“Mostly all. I’ve never met a land-walker who knew of them before. At least none what didn’t fight against them in battle and come up the short for it.”
Bart flashed him a taunting grin. “There’s a reason me brothers and I were kept secret from the world, and why Bane brought me and Will onboard this ship as part of his crew, and placed us as his seconds-in-command.”
And Kalderstillwondered why, given their sorry temperaments, but he knew from experience that Bart wouldn’t answer. Neither would Will. They were as cryptic and private as he was about their kind. Bloody bastards both.
But that was neither here nor there at the moment. They were welcome to their secrets.
He had a much more pressing issue at stake. “Anyway, Mr. Meers,” he reminded Bart in his most sarcastic tone, “the point of this most illuminating discussion is that said demon just took off with the lass toward the others, and none’s the wiser for it.”
“Is he harmful to them?”
He supposed that depended on the definition one used for “harm.”
“Well, speak up, man!” Bart snapped. “Does he intend to hurt our crew?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think, or you don’t know?”
Kalder shrugged in total frustration. In all honesty, he didn’t know what Chthamalus had planned in that squiddy little mind of his. While he didn’t think Chthamalus was a direct threat per se, he still wasn’t completely sure why the demon was here and trying to protect him. “You interrupted us before I could finish my interrogation and find out what’s going on. If he was sent by someone else to spy here, or what for.”
Grumbling, Bart took him by the arm and headed after them.
Normally Kalder would have had the bastard’s bullocks for daring to manhandle him in such a high-handed manner, but his curiosity was too great at the moment for him to protest it too much. Especially since he had a bad, bad feeling in his gut.
More than that, he felt as if something or someone was watching him. The sensation crept over his skin like a living, breathing creature.
Unnerved, he hesitated and glanced about, half expecting the very air to be spying upon him.
While that might be a bit unorthodox, he wouldn’t put anything past his older brother’s abilities, especially with Chthamalus here. Varice had always been a treacherous bastard that way.
Worse than all his other brothers combined.
All Kalder knew for certain was that something was wrong, andChthamalus being here was just the beginning of it. Something was definitely rotten in the ocean, and it wasn’t just the bilge water, dead fish.…
Or Bart’s smelly shoes.
***
Cameron patted her new friend’s hand comfortingly as she led her into the cabin and shut the door. Sancha was asleep in her bunk with her long white hair spilled out over her pillow.
For once Belle was resting in the bunk beside her, snoring softly. Even Valynda was asleep, and she rarely rested. Only Janice was awake, and she, their resident Dark-Huntress, was reading by candlelight.
She looked up from her book to pin a peculiar frown on Cameron. “What the devil?” Suspicion hung heavy in her dark eyes as she swept a gimlet frown over their dripping, shivering guest.
Cameron pulled the girl into the light so that Janice could better see her, then wondered why she bothered since Janice’s Dark-Hunter sight didn’t need any light whatsoever to focus with. In fact, she saw better without it, but it was easy to forget that since the woman acted more human than most humans Cameron knew, which was probably why Janice used the candlelight to read by when she didn’t really need it. It was more for their benefit than hers, as it kept up the appearance that Janice was still human and not a soulless Dark-Hunter demon slayer living amongst them.
Unlike the Deadmen on the ship, Dark-Hunters didn’t answer to Thorn or Captain Bane. They were well-trained warriors who’d soldtheir souls to the Greek goddess Artemis for a single Act of Vengeance against the person who’d betrayed them by wrongfully killing them and their loved ones. After they were given a single day to fulfill their pact, they were then conscripted for eternity to fight in Artemis’s immortal army against the Daimons who preyed on human souls for sustenance, as well as to help others, such as Thorn and his Deadmen, police any preternatural predators out to make meals off mankind.
Janice had come to their crew after a group of Daimons had set her adrift at sea in an open dinghy, hoping she’d die under the burning rays of the sun—something as lethal to a Dark-Hunter as it was to their special breed of demon. Luckily, the Deadmen had seen her first and known her for what she was, thus saving her life and giving her a new post as part of their motley band of sailors.
Grateful for her friendship and nocturnal Dark-Hunter ways that prevented her from living the normal hours of a daylight creature, Cameron presented their latest guest to Janice. “Would you believe Bart and Kalder had her cornered on the deck and weren’t rendering aid to the wee thing? Rather, they were gawking at her undressed state?”
Janice laughed at her obvious ire. “’Course they were. She’s naked.”
Why was she so amused while Cameron was beside herself over their obnoxious and scandalous behavior? “Are you not horrified?”
“Only be shocked if they weren’t, given the rather impressive proportions of her curves.” She winked at Cameron. “Or the fact she be a demon, love.”
