolled his eyes, but figured if he failed, the worst that would happen was he’d get to laugh at her when she had to get into the bitter Atlantic waters and freeze her skinny butt off.
“Uh, hello,” he said, gazing down over the side of the boat. “I am Alexei, friend to the Baba Yaga. We have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
The large male looked at him, his scarred nose bobbing up and down in the water as he worked to stay in one place. “Ask questions, friend of Baba. We will try to answer, if we can.” The other dolphins whistled their agreement.
“Cool,” Alexei said, mostly to himself. Then thought, wait until I tell Gregori and Mikhail, forgetting that they weren’t all together anymore, and for a moment the darkness threatened to overwhelm him again, like waves from the bottom of the sea. He pulled himself together with an effort.
“What do you want me to ask them?” This was Beka’s gig - he was only along for the ride. Let her figure out what she wanted to know.
He guessed he’d spoken a little more harshly than he’d intended to when she raised both eyebrows and stared at him, but too bad. This wasn’t his job anymore, and he suddenly didn’t feel like being out here, trying to pretend to be useful.
Beka bit her lip, but said, “I guess you can start by asking them if they’ve seen any monsters.”
“How the hell do you say ‘monster’ in dolphin?” Alexei muttered. Then said more loudly, “The Baba Yaga would like to know if you have seen any monsters.”
As he’d suspected, this just got him some confused sounding whistling and nothing else.
“What is monster?” the scarred dolphin asked eventually. Alexei heard the word repeated back to him as something that translated more closely into “big not real creature.”
“Oh, ah, something very large that doesn’t belong in your water?” Alexei said, trying to think like a dolphin. “Scary big creature that hurts dolphins and attacks ships?”
This was met with lots of loud, high-pitched whistling and rapid clicking. Even without his newfound talent, he would have recognized agitation when he heard it.
“I’m guessing that’s a ‘yes,’” Beka said dryly.
Alexei hung even further over the side of the boat and held up his hand. “Slow down,” he begged. “One at a time, please. It is hard for me to understand you when you all talk at once.”
He was pretty sure he heard a teen-sized dolphin say something to a companion about stupid Humans. Alexei didn’t bother to correct him.
“Big scary thing, yes,” the large dolphin said. “Eats all that swim in ocean.”
“Eats whales!” another member of the pod said.
“Pulls ships under the water!” added another. “With many long ugly flippers.”
“Long ugly flippers?” Alexei repeated that, and the rest, to Beka.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Maybe they don’t have a word for tentacle in their language.” She waved her arms at the dolphins. “Ask if these are flippers.”
“Yes, flippers. Two little flippers,” the dolphin who had mentioned the ships said, bobbing his head. “Big thing has many many flippers. Very long, very large, very ugly. Bad. Bad thing.”
“You can say that again,” Beka said in a grim tone. “It sounds like a bad, bad thing indeed.”
* * *
Hayreddin stared into the bottom of his glass so he wouldn’t reach across the table and tear out the throat of the frustrating Human sitting opposite him. Red wasn’t sure if it was the long years since he’d last visited on this side of the doorway, or simply that this particular male was even more obtuse than usual, but it seemed as though they were speaking two different languages.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “If we are to be successful pirates, we must have a larger ship and many more men. Your boat is too small for our needs. You will get us a bigger ship. What is the problem?”
Len drank from the beer bottle he held, then wiped his full lips with the back of a slightly grubby hand. Under a black cap, his hair was overlong and stringy, and his face was narrow, with deep set dark brown eyes and a scruffy beard. Hayreddin thought Len was an unimpressive specimen, even for a Human, but this what Red had to work with, so he would simply have to make the best of it.
“I’ve tried to tell you,” Len said. “There are no pirates anymore. Only a few Somalis in speedboats. I’m a smuggler, but it isn’t the same thing at all. I told you what happened on my last trip. Until I raise the cash to pay back the Russian mob, I can’t be spending money on a big ship or more men. We’re just going to have to manage with what we’ve got.”
Red held back a sigh. “And I have told you - with the help of the talisman and the kraken it controls - we can not only find my lost treasure, but also capture the boats of the wealthy and take the riches they hold. There will be plenty of money for a larger ship and more men, and without them, we will not be able to haul away our booty, or search for the treasure.”
