The Cursekeeper

Hell and High Water

As the sun was setting in the west of Hell, a soft wind blowing across Bluewater Marsh and the sounds of wildlife calling out to the falling darkness, Rose (in the guise of Violet), Scotty, Lugh and Sir Jack arrived at the shore, all able to see the silhouette of the walls of the penitentiary.  "Now remember, Clay is the warden of the prison.  He's a big fucker and he's gonna be hard tah take down," Rose explained.  "He'll have guards everywhere, but killin' 'em ain't gonna be that hard."

"It doesna look that fortified," Lugh said.  "How many of Aynaet's kids are in there?"

Rose sighed as she began checking her weapons.  "Seventeen.  All very capable warriors...which is why there are twenty guards assigned tah each of their cells.  Now we wait fer Coral tah call."

As she pulled out her D-Call device, Lugh smirked as he eyed it.  "What is that thing?"

"It's a communications device," she replied.  "It kinda works like a cellular phone, which I'm sure ya have no idea what I mean."

"Darrach's mentioned somethin' like that before," Jack answered, folding his arms over the horn of his saddle.  "Somethin' about frequencies and wavelengths?"

"Yeah, that's how a cell phone would work in the future, but these?  These operate on magic and technology."  Just then, her D-Call device started to ring and she put it on her earlobe.  "This is Violet," she said, switching to her Welsh accent.

"It's Coral.  Dad's a mad bampot!" Rose heard Coral yell in a very thick and almost incomprehensible Scottish accent.  "If yoo got plans tae get my siblings outta Sisika, yoo betta do it now!  Umber's loading 'em up on Hell and High Water and is headed fur Guarma!"

"Dammit," Rose said.  "Alright, where are you?"

Rose heard a few gun shots and some shouting.  "Trying tae buy yoos time!  I hope yoo brought backup!"

"Shit."  Rose hung up her D-Call device and looked at her companions.  "We gotta get over there now!" she barked before pressing a button on Holly's saddle.  "The wing button on yer saddles, press them!"

Jack and Lugh did as they were told and all the saddles sprouted white feathered wings.  Holly jerked around a little while the other two horses bucked in excitement.  "Oh, this is gonna be good!" Doc laughed.

"What's goin' on?" Jack asked as the wings began to flap.

"Clay is puttin' the prisoners on Umber's ship!"  Holly neighed loudly as she and Rose went into the air.  "Dammit Holly, yer fine!  Stop bein' such a god damn baby!"

Doc, Tessa and Scotty quickly flew up, Lugh and Sir Jack laughing hysterically with the horses.  "This is terrifyin' but it's great!" Tessa shouted.

They all got higher into the sky, flying over the water towards the island.  Rose could see Lilly's children being loaded onto a menacing looking pirate ship with Umber's sigil on the sails, but a lot of them were causing trouble.  She could see shots being fired towards a small building and she assumed Coral was in there.  "Coral must be in there," she said, pointing at the building in question.  "Ya both go help her, Scotty and I will handle the rest.  H'yah!"  Scotty followed Rose as they made their descent, grabbing her black recurve bow and arming with one of her special arrows.  "Cernunnos, do we got any blessed weapons yet?"

"We currently have ten ready for deployment," Cernunnos replied from the drone.  "Darrach said the drone has a weapons system, if you require it."

"Awesome sauce," Rose said as she continued shooting guards down, landing on the island with Holly neighing and braying loudly.  "Help me mow these bastards down."