Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

The Only Rules That Matter: Afterlife (TheCorsair, Madam Mim)

It didn't hurt like she'd been told it would. Adam pounded into her, shaking her entire body with each thrust, but the harder he drove himself into her the more pleasure wracked her body. Katrina cried out, her voice pitched nearly at a scream, heedless of the intruder who had tried the door earlier and whether he might come back. She writhed beneath him, panting as she slid her hand to her clit.

"Should...should I pull out?" Adam asked.

"W-what?" Katrina didn't quite process what he meant by the question. Pull out? Now? "Don't stop!" she begged. If he pulled out now it felt like she would never reach satisfaction. Her body stiffened and her toes curled as she very nearly fell over that peak...but not quite...

~*~

A shiver ran through Jenny's body as her husband's breath caressed her ear, his whisper raising goosebumps on her arms. Katrina begged to be fucked harder and Adam obliged. Jenny's walls clenched around his shaft as his hands jerked her back to him roughly and she licked her lips, wishing she could taste it...

John pounded her hard enough to slap her against the wall of the cabin and Jenny was forced to brace herself with her hands. The sinfulness of watching the young couple only added to the excitement of being handled more roughly than he had handled her in quite some time. She bit her lip, desperate not to make a sound and give themselves away, but couldn't ignore that Adam's thrusts and John's were nearly perfectly timed.
 
Had he been in a rational frame of mind, Adam might have argued the point. Might have reminded Katrina that finishing inside her was risky. He was feeling her silken walls gripping him like padded iron, clenching and releasing as he thrust into her. He was feeling her soft hands digging into his shoulders, and her legs gripped his hips as she rose to meet him, and her soft breasts pressing into and sliding against his chest as he moved in her. Rationality was the least of his concerns.

“I won’t,” he gasped. One hand slid under her rear, cupping by it and pulling her against him as he buried himself in her. The other slid under her shoulder, arching her back so he could suck and bite at her nipples as he fucked himself into her. “I... Katrina... oh, oh God...”. A familiar sensation, one he recognized from times he’d pleasured himself, was building in his balls. “I... I’m close...” he gasped out, voice harsh with the effort of trying not to cum. “Katrina... I... oh, oh God... Katrina!” He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop driving into her. Couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop, the pleasure that rolled through him as he spent himself into her body.



John gritted his teeth, plowing deep into his wife as he heard the farm boy call out in orgasm. Fuck if he wasn’t close himself, close from watching Katrina fuck as he pumped his dick into his wife. But he tried to hold back. He wanted to hear Katrina climax when he came, wanted to hear her screaming as he emptied himself into Jenny.
 
Jenny's nails left grooves in the wooden windowsill as she watched the couple as her husband plowed her. Adam calling out his young lover's name ruined it a little, but she'd lost herself in the fantasy and didn't mind it too much. Don't stop she mouthed, silently echoing Katrina's sentiment. She pressed her hips back, fucking herself harder on John's throbbing shaft, trying to...almost...there...

The farmboy's orgasmic cries were enough. Jenny turned her head against her own arm, biting it to stifle any noise as she came around John's cock, imagining it wasn't him at all.

~*~

Katrina's inner walls spasmed when Adam declared that he was close. Her fingers worked her clit more furiously as he worked closer to that peak and finally with a wail she fell over with him into bliss as he pumped his seed into her body. She knew the dangers, knew she should have told him to stop...but god if this weren't the most divine feeling...!
 
John bit his tongue, fighting down the urge to moan Katrina’s name as he felt Jenny’s walls clench around him and heard the muffled sound of her orgasm. A moment later the high sound of Katrina’s orgasm sent him over the edge. His teeth dig into his wife's shoulder, his cries of pleasure coming out as a low agonized sound as he spent his pleasure deep into her.


The feel of Katrina’s orgasm made Adam gasp, eyes going wide as her walls milked his seed from his cock. He gasped and shuddered, hips moving against her, shaft moving within her, until he was entirely spent. Then and only then did some semblance of rationality return as he stared down into Katrina’s heavy-lidded eyes. What did one say, at this point? They weren’t in love, were they? Not just because they’d had sex? Hot, mind blowing sex?

“Ah... wow,” he managed. “That... you... were... incredible...”



Gasping, trying to stay silent, John leaned against Jenny’s bare back. “Think they’ll be all right?” he murmured. “If we leave?”
 
"You...you as well..." Katrina gasped. It was awkward, now that they were neither close to death nor actively making love. She didn't love him, she didn't even know him. "So, I uh..." Slowly she pushed herself into a sitting position, suddenly aware that she was half-naked in front of this near-stranger. "What...what do we do now...?"

~*~

"They look...damn fine...to me..." Jenny whispered, still panting in an effort to catch her breath. Slowly she sat up, pulling her skirts up and picking her bloomers up from the dirt where they lay. For John's benefit as well as for the risk of it she left her shirt pulled down and her bodice pulled open, bearing her breasts to the cool night air. It was only then that she noticed the Horseman lashed to a tree and covered her mouth with both hands to stifle her laughter.

"John..." she whispered, still shaking in her mirth, "John we forgot about Old Hob here!"
 
