Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

LXXXVI. Fishermanʼs Tales

5

Gabe went to sleep, and Scott watched as Blake laid out all his: authentic English weapons his grimoires and spell-books, holy oil from Jerusalem and holy water from Mecca, swords and knives forged from pure silver, blood root, and ash from an African sorcererʼs bones on old Aunt Virginiaʼs cedar table. The rain still let out it anger on the cabin, making the ground shake slightly, but with a heated fire and his baby boy sleeping on his lap, Scott could manage.

The fire that licked the chimney like a hungry kitten thirsting over a saucer of milk, fire that kissed every candle Blake ignited, fire that crackled – gentle at first, before flaring, rising to the sky, trapped in prayer – seduced by the black plumes of smoke. Scott watched Blake pour two glasses of El Tesoro tequila into red solo cups, Blake handed one to Scott and watched as he drank it in one go.

"Penny for your thoughts, Scotty?" Blake asked as he scratched his stitched hand.

When he said that, Scott pulled another bottle of El Tesoro from the cabinets and let it sear his skin as he guzzled half of it down. He moved like a machine; cold, calculating, and he didnʼt spare a second. The wolf-scratch scars etched into his chest were covered by a fresh shirt and leather jacket, the taste of nicotine filled his mouth just as easily as it escaped, and he loaded his .45 until his hands were shaking.

"Weʼre just dead men walkinʼ, Blake," Scott said darkly, staring at his brother with a lifelessness. "What else is there to think about?"

"The thing that you were huntinʼ, maybe?" Blake countered. "Why the hell youʼre on the edge?"

The hallways echoed and groaned. Lacerating his conscience; destroying his focus. The sky bled again, the demons and monsters from Hevene begging for a reckoning, Scott heard that Cuban accent ringing in his ear – one younger, one older – shrewd and small eyed, matted scraggly tangle of gray curls constricting around him.

"It was a trap," Scott muttered, insane. "Itʼs always a f*ckinʼ trap."

"Scott!"

"There was a witch," Scott snapped. "I was hunting a witch in the Badlands two years ago. In Greenland – by the Scottish ridge. Women were being terrorized. Babies being snatched from their mothers, feasted on like fresh corpses. I...I was hunting a witch."

He paused.

"She was hunting me," Scott decided.

"The townspeople, the farmers and merchants, they all warned me about this white witch with icy eyes and skin made from actual snow. The men that went to her, they died days later. But Iʼd faced worse."

He spoke like the things he hunted: dead, lost, broken, forgotten.

"I wasnʼt supposed to see anything," Scott murmured. "I wasnʼt supposed to hear any of it. But, I...knew, Blake. Knew what she was, in a way."