“I’m sorry about that,” Erik said with a booming voice, “please, return to your cells before somebody truly gets hurt.”

  Adelia snarled her defiance, her eyes and the runes upon her skin pulsed violet as her demonic flesh seemed to grow and encroach over her more human-looking skin.

  Her fangs lengthened and her tail flicked the air behind her.

  “We would rather die than live as your slaves,” Adelia snarled. Her voice seemed slightly distorted, as an edge of demonic power entered it.

  “How dramatic,” Erik said with a snort that steamed and spewed glowing orange embers into the air.

  Adelia raised her dagger, the tip pointing at Erik, and spoke a word of power.

  Connor suddenly felt deathly cold down to his bones as all color, what little there was, was leached out of the world.

  Even Erik’s fiery fur turned only shades of grey.

  Erik shook himself like a wet dog and the world snapped back to normal once more as shadows broke away from his form, turning some of the canvas, wood, and rope near Erik to dust.

  “Death magic?” Erik asked, “Come now. I don’t think I deserve that, do you?”

  Adelia growled through clenched teeth. Erik leaped at her and she darted aside with a flurry of slashes from her blades, none of which seemed to do anything.

  Connor turned his eyes away from the fight. She needed help and he’d be damned if he’d stand there gawking while she did. Adelia’s blades couldn’t penetrate even with all her demonic strength, so him rushing into the fray seemed utterly pointless.

  Instead, Connor turned his attention to the ballista lining the sides of the ship, tightly covered with canvas.

  He ran to the edge of the poop deck and hopped down onto the deck below. His feet hit the slippery deck with a splash and his feet stayed under him with inhuman levels of balance and control thanks to his potion. Without slowing down, he continued running straight to a nearby ballista.

  He drew one of the throwing knives from his bandoleer and cut through the ropes securing the canvas in place, ripping it all away to reveal a large ballista of wood and metal mounted on a metal disk fixed to the deck. Large, elegant runes seemed to cover every surface. Beside it was a large, long crate that could only contain one thing.

  It wasn’t locked and Connor all but ripped off the lid, moving as fast as he could and all too aware of the sounds of fighting and the flickers of movement out of the corner of his eye.

  Sure enough, the chest was filled with dark iron metal ballista bolts the size and shape of spears. Each was inscribed with runes along the polished, dusky gray metal.

  Connor grabbed one of the spear-like bolts and turned to where the fight was raging.

  Adelia was faster than Erik, but her blades seemed utterly ineffective.

  “Adelia! Catch!” Connor shouted above the roar of the ocean and tossed the spear toward the fight.

  It vanished. Snatched out of the air in a blur as Adelia whirled to face Erik with the dark iron bolt.

  Adelia swung it in an arc, catching the side of Erik’s neck with the sharp tip. But, if he felt any pain from the blow, he didn’t show it. And any damage she might’ve done was invisible beneath the smoking, steaming, inferno of fur.

  Connor gripped the windlass handle of the ballista and turned it, moving as quickly as he could. Yet, even his enhanced strength took time to cock the war machine.

  As he worked, Connor feared for Adelia, but he resisted the urge to look back at her as gawping at their fight like a useless idiot would do nothing to aid her. Finally, he finished drawing the bowstring back. He grabbed one of the spear-sized enchanted bolts and loaded the ballista with it.

  He spared a quick glance back at Adelia, seeing her darting around Erik and using the bolt like a spear.

  Erik roared, but he seemed more frustrated than anything else and the way he struck at her looked like he wanted only to grab Adelia and restrain her rather than hurt her.

  Somehow that restraint felt more unsettling than if he’d been striking to kill and the fact Adelia seemed unable to harm him despite it chilled Connor’s blood almost as much as her death spell earlier.

  He’d never even seen her use magic before. Hadn’t known she even could, but he’d fought more than enough wizards to tell she’d used power of a sort that dwarfed all but the greatest of them.

  And Erik had shrugged it off like it was nothing.

  With the ballista finally loaded, Connor pushed it, turning the bulky thing on the plate at its base and praying it was even capable of the full motion.

  He grunted from the effort of pushing the hulking contraption of dark iron and wood even with the plate providing a smooth motion. His feet slipped and slid over the slick wet deck as he wrestled the war machine into place.

  To his great relief, the ballista swiveled around until it faced inward on the ship, and he angled it more precisely to face Erik.

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  Every time Erik moved, Connor had to adjust the cumbersome weapon. Not that it was all that hard to keep the enormous flaming wolf in his sights.

  But he dared not fire as Adelia flittered around from every angle, moving so rapidly she appeared like a flickering shadow against the light of Erik’s flaming bulk.

  Then, Erik’s monstrous form flowed backward, reversing his entire figure as his back suddenly became his front and he caught the shaft of Adelia’s bolt in one massive paw.

  He yanked it forward, pulling Adelia toward him and grabbing hold of her throat with a huge, clawed hand bigger than her head. The dark iron shaft of the bolt she’d been using as a spear glowed with heat from Erik’s grip as Adelia struggled, her tail flicking as her legs kicked at the air to no avail.

  But… it gave Connor a clear shot at Erik’s back. Right between his shoulder blades.

  Connor pulled the trigger.

  The war machine shuddered as the tightly wound drawstring shot forward with a whiplike crack, launching the spear-sized bolt of dark iron straight at Erik.

  Runes flashed along its length, blazing with dazzling light as the entire bolt burst into a rainbow of fire, like a comet screaming through the air toward Erik.

  It exploded with a deafening roar in a roiling fireball. The shockwave hit Connor like a hammer blow, throwing him back against the ship’s railing with a thud that reverberated up his spine and rattled his teeth.

  The stinging cold rain was forgotten for a moment in the face of a searing heat that singed Connor’s hair. Connor raised his arms reflexively to shield his eyes from the worst of the inferno.

