Chapter One
Welcome Mistress
Sarah Fortune sat on the bench, staring out the windows at the Bilgewater harbor. A single Hextech lamp swayed slowly as the Syren bobbed slightly with the swells. Despite her efforts to clear her mind, her thoughts kept snapping back to the night before and the completely unexpected loss of her First Mate. She knew it wasn't her fault and there was absolutely nothing she could have done to change the course of events.
Since she was very young, she had taken an iron grip on her own destiny and enforced her will on everyone and everything that stood between her and the results she wanted. Now she was realizing how much her crew, and particularly her second in command, had insulated her from the day to day details and allowed her to focus on the intricate plans that kept the chaos of Bilgewater from becoming an unmanageable, bloody storm of violence and death.
“Will Nonce, you will be missed,” she muttered under her breath, “And nearly impossible to replace.”
With a sigh, the stunning but brutally cunning redhead turned back to the massive desk that was the centerpiece of her captain's quarters and let her eyes drift over the three items that sat alone on her desk.
“I would much rather face ten Gangplanks with a pair of my mother's worse pistols than resort to mystical forces,” she thought, but there were precious few people she could trust in her life and almost none of them were men.
Her crew feared and respected her in equal degrees but they were mostly men. Somewhere in the small reptilian brains of every single one of them, they each harbored a mostly hidden but brightly burning hope that, some day, somehow, the opportunity to perform some insanely brave and impossible feat would present itself. They would face it, vanquish it, and be instantly transformed from a lowly crewman to a dashing hero worthy of the romantic attention of their captain.
If she was completely honest, she had to admit that, on more than one occasion, she had leveraged those delusions to motivate the more cowardly crewmen to do what she needed them to do. Her First Mate had been the firewall that kept her from having to kill too many of them.
That's what she needed now, a someone who could command the crew and run the daily operations that kept the Syren in fighting trim. A man who was, if not immune to the gravity of a beautiful woman in power, at least smart enough to know his place and wily enough to ride herd on 150 psychotic killers.
Chapter 2
Welcoming the Unwelcome
He could feel the presence of his stolen property maddeningly close by. Just across the churning, bracken waters of the Bloodharbor. Bits and pieces of chum floated between him and the three cursed items that he very much wanted back. He had learned of the one who currently held the trio and intended to claw them back at the very first opportunity.
The chance to charm and ultimately torment his newly acquired nemesis, Captain Sarah Fortune, was looking to be the most delicious project he had embarked on in decades. It would require patience, Mistress Fortune, had met him before, would recognize him and would not be taken by a bold frontal assault. But that was fine, better than fine. He enjoyed pain, even his own pain, and the slow play of a cunning, inventive plan was the sweetest torture. He was methodical, he was a flaming darkness, he was excruciating madness. He was Thresh….And he had a new toy.
Actually, he had several new toys. The one that currently pleased him the most was a soul mistakenly collected for him by Pyke. Ever a spirit of vengeance, Pyke swung between madness and sanity. A sane Pyke was far too driven and selective for Thresh’s taste. Fortunately, his madness returned a few days before, just in time for Thresh to move one of the names on his list nearer to the top.
“Captain Fortune, mistress of the Syren,” said the list. Pyke was nothing if not relentless in tracking his targets. Madness is always unpredictable though. As dark was falling the night before, The Doxy Ripper struck, only his addled wits had fallen back into the prejudices of his living mind, and assumed the captain would be a man. William Nonce was on the quayside, giving orders to the crew, and thus befell the vengeance of Pyke. It was not the prize he wanted but, Thresh reminded himself, the mad squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while, staring into the swirling depths of his Lantern.
“Master Will, come to me,” he called, and the spirit obeyed, as it must. “You are the key player in my new tragedy. Can you deceive your former captain?”
The captive soul writhed in torment and tried to shake its incorporeal head, but the master of the lantern was the master of all its inmates. The head quickly stopped shaking and bowed in resignation. Thresh laughed, relishing not only the thought of coming victory but the agony that it would cause this thrall in the process.
Chapter 3
What Thresh Hell is This
The azure mists that surrounded Will Nonce swirled and flowed in complete chaos, at least when he was lucky. When he was not lucky, they coalesced into nightmare visions of his future. When he was extremely unlucky, the visions were not of his future but of his past. He saw them so clearly, as if he was back in the moment, but they were always twisted in some sadistic way. Events played out so nearly true that his heart ached to witness them and then some small change crept in that threatened to rip that same heart out of his nonexistent body. Always at the center of those corrupted memories was his former captain, Sarah Fortune.
She had dominated his daily life ever since she had exploded, both figuratively and literally, onto the scene in Bilgewater Bay. For the first year, every captain who berthed in and around the Bay walked a fine line between angering the pure bloody chaos that called himself Gangplank and the calculating, relentless force of nature carrying the twin pistols.
Will didn’t know who first coined the names Shock and Awe, but the labels had always struck him as too crude to have been invented by the mistress buccaneer herself. The monikers had stuck however, and whatever Miss Sarah thought of the names, pirates tended to be a crude bunch. The mere mention of Shock and Awe sent shivers through her enemies and a shot of courage to the hearts of her crew.
In that moment, the memory of their first meeting flashed into existence around him. The reaver captain had been on one of his notorious rampages that tore through enemy and ally alike and Will had unthinkingly stepped directly into his path to shield a fresh new recruit that was likely seconds away from death. He supposed he had been lucky to escape the same fate himself but instead landed in the brig with a broken nose, chained to the bulkhead and waist deep in the stagnant seawater that was always seeping into the ship. He had lain there for three days until he had been awoken by explosions that rocked the ship and the shouts and screams of men fighting and dying. The door of his cell shook and buckled, then slammed open to admit a winded young lady surrounded by a tempest of blood red locks.
