Leashing the Tempest
Page 15
I considered our options. I had a series of sigils on my inner arm tattooed in white ink: one of them was a temporary spell that could render me nearly invisible. Might be able to use this to find the handheld VHF radio, but I wasn’t entirely sure how well it covered up scent. Wasn’t sure I wanted to find out, either.
Even if I could make it back without her attacking me, even if we could radio for help, what would happen when help came? If the captain was right, and she’d taken down his other passengers, what would she do to the rescue team? Or to us?
I wasn’t taking a chance. Not with my family and friend on the boat.
Still, there was something I could do, and it hadn’t failed me yet.
“Can you still use your weather knack?” I asked the captain.
“Yes.”
I held up a hand and shook my head. “Don’t use it quite yet.”
“Why?”
“Your mermaid is Æthyric. And that means she can be bound.”
“That’s how they transported her here from Russia,” the captain agreed.
I gave him a tight smile and reached inside my jacket pocket. “Let’s set a trap, shall we?”
It was a pain in the ass, what with the cramped space and the boat rocking and the pressure of being moments away from death at sea, but I managed to draw an Æthyric level binding triangle on the floor of the captain’s quarters with a broken stick of red ocher chalk. Everyone but the old man sat on the narrow bunk, an unhappy audience squished together like sardines.
“Okay, Christie. Ready to play bait?”
Sweat beaded on the bridge of his nose. “Not really.”
“Stand here,” I instructed, ignoring him and pointing a narrow space between the base of the triangle and the outer cabin wall.
“You sure you can trap her? She’s fast.”
“I’m sure.” I wasn’t.
Caduceus in one hand, I knelt by the side of the door on the other side of my handiwork, which amounted to a potent series of scrawled arcane symbols and words forming three sides of the trap and ready to be awakened with magick. After loosening my neck, I exhaled and wielded a pocketknife I’d borrowed from Lon. It only took a few quick gouges to scratch out an integral symbol on the doorframe that had been holding the cloaking spell together. Without it, the bright-white Heka charging the spe>
I dropped the pocketknife and unlocked the door. Slid it open. Crouched out of sight.
We were now sitting ducks.
Some kinds of magick are semi-permanent and all-inclusive, like the ward on the yacht and the cloaking spell: when activated, they can be crossed freely. As long as the cloaking spell was charged and the symbols intact, you could step in and out of the room without worrying about breaking the spell. It’s like a public park: anyone can use it.
But a binding trap is different. It’s temporary, and it has a one-way charge. As long as the charge is active, whatever is trapped inside it cannot leave; however, it can be broken from the outside. All it took was a single toe over the triangle’s border to fizzle the charge.
This meant that I had to light the charge while the demon was inside the trap. That could be tricky. If I didn’t trap the Rusalka mermaid in time, she could move right through the uncharged trap and attack the captain. I had a tiny window to charge it while she was standing inside the triangle . . . before she wised up to the situation.
It was a risk, sure, but so were our other choices. I looked up at Jupe, who would, if I failed, have to rely on Lon’s flare gun to protect him from the Rusalka. I hoped to God it wouldn’t come to that.
My hands shook. Heart hammered against my rib cage. I waited, muscles straining, as I listened for movement outside the quarters.
It didn’t take long.
I heard a clatter in the salon. The sound of flesh slapping on kitchen tile. And when a bolt of lightning briefly cast her slithering shadow along the far wall of the corridor, I held my breath and braced myself.
A pair of large, flat feet stepped through the doorway. The skin was covered in glossy, iridescent scales the color of dried seaweed. The bone structure of her legs was decidedly nonhuman: the two legs almost melded together as one when her feet were aligned.
And it only got stranger above the waist.
She had small breasts, a curvy, hourglass waist, and long arms ending in webbed fingers. And sitting on her shoulders like a mythological dragon or something out of a Lovecraft story were three slender necks bearing the three heads I’d earlier seen in silhouette.
I’d summoned a few demons with weird appendages: tails, cloven hooves, wings . . . but I’d never seen a multi-headed demon outside a medieval engraving in a musty goetic tome.
And the faces on the three heads weren’t ugly. Despite being hairless and covered in brackish scales, her faces were quite lovely. All three of them.
“Richard,” she said from each her mouths, slightly out of sync. Her voices were roughly etched with a strange vibrato. Rows of gills lining the sloping tops of her shoulders opened and closed when she talked.
“Hello, Onna,” the captain replied nervously.
“Where ever have you been?”
She stepped feflhe steparther into the room as Christie crushed himself against the wall. She had one foot in the binding. I just needed her to take one more step.