He did not believe this Human when he said there were no more pirates. There were always pirates, although perhaps these days they went by some other name. But whenever there were those who had much, there were others who would willingly relieve them of it. It was the nature of men, as much as it was the nature of dragons to collect shiny precious objects.
It had taken more effort than it should have, but Red had finally convinced Len that yes, the talisman really was magic, and yes, Red could show him how to work it, but the stupid Human still seemed to be having trouble grasping the rest of the plan. (And of course, Red could not exactly tell Len that he needed to be the one to activate the talisman, because if Red did it, there would be Consequences.)
“We will take your small boat out today,” Red finally said in a decisive tone that made it clear he would accept no more argument. “We will find a likely target and you will summon up the kraken to attack it. If we cannot find such a ship, we will send the kraken in search of treasure on the bottom of the sea. Even if it cannot find my own great plunder at first, there must be other lost ships resting on the ocean floor. We will get the money we need for a larger boat and more men. And then we will show the world that there are indeed still pirates, and ones with a fearsome secret weapon at that.”
Len drank the rest of his beer in one long swallow. “Sure,” he said, not sounding at all suitably excited by the prospect. “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.”
The man was an idiot. Hayreddin was definitely going to eat him as soon as he no longer needed a Human partner.
* * *
The man was an idiot, Len thought to himself. Or delusional. Or both. Definitely dangerous as hell, and as far as Len could tell, perfectly serious about the two of them becoming pirates on the high seas with a crew of toughs at their command. Admittedly, this was Len’s childhood dream, and if anyone could pull it off, it was probably his new pal Red.
But still, it was as though the guy had never heard of the Coast Guard, or sending money by wire transfers to a bank in the Caymans instead of putting it on a ship in the form of gold coins and precious jewels. It was as if he’d slept through the last couple of centuries, for god’s sake. Crazy as a bag full of badgers, as Len’s grandmother used to say. He’d never known what the hell that was supposed to mean. Until now. Mean and dangerous and completely irrational.
Unfortunately, Len needed him, crazy or not. He had to get that money for the Russians soon, or it wasn’t going to matter that he’d hooked up with a guy who was just as likely to get him killed as he was to make him rich. And Len was out of any other, less insane, options.
Plus, there was that gold coin. That was real. And that huge octopus-squid thing that Red called a kraken, that had been real too. So now they were taking Len’s boat (which was not too small, damn it) out so Red could prove to Len that he really did know how to make the talisman work, and hopefully get them enough money to rent a bigger ship and pay some lowlifes to crew it for them. Oh, yay.
Len had considered the possibility that Red would just slit his throat and steal the talisman, but he kind of figured that if the big guy was going to do that, he would have done it already. For some reason, Red insisted that Len had to be the one to do the calling - sorry, “summoning” - of the mythological beast. He’d given Len some kind of convoluted story about only the true owner being able to use the magic or something. To be honest, Len hadn’t really been listening; he was just glad the large crazy man thought he needed Len as much as Len needed him. That would have to be enough, for now.
Either it was all a load of crap, and Red wouldn’t be able to show him how to work the damn thing, and Len would be right back where he started (screwed and desperate), or it would turn out that all his grandfather’s stories had really been true, and Len was living in some kind of freaking fairy tale. As long as it got him his money and saved his skin, he guessed he could learn to live with that.
Luckily, Len had one advantage that would work in their favor for playing pirate while they searched for Red’s huge stash. As a smuggler, Len knew lots of other smugglers, and had some idea of who used which routes to carry valuable goods, drugs, or even illegal immigrants. (They definitely didn’t want one of those ships. Hell no.)
Sure, in theory they all stayed out of each other’s business, because not doing so could get you killed. But hey, he was going to get killed anyway, if he didn’t fix his little two million dollar Russian problem, and he kind of figured that Red would have a lot fewer qualms than Len did about taking out whoever was on the ships they stopped, if that was the only way to keep their secret.
Hell, if Red was right about the kraken pulling the ships down to the bottom of the ocean and then bringing up the valuables, he and Red would never have to get their hands dirty at all. Plus any evidence would be deep underwater. Ships disappear; it happens. So maybe this wasn’t such a crazy plan after all. If they could really get the talisman to work.
* * *
Right before dusk, they found a likely spot. Len had heard through the grapevine that one of his dubious acquaintances (smugglers didn’t have friends) was going to be heading this way tonight with a load of cash and guns being smuggled out of the country. Probably for the Mexican cartel, which wasn’t any healthier to mess with than the Russian mob, but hell, what choice did he have?
