"Well, well, well..." crooned the somewhat intimidating man as he paced around his room, eyeing us up like he was a hungry grizzly bear, and we were an all you can eat buffet. "What to do with you?"

I was tempted to say, "not kill us, pretty please," but somehow, I figured that wouldn't end well. Instead, I fiddled a bit with my handcuffs and kept my trap shut. Not sure why I bothered to be honest, I guessed the cuffs would be dampened as soon as they were slapped on us and my sorry excuse of failing to summon a flame only hammered home the point. Then again, that might not be due to the cuffs.

I glanced to the chair on my right instead. Sheira sat bolt upright in her seat, wisely staying silent. Her braid had come loose in the scuffle, and there was a rip in her jeans from where she'd walked shins first into one of the satans' fun house walkways. I watched her eyes flicking around the room, desperately searching for a way out of this particular mess.

And what a mess it was. Just after hubris came along and bit us in the ass, the smugglers gently persuaded us off the boat with the stabby end of their harpoons which felt a bit like cheating to me. Who isn't going to listen to you when your punchline to an argument is 'suck it up or be skewered!'.

After getting prodded in the back one too many times for it to be an accident, we shuffled through the compound where seemingly everyone and their mother had showed up to glare at us from beneath those floppy fishermen's hats I used to think were hilarious when I was three (jeez, baby Nick had a weird sense of humour...you know what scratch that). All that was missing was a psychotic nun and a mad queen, and we were golden!

Somehow we made it through that unscathed and were then marched into a rickety shack that looked straight out of Evil Dead (or Cabin in the Woods, take your pick). In this terrifying local that was just one bone chandelier away from a horror movie, we were promptly shoved and locked into a room with two of the scariest looking dudes I'd ever laid eyes on.

Am I saying I would rather take on a screaming mad deadite right now? Why yes. Yes, I am.

The big guy, obviously the boss, was exactly what you're picturing. This big, beefy, sea weathered old man of the sea who, by my best guess, was probably in his forties despite looking not a day over a hundred, all crags and wrinkles in ancient leathery skin. He had this wiry dirty grey hair and matching beard that was clumped up with dried saltwater. The beard was the same colour as his battered trench coat, and everything he was wearing had been patched so many times I couldn't be sure if anything was the original material.

Wait a second...I know who he looks like! MR TWIT! That dude gave me nightmares when I was little. Don't know what it could have possibly been so scary about a dude who was fully prepared to eat four small children he found stuck in a tree. I guess we'll never know.

If we're going to stick with the Roald Dahl analogies and the boss looked like Mr Twit, then his second, another dude, was a dead ringer to dear old Grandma from George's Marvellous Medicine. He was short, scrawny, with a pointy face and a hairdo that looked like a dead rat. His personality wasn't far off either. From the five words we'd exchanged so far, the guy possessed what we in the business called a raging Napoleon complex.

Yet somehow, this rat-faced creep had a crocodile as his Beast (don't ask me, I have no idea). The boss had a raggedy seagull with mist rolling off its feathers, perched on his shoulder, staring daggers at his prisoners.

The boss leant back against his monster of a desk and eyed us up with a look that was twenty per cent curious, eighty per cent annoyed and a hundred per cent murderous.

Help.

"You break into my compound," he said slowly. His voice was raspy as a chain-smoker and creaky as a lifeboat in a hurricane. "You injure one of my men, and then you sneak around our private quarters like a pair of rats thinking you own the place. And that's not even touching on the fact that you tried to steal from us."

"If you would just let us explain-" Sheira began, who had a lot more bravery than I did.

But the boss was having none of it. "If I were you, missy, I'd keep your mouth shut while I'm still debating whether I want to cut off your tongue," he snapped.

The jumped up little twat of a second in command snickered in the corner while I seethed. Oh, If I hadn't have been handcuffed, I would've put money on feeling my skin start to burn. In the meantime, I began to wonder what he'd look like without any teeth.

