Mistress of the Damned

Flipp

He picked me up from the deck of the ship and carried me in his arms down into the lower deck of the ship. I had curled into his warm chest and tried to hide my embarrassment. He had brought me to the kitchen and set me down on one of the chairs that the cooks used. He opened some cupboards until he found a basin. He filled it up with warm water and set it beside me. Then he grabbed a cloth and dropped it into the basin. He sat down beside the chair and looked up at me. It was the first time that I had seen any type of kindness on his face, and I appreciated it more than he would ever understand.

He grabbed the cloth and rang it out, so that it was just damp. Touching my face gently, he washed the dirt away. He moved the cloth slowly over my forehead and across my cheekbones. He would pause and then dip the cloth in the basin again, before ringing it out and starting all over again on the other side of my face.

When he was finished, he looked me over to make sure that he had gotten all the dirt. I had scratches on my legs and arms from being dragged across the deck, and he lightly dabbed at them with the cloth until they stopped bleeding. He would investigate them closely to make sure they weren’t too deep, and then he would move on to the next. I had never thought of him as someone that was capable of kindness, but he was proving me wrong. I had a cut on my leg from one of the Siren's blades that wouldn’t stop bleeding. He held the cloth up against it but it wasn’t helping.

I flinched at the touch, and he looked up at me. Every time that he removed the cloth, a pool of blood would seep out of my wound. I needed to be stitched, but I didn’t think that there was anyone onboard that I would trust to do it. He continued to dab it, but it was obvious that the cut was too deep.

“We’re going to have to do something about this.”

I touched the back of my head where it was tender, and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized my hair was still intact.

Ignoring the cut, I said, “Why do your people hate me so much?”

His gaze flickered from the cut to my eyes and then back again. He finally sighed.

“I’m sorry for what happened up on deck, Flipp. We don’t condone that sort of thing, especially what they did to you… Unclothed you, I mean. That is something that Azil would have executed them for. We might joke or play around, but a woman, any woman, should never be treated like that. We’re not monsters…literally. We may do things that others might frown upon, but that is not one of them. Of course, I can’t speak for all the crew members. But not all of us do those things.”

I blushed and looked down, remembering what had happened on the deck, and what it must have looked like to someone who walked up and saw it. “They think that I killed your crew member.”

“In a way. They know you didn’t slash that man’s throat. But, they believe that the Goddess of the Sea is furious at us for having you onboard. That she is punishing us in various ways for allowing your presence around us. They believe that she lashed out and killed that Siren because we had a Demon onboard.”

“I’m not a Demon.”

He looked up at me. “They don’t know that. You don’t exactly look human.”

“I don’t exactly look like a Demon either. Who slashed that man’s throat?”

He paused as he was dabbing at the cut on my leg and then my head. “We don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was the Goddess of the Sea. But I don’t believe that you are the cause of any of this. If I did, I would have seriously reconsidered your stay with us. I had a problem originally with you being on the ship, but it was only because I foresaw something like this happening. I’m just glad I heard the commotion and decided to check it out.”

“What they did to me tonight—” I said, my voice catching.

“I’m sorry, Flipp. There is really nothing I can say that is going to take that memory away from you. I wish it didn’t happen, but it did. I can promise you, however, that it will never happen again.” He looked me in the eyes and I believed that he really was sorry, or maybe he was just trying to put a spell on me. “It’s true that my people have a certain prejudice about your people. It’s not something that is easily changed. There are terrible monsters that will consume our kind, but the same could be said about Sirens. Not all monsters are bad, and the same goes for Sirens. There are centuries worth of prejudices between species, and it’s not something you can just talk someone out of. You have to understand that there are some bizarre things happening on the ship right now, and you are the only difference we have had on the boat.”

“You mean the rats.”

“Yes, the rats. We haven’t experienced this before, where we have dead rats all over the boat. And they’re not just dead, they are skinned, bloody, and some are dismembered. It’s rather disturbing, and when something happens like that, it makes people think that the boat is cursed. I can’t even blame the men for thinking it, I have no other explanation to give them. Sirens tend to be very superstitious. People will do strange things when they are scared.”

I stayed quiet and he continued. “It’s not just the rats either. There are other weird occurrences, aside from the crew member that died. Food is going missing, and we can’t explain that either. Even with you on the ship, we know what you consume, and there is too much food gone. So, where is the missing food going?”

“You have a Hirpy onboard. Did it ever occur to you that he’s the reason your boat is cursed.”

Xagon shook his head. “No. Denon’s are different from demons. The reason why everyone hates you is because Demons are our natural enemies. Demons will eat our kind, and then clean their teeth with our bones.”

“I’m not a fucking Demon!”

He smirked. “I know you aren’t, but the crew believes you are, and you can see how well I did of convincing them otherwise. They are lying in bed right now thinking about the monster that has cursed their ship.”

“So, I’m going to die on this ship because your crew are too stupid to realize that I’m not even capable of cursing the ship?”

He shrugged. “Well, you should really use your tail more.”

“Screw that. I was mugged in my sleep by eight Sirens. I didn’t even have a chance to wake up before I was tied down and dragged on deck. There was zero opportunity to use my tail.”

“I know. I can’t seem to apologize for it more. Azil will deal with the men, but you really need to know how to take care of yourself.”

“Stop acting like I don’t know how to fight. I’ve been killing creatures long before you came around.”