Maggie on the Bounty by Kate Danley

out his hand.  I grasped it
quickly.  It was cold, but not dead cold.  I'm pretty sure he had a pulse in
his body, which ruled out the undead, which ruled out a ton of bad monsters. 
No zings of power.  And he didn't try to bite me, which was an even better
sign.  Plus, if he was germaphobic, it was good to know I could bypass the
staking when a sneeze would do just as well.
    "Deal."  I turned to
Killian.  "All right, partner.  Let's get him out of here."

Chapter Thirteen 
    I t took quite a bit of doing, but we
finally unshackled Mortimer thanks to my lock pick set and Killian's ability to
talk me down when I was ready to find a fire ax and chop the thing to bits. 
    As soon as Mortimer was out and
stretching, I took the opportunity to examine this thing he was chained to so
as to figure out how it worked. 
    "What's so special about this
organ?" I asked him.
    "I am the only one who can
play it," he replied.
    "And some days, not even
that," I muttered under my breath as I poked at one of the keys.  No sound
came out.  "So how comes it doesn't work for me?"
    "It knows my blood."
    Killian and I exchanged glances.  I
crouched down to get a good look at the under-carriage.  There it was.  You had
your normal foot pedals down there, but on either side, there were two spikes
that looked like they were covered in some old, rust-colored something.
    "Shit."
    Killian got down to look with me. 
"Is that what I think it is?"
    "Yep."
    We had run into this kind of magic
before.  There was a door in Vaclav's castle that barred fairies and vampires
from opening it.  The spike needed human blood to open.  Looked like Vaclav had
done some research and development and figured out how to upgrade his door
design to make an organ that ran on blood magic, too.
    I looked at Mortimer. "Are you
human?"
    He shook his head, "No. 
Siren."
    I gave him the old fisheye.
"Sirens are girls."
    He shrugged, "And therein is
the eternal tragedy of my life.  My sisters sit upon the cliffs, calling the
sailors to dash themselves upon the shore.  But as a male, my vocal cords do
not possess the power of the hunter.  My voice will lure no food stuff to throw
itself upon our rocks for harvest.  But I have been told my organ playing is
magical.  And so, I play for the enjoyment and amusement of all, since my
prowess is ill-fitted for any other use."
    "While I'm sure it sucks to be
you, I'm actually kind of glad you are what you are," I replied.  "So
we have ourselves a magical organ and a magical creature playing it." 
There was a tube attached to the wall.  I pointed at it. "What does that
do, Mortimer?"
    He looked at it.  "The pipe is
connected to the smokestack.  When I play the right notes, it takes the music
and opens the doors."
    "What do you mean it opens the
doors?"
    "Three times tonight, upon the
hour, I was to give a command performance, and the notes would play
simultaneously across three times and three dimensions to open the doors so
that they can come through."
    I looked at Killian.
"Harmonics to open portals?"
    He shrugged, "You tell me,
Maggie."
    "Vaclav is using harmonics to
open portals," I told him.  "There was the portal in the swimming
pool, but that was naturally occurring.  I mean, someone obviously gave folks a
hand to open it, but the veil was willing."
    "But, if we were to hazard a
guess, this more likely has to do with that large portal you observed in the bulkhead,
does it not?"
    Killian and I locked eyes.
    "Shit."
    I picked up our stacks of clothes,
remembering one of the reasons why Killian and I had been skulking around in
the first place.  "If we survive all this, remember that we hid our stuff
behind the homicidal musical instrument that may or may not cause the collapse
of the dimensional wall."
    "I shall make note,"
remarked Killian dryly.
    I turned to Mortimer.  "Hey! 
Mortimer, we need to go find out how much trouble we're all in.  You wanna
come?  Stay?  What're you feeling like?"
    He rubbed