He snarls, falsely lunging at me, to which I immediately pounce back, smiling with certainty. The three days with Bones were forsomething, then.
Terror streaks through the man’s bloodshot eyes before he takes a few steps back, focused on something behind me—a golden-eyed brute moves unnaturally quick, a long sword pulverizing the man through his chest as he turns around to try and run away, which slices down through his abdomen. He collapses, Basilisk raising a blade with one hand that I couldn’t lift with two. The cat named Jasmine gently struts over and starts drinking the blood as if the freshness is a delicacy.
My father comes near, my heart racing when I try to look for who he was fighting—four dead bodies are strewn about the street, Donna removing her blade from the neck of a fifth one. Dad is covered in blood, panting like how I was on those steps. “You a fucking enemy or what?” Dad asks Basilisk, wiping his face with his forearm, blood smearing.
It’s odd how quickly I’ve associated Ern’s more ragged face with my father’s identity.
“Usually depends on who's paying and who has offended me. Presently, I’m not your enemy,” Basilisk replies, wiping hisblade on the dark cloak of a dead man, seemingly unbothered by Donna’s glare as she still grips her weapons like she’s ready to fight him.
“You ruined that bridge,” I say, and he slowly looks down at me.
“Saw that, did you?” His words are as saturated in sarcasm as he wipes the dead man’s clothes with his blade.
“Othersneeded that bridge.” Meeting his gaze is unnerving, knowing what he can feel within me.
“There are other exits; they just have worse things than Misery’s lapdogs haunting them,” he coolly replies. “We need to keep moving.”
So, he knows of Misery?
“Why are you helping?” Dad asks.
“I owe someone a favor. You’d be surprised what debts can make a man do, including traveling across dangerous seas and returning to a home he’d rather leave behind.”
“I don’t trust you,” Donna replies through tight lips, her stance still aggressive, her shoulder shoving into someone who is too busy staring at one of the bodies, asking who is going to clean this up. “You better share your damn good reason for being near us. Someone like you doesn’t owe favors like these.”
“Poor timing for trust issues,” Basilisk replies, clearly unfazed, spinning his finger. “Like I said, let’s keep moving.”
“I don’t know what the fuck he wants,” Dad says, glancing at Donna, “but everything about his aura is clean. We need to hit Third Row’s tunnel system if we want to be topside in time.”
Basilisk’s eyes gleam. “No can do. It’s infested with Blackwell’s men.” He motions to a street that’s darker than the rest, and much less traveled. “We need to go there, and follow the claw markings in the walls. Should spill us out near the ports.”
Jasmine meows, leaving little bloody paw prints as she stalks around, strutting down to where her master just pointed.
Donna laughs, some blood staining the spaces between her teeth. “You hear this dumbass? Follow him through theGrapnel?”
My eyes widen when I finally piece together what he’s propositioning. Threats of places like the Grapnel were made whenever I’d demand to come down here as a kid; scratch marks are all along those corridors, like grapnel being thrown and then digging into the sides.
Creaturesmake those marks.
“Once you’re done pissing your pants, we can get moving,” Basilisk replies. “They’re creatures of the ocean, coastal really, and Tempest is waiting on us. They’ll leave us alone.”
“You’re with Tempest,” Dad states, more than asks.
“I’m aiding her cause, which is to get Miss Jane to her ship. They’ll let us through for that.”
Donna eyes my dad. “Tempest doesn’t have that kind of sway, does she?”
“She might,” my father breathes out, and nods to the darker alley.
Before Donna can respond, Jasmine hisses in a direction that doesn’t seem to have anything other than someone bringing an empty carriage,alsocomplaining loudly about the bodies.
“She’s hissing because shit we don’t want to fight is that way.”
Donna says, “Well, we could have had two dozen with us if only a bridge had been available.”
“I slowed down that Zenith for you. So you’re welcome,” Basilisk replies, glaring at my father who seems to have a nonverbal conversation with the old mentor. Donna is clearly confused, but also looking at my father for guidance, much likeAnya would for Soren, everyone’s shoulders heavily rising and falling, save for Basilisk‘s.
A single nod comes from the Scorpion before he faces the entrance of the grapnel. “Let’s go.”
