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It’s a dangerous place to be, the docks this early in the morning. If the drunks and pickpockets don’t get you, the rising tide always could. Price doesn’t seem aware of that. He rarely does, come to think of it. The mermaid had seen him scared and cognizant of the danger he was in only a handful of times, few else had lived to tell the tales of it.
“An early morning Captain?” The mermaid asks from her place under the wooden planks.
She can only see his feet but she knows he isn’t looking for her. “Late one,” he answers, taking a sip off a pint as she swims out from under the dock.
“It’s strange to see you ashore.”
“Could say the same to you,” he shoots back. “It’s strange to see you so close to land, Kate. You being careful?”
The mermaid suppresses a shudder when she hears her name from human lips. There’s power in a name. Her sister’s wouldn’t be pleased to know how many humans she's told it to, her cousins even less so. She smiles up at the captain. “You worry about everyone but yourself, John.”
He smiles, but it’s not a happy one. “Expect you’ve come to me with some work then? Or a favor?”
Kate nods, blond hair tied back tight and fastened with a shell her wife had carved for her. “A favor disguised as a job,” she admits.
John grunts into his pint as he takes another sip. “What if I was out?”
Kate stared at him awhile, nothing but the saves to fill their silence. “A captain’s never out until the sea takes him out, in my experience.”
John tilts his head in agreement. “She’s a cruel mistress.”
“Can be. To some.” Kate frowns and looks the captain over. “Did I miss something, John? Did something happen with Farah and Alex after I left?”
John doesn’t move. “Alex… The Sea took ‘im,” he answers, his voice as even as he can make it, but Kate hears the torture in it.
“Mm. I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, and means it. “But it is better to be lost at sea than chased down by the Golden Eagle for desertion.
John grunts his agreement. “Where am I headed, Kate?”
“Mexico. Playa Del Carmen to help some friends of mine, if you agree.”
“Mexico? You get around, don’t you?”
She smiles at that. “I have friends everywhere, Captain.”
“Enemies too,” he warns her. Price doesn’t like when Kate visits him when the sun is up like this, so close to shore. Thinks she’s a little reckless, though he’d never say it aloud. She’s no idiot and he’s no one’s father. Well, that he knows of anyway. He takes another drink from his tankard. “It’ll take a good ship to get to Mexico.”
“I’ve already talked to Nik, he says you’re always welcome at his Marina and a ship should be ready by the time you make the walk back to Vieques.”
John nods. “I’ll need a good crew too.”
“That I cannot help you with until you get to Mexico. Captain Alejandro Vargas and his Los Vaqueros will help run the ship if you can get it to Playa Del Carmen by the end of the week. They have allies coming from up North as well, an American troupe of privateers called Shadow Company. Captained by Commander Phillip Graves.”
John finishes the last of his beer. “What do they need my help for?”
“Recovering their ship, Las Almas, from a group named El Sin Nombre. His crew hijacked it from them some time back and has been in the wind ever since. Rumor has it the leader of El Sin Nombre and his crew has been working with a band out of the east that calls themselves The New Killers. A pirate named Hassan Zayani is starting to make a name for himself smuggling weapons into the New World.”
John’s eyebrows raise. He’s curious. “Who’s the captain in charge of El Sin Nombre?”
Kate smiles. “That’s the point. All pirates in that group are nameless. I’ve heard tell that if you learn one of their names they cut out your tongue and use it to bait the water for sharks before they feed you to them. It’s a ship of ghosts.”
John smirks at this. “Why should I care who’s got their ship or who’s bringing weapons into the New World, Kate? Aside from the fact that I owe you favors.”
“The New Killers are working with Konni. If the New Killers get a foothold in the New World, then so does Konni.”
John’s eyes narrow. “Makarov is dead,” he spits into the ocean.
“But his men are not. They’re wounded but reforming, and it’s only a matter of time before they pick a new leader, commandeer a ship, and head West.”
John feels a growl form in his chest. “Can’t leave well enough alone can they? Serves me right for showing mercy.”
Kate agrees. “That’s the death of that word in your vocabulary, I hope.”
John nods. “Nik’s expecting me then?”
Kate nods. “Where’s the rest of your team, John?”
John sighs as he stands. “Tortuga.”
Kate’s laughs can be heard over miles of open ocean.