Hidden Island Chapter 41, part 2 of 3

Hidden Island
Chapter 41, part 2 of 3

"If that place is sealing away something unholy, the Magistrate needs to find it before anyone else does," Victoria finished.

"I see," Evangelina said, narrowing her eyes in thought. "I want your word, and you'll not harm him."

"We cannot give that," Victoria said firmly. "If his curse is a force of evil, it must be destroyed.

That may require harming him."

"Oh, we're at step two already?" Caine muttered.

"You were told to be silent," Sister Victoria snapped, whirling to face Caine.

"Even if the nature of Mister Sterling's curse is evil, he is not. I will not be party to any action that isn't intended to protect him," Evangelina said. "If you cannot make that promise, this conversation is over."

Victoria's eyes hardened again, but Mercy held up a hand diplomatically. "We can promise we will do everything we can to end the curse without harming Mister Sterling."

"Make it Binding," Caine said from the door.

The Sisters' gaze swung to him in tandem, matched expressions of surprise on their faces.

"How do you know about that?" Mercy asked.

"It's not a fucking secret. You know how to do it?" Caine asked.

"Of course," Victoria said, sounding a bit insulted. "That is a sacred rite of courtesy between sworn and anointed church officers. It's hardly appropriate regarding an acolyte and the subject of an inquisitorial investigation."

"Then leave," Caine shrugged. "We have more important shit to deal with."

"If you're going to hinder our investigation, perhaps we should leave you to the Teach gang?" Victoria said haughtily.

"There's three," Caine said. "Intimidation didn't work. Negotiating failed. We're at coercion now."

"You could just cooperate," Victoria said flatly.

"You just said you were willing to hurt our friend to find out where his curse came from," Caine reminded her. "Why would we want to help you?"

"Because the threat of this curse and its origins are more important than one man's safety!" Victoria growled.

"To you," Evangelina said sternly.

"If our concerns are correct, Mister Sterling's curse twists fate!" Mercy blurted out, hoping desperately they'd see reason. "It robs others of their place in the divine plan and makes them pawns in its unnatural machinations!"

"One guy can fuck things up that bad? Doesn't say much for the divine plan, does it?" Caine snarked.

"You just finished telling us about how just being near him has swept you up into an escalating cascade of danger," Victoria added, ignoring Caine and focusing on Evangelina. "The situation you're in is exactly the chaos that follows William Sterling everywhere. We've read all about it.

We've watched it firsthand. Don't you want to free yourself from all this madness?"

Evangelina smiled. "I wouldn't trade it for the world."

Victoria threw her hands up in frustration. "You're being hunted!"

"Yeah," Caine growled from behind them. "And the first thing you three did was shout where she is to the whole damn island."

The mask of Evangelina cracked as Caine's revelation flooded her with fear.

"Oh no," Janie whispered.

Candy repeatedly fumbled with the lock, refusing to relinquish the key when Jack reached for it. Jack eyed the horizon, hoping she had enough time to return before Barney wanted to leave. After the fifth or sixth failed attempt to open the door, they heard a clattering from inside, and the door opened independently.

Candy's face glared out at her, then went wide as she saw Jack. "Oh," the woman inside said.

"Hello."

Candy shoved Jack off and stumbled inside, ducking beneath the other woman's arm, leaving her and Jack to stare at each other awkwardly.

She looked nearly identical to Candy. Stocky, with a round face and large eyes, freckles, and bright red hair. The only real difference that Jack could see was that Candy was muscular, and this woman was soft. She was rounder in her stomach and her cheeks. Her hips and breasts were more prominent. She wore a smudged leather apron over a dingy white dress covered in stitched repairs and faded embroidery. A pair of odd goggles sat on her forehead. They looked like they might have been a jeweler's eyepiece once, but now they were something else.

"Da, she owes me money?" Candy's twin asked.

"Ah, no," Jack shook her head. "I just wanted to make sure she got home safe."

That seemed to confuse the woman. "Aye, well. Thank ye."

"Sure," she said. "I'm Jack."

"Cassie," the other redhead said cautiously. "Ye knew the island?"

"Arrived yesterday rather accidentally," Jack said with a self-effacing nod. "We blew in with the storm."

"Had the be something' like that," Cassie said wryly.

"Who's that?" Jack asked.

"Candace Dinna has friends," Cassie shrugged. "So ye had tae be new."

"Can't imagine why," Jack laughed. "She's so cordial."

Cassie burst out laughing and looked at Jack a bit less cautiously. "Do yourself a favor, and don't stay long."