Turning his attention to the file abandoned on the table, the boss picked it up and leafed through it. He was smiling (if that's what you want to call it) like a teacher that just caught you cheating and just couldn't wait for you to start digging a hole to Australia. "That being said, what I want to know is why this one? We have hundreds of ledgers in that office, maybe even thousands. Plenty are a hundred times more valuable, and that's not even considering blackmail potential. But this," he tossed the file aside, "is barely worth the paper it's written on, but you definitely want it. After all, you were being pretty thorough with your little search."

"If it's so worthless, then how come you care if we steal it?" I asked innocently enough. The first mate didn't seem to think so as the next thing I knew, he was slamming my head against the back of the chair. I managed not to yelp or have any of my hair pulled out by nothing short of a miracle.

"C'mon, boss, it's obvious they're just dumb little kids," the second sneered. His face was uncomfortably close to the back of my neck. Close enough for me to smell his lunch. Like dude, lay off the garlic bread. You're not doing yourself any favours.

Scalp still stinging, I rolled my eyes. "If you seriously think that matey, then while you might not be the biggest idiot in the world, you better hope they don't die.

It took him a painfully long time to get the message (by Jesus, these morons are the reason I'm on meds). When his withered pea brain finally ticked over, I got a slap in the head for my troubles. In my good ear, no less.

While my equilibrium just up and died, the boss went on with a sly smile. "Well, you want to explain yourself? Start explaining. You never know, if I like what I hear, I may just take one of your fingers."

"We'd really rather you didn't," I muttered.

The boss flashed us another shark-like grin, wide enough for me to spot his missing front tooth. "Better make it good then."

"We're looking for something," Sheira said before I could say anything else that got me injured. "The source of something incredibly dangerous, a potential weapon that could wipe an entire city at the drop of a hat. It's called Infernal fire. And don't give me that look. I read that file. You knew exactly what was in that box," she fired back as soon as the boss started to open his mouth to protest.

The second somehow managed to look even surlier. "And what do you want with it exactly?"

"To find the source and destroy it." The second scoffed, but that only seemed to rile Sheira up even more. "Look, we know you're working with the Army, and honestly, we don't care, but you must know how dangerous it is! What happens if something gets out here? Newsflash, you're all dead! And do you think the Army will care? Do you think Molly will care about a bunch of smugglers? They will throw you under the bus the first chance they get!"

"Yeah, but until then, they pay well." The seconds' dark brown crocodile (what his element could be, I had no idea) crawled over and glared at us. "I wonder how much the Stronghold will pay for you, though?"

I couldn't help but laugh at that. "After all the trouble we've caused, the Harpy would pay you to finish us off!"

Sheira shook her head but was also clearly trying not to cry. "She's going to kill us when she finds us, isn't she?"

"Honestly, you'd be doing her a favour."

The misty seagull squawked. "Troublemakers, huh?"

"You have no idea," I beamed.

"Is that so. I wonder...If not your Stronghold, could it be that the Army that might pay?" The boss shrugged. "Oh, don't give me that look. The Army has bounties out for two people who look startlingly like you two. How about that, huh? I hand you over, and then we both get what we want."

Did it surprise me the Army has rewards out for our heads? Not at all. But I also felt strangely proud. I'm on a wanted poster! Cowboy obsessed me would have been so jealous.

Sheira thought quickly. "And how long exactly do you think it'll take them to put two and two together to figure out we got through your defences and found out about the fire? That makes you a loose end. And since I'm guessing the Army wants us alive, you would have killed us already if they didn't. It would be so easy for us to 'accidentally' let slip that you just let us walk right in."

"Plus, you only caught us after we found that file. Just think of what we could've been doing while we were down there...or who we could've told."

"But you don't have any communication stones," said the second, but he didn't sound sure.

Realising they hadn't found Shadow's stone hidden at the bottom of Incaendium's scabbard, I jumped on that with everything I had. "Do we not?" I cocked my head in surprise. "I guess those one-hit use long-range sigils worked their magic then."

