Rising In The East (7 page)

“W
AIT!” Jack bellowed as Mistress Ching—for it was indeed she, and he could figure that out without being told—clicked back the hammer of her pistol. Jack ripped off his hat and bandanna, revealing his long dreadlocks and braided beard. “We’re not Company agents! We’re pirates! I swear! Dastardly pirates! Yo-ho, yo-ho! Mangy bilge-rats! I love rum! Um—ask me anything; I guarantee I’ll lie to you! Really!”

He waved his arms dramatically at himself. “Pirate!” Wasn’t it obvious? No one could be more of a pirate than Jack Sparrow!

One of the Chinese pirates snorted disbelievingly. “A pathetic lie to save themselves. As if any self-respecting pirate would dress like that.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of a
disguise
, you thickheaded buffoon?” Jack said indignantly.

Mistress Ching stared at him. “That voice—those mannerisms…do I know you?” she asked. Her accent was thick, but her English was impeccable, and her entire bearing was commanding and awe-inspiring. Even though she was shorter than most of her followers, it was clear why they looked up to her…and why no one ever dared to cross her.

Jack swept his hat down into a formal bow. “Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirate Lord of the Caribbean, at your service,” he said. “Not sure if you remember me. But then again, who could forget a face like this? We’ve met once or twice before. I was much younger then. I think you were friends with my dear old dad. Used to play bridge together or some such. You see, my crew and I here…”

“Ah, Jack Sparrow,” Mistress Ching said inscrutably, cutting him off. “Yes. That explains a lot. What a
dis
pleasure to see you again.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“Lower your weapons, but keep them ready,” Mistress Ching said to her pirates instead of addressing Jack. “This one is not to be trusted…but at least he’s not an agent of the East India Trading Company.”

“Told you so,” Jack said, nodding agreeably.

“Why are you here?” Mistress Ching demanded. “What are you doing on my territory? Have you been spying on me?” She raised her pistol again. “I find it very suspicious that you turn up here on this particular day. Is Liang Dao plotting against me?”

Jack was trying to figure out how best to answer that question when Sao Feng emerged from the shadows of a nearby alley, smiling triumphantly.

“Not in the least, my dear Mistress Ching,” he said, bowing low to her with his hands pressed together. His men emerged from the shadows behind him, bristling with just as many weapons as the Chinese pirates had. With them was Barbossa, brandishing his pistol and looking as sullen as ever.

“Liang Dao is a Lord no more,” Sao Feng announced. “I, Sao Feng, am now Pirate Lord of Singapore. And in my new position,” he went on smoothly, “I merely wished to witness your renowned strength and intelligence for myself. I thought if I sent what appeared to be Company agents into your midst, it would be an excellent opportunity to test your skills. And you passed with flying colors.” He bowed again. “My deepest respect to you, madam.”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Jack protested. “So we were just bait in your little trap?” He paused for a moment. “Actually, that’s quite clever,” he admitted ruefully.

Mistress Ching glanced around the now-deserted streets. Everyone who wasn’t a pirate had fled indoors at the first sight of pistols and swords.

“Let us adjourn to our meeting place,” she said, gesturing up the street. “It is not safe out here, even for the strongest among us.” As she turned, Jack caught a glimpse of something shimmering in her robes. She was wearing the vial of Shadow Gold around her neck! His knees nearly buckled under him. To be so close to what he needed—the shadows pounded inside his head, screaming to drag him into madness before he could reach the vial. He blinked, forcing himself to concentrate.

How could he get it away from her?

Sao Feng fell into step beside Mistress Ching as they walked. “So I understand,” he said soberly, “that this Benedict Huntington is a scourge that threatens all the pirates on this ocean. He captured one of my junks last week and hung every last man without even waiting for a ransom to be offered. He even shot the parrot.” Sao Feng shook his head. “Something is very wrong with a man who cannot be bought. He must have no head for business.”

“He is not the only danger,” Mistress Ching said, holding her robes up and out of the filth of the street. “His wife is just as deadly. Perhaps more so. She caught a starving street urchin sneaking into their mansion to steal a handful of rice. No one ever heard from him again. They say she likes to kill things with her bare hands, especially innocent things that cannot fight back.” Mistress Ching paused. Then she continued, “She would make a good pirate.”

