strangetrip | OtherWorlds: Go Away Ghost Ship (Sam x River T.)

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OtherWorlds: Go Away Ghost Ship (Sam x River T.)

After a full day of research, Sam had a solid lead on the haunting of Magnus Parr's shipping lines. A pirate ship had gone down off the coast with all hands, back in the colonial era, and Parr's ancestor, a whaler, had refused to rescue the crew when he encountered the wreck before it took them all to their graves. A salvage company had bought the rights to the Palatine back at the beginning of the year and they'd just last month gotten around to diving and bringing pieces back up.

Back in his room, Sam cursed his inferior collection of hunting weapons in the Inn. He had the Colt, but no Ruby to make bullets or fix it if it got broken. He had a knife, and he'd picked up another diver's knife in Bonesville, he had the hunting rifle and rock salt, but the idea of going after a ghost pirate crew with just what he had wasn't sitting well. If it was an actual ghost pirate, salt pellets would do, but if it wasn't...

What he should do was get some help.

Sam sat at the edge of his bed and reached for the phone. Buffy or Molly, Carlos, Butters... Caroline. Maybe she'd go with him.

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Sam sighed and got up to finish checking his arsenal. But now he really hoped he wasn't going to need it. Really hoped.

At least he didn't have vampire blood in his system.

River... didn't have an arsenal. She considered and then tightened the laces on her boots.

"I am ready."

"Have you been into town yet?"

At this point, he was just making conversation as he steered her out the door. He'd tell her more about what they were after when he knew what she knew about the town and the haunting already. Since she didn't believe in magic, things could get sticky. But she did seem to believe in ghosts.

It wasn't believing in ghosts so much as acceptance having actually met one. She and Lucy might even be considered friends if either of them were the type who had friends.

"I wanted to understand Halloween." So she had gone to see the town and the decorations and the people. "It did not help."

"Yeah. It wouldn't."

Since they had a hike before they got where they were going or even close, he figured he could at least try to explain. "What do you know so far?"

She shrugged, she knew all sorts of things. He would have to be more specific.

"About Halloween? Or what I am helping you with?"

"Halloween, if you're still trying to figure it out," Sam said as he pushed open the door at the end of their building. "Otherwise, I guess, this hunt."

"I am still unclear on why there are costumes. And what purpose there is in going to strangers for candy."

But probably nothing he said would clarify it, it just made zero sense to her.

"It's an evolution of a much earlier custom of appeasing ancestral spirits," Sam replied, even though that was a gloss on dozens of different folk traditions. "Some folkways have it that the veil between our world and the spirit world was thinnest on the day they celebrated and 'treats' were left for the spirits so they wouldn't bother the living.

"Over time, as belief patterns shifted, children began dressing up as 'spirits' and spooks and they would demand a treat in exchange for not playing a trick. Most of that's lost now. People just use it as an outlet for costuming creativity and doing something fun with their kids."

She took a moment as they walked to process this information, then: "Perhaps if we left treats out for the ghosts at the inn they would be less disruptive."

"I've heard worse ideas."

Sam glanced at her again. "Did Lucy tell you about the field trip I took them on?"

"She has not." But then River hasn't see Lucy since the door opened to the world on the other side. "But it was nice of you to do so."

"She and some of the others were bored," Sam said by way of explanation, and opened the door of the building the other world was in. "I hoped they might settle down in a haunted house I found in the company of their own kind, but the ghosts in the house were evil and Lucy and friends helped me and Pike fight them."

"If the inn ghosts are not evil, will you stop trying to banish them?" at least Lucy. River likes Lucy.

"I'm not trying to banish them permanently," Sam protested. "I'm trying to lay them to rest. And if I can't do that, well, sometimes people want a little privacy, that's all."

But he did pause and acknowledge with a nod, "I'll stop trying to lay them to rest if they don't want to go."

"People could ask for privacy." But generally speaking very few people seemed to think of that option.

"Not all of the ghosts are willing to leave." River's 'friendship' with Lucy not withstanding, most of the ghosts weren't quite as agreeable.

He gestured River through the door, down the hall and into the room that'd become a cave. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here," he said, smiling wryly.

"Even in the grave, all is not lost." River quoted, and it was hard to tell if it was in response to what he said about the ghosts or the wry quote.

"Poe," Sam observed. "Appropriate." And since she would not be left behind, it was time to tell her what they faced.

"There've been several attacks on a local shipping magnate's cargo ships. The surviving crew members claim there were pirate ghosts involved. My research suggests that if there are ghosts involved, they're probably tied to the wreckage of a ship recently brought to the museum. So we'll start there."

"Pirates." River considered that. There were pirates where she was from, but different. And then there were Reavers who were like pirates.