Sheira nodded in agreement while the two smugglers developed the complexion of a dead fish. "We really do have a great R&D department."

"A fantastic one."

"They'll have got our message by now, so if you call the Army, we'll just tell them the Strongholds know all their secrets. Yeah, they'll still have us, but what will they do to you? Oh, what's the phrase I'm thinking of?" she looked up innocently with a sweet cold smile, "kill two birds with one stone?"

I grinned. The thunderous expression of the captain said a thousand words, none of them friendly and likely wondering how he got bested by a seventeen-year-old. Because she was right.

"Fine, we can't hand you over," whined the second. Y'know, if I didn't know any better, I'd think this psycho actually wanted to kill us. "But we can still kill you. That's what we do to sneaking little boys and girls like you. Maybe we'll drop you in the middle of the channel with an anchor tied to your ankles? Or perhaps we'll drag you under the boats over and over until your skin starts to peel off? Or maybe we'll go for my personal favourite and drown you over and over again but never let you die until you're screaming for the grim reaper to hurry up and get on with it? Or y'know," he shrugged, "maybe we'll just rip you apart instead."

With that horrible idea for a game show now permanently wedged in my brain, I realised the captain was staring at me. Proper locked on, pickpocket eyeing up a tourists' wallet staring. Or rather, he was locked on to Incaendium.

Now I've learned from experience that it means one of two things whenever anyone starts eyeing up your weapon like a ravenous hyena. Was he thinking about robbing us blind or sending us on a horrible side quest of horribleness that stands a decent chance of getting both of us slowly and painfully murdered? No one knows, but I know where my bet will be going.

Truth be told, the entire situation reminded me painfully of Scarlet, the great exploding chav and her train of glittery death. You too can wind up in a life or death situation on top of a moving train by getting caught by a suspiciously helpful kleptomaniac, stealing a sparkly rock, almost getting eaten by a man-eating robot with a vendetta and then blowing up said train after figuring out she's allied with your worst enemy! Fun for all the family, and if you get really lucky, you can have half the skin and pain receptors burned off your arm as a freebie.

But hey! At least we saved a bunch of people, and my sword got a fancy new powerup, but I'd prefer not to go through all that again, especially the searing flesh bit.

But this guy, this guy, was eyeing us up just like Scarlet had. Not hungry per se, but definitely thinking about something. Shadow used to look like that when he was deciding whether to be outright cruel or just mean for our sparring sessions.

Though let's be honest, no one could tell the difference anyways.

Either way, that look was enough to send a shiver running down my spine (although that could be the broken rib talking) because either way, I was totally, royally screwed. No way could I fight anything right now; our encounter with bat-face MaGee only proved that, but that wasn't just down to my fire curse or whatever we were calling it.

As much as it pains me to admit it, my Irish blade was right. I wasn't just rusty. I was well past that. Right now, I was about as sharp as a brick and twice as dumb.

I'd been treating Incaendium like a new year's resolution, hyper fixated for a month or so and then tossing him aside like many a gym membership and diet book. Let me think...In the past couple of months, I clocked in, at a generous guess, fifty or so hours of training and only a quarter of that was on a moving target.

The realisation made me sick to my stomach. Goddammit, I'm screwed! Like, I loved Incaendium, and I could happily swing him around with decapitating myself. Still, if that guy wanted me to use him to fight something, I'd have about as much luck as trying to fight an army with a string of limp spaghetti.

But why had I stopped the world's most badass hobby, one may ask? The thing is, I knew exactly why I'd lost interest in all things stabby. The short answer is that my teacher decided to be an arsehole, but the long answer was a bit more...complicated, to say the least.

Yeah, other people at the Stronghold knew how to handle a sword. Take Sophie, for example! She was one of the best we had, and on more than one occasion, she'd offered to train me, but something felt...off?

Did she insult me, clap me over the back of the head or threaten to use me as the training dummy whenever I screwed up? No, of course not, but did I like that? Call me a masochist but no. I enjoyed sparring with Shadow. I felt proud whenever I broke his defences or learned a new move that led to the tiniest, most elusive twitch of his mouth. Plus, that man could heal any injury I gave him, so I could just whale on him with no regrets. I didn't have that with Sophie, so it couldn't ever be the same...

