Read Online Crossed Blades by Kelly McCullough - Free Book Online Page B

lie, and wasn’t up for jumping games. Then I pivoted and hung over the edge, reaching out and down toward the water, hoping I would find Sshayar waiting there, ready to catch my outflung hands. A swell rolled in first, dipping my hands in the water then raising them high into cold air and the rain.
    Nothing. Nothing. Noth—
    “What the hell!” A harsh whisper came in a familiar voice.
    “Hussh!” Sshayar hissed. “Just reach where I guide you, Aral’s going to pull you up.”
    A hand met mine. Jax! Another. I eeled backward off the lip of the port, losing some skin and nearly dislocating my elbows in the process. Turned out, the port was a bit higher than my shoulders, a fact I discovered as my feet splashed into calf-deep water. Up came Jax. I let go as her hands reached the lip, and fell back onto my ass with a splash. Jax hung for a moment on the edge of the port above me, still more out than in. Then another swell came along, and shoved her through, along with about a hundred gallons of saltwater. She landed beside me swearing. We were in.
    “Where in Namara’s name are we?” Jax demanded in a whisper—even injured and disoriented she knew better than to make too much noise before she knew how the shadows lay.
    “On board what I very much suspect is a smuggling vessel. Or,” I amended, “at least one with a smuggling compartment or two. We’re stuck till the storm’s over.”
    “All right. That’s one. Here’s two: Why do I feel like pan-fried shit on a stick?”
    “Because the Hand of Heaven put a very neat little hole in your left side. Luckily they used a self-cauterizing spell of some sort or you’d have bled out before I could even get to you.”
    I heard something like a hand sliding along wet cloth. Then, “Son of a bitch, that hurts. The who did what now?”
    But another swell slopped a big bunch of cold water in through the port just then. “Answer you in a minute. I need to close that before any more of the sea comes in to join us.” I dragged myself back upright and grabbed the lip of the port.
    Standing hurt. Everything hurt. I could feel my teeth wanting to chatter in my aching jaw.
    “After that, we’ll see if there’s a nice dry smuggling compartment around here where we can collapse for a while,” I said over my shoulder. “If not, I’m going to cut a hole in the nearest bulkhead and we’ll figure it out from there.”
    “Triss, you still with me?” I asked aloud because I didn’t want to let Jax know about our newfound ability to communicate silently. A part of me might still love Jax, but I knew damn well better than to trust her.
    His voice was weak and came after a brief pause, but it came, “Yeah, I’m here. What do you need?”
    “Can you reach out there and pull what’s left of my knife free?” I asked.
    In response, a tentacle of shadow slid past me. If I’d done this right . . . The hatch blinked itself shut like the great eye it had been painted to resemble.
    I yanked my hands back just before it would have crushed my fingers. My knees buckled as I staggered back, and I went down hard, falling face-first into the water and sucking in a noseful. I came up gasping and coughing, glad it still barely topped my calves. Much deeper and I might have drowned. The irony didn’t escape me.
    “You all right, Aral?” asked Jax.
    “Not really. No. I feel pretty much like I came out of that deep-fried shit pan you mentioned a minute ago. But we can’t stop just yet.”
    I wasn’t ready to stand, so I stayed on my knees as I pulled my trick bag around front and dug around inside. Everything water could hurt was a loss. So was some of the stuff I’d have expected to be fine. Fortunately, that didn’t include my little thieveslamp. Slightly smaller than a closed fist, it was basically a metal box with a shutter on one side and a dim, red, magelight inside. The mechanism didn’t much like all the time it had spent submerged in saltwater. It squeaked its