It probably would have been simpler to find a ship smuggling drugs - there were plenty of those. But not only did Len not have the connections to move large amounts of cocaine or marijuana, but if the mob got word of him doing so, they might decide he’d made up the story about the Coast Guard and figure he’d just stolen their drugs. That would be bad. Very, very bad.
They might be willing to let him try and come up with the money to replace their lost merchandise, but if they thought he’d stolen it, they would hunt him down and kill him slowly and gruesomely to serve as an example to anyone else who might be stupid enough to try the same thing. No thank you.
So here he was, out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, holding onto his grandfather’s talisman and planning to call up some mythological creature to attack another smuggler’s ship. When had his life gotten so crazy? He wanted to be anywhere other than here, doing this. Len wasn’t a huge drinker, but right now he wanted a stiff drink so bad he shook with the thought of it.
“Stiffen your spine, boy,” Red said with a sneer. “It is time. Are you ready?”
Ready to go home, hell yeah. “You bet,” Len said. “So, how do I work this thing? Are there some kind of magic words or something? I said a bunch of stuff the first time, but I have no idea which one worked.”
Red laughed, the sound rolling out into the encroaching darkness to mix with the noise of the waves crashing against the side of the hull. “There are no magic words, silly man. This is an amulet for a pirate, not a witch’s toy. Hold out your hand, and think of how badly you want the kraken to come.”
Len did as Red asked, the talisman sitting in his open palm, stretched out before him. Before he could brace himself, the tattooed man pulled out a huge knife and sliced into the fleshy part of Len’s hand, right next to one of the brass tentacles.
“What the hell!” Len shouted. But then the blood oozed from the shallow cut into contact with the amulet, and that strange buzzy feeling echoed through his arm and up into the rest of his body. The amulet seemed to writhe in his hand. The stone in the middle slid open to reveal its single swirling eye.
Magic. Shit. It was real. Painful, apparently, but real.
“Find me the ship with money and guns,” he whispered to the eye. “Sink it, and bring me the money.”
Red nodded with satisfaction. “Now you will see,” he said. “Now you will see the might of the kraken.”
Len put the amulet down reverently on a storage chest nearby and wiped his hand with an almost clean rag. “You could have warned me about the blood part,” he said to Red with a scowl.
“What would the fun of that have been?” the pirate said. One gold tooth gleamed when he grinned. “You should have seen your face when I pulled out my knife. Ha ha ha.”
Ha. Sure. Very funny. Len settled himself against the side of the boat to wait for the kraken. After all, just because he’d gotten the strange medallion to activate, didn’t mean that it would actually control the monster, or that the thing would be able to find the ship they wanted. Or that it would be able to retrieve the money, even if it did.
The more he thought about it, the less likely success seemed, and the more he longed for a warm room and a bottle of whiskey.
“Aha!” Red bellowed, startling Len so much he almost slid onto the deck on his ass. “Look!”
Len followed Red’s pointing finger toward the setting sun. Just barely visible against its orange glow was the silhouette of a much larger ship, its back end tilting precariously as a giant tentacle wrapped itself around the stern. Len almost imagined he could hear the screams of the men aboard as they fell into the sea. Within minutes, the entire ship had vanished beneath the surface. Len knew he probably should have felt bad about the crew, but instead, he felt a heady surge of power. Who was the weak, skinny kid now, eh?
“Come on, kraken,” he said to the empty ocean. “Bring me my money, there’s a good little monster.”
The big man next to him coughed. “Our money, was that not what you meant to say? And I suspect it would be best not to speak to the mighty beast of the deep as if it were a pet dog fetching a ball.”
“Um, yeah, sure thing,” Len agreed, gazing greedily out over the waves. Still nothing. Where was it?
Suddenly, a massive tentacle rose over the side of the boat. Len’s stomach lurched; he’d forgotten how huge and frightening the damn thing was. But it was on his side…right? It wouldn’t hurt him. He was its master. The hovering tentacle, larger than a ship’s mast, made those probable facts hard to remember. He swallowed hard, tasting bile.
A thud made him jump, but it was just a heavy package being dropped onto the deck. The tentacle slid back down toward the sea, leaving a glistening trail of salty slime behind it on the edge of the hull.
