Waterwitch

[Keeper]

Leon Chambers gave an exasperated shrug as he told the other two men about Wade’s instructions: Find Reynolds.
“Yeah, I know, but Wade’s got a real string beef with this guy, so just do it, okay?”
“Jesus, Leon!” one of the men said. “Haven’t we already tried that? We already looked everywhere? Alright, alright! We’ll start again.”
The two men headed off down the passageway, carrying their ether-lamps with them, leaving Chambers on the relative darkness of the small emergency light mounted on the bulkhead behind him.
Jimmy Ambrose was crouched behind a unit in the galley, listening to the conversation. He had an amused grin fixed upon his shadowed face.
A boot scrape on the deck and Ambrose held himself quietly.
Footfalls announced Chambers’ departure.
The shadow in the darkness moved off too.

[Keeper]

Bill Guthrey shivered suddenly aware of the growing chill within the bridge. “Reckon those bastards in the engine room turned the heat off,” he grumbled to Stanley Beswetherwick, the only other man in the room.
“Can’t say I noticed,” Bez, as he was known throughout the crew, replied. He was watching the oak panelled door that led into the captain’s day room. “What do you think he’s doing in there?”
Guthrey followed Bez’s line of sight. “Who?” he shrugged.
“Brewer.”
“Is that where the little gimp skulked off to? Christ, how should I know what he’s up to? Why the fuck should I care?”
Bez gave a half-hearted snigger in reply. He didn’t much like the way most of Wade’s followers treated Brewer.
Alright, the boy was a simpering sycophant with no will of his own to speak of, and some said a sickening taste for girls rather than women, but Bez thought that was all probably down to the way Brewer was pushed around and bullied. The simpering and fawning over wade gave him a little protection from the other bullies, and the girl thing was probably about power, where he was able to exert some over people weaker than himself.
Bez, once known as Dr Beswetherwick, had been what was known as an alienist. He had believed that many disorders of the mind had come from a person’s environment and background as much as any other influence. A lot of his peers had thought otherwise.
Their treatment of patients had not sat very well with Bez. Electro-shock therapy just didn’t seem to be the answer.
Bez himself knew he was a victim of such things too; stress. Stress at home and at work had led him to gin. Gin had led him to bouts of anger, anger to violence, and violence unfortunately to murder.
Ironically it was that murder, or more specifically the prospect of hanging, that put an abrupt end to the vicious cycle that was a drunkard’s life.
Dropping everything he had worked for, his home, his family, his career, he fled England before the authorities could put a rope around his neck.
After fifteen years working untold numbers of merchant vessels he ended up on the ‘Witch’.
And now here he was, begrudgingly partaking in another hangable offence – mutiny.
He sighed heavily then turned in surprise as Guthery made a squeaking, gurgling noise.

[Keeper]

Up the stairs, along a short passageway then one last set of stairs. All were shrouded in darkness, something Reynolds/Ambrose used to his full advantage.
Quickly and silently he had made his way through the boat armed now with an additional knife, one taken from the galley.
He paused upon reaching his goal.
There were two of them in there, one heavily built with a large moustache and tattoos over his forearms, the other clean shaven, leaner and wearing round spectacles.
The larger man was closer by at least ten or twelve feet. If he had to get into a brawl he’d rather face the smaller guy.
Both men were armed so there was a chance that either could get a shot off whilst his attention was on the other.
As he waited, the taller one began speaking, talking about something that Ambrose couldn’t hear.
Their attention was drawn to the rear of the compartment, the door at the opposite end to the one he would use. Ambrose moved, quick, silent, deadly.

“…Why the fuck should I care?” the bigger man was asking as Ambrose came up behind him.
Swift, accurate, fatal. The purloined knife traced an arc through the air and bit home on the man’s larynx.
Ambrose twisted the blade but left it there as he moved out of reach of the big guy, his hand already reaching for his pistol.