The South China Sea
1795

“Run out the guns!” John bellowed, straining to be heard above the howling winds and mountainous waves that battered the hull and lashed at the sails of the Black Pearl. “And furl the lower courses!” His crew, the ghosts of drowned sailors seeking to earn a faster release from Purgatory, hastened to obey. Then he hung on to the ship’s wheel with desperate strength as another wave struck and the galleon heaved and wallowed like a rowboat in a tempest. “Damn your eyes! Move!”

One advantage of the dead was that they couldn’t be washed overboard. But they still thought like living men, and as a result feared the wrath of the unnatural storm. It wasn’t monsoon season, and there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky until they’d spotted the junk, so it must be unnatural. The thought made John laugh. He sailed a ship on the oceans of this world and the next, crewed by the dead. Unnatural had stopped being overwhelming or terrifying decades ago. “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,” he sang out, setting the pace for the spirits working the sails.

yo ho ho, they sang back in their distant, whispy voices, and a bottle of rum!

Another wave hammered the prow. John turned the wheel, forcing the Pearl’s prow directly into the wind. The junk they were chasing was fast, but it was no match for his ship. He could see details now, the colors of the banners it flew and the ornately-robed man standing on the sterncastle. Chang Tao Ling! It had to be his man! He’d left the compass to his eldest son long ago, but he didn’t need it now. Not to find the next soul that would bring him one step closer to discharging his debt. “We’ll cross his t on the stern!” John called out. “Port broadside, prepare to...”

The man in the sterncastle raised a hand, calling out something that was lost in the storm. Suddenly the Pearl wallowed and shook as if struck a physical blow. The dead called out, their whispy voices shrill with shock and then suddenly silent. The storm vanished with them, leaving the Black Pearl suddenly becalmed. John watched with frustration as their target offered a mocking bow. “Nǐ huì yǒngyuǎn jì zhù zhè yītiān, yěmán rén,” he laughed, “rn xiàng nǐ jīhū bèi bǔ dì nà yītiān Chang Tao Ling!”

“All right,” John snarled, grinding his teeth helplessly as the junk sailed off, “Now it’s personal.”
 
Ghosts. Why had they been saddled with ghosts? The dead didn't always seem to understand that they were dead, and Jenny muttered under her breath a steady stream of alternating curses and apologies to the Almighty for using His name in vain. Her fingers ached and her hands slipped on the thick, coarse rope as she heaved with all her might. And now they were singing, no doubt at her husband's insistence. Flair for the dramatic, that one. Rolling her eyes, she left the men to work they kept insisting she was too fragile to do and struggled across the deck, grabbing desperately to a banister before hurling herself around it, skipping five steps and skidding down three more to the guns below.

"We're turning hard a starboard!" she shouted over the gale, though down here she found she didn't need to shout as loud. "Port broadside, prepare to--!" Jenny toppled over as she overbalanced when the ship suddenly righted herself and stayed that way, no longer pitching in the tempest. Once she'd pushed herself back to her feet she saw that their crew was gone and out of the hatches she could see nothing but blue sky and sunshine. With a scowl she stomped back topside just in time to see their target sailing off while the Pearl, with her sails furled, languished here with water gently lapping her hull. "Oh God damnit!"

Forgetting her final mumbled apology she hurled her hat to the deck in disgust and stomped up another set of stairs to the quarterdeck. Soaked and in a foul mood, her eyes flashed with fire as she approached her husband.

"What happened?" she demanded. Jenny knew it wasn't his fault and it wasn't so much laying blame as it was anger and frustration overcoming bafflement. "We had him! Dead to rights! And where the hell's the crew?"

The Powers, whoever the fuck they purported to be, had sent them after this pirate--at least, she thought he was a pirate--and they'd been hunting him for weeks now. The Powers hadn't explicitly said so, but he was very likely soul number four of one hundred in their quest to free her husband's own soul. Finding locker-worthy lowlifes wasn't as easy as they'd first thought, and they'd been sailing now for almost forty years with only four to show for it. At this rate it would be, by her calculations, 2750 or so before they were finished. Jenny wasn't terribly keen on living that long in the first place, and if they were all as slippery as this git it might take even longer. He was just a pirate! ...Wasn't he?

"The way they talked it sounded like a milk run!" Jenny fumed, pushing several soaked locks out of her face and squinting at the retreating ship. "I think we need to talk to them, John."
 
“What happened?" Jenny demanded, sounding angry and frustrated as she stormed up to join him. “We had him! Dead to rights! And where the hell's the crew?"

“I don’t know!” John replied, answering both questions with a single frustrated bark. “He just, I don’t know, waved at us and they were gone!” He star d at the sails of the junk, watching the ship they'd hunted getting further and further away. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

"The way they talked it sounded like a milk run!" Jenny fumed, pushing several soaked locks out of her face and squinting at the retreating ship. "I think we need to talk to them, John."

“Talk to..?” It took a minute to register what she was saying. “Talk to the Powers?” He considered that for a moment, wondering if it could be done. The Powers had always communists cater Their will through intermediaries, messengers and the like. Calypso was the closest he’d ever gotten to Them, and she was a small being next to Them. “Sure,” he laughed. “Let’s do it! Come on, help me raise the mainsail. It’ll be a lot of work, but we can sail the Pearl on our own.”


