"You think he's still down here?" Jack asked.
"I can feel him," Bella explained.
They were in the ship's hold. It felt like a tomb. Everything was still, and quiet, and lifeless. Bella slowly wandered down the hallway and found herself in front of the Quartermaster's hold. The bars blocked her way.
"He's in there?" Jack asked.
Bella nodded. "I'm honestly surprised he didn't run off into the jungle as soon as we got here."
"Maybe we can get Mister North to give us the key," Jack said, looking at the sturdy lock.
"He's busy and I'm worried," Bella said. "Something isn't right. Do you have a hair pin? Or something like that?"
"When have I ever used hair pins?" Jack raised an eyebrow.
Bella gave her a terse look. "Anything long, straight, and metal."
Jack pursed her lips in thought. Bella smiled at how attractive she found that expression. It was exactly what she needed. She let her eyes trail down Jack's body, enjoying where the shoulder belt of her weapon harness pulled her shirt tight and emphasized the shape of her breasts. Bella's eyes travel the curve of Jack's body where she leaned against the wooden wall, her weight on one foot, throwing her hip into a pronounced curve.
Jack caught Bella staring and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?" she asked.
"Nothing," Bella smiled. "Just getting ready."
Jack gave her a knowing look and walked away abruptly. Bella watched her butt sway as she walked. She'd always loved how Jack's trousers fit her. Jack knew she was being watched and was putting a little extra strut into her step just for Bella.
Bella let her mind wander, fantasizing about Jack pressing her against the wall right there in the small hallway, kissing her, sliding her knee in-between Bella's and lifting until her thigh was pressing tight against the witch's pubic bone. She squeezed her thighs together, enjoying the mounting frustration.
Jack came back a few moments later with a small leather sack. Bella recognized it as the bags that usually hung from the mast in the hold. Jack pulled a nail out of it.
"Perfect," Bella smiled. "Give me one more," She pulled a grease pencil out of her bag and very carefully drew a small sigil on the heads of the nails. Then she held them by the tips between two fingers and stared at it, pouring the sexual energy she'd been gathering with her fantasies into a small ritual. "Flow," she whispered. Slowly, the metal began to feel like wax in her hand. Bella slowly twisted them together, then put them into the lock. She kept concentrating. It took about a minute, but finally she exhaled and released the energy. The metal hardened again. With a bit of effort, she turned the nails in the lock.
With a heavy clunk the door opened.
With a bit of effort, Bella pulled her makeshift key out of the lock and gave the now useless chunk of metal to Jack. They'd been twisted together about halfway down their length and fused together into an ugly but apparently functional key. "Well that is a useful trick," Jack said, impressed.
"It's a shaping ritual. Only works on things like glass, or metal, that flow when heated up. It takes a tremendous amount of energy. I wasn't sure I had enough left."
"So that's why you were ogling me," Jack teased.
Bella gave her a guilty shrug. "I needed every bit I could muster. I'm really not very good at that one. My mother used to use it to make gorgeous ornaments and fixtures to sell at markets. I can only do rough shapes, and they usually aren't very strong. I was afraid this would break."
"Good thing Mister North keeps his lock well oiled," Jack said, pocketing the makeshift key.
They slipped into the quartermaster's hold, ignoring the crates, chests, and stacks of haphazardly strewn papers. The door at the back of the hold was decorated with a brass compass rose and a fancy letter N.
"He's in their room?" Jack asked.
Bella sighed. "Apparently, yes." She tried the door. It was unlocked. As soon as it swung open, her tiny red and white monkey exploded into her arms, chittering and touching her face and hair with its hands.
Bella laughed and scratched the distraught animal. "Aw, did you get shut in? How long have you been in there?"
Jack rolled her eyes, amused and exasperated. "What was he doing there in the first place?"
"No idea. Think we should ask the Norths?" Bella asked.
"Only if you want them to ask what you were doing in their quarters, behind a locked and barred door," Jack mused.
"Good point," Bella agreed. They walked back out, Bella stroking her slowly calming pet. "Lock the door, please?"
Jack pulled the nail key back out and locked the hold. "Now what?" she asked, catching back up to Bella.
"Well, he doesn't look hurt. He's probably just hungry," Bella shrugged.
"I thought you said something was wrong," Jack asked.
"I could feel his anxiety and thought he was in danger," Bella explained. "Do you have anything to eat on you?"
"I thought witches could talk to their familiars?" Jack asked as she opened one of her utility pouches and pulled out a wad of jerky wrapped in wax paper.