Carolina couldn’t help thinking that the Shadow Lord was more dangerous than any Trading Company agent, wife, or pirate. He had the power to destroy the whole world, and that was exactly what he planned to do. She needed to tell Mistress Ching about the Shadow Lord. She opened her mouth to speak, but Diego shushed her, anticipating what she’d planned to do.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “Wait for the right moment.”

Mistress Ching stopped outside a low doorway. A tattered velvet curtain hung across the closed door, flapping in the misty breeze. The windows were shuttered and the cracks in the walls were carefully sealed, but the sickening smell of opium fumes still seeped through the boards. Carolina wrinkled her nose.

“The meeting is in an opium den?” she asked.

She didn’t intend to speak loud enough for the Pirate Lords to hear her, but she had forgotten the legends about Mistress Ching’s uncanny hearing. The Chinese Pirate Lord turned to look straight at her.

“The den is only a front, child,” she said. “I would never let my pirates fall into that web of sickness and obsession.” With a nod to her followers, Mistress Ching led the way through the doorway.

Whether it was only a front or not, the hazy room beyond the curtain was full of very real opium addicts. Hunched shapes huddled in corners or lay prone on low couches, their eyes closed, their heads lolling to the side, and their slow, wheezing breath creating a ghastly background hum. The room was dark, lit only by a red-orange glow from a few paper lanterns, and none of the men they passed looked like real men anymore. Most were covered in thin blankets, their faces turned to the wall as if they had given up on the real world.

Of the few Carolina and Diego could see clearly, long pipes attached to their mouths made them look like curious tentacled monsters, not human at all. A couple men muttered faint curses as a whisper of a breeze came in with the pirates, but they settled back to their pipes and lamps as soon as the door closed behind them again.

In the smoky dimness, it was hard to tell how many people were in the room. It was much bigger than it looked from the outside, so Carolina guessed that there could easily be a hundred men, sprawled on top of each other and pressed close around each lamp, waiting glassy-eyed for their next mouthful of poisonous smoke.

All the pirates, even the fearsome warriors of Mistress Ching’s troop, stayed to the center path through the room as if they wanted to keep as far away as possible from the addicts. They avoided brushing against the couches and dirty bare feet that came too close, and most of them stared straight ahead, refusing even to look at the shadowy huddled figures around them. The high tension prickled through the space, and Jack had the distinct feeling that one wrong word might set someone screaming or shooting at any moment. For once, even he kept his mouth shut.

At the far back of the room was a step down into another room. This one was empty of addicts and pipes. The wooden walls were bare, lit by a couple of guttering candles up near the low ceiling. The room contained just two plain wooden chairs. Mistress Ching sat down regally on one of them and arranged her thick robes around her. From her demeanor, it might as well have been a throne.

Jack darted around Sao Feng and sat in the other chair as the pirates filed in and stood around the outer edges of the empty room. Jack crossed his ankles, leaned back, and pronounced, “Well, this is cozy. Who brought the rum?”

Sao Feng loomed over him, glaring. “That is my seat, Sparrow.”

“Oh, really?” Jack said. “I thought the chairs were for the Pirate Lords—and since I’m clearly a more senior Pirate Lord than you, what with you being new to the job and all…”

Sao Feng seized a handful of cloth at the back of Jack’s jacket and lifted him bodily out of the chair.

“I say!” Jack protested, flailing furiously. Sao Feng deposited him on the floor and sat down. Ruffled, Jack brushed off his clothes and stood with his arms crossed between the two Pirate Lords as if that’s where he’d meant to be all along. He peeked over at Mistress Ching. The vial glinted in a fold of dark fabric at her throat. If he could sneak it off her neck while she was distracted…Suddenly, he realized that she was glowering at him.

“Why is Jack Sparrow here?” Mistress Ching asked Sao Feng, pointing to Jack.

“Is this safe?” Sao Feng asked instead of answering her. He nodded at the opium den. “What if one of them overhears?”

“You saw their condition,” said Mistress Ching. “They barely even know they’re here. They are the safest men to tell a secret to, because they cannot remember what is real and what is not. We might as well be speaking in front of pigs.”

