Page 32 of The Devils

Not the First Time

Alex came to being slapped in the face.

Sad to say, it wasn’t the first time.

She tried to utter an, ‘Ugh,’ but coughed up a mouthful of salty water instead, rolled over, groaning, and coughed up another.

She lay on her face, clutching two fistfuls of sand, just breathing for a while. Even her lungs hurt.

‘Ugh,’ she managed, in the end. Hardly seemed worth it, for all the effort.

‘You’re alive, then.’

Alex managed to lift her head far enough to get some hint of her surroundings. Sand, stretching up towards a rocky shore. Her face throbbed. Every part of it felt twice the usual size. Except her tongue, which felt three times the usual size.

‘Where arth we?’ she croaked.

Sunny stepped into view, wind stirring the white hair about her face. ‘On the beach.’

Slowly, painfully, Alex rolled onto her back. ‘What beach?’

‘Nearest one. Couldn’t really be choosy, under the circumstances.’ She seemed to think a moment. ‘I don’t often get to be choosy.’

‘Thircumthtances?’

‘You know, ship sinking, you drowning, everyone drowning.’

‘Wait …’ Slowly, painfully, Alex propped herself on her elbows. Two grooves stretched from the end of her legs down the sand, then faded into nothingness where the highest waves lapped. ‘How did I get here?’

Sunny shrugged. ‘I’m a strong swimmer.’

Slowly, painfully, Alex sat up. Her arms were covered in scrapes. One leg of her wet trousers was ripped to the knee. Her chest felt like someone had taken a battering ram to it. But she was starting to suspect she wasn’t dead. ‘Everyone says elveth are awful.’

‘I’ve heard it said.’

‘But all the elves I’ve met have been fantathtic.’

‘Have you met a lot?’

Slowly, painfully, Alex twisted around onto her hands and knees, then paused there to catch her breath. ‘Jutht you.’

‘Oh. That’s … nice.’ And Sunny frowned. Like she trusted a compliment far less than an insult.

Alex tried to sniff and didn’t enjoy it much. ‘Think my nose is broken.’

Sad to say, it wasn’t the first time.

Sunny squatted in front of her and put her fingertips on her cheeks, so gently Alex hardly felt it, and pressed at her nose with her thumbs. Looking into those big, calm, careful eyes made Alex feel a little calmer herself.

A little. Not a lot.

She was a bit disappointed when Sunny took her hands away and stood.

‘It’s just bumped.’

‘It got smashed with a mast,’ grumbled Alex.

‘Do you want it broken? I could get a rock.’

‘Pray don’t trouble yourself. You’ve already done so much.’ She gave a pained grunt as she worked one leg under herself. ‘They might put me down …’ Then a weary groan as she stood. ‘But I’ll never stay down – woah!’ And she had to catch hold of Sunny’s arm as a gust nearly blew her over. The windswept sand, the balding dunes beyond it, the wooded hills beyond them, held no more appeal from a slightly higher angle. Less, if anything. ‘What now?’

‘Get whatever we can use.’ And Sunny nodded towards a scattering of junk washed up at the high-water mark.

‘Steal stuff?’ Alex took a breath and blew it out. ‘That, I can do.’

Took a while to unravel a tangle of rope still attached to a splintered spar and drag away a stretch of singed sailcloth, but there was an inlaid chest underneath that got the old thief’s palms tickling. The lock was nowhere near as good as the inlay, only took a few bashes with an oar to get it open.

Alex pulled out the first thing in there and held it up. A red jacket with epaulettes and shiny embroidery, its gilded buttons shaped like griffins’ faces.

Sunny eyed it doubtfully. ‘There is a strong flavour of military arsehole about that jacket.’

‘Must be Constans’s clothes. He’d a strong flavour of military arsehole about him, too.’ Alex started undoing the buttons. ‘You reckon he survived?’

‘He was fighting Jakob to the death. So I’d guess no.’ Sunny shrugged. ‘Jakob is one man you should never fight to the death.’ She paused a moment. ‘Since he can’t die.’

‘That’s some good news,’ said Alex, pushing one arm into the jacket.

‘I mean, he could be trapped in the wreck on the bottom of the Adriatic. Or squished to mincemeat. Or burned to bacon.’ Sunny thought a moment. ‘Or all three.’

‘That’s less good news,’ said Alex, pushing the other arm in.

Sunny shrugged again. ‘I’ve learned not to worry about what I can’t change.’

‘Never had that knack,’ said Alex as she did up the buttons. ‘The less I can change it, the more it worries me.’

‘Aren’t you worried about everything all the time?’

‘Absolutely shitting myself. How do I look?’

Sunny raised one brow. ‘Like the Empress of Troy.’

‘Well, it’s much like what I normally wear.’ Alex struck the sort of pose you might see on a general in a painting. ‘In the alleys of the Holy City.’ The jacket was way too big for her, but she did her best to fill it, swan not duck, the way Baron Rikard had shown her.

‘Your strong flavour of military arsehole must have stood out among the beggars,’ said Sunny.

Alex stuck her chin towards the sky. ‘I stand out in any company.’

‘I fade away in any company,’ murmured Sunny. ‘Like a whisper in a hurricane.’

‘You’ve always made an impression on me,’ said Alex.

Sunny frowned. ‘Shush.’

‘I just meant—’

‘Shush! Someone’s coming.’

Alex felt that familiar sucking in the pit of her stomach as Sunny caught her by the wrist and they ran for the dunes. That mingling of oh no terror, not again despair, and why me outrage. The same things she’d felt when she saw the galley slip from its hiding place and bear down on them, how many months ago?

That morning. It had been that morning.

Alex laboured up a dune, sliding back almost as far as she went forwards with each step, oversized jacket flapping around her, and finally threw herself over the crest on her stomach, spitting sand.

Dark figures moved, out on the pale shore. Her sight swam too much to count them. Then she saw the tracks she’d left. A pattern of dents leading straight up the dune, sure as a great finger pointing right to her hiding place.

She slid down below the crest, pressing herself against the sand, eyes closed. ‘Maybe they’ll be helpful?’ she muttered. Like a prayer. ‘Maybe they’ll be nice, and have, I don’t know … pastries?’ She almost added an amen to the end.

‘Best not bet your life on it,’ murmured Sunny, peering through the thin grass on the crest. ‘I count eight. Well armed. Can’t see any pastries but one’s got a thing … like a corkscrew.’

‘Big wine drinker, maybe?’

‘ Way too big for a cork.’

‘What’s it for, then?’ said Alex, a desperate whine to her voice.

‘I almost feel … I’d rather not know.’ Sunny hunched down slightly, a hand on Alex’s shoulder. ‘They’re looking at the chest.’

‘Maybe that’s what they’re after,’ whispered Alex. ‘Maybe they’re military arseholes, too.’ She could hear voices, faintly, on the wind. ‘What are they saying?’

‘They’re saying the Dane’s on his way. They seem worried about it.’

‘Who’s the Dane? Oh God. Who worries a man with a giant corkscrew?’

Sunny didn’t bother to answer. ‘They’re leaving the stuff on the beach,’ she murmured, narrowing her eyes. ‘They’re looking for something else.’

Alex swallowed. She didn’t want to say the word, but there was no getting away from it. ‘Me?’

‘Think we’d better move,’ whispered Sunny, slithering down the backslope of the dune on her belly.

‘Oh God,’ whispered Alex, slithering after her. ‘Did they see the tracks?’

‘They’re showing some interest in them.’ Sunny caught Alex under the arm and pulled her up. ‘Think we’d better run now!’

So Alex ran.

Sad to say, it was not the first time.