[Keeper]

Bill Guthrey felt the blow strike his throat, though at first it was just the impact like a punch. Within a second or two though the pain surged like a tidal wave the short distance to his brain.
The knife was twisted harshly within the wound, opening it up horrendously then it was gone as it slid gruesomely from the blood slicked flesh.
Air was sucked back into his lungs from the newly opened hole, but it was instantly followed by a river of blood which blocked his pipes, choked him, drowning.
His body did what came naturally and heaved what air was left out of his lungs in what should have been a cough to expel the invading fluid.
Instead the blood gurgled and whistled in his throat, bubbling up into his mouth.
Again on instinct his body tried to force air back into his lungs.
More blood was all they got.
Wide eyed with terror the aging grenadier stared forward, his brain finally realising what was happening.
Frantic hands clasped to the wound in a vain effort to stem the flow.
Fear and panic set in next as his body began to starve of oxygen and his thoughts became muddled from loss of blood.
Lord Reynolds suddenly stepped into his vision, only he looked very unlike the prim and proper gentleman he had seen aboard this past several weeks. This version had a look that Guthrey had seen before and learned the hard was to be wary of – feral.

[Keeper]

Jimmy Ambrose stepped past the dying man, his pistol drawn and pointed steadily at the bespectacled man whose face had change from one of disbelief to one pf fear in the blink of an eye.

Bez’s mouth dropped open and he slowly lowered his weapon to the floor, flinching when Guthrie’s almost dead body fell to one side with a dull thud followed by the clatter of the rifle it had been holding.
Bez stepped away from his gun, his hands slowly raising in surrender .
“Please,” Bez begged, his fearful expression and tone completing his plea for leniency.
“I don’t need a prisoner,” Ambrose said.
“Honest, my Lord, I have no quarrel with you.”
Ambrose kicked the rifle away. “You’re with Wade, are you not?”
“Only ‘cos I’m in the heavy gang, you know, handling the cargo and stuff. I didn’t have a choice really.”
“I’ve seen no reason to trust any of Wade’s men.”
“No, I guess you aint. But I’m an honest man and if I’m being honest with you when I say I hold little truck with the gentry, but I have even less with good-for-nothing wastrels like Nestor Wade.”
Ambrose decided he didn’t have time for this.
“Wait!” Bez yelled, his hands held out open before him as though the act of creating a barrier with them would stop the bullet.
“Guthrie’s got manacles. You could lock me up.”
“Get them,” Ambrose said coldly.
Bez almost threw up as he peered at Guthrie’s mangled throat. It had been a long time since medical college and his corpses then had always had less blood.
Ambrose allowed a wry smile to cross his face. He knew from bitter experience that he would have reacted worse, which was why he didn’t look at the people he killed, if he could at all help it.
As Bez bent low to search for the chains, Ambrose came up silently behind him. He pressed the white cloth in his hand over the man’s nose and mouth.
One slight struggle was all Bez got in before the chemical on the cloth took hold of him
Unconsciousness turned him into a dead weight so Ambrose let him fall over the lifeless body before them.

[Keeper]

Reynolds moved to the handset at the communications console, as Holt had described it, but there was no power.
He pondered the situation for a moment before acting. He yanked a wire from one of the other consoles and stripped the sheathing away.
Using the handy tool kit he carried with him for small tasks such as this, he unfastened the back of his ether-com and observed the ether conduit inside.
Then he removed the back of the communications panel and found the ether connector for the power supply. Connecting the two items together he then switched on the ether-com.
Speaking into the handset, he was not Jimmy Ambrose, but Lord Reynolds once more.

Across the ship the personal address speakers crackled and hissed until a distorted but intelligible voice rang out clearly.
“Nestor Wade,” his voice echoed through the vessel.

Wade stopped dead in his tracks, his head cocked to one side.
“Nestor Wade,” the eloquent English voice repeated. “This is Baron Sebastian James Ambrose Reynolds, Nestor. I’m telling you that for a reason. I hear you are looking for me? Well that is fortunate, as I am looking for you. The difference between you and I, Nestor, is that I know where you are.”