“Land ho!” John called.

The hardest part of the voyage had been getting back into Oceanus, because once the ship was sailing the Sea Between, the Black Pearl handled as easily as if she were a one-man sailboat. Will, who was given to more contemplation, had speculated that this was because their ships were real ships with real limitations on Earth, while they were the idea of ships in the Otherworlds. Much less given to contemplations of that sort, John has chalked it up to magic and gone on with his afterlife.

“One slight problem, love,” he added as he steered the Pearl into the harbor of Fiddler’s Green. “I’m forbidden to go ashore here, until I pay my debt. And you’ve always refused to go ashore, for fear if not wanting to return.”

Fiddler’s Green wasn’t Heaven, he knew - not in the way Heaven had been explained to him in his spotty church attendance in life. It was a stopping place, one of many places where the newly dead waited andrested before moving on to... well, maybe Heaven? He wasn’t sure. What he knew was what he’d seen from the docks, and that was that Fiddler’s Green mingled architectures from across the world and history. He’d seen coracles and Egyptian riverboats and Roman biremes docked almost geode outrigger canoes and Spanish galleons - some delivering the recent dead, others unloading strange cargoes that the pirates in him longed to examine.

“Oh, hey. Look at that,” he remarked as he drifted up to the dock and lept to tie the ship off. That was a winged figure in antique-looking plate armor, standing alongside a gathering of spirits and watching the ship come in. He tossed the ropes to the spirits, watching them scurry to mood the ship and hoist a gangplank into place.

“Permission to come aboard?” the armored figure called.

“...Sure,” John called back, bemused. He’d seen angels at a distance before, about their enigmatic tasks in Fiddler’s Green. But he’d never had one aboard.

“Thank you,” the angel replied, starting up the gangplank. As it did, the armor flared bright and seemed to melt away, revealing a familiar-looking red-haired woman in vaguely piratical clothing. She smiled warmly and lept to embrace him. “Dad!” She cried, before grabbing Jenny as well. “Mom!”

“Anne?” John finally managed.

“In the... well, not flesh, precisely,” she laughed. “But the Powers said you might just have some questions, so they pulled my from my regular duties to answer them, best as I can.” She hooked both their arms with hers and headed for the captain’s cabin. “Of course, I’d still be shouting at Them - respectfully - if they hadn’t picked me. Come on.”
 
"I've feared not being able to come back," Jenny corrected gently. "I'll always want to come back to you, John. Still, you're right. Maybe one of the other ferrymen...?"

It was a vague plan, and one they didn't have time to fully flesh out before John pointed out one of the armored angels. At least, they called them angels; Jenny didn't know what they really were or why they needed armor. If she ever met one she'd ask. But when the figure asked permission to come aboard she raised her eyebrows. She wouldn't give up the opportunity to talk to one, but had to wonder what it wanted with them. The armor flared, blinding her for a moment, and melted away to reveal someone Jenny felt like she almost knew. Like they had met in a dream...

"Mom!" The young woman flung herself onto Jenny, who caught her dazedly before holding her out to get a better look at her.

It was, indeed, Anne. Solemn, quiet Anne laughing and jubilant, going about on perfectly functional, wonderfully healthy legs. There was no hacking or coughing, no wheezing or gasping for breath or staggering about. It was as though she'd never been sick at all. Jenny missed everything she'd said as she stared at her daughter even as she steered them towards the captain's cabin. It almost didn't matter what she was saying: Jenny wanted to memorize every detail of the grown-up face she'd never had in life, every strand of hair, every freckle, every step of those strong, healthy legs. She was taller than her mother by a few inches, and appeared to have started favoring John more in the face, with his wide, dark eyes and mischievous smile, but Jenny was still there in her hair and her freckles.

"Anne..." Jenny finally croaked, unsure of when she had sat on the edge of the bed. She covered her mouth with both hands, tears slowly sliding down her cheeks and over her fingers. "Oh Anne!" She didn't care if there were other things to talk about; Jenny flung herself onto her daughter, clinging to her tightly and holding her close as she had so often wished she could before.

Jenny had never been quite the same after Anne's death. She had become far more protective of her younger children, far less apt to let them explore the world around them without much convincing from her husband. While Scraps the turtle had been re-stuffed over and over and handed down from sibling to sibling, until finally he'd fallen apart for good and been given a burial at sea, Fwee had sat on the mantle, never to be passed to the twins, only to be held after everyone else had gone to bed on the nights that Jenny found the loss too hard to bear. It had taken her years to remember not to set an extra place, and with each child she'd had to bury before their time she had become a little more solemn, a little slower to smile or to dance. All of her children were dead by now and she knew that, but she hadn't had to bury Steven or Brigid while she was living, hadn't had to watch them die, and that had somehow made it easier for her to accept. And now here, with Anne in her arms happy and healthy and here she could feel that first crack in her heart heal just a little bit.
 
