The Mariner (5 page)

With little grace, the Mariner pulled himself onto the decking, hitting his chin upon the boards. There he lay, blood leaking from his wound and from his mouth.

The leg would need treating, but he had no energy to tackle it. Breaths entered and escaped his lungs in great haggard gasps whilst his body shook from the bitter cold.

The women had been created by the eel. He had no doubt about that. They’d been given substance to lure him down, and then dropped like a puppet show when it went for the kill. How had he been so stupid? To be lured down by such an obvious fantasy?

He would have to be on his guard from now on. The
eel
was fishing for
him
.

4
BEFORE. THE WOLF AND THE WIDOW

A
BSINTH
A
LCOTT SQUATTED ON THE
filthy carpet and rolled himself a cigarette. He had no food, he had no ship – he
certainly
had no soap, but tobacco was one thing he had a lot of. Buckets and buckets of the stuff; enough glorious tar to fill his lungs and then coat a roof. What he didn’t have (more pressing than the soap situation) was a crew. They had all died in the latest raid - hence why Absinth had so much tobacco all to himself. He rooted through a bag by his side, allowing himself to be picky, choosing only the choicest pinches of the herb. Indulgence in tobacco was a sin he could easily allow, the skins would run out much sooner. After that, a pipe would suffice.

Despite his age, Absinth squatted with ease. His legs were trim and his back strong. Would he have been in such good shape if the world hadn’t changed? If he hadn’t been forced to fight to survive? He doubted it. Yet while his hair had deserted him, muscles had emerged, growing stronger with every passing year. In the future they would dwindle, a long and inevitable slide into frailty, but for now that day had yet to come. Sometimes he would marvel at his thin and gangly arms (a trait he could never shake off), sticks now bestowed with small yet firm muscles lined with bulging veins. Certainly a lot better than the weak flab of his youth. And a hell of a lot better than the paunch of middle-age.

He’d been in his room for some time, wondering how long Isabel would be with this new fella, the one she’d found wandering about on the pier. Once she’d led him back to their dilapidated house, keeping him distracted from the old man’s presence, Absinth had taken the liberty of exploring the stranger’s ship. It was old, startlingly so, practically a nautical antique. But it would do.

The main problem was not the age, but the sheer size of it! That made Absinth nervous. No way could it be sailed by just one man. Yet where was this fella’s crew?

The house had been quiet for some time. At first, as he’d crept back inside, he’d heard them. Isabel’s typical moans and cries, underlined by the stranger’s grunts. That had finished ages ago. The poor sap would be dead by now, sent from sleep to death with a smile round his throat. Absinth couldn’t blame him, if Isabel ever offered him her bed he’d take it, despite knowing the lethal consequences. Young pussy was too good an opportunity to pass.

But Absinth was suspicious by nature, and Isabel, sensing his distrust, hadn’t risked seduction. Instead the black widow tolerated the presence of the wolf; they preyed upon different beasts so could share the same lair. More than once, he’d tried to understand her motives. Absinth was a ‘tax and spend’ kind of guy. For instance, he’d ‘taxed’ those people in Sighisoara tobacco for the right to live, and now he was going to ‘spend’ it. Isabel didn’t dabble in the spending side. She claimed to be saving for some sort of religious pilgrimage, confirming in the old man’s mind that she was completely bonkers. The world had fallen apart, there was no Pope.

Absinth lit his cigarette in the fire, the flames singeing his hairy knuckles. Black soot had long ago blotted out any design on the wallpaper, though Absinth didn’t mind. This was a place to rest and recuperate. A place to smoke and plot. Nothing more.

Steps. Down the stairs. Isabel must have finished going through the man’s pockets. Yet why were the footsteps so heavy and slow?

“Isabel? Hear any sweet nothings?” he shouted above the crackling fire. “Like, where his
fucking
crew are? I need them.”

But it was not the Widow who walked into the room, she was limp in her killer’s arms.

Through the smoke, the two seamen appraised each other. The Mariner, bathed yet always filthy, lank hair thick from sea salt and grime. Absinth, gnarled by years and sinewy from toil.

He looked at Isabel and noted remotely that the blood that covered her face clashed with her copper hair. Still, a fashion faux pax was the least of her trouble. She was dead.

“How did it happen?” he asked, curiosity in place of emotion.

The Mariner didn’t respond, didn’t even seem to hear. He stumbled across the room as if in a daze, and lowered the body beside the fire.

Poor Isabel. Still, the bitch had it coming, no doubt about it. How many had she lured to death in that room? Absinth had no idea, she’d been doing it long before he’d met her. Inevitable that one day she’d find someone too quick to cut, or too messed up to spunk ‘n’ sleep.

“You saw her go for the knife huh?”

“What?”

“I asked if she went for her knife?”

The Mariner struggled as if the memory were a wet fish. “No knife. We were making love. And..”

“Yes?” Absinth thought his own voice sounded rather too keen for his ears. Perhaps he should try to sound more sympathetic? Would be difficult though. Why should he care about a whore’s death? Lord knows another death meant little in this place.

“I killed her.” The Mariner stared at a bloody knuckle as if he’d never seen his own fists before. He repeated it again. He’d killed her.

“By accident?”

“No. I just...” the Mariner struggled to find words. “One moment everything was fine. The next... Blood everywhere. I couldn’t help it.”

A sexual nutbag,
thought Absinth.
Jeeesus Christ Almighty! He probably came as he did it too, bloody freak.