“You are hurt,” one of her heads said, craning to see him better with shiny black eyes that didn’t blink.
“Uh . . . yes . . .”
She held out a hand and stepped into the middle of the triangle.
Even if I could make it back without her attacking me, even if we could radio for help, what would happen when help came? If the captain was right, and she’d taken down his other passengers, what would she do to the rescue team? Or to us?
I wasn’t taking a chance. Not with my family and friend on the boat.
Still, there was something I could do, and it hadn’t failed me yet.
“Can you still use your weather knack?” I asked the captain.
“Yes.”
I held up a hand and shook my head. “Don’t use it quite yet.”
“Why?”
“Your mermaid is Æthyric. And that means she can be bound.”
“That’s how they transported her here from Russia,” the captain agreed.
I gave him a tight smile and reached inside my jacket pocket. “Let’s set a trap, shall we?”
It was a pain in the ass, what with the cramped space and the boat rocking and the pressure of being moments away from death at sea, but I managed to draw an Æthyric level binding triangle on the floor of the captain’s quarters with a broken stick of red ocher chalk. Everyone but the old man sat on the narrow bunk, an unhappy audience squished together like sardines.
“Okay, Christie. Ready to play bait?”
Sweat beaded on the bridge of his nose. “Not really.”
“Stand here,” I instructed, ignoring him and pointing a narrow space between the base of the triangle and the outer cabin wall.
“You sure you can trap her? She’s fast.”
“I’m sure.” I wasn’t.
Caduceus in one hand, I knelt by the side of the door on the other side of my handiwork, which amounted to a potent series of scrawled arcane symbols and words forming three sides of the trap and ready to be awakened with magick. After loosening my neck, I exhaled and wielded a pocketknife I’d borrowed from Lon. It only took a few quick gouges to scratch out an integral symbol on the doorframe that had been holding the cloaking spell together. Without it, the bright-white Heka charging the spe>
I dropped the pocketknife and unlocked the door. Slid it open. Crouched out of sight.
We were now sitting ducks.
Some kinds of magick are semi-permanent and all-inclusive, like the ward on the yacht and the cloaking spell: when activated, they can be crossed freely. As long as the cloaking spell was charged and the symbols intact, you could step in and out of the room without worrying about breaking the spell. It’s like a public park: anyone can use it.
But a binding trap is different. It’s temporary, and it has a one-way charge. As long as the charge is active, whatever is trapped inside it cannot leave; however, it can be broken from the outside. All it took was a single toe over the triangle’s border to fizzle the charge.
This meant that I had to light the charge while the demon was inside the trap. That could be tricky. If I didn’t trap the Rusalka mermaid in time, she could move right through the uncharged trap and attack the captain. I had a tiny window to charge it while she was standing inside the triangle . . . before she wised up to the situation.
It was a risk, sure, but so were our other choices. I looked up at Jupe, who would, if I failed, have to rely on Lon’s flare gun to protect him from the Rusalka. I hoped to God it wouldn’t come to that.
My hands shook. Heart hammered against my rib cage. I waited, muscles straining, as I listened for movement outside the quarters.
It didn’t take long.
I heard a clatter in the salon. The sound of flesh slapping on kitchen tile. And when a bolt of lightning briefly cast her slithering shadow along the far wall of the corridor, I held my breath and braced myself.
A pair of large, flat feet stepped through the doorway. The skin was covered in glossy, iridescent scales the color of dried seaweed. The bone structure of her legs was decidedly nonhuman: the two legs almost melded together as one when her feet were aligned.
And it only got stranger above the waist.
She had small breasts, a curvy, hourglass waist, and long arms ending in webbed fingers. And sitting on her shoulders like a mythological dragon or something out of a Lovecraft story were three slender necks bearing the three heads I’d earlier seen in silhouette.
I’d summoned a few demons with weird appendages: tails, cloven hooves, wings . . . but I’d never seen a multi-headed demon outside a medieval engraving in a musty goetic tome.
And the faces on the three heads weren’t ugly. Despite being hairless and covered in brackish scales, her faces were quite lovely. All three of them.
“Richard,” she said from each her mouths, slightly out of sync. Her voices were roughly etched with a strange vibrato. Rows of gills lining the sloping tops of her shoulders opened and closed when she talked.
“Hello, Onna,” the captain replied nervously.
“Where ever have you been?”
She stepped feflhe steparther into the room as Christie crushed himself against the wall. She had one foot in the binding. I just needed her to take one more step.
“You are hurt,” one of her heads said, craning to see him better with shiny black eyes that didn’t blink.
“Uh . . . yes . . .”
She held out a hand and stepped into the middle of the triangle.
