Chapter 16: THE FISHERMAN'S PRICE
The harbor stank of dead fish and desperation.
Whitstable was a fishing village that had seen better centuries. The boats moored along its piers were working vessels, paint peeling, nets draped over railings like shrouds. The kind of place where men asked few questions because they couldn't afford the answers.
Tommy had brought us here through a network of contacts I hadn't asked him to explain. Four hours of driving on back roads, avoiding the main routes where British authorities might be searching for the Americans who'd committed armed theft in London. The radio in the van had carried news of a "docklands disturbance" and police interest in "foreign nationals."
We'd abandoned the van three miles outside town and walked the rest. Sam carried the lead case containing the dagger. Steinberg walked between us, still pale from what he'd seen when the artifact touched his skin. None of us had slept in nearly thirty hours.
"There." Tommy pointed toward a boat at the far end of the pier—larger than the other fishing vessels, with a cabin that looked like it might keep out the December wind. "That's Morris's boat."
Captain Morris was waiting on deck. Sixty years old, with the weathered face of someone who'd spent a lifetime fighting the sea and losing gracefully. A bottle of whiskey sat beside him on a coil of rope, already half empty despite the early evening hour.
"Americans." He didn't phrase it as a question. His accent was thick Kent, vowels stretching in unfamiliar ways. "Tommy's friends, looking for passage."
"Calais," I said. "Tonight."
"Channel's rough this time of year. December crossings are a bastard." He took a pull from the bottle. "You know what you're asking?"
"We know. What's your price?"
Morris studied us with the calculating eyes of a man who'd spent decades gauging how much people would pay for services they couldn't get elsewhere. His gaze lingered on my coat, on the quality of Sam's shoes, on the case that Sam refused to set down.
"Two hundred pounds. Half now, half when we reach France."
The number hit like a physical blow. We had maybe two hundred and thirty pounds between us—the remnants of our operational budget after the safe house, the vehicle, and the various bribes that had gotten us this far. Morris was asking for nearly everything.
"That's—" Tommy started.
"That's our price." I cut him off. "Agreed."
Morris's eyebrows rose slightly. He'd expected negotiation. The immediate acceptance told him we were more desperate than we'd let show.
"Engine needs warming. Take you about an hour to cast off." He stood, pocketing the hundred pounds I'd counted out. "Your people can wait below. Stay out of sight until we're in open water."
The boat's cabin was small, cramped, and saturated with the smell of fish that had died in this space and never quite left. Four bunks lined the walls, their mattresses stained with substances I chose not to examine. A small stove provided minimal heat. The floorboards were slick with something between water and oil.
"Home sweet home." Tommy's voice carried dark humor as he claimed one of the bunks. "At least it's not a jail cell."
"Not yet." Sam positioned the lead case in the corner, wedging it between the wall and a support beam. "We're not in France until we're in France."
I settled onto a bunk across from Steinberg. The researcher sat with his hands folded in his lap, staring at nothing. He'd barely spoken since the dagger incident—since Anubis had touched his mind and shown him things that existed beyond human understanding.
"Doctor." I kept my voice low. "Are you functional?"
"Functional." He repeated the word like he was testing its meaning. "Yes. I believe I am functional." His eyes focused, found mine. "The visions have not stopped entirely. When I close my eyes, I see—" He stopped, swallowed. "But I am functional."
"What do you see?"
"The gates. The doors between worlds." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "The dagger was made to cut them open. To let things through. The Egyptians knew. They built tools for communicating with the dead, for crossing boundaries that should never be crossed." He shuddered. "The Germans want it for weapons. They're wrong. It's not a weapon. It's a key."
The words settled into my chest like ice. A key. Three thousand years ago, priests had forged a blade capable of opening doors between life and death. And we'd just stolen it from people who wanted to use it without understanding what they'd unleash.
"Can it be destroyed?"
"I don't know." Steinberg's honesty was brutal. "Perhaps. But the knowledge to create it still exists. The Germans have records. If we destroy this one, they'll find another. Or make one."
The engine coughed to life somewhere below us. The boat shuddered, then began to move, pulling away from the pier into the darkening harbor.
"Get some rest," I said. "All of you. We have hours before we reach Calais."
The Channel crossing was everything Morris had warned about.
December waves crashed against the hull like battering rams, sending the boat pitching and rolling in patterns that defied prediction. The cabin's single lamp swung wildly, casting shadows that danced across walls slick with condensation.
Steinberg vomited first—fifteen minutes into open water, lunging for a bucket that Tommy had wisely positioned near the bunks. Tommy followed shortly after, his face going green in the swinging lamplight. Even Sam, who'd seemed immune to every physical discomfort I'd witnessed, eventually succumbed to the relentless motion.
I held on longer than any of them. The body I'd inherited from Jameson Caldwell had apparently included a stronger stomach than David Webb's would have managed. But eventually, the continuous rolling defeated even that advantage.
Four hours of misery. Four hours of cold and wet and the constant threat of capsizing in a black sea that showed no mercy.
Morris drank steadily throughout, steering the boat with one hand while the other maintained contact with his whiskey bottle. The alcohol seemed to have no effect on his navigation. Perhaps it was the only thing keeping him functional.
Calais harbor emerged from the darkness at 2 AM—lights reflecting off water, the shapes of buildings barely visible against a sky that had finally stopped trying to drown us. Morris brought the boat alongside a commercial pier with the casual expertise of someone who'd made this particular illegal crossing hundreds of times.
"End of the line." He collected the second hundred pounds without ceremony. "Good luck with whatever you're running from."
We climbed onto the pier on legs that had forgotten how to stand on solid ground. The lead case came last, Sam handling it like it contained something precious rather than something deadly.
Morris's boat pulled away without farewell, disappearing into the harbor darkness. We stood on French soil, fugitives from Britain, carrying an artifact that had shown a man the face of a death god.
Tommy started laughing.
The sound was exhausted, slightly hysterical—the release of tension that had been building since we'd first entered that warehouse. He leaned against a pier post, shoulders shaking, unable to stop.
"We did it." The words came out between gasps. "We actually did it. Stole a cursed Egyptian dagger from under the Nazis' noses and smuggled it across the Channel on a fishing boat. That's—" More laughter. "That's insane. That's completely insane."
I didn't laugh. The success felt too fragile, too dependent on luck rather than skill. We'd nearly died half a dozen times. Steinberg had been mentally violated by the artifact we'd recovered. The Germans knew our faces and would be hunting us.
This was the easy mission. The first one. The learning experience.
Steinberg stood at the pier's edge, watching the last traces of Morris's boat vanish into darkness. His face was unreadable in the dim light.
"Is this what it will always be like?" His voice was quiet, contemplative. "The running, the danger, the—" He gestured vaguely toward his own head. "The contact with things beyond comprehension?"
I considered lying. Soft words about how it would get easier, how they'd develop better protocols, how eventually the operations would run smoothly.
I didn't.
"Probably worse, eventually. The artifacts get more dangerous as we find more of them. The enemies get more organized. The stakes keep rising."
Steinberg nodded slowly. Something that might have been a smile crossed his face.
"Good. I was worried it would become boring."
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