“Easily done,” he said, offering his cigarette to the Mariner. “I once smacked a girl in the cunt after shagging ‘er. Don’t know why, just did. I’d pulled out and was getting dressed when I saw my jizz in ‘er fanny. It was trickling out, no,
gushing
out, and for some reason I just lost it. Punched her right between the legs. Was like punching moss. Didn’t go as far as you though, back in those days there were consequences. Not like now.”

“What’s beaver?”

Absinth blinked, trying to keep up with this man’s insanities.

“You think we should eat them?”

Absinth finally realized what the Mariner was getting at. About his triangular chest clung a tattered tee-shirt proclaiming to the world, ‘Save Trees, Eat Beaver’, the words peppered with tiny burnt holes like machine gun fire. “It’s just a fuckin’ tee-shirt.”

“Oh.”

“So where did you get the Neptune?”

“The Neptune?”

“Yes, your ship!” Absinth cried, his excitement bubbling over.

“I didn’t know she was called the Neptune.”

Absinth couldn’t conceal his amazement. “You mean you’ve been sailing an antique, a piece of history, and you didn’t know?”

The Mariner shook his head, clearly he didn’t.

“That’s the Neptune. Took convicts to Australia. Must have been around 1780 it all happened.”

“I don’t know where those places are. Did it succeed?”

“In a way. Over a hundred and fifty convicts died on the journey. Terrible what the crew did to ‘em. Terrible. I read about it when tracing back my family-tree.” He focused the Mariner with a wily stare. “A lot of bad memories aboard that vessel, I’ll bet.”

“No, no memories.”

A blank book this one. Nothing inside that head but a desire to cum and make girls bleed. Useful.

“My name is Absinth Alcott, and like you I’m a sailor. A captain when the mood takes me. What’s yours?”

“I don’t have a name.”

“Bloody hell. Done something even worse than killing this honey here? Ok, we’ll play it your way. Your name will be...” Absinth struggled, searching his memory banks. He snapped his fingers. “Claude! Pleased to meet you, Claude.”

Between them, a fly made a daring dive for Isabel’s corpse, only to be repelled by smoke. It banked, hoping to bring itself around for a second go.

“So where to next, Claude? To which horizon will you be sailing?”

The Mariner, still in shock, tried to assess the old man. He liked him, despite his vile nicotine stained hands and teeth, despite his frank talk of previous thuggery. The Mariner couldn’t bring himself to cast judgement, hadn’t he just killed a women in cold blood? Didn’t he have demons of his own?

He leaned forward, deciding to put his trust in Absinth. “I’m searching for an island. It’s protected, ringed by defences. Somewhere on that island is the truth. The truth to why the world’s falling apart, the secrets that we have all forgotten.”

“An Oracle?”

“I suppose it could be. I don’t know myself, I just know the answers are to be found there.”

“Contained within an island?”

“Yes, the island is ‘protected’. Whatever that means.”

The Mariner passed back the cigarette, which Absinth toked deep upon, trying to hide his racing mind and soaring excitement. “How do you know all this?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just... do.”

Absinth threw the butt into the fire and clapped his hands. His agitated guest recoiled as if struck. “Well isn’t this a turn up for the books?”

“What is?”

“Over the past year I’ve been speaking to sailors, not like yourself, these were pirates and all sorts of scum-bags. Time and again I would hear a rumour. Sometimes it got silly, the usual storyteller fluff, but ultimately the same core facts again an’ again. An island, ringed by coral, upon which a woman lives. A woman who knows
everything
.”

“Everything?”

“That’s what I said, yeah! Everything! An Oracle!”

All uncertainty, shock and vulnerability fell from the Mariner in that moment. So much so it scared Absinth a little.

“Where?”

“East of here,” Absinth babbled. “Somewhere east. I don’t know. You have to keep going. It’s a long voyage.”

“Then I must begin now.” The Mariner stood, gathering purpose.

“Wait! Where are your crew?”

The Mariner’s paused, confused at the suggestion. “I don’t have a crew. Well, just one, she’s outside.” Having remembered his ward, he called for her.

“Only one crew member?” Absinth was amazed. That couldn’t be true! How on earth did he sail such an enormous ship? “Then I should come with you. I’m good at putting a crew together. Several places to recruit from. You supply the ship, I’ll supply the men. How does that sound?”

“I’d be glad,” the Mariner lied, thinking to himself that he’d rather have no more crew than two. A soft pattering of feet announced their third. “I want you to meet my friend. Grace.”

The devil edged in, looking about the room for a possible trap. Her snout was doing the most work and she let out a snarl when she found the old man’s scent,

Absinth leaped to his feet with a jolt, backing away.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Isabel said she’s a tazzy devil.”

“I can see it’s a Tasmanian devil, I mean what the fuck’s it doin’ here?”

The Mariner looked from devil to the man and back again. “I told you. She’s my crew.”

Absinth shook his head. “I’m not boarding your ship with one of those things. Can’t fucking stand dogs. Leave it ‘ere.”

Grace’s brown eyes turned up as if to ask the Mariner if he were considering such an outrageous notion. Her front paws fidgeted in the gloom.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Alcott. Her place is not up for negotiation.”

Absinth’s face turned to a snarl. The change was bestial in its ferocity. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? You prick! You tellin’ me that fuckin’ rat is better than me?” Even accounting for the orange glare of the flames, the old man’s cheeks had gone bright red from humiliated rage.

“No. But she was first.”

“Get the fuck out of here, you murderer!” Absinth tensed as if ready for a fight. “You’re not welcome. Not you, not your rat, nor your fuckin’ ship neither!”

The Mariner didn’t need to be told twice, he had no stomach for a second death that night. He left, and the further they got from the wolf and widow’s house, the happier Grace became.