Magic Rises (7 page)

“You’ve been blocking his purchases?” I looked at Curran.

“Not me personally.”

“The Pack and its many proxies.” Saiman drained his glass and poured himself more. “If I choose to move on a project, the Pack will inevitably bid against me, drive up the price, and then abandon the bid, leaving me holding the purse strings. It’s been most inconvenient.”

I bet.

“You’ve always struck me as a man who enjoys attention,” Curran said.

“That was completely unfair.” Saiman pointed his index finger at him while still holding the glass. “Let’s cut to the chase. I know that a delegation of shapeshifters disembarked in Charleston, I know that Desandra Kral, formerly of the Obluda pack, is having twins, and I know that you have been invited to act as her bodyguard and mediator of the inheritance dispute and that you will be paid in panacea to do so.”

Saiman in a nutshell. I had no idea how he knew all of this, but he did.

“You need a ship. This vessel will have to be oceanworthy, will need an experienced crew, and will require cabin space for at least fifteen people. What’s the destination?”

“Gagra on the northern coast of the Republic of Georgia.”

Saiman blinked. “You mean the Black Sea? Do you really want to go to the Black Sea?”

“Yes,” Curran said.

I nodded. “We do.”

Saying things like
We think this is a trap
and
We would rather cut off our left foot than go
would endanger our ship acquisition and our badass image.

Saiman poured himself more scotch. “I can’t help but point out that the three packs involved could’ve found someone in the immediate vicinity to act as a neutral fourth party.”

“Your opinion is noted,” Curran said.

“Have you ever tried to reverse engineer the panacea?” I asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I have,” Saiman said. “I can give you the exact list of ingredients and quantities. The secret isn’t in the chemical composition; it’s in the process of preparation, which I’m unable to replicate. To put it plainly, they cook it with magic and I don’t know the specifics. I’m also reasonably certain that the panacea is manufactured by a single entity or organization and then distributed throughout Europe.”

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s a well-known secret that five years ago your partner offered three hundred thousand dollars and Pack protection to anyone willing to sell him the recipe and demonstrate its preparation. If the panacea were manufactured by each pack individually, someone would’ve been desperate enough to take him up on his offer.”

Curran grimaced. “It’s five hundred thousand now.”

“Still no takers?” Saiman arched his eyebrow.

“No.”

Saiman swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Suppose I provide a vessel. Crossing the Atlantic is a dangerous venture. Between the hurricanes, the pirates, and the sea monsters, there is a very real possibility that your ship will sink and not at all in a metaphorical sense. I’ve been in shipping for over a decade and I still lose two to four ships per year. If you were to meet your untimely demise, your thugs would blame me.”

“Most likely,” Curran said.

“If you die—through no fault of my own, of course—the probability of my survival drops rather drastically. I’m expected to risk my ship, my crew, and my finances for some tenuous promise of possible goodwill. I’m looking for the silver lining and not finding any.”

“You risk your ship, crew, and money, while we will be risking our lives,” Curran said. “And since we’re on the subject, I guarantee that if another vessel from your fleet pulls up next to out ship in the middle of the night and its crew attempts to murder us and scuttle our vessel to hide the evidence, you won’t survive.”

Saiman leaned back and laughed.

“What do you want?” I asked him.

“Friend of the Pack status,” Saiman said. “Granted prior to departure.”

Friend of the Pack would make him an ally. It guaranteed that shapeshifters would stay out of his business and protect him if one of them observed Saiman in imminent danger. It would also grant him the ability to visit the shapeshifter offices without being immediately detained.

“No,” Curran said. “I won’t give you that much access.”

“Not only that, but if you become Friend of the Pack and then sink your ship with us on board, the shapeshifters can’t come after you,” I said.

“Do you really think I would drown you, Kate?”

“In a heartbeat,” I told him. “You still owe me, Saiman.”

“And I’m trying to work with you, but you must meet me halfway.”

“No,” I said. “You won’t be getting Friend of the Pack status until we return.”

Saiman smiled. “Then we’re at an impasse.”

We looked at each other.

“What if I come with you?”

“What?” I must’ve misheard.

“I’ll join you on your wonderful adventure, Kate. That way, if our vessel does sink, I cannot be blamed, because I was on board.”

“Why would you be doing this?” Curran asked.

“I’m overdue for a trip to the Mediterranean. I have business interests there.”

“No,” I said.

The two men looked at me.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Curran said.

“Have you two gone crazy? This is a horrible idea. First, the two of you hate each other.”

“I don’t hate him.” Saiman shrugged. “It’s too strong a word.”

