Wake of the Bloody Angel (19 page)

“Captain Shaw of the
Copper Lance,
this is Eddie LaCrosse and Jane Argo,” Clift said.

Shaw stared at Jane. “
The
Jane Argo?”

“Definitely
a
Jane Argo,” she said with a grin.

“It’s an honor to meet you.” He blatantly looked her up and down. “You certainly live up to the tales about you.”

“Ahem,” the harbormaster said. He was a little round man, with leathery skin and a gold hoop in one earlobe. The wooden placard on his desk read
HENSE MOLEWORTH, HARBORMASTER
. A man whose name and job had the same initials must’ve found the right career. “I hate to interrupt this nautical good fellow society, but may I ask what you people are doing here? You have to wait your turn and—”

“Why are all these ships hiding here?” Clift interrupted.

Moleworth rubbed the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “We have a harbor full of unpaid, unwelcome guests who refuse to leave because they believe something supernatural is out there swallowing up ships’ crews. And for all I know, they may be right.”

Clift turned to Shaw. “Is that what you think?”

“I wouldn’t be so dramatic about it, but it’s the damndest thing. These empty ships started turning up six months ago. We found two passenger vessels abandoned, and brought them in. Then five days ago, we came across the
Indigo Ray.
Totally empty, not a thing out of place. There was even a kettle with a fire still under it.”

“And no indication of what happened?” I asked.

Shaw looked at me. “You’re not a sailor.”

“He’s my charter,” Clift said.

“You’re chartering now?” Shaw asked.

“Only this once. And only for—” He nodded at Jane. “—special circumstances.”

“Well, if you want to get out of here, you better do it before your crew hears about the
Ray
. Once mine did, they flat-out refused to leave. Even talked about going back on the account if I try to force them. The bunch of yellow flying fish.”

“They’re that scared?” I asked Shaw.

“The
Ray
was no pussy willow,” he said.

“No,” Clift agreed. “It wasn’t. They had more captures than anyone else last year.” He turned to us. “Come on. Shaw’s right—we’re leaving.”

WE
left the harbormaster’s office, but we didn’t head back to our wherry. Instead we returned to the quarantined ships and Weston the guard.

“I want to go aboard the
Indigo Ray,
” Clift said, softly so that the other guards wouldn’t hear.

“I can’t allow that, Cap’n,” Weston whispered back. “Nothing personal.”

“You said I once gave you a fair shake. That’s all I’m asking from you. We need to go aboard and look around. The authority that told you to keep people off the ship would understand, and would grant me permission, but that would take time we don’t have. We won’t move things around or take anything off. We just need to look.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Clift reached into his pocket. Weston said stiffly, “I don’t bribe, sir.”

“I’m not going to bribe you. I’m going to show you a piece of parchment. Only you and I will know what it says. If I say it’s permission to investigate the
Indigo Ray
signed by Queen Remy herself, and you don’t contradict me, who’s to say either of us is lying?”

Clift produced a small rolled parchment, untied it, and held it for Weston’s perusal. The guard looked at it, then at Clift, his face impassive. At last he said, “Very well, Captain Clift.” He turned to his nearest coworker. “Cap’n Clift and his party have permission to go aboard the
Indigo Ray.
Pass them through.”

“Aye,” said the other guard.

Weston said, “There’s some launches tied at the end of the pier. You’ll have to row yourselves, I’m afraid.”

“I remember how,” Clift said. “Thank you, Mr. Weston. If you ever want to return to the sea, there’s fair work and wage for you on the
Red Cow.
”

“Much obliged, Cap’n. It might just happen.”

THE
Indigo Ray
was essentially the same ship as the
Red Cow,
and searching it did not take long. It was hard to know what to think about it, since it was obvious others had been here before us: chalk outlines showed where various items had rested before being removed. The captain’s cabin was closed off with the yellow ribbon of authority, but we slipped under it and went inside.

The double
X
was carved on the door, just as Fernelli had described on the
Mellow Wine.
As the others poked about, I stared at this symbol, struck by something I couldn’t quite pull forward from the back of my mind. It made sense that a criminal would mark the scene of his crime, especially if his future success depended as much on reputation as it did actual prowess. That was why so many pirates had their own flag designs. They
wanted
potential victims to know who they were.

“The medical box is gone,” Jane said. “Just like on that merchant ship.”

“The logbook’s gone, too,” Clift said. “I’d love to know their last noted position.”

“If there was a pattern, don’t you think the harbormaster would’ve mentioned it?” Jane said.

“You’re getting soft,” Clift said. “You trust quill-pushers now?”

Jane ignored him and joined me to stare at the door. “What do you see?”

“Something,” I said. “Just not sure what yet.”

She leaned close to my ear. “This isn’t our enigma, Eddie. Maybe we should try to find another ship. I know Dylan: he’s going to go after this. He takes any insult to the guild personally, and it’s hard to be more insulting than to leave one of their own ships in this condition.”

“I heard that,” Clift said.

“Stop eavesdropping,” Jane shot back.

“You’re across the room, it’s impossible not to,” Clift replied.

Suddenly the
XX
image resolved itself. I said, “I’m not so sure this isn’t our mystery, too. Give me your knife.”

