“Is everything alright?” asked the guard.

  The other three watched from a nearby table in the lobby. One of them was in the middle of dealing out cards.

  Amanda pulled up short and played it as cool as she could. “What? Oh yeah, just forget my tampons on the boat.” She knew his sense of smell would aid her lie and she was glad for the length of the shirt she was wearing since she suddenly realised that she’d left her pants in the room. A pair of black cotton panties was all that was covering her arse.

  “Oh, uh sure.” The vampire blushed. Amanda hadn’t even known they were capable of it but this one’s blush was as striking as a lit up jack-o-lantern in June. “Go on then. It’s just the captain we have to keep an eye on anyway.”

  Amanda gave him a grateful smile and jogged off with her arms wrapped around under her chest to stop her boobs bouncing painfully. That was one downside of fleeing from one’s bed in the middle of the night.

  She soon gave up running, since it was tiring, and settled into a brisk walk with occasional bursts of extra speed when her lungs allowed it.

  She reached the boat and paused on the dock to catch her breath.

  The lookout spotted her and leaned over the railing. “Amanda?” Jimmi asked. “Everything alright?”

  “Yeah, just need to grab a book from the library for Sirius.”

  “Right, right.”

  He frowned, seemingly at her attire, as she passed but didn’t comment or stop her. Jimmi was a lot like Sirius in some ways, intimidating to look at but a big softy underneath. Unlike Sirius though, he wasn’t the sharpest mate on the ship. She was surprised, given Sirena was a shapeshifter, that her word was all he needed to allow her to board, but she wasn’t about to bring it up at the present moment, given it worked in her favour.

  She reached the library without running into anyone else. She’d have to let Sirius know how lax their security was later.

  She slipped into the library, flicked on the light, and was immediately confronted with two yelps, a bare arse, and a scramble for clothing.

  She registered Sable and Fallon on the library cot in the midst of something private. She averted her eyes, waved a hand at them, and headed toward the bookcase. “Don’t mind me, just here for a book.”

  “What book?” Fallon asked.

  Amanda paused and stared at the bookcase realising she didn’t exactly know where to start looking and there were a decent number of books, assuming this was all of them. “Uh… dreamwalking?” she replied weakly.

  “Bottom right hand corner,” Fallon replied.

  “Is Sirius okay?” Sable asked from a little further away.

  “Yeah, we just kind of accidentally summoned some kind of dream creature. An elf or something.” She scanned the titles of the books. There were a few books that looked tangentially related to dreamwalking but only one that really stood out as more generalized. She reached for ‘A Dreamwalker’s Guide to the Abyss.’

  “An elf?” Fallon asked.

  She could hear him not far behind her. He’d jumped off the cot, dressed faster than Sable had, and come over to join her by the bookshelf.

  “Not that one,” he added, as he noticed what book she’d grabbed. “You’ll want this one.” He reached for a turquoise cloth bound book labeled ‘Creatures, Capers, and Canapes’ and handed it to her. “I don’t know any dream creature called an elf but there is one I think with a similar name.”

  She set the other book down and turned over the new one. Flipping to the inside, she found the contents page and scanned the titles. “Canapes?” she asked noting that there appeared to be a section called, ‘The effects of cheese: Myth or Mascarpone’.

  She resisted the urge to turn to the cheese chapter and glanced back at Fallon. Sable had also joined them and was peering over Fallon’s shoulder. Fallon just shrugged. “I haven’t done much dreamwalking. It’s a dangerous past time.”

  “He’s got a chip on his shoulder about dreamwalkers cause they’re our direct competitors,” Sable said with a grin.

  Fallon frowned. “I do no-… oh! There!” He reached past Amanda and pointed at one of the chapters. “That’s it. Alp.”

  “Alp?” She turned to page 70, which was the number listed next to the single three letter word that did kind of sound like elf.

  “The trickster,” Fallon added with a nod. “They’re like fairies crossed with gremlins but a lot less nasty, and from the dreamworld, obviously.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “I thought they were kinda like succubi?” Sable said.

  “No?” Fallon shook his head but he sounded unsure.

  “Yeah?” Sable argued but didn’t sound any more confident than Fallon.

  Amanda skimmed the words on the page before her. Her eyes caught on the phrase ‘rape is rare’. She read the surrounding words and winced. “Eeugh.”

  “What?” Fallon asked.

  “Apparently Sable is kinda right,” she replied.

  “They are like succubi?”

  “And incubi, on occasion, but not that often, thankfully. Mostly they make apparitions and steal cutlery, which explains a lot.”

  “It does?” Fallon asked.

  Amanda nodded.

  Sable turned away to scour the room. “Where did I put my glasses?”

  “You don’t need them,” Fallon told him.

  “Yes I do,” Sable replied as he lifted up some books that almost certainly didn’t have any glasses under them.

  To Amanda, Fallon whispered loudly and with a mischievous grin, “He just wears them cause he thinks they make him look smart.”

  “I can hear you,” Sable told him.

  “What did I say then?” Fallon asked still grinning.

  Sable paused in his search long enough to scowl at Fallon but it was an affectionate sort of scowl.