She wrinkled her nose and rubbed her eyes, no thinking about Reavers.

"That seems a logical course of action. How does one fight ghosts?" Since, they were non-corporeal.

When she rubbed her eyes, Sam didn't stop, but he did reach out to touch her shoulder. Steadying, like a brother would, even if he didn't know what he was steadying her from.

"You try not to. If they're attacking people, they've gone bad. We look for their bones or whatever they're connected to, salt them, and burn them."

It was funny, the touch was so much like Simon's - but still so different. Either way it helped.

"The museum will not like us burning things." Though she had no problem with it.

"That's why we're sneaking in at night and hoping not to get caught."

Sam still didn't know what he'd find when they got there, but he needed to see what they'd found before he did anything else.

"We're aiming to misbehave," she quoted Mal. Because it was true, and because suddenly Sam reminded her of Mal.

She stopped and peered at him. Yes. That helped and she started walking again.

Three hours and no ghosts later, Sam and River discovered the source of the attacks: insurance fraud.

Too bad the insurance defrauders discovered them, too. And now they were trapped belowdecks on a ship about to go commit arson -- and be burned up in the process.

"Knife," Sam whispered to River, as tied up as he was. "Right boot." If she could get it, they could get out of their bindings. Then... then they'd figure it out from there.

Despite their predicament River was very calm. And it was possible she was slightly less well tied up because, well look at her.

"They intend to incinerate us." She told Sam as she twisted and bent to slide the knife out of his boot. Then she twisted her self around and picked it up so she could hold it at an angle that he could use to cut his hands free.

"Yeah."

It had never seemed like a good idea to lie to someone who was about to die, especially if they had any hope of doing anything about it. River being a telepath, even if she wasn't always totally reliable with it, could be an advantage. They need all of those they could get.

While he sawed through the ropes that held his wrists, he asked, "Can you focus on them? See if you can give us a warning when they come close?"

"I will do my best," She wasn't particularly adept at the focus part, but she had enough awareness to keep track.

"They are all occupied at the moment."

"Occupied enough for us to sneak up on them?" Ideally, they could wait here and stage an ambush, but considering the crew planned to roast them alive, they might not be planning any return visits.

"A number of them appear to be intoxicated," not the two who were in charge and most intent of disposing of them. But many of the others. "They are pleased with themselves."

"All right. I guess we should probably try to sneak by them and see if we can find a way down to the boat we came out here on."

It was a terrible idea, but it was the only one he had: get off the boat and hope they could fight them off on the water.

"It is a terrible idea," she agreed. If only because they would undoubtedly get away with their law breaking.

She wasn't a stickler for law breaking but these had tried to kill them.

"Wait here."

Then she disappeared up the ships ladder to the deck. Before Sam had likely processed that she had gone there would be the sound of thumps, yelps and at least one splash from the deck.

"River, what--" She was gone before he could ask what she was doing.

Whatever it was, it was a terrible idea too. Naturally, he followed her out.

And blinked. Rapidly. Trying to make sense of the whirling dervish that was dispatching the men who'd meant to kill them.

One came up on him while he was busy rearranging how he thought about River. Fortunately, the deck squeaked under his sneaker. Sam turned and clotheslined the guy, and then dropped him with a gut-punch and another to the head when he doubled over.

The last one dropped at Sam's feet and River stepped over another hulking mass on the floor to join him and survey the deck.

"I do not know how to pilot this craft." So he would have to, to get them back to shore.

"There'll be a radio," Sam told her, running his hand through his hair in bemusement. "Are they dead?" Because if they weren't, they should tie them up before they turned their backs.

She paused to assess, "No."

They might wish they were when they woke up and at least one was bleeding fairly profusely but no.

Another pause.

"Unless the one that went overboard cannot swim. I will get the rope."

"Shit."

They'd be gone before anyone noticed the guy missing, probably, but it didn't seem like a good idea to let a guy die without trying to save him.

"You get rope. I'll see if I can find the guy who went overboard." If they got lucky, he'd be alive and know how to pilot the craft.

"And once we do that, maybe you could tell me where you learned how to do that."

She paused as she was about to enter the opening to the hold where they had been captive, looking back at him with dark serious eyes and said words he had probably heard before, but had a different meaning now.

"Wanted a weapon. Not a girl."

And then she was gone to get rope. She returned on silent feet and started tying people to the railing while Sam went about his part of the job.

She'd told him that before and he had heard her. He just hadn't realized it extended to physical training, too.

Bastards. And he thought being raised like a warrior was bad.

[ooc: wrap!]

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OtherWorlds: Go Away Ghost Ship (Sam x River T.)

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