Jane took the blade from her belt, and I held it horizontally across the middle of the two
X
’s. I asked, “Now what do you see?”

She got it at once. “Ha!” she bellowed in delight.

Clift joined us. “What? I don’t see anything but two
X
’s.”

“No,” I said. “With a line dividing them, it becomes a
W
on top of an
M
.”

“For Wendell Marteen,” Jane added, still grinning.

Clift stared at the symbol. “Is this,” he said at last, “what you’d consider a ‘clue’?”

“It is. I can’t say for certain that it does stand for Wendell Marteen, but it’s a coincidence if it doesn’t.”

“Are you willing to start searching for the source of these ghost ships under the belief that it will lead to Marteen? Because I can’t continue the charter otherwise. This is too serious, and the
Cow
needs to get back to her real job.”

“Yeah, I’ll go along with it.”

He smiled. “Then let’s get to work.”

WHEN
we climbed back onto the dock from the launch, I felt eyes on me at once. It took me a moment to spot my watcher, but there he was: a man in a faded jacket and patched trousers, with a black handkerchief around his neck. His poxscarred face resembled the cracked bed of a river after the waters had dried up. He was just beyond the docks, staring at us—at me—as if I owed him money. People gave him a wide berth.

Jane saw him, too. “Friend of yours?” she said softly. I shook my head. “Never saw him before.”

The man pointed at me. I did as well, raising my eyebrows in a question:
Me?
He nodded.

“I’ll meet you at the boat,” I said.

“I’ll come with you,” Jane said.

“No,” I said, and my voice sounded strange even to me. “I want to talk to him alone.”

“Why?”

I wasn’t sure myself. “I just do. I’ll tell you what he says.”

“Okay,” Jane said, although she clearly thought I was bonkers.

I went through the cordon of guards, down the steps, and onto the muddy shore, where the man awaited me.

“You wanted to see me?” I asked when I was face-to- face.

He smelled of mud and fish.

“You be the man with the hole in his heart?”

I assumed he meant my scar, although I couldn’t imagine how he knew about it. “Maybe. Who wants to know?”

“My name isn’t important. Just that I hear things before they happen.”

I smiled wryly. “And you heard something about me, right?

How much will it cost me to find out?”

“I don’t want your money,” he said with a twitch. “I just want to tell you that you will find the man you seek. The man with black hair.”

I felt goose bumps on my back. I tried to stay nonchalant.

“Oh. Well . . . thanks.”

“And you will find him alive.”

“That’s good, too.”

“But don’t seek after his gold. It’s got too much blood on it.”

“I’m not interested in his gold.”

He laughed. “A man may say that, until the gold’s before him.”

“And a man may mean it.”

He shrugged. “As you say. This is my claim, my threatening, and my message.”

“You do your office fairly,” I said in court-speak, and pressed a coin in his hand.

He jumped back as if scalded, and the money landed in the mud at my feet. “I told you, I don’t want your money!” He rushed away toward town and disappeared back into the crowd. I bent and picked up the coin. I wasn’t a superstitious man, but I’d seen enough to convince myself that I had little knowledge of how the universe truly worked. I took his warning under advisement. Very serious advisement.

BACK
at the dock, the two sailors who rowed us from the
Cow
rushed to meet us. “Did you hear, Captain?” one said. “The
Indigo Ray
was found as a ghost ship. They took down a pirate hunter!”

I knew the sailors had no idea who “they” were, which made the concept even scarier. If they got back to the
Cow,
we might be as marooned as the
Copper Lance.
I pulled out my money bag and handed each man a gold coin. “You’re to stay here,” I said. “Learn as much as you can. When we get back, I’ll want a full report.” I looked at Clift. “Right?”

Clift understood. “Right.”

Jane and I rowed while Clift navigated the boat back among the anchored ships. When we got to the
Red Cow,
Clift called for all sails, and in the faint wind, we eased toward the harbor opening. Finally we emerged, the real wind caught us, and we shot forward into the ocean, toward our rendezvous with a nightmare.

chapter FIFTEEN

We
found the
Vile Howl
the next day.

The sunrise revealed an ocean as empty as you could imagine. Somehow knowing every ship was huddled back at Blefuscola added to the effect. It seemed like the only things out here were us and whoever had been raiding the ships. There was a breeze, and the waves had little whitecaps that made the ride rougher than normal.

I stood with Seaton at the starboard bow rail. Jane had watched for a while, but left when it became clear nothing was going to happen quickly. Clift slouched with his arms draped over the wheel without an apparent care in the world; he received reports every few minutes from the foremast crosstrees. So far, they’d been variations of “all clear.”

Suhonen appeared over me. “May I have a word with you, Mr. LaCrosse?” He looked at Seaton. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Seaton.”

The quartermaster did not even look at Suhonen, but he said, “Any trouble, you’ll wake up on the bottom of the sea with lobster claws around your pecker, got me?”

“No trouble, sir,” the big man assured him.

I followed him across the forecastle to the port rail, where a seaman quickly scampered away to give us privacy. “Must be handy to intimidate everyone,” I said.

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “Sometimes it’s just a pisser, though.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“I’d like to ask a favor,” the big man said respectfully. “I’d like to be included in whatever you and Cap’n Jane are doing.”