Anne laughed, eyes shining with joy and unshed tears as her mother clung to her and refused to let go. “I’ve missed you too, mom!” Tightening her arms around her waist, she buried her face in her mother’s hair. “I never dreamed it would take dad so long to make some little progress, when you went back for him.”

“Hey!” John protested. “It’s hard work, first bring souls vile enough for the Locker! And shouldn’t you be showing your father a little respect?”

Grinning, she threw an arm around him and dragged him into the embrace as well. “I suppose I should,” we said gravely. “There isa commandment about it and all.” An affectionate tone belied the harsh sounding words. “But it really shouldn’t be that hard to find a hundred souls, dad. I...”

“I went there,” John replied, voice suddenly hollow. “Yes. It is hard.”

Anne stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “I see. Yeah, maybe it is at that.” She brightened suddenly, tugging them both towards the cabin. “But come on,” she urged. “You wanted some answers, and I’ve been sent to deliver them.”

“Yeah, about that,”’ John said he thoughtfully as he followed his daughter. “You... you’re an angel?”

“Wasn’t I always?” She countered playfull, before stepping aside so he could open the door. “But, Yes. I am. I got bored, you know? I spent too much time in Assiah watching other people do things and go places, and I didn’t want to let my time in Yetzirah pass the same way.” Shrugging, she followed her parents in. “So seanmháthair Gráinne put in a good word for me to Ha-Elyon Mîkhā'ēl, and now I serve a similar role to yours. Psychopomp, mostly, with a little Malak Habbalah as called upon. She grinned once more. “It keeps the decades interesting. And is that rum? I've always wondered what that tasted like!”
 
Jenny still was having trouble finding her tongue. John was acting as though this were some normal, every day occurrence. As though it was usual and normal to just casually meet with their daughter who he had tried so hard to safe, hard enough to nearly destroy their marriage and family, healthy and walking and grown-up. How was he not overjoyed? How was he not overcome with elation and grief and all those years of heartache? How could he stand and speak so easily in her presence and not fall to his knees, weeping and praising God for returning her to them? Jenny felt as though she were the only sane one aboard to be so overcome with emotion that all she could do as they talked was cling to her daughter and weep.

"Absolutely not, young lady!" Something maternal in Jenny, something she had thought was long gone, pushed to the forefront and forced its way out of her mouth as Anne reached for the rum. It wasn't as sharp or rebuking as she had meant for it to be, but it was still forceful and quintessentially parental even through her tears. "And what's all this Jewish nonsense?" Their marriage had been unconventional for most of Anne's life, but by God she had raised a good, Catholic girl!
 
"Mom!” Anne protested with s note of incredulous indignation. She shot father an irritated look as he snickered. “I’d be nearly 91 if I was still mortal! I’m not a ‘young lady’!”

Considering the drink he’d poured, John knocked it back with a single swallow. “You won’t win this one, girl,” he laughed. The glass clinked as he set it down, and then he pulled her into an embrace. “It’s good to see you again, Anne. I..”. He sniffed, eyes finally glistening with tears. “I didn’t think I’d get to see you for a long, long time yet.”

“I know,” she says d, sniffing a little as well. “That’s why I came, dad.”

“And what's all this Jewish nonsense?" Jenny demanded, not quite managing to sound as stern as she probably wanted.

Anne shrugged a little, then sat down next to her mother with a last lingering look at the bottle. “Hebrew’s as good a language as any, and Kabbalah describes some of the terms.” A little smile. “And they feel that Ha-Elyon Mîkhā'ēl is easier for us new Malach than their title in formal Enochian.” Frowning, she made a face as she struggled to shape alien-some nding words. “Bogiralang Sobamaziazorelo.”

“And a ‘malak’ is..?” John prompted.

“An... angel.” She looked faintly embarrassed as she said it. “I deliver messages, and escort the dead along the next stage of the pillars, and do whatever it is the Powers direct the Archangels to have me do.” Grinning, she wrapped an arm around Jenny’s shoulders. “Which is why I’m here - They said you would have questions about your current assignment.”
 
"I don't care if you're a hundred and ninety one," Jenny scolded, "you're my daughter, and you--" She bit off that last thought. You were ten when you died. "Just do as you're told, even if it's just while we're here. You'll always be my baby, Anne; humor me." Being a mother was something she could grip onto, something she could focus on apart from the overwhelming grief and gratitude. And being a mother meant giving her children guidance even when they didn't ask for it.

Fortunately, as he'd rarely done in Anne's lifetime because he wouldn't have to deal with the consequences, John actually backed her up on this. He earned a look of disapproval as he knocked it back, but Jenny didn't say anything. It would keep Anne from taking it while their backs were turned. Finally her presence seemed to move him, as though it had taken a while for it to register who was standing before them. She tried not to be bitter that it was his crying that finally elicited some sort of reaction from Anne as well. She had spent her life trying not to be bitter about the bond they'd shared in life, even though she'd been the one around for all the heartache and pain, day in and day out, waiting for that dreadful hammer to fall.

But the dutiful wife helps her husband save face. "And what's all this Jewish nonsense?" she demanded, not managing to sound quite as stern as she'd wanted, trying to distract from John's emotions and keep them all from falling into a sobbing heap. Wives and mothers weren't allowed to fail in their strength, Jenny reflected bitterly, even in death.