"That's the plan," Jack said. "We just have to fix our ship."

A look of accusation flowed into Cassie's eyes, and she became much more guarded again.

"We cannot help you," she said quickly.

"Oh, I wasn't asking you to. My partner is already negotiating with the woman who runs the docks."

Cassie's look of apprehension was replaced by sympathy and fear. "Whatever ye do, did not get in a debt with her."

"Your sister said something similar," Jack said. "We will certainly try not to."

Cassie looked like she wanted to say more, but a crash and a string of curses echoed inside the house. Cassie winced. "Sorry, I have the..."

"I'm running late anyway," Jack nodded. "Hope she's alright tomorrow."

The other woman nodded her thanks and shut the door. Just before it closed, the light caught a glint of metal, and Jack saw the giant metal brace strapped around Cassie's leg.

A pang of sympathy went through Jack. Whatever that apparatus was, it didn't look comfortable. She looked at the bruised horizon again and started jogging away from the stilted beach house where the odd redheaded twins lived.

Janie was trembling. It hadn't even occurred to her that their last hiding place had just been exposed.

Victoria had the good grace to look chagrined. "We can still help you. Just work with us. The three of us have far more resources at our disposal than..." She gestured around the mostly barren shelves and stacked crates and lingered on Caine longer than necessary.

"The Prelate didn't say anything about a bounty on your head," Sister Mercy said, trying to apologize. "We didn't realize."

All Janie could do was shake her head. Memories of being bound by the Teach gang rushed through her, and her voice failed.

"Oh, you didn't realize?" Caine said with barely contained bitterness. "You didn't wonder why she hid after you talked to the Prelate? Or after you saw all the locks? For people whose job is asking the right questions, you sure ain't any good at it."

"We had no part in making this situation and could not have known about it before we arrived,"

Sister Mercy said defensively.

"But you sure as hell made it worse, didn't ya?" Caine snapped back.

"If we had known, we would have taken precautions!" Sister Mercy argued. "The situation is unfortunate but not our fault."

Caine rolled his eyes so hard it looked like they might fall out of his head. "That's what the Magistrate says every time they fuck up. You trample all over everyone else's lives. You never fucking learn, and your apologies never help the corpses."

Sister Victoria's frustrations boiled over. "I've had quite enough of your disrespectful mouth, cretin. Sir Hector, take him outside."

Caine didn't bother looking at the knight. "If your toy soldier touches me, you'll learn more things you won't like."

"I don't much care for threats, old man," Hector growled as he moved towards Caine.

Caine didn't move from where he was leaning against the door or bother to look in Hector's direction. "You want a fight or answers?"

"Can we..." Janie whispered shakily. "Can we all just calm down, please?"

"Doubt it," Caine muttered, eyeing Hector lazily.

"Let's go," Hector said sternly. He reached out with his golden gauntlet and grabbed Caine's arm, pulling him roughly.

Hector was half a hand taller than Caine and broader by far in his armor, but he might as well have been hauling on a stone statue. Caine didn't move. His eyes slowly went down to the fingers gripping his elbow and then to the golden helm. The two men locked eyes again.

Hectors was confused as his Faith-enhanced strength failed to move the slovenly servant.

"Bad choice," Caine said.

Sir Hector was surprised and momentarily caught off guard as the other man stepped in closer and began moving his hands like snakes coiling around the knight's arms. Hector reacted with expert training. A hundred tiny byplays happened in a moment. Neither man seemed to move much, but each was processing and reacting in fractions of a second. The Centurion moved and shifted, transferring weight and power, reacting with training born of instinct and extensive combat knowledge, but this disrespectful cur stayed just ahead of him. It was shocking in a way he'd never experienced. He'd faced enemies that moved faster than he could comprehend. He had been trained for that. Anticipating the movements of his enemies was a large part of his training. It didn't help. Hector knew precisely what the other man was doing as he did it. Understanding what was happening as it happened, as each of his expert counters was either too slow or was precisely what the other man wanted him to do, was a shattering blow to Hector's entire identity.

To the others, it looked like Caine rolled his arm around Hector's like a snake, catching the bigger man's hand in his armpit and shoving the Centurion's bent elbow painfully inward and up to rotate the knight's shoulder in a direction it was never meant to go.