Carolina winced. They were still men—very sick men who needed help and care, not callous indifference. She wished there was something she could do to save them, but the opium trade was a much bigger, more virulent problem than one pirate could solve.

“So tell me,” Sao Feng said, folding his hands and leaning forward, “what do you think we can do for each other? I understand your assassins are unparalleled. Why not kill this Benedict Huntington in his own home? Surely the East India Trading Company cannot have too many men like him. If he is replaced with one who might be more easily bribed, one we could reason with…”

“‘Reason with’ meaning ‘manipulate,’” Billy whispered to Diego. Diego nodded, but he was watching Jack, who was clearly edging toward Mistress Ching while trying to look subtle about it—and, unsurprisingly, failing. She cast a sharp glance at him and he looked up at the ceiling, whistling innocently.

“It is not so easy as that,” Mistress Ching said. “We have tried to assassinate him, but it seems almost as if he is magically protected in some way.”

“Magically protected?” Sao Feng scoffed. “He is just a man, like any other. We should not turn him into a figure of sorcery for our easily frightened pirates.” He gave his men a hard stare, and they shuffled uncomfortably.

“You may make the attempt yourself,” Mistress Ching said coldly. “But I assure you it will fail.”

“I can’t take this anymore!” Carolina exploded suddenly. All the pirates in the room turned to stare at her. Jack waved his hands frantically, trying to get her to stop, but she stepped forward bravely. “You think this Benedict Huntington—this little mortal man with his business papers and official seals and his nose up in the air—you think
he’s
a danger? You have no idea! There’s something out there so much bigger, so much more awful and terrifying and deadly and horrible, that even talking about something as meaningless as the East India Trading Company is ridiculous right now!”

“Jack, can you not control your crew members?” Sao Feng said exasperated.

“Obviously not,” Barbossa sneered.

“It’s probably the opium smoke. Gone to her head,” Jack said, waving a finger by his ear as if Carolina were crazy. “Don’t mind her.”

“No, wait,” Mistress Ching said with a frown, silencing them with one gesture of her hand. “What are you saying, girl-child?”

“There is a man called the Shadow Lord,” Carolina said, shaking off Jack’s hands as he tried to pull her back. She stepped forward and knelt by Mistress Ching’s chair. “He commands an army more powerful and vicious and cruel than any this world has ever seen before. We saw what it could do—a whole town, wiped out by fire and destruction. Not a single soul survived. And his power is only growing stronger. Jack knows it’s true! He’s heard the prophecy—the Day of the Shadow is coming.”

A shiver ran down Jack’s spine as he heard those words again, and he could feel the shadows clustering in the corners of his eyes, threatening to block out all the light of the world. But when Mistress Ching looked at him, he shrugged, trying to look like he had no idea what Carolina was going on about.

The way he figured it, if Mistress Ching believed in the Shadow Lord and his army, she might decide to keep the Shadow Gold for herself. She might even drink it before he could! And Tia Dalma had been very clear that Jack needed to drink all seven vials to be cured of his shadow illness. He couldn’t risk losing a single one of them. Generally people only gave up things that they thought were unimportant. So he needed to convince Mistress Ching that the vial around her neck was a meaningless trinket—
not
the only hope for the survival of pirates everywhere! But Carolina was really not helping his little plan at all.

“The Day of the Shadow,” Sao Feng murmured thoughtfully.

“When is this Day of the Shadow?” Mistress Ching asked Carolina.

“I don’t know,” Carolina said. “But it’s soon—and we all have to be ready to fight together, or we’re all going to die together.”

There was an eerie silence as her warning echoed around the small room. All the pirates shifted uneasily, rubbing the goose bumps from their arms.

Mistress Ching stood up abruptly.

“What a supernatural web of words this child weaves!” she snapped. “A Shadow Lord indeed! We don’t have time to slash at shadows and worry about mysterious days that may never come. You might think only of your nightmares, little girl, but we have real problems to face—real flesh-and-blood agents with real muskets and bayonets, who are quite bad enough without you putting shadows in everyone’s heads as well.

“No,” Mistress Ching continued before Carolina could say anything else. “I don’t want to hear anything more of shadows. I am only worried about one thing—Benedict Huntington and his East India Trading Company agents.”