But Anne explained, fumbling some more-foreign-than-foreign-sounding words around her mouth in what Jenny supposed was Enochian, not that she'd know. But she was an angel! An honest to God angel! She had always known that her Anne had become an angel. Anne wrapped an arm around her and Jenny leaned against her a little, resisting the urge to put all of her weight on her, or to pull her into a hug and smother her in kisses and never let her go again.

"Yeah," she confirmed, glancing at John. "We were just in a maelstrom of sorts, chasing this bloke the Powers want gone for whatever reason. Chang Tao Ling. Even had a ghost crew and everything help us push the Pearl as hard as we could. Then all at once the storm stopped and the crew was gone, and Chang just...sailed away." She looked at Anne. "How's that possible? How did he steal our crew and control what only very few gods have control of?" Jenny didn't really believe that the likes of Neptune and Calypso were gods; her God was the only god and that was that. These were monsters or spirits or avatars or something. But John called them gods and they got a little...snippy when you implied that they were anything but, so she called them gods with her mouth and denied them with her heart.
 
Grinning, she wrapped an arm around Jenny’s shoulders. “Which is why I’m here - They said you would have questions about your current assignment.”

“Yeah," Jenny confirmed, with John nodding agreement. “We were just in a maelstrom of sorts, chasing this bloke the Powers want gone for whatever reason. Chang Tao Ling. Even had a ghost crew and everything help us push the Pearl as hard as we could. Then all at once the storm stopped and the crew was gone, and Chang just...sailed away." She looked at Anne. "How's that possible? How did he steal our crew and control what only very few gods have control of?"

“Powers,” Anne corrected automatically. “The Powers. Not... gods.”

“I’d ask what the difference is,” John said dryly, clearly wanting to ask, “but it’d get us off topic, I think.”

“Uhm.” Anne purses her lips, contemplating her answer. “Not, not quite. See, there’s a whole hierarchy here, full of Beings of incredible authority and ability. Beings that, well, I report to Ha-Elyon Mîkhā'ēl - the Archangel Michael, who is also one of the Seraphim who serve before the Throne. But Mîkhā'ēl, for all the strength that one possesses, is comparatively minor in the grand scheme of things.”

“And this relates to Chang Tao Ling how?” John prompted.

“Well, it’s important to understand that the Powers aren’t gods, not like the God we learned about in church. They’re fallible.” Anne grimaced. “And they can be tricked by a clever mortal.”

“Makes sense,” John nodded. “So what did Chang Tao Ling do?”

“About two thousand years ago,” Anne stated, “he seduced the Queen Mother of the West, and then stole a Peach of Immortality and the Fangsheng.”

“And what’s that when it’s at home?” John asked.

“Two interlocking triangles of jade,” Anne answered, miming something about the size of a doubloon, “that can be worn as a decoration on a hat. And that poses the power to banish spirits from Assiah. Even the Powers.” She managed to look apologetic. “And so the Powers sent living servants - you, mom, and dad - to bring him in.”
 
Jenny got a smug sort of pleasure at Anne's differentiation between the Powers and God, her God. She knew it was all hokum and bluster! She'd never met the Powers herself, obviously, but now she held just a little less respect and esteem for them knowing that they were fallible and they could be tricked, unlike her God. The longer she lived the more she found that it was one thing to believe and to have faith, and another thing entirely to know. She tried not to be prideful and smug about knowing, especially when she got into the occasional theological disagreement with a mortal, but it was comforting to know for certain that once they were done here she and John would meet Saint Peter and all of their family in Heaven.

"So how are we supposed to keep up with him if we can't catch him?" she asked. "Especially not without a crew? I mean, the Pearl handles pretty well on her own just the two of us, but if all the Powers can provide us with is a ghost crew and he can make that disappear and leave us wallowing in doldrums, is it even possible to bring him in?"
 
"That's a good question, mom," Anne sighed, looking plaintively at the bottle of rum. "Can I get something to drink, dad?"

"Sure," John replied. He grabbed a pitcher and filled a mug, then handed it over. Anne looked inside, and snorted at the sight of the water within. "You heard your mother," he reminded her.

"I'm nearly a century old," she grumbled, downing it. "But, back to your question..."

"The fangsing," John said, propping his feet up. "It doesn't work on the living. Just spirits. Am I right?" He laughed at Anne's startled expression. "I'm older than you, girl. And I may not be an angel, but Captain Jack Sparrow learned to work an angle."

Anne chuckled as well, then leaned against her mother. "Yep, that's right. Otherwise, well, they'd have sent me or someone like me to go get it. But the fangsheng would blow apart any corporeal form I took and send me hurtling back here. Uncomfortably, as I understand it. You, though, you and mom... you're anchored to the world of flesh. It has no power over you." She shook her head. "So you'll just have to worry about his alchemy and sorcery."

"Oh. Is that all?" Jack downed a goblet of rum. "Do the Powers have any tips for us? Or is this a make it up as we go sort of thing?"

Anne shrugged. "They said the White Lotus can help."
 
