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Lovely.
The man rarely hovered, so when he did, it usually meant trouble was brewing.
A little of my already thin patience slipped away. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“There are rumors…” His normally strong voice took on a simpering tone that always wore on my nerves. It was so much worse when my head was throbbing and my eyes felt as though someone had thrown sand in them. I gritted my teeth against the sound and motioned for him to go on.
“The demon has supposedly found a lead on new Darling boy.”
Oh.
The first tiny whisper of excitement chased through my veins, and I propped myself up on my elbows. “I suppose that changes things, doesn’t it?”
Back when I’d started my little babysitting duties, the demon had been a formidable opponent who had constantly kept me on my toes. I couldn’t kill the creature. It was far too powerful. Keeping it trapped, however, confined to the island and surrounding waters, had quickly become a game.
Nay, a rivalry of sorts.
It was… entertaining.
Sadly, after centuries—or possibly millennia, it was so hard to tell with the way time slipped and swirled between the many enchanted islands in this realm—the demon’s appetite for escape and revenge seemed to dwindle. Until eventually, there was no fight left in the creature.
Which left me with precious little to do aside from patrolling the terminally uneventful waters and drinking copious amounts of the delicious black rum my men smuggled away from the neighboring shifter island.
But a new Darling meant a new fight was brewing. The demon would lure the boy here and attempt to use his soul to break free of this cursed place.
There had been attempts with other souls. At one time, the number of lost boys—those whose souls had been claimed by the demon—numbered in the hundreds. Now? Only a couple dozen remained.
The demon had killed many of them. As had I. For some, it was a kindness. For others, not so much.
The Darling kids were different. Something about their bloodline made their souls a source of immense power for an immortal demon looking to escape a timeless prison.
I sat up and swung my legs out of bed with a renewed sense of purpose. “William, prepare a team. We’ll be venturing ashore.”
“In the dark, sir?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
A sly smile transformed the other man’s severe features into something bordering on boyish. It was an expression I hadn’t seen in ages, and it called an answering grin to my own lips. I wasn’t the only one looking forward to a little adventure.
“We’ll be ready, Captain.” Then he pivoted on his heel and marched out, barking orders at the men on deck before the door to my quarters had time to swing closed.
I pulled my trousers up over my hips and tugged at the waist ties as I took in the glittering twilight view through the array of windows lining the wall. It was like a veil had been lifted from my vision and, for the first time in eons, things were a little brighter in my little corner of the universe. Even in the dead of night.
* * *
William, or Mr. Smee, as the other men referred to him, was spot on with preparations for the trip to shore, as always. The skiff was fully stocked and the six men he’d chosen to accompany us were both loyal and capable. Of course, if they hadn’t been, they would have been tossed overboard ages ago. There was no room for laziness, disloyalty, or ill manners aboard the Jolly Roger, not in our cursed realm.
Large ships were mostly safe at night, at least when there were no storms roiling the seas and stirring the creatures who dwelled there. But traversing even a short distance of those restless waters after sunset in something as meager as a skiff could be a treacherous undertaking.
“Sirens, sir.” William’s voice was low, but there wasn’t the slightest waver in his words.
Good form, old boy.
“Which side?” I asked quietly.
“Starboard, sir.”
It warmed my heart to hear the formality in my old friend’s voice. Such things might not matter to some, but rules and routine were important. They kept us grounded. Kept us level. And most of all, they kept us civil.