Hector turned his body in the direction Caine was pushing his arm to keep his shoulder from dislocating. His expert pivot continued into the whole spin. He threw his elbow back like a hammer, but as he turned, Caine snapped his foot into the back of the knight's leg. It folded. His armored knee crashed into the stone floor, ruining his counterattack. To counter his momentum and keep from falling to the floor, he let himself continue to turn, pivoting on his knee and whipping his other leg out in a brutal sweep. He hit nothing. Caine moved with the turning knight, staying behind him. Caine had kept a hold on the gauntlet that had first grabbed him and managed to bind up the knight's other arm when he'd avoided the spinning elbow. As Hector's failed sweep ended, Caine stood behind the kneeling knight, holding both armored hands behind his helmet.

The whole room shook as Caine slammed Hector face-first into the sturdy door with a brutal shove. The impact made the big knight see stars through the thick metal helm. In an appalling moment of stunned vertigo, Hector felt himself falling again as Caine yanked him backward as he recoiled off the door and threw him to the ground in another clatter of armor. The back of Hector's helmeted head bounced off the stone floor. Another white burst of light danced in his vision. Without his golden helm, either of those impacts would probably have killed him. His breath seized in his chest from how hard he'd crashed down, but before he could force his body to breathe right again, Caine kicked him in the side of the head—the third blow to the head in as many seconds was enough to usher the Centurion to blackness.

Victoria had started reaching for her pistol as soon as Sir Hector ended up on his knees, but, with speed and fluidity, she could barely follow; the unkempt ruffian had slammed the knight's head into the door, thrown him to the ground, and rushed her. He didn't even bother to slow down when he kicked the downed knight on his way. He stopped directly in front of her with his hand on top of hers, pinning her weapon just before the barrel cleared its holster.

Caine's blue eyes were like those of an angry predator, but his voice was soft and calm.

"Don't."

"Warden's blood!" Sister Mercy breathed. All her training had failed her at its sheer speed and brutality. She'd been thoroughly trained and tested in a half dozen fights since she took on the Inquisitor's mantle, but she'd never seen violence like that. There was no struggle to it. There were no moments of hesitation or trading of blows. On his way from the door to Sister Victoria, this drunkard had casually dropped one of the best-trained soldiers in the world. His attention was on her partner, but Sister Mercy was suddenly aware that this man they'd so horribly underestimated was now fearfully close.

"You killed him!" Sister Victoria hissed angrily through gritted teeth.

"Caine...?" Janie said fearfully. Words failed her again. The fight had started like an odd sort of wrestling match, but in the space of a heartbeat, it had become more like an execution.

"If he is what you say he is, he'll pick himself up any time now," Caine said quietly. He didn't move a muscle or look away from Victoria's shocked but still defiant eyes.

"I'm going to check on him," Mercy said, slowly moving out of arm's reach. Caine nodded slightly, and Mercy rushed to Hector's side.

"Why?" Janie asked, not knowing what else to say.

Caine didn't answer. Instead, he lifted Victoria's hand off her pistol and drew it himself, then stepped away from her.

Victoria exhaled long and slow and glared unfiltered hate in Caine's direction. "You'll pay for this."

"Can't wait," Caine said dismissively as he set the gun down on Will's table.

"He's alive!" Mercy exclaimed. "Thank the Warden!"

"Who in God's name are you?" Sister Victoria demanded.

"Someone who's had enough of the Magistrate's bullshit," Caine said bitterly. "You came here looking for a fight. Now you're crying about getting one."

"We didn't come here for a fight!" Mercy growled, half pleading with Caine as she helped
Hector removed his helmet.

"You pounded on the door after dark, shouting about Magisterial authority, telling the whole fucking neighborhood who you were and who you were coming for. You came in like you owned the place and demanded answers from people without reason to want to help you. You badgered the woman I'm protecting, threatened me twice, then tried to overpower me," Caine said flatly from where he stood next to the table. "If this is how you treat someone on your side, how do you treat everyone else?"

Mercy shook her head angrily but had no response. She put her hands on Hector and began praying. A soft golden glow pooled under her hands and faded into his body. His eyes fluttered open, full of glowing gold. He gave Mercy a small, thankful smile and winced as the pain in his skull thundered behind his eyes.

Angrily, he tried to sit up. His arms shook. His stomach rolled as the thudding in his head continued to pound, and nausea flowed through him. Sister Mercy helped him until he was leaning against the door. He forced his throbbing, uncooperative eyes to focus on Caine and curled his lips into a hate-filled snarl.

Caine snorted and rolled his eyes. "Some Centurion."

"What is your problem?" Victoria demanded. "It's your fault he needed healing."

"It's his fault," Caine corrected her. "And he's a fake."

Hector's eyes blazed, and he forced himself to his feet. "I was trying to be restrained so I didn't hurt you. I underestimated you. I won't be repeating those mistakes."

