Midday sun baked the streets of Pleasure Town like it had a personal vendetta against anyone stupid enough to walk them.
Elijah didn't care.
He strolled through the chaos with his hands in his pockets and his red bandana soaking up sweat like it was born for the job. The port district sprawled around him in all its grimy glory. Salt air mixed with the stench of yesterday's catch rotting in barrels. Sailors stumbled out of brothels with satisfied grins and empty purses. Merchants hawked stolen goods from carts that looked ready to collapse under the weight of their own inventory.
A woman with too much makeup and too little clothing called out to him from a doorway.
"Looking for company, handsome?"
"Tempting." He flashed her his best smile. "But I'm already late for an appointment with disaster."
She laughed and blew him a kiss.
Elijah caught it, pressed it to his heart with exaggerated sincerity, and kept walking.
His mind worked through the problem like a puzzle box. Duckworth had vanished sometime after breakfast. No warning. No note. Just gone like smoke in a hurricane. Most captains would panic. Most captains would assume their first mate had abandoned ship before it even left port.
Elijah wasn't most captains.
A man of ironclad principle and a single, glaring weakness. The most honorable men always have the dirtiest vices.
He'd seen it in Duckworth's eyes back on the lifeboat. That little spark of interest when gambling came up. The way his voice had changed when he mentioned enjoying his losses. Like a man confessing to a priest.
So where does a man with no money but a desperate need for a game go to lose?
The answer was somewhere in this maze of vice and commerce.
The search continued through narrow alleys and open squares. He asked questions when the mood struck him. A fishmonger shook his head. A blacksmith pointed vaguely toward the docks. An old woman selling flowers told him to get a haircut and find religion.
Then he spotted the blue beanie.
Shachi stumbled around a corner hauling a crate that looked three sizes too big for his wiry frame. Tools rattled inside with every step. The kid's face was scrunched up in pure concentration as he navigated the crowded street without dropping his cargo.
Elijah's grin widened.
He changed course to intercept.
Shachi saw him coming. The recognition hit like a lightning bolt. The kid's eyes went wide. He dropped the crate with a crash that sent wrenches and hammers rolling across the dirt.
"Hey! You!"
Shachi planted himself between Elijah and the general direction of the tavern district. His chest puffed out. His fists clenched at his sides. He looked like an angry chicken challenging a wolf.
"Stay away from our Captain! She's working, and she doesn't need any trouble from a... a scruffy-looking, loudmouthed... pirate!"
Elijah stopped walking.
He held up both hands like Shachi was pointing a loaded gun at his face.
"Whoa there, killer. Relax. I wouldn't dream of bothering a woman on the clock. That's just bad form."
Shachi blinked.
The aggressive stance wavered.
"I'm looking for my First Mate. Tall, lanky guy, looks like he's allergic to smiling? You haven't seen him, have you?"
The confusion on Shachi's face was almost painful to watch. The kid clearly didn't know how to handle an enemy who refused to be an enemy. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Uh... no?"
He scratched his head hard enough to knock his beanie askew.
"But... I did hear some guys down at the casino talking. Some loudmouth with a weird melting skull tattoo on his arm. Said he was fleecing some 'lanky sucker' who'd already bet his own boots."
Elijah's grin died.
His entire body went still in a way that made the air around him feel colder.
"Casino?"
His purple eyes locked onto Shachi with laser focus.
"With what Beri?"
"I don't... I mean, I wasn't really listening. I just..."
Shachi trailed off as Elijah brushed past him without another word.
His casual stroll transformed into something faster. Not quite a run. More like the purposeful stride of a man who'd just found exactly what he'd been hunting and didn't like what he'd discovered.
Shachi called after him.
Elijah didn't hear it.
The casino wasn't hard to find once you knew where to look.
It squatted between a pawnshop and a brothel like the diseased love child of both businesses. No fancy sign. No glamorous entrance. Just a heavy wooden door with iron bands and a bouncer who looked like someone had tried to carve a human being out of a boulder and given up halfway through.
The bouncer stared at Elijah.
Elijah stared back.
"You got money?"
"Define money."
"Get lost."
"What if I told you I'm here to watch someone lose theirs? That's basically entertainment. I should get in free."
The bouncer's face didn't change expression. "One hundred Beri cover charge or you walk."
Elijah sighed.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few crumpled coins he found. The last of his worldly fortune. He'd been saving it for food.
Priorities changed.
The bouncer counted the money with fingers like sausages. He grunted and stepped aside.
