"You didn't have to toss me into the water to make a point." The man was dripping wet and his white linen shirt that we provided was doing him so many favors.

  The clothing that he'd worn here on his rowing trip was now drying and I was pleased to note that the linen shirt would giving him. It only came up to mid thigh. It was enough to show me what I needed to see. The man had muscles all the way down.

  "We didn't toss you in the water to make a point. We tossed you in the water to steal the deal and if he didn't understand that, we can do it again."

  Martin held up both hands. "Nope. Nope I'm good. No one that was a great little refreshing dip and I think that we can avoid that in the future."

  "Excellent because it looks like the boss man is almost here."

  The bossman himself was dragging a sled with two bodies on it. One of the things he'd asked for was for us to make something that could be pulled across sand. He was strong which mother? This is a possibility. If he wasn't strong then I wouldn't have suggested him to do it. But once he got the bodies he placed him on his large sled on the beach and pulled them.

  It had been a thing that Vivian had made for him to save us. Otherwise, we'd would have had to use a cart.

  "Are there a lot of these traditions that you guys are going to spring upon me like I'm some sort of newbie? I've been at the college for a very long time. I'm not the new guy anymore."

  "You're not the new guy there anymore. But didn't you just say that you're on a sabbatical? You're new to this." His face did not turn to me. I really wanted to see it, but he had decided to stay in the shade. All things being equal it was probably the best he could do.

  He finally locked eyes with me. Those gorgeous green eyes could make a Medusa change her mind. "Look we've got a deal, all right. I work for you. You don't kill me eventually. I'm going to get some sort of payment out of this. I imagine. That seems fair to me."

  "Is now a good time for us to talk about paying him?"

  I cross my arms. Vivian had a point. "I suppose it's fine."

  "Good. Mr. Martin. While you're sailing under the auspices of the Blood Maid company, you're under our protection and we pay a day rate that most would find, quite competitive."

  He leaned all the way forward. "I'm very interested in this offer. Despite the fact that I am done with a specific piece of work that I just finished. I am open to the idea of a further partnership."

  "There could always be more here but I think we're ready for your part."

  Stuart had finished putting things together. Not only had he put the rest of the corpses in there would have done the normal field stripping and removed everything useful from their bodies.

  "Is it standard for you guys to take away anything useful?" Martin was given the scene his full attention as Vivian walked over to the steps that led down to the beach.

  "And then we burn the bodies. Oh wait. Would you like a mango?"

  They were too very good uses for machetes.

  One was sliding through slicing through brush.

  The other one was opening up mangoes.

  I pulled out my spare machete and sliced a mango open. We'd gotten a crate that just had been filled up with whatever local fruit there was and definitely had enough mangoes to go around and then some. I handed them half of one.

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  "Did you you pull out a different machete than the one used before?"

  I held it out. This one had a more brownish tint to the hilt. It hadn't been used as much as the other one. A lady needed her utility knives to be ready for the job at hand. What was a machete if it wasn't just an up jumped utility knife. I kept to spare with my personal effects but the two I had served me well enough in the field. And it was almost time for us to head out.

  "This one's pretty good." I almost held it out for him.

  Almost. A real lady didn't give away her knives for nothing. I had to keep something with me.

  "Well it appears you have an armory. I'm not going to even consider how much you have in storage."

  "What have you got storage? Cuz it doesn't seem like you brought a lot here."

  "I have a lot of weapons I've gotten from the many battles that I've had to be in or survive."

  He did kind of look like he'd been through battle or two but all the dangerous ones that made at that age did. I would have expected more scars but also humans were their short lifespans could only take so much. Scars attracted and sense that they meant that you lived through something. They didn't have much more to it than that.

  He looked like he'd been through something but he was still ready for more.

  We'd have to do a few more things that we disembarked one of them was bringing the bodies. Before we burn them. We needed to make sure that everything that we could possibly had whatever had been removed. The medallions that the ports move on back would have also needed to be removed.

  But the flames were Vivian this job. But her magic it was child's Play to just just torch them down once we had them all together.

  "What's she doing?" Martin said. There was a cute little squeak in his voice.

  "She's going to light them up."

  Stewart was doing his rounds. There was a specific thing he needed to do in order to prepare the sand on the beach. Part of his powers were something that involved using the water to make sure that whatever fire came up from Vivian's work wouldn't spread too far. It was all too easy to create a giant flame and have it now go where you wanted because someone was a little tipsy.

  Come to think of it..."Vivian, are we out of rum?"

  "I should hope not. I need it for this next part."

  Vivian grabbed a brown bottle from her pocket and took a swig before passing it over to me. Stuart was done. I can see a thin sheen of ice circling around the pile of corpses.

  "This is the best part. Watch closely," I said.

  Below us, Stuart began running as fast as he could away from the pile of corpses. He kicked up a lot of sand on his way, definitely not concerned at that speed. He made it to the water before the world lit up.

  There's a type of fire that happens when a human lights kindling. There's a beauty in the mundanity of it. The purple flames that erupted from Vivian's mouth, accentuated by the liquor had its own special aesthetic. It was like for a moment, the world stopped and we had an honest to goodness dragon on board the ship.

  It wasn't a dragon. It was just Vivian doing her best Dragon impression which was a lovely thing in its own right. You'd think that someone attempting to Glow flames and free fire would have issues with hitting something from that far away. But I'd seen her practice before and she was really good at that. Some people had skills, some took a lot of time practicing.

  Vivian just loved a good party trick.

  It was one of the things that I would never be able to do. I could only make my breath smell alcoholic, not create gorgeous eruptions of flames in a projected beam of destruction. But that was a problem with being a red cap. It had nothing to do with her magic.

  It had everything to do what the whimsy of whatever magic had been selected for us by the gods. I hadn't chosen to be strong and fast when I spent my thrill. That choice had been made for me. I just worked with what I had.

  Martin was still staring as the pyre lit. For a brief moment, I thought he would fall off the side of the boat into the water and we would have to grab him again.

  "That's the wrong side to fall off."

  "I'm sorry what?"

  "If you fall off facing the island, you might break your legs. There's not a lot of space."

  There really wasn't. It was just like a man to not consider the space in front of him and how much it would have sucked to have to clean up a corpse. It wasn't any paperwork for us because he wasn't part of this blood right? But I could see Vivian wanted to write it up.

  It would be another little incident report. Just another human missing for no good reason.

  Unfortunately for me, he had a cute butt. Tragic, I know. He would have to stay at least a little bit longer.