"Oh, are we doing round two already?" Caine asked. You can barely stand. Are you sure you don't need to rest up a while longer?"

"Caine, please," Janie said helplessly.

Hector stared daggers at Caine. "Sister, I beseech your blessing."

"You three are slow fucking learners," Caine sighed. He cast his gaze towards Mercy. "They listen to you. Feel like saying something?"

Sister Mercy glared at him. "You brought this on yourself." She touched the holy symbol hanging from her neck and released some stored enchantment. A pulse of white came from her hand and flowed over Hector before fading to a glowing holy sigil centered on his chest.

Surprise lit up Caine's face as the Sister's prayer manifested. "You trying to get him killed?"

Caine asked Sister Mercy.

"Your bravado is as tiresome as everything else about you," Sir Hector growled. He was growing steadier on his feet by the moment.

"Caine," Janie said again. She was nervous and conflicted but had no idea what to do.

"It's fine," Caine said with a sigh. He picked up the pistol from the table beside him, breached
it open, pulled out the charge, closed it again, and waited for Mercy to finish her prayer.

As Mercy's blessing washed over, Sir Hector grinned angrily. Whatever lingering pain he'd been in was gone. He drew his sword. It was short, double-edged, and hiltless with a leaf-bladed shape similar to a spearpoint. He ran his thumb over one of the engravings on the pommel, and the blade sheathed itself in a field of rounded glowing light his shield was made of. It suddenly looked like a glowing club rather than a blade. Another quick touch on his other hand and a translucent shield of golden light erupted from his gauntlet. The Warden's Crest on his chest piece lit up and sent a soft glow crawling out along all the embossing throughout his armor.

"You know that didn't heal you, right?" Caine asked, sounding a bit worried. "Just because you can't feel it doesn't mean you're not still fucked up."

"Last chance to surrender," the knight growled.

Caine looked at Victoria. "Don't suppose you want to be the voice of reason for once?"

Victoria was uncertain. Something about being face-to-face with this man had given her an unfamiliar doubt. She'd seen plenty of bravado in her life.

She was known for it herself. This man had none. He reminded her of an exasperated drillmaster dealing with cocksure recruits. He was uncouth and disrespectful, but he believed everything he said. She was trained to root out falsehoods and see the motives behind words. This man was not looking to deceive them. He was angry.

She looked at Sir Hector, the indomitable Centurion, bearer of one of the hundred Bulwarks of Light, the stalwart guardian who'd seen her through many challenges and found herself doubtful.

"Stand down, Sir Hector," she said hesitantly.

Sir Hector's defiance was apologetic. "I'm sorry, Sister. This is a matter of honor now."

Caine rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "This is such a waste of time."

"Then let's get it over with," Hector growled. He lunged across the room like a golden cannonball, all ferocious speed and focused violence. He led with his glowing light shield and swung his shimmering blade club at Caine's head.

Caine was still holding Victoria's pistol by the barrel. He took a small step and rapped the pistol against the end of the glowing blade. It glided along the gun with a squeal of metal and a shower of mystic sparks.

As soon as the arc of the glowing blade wasn't a danger to Caine, the pistol snapped forward like it was bouncing away from the beam of light and cracked into Hector's jaw with a sickening crunch. The knight's sword hit Will's table in an explosion of splinters as three identical looks of horror and surprise burst onto the Witch Hunter's faces. The glowing shield of light had utterly failed to stop this unkempt man. His hand and the Sister's pistol passed through the Centurion's legendary Bastion like it was little more than the light it appeared to be made of.

As an encore immediately following the first surprise, Caine reached through the glowing shield with his empty hand and grabbed Hector's gauntleted wrist like a vice. The pistol reversed its follow-through and hooked it behind the Centurion's neck. Hector's magically enhanced strength and speed still carried him forward like a charging bull, but just before the collision, Caine dropped his weight and rolled his hips. The charging knight's body broke over Caine like a wave hitting a stone. Hector's feet left the ground. All the force of his charge, all the weight of his body and armor, enhanced by the miraculous speed and power granted by the Sister's prayer, turned the Centurion's body into a pendulum that arced directly into the stone floor.

As the echo of the cacophonous impact died, Hector found himself flat on the ground and unable to breathe for the second time in as many minutes. He still felt no pain, but his battered body felt paralyzed. Caine's face obstructed his view of the significant compass rose painted on the ceiling.

"Should put your helmet back on."

The butt of Victoria's pistol crunched into Hector's forehead, and he went limp again.

Caine walked away, gesturing to Mercy as he passed her. "Go ahead."



To be continued