“If I hated him, he’d be dead,” Curran said.

They were nuts. “How long does it take to cross the Atlantic?”

Saiman frowned. “Depends on the magic waves, but generally between twelve and eighteen days.”

I turned to Curran. “We’ll be stuck together on a small boat for at least two weeks. What happens when on day two he gets bored?”

“It will be fine,” Curran said. “We can handle it. If he gets out of hand, we’ll tie him to the mast.”

Saiman gave him a derisive look. “We will be taking the
Rush
. It runs on enchanted water, steam, and diesel. It doesn’t have a mast strong enough to hold me.”

Curran exhaled. “Then we’ll lock you in a cellar.”

“Brig,” Saiman corrected.

“Whatever.” Curran dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

“Draw up a formal contract,” I said. Saiman was egotistical and sometimes cowardly, but he had a ridiculously strong work ethic. If we could lock him in with a contract, he wouldn’t break it.

“Oh, we will,” Curran assured me. “Let’s talk numbers.”

Fifteen minutes later a satisfied Saiman left, escorted by Shawn. He was carrying his suitcase and ours. He was happy, the Beast Lord was happy, so why was I so uneasy?

“You’ll regret this,” I told Curran.

“I know. We don’t have a choice. We have to get the panacea.” He leaned over and kissed me. “I love you. Thank you for the ship. Thank you for doing this with me.”

A little thrill ran through me. “I love you, too.”

Getting the panacea meant that each baby born to the Pack would have a forty percent better chance of survival. It meant Maddie could become herself again. To make this happen, Curran would swallow his pride. He’d make a deal with Saiman, he’d bargain with Carpathians who had humiliated him, he’d cross the Atlantic and half a continent. And I would back him up every step of the way. Curran was responsible for the welfare of the Pack, and so was I.

“We have to get the panacea,” I agreed. That was all there was to it.

CHAPTER 5

The caravan of Pack vehicles roared and thundered down the road. The magic was up full force and enchanted water engines belched so much noise, all of the windows were closed. Curran drove. In the backseat Barabas and Derek sat next to each other.

We left Julie in the Keep. She wanted to come and then she didn’t want to. We said our good-byes. She hugged me and cried, so desperate and sad that I almost cried with her. I sat with her for twenty minutes, until finally we couldn’t delay any longer. She was still crying when I walked out. I hoped this wouldn’t be my last memory of her.

Somehow I always managed to screw things up when it came to Julie.

The highway snaked its way through a flat salt marsh. Reeds and grasses swayed gently, giving us a glimpse of wet mud exposed as low tide sucked the water out of the marsh. A sign flashed by, a yellow diamond with a turtle on it, followed immediately by another sign, a triangle bordered in red. A turtle in the center of the triangle had a dark cone touching its mouth.

“What does that mean?” Barabas asked from the backseat.

“Magic turtle crossing.”

“I got that one, but what about the second one?”

“Beware the magic turtles.”

“Why?”

“They spit fire.”

Curran chuckled to himself.

The road turned. We shot onto a wooden bridge, the boards thudding a little under the pressure of the tires. Another half-mile and we rolled through the massive iron gates of the port.

“Which dock did Saiman say?” Curran asked.

I checked the paper. “Berth two. Just below the bridge.”

The ruin of the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge swung into view as if on cue, its concrete supports sticking sadly out of the water, the steel cables hanging over them like a torn spider web. We passed the remnants of the bridge and Curran stopped before a pier. A large vessel waited on the water, its two black masts rising above the deck that had to be close to four hundred feet long. I knew next to nothing about ships, but even I could tell this was no merchant freighter. It looked more like a naval ship, and the enormous gun mounted on the deck in front of the bridge only made that fact more apparent.

Curran studied the ship. “That’s a Coast Guard High Endurance Cutter.”

“How do you know?”

“We bought a gun from a decommissioned vessel. That’s what’s mounted in the forward tower by the gates.”

“Do you think Saiman bought a Coast Guard cutter? How much money . . .”

“Millions,” Barabas said, his voice dry.

We stared at the cutter.

A man strode down the gangplank. Large, broad-shouldered, he wore a plain sweater and jeans. A short brown beard traced his jaw. He looked like he worked for a living.

We got out.

The man approached us. I checked his eyes and saw the familiar superiority. He was painfully aware that his world was populated with people of lesser intelligence, and his eyes told me he was regretfully resigned to slumming. Saiman.

