The Exorcist Doctor

Later that afternoon, Gael stood on the upper deck of his three-hundred-thousand-Mark fishing fortress and watched three street rats inspect it like he was about to get fined for failing to meet proper safety standards.

Rebus had brought two of the older children from Miss Umbrage’s clinic with him. The first was a broad-faced boy called Bran, who wore a patched sharkskin vest over three shirts and had a fishing hook threaded through one ear. The other was Nixy, a thin girl with half her hair hacked short and the other half braided with little fish vertebrae. Not one of the three looked older than thirteen, but they moved around the ship like they were born on it—he supposed that was only expected for Wraithpier locals, but still it was a jarring sight to behold, watching them climb around the vessel for nearly twenty minutes straight.

They crawled beneath the cranes. They tapped the hull plating with little iron rods they’d brought from their clinic. They pressed their ears against the deck, whispered to each other, then sprinted towards the bridge without asking for permission. A few Saint’s Hands repair workers tried to stop them at first, but Rebus slipped through their legs, Bran climbed straight over the railings, and Nixy simply stared at one masked gangster until he gulped and moved aside. Gael almost laughed at that.

His ship was—by every scholarly definition of the word, Saintess be damned—magnificent. It had harpoons mounted at the front, reinforced tanks under the deck to keep their catch from thrashing around, armor plates thick enough to withstand several leviathans ramming into them, emergency flood chambers that also acted as ballasts to stabilize the ship, and much, much more. The shipwrights had built exactly what he’d asked for. If anything was wrong with it, then the fault lay with the fish for having poor taste.

So just what the hell are they looking for?

As he mumbled to himself, Maeve—standing beside him with an open umbrella—watched Nixy scrambled onto the roof of the bridge while Bran crawled halfway into one of the crane housings.

“... Who are these children again?” she asked, drawing her brows.

Standing further behind them, Vivi drew breath to answer, but Jin spoke first. “Brats who tried to rob us. They’re all related to a bunch of people who were kidnapped by the Breeder, though, and I think they know a few things about local Myrmurs that we don’t, so…”

“Are they going to destroy our ship?”

“I’ll throw them off myself if they even try,” Gael muttered back.

The repair crew continued working around the children while they inspected every section they could reach. Eventually, Rebus climbed down from the bridge roof, Nixy crawled up from the viewports on the hull, and Bran emerged from beneath one of the crane housings with grease across his face.

Then all three of them sprinted back to Gael, planting their hands on their hips.

“Yep,” Rebus said. “Ship’s no good.”

Gael gave him a ‘I’ll knock you out’ smile. “How so?”

Bran stepped forward first and slapped one palm against the deck. “It’s too big.”

Then Nixy pointed toward the rows of cranes. “Too many machines.”

“Too loud,” Rebus added.

“Too steady,” Bran said.

“Too balanced,” Nixy continued.

“Too heavy.”

“Too much armor.”

“Hull’s too thick.”

“Engines shake th’whole water.”

“Cranes groan even when they ain’t movin’.”

“Lights’re too bright.”

“The chains underneath keep clinkin’.”

“And all those tanks under the deck make th’weight sit too even,” Rebus finished, stomping on the grates beneath him. “Fish don’t like even. In short, your ship’s too…”

The boy trailed off.

Gael waited. Maeve waited. Even the repair crews nearby slowed their hammering slightly to listen, but Rebus narrowed his eyes, apparently unable to find the right word. Then he abandoned the sentence entirely and ran toward the railings.

“Look, Mister Raven!” he called. “Come!”

Gael clicked his tongue, but he followed with Maeve, Vivi, and Jin behind him. As he did, Rebus leaned over the reinforced railing and pointed at the canals surrounding the Saint’s Hands warehouse.

“Tell me what you notice about th’other ships.”

Gael looked. The canal was crowded with ordinary Wraithpier vessels passing in both directions, and all of them were smaller than his ship by an insulting margin. Some were narrow fishing boats built from patched black timber and old hull plates, while others were simple flat barges with slanted decks, crooked chimneys, sagging nets, and little cabins that appeared to have been nailed on as afterthoughts. One vessel even appeared to have three different types of wood forming its hull and an engine held together by old mourning veils.

There was only one conclusion he could draw from that sight.

“They’re all crappier ships than mine,” he grumbled.

“Exactly!” Rebus nodded fervently, pointing at the passing ships. “No proper local’s got a fishing ship like yours. Big fish don’t care much, ‘cause big fish are hungry and stupid, and they’ll bite just about whatever smells right even if there’s a cannon pointed at their skull. But Myrmurs ain’t like that.”

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Nixy leaned against the railing on his left. “Murmurs think.”

Bran leaned against the railing on his right. “Myrmurs feel things movin’ through th’water. They can hear engines, chains, metal grindin’, and heavy hulls pushin’ currents around. They see those giant spotlights too. Soon as this thing even floats near ‘em, they’ll know there’s trouble. That’s why you ain’t reelin’ up any Myrmurs.”

Gael looked out over the canals again. Another local fishing boat passed nearby, and this one’s hull was low and uneven, its engine coughing softly while nets dragged behind it. Compared to the their warship of a vessel, the thing was barely even a floating cupboard. It didn’t disturb the water at all. Even the fishermen onboard moved slowly, careful not to stomp too hard against the deck.

… Ah.

That does kinda make sense, though.

Supposing the artificial Myrmur Hosts retain even fragments of human intelligence, they’d obviously steer clear of any fishing bait directly under or even near a giant warship.

Even still…

He looked back at the the cranes, the reinforced decks, the harpoon mounts, and the massive armored hull he’d spent an obscene amount of money commissioning. The ship remained magnificent, but it was simply magnificent at the wrong job.