Anne snorted at the water and her father's admonitions and Jenny raised an eyebrow. "And it seems you've been without a mother and father too long, young lady," she chided, a warning tone in her voice. "Clearly they don't teach you to respect your elders or honor thy mother and father in Heaven." She'd have threatened to tell the Archangel Michael that Anne was breaking a commandment, but Jenny didn't make idle threats and she doubted Michael would have taken too kindly to tattling.

But then Anne leaned against her like she had as a child at bedtime and Jenny felt herself soften again. She wasn't sure how much longer she could take this wild swinging between stern maternal instinct and the desperate desire to hold her baby and cry. She leaned her head against Anne's as she explained that since she and John were tied to the world of flesh the Fangsheng couldn't effect them.

"Alchemy and sorcery?" she echoed. "Well that's just a walk in the park, isn't it? Nothing to worry about there." Then Anne suggested the White Lotus and she raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that a flower?" she asked. "How's that supposed to help us?"
 
Anne shrugged. "They said the White Lotus can help."

“Isn't that a flower?" Jenny asked, sounding mildly puzzled. "How's that supposed to help us?"

“They’re the Báiliánjiào,” Anne replied, rolling the Chinese word easily off her tongue. “A, uhm, a church of sorts, worshiping Wusheng Laomu - the Infinite Unborn Venerable Mother, the source of all that is. They look forward to the coming of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, who will teach the pure dharma and gather all the children of Wusheng Laomu together into one family once more.”

John scratched his head. “I... almost understood that. And it sounds, sort of, like the second coming.”

“Sort of.” Anne shrugged. “Something about them makes the Powers uncomfortable, in ways that Christianity doesn’t. But they’re opposing Chang Tao Ling, seeing him as a danger to the Middke Kingdom, and they have some knowledge of how to counter his magic.”

“The enemy of my enemy...” John mused aloud. “That’s a bit dicey, but I suppose we don’t have much choice. How do we find them?”

“Sail for Canton,” Anne replied. “Go ashore, wearing a lotus blossom - in your hair, for instance, or in a lapel. That will attract their attention.” Sev thing, she snuggled into Jenny. “And I should probably be going soon. Report back and all that. But...” she smiled at her mother, “I thnk I can squeeze in dinner before I have to go.”
 
The Báiliánjiào...where had she heard that word before? Anne explained this 'church' and Jenny cast her mind back to her time with Shih's fleet. That was the only time she could think of, after all, that she would have heard these words since she hadn't yet returned to China. It bothered her throughout their conversation and as she was making dinner, despite how much she enjoyed doing so. It almost felt normal, having her daughter and her husband there while she cooked. Sure there were four missing mouths to feed, but she hadn't shared a meal with Anne in so very long.

"Bohai!" It came to her in the middle of supper, while they were laughing at a story Anne had been telling. "That's where I've heard of all this before. My first mate in the South China Sea, Bohai, he told me about his religion and why he didn't follow Jesus even if he was a 'lucky god.' He had this tattoo of a flower he said was a lotus right here," she held her fingers about four inches apart and held them to the underside of her right forearm, just below her elbow. "And I always thought it was so funny because it was such a dainty little thing when he was covered with all these other tigers and dragons and stuff and that was the only tattoo on that part of his arm." She was about to mention that it was a coincidence that he had been a part of this religion too...but she had lived long enough to know better than to believe in coincidences. Throughout the rest of dinner she wondered what exactly the Powers were playing at.

~*~

There had been much hugging and kissing and more tears at Anne's departure, and for three days Jenny had taken Fwee from her usual spot on top of a trunk and had cuddled her, stroking her old, coarse yarn hair. She had tried not to let John see how morose she was, and really did try to look on the bright side--that Anne was an angel and was waiting for them to return to her for good--but it took more energy than she had at any given time to pull herself out of her funk.

Work was good. Work was a distraction. Jenny hadn't pulled out the clothes she had worn while captaining Shih's vessel since those would be nearly a hundred years out of date by now. But the ship always seemed to know just what they needed, and provided clothes suitable for them to blend in. Not that they entirely blended in, mind you; they were a couple of pale Wàiguó rén and her hair attracted quite a bit of attention as they strolled through the market, but they could play at tourists trying to blend in. Jenny looked around, very conscious of the lotus blossom in her hair, and leaned in to her husband.

"Maybe we should split up?" she suggested. "And whoever finds them first comes and gets the other?"
 
“Maybe we should split up?" Jenny suggested. "And whoever finds them first comes and gets the other?"

John hesitated. Splitting up wasn’t necessarily the safest thing to do in a port, and while he was certain Jenny could take care of herself he was also aware that their current duties hadn’t come with any unusual magic powers or superhuman abilities. Beyond being able to capture the souls for the Locker, at least. But she was perking up and, after three days of watching her sorrow over having to leave Anne, it was nice to see her coming out of it. So he fingered the cloissone lotus pin attached to his coat, and considered. Sadly, there weren’t many options.

“All right,” he decided, taking her hands and looking her in the eyes. “Just... be careful, all right?” Then he chuckled. “Of course, you know more about Canton than I don’t, don’t you?” Leaning in, he kissed her lightly. “No shame in running, Hong Zhenni. I made a career out of running, really, and look how it worked out for me.”

