Lost at Sea Bk. 01 Ch. 12

"Uh, Bella..." Will began, not sure of what to say. He was getting uncomfortable now. He started unbuttoning his shirt. The world felt like it was trying to slide under his feet again and time seemed to list around him. "Stop," he said, holding completely still with two handfuls of his shirt. He felt like he was balanced on knife edge, afraid to do anything. The painted pattern on his chest was quickly becoming uncomfortable.

"Almost got it..." Bella said. She was straining. Will could actually see the energy she was gathering. Will tried to speak again, but he felt slow. Nothing came out of his mouth. A slight waver coalesced in the air between Bella's hands like heat coming off sand in a desert. "Ow, what is-" she said, looking down at herself again. Then she looked at Will with alarm "Wait-"

There was a sound like someone shaking out a bedsheet and a flash of red light and suddenly Will's chest was on fire.

He looked down at himself in horror, and then started flapping his hands at his shirt, patting it down and peeling it off. Buttons popped and he slapped his bare skin. Parts of the painted pattern were sticking to his hands. The red cream had softened and become sticky and it was burning. He threw himself to the floor and rolled, flopping face down like a fish to smother the flames. Bella was suddenly there helping him.

Then it was over, as quickly as it had started. A thick drop of water hit him in the back of the head. Then more. Then a deluge. He rolled over, trailing stringy red paint that stretched like taffy from his chest to the floor. "What the hell?" A miniature storm cloud hung just below the ceiling and had started dropping a steady shower on them.

Captain Vex had just yanked the door to the office open at the sounds of Will's frantic screaming, but it was mostly over before she could do anything to help. She stood in the doorway of the office, looking up at the small angry cloud and then down at Will's half naked, still faintly smoking form. She blinked, at a total loss as to what she was seeing. "Someone want t' explain why it's rainin' in here?"

Bella started laughing. A moment later Will joined her. "What a night," he muttered, wiping his face clear of water. It didn't help much. Mostly he just got some sticky, hot red paint on his face.

He sat up with an exasperated sigh. Most of the sigil on his chest was smeared. The sticky red paint was now all over the floor and all over his ruined shirt. Water covered everything. Will wiped his sticky hands off on the shirt and slicked his hair back out of his face. Bella started pulling the sticky paint off of him in long strips like taffy, and wiping it on the edge of the table near where Quincy's bullet had gouged it. They soon discovered that the best way to get it off was to roll it against itself and slowly gather it into a growing sticky ball. Against freshly scorched skin, the process was painful. They had to move slowly and carefully.

"Why did you still have the pattern on?" Bella asked.

"Well I didn't exactly have time to go clean up," Will said, trying to get the strands of red taffy goo off his face. "You went to the baths. I just put my clothes back on and went to brave the crowd. I figured I'd clean up when I got home, but then there was stabbing, and running, and now this!"

"Alright, good point," Bella conceded. Her red headcloth was plastered to her forehead and her white blouse was starting to cling to her skin as the rainstorm continued.

Belita walked out into the tiny downpour, picked up the whole steamer trunk and went back into the office. "I'll jus' be in 'ere where there's less insanity."

"Good choice," Will said, looking up. "How long is this thing going to last?"

Bella shrugged. "No idea. It isn't actually weather control. It's isolated. I think it's some kind of conjuring. Takes a lot of preparation to do, but very stable once it's active. It might be a while before the spell collapses."

"Great," Will said, peeling off the remnants of his completely ruined shirt. It was stained with sticky red goo, scorched, soaked, and missing buttons. There wasn't going to be any salvaging it. Where the pattern had been on his chest and stomach was stained pink, and the skin was slightly raised and white at the edges where the burning started. It hurt. He touched it gingerly and winced. He tried to pick some of the sticky red remnants out of the hair trailing down from his belly button and quickly discovered that was a bad idea. The red goo had glued it all into a painful clump. Now that it was cooling and hardening again just moving was starting to pull at the hairs uncomfortably. The entire region was extra sensitive due to the burnt skin laced through beneath the hair. On top of it all, the mystic drugs from the goo were still coursing through his system, so his cock was still hard. He tried to adjust his pants without pulling too much on the messy hair clump. He wasn't very successful.

He tried to stand. A surprising amount of pain lanced through him as the sticky hair yanked on burnt skin. "Sonofa-" Will cursed.