  “They’re over there, near the window,” Fallon said, still grinning.

  “Oh.” Sable’s scowl vanished in an instant and he went to retrieve his glasses.

  “It says here you can scare them away by making them look upon their own reflection.” Amanda pointed at a line in the book. “Or by asking them nicely, although that doesn’t always work permanently. They love milk and cheese, unless it’s paneer and similar varieties,” she read. “See section 17 for more details.” Briefly she checked the contents page. “Oh, so that’s what the cheese section is about.”

  Fallon read over her shoulder as she turned back to the page on Alps. Sable joined them a moment later.

  “I bet it’s the lemon juice,” Sable remarked.

  “What?” asked the other two.

  “See there, it says they don’t like lemon juice as it burns their skin. Well, paneer is made with lemon juice.”

  “Really?” Fallon’s thick brown eyebrows shot up. “I never knew.”

  Amanda skimmed the rest but didn’t find anything much more useful. She closed it and stood up. “So, I can just get it to leave by asking?” It seemed too easy.

  “Nicely,” Fallon pointed out. “You probably have to say please.”

  Amanda nodded. “I should get back to Sirius then. At least it’s not dangerous, mostly.”

  “You want us to come?” Fallon asked.

  She shook her head. “Not, it’s alright. You two can get back to whatever it was you were doing.” She grinned at them.

  Sable went pink and his eyes bulged.

  Fallon grinned but he was looking at Sable and not at Amanda.

  Amanda left them to it.

  She made it two paces from the library door before she found a sword at her throat.

  Shiv emerged from the shadows. “Prove you are who you look like or take a sword through the gullet.”

  Turns out security wasn’t that lax after all.

  “Shiv! What even is a gullet?” she asked once she’d gotten over her surprise. “The stomach?” For some reason, perhaps she was used to it by now or perhaps she was just used to Shiv, but having a sword pointing at her throat no longer scared her.

  “No, it’s the throat,” Shiv corrected with a frown, seemingly confused as to why she wasn’t afraid.

  She sighed, rolled her eyes, and replied, “how would you even confirm it’s me. It’s not like we set up a password in advance or anything.” In hindsight, that probably would have been smart.

  He narrowed his eyes.

  She turned her hand over and created a small flickering flame. “Would a fireball to the face convince you?” It was the same tone she’d spoken to her teachers in, more bored than threatening. Maybe all the chaos had finally pushed her over the edge.

  Shiv sighed and put his blade away. “A really good shapeshifter could also make it look like they held a flame. But I believe it’s you. No one else would speak to me like that. Why are you here?”

  She resisted the urge to tell him that even a really good shapeshifter couldn’t actually fireball him in the face, and she held up the book. “I needed a book.”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “Sirius needed a book,” she corrected with an air of wit. Technically, they’d both needed the book, but given how many Sirius had, and her own self-reported preference for learning through experience, this slightly self-deprecating explanation was better. She found it amusing and she beat Shiv to the punchline.

  He sighed and it almost turned into a groan. Then he caught sight of the book’s title. “Creatures, Capers, and Canaps?” he read, mispronouncing the last word.

  Amanda didn’t correct him. She’d only learnt that one recently herself. He’d pick up on the correct way of saying it if she used it, not that it mattered greatly. “We got attacked by an Alp.”

  Shiv frowned. “An elf?”

  “Alp, with an ‘A’. It’s a dream creature. Sirius has it trapped in our room. I need to get back to him so I can tell him how to get rid of it.”

  The door to the library cut off Shiv’s reply and he immediately fixed his narrowed eyes on Fallon and Sable.

  Sable caught sight of Shiv and tried to retreat into the library but Fallon grabbed him by the shirtfront and forced him to face Shiv.

  Shiv’s eyebrows met in the middle. “What are you two doing in there?”

  The way the two of them both chorused “nothing” in that tone made it painfully obvious what they’d been doing.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Shiv sighed. “At least it’s not Dickie with a goat.”

  Amanda, trying not to laugh at Fallon and Sable, took the opportunity to slip past Shiv.

  She was certain Shiv let her go but it didn’t matter for she was soon back at their room.

  “We just ask it to leave?” Sirius repeated what she’d told him doubtfully. “Are you sure.”

  She shrugged. “Worth a shot right?”

  She opened the door and quickly closed it again when a ceramic plate came flying toward her. It crashed against the door and the shattered pieces fell to the floor.

  She glanced toward Sirius. He looked worried but he said nothing so she opened the door again and spoke quickly. “Hi Mr alp or elf or whatever you are, could you please leave?”

  Almost as soon as she’d finished speaking, silence fell on the room. The ruckus that had filled the bathroom suddenly quietened and no more cutlery came flying in her direction.

  Sirius peered around the door beside her. “Is it gone?” he asked.

  They waited a few more moments and still there was no sign of it.

  “I don’t know,” Amanda replied. “Maybe we should sleep in my room. They did give us two rooms.”

  Sirius nodded. “Good idea.”

  So they slipped inside the current room, feeling the odd need to tiptoe, grabbed their bags, and vacated one room for another, hoping that the thing, whatever it was, did not follow them.

  full book!

  saiphthewriter