He grinned and squeezed her hands, then stepped back. “Let’s meet at the Pearl. Head there as soon as you can if you find something, and head there at dusk if you don’t?” he suggested. “That way, we don’t wander in circles looking for each other.”

Leaning back n for another kiss, he doffed his battered tricorn and then rolled off with an insouciant sway as he let Captain Jack settle back on him like a comfortable old coat. “Now let’s see,” he mused to himself, “where would I look for a group of religious fanatics?” He glanced at a pub, then sighed and kept walking. “Probably not, but you never know. Let’s go check the shrines first.”
 
"Well, I only made land once," Jenny admitted, though with a tinge of pride in her voice, "when Ching Shih wanted to meet me when I was first captured. But I still remember what little Chinese Bohai taught me. And I wouldn't say that your career of running worked out particularly well..." She arched an eyebrow and smirked playfully. "If you hadn't had a certain naive young blacksmith there to save your neck more than once, I imagine we'd have died in poverty not knowing what had happened to you." She squeezed his hands back then nudged him. "Sounds like a good plan."

Jenny shook her head as she watched her husband--no, not her husband but Captain Jack--weave away. With a sigh she turned the other way and continued to look at wares, playing the tourist trying to dress up like one of the locals. Normally white people wore the clothes of their own lands here, so she knew she stuck out even more...but perhaps this would draw the White Lotus's attention before anyone else's. As she wandered through the streets she sang, as though absentmindedly repeating a tune she'd once heard, a song that Bohai had taught her so long ago. He had said it was an old peasant folk song, and on the surface it seemed to be just that: a lamentation for the sons who had died in a war not their own. But the more she had learned about this church of the Venerable Mother the more she began to think perhaps it was a comment on the nature of life. Deep for such a song, but perhaps it actually meant something; she refused to believe that it was coincidence that her new life had led her back to some obscure Chinese cult.

~*~

The religious fanatics were, indeed, not in the pubs. Nor were they at the shrines. Nor were they at a dumpling stand where Jack bought his lunch. As he wound his way through some of the seedier parts of town, however, he happened to pick up a pretty shadow. After a block she called out to him in a horrifyingly Cockney accent,

"Arrigh' love?" The woman caught up with him, leaning against the wall to block his way. "Ain't seen you afore, means ya must be new. Gets awful lonely, dunnit, bein' 'ere all by yer lonesome?" She smiled charmingly and arched an eyebrow. Her eyes flicked to his pin, but only for a bare fleeting moment.
 
John chewed on his dumpling as he considered the woman confronting him. She was pretty enough, he decided. Enough that she probably pretty caked up a little extra, especially if she pretended to enjoy her work. He started to tell her to go away, but hesitated. She looked a little like Jenny. Well, no. Not beyond the red hair and being female. But it had given him an idea. “A bit lonely, love,” he replied, swallowing his lunch. “Just got into port, and I don’t know anyone but my mates.” He smiled, looking her over. “Maybe you could show a lonely sailor where to get a decent drink round here?”

All right, so it was playing fast and loose. But ‘prostitute and client’ was one of the games he and Jenny played from time to time, trying to spice up their repetitive sex. He’d meet her somewhere, give her a few coffee be, and fuck her in an alley. So, why not go just a little further? Play at picking up a real whore, flirt for a while, then pay her for her time and go meet Jenny? That’d like van things up, wouldn’t it?

“So,” he said, offering her his arm and adjusting his lapel to make the pin stand out a little. “Where would you suggest?”


“Leaves from the vine,
“Falling so slow,
“Like fragile tiny shells,
“Drifting in the foam.”

A second voice joined in from in front of a teahouse, a sweet, clear voice accompanied by the melancholy twanging of a biwa.

“Little soldier boy,
“Come marching home
“Brave soldier boy.”

The singer was a dark-haired Chinese woman of indeterminate age, dressed in a red robe. She offered an apologetic smile as Jenny looked at her. “I did not offend, I hope? But it is a beautiful song, and you sing it so well that I could not help myself.” She bowed, then gestured gracefully to the seat next to her. “I am Bo Hai Yu Yan. Please, will you join me?”
 
Jenny paused when she heard a sweet, high voice join her own lower tones. The Chinese woman sat in front of a teahouse, smiling as she played an instrument which sort-of resembled a lute but didn't sound like one. She smiled back and accepted the woman's invitation and sat next to her on the bench after returning her bow. She wasn't entirely sure how low was appropriate for this particular woman, things having changed a good deal in a century, but at least she wasn't entirely without manners in the highly formal society.

"Bo Hai?" she asked as she sat. "That was the name of the man who taught me such a sad song, a long time ago." She still wasn't entirely sure what to make of Yu Yan and didn't want to offend or to give herself away to the wrong people. "I wasn't sure how well I pronounced the words...I feel so silly sometimes, playing at blending in when I know I don't." Jenny giggled in what she hoped was a self-conscious way and plucked at the sleeve of her dress. "Do you like my flower? I thought it was a bit much, but I was assured that all the right people in Canton do their hair this way." She turned to show Yu Yan the lotus blossom as though she might have missed it then returned her gaze to her. She was even prettier up close, and probably still was even without all that makeup. "My name is Jenny."

