This wasn’t unheard of. There had been one or two nights during the ten days or so that they had been with this crew that the crewmen had been subdued in their manner and speech, almost bordering on being polite to their guests. Charles assumed that maybe the ship’s engineer had told the crew more than he had ‘suggested’ he tell them. It would account for the ship’s cook chastising his subordinate the way he had.

  Katherine and Nicolas were eating normally. “I never thought I’d be happy about a double serving of dried, over seasoned pork,” Nicolas commented.

  Katherine shook her head, “Yeah these Spring Rolls are crap too I’ve had better from the frozen food section but still, it’s nice to be treated like a human being every once in a while.” Katherine stifled a yawn behind an open hand.

  Charles couldn’t disagree with her there. It was a nice change to be treated with respect, almost like an equal. He raised a forkful of fried rice as he gazed over the Galley again. The crew members were seated with their food but the room wasn’t getting loud with the usual sounds of conversation and joking that was usually present.

  Nicolas said, “I wooon….” His face split with a huge tired yawn that he didn’t even try to hide. “I wonder what this...sstuff is made of.” He said with heavy eyelids trying to focus on the pork that was still on his fork.

  Katherine shook her head lazily; her eyes were also unfocused as she smiled, “I don’t know…” She leaned her head forward, resting it on her forearm on the table.

  Charles stood up rapidly, almost falling over the bolted down bench that he had been sitting on, dropping the forkful of food he was about to eat. Both his friends were collapsed on the table and the crewman all around him jumped to their feet.

  Charles couldn’t take on the entire crew, and all twenty-two crewmembers were in the room with him. He glanced down at his sleeping friends. He had no idea what was going to happen to them but he knew he had to get away. He ran.

  He threw himself through the nearest hatch and with all his strength he slammed the heavy metal door closed and turned the locking mechanism. Charles looked through the small porthole as some men pounded on the door yelling at him. Charles backed away slowly.

  What could he do? He could shift and take them on. All it would take is one with a syringe of drugs. He may not go down quickly but drugs would affect his werewolf body the same as his human one, just not as fast. He had to get away and find a way to free his friends. He shouldn’t leave them here unprotected. If he stayed, they would all be caught, drugged, and sold, or worse, killed.

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  Charles ran down the passageway away from the Galley. He cursed himself for his weakness with every step. Why didn’t you stay and fight? You’re a coward! He knew this was the right decision. It was the only decision that didn’t end in slavery or death for all of them. Katherine, Amanda, and Ansuya would eventually be able to break free but what about Nicolas, Aceso and William? Aceso and William.

  He rounded a bend in the ship and slid down a ladder well, crossed over a p-way, and into another throughway, through a hatch. He had to get back around the ship and back to William and Aceso. The ships crewmen would be looking for him. Unfortunately, they knew this ship better than he did. But he hadn’t been idle with his time either. He knew the ship well enough to get himself around and not follow the most obvious route.

  He crossed a small room and ran up another ladder well. He had to get to the deck of the ship. He could play hide and seek better than any of these men could, thanks to his heighted sense of smell and hearing. It was the closest he was likely to get to a level playing field. He ran up two more ladder wells and then opened a hatch up onto the main deck.

  The sun was just sinking into the ocean. The brilliant reds and oranges of the sunset were bleeding onto the pristine blue of the ocean surface and being splashed out across the sky above. The clean salt air whipped across his face and for a moment he wished he could enjoy this moment. But he couldn’t and his friends’ lives depended on his actions. His ran and jumped down onto a lower platform of the deck and disappeared into the maze of containers.

  He cursed himself for not smelling it sooner. He should have recognized that scent. He had smelled it as clearly as he smelled the salt in the air around him, Temazepam. It was a pretty powerful sleep medicine, powerful and habit forming. His grandmother had used it for a time and spent three years trying to break the habit. She had died of old age, thankfully, but she struggled with that particular daemon till the end.

  They would use something that dangerous. The crew probably counted on it being habit forming to better control their ‘cargo.’ He had to make sure these monsters saw justice.

  He forced his way through the maze. He smelled him just before he rounded a left turn around a container and ran into a crewman who was carrying a rifle of some kind. It looked like one of those old AK’s that he had seen in movies but he wasn’t a gun expert by any means.

  The crewman eyes went wide and he raised his gun to fire. Charles moved with liquid speed as he flowed forward, wrenched the gun out of the crewman’s hands, and swept the rifle back up into his face with the solid wooden butt of the rifle. The crewman’s head and eyes flew upward and he landed flat on his back, knocked out cold.

  Charles held the rifle away from himself almost dropping it with the unconscious body. He knew that would be a mistake, throwing it into the ocean would keep it out of other crewmen’s hands but it would also leave him defenseless. He kept the weapon, if it came down to it, he would kill every last crewmember on this ship. He moved forward toward the bow of the ship.