The Angel’s Wrath

My lungs burned as I sprinted across the rain-slicked planks of the harbor, boots splashing through puddles that reflected the torches behind me. The box tucked under my arm felt heavier with each step, but I clutched it tighter, my knuckles white against the rough wood.

Almost there. Almost there.

Shouts echoed from the narrow streets behind me—they'd found the bodies, found the empty vault. My heart hammered against my ribs as I spotted the Siren's Revenge bobbing at the far end of the dock, her sails already loosened, ready to catch wind.

"Cast off! Cast off!" I bellowed as I pounded up the gangplank, my voice hoarse with exertion and triumph. We'd done it. After months of planning, we'd actually done it.

I burst onto the deck and nearly collided with one of the crew—the new lad, wide-eyed and pale in the moonlight. Three months he'd been aboard, still jumping at shadows, still looking like he expected someone to tell him he didn't belong.

Without thinking, I shoved the box into his trembling hands.

"Hide it," I gasped, fighting for breath. "Somewhere safe. Somewhere they'll never think to look."

His face went white as bone. The weight of the box seemed to confirm every doubt that had been eating at him since he'd joined us. I could see it in his eyes—that terror of responsibility, of being trusted with something he didn't understand.

But even as I watched him struggle with the burden, part of me felt that familiar thrill. Twenty years I'd been sailing these waters, twenty years of chases and treasures and narrow escapes. This felt different, though. This felt important, even though I could feel the thing in the box being alive.

The ship lurched as we cleared the harbor, ice-cold spray mixing impossibly with warm Caribbean air. The world had been strange lately, seasons bleeding into each other, geography bending in ways that made old maps useless. Some said it was the work of whatever we were hunting. Others blamed it on the growing madness of the sea itself.

I tucked the box beneath a loose floorboard in the cargo hold, my inexperienced hands fumbling with the mechanism. Above deck, I could hear the crew working with practiced efficiency, setting course for waters that existed on no chart.

Later, when the pursuit had faded to distant specks on the horizon, I found myself at the rail. The box sat before me, opened now, revealing its contents in the dying light.

The thing inside pulsed with a red-pink glow, organic and wrong in ways that made my stomach turn. It was roughly tongue-shaped, but larger than any human tongue had a right to be, covered in what looked like tiny, constantly shifting script.

"What is it?" I whispered, my voice cracking like a boy's.

"Angel's tongue,” Murdoch said, and his voice carried the weight of someone who'd seen too much, lived through too much. “First piece we've found of the Fallen One. Torn apart by the Almighty's own hand after their great dispute."

The tongue writhed slightly, and I swear I heard whispers in languages I didn't recognize. My hands shook as I reached toward it, then pulled back.

Don't be afraid, a voice said in my head—gentle, encouraging. You're stronger than you know.

But another voice, deeper and more familiar, warned: Careful, lad. This thing's been lying since before mankind drew breath. Every word it speaks is poison wrapped in honey.

"It talks?" I asked aloud, though I already knew the answer.

Murdoch nodded grimly. "Aye. It'll guide us to the other pieces—the heart, the wings, the eyes. But it's a fallen angel, boy. Truth and lies are the same thing to creatures like this."

I only want to help you become whole, whispered the gentle voice.

It wants to use you, just like it used you before, growled the weathered voice. Just like it used the crew of the Blessed Mary. Remember what happened to Martinez. Remember what happened to your friends.

But I didn't remember Martinez, or any Blessed Mary and certainly no friends. It feels like I should though, like there’s something pulling me towards a memory that’s not quite there.

The one who remembers being whole, the ancient voice interrupted with mock tenderness. Do you want to choose which one of you survives, or shall I?

The question hung in the air like smoke, and I realized that I couldn't choose. Couldn't escape. My throat closed and I fell over the box, grasping for air. All I could do is watch and continue chasing that dream, while feeling something ancient and patient pulled my broken strings.

As the sun set and strange stars appeared in configurations that defied astronomy, I found myself alone with the tongue. The rest of the crew gave it—and me—a wide berth. Sometimes I caught them looking at me with expressions I couldn't read. They'd been with me for over a year now, since I'd recruited them after the Blessed Mary incident. They'd learned to work around my... complexities.

Tell me about the next piece, I thought at the thing.

The heart, it whispered back, words forming in my mind like blood drops in water. Hidden where the ice meets fire, where the world forgot how to make sense. But first, you must understand what you truly are.

Don't listen, the other voice warned. That's how it starts. That's how it got its hooks in you the first time.

The first time. The Blessed Mary. The night I stopped being whole and became a tool for something that had been torn apart by God's own hand. I tried to grasp the memory, but it slips away like quicksand.

I closed the box with shaking hands, but I could still feel the tongue's presence, still hear its whispers mixing with the other voice—the one that sounded like me but older, more broken.

Above deck, the crew worked in tense silence while Captain Murdoch consulted maps that shifted and changed when no one was looking directly at them. We were sailing into waters where the rules didn't apply, chasing pieces of something that had been destroyed for good reason.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, two voices argued about whether we were saving an angel or damning ourselves, while the thing in the box whispered secrets that might have been promises or threats.

The stars wheeled overhead in patterns that made my eyes water, and I wondered if I was going mad or if madness was just another word for finally seeing clearly.

Soon, the angel's tongue whispered. Soon you'll understand everything.

God help us all, the other voice replied. Because when you do, it might already be too late.