"Ow, stop that!" Bella said, rubbing herself below her belly button as Will's pain echoed over to her through their sensory link.

"Well, I have to do something!" Will said. "I can't just lay here."

"Don't move. I'll... do you have any oil to loosen up the cream from the hair?" Bella asked

"I don't want to put oil on a burn!" Will knew better. He gingerly eased himself back down. "Don't suppose you have some kind of magic aphrodisiac-paint remover?"

Bella shrugged apologetically. "I just peel it off."

Will gestured to the painful clumpy mess at his beltline. "I don't really have that option."

"I'll go get your razor," she giggled. "Don't move."

Will decided that was a good idea. Moving sounded terrible. Everything seemed like it had been going so well, and then it had all become a disaster within a half hour.

"Fucking curses," he muttered. He slowly lay all the way back on the wet floor, wincing at the hair being pulled against scorched skin and just let the raindrops falling from his ceiling hit him.

"Ye lead an interesting life, Mister Sterling," Belita said leaning in his office doorway. He rolled his head to the side to look at her.

"Lucky me," he deadpanned.

"Eh, ye ain't dead. It'll make fer a good story later," the blond captain said.

"I really don't think this is a story I'll ever want to tell. Not this part, anyway," Will grumbled.

I don't know, it seems like a pretty good adventure tae me," Belita smirked.

"Adventures are the stories of terrible things happening far away to people who aren't you," Will said flatly. "And they're only adventures if the main characters survive. If they don't, they're cautionary tales."

"Aye, but everyone wants tae be part of an adventure. Might as well try t' enjoy th' story you're in." Belita put a hand on her hip and looked up at the rain cloud. "Not many people get tae experience something like this."

"Easy for you to say. You didn't just catch fire, and your nethers aren't about to be shaved off by the witch responsible." Will took a deep breath and wiped the rain out of his eyes.

Bella came back down the stairs again with the bucket from the wash room and his straight razor. She knelt down next to Will. "You're going to need to take your pants down."

Will looked up at Captain Vex, who was smirking from the office. She made no move to turn around or close the door.

Will sighed, "I guess you've seen it before."

"Not really. It was buried in her at th' time. Couldn't see much of anythin'" Belita grinned. "Gotta admit, I'm curious though after that show. What the hell're you packin' down there that makes flashing lights and all that racket?"

Bella turned her head away, trying not to let Will see how hard she was silently laughing. Belita saw it instead. "I dinnae think we were ever rightly introduced," the Captain said.

"Belladonna Fortuna," Bella said standing up and giving the other woman a small curtsey.

"Captain Belita Vex," the blond woman replied, holding her hand out. Bella looked surprised and took it. They shook.

"Bella and Belita," the dark haired witch sighed. "That's not going to be confusing at all." Her sarcasm was impossible to miss.

"Who's gonna screw that up?" the Captain shrugged. "We dinnae look anythin' alike."

Will continued to lay on the floor in the rain. Burns always felt worse a few minutes after they happened. His were starting to feel very unpleasant.

"So was all that at Mary's the navigation ritual he was sellin' Morant?" Belita asked.

Bella looked back at Will. "Um, well-"

"Yeah," Will lied smoothly. "That was it."

"How often you gotta do it?" Belita asked.

"Not too often," Will said. "Only when the route changes."

"Well, if you're gonna be usin' my bed next time, I get t' watch," Belita grinned.

Bella burst out laughing again. Will sighed.

"Well, we will need someone to hold the salt," Bella snickered. The Captain looked confused. "It's a witchy thing, I'll explain when it's time," Bella explained.

"You two are going to be bad influences on each other," Will said.

"I like her already." Bella's eyes twinkled. The Captain winked conspiratorially at her.

"So can we get on with this latest indignity so I can move comfortably again?" Will asked.

"Oh, alright," Bella said. She knelt back down again. "Pants," she ordered.

Will unlaced his breeches and lowly and carefully peeled them away from the red goo paint, which had thankfully mostly dried again. He opened them as wide as they would go, and then reached in to adjust his erection and pull it out so the fly of his pants wouldn't be in the way of Bella's work. He let go and his cock stood straight up like a ship's mast.

"Sterling, don't that thing ever go down?" Belita said incredulously, not expecting him to be hard.

