Hayreddin hated to admit it, but that damned Len had been right.
Being a pirate in this new world was just no fun.
So much had changed during the time Red had been away, and his kind of piracy just didn’t work anymore. Len had been right about the lack of ships to attack. Wealthy men still sailed the seas in expensive boats, but during the month of April, they were all someplace warmer, like the Caribbean, and no one sent their fortunes by ship anymore. Except drug dealers, apparently, and Red saw nothing worth stealing in piles of white powder.
To be sure, they occasionally attacked a yacht or a tanker just for fun, but Len was surprisingly squeamish about all the killing, and the supposedly tough men they’d hired to be their pirate crew were a disappointment, one and all. Half of them, panicked after one glimpse of the kraken, took off as soon as they came back to port, swearing this wasn’t what they’d signed on for. The rest had to be paid extra to keep them from blabbing to everyone they knew.
Without booty to amass, the larger ship Len had procured was mostly just wasted space, and not nearly as maneuverable as one of Red’s old sloops. There were no cannons mounted on it, and just as Len had said, today’s weapons were smaller and more portable. In the end, he had grudgingly allowed Len to return it, and get rid of most of the extra men, retaining the three most bloodthirsty to work on Len’s battered fishing boat.
Hayreddin told himself it was a better disguise anyway, since no one would suspect a mundane fishing boat of piracy, but really, it was all so disappointing. He longed for the day when the kraken found his long-lost treasure and he could return to the Otherworld. This was all taking much longer than he had expected it to, and sooner or later word would get back to the queen, and she would summon him home.
Even though dragons were given a bit more leeway than other Paranormals due to their extreme power and longevity, not even they could disobey a direct command from high queen of the Otherworld. The trick was to stay on this side of the portal until he had accomplished his task. If she forbade him from returning after that, he did not much care. He hated this new world, with its technology and its lack of swashbucking adventuring. He would be happy never to come back here again.
So he had been having Len send the kraken out more and more often, searching for where his ship had gone down on its final voyage. The beast had found a few other wrecks, even some with riches and gold aboard, although nothing to compare with what he’d lost. They had a nice little stash of booty for Len to drool over, but it was not what Hayreddin had come here seeking.
And then there was the added complication of the attention the kraken’s presence was drawing. In the old days, anyone sensible would have run in the opposite direction. Now, they sent out scientists.
“I have an idea,” he told Len over a breakfast of rum and sandwiches.
“Oh, god,” Len said, putting his head in his hands. “Not another one.”
Red missed the days when people who irritated him could simply be made to walk the plank. This stupid little vessel did not even have a plank. But no, he still needed the Human, both to control the kraken without violating the technicalities of the queen’s rules and to help Red navigate this confusing and uncomfortable modern world. But later, oh yes, later, there would be a reckoning.
“We need to scare people away from the area we are searching,” Hayreddin explained in what he believed was a calm and even tone. One of the hired men turned white and helped himself to more rum in a hurry.
“Yeah, okay,” Len agreed cautiously. “I mean, it makes sense that we don’t want anyone to figure out that the kraken is under our control, or stumble across us when we find my, I mean your, treasure.”
Red puffed on his pipe furiously to mask the smoke coming out of his nostrils. He closed his eyes and counted to ten dead bodies until he could be sure he had himself back under control. “Yes, exactly. So I have come up with a cunning plan.”
“Uh, huh.” Len rolled his eyes. “You mean like all the other cunning plans you’ve come up with so far?”
The youngest and stupidest of the men guffawed, and Red casually took out the knife he kept tucked into his boot and stuck it into the annoying Human’s chest, then picked him up in one smooth motion and heaved him over the side of the boat.
Silence settled over the remaining crew and Len opened and closed his mouth like a fish on the end of a spear.
“Would anyone else care to make a comment about my leadership skills?” Red asked mildly, wiping his knife off on the leg of his trousers. “No? Excellent. Then I assume you are ready to hear my idea?”
Three heads nodded up and down in unison, Len’s bobbing the hardest of all.
Good. It was about time the little twit remembered who was in charge here. The kraken was only the second most dangerous thing on this ocean.
“People are still afraid of ghosts, are they not?”
Len’s usual blank look became even blanker. “Uh, sure. Most people. Why?”
“I will start appearing as the ghost of Blackbeard, the fearsome pirate,” Hayreddin declared, quite pleased with the cleverness of his idea. (After all, he had been the man known as Blackbeard, along with many other famous pirates, so it was not as though he would have any difficulty taking his semblance.) “These scientists will be so frightened, they will stop chasing the kraken and leave us in peace to pursue the treasure.” He waved his tattooed knuckles in the air to reinforce his point.
“Uh, I’m not sure that will work,” Len said, albeit in a more cautious manner than before. “People probably won’t believe you are really a ghost, his ghost especially. I mean, he wasn’t known for operating in this area, was he? I thought he ended up mostly in North Carolina.”
Red waved away his protestations. “I can take on the guise of Blackbeard as easily as you can pull on your boots,” he said. “Just you wait and see. And it matters not where he sailed in life, since all is different now anyway. It is only important that I am fearsome and strike terror into the hearts of those who see me, so they run away and stay away.”
“You sure as hell strike terror into my fricking heart,” one of the men muttered.
Red beamed at him. “Exactly. So we will await the next passing vessel and I shall appear to them as if out of nowhere. They will spread the word and before long, we shall have peace to continue our search.”
“Or end up on the Internet,” Len said. But he said it quietly, and so Red was happy to ignore him.
* * *
“Oh, come on,” Bethany said. “You saw what?” The last couple of days had been difficult enough without her having to deal with idiots. And this particular idiot wasn’t even drunk yet, unless he’d started in another bar.
“Blackbeard’s ghost,” a fisherman named Clyde said, with complete seriousness. His face was ashen and he’d tossed back his first whiskey like it was water. “I swear to god. Scariest thing I ever saw in my life. And you’ve met my mother in-law.”
The two men who crewed for him nodded their heads in unison, looking equally unsettled.
Bethany had met his mother in-law. It was hard to believe there was something out there that scared him more. (Her Christmas fruitcakes had been known to make grown men cry.)
“How did you know it was Blackbeard?” she asked, her skepticism clear in her voice. Alexei, who was sitting at the bar with the three sailors, took a sip of his beer and perked up, like a man whose favorite reality TV show had just come on. A group of regulars gathered around.
Bethany often thought sailors gossiped more than any dozen women in a hair salon. Her father said it was because of the long, boring hours out on a boat with nothing to do but talk. He was going to be really cranky that he missed this particular conversation.
“How did I know?” Clyde said. “He freaking told me, didn’t he? Said, “I am the ghost of Blackbeard the pirate. Fear me, puny mortal!’ Plus, you know, it was tattooed on his knuckles, one letter on each finger.”
“Puny mortal?” Alexei choked back a laugh. “He actually said ‘puny mortal’?”
Clyde glared at him. “Oh yeah, it sounds silly now, sitting in a brightly lit,” he glanced around, “well, a reasonably well lit bar. But out on the ocean, miles from land, with the sun going down, it sent a chill right down my bones.”
His shipmates nodded mutely, and pushed their empty glasses across the bar for a refill.
Bethany poured them each some more whiskey and set the bottle down within reach. She could tell it was going to be that kind of night.
“Okay, so how do you know he was really a ghost?” she asked. “Not to mention, how did he appear to you if you were in the middle of the ocean?”
“And why were you out so late?” One of the other fishermen asked from a nearby table. “You’re usually in by afternoon at this time of the year.”
Clyde held up a hand for them to wait and slugged down the rest of his whiskey. “Let me just tell the whole story from the beginning, will ya? It will be a lot faster.”
He swiveled on his stool so he was partially facing Bethany at the bar, but could still address the others gathered around to listen.
“As for why we were out so late, well, we were trying to make a buck, weren’t we? There’s hardly any fish out there - ” this got nods of agreement from everyone else - “so we took out a boatload of those damned thrill seekers who wanted to try and catch a picture of the sea monster.”
“Giant squid, not a sea monster,” one of the scientists from Wood Hole said from a table off to the side. “Much more interesting, really, given the rarity of giant squid sightings.”
“Like sea monster sightings are common,” Alexei muttered, but for a change, he kept his voice down so only Bethany heard him.
She was grateful for that, since the last thing she needed was for him to create another riot. But he’d been strangely quiet since their night together a few days before, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.
She knew she was faking pretending she didn’t care about their crazy (wonderful/amazing/holy crap that was the best ever) sexual encounter, but she had no idea how he felt. And she wasn’t going to ask him, either. They both knew he was leaving soon, and not the type to settle down. What would be the point? Other than to have more wildly satisfying sex. But she wasn’t going to think about that either. More than twenty or thirty times a day.
“Sea monster, giant squid, Moby Dick’s second cousin twice removed, I don’t care what it is,” an old-timer named Mike said glumly. “It’s either eating the fish or scaring them away, and we’re all going to go broke and starve to death if someone doesn’t find the damn thing and kill it.”
“Exactly,” Clyde said. “So with no fish to catch, I figured, why not rent out my boat and my services for the day to people with more money than sense. Right? So we picked up this bunch at noon and spent hours hanging around the waters where this creature has supposedly been seen. Or where boats have disappeared, or whatever.”
“Weren’t you afraid your boat would be next?” Bethany asked.
Clyde shrugged. “My family has to eat. I mostly figured it was a fool’s errand, but even if it wasn’t, and there is some giant creature out there, I’m not going to sit at home while my kids go hungry.”
There were lots of nods around the room. Bethany’s heart ached for these men, who worked so hard in conditions that were already difficult enough without having to contend with a kraken. She bit her lip and glanced at Alexei. He narrowed his eyes and nodded, a silent promise that he would deal with it. His friend Beka had left a couple of days ago for the place they called the Otherworld to try and find some answers. Alexei said time worked differently there, so there was no telling exactly when she’d be back.
This all just got weirder and weirder.
“So what happened?” one of the guys asked. “Did you see the monster?”
“No,” Clyde said. “Not a glimpse. The folks who hired me kept insisting on going a little further, but I finally told them we had to head back when it was starting to get dark. Then, out of nowhere, this other ship appears.”
“What kind of ship?” Mike asked.
“We couldn’t tell,” Clyde said. “It was freaking spooky, I’m not kidding you. One minute, there was nothing there, and then there was this strange fog, and all you could make out was the vague outline of some kind of ship. We couldn’t even tell how big it was. But it was flying a big black skull and crossbones flag, and this huge guy suddenly steps to the end of the prow, almost on top of us. Luckily, we weren’t going very fast, since the picture people were still hoping to see something.”
“Did anyone get a photo of this Blackbeard guy?” Bethany asked.
Clyde shook his head. “Most of them didn’t even think to try, we were all so startled, but the couple who did just got a blur that looked much bigger than this guy - who was pretty damned big - that seemed like it was surrounded by smoke.”
“So how did you know he was a ghost?” Bethany asked again.
“Because Nicky the genius here tried to shoot him with a spear gun, and it went right through him.” Clyde glared at the man sitting next to him, who turned red and took another drink of his whiskey. “He coulda gotten us all killed. But this Blackbeard guy just laughed.”
Alexei raised an eyebrow. “He laughed?”
“Damn straight,” Clyde said with a scowl. “Like we were amusing little runts trying to take out a giant with a flyswatter. Which wasn’t much off, probably, but still. Then he turned around, picked up the spear, and threw it back at us so hard, it is still stuck in the side of my damned boat.”
“So he was real enough to pick up a spear and throw it,” Alexei mused. “Interesting.”
Bethany narrowed her eyes at him. She could tell he was thinking something, but she couldn’t tell what. She’d wager a year’s earnings that whatever it was, it was going to cause trouble, though.
“What happened next?” Someone else asked.
“You mean after he skewered my boat like it was an olive in a martini? He told me he was going to let us all live so we could bring back a message to anyone else who might be foolish enough to venture into his waters. His words, not mine.”
Duh, Bethany thought. No fisherman she knew talked that way.
Clyde went on. “He said I should tell everyone I knew that Blackbeard’s ghost had come back to claim his rightful treasure, and that anyone who got in his way would be sent to their rest on the bottom of the ocean, where their bones would turn into sand and their flesh be eaten by the creatures of the sea.” He shuddered.
“Flowery sort of guy, wasn’t he?” Alexei said. “That’s quite a turn of phrase.”
“You should have heard him,” Clyde said. “I swear, it’s like every word was etched into my memory with acid.” He swallowed the rest of his whiskey and stood up, followed by his two men, who did the same. “Well, I delivered his message. Hopefully that will satisfy the freaky bastard and I’ll never see him again.”
“So you’re not going to take monster hunters out in your boat tomorrow?” Bethany said, genuinely curious.
“Oh hell yeah I am,” Clyde said with a lopsided grin. “I’m not turning down good money. I’ll just take them in the other direction from where the thing actually might be. I’m guessing one piece of ocean will look pretty much as another the same to anyone not from around here.” He grimaced. “I wish I’d thought of that this morning.”
After Clyde and his crewmen left, everyone returned to what they were doing before things got interesting, leaving Bethany alone at the bar with Alexei.
“Fascinating story,” Alexei said. “Do you think he was telling the truth?” He stroked his beard, which looked both neater and softer now that he’d cut it.
She’d always liked her men clean shaven before she met him. Of course, she’d never liked men who were huge and muscular, either. Mostly, she just liked Alexei. Damn it.
Bethany laughed, looking down at the glasses she was washing so she’d stop staring at Alexei. “You mean, do I think he actually met Blackbeard’s ghost? Of course not. Do I think something strange came out of an unexpected fog and frightened him? Yeah, that I believe.”
“What do you suppose it was, then?”
“I have no idea,” Bethany said. “Somebody playing a practical joke? Another fisherman who had the same idea he did and was trying to scare off the competition?” She stared at him. “Why? You don’t seriously think it was a ghost, do you?”
Alexei looked thoughtful. “I’ve met a ghost or two in my time. Never met one who could throw a spear hard enough to imbed it in the side of a wooden boat, though. I think I might wander down to the docks and take a look at Clyde’s boat, just for the heck of it.”
“And if there really is a spear sticking out of his boat? What then?” Bethany was almost afraid to ask.
“Then I might decide to take your father’s boat out to see if I can meet this Blackbeard fellow.” He tugged on his own beard and grinned at her. “Maybe if I can find him, we can compare facial hair.”
“That sounds like a terrible idea,” Bethany said, glaring at him.
“Okay,” Alexei said with a shrug. “We can compare tattoos instead. Whatever makes you happy.”
Bethany bit her tongue so she wouldn’t tell him what would make her happy. That would be an even worse idea than trying to chase down a bloodthirsty pirate ghost.
“If you’re set on doing this,” she said, knowing him well enough to tell that he was, “why don’t I get the neighbor to come in a little early tomorrow, and I’ll see if I can get my day bartender to cover for me until I get back.”
The eyebrow went up again, quirking in a way she found ridiculously attractive. Damn it.
“You’re coming with me?”
“If you’re taking my father’s boat out at sunset to try and confront a ghost, I’m not letting you do it by yourself. Somebody needs to steer the boat while you’re being all dangerous and fierce.” She grinned back at him. “Of course, if your friend Beka is back by then, I’m happy to let her do it.”
She didn’t know which one of them was crazier. Oh, wait. Yes she did.
* * *
Hayreddin was feeling quite proud of himself. He had put on a masterful performance the previous night, if he did say so himself. (And he had, repeatedly, to the increasing annoyance of Len and their remaining two pirates. Dragons were not known for their modesty.) A little simple dragon magic to create the illusion of an eerie mist and mask the sound of their approach, plus his own innate ability to change his form, and suddenly Blackbeard was back from the dead.
He could tell his appearance had had the desired effect. Those poor fools had nearly wet their breeches with fear. Red rather admired the one man who had kept his head enough to fire a spear at him, although of course it simply glanced off his tough dragon skin without doing any harm. He might take on the guise of a man, but he was still a nearly indestructible dragon under it all. Still, it did do rather a fine job of reinforcing his “ghost” impression.
The seas had been pleasantly empty all day. No fishermen or foolish gawkers to intrude upon his treasure hunt. He was getting close; he could feel it in his bones. And a dragon’s bones never lied about treasure. Another day or two without distractions and surely the kraken’s search would finally bear fruit and Hayreddin could leave this dreadful place and return home to his lovely, peaceful, Human-free cave.
His plan had been brilliant. If he did say so himself.
“I told you so,” he said to Len, who was sullenly wrapping his hand, bloodied again after another turn at summoning the kraken. “My plan was brilliant.”
“Oh yeah?”
The man was an imbecile. “Indeed. We have been left alone all day. The Humans are so afraid of this area now, we probably won’t see another ship out here until after we have completed our task.”
“What about that one, then?” Len said, pointing with his bandaged hand. “Maybe it is another ghost ship, come to get in on our act?”
Red spun around. He could not believe his eyes. The imbecile was, incredibly, correct. A small fishing boat was moving slowly in their direction. What in the name of all the gods was wrong with these Humans? Could they not understand the simplest of messages? Fine, then. He would simply send it again. This time, it would be written in blood.