“Cast off, lads!”
* * *
—
MARCUS WATCHED THE VANISHING SPECK of shoreline from the quarterdeck and wondered whether it might be wise to swim back to shore after all. The big sailor crouched down next to him.
“We still haven’t been properly introduced.” One arm shot toward Marcus. “I’m Eric. Most people just call me Gallowglass.”
“Marcus MacNeil.” He took Gallowglass’s arm again. This time the gesture felt right, familiar. “Most people call me Doc.”
“Marcus, eh? A Roman name. Granddad will be pleased.” Gallowglass’s eyes were permanently creased at the corners, which made him look as though he were about to burst into laughter.
“The chevalier de Clermont didn’t tell me he had a father,” Marcus said, daring to reveal his ignorance.
“The chevalier de Clermont?” Gallowglass tipped his head back and roared with laughter. “Christ’s bones, boy. He’s your maker! I understand your reluctance to call him Papa—Matthew is as paternal as a porcupine in full needle—but you might at least call him by his first name.”
Marcus considered it but found it impossible to view the austere, mysterious Frenchman as anything but the chevalier de Clermont.
“Give it time,” Gallowglass said, patting Marcus on the shoulder. “We’ve got weeks to share stories about your dear dad. By the time we arrive in France, you’ll have far more colorful names for him than Matthew. More fitting, too.”
Perhaps the journey would not be as tedious as Marcus had feared. He felt the slender, familiar outlines of Common Sense in his coat pocket. Between Thomas Paine and Gallowglass, Marcus could spend the entire voyage reading and figuring out what it was going to take to survive as a vampire.
“I saw—felt—some of the chevalier’s history.” Marcus wasn’t sure whether this was something he should discuss.
“Bloodlore is tricky. It’s no replacement for a proper story.” Gallowglass ran a gloved finger under his nose, which had gone watery in the rising wind.
This was another unfamiliar word—like “wearh” and “maker.” Marcus’s curiosity must have shown.
“Bloodlore is the knowledge that’s in the bones and blood of every creature. It’s one of the things we crave as wearhs,” Gallowglass explained.
Marcus had felt that hunger to know—along with the urge to hunt, to drink blood, and to fight. It was comforting to realize that his lively curiosity—a curse, his father Obadiah had called it—was now a normal, acceptable part of who he was.
“Didn’t Matthew explain how the world really works and what you were about to become before he made you?” Gallowglass looked concerned.
“He might have. I’m not sure,” Marcus confessed. “I had a fever—a bad one. I don’t remember much. The chevalier told me I would be able to go to university, and study medicine.”
Gallowglass swore.
“I have some questions,” Marcus said hesitantly.
“I imagine you do, lad,” Gallowglass said. “Fire away.”
“What’s a wearh?” Marcus asked, his voice low in case a member of the ship’s crew was nearby.
Gallowglass buried his face in his hands and groaned.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” he said, rising to his feet with the practiced grace of a man who had spent his life afloat. Gallowglass extended a hand to Marcus and lifted him up. “You’ve a long journey ahead of you, young Marcus. By the time we get to France, you’ll understand what a wearh is—and what you’ve taken on by becoming one.”
* * *
—
ONCE THEY WERE ON OPEN seas, Gallowglass had all the flags lowered save one that was black with a silver snake carrying its tail in its mouth. This kept most vessels at a respectful distance.
“The family crest,” Gallowglass explained, pointing up at the standard that flapped and crackled in the wind. “Granddad is more gruesome than any pirate. Not even Blackbeard wanted to be on his bad side.”
During the voyage, Gallowglass told Marcus a story about what it was to be a wearh that finally made sense of the weeks since Yorktown. At last Marcus understood the nature of not only wearhs, but witches, daemons, and humans, too. He was fairly sure, looking back over his life, that the healer at Bunker Hill had been a witch. And he knew for certain that John Russell—the man he first knew as Cole—was a wearh. As for daemons, Marcus didn’t think he knew any, although Vanderslice was the most likely prospect.