"Sort of," Bella said, scratching the monkey under the chin. "We can feel each other's emotions, and he has a pretty good grasp of what I want him to do. It's like having a really well trained pet, I guess."
Jack handed a strip to the monkey, who grabbed it greedily and shoved the treat into its mouth. "You're welcome," Jack said flatly.
"He said thank you," Bella nodded sagely.
"No he did not," Jack scoffed.
"Alright, I did," Bella smiled over her shoulder.
Jack tried not to laugh, but didn't quite manage. "You're incorrigible."
Bella grinned. "You know what they say about pets and their owners." Returning the favor, she put an extra swish in her step just for Jack as she walked up the stairs.
They reached the gangplank and the monkey wriggled out of Bella's arms and sprinted down to the sands, heading straight for the series of fires and cook pots Stewpot had set up near the shore.
"Oh this will be good," Jack laughed. "The cook might kill your monkey."
Bella sighed, watching as Stewpot began shaking a ladle in the monkey's direction. "Why does everyone hate monkeys?"
"Because they're dirty little thieves," Jack said with a shrug.
"Yes, but they're so cute!" Bella threw up her hands in surrendered acknowledgement.
"You couldn't have gone with a cat?" Jack asked.
"Too cliche," Bella said. "Besides, cats make lousy pickpockets."
The pair stifled laughs as Stewpot started waving his arms and yelling, threatening the monkey with his ladle. "Witch! Come get your beast!" the cook bellowed.
"Wait, you picked a monkey because they're thieves?" Jack blinked, taken aback.
Bella grinned wider and nodded. "Yup."
"And then you named it after me?" Jack's eyes narrowed.
"Uh, gotta run, things to do!" Bella laughed, waving and quickly skipping away across the sands towards the cook fires. "Just toss him something Stew, he's been stuck in the ship since last night!"
Jack let out a long sigh, and shook her head slowly, then she smiled in spite of herself.
_______________________
"Wonderful," Caine deadpanned, staring down at his own corpse, watching Tonya panic and shake. "You know this is your fault, right?"
"Yes, yes," his glowing twin sighed, rolling his golden eyes. "You might as well say it."
The pair watched from the other side of the veil, their twin souls ejected harshly into the Ways Between by their unexpected death.
"I told you so," Caine obliged.
"Yes, you did," his golden counterpart admitted begrudgingly.
"Again," Caine said flatly. "You're complete shit at learning from your mistakes, you know that?"
"I'm an optimist," the other Caine shrugged. "Besides, you're the one who has to deal with the consequences, not me." He grinned happily.
"You just enjoy watching me suffer," Caine grumbled.
"I do not!" his double huffed. "I enjoy watching you overcome your suffering. I only want to help. The difference is important."
"Right. So the important part is the suffering," Caine nodded.
"No! Well alright, yes," his spiritual twin said thoughtfully. "I don't like the way you frame it, but I can't deny that without suffering I wouldn't have much of a reason to exist."
"Glad we cleared that up," Caine deadpanned. He shook his head sadly, watching Tonya's breakdown. Her form was ephemeral to them, a black and white shadow of herself, like everything else in the mortal world when viewed from the Ways. She was sobbing against Caine's still and lifeless chest. Her entire body shook, and it looked like she was pleading. He couldn't hear her, but he hardly needed to. Even with the muted, grey, indistinct view of the physical world, he could tell exactly what she was feeling.
She collapsed onto her side, no longer able to hold herself up. She gripped his lifeless hand in both of hers. Her whole body shook with wracking sobs. She was starting to hyperventilate.
Caine's heart hurt for her. He knelt next to his own body, reaching out to stroke Tonya's head with a hand she couldn't see or hear, but stopped. He caught a faint glow from her chest, only barely visible from the way she was curled on her side. He couldn't see all of it, but he recognized it immediately. It was a portion of a circle of faintly glowing sigils, right against her skin, like a mystic tattoo that could only be seen from the spirit realm. He looked down at his own chest. The same mark sat there, beneath the lattice of other mystic runes that slowly orbited him like floating chains.
"You see that?" he asked his other half.
The glowing figure knelt as well, looking between them. "Strange. Do you know what it is?"
"No," Caine shook his head. He leaned in close to his twin, shielding his eyes and squinting hard at his other half's glowing chest. There, he could faintly see the mark. It was hard to make out, but the sigils were a fainter light. "You have one too."
His twin looked down at himself. His golden brows shot up. "I didn't know that was possible."