“Uh, thanks!” Len said as the medallion’s eye gave one more eerie swirling movement then blinked closed again, returning to its usual inert and benignly ugly appearance. But he waited until the rubbery appendage had completely vanished before walking slowly toward the dripping mass sitting in the middle of the deck.
“Allow me,” Red said with a purr of satisfaction in his voice. He took his knife and slid it through the black plastic and duct tape as if they were tissue.
As the wrappings fell away, they revealed smaller bundles enclosed in clear plastic. Len stifled a cheer as he spotted the hundred dollar bills on the top of each stack. The kraken had done it! It wasn’t Red’s legendary treasure, but at least it was a start.
“This is what you wanted?” Red said, look at the money with a dubious expression. “It is not very shiny.”
“It’s cash,” Len said, shaking his head. “It’s not supposed to be shiny. But it sure as hell can buy you plenty of shiny things. I’m guessing there’s about twenty, twenty-five thousand there. Not bad for a night’s work.”
Red still seemed less than impressed. “I would have preferred diamonds,” he said. “But if you say this is good, I suppose I believe you. Is it enough to get us a larger ship and men to crew it?”
“You bet,” Len said, picking up the talisman and hanging it back around his neck. He stroked it fondly before he tucked it back under his flannel shirt. “We’re in the pirate business, my friend. Let’s go rent a ship.”
“Rent?” Red said. “We’re going to rent a pirate ship?”
“Well, sure,” Len said. “I mean, it would cost a lot more than this to buy one.” He had no idea what the hell was wrong with the other man. Len was doing everything he wanted, and the guy still seemed pretty bent out of shape. Still, Len knew the cure for that. “Come on. Let’s go back in. The first drink’s on me.”
His only answer sounded strangely like a growl.
* * *
Bethany knocked hesitantly on the door to the guest house. It was late, and her father was in bed, but she could see by the light that Alexei was still up. He’d been strangely subdued since he’d returned from his outing with the pretty blonde girl. He was quiet at dinner, although Beka had been cheerful and pleasant, and had eaten enough fish and chips for any two sailors. After his friend left, Alexei had even helped do the dishes after dinner.
Bethany was afraid he was coming down with something or maybe wrecked her father’s boat and was afraid to say so. So she figured she’d just check on him. Not that she was worried about him, or anything. Just wanted to make sure the boat was okay. That was it.
The door opened a crack and she looked up - she always forgot how tall Alexei was until she was standing right next to him.
“What?” a grumpy voice said out of the shadows. “Problem with your father?”
“No,” Bethany said. “He’s fine. Snoring away like an outboard motor. Can I come in for a minute?”
A sigh gusted out over her head. “Sure,” he said, opening the door wider. She’d thought maybe he would be in his pajamas for the night, but he was still wearing a pair of jeans. And nothing else. The sight of his bare chest and broad shoulders took her breath away for a minute and she had to force herself not to stare. He was built as though he’d been carved out of granite, all chiseled muscles and smooth skin.
“Did you want something?” Alexei asked, raising an eyebrow.
Oh, hell yeah. It had been a long time since her last boyfriend, who had been, admittedly, boring beyond belief, both in bed and out. Bethany cleared her throat. “Ah, I just wanted to talk to you, if I’m not interrupting anything.” She tried looking past him instead of at him. “Do you want to go put on a shirt?”
“Why?” he asked. “I’m not cold.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a glint of amusement in his eyes. If so, it vanished quickly enough.
She followed him into the living area, a small square room with a television, seating for four, and a simple desk in the corner, all decorated in classic Cape Cod - pictures of boats on the wall, vases full of seashells, and an old lobster trap that had been turned into a lamp. The couch was covered in faded chintz, not that you could see much of it under the giant dog currently taking up most of the available space.
Alexei had clearly been sitting in one of the armchairs, which was about two sizes too small for him. Bethany tried not to think about how sweet it was that he let the dog have the only decent piece of furniture in the room.
“Hello Lulu,” she said, walking over to scratch the Great Dane behind one ear. “You’re looking lovely this evening. Also, you’re not allowed on the couch.”
Neither the dog nor the man seemed overly impressed by her statement.
“It took her three tries to get up there. She’s going to give birth any second now,” Alexei said. “Let her be comfortable.”
“I’d just as soon she didn’t do it on the sofa,” Bethany said, but she snuck a treat out of her pocket and gave it to Lulu anyway before she went to sit down in the chair opposite Alexei.