Wade span around on his heel, his pistol sweeping the corridor, one end then the other.
“Where the fuck are you, you bastard?” he shouted, but the voice continued on, unhearing.
“I told you my name, Nestor, because I wanted you and your men to know exactly whom they are dealing with. You see, the Baron Roborough has long been in the service of Queen and Country and has dealt quite successfully with far greater enemies than you. So my warning to you is to surrender to Captain Holt before I get to you, for I will accept no such capitulation. As the only representative of the Crown in these international waters I assume the role of Judge and Jury and executioner. And believe me Nestor, anyone who stands in my way will be found guilty and summarily executed there and then. Oh, and if you may think I am bluffing, perhaps you might like to ask Messer’s Guthrie and Lipton if they thought having their throats slit was a bluff.”
The speakers crackled and hissed and then went dead.
“The bridge!” Wade snarled, setting off back the way he had come. He stopped when he noticed the men with him had not followed. “Come on, you idiots!”
Noting the hesitation his anger flared. “What the hell is wrong with you lot? You’d better not be afraid of just one man, ‘cos if you are, I don’t need crewmen with no spines.” Emphasising the words with a wave of his pistol in their direction he stared hard at them, his expression accusing, daring them not to come with him.

But his men’s faith in him had just taken a blow and they were all having second thought about this whole endeavour now.
“What if he’s not alone, Nestor…. I mean, Captain?” one of the men asked.
There are few things that can subdue Wade’s anger quickly, but self-preservation was one of them. The question had sunk in straight away.
“What if it’s a trap?” the crewman asked, driving home his point.
Wade turned to face in the approximate direction of the bridge and squinted as though able to peer through the decks and bulkhead and see the set-up happening.
It seemed inconceivable that Reynolds could have people there backing him up, wherever that was? But it had seemed inconceivable that he could reach the bridge unobserved, let alone take it.
“Yes,” he said absently, drawing the word out then adding “Yes, you are right. Very good thinking. We need to draw him to us.”

[Keeper]

As the shadowy figure of Lord Reynolds moved swiftly through the darkened compartment, the door to the captain’s day cabin slowly clicked shut.
Jonah Brewer leaned his back against it, his heart thumping in his chest so loudly he had worried it might give his position away.
He could have picked up his rifle and killed the Baron as he spoke on the ‘squawk-box’.
Why hadn’t he, he wondered?
Closing his eyes, an unnecessary move in the all-encompassing darkness of the small room, he let his shoulders sag and head drop in shame. He knew what had stopped him.
It was his life-long ally, the one thing that had kept him alive, yet bound to follow one man’s, any man’s, lead. Fear.
And seeing Lord Reynolds in action had put the fear of god up Brewer.

Swallowing hard the young, lank-haired man with bad teeth sighed heavily. He knew he had to do something – make a move that would cement his allegiance to the victor.
Until a few moments ago he had believed that all would work out just as Mr Wade had said it would. But in the semi-darkness of the bridge he had seen Bill Guthrie’s dead body, and that of the other fellow too.
The English toff was cutting through Wades men like the proverbial knife through butter.
Again fear gripped Brewer, just as his hands gripped the stock of the rifle perched on the captain’s desk.
But that fear gave him a moment of clarity in his thinking.
He knew he had to follow Reynolds, but as his enemy, or otherwise remained yet to be seen.

[Keeper]

When Nestor Wade strode into the brig, a room that was better lit than most of the boat he had travelled so far, yet still dingy by any normal standards, he held his head high and entered with as much gusto and bravado as he thought necessary to mask any doubts he might be having.
For gathered here were all the major players in any resistance to his plans…. Bar one.
He was surprised to see Doc Baird in one of the cells, his medical bag open and the dark skinned form of Edgar King laying upon the small cot bed while the doctor tended whatever wound it was that King had acquired.
“What the hell is the Doc doing here?” Wade growled at Muldridge.
“King was shot. I thought I should get the doc to look at him,” Muldridge said in defence.
“What the bloody hell do I care what happens to that nigger?” Wade almost shrieked, his face inches from Muldridge’s. “We’ve got injured of our own, get him to look at them.”
“But we need King,” Muldridge said calmly, defiantly.
“Why the hell do I need that fucking nigger?” Wades jaw clenched with anger and he felt the tension around him rising further.
“Cos we already lost one Engineer. With Hartfield dead King’s the only other one who knows this crate. If he dies who are we going to get to fix this boat?”

Anger distorted Wade’s features but he could see the logic in Muldridge’s argument.
“Alright then,” Wade said patting Muldridge’s shoulder. “Alright, mate. That’s what I like to see, someone else thinking straight around here. I was getting sick of having to do all the thinking for everyone else.”

