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Well, we don’t exactly have radios. I’m also not feeling any inexplicable psychic senses of doom. “I think so…”
Anthony enters, seeming calm and unbothered. “Ship is clear.”
Maple zooms in and sits on the front console, gazing out the windshield… or whatever it is ships have that equates to a windshield.
“Where’s Tammy?” I ask.
“Taking a shower.” Anthony flops in a nearby crew station seat. “A small hose or something broke and sprayed her with oil or something.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah, just… needs a shower.” He leans back.
“Which hose?” asks Angus.
“Something on the wall in the sub bay. Looked like a rubber hose more than a pipe.”
“Och.” Angus grumbles. “That’d be a hydraulic line fer the sub crane, likely.”
“The crew’s already patching it.” Anthony nods.
The concerned expression fades from Angus.
“Pax?” I ask.
“Where else would she be?” Anthony chuckles.
Angus nods at me. “May wan’ tae round up yer kin. Bout time fer eatin’.”
Yep. He’s definitely a werewolf. Straight from battle to lunch.
Chapter Eighteen
Too Quiet
One of these days, I’m going to realize that fate hates being mocked.
I had to go and complain about being bored on this ship. Apparently, something heard me and took umbrage with that. It’s day eighteen of the journey now, and we haven’t had six solid hours of peace. The shadow goblins as well as other strange beings made of the same substance have been popping onto the boat two or three times a day.
The good news is they don’t seem to understand technology at all. An invading army that actually knew how boats or machinery worked would probably have managed to damage something critical before we got to them. What’s the bad news? These things are inherently anti-technology. Whenever they’re on board, things get weird. Our smartphones are the first to crap out. In fact, we’ve been using them as a sort of ‘badness detector.’ As soon as someone’s phone starts to act up, it’s search mode time.
Seems the more advanced something is, the more prone it is to malfunction. It ended up being a good thing that Angus’ boat is so old. I mean, the thing’s not ancient. He said it, oh what was the phrase he used? ‘The keel was laid down’ or something like that… in 1975. It’s undergone a bunch of retrofitting and some modernization since then, but we’re hardly cruising on the ship equivalent of a next generation Tesla. There’s not a single touchscreen to be found on the bridge. The Bonnie Lass’s navigation system would’ve been cutting edge in 1992. It’s still techy enough to freak out when the goblins are onboard… but not so much so that we end up way off course or with irreparably damaged computer controls.
I am, thankfully, enough of a vampire that I don’t need to sleep… much. My brain does this thing where if I stay awake longer, I just need to ‘eat’ more. And by ‘eat’, I mean absorb psychic energy from people. That means I could theoretically go two or three weeks without sleep in an emergency.
Except... I’m presently isolated on a ship with a very limited number of people. Yes, Angus has a crew of eight mortals working for him. However, it wouldn’t do any of us any good if one of those mortals fell asleep on the job or passed out from mental draining. While I am definitely better off than one of those old school fictitious vampires that needed to be stuffed inside a coffin with dirt from their homeland on a boat, I’m going to be needing some sleep.
Which is why, given the incessant shadow-being attacks, we’ve taken to sleeping in shifts.
Except for Anthony.
He seems to be able to stay awake with very little rest and not suffer for it. I’m not sure if that’s an angelic thing or simply his being a teenage boy. Sherbet told me once years ago that he used to be able to stay up all weekend partying when he was in his early twenties. Like, not sleep at all from Friday through Sunday and just keep going like nothing happened. Around age twenty-four, he said, was when that caught up to him and he couldn’t do it anymore.
Regardless of what’s responsible for Anthony’s energy… he’s taken to patrolling the ship while the rest of us take turns sleeping.
Paxton’s been spending most of her time with the unicorn in the cargo room. Sitting there day in and day out with a unicorn isn’t bothering her. Modern kids can’t go two full hours without some form of technological stimulation from a tablet or video game or social media. I wonder if something unseen is going on there? Like, is the unicorn taking her on dream journeys through a magical forest or some such thing?
Additionally, we’ve even gotten the crew in on the fighting. Maple did something to several sets of safety goggles, the kind people wear when operating power tools. This is allowing the mortal crew to see the fiends and go after them with an array of temporarily enchanted weapons. And by weapons, I mean axes, crowbars, hammers, tools and such.