He was holding a half full glass of what looked like straight whiskey, and a nearly empty bottle sat on the table next to him. The lobster lamp was the only light in the room, but she didn’t think the bad lighting alone was responsible for the shadows under his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You seemed kind of quiet at dinner.”
He shrugged, making the muscles in his shoulders ripple in an alarmingly attractive way. “Long day. Nothing to worry about.”
“Didn’t you have a good time with your friend? She seemed awfully happy to see you.” Bethany reminded herself that Beka was married, and not interested in Alexei. Not that it was any of Bethany’s business. She clearly needed to keep reminding herself of that, too. And, you know, stop staring at his remarkable physique. Although damn.
“Did something bad happen? If you damaged my dad’s boat, it’s not a big deal.”
“I did not damage your father’s boat,” Alexei snarled, his face indignant. “Everything is fine.”
“Then why are you sitting here in the near-dark, drinking the better part of a bottle of whiskey?”
He raised his glass in a mock toast. “The worse part, too.”
Bethany rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how you manage to sound so coherent with the amount you drink.”
“I have a fast metabolism,” Alexei said. “Also, I’m Russian.”
“Uh huh. That probably explains the brooding, too.” She reached out and took a sip out of his glass, hardly wincing at all as the harsh spirits burned her throat on the way down. “You know, you can talk to me. I mean, if you want to.”
“Nothing to talk about,” he said, grabbing the glass back. “I was just missing my brothers, that’s all.”
“You have brothers?” Bethany had always wondered what it would be like not to be an only child. “Where do they live?”
“Gregori is in Minnesota now, helping his lady to run a organization that helps at-risk teens, and Mikhail lives in the ass-end of upstate New York with his new wife and her baby.”
Interesting phrasing, but Bethany decided that now wasn’t the time to ask. “How long has it been since you’ve seen them?”
Alexei shrugged again. “A year. Maybe more.”
“Are you close?” Bethany felt like she was hauling each answer out of him with an almost physical effort. Still, at least he was talking to her. Sort of.
“We used to be. Spent most of our time together for many, many years.”
Well, that explained why he missed them, but not why he hadn’t seen them in a year. “Did you have a fight or something?”
“No.”
Bethany suppressed a sigh and took the glass back again for another sip. “You know, neither of those parts of the country are all that far from here. Why don’t you go see one of your brothers, if you miss them so much? Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”
“Nope. Got one. To Mikhail’s wedding. I didn’t go.” He got up and fetched another tumbler from the kitchen and poured the last of the bottle into it. Lulu heaved herself off the couch with a noticeable effort and settled down by his feet with a sigh.
“You didn’t go to your brother’s wedding?” Bethany said, a little taken aback. “Why not?”
“Just wasn’t going to be good company. Kind of like now,” Alexei said pointedly.
“Huh. You underestimate your own charm,” Bethany said, only half joking. “I think you’re perfectly good company.”
“Yes, but you usually hang around with your father,” Alexei pointed out. “The bar is set very low.”
Bethany bit back a laugh. He wasn’t wrong. “Maybe so, but I’m guessing your brothers would still rather see you than not, even if you’re doing your whole gloomy drunken Russian thing.”
“I am not drunk,” he said, not disputing the rest of her statement. “And I do not believe they would want to see me. I did them a great wrong. I do not deserve the honor of their company.” He downed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp.
Bethany winced in sympathy, although it didn’t seem to bother him at all. “I don’t know what you did, or think you did, and I realize that I haven’t known you for long, but for all your rough ways, I’ve never seen you do anything I’d consider dishonorable. Besides the pool shark thing, maybe, and even then, anyone who was paying attention could have seen how good you were at the game. But you’re kind to an old man who is hurting, and you’re gentle with Lulu, and you kept a woman from being taken advantage of by a predator who meant her harm.”
She thought carefully before she said her next words, knowing she was overstepping the bounds of their tenuous friendship, but hating to see him in so much pain.
“Have you considered asking your brothers if they want to see you? They might just surprise you.”
There was a moment of silence when she almost thought Alexei would either kick her out or start packing his bags. Then he reached out and took back the glass she’d snitched from him.
“Maybe I’m not ready to see them,” he said. “And you are wrong - you don’t know me at all. If you did, you probably wouldn’t be sitting here.”
Bethany gave him a crooked smile. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always had a weakness for bad boys with hardly any clothes on.”
Then she watched in satisfaction as he choked on his whiskey.