“Captain?” a weak voice from the adjoining cell called out.
Holt turned as did Wade.
“Buxley!” Wade sneered in delight, turning briefly to stare with amusement at Muldridge.
“Buxley,” he said again, his voice and face betraying his elation. “You look so different behind bars!”

Lillian May Buxley stepped up to the bars separating the two cells. She ignored Wade and spoke to Holt. “Captain, is James dead?”
Her voice quivered on the last word.
Holt cast his eyes to the deck and nodded.
“Oh, YES!” Wade whooped, spinning on the spot to emphasise his glee. “Dead as can be, Buxley! No more than a slab of meat in the morgue now. You must remind me to throw his stinking carcass overboard, won’t you Mr Muldridge!”

Lilly staggered back until her legs hit the low cot-bed and she slumped down, pale.
“Ha! So you were sweet on him?” Wade mused with delight.
“Shut your face, Wade. That’s enough,” Holt warned.
“NO!” Wade screamed. “You shut your mouth you fat prick. You don’t tell me what to do no more, don’t you get it? This is my boat now so I do the tellin’. And if any of you lot want to see more than the inside of your eyelids for the rest of eternity, then you’d better shut up too.”
Wade clanged the barrel of his pistol down the bars nonchalantly. “You understand me, Holt?”
Holt slowly turned his head to face the mutinous bastard that had turned his crew against one another. He always knew that Wade was a poison on his ship, and regretted his decision not to be rid of him. He’d taken the easy route and was paying the price now.
He drew himself up and squared his shoulders as he stepped up to the bars.
“I understand you just fine, Nestor. But I also understand that there is a man out there hunting you right now. And this man is going to kill you.”
“KILL ME?” Wade bellowed derisively. “I got plans for that prick!”

[Keeper]

Jonah Brewer gasped when he reached the ladder that led up to the galley.
Slumped against the bottom of the ladder was Leon Chambers. A neat bullet hole decorated his forehead whilst the top of his skull had burst outward.
Brewer could see the darkness behind the body where most of the man’s brains had splatted.

He swallowed hard and slipped in a pile of vomit he hadn’t noticed.
Cursing he wiped his worn and soiled boots on the dead man’s trousers and moved slowly onwards.

[Keeper]

Sebastian Reynolds crouched in the darkness of the passageway that led to the brig.
His journey here had been swift but not without incident.
When he hadn’t come across Wade or his men near the bridge he knew that the man hadn’t been taken in by his broadcast.
But he also knew that he had sown the seeds of doubt in both the minds of Wade himself and his fellow mutineers. Leon Chambers had told him as much before he had died.

Reynolds shifted position slightly as one of the knives he had acquired on his journey here, no longer required by its deceased owner, was digging uncomfortably into his side.

He heard the movement long before whoever was sneaking up on him appeared.
His own movements were fast as he darted up from his concealed position, behind the stalker, placing his hand over the small soft mouth and his knife sliding around the front to cut into the persons throat.
He caught his hand before the blade bit home. Soft mouth?
Spinning the person around, keeping his hand pressed tightly over that soft sensual mouth he stared angrily into Paige Holt’s shadowed eyes.
“Christ Paige! What are you doing here?”
Paige was frozen on the spot, her breath caught in her throat and her eyes were wide with fear.
She knew this boat like the back of her hand. She had grown up running the many passageways and tunnels and compartments. She knew for a fact that there had been nowhere for anyone to hide on this short stretch of hallway, even with just the emergency lighting on. Yet this man had indeed hidden there, completely concealed.
She had thought that she was going to die, her throat slit by one of Wades insufferable lackeys.
“I told you to stay put!” Reynolds hissed at her.
“I couldn’t,” she hissed back, pulling his hand from her mouth. “This is my dad’s boat. I’m not going to sit by and let Wade just take it.”
Reynolds could feel the defiance as something almost tangible.
“How?” Reynolds pressed, “By getting yourself killed?”
“I’m not leaving so save your breath.”
Reynolds relaxed, knowing that he’d not win this argument. He knew that even to attempt it could end up giving their position away.
Reynolds saw that he had a pistol in her head, which currently hung limply off to one side.
“Be ready to use that thing,” he said as his posture changed and something in his voice made Paige shudder.
“Okay,” she whispered.

Reynolds led her forwards, until they could see into the brig. She tensed anger threatening to boil over when she saw Wade nose to nose with her caged father.