Psychic

15. Barocique

 Ken entered the cabin early the next day. He quickly woke everyone up and handed out sandwiches he had gotten after going ashore alone.

After everyone finished eating and was dressed, Ken sat on the bed next to Rai's. She was seated on hers, pulling on her boots before going to join the others on the deck. "There's a temple here with plenty of priests," Ken told Rai. "Finding one who can read the note shouldn't take too long. I just hope the damn thing isn't a waste of time."

"I think we'll be better off if we split up," Debra announced to him as she stood in the doorway of the hold. "We committed most of our crimes together. We're more recognizable as a pair. Where did you bring us?"

"Barocique."

Debra nodded, "it's not heavily guarded. Just a city of normal people. We're only going to the temple. No priest is going to rat us out but we should still go separately just to be safe."

Kiyo walked back into the hold, picking up a jacket from his bed. "We're splitting up? Well, I'm not going to trust the safety of Marlene to anyone," he said as he pulled it on. "No one's going to recognize her. Yasashi kept her hidden all these years."

"They do have guards at each entrance," Ken pointed out. "So we definitely shouldn't go in together. We'll each take a different path in. Do you know where the temple is?" he asked Kiyo.

"The one with the massive head of the sphinx sticking out of the top? I think I might be able to find."

"We'll all meet there."

"Yeah," Debra agreed, "makes sense but we should all have copies of the note just in case we meet a translator and we're not together."

Kiyo and Marlene were the first to leave the ship. Marlene waited at the edge of the ship while Kiyo unrolled the rope ladder that would get them into the sea. "Climb on my back," he called Marlene to him. "Wrap yours arms around my neck and hold your breath when we get in the water." He had to climb down the ladder with her hanging off him and swim to the beach with her on his back. When he got there, they both tried to dry themselves off, wringing their clothes out and wiggling their bodies. Rai sent them their copy of the note, levitating it to them since it would not survive the water.

As Kiyo and Marlene walked up the beach, Debra turned to Ken. "So who are you going with?" she wondered.

"Oh. I wasn't planning on going," he admitted with a shrug.

"I shouldn't even be here and I'm still going."

"I didn't tell you to go," Ken exclaimed spitefully. "I didn't tell you to come with us either."

"It's a simple fucking thing. We need a translator and you can't even help with that?" She pointed at him as she yelled, "that is so you, just like the time you left the crew at Zirati."

"Again with that. They survived, didn't they? I knew there was a way out of that port and that I wouldn't have to lift a finger. If things are meant to happen, they'll happen. No amount of effort is going to change your fate."

"Has sitting on your ass gotten you anything good lately?"

"If it will shut you up, I'll fucking go. You," he pointed at Lestat, "you're with me."

Rai looked over the railing as Ken climbed over first then went down the ladder, followed by Lestat.

Rai looked back at Debra, "so we're going together?"

"Guess so."

Rai picked Jericho up under one arm then held her hand out over the edge of the ship. A clump of dry sand from the beach approached the ship, shifting in the air like loose flour. Lestat paused where he was in the sea and watched the sand in the air. He yelled up at his cousin, "don't you have to levitate each grain individually to hold it in the air?"