"It's the ritual from earlier. Trust me, I'm not actually enjoying this," Will grumbled.

"Coulda fooled me," the blond captain smirked.

"Don't move," Bella said. She lathered up a soap dish from the bucket and spread it from navel to shaft and then carefully began shaving the clump of hair away.

"Ow!" they both said at the same time. Bella quickly pulled the razor away, holding her lower stomach with her other hand, just as Will jerked in pain.

"What did I do?" Bella asked.

"You put the razor right on the skin! It's burnt!" Will scowled, holding in the firey pain that had just lanced through him. Bella rubbed her own lower stomach, trying to get rid of the sensation.

"How can I shave you if I can't put the razor against your skin?" Bella asked. Her eyes were watering. That had hurt a lot.

"You'll have to float the razor just above the skin- here, just let me do it." Will said, holding his hand out for the straight razor. Bella was somewhat frantically rubbing her lower stomach, trying in vain to get the feeling of the scraped burn to go away. It wasn't helping.

"No, let me do it," Captain Vex said coming into the room and taking a knee.

Will blinked. "Uh... you sure?"

"I have steady hands, and I'm th' only one who's not going tae wince and jerk if th' skin get's touched," the Captain said. She took the razor from Bella. "You wanna hold that thing out of my way though?"

Will reached down and realized there was no way for him to reach his own cock without being in Belita's way. He looked at Bella. She just shook her head in amusement and moved to Will's other side.

Slowly, Belita began to shave Will's stomach, floating the razor just above the skin and lifting the matted clump of hair away bit by bit. She was slow, and steady and surprisingly delicate. The large patch from his stomach came free in one big mass. Will probably could have gotten up and done the rest himself, but the ladies didn't stop. The dark haired witch leaned his cock off to the right while blond sea captain gently shaved the left. Then they switched. It wasn't really a sexual experience at all, but there was a whole lot of intimacy to it.

The rain poured down on all of them, soaking the women's blouses completely. White cloth became transparent and will couldn't help but look at the two pairs of swinging breasts right in front of his face. Bella's were considerably bigger, and her darker, deep red nipples showed right through the thick weave of her peasant blouse. Belita's weren't nearly as big, but they weren't small either. Next to most any woman but Bella, they'd have been quite large. The material of her blouse was thinner, so Will could actually see her tanned skin tone as though the fabric wasn't even there. His erection throbbed and flexed involuntarily.

Bella felt it and gave him a naughty glance. She looked down at herself, and then side-eyed Belita's wet breasts. A small smile played across her lips. She ran a finger surreptitiously up Will's cock while she held it out of Belita's way. Will's eyes tightened as he tried not to move or let on what Bella was doing. He gave her a hard, frustrated look. Her mouth curled a bit as she tried to hold in her smile. He shook his head back and forth in small motions. Bella ignored him and kept on teasing.

"You alright, Sterling? Did I get ye?" Belita asked.

"No, I'm alright," Will said.

"Looks like it's not as bad as you thought it would be," Bella smiled, stroking across the sensitive skin just below the head of his cock. Will just stared daggers at her.

She ran her thumb subtly back and forth on his glans while she pulled his cock toward his stomach so Belita could get at the under part of the burned ring at the base of his shaft. Will's whole body shivered.

"Don't move, this is delicate here," Belita said, lifting away more of the glued clump of hair.

"Sorry, I'm getting kinda cold. The rain," He could feel his face getting warm with embarrassment.

"Almost done," Belita reassured him.

Bella continued stealthily stroking Will's cock. "Bet this isn't what you thought you'd be doing with your evening," she joked.

"Aye, ain't that the truth," Belita shook her head. Water was running down the two braids at her temple and dripping steadily from the gold beads at the ends of them. "Almost done now."

Just before she could finish, all the locks on Will's door released all at once in a clatter that sounded like someone had dropped a box of tools. It burst open.

Janie crashed in like a soldier breaching a castle gate. She was wearing a Magistrate Acolyte's cassock instead of her usual modest dress and blouse, and had a sloshing bucket of water in her hands. She took in the scene on the floor with shock and instant embarrassment which turned to indignance.

Belita sat up and yanked a pistol free. She was in the process of leveling it when she realized who'd burst in.

Two Magistrate guardsmen came in on Janie's heels just in time to see two essentially topless women appearing to be giving a handjob to a mostly naked man, and one of the women had a gun.