Is this what it feels like to have an older brother?

WHACK!

Pain once again surged through my skull, the force of the impact enough to rattle my eyeballs. "Ow! What the hell was that for!"

The second tried to give me another whack, but I dodged out of the way. Not sure how I managed it strapped to a chair, but the old vampire slayer wasn't exactly the sharpest cookie in the jar either.

Unable to land a hit on a stationary target, the second made himself feel better by kicking me in the shin. "Captain Virgil just asked you a question!" he sneered, the overpowering whiff of garlic trying its hardest to knock me out. "What, are you deaf?"

"Yes, actually," I said casually. Much to my enjoyment, the second visibly deflated a little, matching it perfectly with a squeaky noise that sounded a bit like what you'd get if you crossed a hamster with a broken bike pump.

I couldn't help but feel a little smug. Oh, and I wasn't lying either. I am actually deaf!. Or at least partially.

You see, during the zombie incident, I'd had the misfortune of standing too close to an explosion that proceeded to blast my left eardrum out (don't mess with fireworks, kids, you might not live to regret it) and then I proceeded to be an even bigger idiot than usual by not telling Shadow or Sheira that I couldn't hear anything quieter than a chainsaw.

Turns out if I'd brought it up then, rather than two weeks later, when I finally admitted to myself that my left ear had, in fact, thrown in the towel, they might have been able to fix it. Now, if I'm lucky, I've got thirty per cent range on my left side, and that's on a good day. Sigh...seriously, if you've got any health worries, just go to the doctor. Don't be a Nick. Nick is an idiot.

And wear ear defenders, goddammit!

Captain Virgil broke out his first non-threatening smile as his deputy shrivelled like a daisy in Death Valley. "I said that's a nice weapon you got there. How well can you use it?"

I shuffled uncomfortably. "Pretty well if the mood's with me. My sword also has a habit of incinerating anyone who tries to steal it," I added while maintaining locked on eye contact with Virgil. "Just thought you ought to know."

"I will keep that in mind," said Virgil.

"And why do you need to know?" Sheira asked.

Suddenly, the Captain went from sea weathered macho man to me on any boat ever. A bit sheepish, sagging shoulders and an uncomfortable expression somewhere between nausea and abject misery. His Beast hopped up onto his shoulder and pecked at his ear. It was probably be supposed to be affectionate, but as someone who fought a seagull and lost, I can safely say those flying terrors may as well have razor blades attached to their face.

The captain sighed. "Look, I'm going to level with you here. My crew wants you dead. You're trespassing on our property. You've seen our operation, and you've gone through half our ledgers, so you know who we've been trading with. Just one of those things is enough to get you dropped off for tea with the krakens if you catch my meaning."

"Loud and clear."

"But you two don't seem like your standard nosy teenagers. You've got weapons, you're definitely from the Stronghold, so you know how to fight. Plus, what the girl is saying is true. If Molly finds out you were here, we're all dead, but I can't just let you walk away. Luckily for you, we may just be able to come to a compromise."

At that, Sheira and I exchanged a knowing look. We'd both heard this script before, and let's just say the people in our situation never come out on top. In movies, they always, always, end up exploded, eaten, imprisoned or a mismatch of all of the above. Sometimes all three.

I watched her shoulders slump. "What do you want?" said a dejected Sheira.

"We have a problem-"

"Of course you do," I muttered.

"A problem that set itself up a few months back and has been a personal thorn in my side since then," Virgil went on, ignoring me entirely. "There's a series of caves along the coast we use to store our stock. Only something has moved into one of them and has made it impossible to access the cave. It wasn't so bad until we realised that everyone who went in never came back out."

DING-DING-DING! We have a winner! Mark it off your bingo cards, folks! We're going to be eaten!

Sheira groaned. "So what? It's some kind of creature?"