“... So what’s your solution?” he asked, glancing back at the children. “Strip down the vessel? Remove some cranes? Shave away the armor and make the engines quieter? We can reduce the weight and repaint it to look a bit more pathetic if that helps.”

The three children looked around again. Rebus murmured something to Bran, Bran shook his head, and Nixy crouched and tapped the deck twice with her knuckles, then whispered to both of the boys. Their quiet discussion lasted a few minutes, full of little gestures toward the hull, the bridge, and the exhaust stacks.

Eventually, Rebus turned back and shrugged.

“Nah. Ship’s screwed.”

“Foundation’s wrong,” Bran said.

“Whole bottom’s just too heavy,” Nixy added.

“Even if you strip everything up top, the hull’ll still push too deep into the water and make too much noise,” Rebus explained. “You can’t turn this into a proper Murmur fishin’ boat. Not without tearin’ it apart and buildin’ a different ship outta what’s left.”

Gael scowled at him. “But I’ve already paid for this ship.”

“Technically, we’re still paying in installments,” Maeve corrected.

“Yeah, and that’s worse. If I have to get another ship commissioned, it’ll take at least another few days, and Fergal’s gonna skin me later for having blown… fuck, how much did we blow on this and all the reparation fees—”

“The reparation fees should be yours to bear alone—”

“So why not use ours?” Rebus suddenly offered, stopping Gael and Maeve from devolving into a bunch of useless bickering. “Miss Umbrage had a fishin’ barge anchored a few canals away from the clinic. We used t’take it out and catch food for th’clinic when money got thin. It ain’t fancy, but it floats quiet. Myrmurs probably won’t feel it comin’ from half a lake away.”

Gael stared at the three children for a few moments.

“But will the ship fit all eight of us plus the three of you, though?”

Rebus shrugged one more time.

By the time Miss Umbrage’s old fishing barge reached the open waters of Gravesend Deep at midnight, Maeve already felt like puking.

The vessel was barely a vessel. In what was Gael’s own words, it was more a loose collection of rotting planks, tar patches, frayed ropes, and old repair plates cobbled together by a bunch of street rats. Rainwater leaked through the cabin roof in at least six places, while canal water entered through several more holes beneath their feet. Every time the barge rolled to one side, something inside the hull groaned with the weary sound of a dying man—and somehow the engine was even worse. Calling the hunk of metal beneath the deck an engine was a charity already. It coughed, spat smoke through a crooked chimney, and shook the entire barge whenever Gael pulled one of the levers beside the wheel.

At least their own floating warship carried enough armor and weight that even a full storm would barely move it. This barge reacted to every small wave, so Maeve gripped the wall of the wheelhouse with one hand and her umbrella with the other. Maeve gripped the wall of the wheelhouse with one hand and her briefcase with the other. Her stomach rolled whenever the ship did, which was often. Cara stood beside her with Jin’s spider arms helping them both brace against the waves, while Vivi clung to Jin’s coat by the back, both of them pale beyond belief.

Unfortunately, Evelyn, Liorin, Rebus, Bran, and Nixy were outside on the rainy deck, somehow thrilled by the entire experience. Then there was Gael, cackling with both hands on the wheel.

“This is brilliant!” he shouted, glancing over his shoulder as he pulled a lever to drop their anchor. “Hey, I like this one more than our own! It’s so small and maneuverable and… and fucking fast! Let’s get thirty more of these commissioned! Haha—”

Without looking, he suddenly whipped his cane up and blocked Fergal’s punch. Fergal scowled, twitching an eye.

“Move.”

“Nuh-uh. You said I wasn’t allowed to helm the big ship. This is legally a different vessel, and I didn’t crash into a single thing on the way here, so—”

Fergal pulled his spider arm back and punched again with the other five. Gael ducked, laughing as the strikers passed over his hat, and before long the two men were engaged in the battle of the ages over command of the vessel.

Frankly, Maeve couldn’t stand being inside the cabin anymore, so she staggered out onto the deck and tried really, really hard not to puke. It helped a little, though, that cold rain struck her so hard she almost felt like taking a swing at the sky herself. The harsh wind grabbed at her dress, and the open air was salty enough that even her mask’s filters couldn’t block out the icky aftertaste on her tongue. All of it distracted her from her nausea, and all of it allowed her to peer over the edge of the barge with a relatively clear head.

Just focus on the task at hand.

Just… take a deep breath.

While Cara, Jin, and Vivi followed her out onto the deck, she took off her mask and took a deep, personal whiff of the lake. There was no way she could see anything underwater considering the barge only had a few flickering lanterns for light—nothing like the powerful spotlights their floating fortress had—but she still had her mutations to rely on, and chiefly, the less common way to detect a Myrmur was through scent.

The waters below were full of life. She could already tell that much. There were the teeming smells of ‘ordinary’ fish, of course: the usual oil-rich flesh, the salty blood, the rotten scales, and dozens of stranger scents that belonged to the mutated locals of Wraithpier, but there was also a much, much stronger scent beneath all of them.

Sick blood.

Myrmur flesh.

She smiled back at Jin and Vivi, who were still stumbling around the deck as the teens and the kids threw down additional anchors for extra stability.

“Good work finding a lead, Vivi!” she shouted over the rain. “This ship’s definitely attracting less attention from our locals!”

Vivi’s expression immediately brightened despite the storm, and Maeve caught—just barely—a smile curling at the corner of Jin’s eyes as well. She couldn’t help but smile even harder at that.

Look at you, Vivi.

You’re really impressing him now.

Now, there was only one more thing they needed to do in order to make this night a ‘perfect’ one for everyone.

“... We’ll be fishing right here!” she shouted, picking up a fishing rod leaning against the side of the barge and raising it over her head. “This time, we’re really not gonna leave until we reel up a Myrmur!”