"Again!?" Was all Janie could manage to say before she whirled around to put her back to the three inside the lighthouse. She turned the guards around with her, shoving them right back out the door.

_____________

Will had his pants back on, but he had a balled up scrap of his ruined shirt stuffed down them like a codpiece. Belita had nicked him when she went for her gun. It wasn't bad, but it was bleeding pretty steadily, so he had his hand down his pants holding the rag he'd cut his ruined shirt into onto his bleeding balls. His pants were still unlaced and open because closing them up would have put the rough fabric right on the burned skin. He was wishing he had suspenders.

At least the rain had stopped.

He was sitting at his table right where he'd been when the guardsmen had been here yesterday, looking at the same pair talking to Jaine. They were laughing this time. The one named Thomas gave Will an amused salute just before they left.

"It really wasn't what it looked like this time," Will said as Janie sat down across from him.

"I don't care, Will," Janie said. She wasn't upset anymore. She mostly just looked tired. "Just tell me why the rain ward went off."

"Because Bella lit me on fire," Will shrugged.

"It was an accident!" Bella said from the office doorway. She and Belita had shut themselves in to protect their modesty from the guardsmen. In truth, neither had really cared, but Janie had insisted.

"How did that happen?" Janie asked, worried, but also a bit amused.

"We should probably just start at the beginning. There's a lot to tell," Will sighed.

"Oh, this will be fun," Bella grinned. Captain Vex sat in the third chair. Bella just hopped up on the table and crossed her legs beneath her.

"Captain Vex stabbed Jakob Kidd in the face," Will said. Janie's eyes went wide as saucers. "So we have to leave. Tonight," Will continued.

"Oh my. That is not good. You don't have to leave though, the Magistrate can-" Janie started.

"No they can't. Think about it. Would they risk a war with Old Man Kidd to protect an outsider? Jakob drew the knife, but it was three on one, he was there trying to help his brother, and Belita started the fight. There's no way the Magistrate can make that position look good. They might even side with Old Man Kidd if he pushes the issue. Best case scenario, the Magistrate stays neutral."

Janie was quiet for a few moments, then nodded. She looked sadly at Captain Vex. "They won't help you. You need to run."

Captain Vex shrugged, "That's what they tell me."

"So I wanted to get your attention," Will continued. He pointed to the ceiling. "I thought if the right ward was set off you'd come to see what was going on."

"So you chose fire!?" Janie was horrified.

"Well, no." Bella looked chagrined. "I was trying for a big flash of light and sound. Evocation."

"Well, that would set off an alarm ward, and not the rain ward. It was a good idea," Janie nodded. "What happened?"

"I screwed it up," Bella's face scrunched up.

"And Will caught fire?" Janie couldn't help but laugh.

"We did a ritual earlier. It linked our sense of touch by synchronizing our metaphysical... signatures," Bella explained. "The pattern was still drawn on his skin when I started the evocation."

"Sensory conjoining. I'm familiar with..." Janie's brows slowly furrowed, then her eyes got wide again as she connected the dots on the map Bella had just drawn for her. She put her face in her hands. "Oh no," she groaned.

"Well I still don't get it, so if you two great and powerful mystics could let me in on the secret that would be nice," Will said. He was still hurting and it was making him grouchy.

"Bella called up a bunch of uncontained energy. It destabilized. Usually nothing would happen. It would just... fizzle out. That's one of the ways apprentices of nearly all disciplines learn their art. They draw energy to see how much they can pull before they can't contain it and it dissipates," Janie explained.

"When I was an apprentice my mother made me sit in a protective circle and just draw and release energy for hours to get used to the feeling. I was safe because if there was a destabilization reaction it would get shunted into the circle. Making the circle activate is one of the ways apprentices know they're drawing power too fast," Bella added.

"All magic is about learning not to do that. It's about learning to be slow and careful and in control. Except evocation. It's considered one of the most dangerous arts to learn because there aren't any safety nets. People who have a knack for drawing a lot of power quickly make the best evokers, but they're also the most likely ones to blow themselves up while they're learning," Janie shook her head, "So strong evokers are incredibly rare."

"The only reason I decided to risk it is because I'm bad at it. I can't draw enough power fast enough to cause a dangerous destabilization. That's why I thought I'd be safe," Bella explained.