Page 3 of Surging Reef
Chapter 2
Ashby jerked awake. How he’d managed to fall asleep, he didn’t know. He smacked his lips, his tongue as dry as a desert. Fuck, he was thirsty. And hungry.
For a few seconds, he did nothing but lie in the same position as when he’d come to. Moving would only hurt more.
A seagull screeched outside. Did it mean it was daytime? It didn’t matter. No one would come unless Anne herself wanted to visit him.
If she did, he assumed it would be the last thing happening to him.
Another cry from a gull, confirming his suspicion that it was daytime.
Would she leave him here to starve to death?
Nah, she’d want his head on a pike. It was tradition, after all. In the Dark Ages, criminals had been rowed out to the tiny island where they’d been beheaded, and their heads placed on pikes staked to the ground, so people on the mainland beach could look out and see them against the backdrop.
Cinematic.
Anne did the same thing these days, though she didn’t leave the heads up for long since some poor sucker might walk along the beach and see it. It would be hard to explain to the authorities. What if they found a head with weirdly sharp teeth?
It was how rumors of cults were created.
Ashby listened to the waves. Calm weather. Did it mean she’d come? She most likely wouldn’t step into a rowboat if there was a storm.
Steeling himself, he flopped over onto his back. A snarl bounced off the stone walls. Part of him wished this could be over, another part didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of killing him. She-devil.
His head swam as he looked down his body. He didn’t continue the inspection down to the cuff around his ankle. No need to look at it.
If she left him for another day or two, he’d be no more. His body was eating itself. The skeletal look didn’t suit him.
Maybe she’d bring a snack to prolong his suffering.
He groaned. It would be her style. Bring a human for him to drink from, then watch him deteriorate again. He could see her do it over and over, for the fun of it. Watch him turn into a skeleton, then bounce back when he got some blood, then starve him again. A lovely routine.
Maybe it was better to die.
* * * *
Kazimir stuffed his mouth full of spaghetti with marinara sauce as he studied the map on his phone. He sipped on a glass of red wine only to put it away and zoom in on the screen.
“Up for a night’s adventure, Pharos?”
Pharos raised his head from where he’d rested it on his plush, round dog bed. The scent of newness still clung to it.
“Drink more wine or drive?” Kazimir tilted his head to the side, which made Pharos tilt his head to the side too, a lot more alert now.
Kazimir glanced at the wine glass. He’d only had a sip, so he could place it on the counter and drink it when they came home again. He’d been in the mood for wine, but Surging Reef was, according to Google, an hour and thirteen minutes away, and he’d never been there.
He ate some more spaghetti and clicked the link. Surging Reef was a tiny, tiny island and there had been an octagonal wooden lighthouse built in 1696, but it had succumbed to the weather, and now there was a masonry lighthouse on thenorthern tip of the island where the octagon used to stand.
“Says here, Surging Reef is the smallest island with a building on. Isn’t that cool?” He looked up at Pharos. “Do you know how to row?”
How would they get hold of a rowing boat? There had to be some nearby he could borrow. It wouldn’t take many minutes to row to the island.
“It’s hundred and sixty-seven feet tall and was built in 1847. When the tide rolls in, the island is mostly underwater and only the lighthouse sticks up above the surface.” He took another bite of food. “How the fuck do we know when there will be tide?”
He put the fork down. “We should go. It says here they used to kill felons on this island in the 13th century. They left them on the island with two loaves of bread and waited for the sea to swallow them. Dramatic.”
He looked at Pharos again. “Do you think we’ll find bones if we manage to get there during the ebb? Nah, they’ve been washed away, right?” And they’d built the lighthouse after, so if there had been any human remains, they’d most likely cleaned them up.