"Don't start nothing."
The interior hit Elijah like a wall of smoke and desperation. Low ceiling. Dim lighting from oil lamps that probably hadn't been cleaned since the building's construction. The air tasted like ash and broken dreams. Card tables filled the floor space in chaotic clusters. Dice clattered. Men shouted. Women laughed with their mouths while their eyes stayed cold and calculating.
Elijah scanned the room with the focus of a hawk spotting prey in tall grass.
There.
Center table.
The crowd around it was thicker than anywhere else. Men stood three deep just to watch the carnage. Their faces held that special mix of schadenfreude and relief that came from watching someone else hit rock bottom.
Elijah pushed through the spectators without apology.
The scene that greeted him would have been funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
Duckworth sat at the table in nothing but his trousers. His iconic tan duster lay draped across the shoulders of the biggest, ugliest bastard Elijah had ever seen. The man was built like a brick shithouse with anger issues. One eye socket held a milky white orb that didn't track with its partner. Scars crisscrossed his bare arms like a roadmap of violence. On his thick forearm, a tattoo screamed for attention. A human skull locked in a sneer, melting from the bottom up into black tar. Two crossed maces behind it.
Gallo the Gouger wore Duckworth's coat like a trophy.
Duckworth's boots sat in the pot alongside a pile of Beri that could have fed Elijah for a month.
The bounty hunter's face was stone. His grey eyes held that terrible, desperate focus of a gambler who'd crossed the point of no return an hour ago and just kept digging. His fingers drummed against the table's edge. The only tell that he knew exactly how badly he'd screwed up.
"What's the matter?"
Gallo's voice sounded like gravel in a meat grinder.
He leaned back in his chair. The wood creaked under his bulk. His grin showed too many teeth and not enough humanity.
"Run out of things to bet? Your precious 'word' ain't worth much at this table!"
His crew laughed.
Four other men clustered around him like remoras on a shark. Same dead eyes. Same melting skull tattoos. Pirates who'd learned that loyalty meant fear and payday.
Duckworth didn't respond.
His jaw was so tight Elijah could hear his teeth grinding from six feet away.
Elijah took a slow breath.
He let it out slower.
Then he sauntered forward through the crowd like he owned the building and everyone in it.
His hands stayed in his pockets. His grin returned to his face like it had never left. He circled the table once. Twice. His purple eyes took in every detail. The cards. The pot. The way Gallo's knuckles were white around his hand. The empty bottle of rum at Duckworth's elbow.
He stopped behind his First Mate.
"First Mate."
The entire table went quiet.
"I leave you alone for two hours, and you've already redecorated. I'm not sure the 'shoeless vagrant' look is really our brand."
Duckworth's head snapped up.
For just a second, the gambler's haze cleared from his grey eyes. Shame flickered across his face. Raw and real and quickly buried under his usual stoic mask.
"Captain."
The word came out flat.
Gallo turned in his chair.
His one good eye studied Elijah with the interest of a butcher examining meat.
"Captain? This little shit's YOUR captain?"
He laughed.
His crew joined in on cue like trained seals.
"What kind of pathetic operation are you running where the captain looks like he got dressed in the dark and the first mate can't keep his pants?"
Elijah's grin didn't falter.
He shifted his attention from Duckworth to the pirate wearing his property. His purple eyes caught the lamplight. The red rings inside them pulsed once.
"That's some nice stuff you've won there."
His tone stayed friendly. Conversational. Like he was complimenting Gallo's choice of breakfast instead of pointing out theft.
"Tell you what. One hand. Me against you."
He gestured to the pile of Beri and belongings.
"I win, we get all of it back. My First Mate's property, and every Beri you've taken from him."
The laughter died.
Gallo's grin turned into something uglier.
"And what's a broke bastard like you got to bet? You ain't even got shoes to put in the pot."
His crew snickered.
Elijah's grin became radiant.
He spread his hands wide like a stage magician about to perform his greatest trick. The glowing red rings in his eyes pulsed brighter. The entire room seemed to lean in despite themselves. Drawn by the sheer audacity radiating off him like heat from a forge.
"Me?"
His voice dropped lower. Quieter. Every word landed with the weight of absolute conviction.
"I'm betting something you could never afford."
He paused.
Let the silence build.
Let the anticipation crawl up everyone's spine like a spider.
"I'm betting with Lady Luck herself."
Another pause.
His grin turned into something wild and beautiful and completely insane.
"She owes me a favor."