~*~

"Well now yer know Lola, too," the whore giggled, taking John's arm and beginning to steer him through the streets. "An' I knows all the best places, I do. Best drink, best food, best women..." She winked and bumped his hip playfully, turning him down a seedy alley. The shop she stopped in front of billed itself in both Chinese and English as a "teahouse," but the curtains were drawn tightly and when they stepped inside a thick, cloying, floral-sweet smoke surrounded them. Lola said a few words in badly-accented Chinese to a woman who came to the front, and in a few minutes they were escorted back to a private room.

The smoke wasn't as thick here, but the smell followed them into the thickly-curtained room. There was a mattress in one corner and plush, richly-colored cushions all around. Lola settled herself onto a cushion and produced more terrible Chinese to the woman who had escorted them. She was just settling in when the woman returned with a tray laden with two mugs, a bowl, a pipe, some sticky brown resin, as well as a plate with several green pods secreting a milky substance.

"Yer seemed like a rum sorta fella," she said with a coy smile, handing him his drink. "S' a pretty pin y'got there. Get it from yer mum as a keepsake or sommat?"
 
"The flower is as lovely as your hair, Jenny, and you should not feel 'silly' for wearing it," Yu Yan assured her, pouring her a cup of tea as she sat down. "I fear you were told wrong, however. Very few in Canton, or elsewhere in the Middle Kingdom, wear such flowers." She ran her fingers through her own hair, stroking them past a small lotus blossom braided into her coiffure. "Which is a pity, really, for they are beautiful."

She slid the small cup over to Jenny. "Bai mudan," she murmured. "A peony and not a lotus, sadly, but well suited to one daring enough to wear a lotus in her lovely hair." Pouring a second cup, she lifted it and sipped at it. "But surely you did not learn Líkāi téngwàn 'a long time ago'. It is an old song, yes," she smiled over her cup, "but you are young." Her expression turned curious. "But tell me, however did you learn it? My great-grandfather taught me the melody and the words."


"Lead on then, Lola," John agreed, enjoying the feel of the strange woman nestling against his side. Not enough to lose track of where she led, though - he'd seen sailors led into ambushes by whores, after all, and didn't relish the thought of ending up with his skull bashed in and his possessions stolen. But she led him to a shop that reeked of smoke - opium smoke, he decided as he recognized the scent - and into a private room. Possibly her private room, he decided as he noticed the mattress on the floor.

"Yer seemed like a rum sorta fella," she said with a coy smile, handing him a drink from the tray the Chinese woman brought in.

"I've been known to indulge," John agreed, sipping it cautiously. Nothing tasted off, although it wasn't the best rum he'd ever had.

"S' a pretty pin y'got there," she added, gesturing at his lapel. "Get it from yer mum as a keepsake or sommat?"

"A good luck charm," John answered, examining the pods on the plate. "A mate of mine said it was lucky, and I'd have to agree." He grinned, lifting his mug in a small toast. "I met you while wearing it, didn't I?" Then, carefully, he picked up a pod. "Opium poppy?" he guessed. "I've seen pictures, but I've never actually handled one."
 
"Lucky indeed then," Lola agreed, tapping her mug against his with a tinny sound and knocking back the rum. She had her orders, but this was the unpleasant part. When the stranger picked up a pod she smiled at his guess. "Smart one, you," she confirmed, "but they're real dangerous. There's a special tea I make, fer me special customers, but it gets real tricky like. Too much and..." She drew a thumb across her throat before carefully taking the pod from him.

"Join me?" she offered with that same inviting smile, already dripping the milky substance into warm water. "I always make it right, y'know. Ain't never lost n'one." As she stretched her arms over the bowl she allowed her sleeves to ride up a little, exposing the bottom of a lotus flower tattoo in case he still wasn't certain. She watched him from the corner of her eye as she carefully prepared the tea, then drank first to set his mind at ease if he still had any reservations. "S' easier'n yer think, love."

~*~

Jenny blushed when Yu Yan pointed out that the flower in her hair wasn't a lotus but a peony. "Then the florist lied," she said with an embarrassed smile, taking the cup offered. "I'm afraid I know very little of flowers, peonies or lotuses or otherwise, only that they can cheer one immensely when a dark mood strikes."

The tea was heavily perfumed and Jenny nearly choked on the unfamiliar flavor, but managed to drink it with a smile if not somewhat slowly. "An old sailor taught me," she said honestly, "when we sailed the South China Sea together. I may be young, but with the flow of life things can still feel like a long time ago." She returned Yu Yan's smile. "I'm glad you know the words in English; I wanted to teach it to my son, but I only know them by sound and not meaning and that makes it awfully difficult."

That was a lie. She had worked with Bohai and between her broken Cantonese and his broken English they had managed to translate the song into (very) roughly what Yu Yan had sung and she had taught it to Jack when he was elected captain of his own ship. Bohai had said the song would bring protection and good fortune when the singer was in a bad spot, and it had for her after all so why not her son?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom