In the End (14 page)

“
Actually, he's Ann,” the woman added. “I'm Eric.”

Lalael stared at them. “Truly?” he asked.

Ann – the man – nodded, solemn and serious, then burst out laughing. Oh. It was a joke. The woman was Ann after all. Lalael added a few more points onto his embarrassment tally.

He saw any wariness in Lucien's stance drain away as he smiled. “I'm Lucien,” he said, “and this is Lal– er.” The humans, still giggling, didn't notice the slip.  “Laurence,” Lucien inserted smoothly. “This is my buddy Laurie.” He clapped Lalael heartily on the back.

Lalael was not amused. “We're looking,” he snarled, “for whoever's in charge around here.”

The woman, although taken aback by Lalael's sudden venom, nodded. “Actually, he's just left.”

Lucien sighed. “For where?”

***

The elected leader of the marina, one Captain Joe, was a decidedly salty character. As is sacred tradition with such men of the sea, Captain Joe was known for his eloquent, rambling tales as much as he was for his weather-worn plaid cap and his prodigious iron-gray beard, which bushed over his chest and bristled around his face like the snowcap on a mountain. In his own words, he was a proper Swedish mariner, and, if his newfound status said anything, the people who had elected him agreed with this declaration. He had served in a War that he left unspecified (on purpose, Lucien suspected), he had lived on the water since the old days when he had worked the fishing ships off the Scandinavian coasts, and he related all this to Lucien and Lalael in a loud, thickly accented voice that was punctuated every few sentences with a sudden silence, during which he redefined self-absorbed tranquility while he groomed his moustaches out of and away from his mouth with a meditative air that would have put a Tibetan monk to shame.

“
So,” he said at the end of one of these silences, combing his fingers through his beard a final time. “You want to stay here.”

“
If we could, sir,” Lalael said.

“
Captain,” said the captain.

“
Yes sir. Captain. Sir.”

“
We know how to cure that disease that's been going around,” Lucien cut in.

Captain Joe's glittering blue eyes locked on Lucien. “Oh, do you? And you prove that, ja?”

“
Actually, he did,” said Ann. “
Sea Eagle
and
Green Flash
's people both were happy and healthy this morning.” Eric nodded too.

Captain Joe looked back and forth between Lalael and Lucien. “I believe you,” he said, “but I don't think that's all there is.”

His eyes were far too sharp, Lucien reflected. He shrugged. “It never is, is it?” He met Captain Joe's sharp, sharp eyes and held his scrutiny. Lalael held his breath.

After a long, intense silence, Captain Joe broke eye contact and picked at his bristling moustache. Lucien sat back with a small smile and nodded once. “I like you,” Captain Joe said, then fixed on Lalael. “I don't know if I like you. You don't talk.”

“
He's not very sociable,” Lucien said, eyes wide and sorrowful. “He hasn't been much since our parents died in a horrible fire –”

“
Bullshit.”

“
Well, yes,” Lucien acquiesced.

Captain Joe leaned forward. “So do you know what causes this disease?”

Lalael was sure he was the only one who had noticed the split-second hesitation before Lucien nodded. “We can help cut back on the infections as well,” Lalael added.

Captain Joe was fingering his beard again.  “You can stay, as long as you're pulling your own veight.”

“
We wouldn't think of doing anything but, captain sir.”

“
Captain Sir,” the captain chuckled to himself.

Lucien paused. “Have you seen anything around the marina?” he asked all at once. “Near the shore? Anything... out of the ordinary?”

“
Mmhn,” said Captain Joe.

Lucien sighed. “They never do,” he said to Lalael. “Oh, by the way: Captain Joe, sir, are there any boats without people?”

“
Several,” said Captain Joe.

Lucien's face lit up and he asked breathlessly, “Can I have one?”

***

“
She's gorgeous,” Lucien whispered, eyes gleaming unnaturally in the light of the neighbors' mosquito torch as he admired her.

“
It's not. No more than any of the other ones we've been looking at all day, and this was the first one we saw!”

“
Don't call her an 'it'! Do you want to hurt her feelings? How offensive is that?” Lucien sniffed at his companion and stepped aboard. “And I had to decide which I liked.”

“
You liked
all of them
!”

“
Yes, but it's like when you're at a dance club,” Lucien said, stroking the boat's helm with reverence, “and there's so many people around, and all of them are so pretty, and the lights are so colorful and flashy that you can't even tell women from men, let alone who you want to flirt with.”

“
I have no idea what you're talking about when you go on about things like that,” Lalael grumbled as he scrambled after Lucien. That the sun had set hours ago and the only light was the torch did not help his nerves. The water lapped against the hull. “Because I've
clearly
been to a million of these – these dance clubs.” He picked at his nails and waited for Lucien to stop gushing over his new toy. “Are you going to rename it?”

“
Her. And no, why would I do that?” He walked over the deck, twined his arms around the aft mast, and canoodled it. “
Frog
is a good name for a boat. It makes more sense than something stupid like
Rock Bottom
.” That had been one of the other boats they'd perused. He snorted. “Really stupid name. It's got Bad Omen written all over it. At least frogs don't sink. Besides, she's green. It fits.” He dropped a quick kiss on the mast and scrambled onto the dock again. “You coming?”

“
Where now?” Lalael groaned.

Lucien patted the dagger sheath at his hip. “Hunting Naga.”

***

They spent several hours searching for burrow holes under the docks and near the water.

“
I don't like this,” Lalael whispered. “I can't hear anything but the water.” And he couldn't see anything. It had gotten dark very quickly, very early, and Lucien hadn't wanted to bring torches.

“
That's a good thing,” Lucien murmured back. “If you hear anything scratchy or hissing, that would be bad.”

“
Why?”

“
Well, the scratching would be their scales moving along the ground. And that would mean it's found us, rather than we've found it. They're fast, they're deadly, and they're beasts – third caste. They're not hives; they're loners.”

“
And that's bad?” Lalael squeaked as a rock, displaced by his foot, clattered into the water. They froze, and when all was silent, continued picking their way through the concrete blocks at the waterline.

“
It's really bad. Their minds are too set to make them think anything more coherent than 'eat kill eat hate kill'.” Lucien stopped for a moment and tilted his head.

“
What do you hear?”

Lucien shook his head and stepped forward again. “And Naga can't speak either, even though they've got human heads. It's really disturbing.” He stopped, turned to Lalael and illustrated with his hands as he said, “One time, I was meandering around the Wood of Suicides, right, just having a few laughs, hiding from a couple other Fallen who wanted my blood, and – no shit – if the Naga didn't rise right up from the ground right in front of me, just this pale, corpse-like head on a column of serpent, may I know the Prince Lightbringer's wrath.”

Lalael's eyes were huge, rapt, and terrified.

“
I know,” Lucien nodded, “it may be the most unnerving thing I've ever seen. Except for that time –”

Lalael shook his head. “I don't want to know.”

“
But it was really –”

“
No.”

They walked on. “I found this big corpse, size of a bull, and it was bloated with spider-frog hatchings.”

“
That's not unnerving, that's
disgusting
.”

“
Well, the movements under the skin made it look sort of bubbly. And the hatchlings kept crawling out of its various orifices like maggots, but black and a foot long.”

Lalael shuddered. “Still repulsive.”

“
You're right, the Naga was definitely more startling. The head was kind of this rotting, pale green-gray color, with long stringy black hair, and its tongue was black and hanging out of its mouth, and its teeth were all green, and its eyes were rolled back in its head. I nearly walked into it, 'cause like I said, it rose up
right in front of me
.”

“
Shut up!”

***

They returned to
Frog
around midnight. Lalael was yawning, “Are you sure there's a Naga?”

“
Positive. You didn't notice the smell?”

Lalael stopped yawning. “There was a smell?” he asked, dismayed. “I didn't smell the smell!”

“
I didn't tell you, but when I was telling you monster stories under that one dock? There was a Naga skin floating in the water. You didn't notice it and I didn't want you to freak out.” Lucien hopped aboard and hugged the aft mast again. “Hello, Froggie my sweet. Did you miss me?”

Lalael, who had frozen on the dock, scrambled after him. “Don't leave me out there! I can't fight them off!”

Lucien hummed. “Well, if a Naga comes after you, it's not a good idea to fight it directly anyway. The best thing to do...”

“
Yes?”

“
Don't run.”

“
Don't run, don't fight. What do I do?”

“
Well, it's faster than you when you're fighting, and there's no way you can outrun it. When a Naga attacks you, you fly. It is earthbound, after all.”

Lalael only relaxed for a moment before he hissed, “But we can't fly around here! Someone might see.”

“
That is a problem.” Lucien nodded solemnly. “I'm going to bed.”

***

The days passed swiftly during their time in the marina – demon possessions dropped to nearly zero once they had briefed the watchmen about proper safety procedures. It was those humans, it turned out, who had been most often infected, a fact which Lucien and Lalael were not at all surprised about.

It was a good time. Antichrist got a little pudgy on imps and soul-eaters and became king of the stray marina cats, earning a few more scuffs to his fur and notches in his ears along the way. Lalael had enough practice on drawing out demons that he got quite efficient at it, although even after a month of practice, he still didn't have the effortless ease with it that Lucien did. Lucien himself flirted indiscriminately with everything in the marina, including the boats. Perhaps especially the boats. In any case, they earned their place, and they did good work, and even though Lalael still felt a little queasy when he was below-decks on
Frog
, when he went to bed at night, he slept soundly, without dreams, rapturously happy in the knowledge that for once in his life he was making a difference.

The wonder and ease of life here in the marina was not consistent through the whole city. Every day it seemed like they got wind of another gang raid on a supply of clean water, or another murder that had occurred over a packet of beef jerky. In the marina, they were protected from some of the shortages – they had access to the sea and the resources with which to feed a whole community, so they ate a lot of fish, and had experimental seaweed dishes, and they were slowly figuring out effective ways to make salt, but at least they ate. The gangs of humans even left them relatively unscathed, recognizing that the denizens of the harbor were at present the only ones likely to provide any influx of food to the surrounding communities.

In the end, it was the humans that killed the Naga, not Lucien or Lalael. A lucky, panicked swing with a machete at exactly the right angle had been the only thing standing between the watchman and a gruesome death. When Captain Joe saw the corpse, he groomed his moustaches for a very, very long time and then announced he'd be taking a few extra watch shifts at night. Three days later, he brought the second Naga's corpse to the
Frog
, slung over his shoulder, along with a brand new story about the epic fight he'd had with it. Lalael had no trouble believing that every word of it was true.

***

“
Now. You,” Captain Joe said, jabbing one thick, callused finger at Lucien, “are deliberately not saying something. You know something about this?” His voice rose and fell in the characteristic singsong of his accent.