“May I present the
Rush
?” Saiman said. “Once USCGC
Rush
, now just the
Rush
. Three hundred and seventy-eight feet long, forty-three feet high, displacement of three thousand two hundred and fifty tons. Two gas turbines, four enchanted water generators, maximum speed during magic twenty knots, during tech twenty-nine knots. Otobreda seventy-six-millimeter super-rapid artillery gun, three ballistas, and a number of other bells and whistles, which makes it the finest vessel in my fleet. My flagship.”

“Spared no expense?” I said.

Saiman grinned, displaying even, white teeth. “I prefer to travel safely or not at all.”

* * *

I stood on the deck of the
Rush
, smelling the salty, ocean-saturated air, and watched our supplies being loaded. The sailors on the ship at the next pier watched also. They had a crane. We had Eduardo Ortego, who picked up five-hundred-pound containers and casually tossed them onto the deck, where Mahon and Curran caught them and lowered them into the cargo hold.

The human sailors were looking a little sick. I was glad Eduardo was coming with us. Mahon had chosen the massive werebuffalo as his backup and nobody objected.

Family members and various shapeshifters swarmed over the
Rush
. Jim marched about, muttering things under his breath. George was showing cabins to her mother. The wind tugged on the unruly halo of her long dark curls, which she unsuccessfully tried to tame with a rubber band. Mahon’s wife, a plump, happy African American woman, followed her daughter with a proud smile on her face. George was built like her dad—taller, sturdier, broader in the shoulders than her mother—but her big smile was the same: bright and infectious. I wasn’t the smiling type, but when either of them smiled at you, it was hard not to grin back.

The deck under my feet was moving. The moment I shifted my balance to compensate, the ship tried to make a break for it. Last time I’d taken a ship was almost three years ago. Clearly, this wasn’t at all like riding a bicycle.

Andrea, on the other hand, seemed no worse for wear. She leaned on the rail on my right, smiling. Raphael stood next to her. Where Andrea was short and blond, Raphael was tall, lean, and dark, with a wave of nearly black hair falling to his shoulders. He was also smoking hot. Some men had that indescribable quality, a kind of masculine sensual air. They looked at you and you knew having sex with them would be a memorable experience. Raphael didn’t just have the air; he was his own seductive tornado. He was also one of the deadliest knife fighters I’ve encountered. Raphael loved Andrea more than fish loved the sea. She loved him back and flashed her guns when single women strayed too close.

Barabas stood on the other side of me, looking like he would hurl any minute. “Does it always move this much?”

“It gets worse,” Raphael told him.

“You’ll get used to it,” Andrea promised.

A woman came down the pier, heading for the ship. She walked with an easy, lazy grace that spoke of strength and perfect balance, despite the dangerously tall heels of her black leather boots. Shapeshifter walk. Always a dead giveaway.

Black jeans hugged her hips, and a rust-red blouse with a jean jacket over it showed off her curves. Her hair, worked into a mane of dark tight spirals, moved as she walked, underscoring her smooth stride. She turned and I saw her face. She was striking: a heart-shaped face, skin the color of coffee, with smart dark eyes and a full, sensual mouth.

Eduardo picked up the next container and saw the woman. His face fell. “Hi, Keira.”

Ha! So that was what Jim’s sister looked like.

Keira winked at Eduardo. “Hello, delicious.”

All of the blood drained from Eduardo’s face. The container whistled through the air, cleared the deck, and plunged into the water on the other side.

Keira laughed, a low contralto chuckle, and kept going.

“Oops,” Eduardo called out.

“What the hell?” Curran growled.

“I’m sorry, that one was lighter.”

“You threw it, you fish it out.”

If that container was the one with my herbal supplies and weapons, I’d be really put out.

Keira walked up the plank. “Hey, Barabas.” She offered me her hand. “Keira. Jim’s sister.”

“Kate. Jim’s friend.” I shook her hand. Good grip.

“Hi, Raphael. And you must be Andrea. From the Order, right?” Keira asked.

“Yes,” Andrea said.

“Good to meet you.”

“What’s the deal with you and Eduardo?” Barabas asked.

Keira grinned. “It’s a funny story. When Eduardo first came to the city, he decided our laws didn’t apply to him and he failed to come and say hi. Jim sent me to fetch him. I might have hunted him a little. For fun.”

“Hunted?” Barabas asked.

“Mm-hm.” She smiled, a slow lazy parting of lips. “I also might have implied that I find buffalo scrumptious.”

A Pack Jeep pulled up to the pier. The doors opened and the Jeep disgorged Doolittle and two of his assistants. The Pack medic surveyed the ship, nodded, plucked a bag from the back of the Jeep, and headed up the plank. The assistants followed him, carrying bags and cases.