  A stream of inky blackness flowed over the deck and for a moment, Connor thought Erik had escaped. But the shape reformed into Adelia, some distance away from the boiling fire.

  Connor felt relief wash over him at seeing her away from that mass of fire. Yet… as he looked at the fire that relief turned to apprehension.

  Rather than dissipating, the flames and shards of polished metal hung suspended in the air. They moved slowly as though trapped in honey and barely even singed the rigging and the wooden deck.

  A pit formed in Connor’s stomach, and he swallowed hard.

  The fireball shrank as though being condensed in on itself, revealing Erik standing unharmed.

  His clawed hands were outstretched and his eyes burned with power as he manipulated the fire and metal. He twisted it into the shape of a large flaming bat with metal shrapnel flowing into place for its sharp teeth and long talons.

  It formed rapidly and as it did so, its head snapped up, looking straight at Connor with burning pits for eyes.

  Erik released it as though it were a bird trapped in his hands. It shrieked, flapping its great flaming wings, and flew straight for Connor, its metallic claws outstretched.

  Connor dived aside and its claws ripped through the ballista he’d used in a spray of fire, wood, and metal splinters.

  “Connor!” Adelia roared, her voice an inhuman snarl.

  Connor looked up from the debris just in time to see her extend her hands and project a stream of black and purple fire that seemed to poison reality with its mere presence.

  Hellfire.

  Connor had never seen it of that color, but there was no mistaking the feeling of utterly evil wrongness it emanated. His skin crawled and he shivered despite the oppressive heat as his soul cringed.

  It was a shock to see her unleash it, though it shouldn’t have been. She was a demonspawn after all. It was only natural she could command that unnatural fire that seared the spirit and soul just as easily as flesh.

  Erik held up a hand and Adelia’s raging hellfire slammed into an invisible barrier, creeping up and along it but failing to reach Erik. Where it touched the deck, it hissed and spat over elegant runes. It boiled over the rigging, spreading to the masts and racing up them with eerie hunger.

  Erik snapped his attention to the hellfire above him, seeming worried for the first time.

  “Enough!” Erik snarled.

  He waved his hand and the barrier protecting him from Adelia’s hellfire surged outward. It slammed into Adelia like a wall, lifting her off her feet and smashing her back into the mainmast behind her with a vicious crack of fracturing wood.

  A line of split wood raced up the mainmast, climbing all the way up the towering structure. But it remained standing as Erik’s magic held her pinned against it before dissipating.

  Adelia dropped to the deck with a splash and lay still. The smoke of Erik’s magic rose from her in wispy tendrils.

  More smoke pulsed out from Erik, washing over where her hellfire ate at the rigging and smothering it out of existence.

  Erik waved his hand negligently and the flaming bat hurtling over the stormy waves winked out of existence.

  Then, Erik shrank back into his human form, his fiery fur receding back into his robes. He smoothed his robes and adjusted them slightly, appearing utterly unharmed.

  Suddenly, the deck seemed so much darker than before. Lit only with the soft blue glow of the orbs Connor had placed earlier.

  Adelia wasn’t getting up this time and Connor scrambled to his feet, his stomach twisted with fear and worry. He rushed to her, ignoring Erik.

  There was nothing Connor had that would even harm the man. Even the enchanted dark iron ballista bolt had barely seemed an inconvenience to him.

  Connor knelt beside Adelia and turned her over gently. Her chest rose and fell with steady breathing and relief washed over Connor. Though she looked more than a little singed and she had to be hurting.

  “I hit her harder than I’d have liked, but she’s tougher than you know. Tougher than even she knows, I suspect. She’ll be fine,” Erik yelled over the roar of the storm.

  Connor glared at him.

  Erik sighed. “This isn’t how I wanted things to go,” he said as icy rain continued to drum down upon them.

  He tried to say more, but thunder rumbled so close it hurt Connor’s ears. It faded away, rolling further across the ocean.

  “Don’t make me restrain you, Connor. There’s nowhere to go,” Erik said, “The sooner we get you both into your cells the sooner I can tend to her wounds if she needs it. What’s it going to be, Connor?”

  Connor hesitated, holding Adelia protectively. The driving rain stung his skin like shards of ice and the cold seeped into his bones. Feeling so much colder for the fiery battle only moments ago.

  Bitterness choked his throat. They’d been so close. So damnably close to escaping the Syndicate’s clutches and their promised ‘re-education’.

  Connor looked down at Adelia. She looked so vulnerable in his arms and though he saw no particularly nasty wounds, he worried that she was badly hurt.

  He swallowed the tattered remnants of his pride. Resistance would be useless now. Better for her to get treated sooner rather than later.

  “Don’t have much choice, do I?” Connor asked.

  “I’m glad you’ve decided to be sensible at last,” Erik said.

  Crewmen rushed up onto the deck. Far too late to have mattered. Though, Connor supposed the fight hadn’t lasted all that long and it’d be hard to tell what was happening at first with all the enchantments suppressing sound and the storm raging around them.

  Those that looked at Adelia backed away, their eyes widening with absolute terror.

  “Everything is well in hand!” Erik boomed before any of the sailors could panic, “Remove the lights. I’ll get them back in their cells. We can repair any damage tomorrow. Oh, and first mate, I expect you were just promoted to captain.”

  “Uh… thank you, milord,” said the man Connor took to be the first mate turned captain, “you heard His Grace. Get a move on. I want those lights off my deck, now! Turn that lantern off! You, check on the captain just to be sure.”

  The orders seemed largely irrelevant though as several sailors were already in the process of collecting the lights Connor had stashed around the ship and stowing them below, out of sight as fast as possible. Each of them moved with desperate speed, their eyes more than a little wild. And not just from Adelia.

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