"We don't know exactly what it is. All we know is it's eating our stock and anyone that goes in there to try and find it. We just call it the Maw."

I laughed. Not because it was particularly funny (unless facing down something that sounds like a Resident Evil boss is your jam), but more because of how spectacularly screwed we were right now. Hey, universe? Who hurt you, and why are you taking it out on us?

Sheira had a similar reaction, albeit without the nervous laughter. "Forgive me for asking this, but how the hell do you think two teenagers are going to make a difference against this thing when months' worth of highly trained smugglers with harpoon guns haven't managed to shift it?"

Captain Virgil shrugged. "That missy ain't my problem. If you die, that works out nicely for me and my guys, and if by some miracle it dies, my crew can go about their days without worrying whether or not they'll get eaten alive. It's a win-win, really."

"For you!"

Virgil scowled at me, "you're the prisoner here, sunshine. Don't go playing with the big boys unless you want to get thrown to the sharks."

"But if we succeed, you let us go, right?"

"Of course."

"With our documents?" Sheira demanded.

I stared at Captain Virgil. Don't get me wrong, I thought the man was a piece of scum, but here's the thing, the Elemental world was a bit like the Wild West. Little bit lawless, definitely bloody, and if you've got a problem with someone, you fix it right there and then, more often than not, with a fireball or six. As a result, the only thing worth anything was your honour. And by the Gods, if you give someone your word, you keep it unless you fancy being on the receiving end of your own personal firestorm.

Maybe it was because he knew where we'd come from or because he knew what was on the line if he said no, but the captain nodded curtly. "I'll even give you a personal escort to where the shipment came from."

Considering the situation, that sounded just fine to me. The second had other ideas. The greasy weasel turned a funny shade of plum and stormed past us until he was nose to nose with his boss. Or rather nose to magnificent beard.

"Forgive me for speaking out of term, sir," he spat like he had a lump of hot coal in his mouth, "but don't you think that's a stupid idea?"

"Look, Simon–" Of course, that's his name. "-we have already lost twenty people to that cave. Why send more of our own in when we have two willing volunteers to do our dirty work? If they fail, they fail, and we don't have to worry about them."

"And if they succeed?"

"If they somehow manage to kill that thing, I'll dance naked on top of Durdle Door. Our business will go under if we can't shift that cursed thing. I think letting two insignificant, pathetic, snivelling-"

"We can hear you, y'know."

"-kids have a crack at it is a fair trade."

"But sir!"

"QUIET!" Virgil bellowed. Jesus, this was worse than watching mum and dad argue after one too many glasses of the bubbly (not my folks though. The only argument they ever had was over maps and my Dad insisting, "Don't worry, I have a great sense of direction!". He does not).

"I don't want to hear one more word out of you. I am the leader of this operation, and if you don't like it, you will find a new position somewhere else. Do you understand? DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

Simon stared at the floor, knuckles clenched and shaking with rage. "Yessir."

"Good. Now," Virgil turned back to us, ignoring the cloud of awkwardness hanging over the room, "do we have a deal?"

I sighed. Sheira sighed. The whole world sighed at the misery of it all. This entire scenario sucked, but what could we do right now? Diddly squat, that's what! If we said no, we were just straight-up dead. There were just way too many smugglers for us to even consider making a break for it, and speaking of breaks, my rib was still very much broken. Every breath I took was accompanied by my own bones shanking me in the chest. No way in hell would I be able to outrun these nutters, even on Flame's paws. And that's not even considering the big fishpond of certain death waiting just outside the cave.

By some twisted trick of fate, a duel to the death with an eldritch abomination that had definitely eaten two dozen people and was either invisible or just plain massive was somehow the more appealing option. Funny how the world works, isn't it?

"It's not like we have much of a choice, do we?" said Sheira mournfully.

The evil grin was back with a vengeance this time. Hell, it was almost cheerful as he prepared to send us to our deaths. "But it's the right one. In the meantime, I advise you to prepare yourselves. We leave at low tide."