We Walk As Wolves

Chapter 2

Cass

Cass followed them to the docks. 

The moon had slipped behind a cloak of dark clouds, casting the Port of London in a lowering darkness, an ominous warning from nature herself that settled deep in his bones. 

A muffled cry came from his right. He crouched down, peering through the gaps of three wooden cargo boxes. Dark coats flapped in the cold wind, swirling around the shadows like black cyclones as they shoved his sister toward the edge of the platform. Something about the way they moved, slinking between boxes with featherlight footsteps, gave Cass the impression they were about as welcomed in the Port of London as a fox was in a chicken coop. 

Boats that do not belong creaking in the harbor. 

Cass swiveled on his toes, turning to watch them stalk across the dock, and the boards released a short creak as his weight shifted. A whine of bones grinding, then the nearest shadow whirled, hollow holes where eyes should have been darting toward the rows of boxes. 

Cass's back hit the side of a red cargo container, a cold sting twisting up his spine. He pressed a hand to his chest, an attempt to cloak the pounding beneath his ribs. He waited, barely breathing. 

"Leto!" A voice barked. 

Boots squeaked, rotating away. "I thought I saw somethin'." 

"That's your seaweed brain talking," another chuckled. "Ain't nobody in their right mind out here at this time. These hours belong to the demons." 

The deep voice that had spoken to Cass back in the city echoed through the jungle of boxes. "Island or not, human time's over once the sun goes down. This place is finally gettin' the idea."

Cass peered around the box once the footsteps had turned to steady gaits. His sister's small body hung between two coats, the toes of her shredded shoes struggling to hold her weight. The shadows strode up to the ledge of the port, then turned and disappeared behind another wall of boxes. 

Cass's gut twisted, a painful warning. But something urged him toward the water, a haunting craving that overpowered anything else. He rose to his feet, quickly pulling the leather laces out from under the tongues of his shoes, then slid the boots off. The ground was damp, and the number of holes he had in his socks became starkly evident. 

He soundlessly followed in their footsteps, and had been about to round the corner when an innate pull made him turn toward the water, an enticing whisper from the ocean. It was the closest he'd ever come to the river Thames, and for a moment, Cass found himself wondering how much lay beneath the rocking waves, if these shadows came straight from the stomach of it. The thought pushed him onward. 

The ground under his feet seemed to vanish as he slid around the corner. It felt no different, wet and sturdy, but when he looked down, he couldn't see his legs. He tried to back up, and his spine hit something slid. He glanced up. 

A monstrous hull of a wooden ship towered over his head, casting a thick sheet of shadow onto the deck below. 

It wasn't like the other boats that docked at the port. The ship itself was massive, but it was nothing compared to the eight dark sails dancing in the wind twenty meters above the deck. The ship had been battered by the sea and looked centuries old, but the rich black paint miraculously hadn't chipped. 

Waves sloshed against a large engraving, the word Pitch, on both sides of the ship. The letters were jagged, with pointed swords curving underneath the first and last letters with an arch like fingers slipping into a coat pocket. The black ship belonged to thieves.