Ummm. “What’s going on?”

“No idea.” Barabas pondered Doolittle. “Whatever it is, it’s not my fault.”

“Hello.” Doolittle climbed aboard. “Please direct me toward the cabins.”

“Why do you need the cabins? Are you coming with us?”

He drew himself to his full height. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“When was this decided?” Curran hadn’t said anything about it to me. Nor had Doolittle mentioned it when I came to see him.

“It was decided this morning. The cabins, milady?”

Hmmm. Maybe Curran in his typical fashion didn’t tell me. I pointed at the stairs. “Straight down.”

“This way.” Doolittle went down the stairs. The assistants followed.

Barabas leaned over the side and vomited into the wind.

“You do realize we’re not even out to sea?” Saiman asked from behind us.

Barabas flipped him off without looking.

Saiman shook his head.

Something had occurred to me. “Saiman, how loud are those magic generators?” Riding in a car powered by enchanted water did a number on one’s hearing. A generator was likely much bigger.

“The engine room is significantly larger than the space under a typical car hood,” Saiman said. “The ship generators are suspended in water rather than enclosing it, as car motors do, and the engine room itself is soundproofed. You should hear a pleasant hum, nothing more. Otherwise, the sailors would go insane from the constant noise.”

He went on.

Half an hour later, the last crate was loaded and secured. Doolittle’s assistants left. The crew moved about the ship in a complex dance, getting ready to sail. Andrea and Raphael moved on. The last family members left the ship.

Barabas surveyed the crowd gathered on the pier. His upper lip trembled in the beginning of a sneer. “Fuck it.”

He turned, barely avoiding Curran, and went down the stairs.

His Furriness leaned on the rail next to me. “What’s his problem?”

I kept my voice low. “Ethan didn’t come to say good-bye. A few days ago Ethan told Barabas that he wasn’t sure they had a future together. That’s why I had to talk Jezebel out of breaking Ethan’s legs.”

Curran shook his head. “I guess he’s sure now.”

“Yep.”

The deckhands cast off the lines.

“He said four enchanted water generators, right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“The rule is, the bigger the magic engine, the longer it takes. Four giant generators, and the crew is what, two dozen people? I wonder how long it will take them to get us started.” We could be sitting in port for another hour.

“Why do I smell Doolittle?” Curran asked.

“He went through here on the way to his cabin.”

“Ah. Wait, what?”

“He said he’s coming with us. I thought that was your idea.”

“What?”

“He said it was decided.”

“It is.” Doolittle came up the ladder. “I decided it.”

The deck around us was suddenly silent. Everyone looked at Curran. I decided to look at him too, so I wouldn’t feel left out.

“Why?” Curran asked quietly.

“Do you know what goes into panacea?”

“I know when I smell it,” Curran said.

“But you don’t know if it’s potent. You don’t know if it will actually do what they say it will do. You don’t know how to test it.”

“What about the Pack?”

“Please. I’m leaving the Pack in the care of five medmages based in a state-of-the-art facility. You will have only me.” Doolittle surveyed us. “I’ve brought half of the people here back from the brink of death. Left to your own devices, you lose what small drop of common sense you have and do things like running through fire, breaking your bones, and taking on creatures of much larger size. If you persist in this foolishness, I should be there to make sure at least some of you get home alive.”

Doolittle didn’t quite bare his teeth, but if he had fur, it would’ve stood on end.

Curran smiled. “We appreciate having you on board, Doctor.”

Doolittle blinked. He had expected a bigger fight, and now Curran had cut his feet from under him. “That’s right,” he finally managed, then turned around and walked away.

Saiman walked onto the deck and stopped near the nose of the ship. “Your attention, please!”

Everyone looked at him.

“We’re about to sail. I ask you to please be silent so the crew can begin.”

Everyone shut up.

Saiman leaned back. A subtle change came over him. He seemed to belong here on the deck of the ship. He opened his mouth and sang out, in a rough but clear voice.

“Old Storm Along is dead and gone!”

The crew caught the melody and sang out in a chorus.
“Ay, ay, ay, Mr. Storm Along!”

“Old Storm Along is dead and gone!” Saiman called out, louder.

“Ay, ay, ay, Mr. Storm Along!”

Something stirred beneath the ship like a slumbering giant slowly waking up from a deep sleep.

“It’s a sea shanty,” Curran whispered to me.

Magic streamed from Saiman and the crew, melting together, seeping into the steel bones of the ship, as if they were at once bringing it to life with their voices and making it theirs in the process.