“Where is that murderous dog?” she snarled, as she quickly surveyed the barren holding cell. At that moment, so subtly that Will almost missed it, a ripple passed through the whole scene, and suddenly the beautiful but disheveled Fortune was transformed. The sheer animal attraction that radiated from her hit him like a cannon shot to the gut.
“NO! It wasn’t like this!” he thought.
Then her eyes met his and a sly smile crept over her face. “What do we have here? Someone that Gangplank dislikes enough to put in this hellhole can definitely be a friend of mine,” the smile broadened.
“No, God, no”
“Who knows? Maybe even more than friends,” she crooned as she skillfully shot the locks off his chains. “Help my crew rid the seas of this scourge, and we’ll decide that later, hmm?”
His emotions twisted into a tight knot as the scene started to fade. Before it winked out altogether, he could hear a sound that started out as her laughter change into a cruel, maniacal cackle before he could whimper “Why?” and he slipped into merciful unconsciousness.
Chapter 4
A Drink with the Dead
Part 1
From the outside, the Bait and Hook looked like any of the 20 other grubby watering holes clustered around the docks. A closer look revealed some odd differences. The soot stained windows glowed faintly from the firelight inside just like a normal tavern, but the light was tinged green instead of the familiar yellow-orange of whale fat candles. Most oddly, the boisterous laughter of drunk sailors punctuated by the shouts and screams of frequent bar fights was completely absent. But the eerie calm that seemed to settle over the area around the overly thick oak door didn’t seem to deter many would-be patrons. In fact, a keen observer would be struck by the feeling that more salty deck rats entered through it’s deathly silent portal than ever came out.
Dania was just such a keen observer. She had heard rumors about the bar across the cobblestone street and it had piqued her interest. She had lingered, inconspicuously, half a block away at an apothecary that specialized in cures for maladies of a “social” nature. Those that happened to cast a glance her way assumed that she must be a street walker. This close to the docks and Rat Town, working girls were certainly no rarity. Her well-made dress and overall bearing didn’t support that assumption but there were a few higher class girls to be found around Fleet Street under the shadow of the Butcher’s Bridge. One look at her face discouraged any further inspection. While she could be easily considered a beautiful woman, the look in her eyes was so disconcerting that only the most confident, strong willed could meet it for long. That gaze was now locked on the Bait and Hook. She was certain that she had found what she had been looking for. Thresh……the Chain Warden….was close enough she could almost taste him.
She could barely maintain a dignified walk as she left the shop she had occupied for two days and crossed the glorified alleyway to open the door and walk inside. Once inside the Bait and Hook, there was an immediate change in the ambiance. Men and women laughed, and danced, and generally enjoyed each other’s company. Food and drink appeared seemingly endlessly and the lack of coin was never an issue. Faint music, slightly discordant but not unpleasant, hung in the air. It was inviting enough that almost nobody noticed, nor cared, about the warning signs that not all was as it seemed. Dania was not fooled but nor was she alarmed. If anything she was encouraged and spurred on by the subtle indications of the true nature of the property’s owner.
The mark of his presence was all over the main room of the tavern. The greenish haze that seems to be just at the corners of your vision, but can never quite be perceived directly. The oppressive atmosphere that even though filled with music and laughter and spirits, could never be quite escaped.There was a feeling in the tavern like the distant ache of a past loss, well faded, but never entirely forgotten. This certainly has boosted the prosperity of the tavern, for even those who enter in a jolly mood, quickly felt driven to seek solace in alcohol and easy company. There was laughter, certainly, but always tinged at the edges, as if a bit frayed with sadness, by regret, by things that could have been done differently. In such a place, solitary souls would gather and very often, go missing. Perhaps it was not entirely accurate to say they went missing because generally nobody truly missed them. They were there one day and then gone.
Despite the rough crowd, the tavern itself was not shabby. The furnishings were well appointed and lit by actual crystal chandeliers. The tables were smooth and polished and unmarked by knife scars. The long bar along one side of the large room was a single slab of Ionian hardwood. The chairs were simple but comfortably upholstered. The decor spoke of quiet refinement. Sailors that would normally be given to rowdy brawls were restrained and well behaved. If that wasn’t enough to give a newcomer pause, one table in the corner stood out amongst all the other inconsistencies. It was one table in the corner, alone, which was always reserved. And while most of the other tables were dimly lit either by the fire light from the hearth or by the crystal topped candles high above, this one table was lit by a single, solitary lantern that was always burning.
Everybody assumed that the greenish haze that was perceived but not quite seen, came from this one lantern, burning eternally with an uneasy fire. Nobody knew and nobody cared to ask whether it was sorcery or Hextech or some other means that fueled it. They just knew that no one had ever seen the light go out. This particular night, the table was occupied, much to everyone's surprise. Even the bartender, Bort, was shocked to find himself staring at a well-dressed lady, seated where nobody should be seated.
As he rushed over, he smoothed over his unstained apron. “My lady. This seat is reserved. This table is reserved. May I find you another more suited to your comforts. And bring you something that will raise your spirits, perhaps a bite to eat as well.”
She returned his slightly greasy smile with a dead stare. “I neither need nor desire anything you can bring me, flunky, but the attention of your Master. You may tell the Keeper of this lantern, that I await his pleasure, that I am patient but I will not be denied. And you may tell him that we have a common enemy in the person of a certain Captain Fortune. Now, scamper off and deliver my message.”
Bort scowled and was about to deliver a rather different message about who should be scampering off to where and who wouldn’t be, when the lantern flickered and suddenly there were two people at the table, instead of one. Master Thresh had already heard Dania’s summons. Master Thresh had to know what kind of woman would seek him out like this and was already relishing the ways he would make her regret it. But Master Thresh had no idea how wrong he was.