A Blaze of Ecstasy

“I should have my wits.” Gennie laughed at her own words. “Strange though it is to say, a drink might be the last thing I need.”  

Maggie did not laugh at the jest. Instead a look of concern crossed her elsewise mirthful face. “When we met there was a darkness over you. I see it returning. You are a capable captain, with a quick mind. It’s quickness though does cause you to stumble there and again, but never fully fall from the grace of the sea and her gods.”

“Miss Pye, your gods, and the gods of many others have found little favor for me, and I make no claim they ever have. It is devils and djinn that catch me when I tumble. Watch that you and our fair crew are in their favor.” Gennie had not meant the words to carry such ill favor.

Maggie’s face yet glimmered with a harrowed amusement. “I think both gods and devils may be just what this ship needs to keep the level lee.”

“So it is then, Miss Pye. So it is.” Gennie adjusted her hat and turned from her navigator. “Carry on with your merriment on this fair winded day. Your captain is off to survey the less capable crew.”  

Gennie passed Marrick as she descended to the lower decks.  

He held a full flask and bottle, a confused look upon his face. “Aye, I didn’t take half the time I could‘ve, poppet.”  

Gennie gave the man her profile. “Long enough for me to lose my thirst.”  

She carried on to her duties.

“What of your hunger then?” Marrick’s grin caught Gennie as she turned back to her first mate.  

Gennie caught the meaning but denied the man an answer.  

“If you can’t wait two days for entertainment, send for me.” Marrick called after his captain.  

Gennie’s puckish smirk appeared below the shadow of her hat. “It may be others, more my taste on my list for entertainment before you.”  

Gennie continued down the deck. Marrick was an easy fish to reel  in at any time. She heard the boom of Maggie’s laughter. The navigator had heard all from her perch along the rail. Marrick’s dark look might have cowed a lesser sailor, but Pye’s amusement stifled only so far as a giggle. 

Both knew their captain would not have her morning rounds interrupted further. Gennie adjusted her hat and coat even as her mind wandered. She made way across the ironwood planks of the deck.  

As she gazed out across the flat open deck to the open water beyond Gennie’s eyes caught a shadow perched at the prow. 

“Blaze?” She squinted to make out the lithe silhouette perched upon a sealed barrel. 

The high sun made it difficult to focus on what looked to be a man dressed in dark cloth, his feet resting against the crate in front of him. 

“Even he would not be so bold as to hide in plain sight.” All the deck seemed to bend from her as sinuous as the vacant sea beyond. 

Gennie eyed from afar the smooth lines of the man’s arms, the sinewy limbs of this shadow appeared to hone an equally slender blade. 

It was only in her mind’s eye she saw the tattoos. Reapers. One whose scythe curved with the muscle of his upper arm, the other peering as if to defend the assassin’s back from one pale shoulder. Both were only visible on the rare occasion the assassin was free of his leather tunic. Gennie could swear she could hear steel blades as they licked at a whetstone, clenched in long thin fingers. After every kill, ritual, as a artist tending his tools in recounting a masterpiece completed. Only once had she see the assassin swell with satisfaction. 

Could this fine catch, a shark, waiting, watching with cunning, and preparation to net or be netted be the stowaway she knew to be aboard? Gennie heard the staccato rhythm of blade upon stone. She sought the ivory handled pistol. Both had toiled and cast their lot.  

“Captain, ma’am, excuse.” The voice shook Gennie from the spell of memory.  

“Aye, what is it?” She turned to see two young sailors, both female, struggling passage with yet another barrel.  

Gennie followed the pair to the barrel at the prow. 

Blaze was gone. “Your focus is waning.” Gennie felt the memory of the blade on her throat.  

“I trust you to always keep me on my toes.” She leaned into the vision of the man with the blade. “One of these days, the crew will know you are out to have my head.”  

“I will off them, too. They can wait their turn.” Blaze’s ghost hissed. 

“We make land in two days. Will you lie in wait aboard the ship, or take me in the narrows of an alley.” 

Gennie sensed both she and the assassin would have peace by Topolis.

Below the main deck Blaze did indeed watch Gennie as the captain suspected. What she had not known was who else kept a steady eye on the assassin. 

“Your trust confuses me.” Blaze slid the dagger between a fold of cloth and tucked the weapon into a boot pocket.  

“You carry more blades than I would care to offend.” Sanji murmured from a shadow beyond the reach of the assassin. “I also know you prefer guns, one in particular that my captain carries. No harm will come to this vessel, her crew, or my captain while that is so.”  

From the darkness Sanji locked his gaze with the blue eyes of the assassin.  

“True.” The man’s eyes burned the word into Sanji’s soul.  

“There may be trouble in Topolis.” Sanji changed the subject to evade the piercing orbs.  

The boy remained calm, the assassin could smell fear. 

“A little action will keep both of us from getting bored.” Blaze faded into the shadows below the decks. “I trust you will tell the captain there are no rats aboard.”

“I fear it may be more than just one rat I am hiding. Possibly more and you are their pied piper.” Sanji dared to let his knowledge slip. 

“Change is coming. Rats are first to know.” Blaze’s voice was further than the last time. 

Sanji hated when the assassin used him, but it was his best chance to stay close to the man’s plotting. The boy watched the shift of darkness in the form of a man, a feline air to the movement. He watched, and the assassin watched, everyone, especially the captain.

“She was once a mere child with good fortune and infuriating persistence. She used that to corner me.” Blaze was no more than an echo in the distance. “You say you are learning from me, but I sense a greater quantity of your captain’s qualities in you.”

Blaze did hope to tell the boy the story of the little french girl who had duped him on more than one occasion. For now it was a tale for his own heart, and the captain she had become.