The Devil's Tide (2 page)

At that, the woman gathered her rum and slid off the crate. She left the room without looking back, hips languidly swaying. Her hair glimmered in the diminished candlelight after her figure had faded.

Bart turned to the group, spreading his arms. His right hand raked against a crate, grinding splinters into his knuckles. He clenched his teeth and refused to openly acknowledge the pain. "She departs before I can finish," he said, blinking rapidly.

"You had more to say?" Francois quipped with a little smile.

Bastion sat down between Farley and Harrow, where Bart had been seated. He took a sip of rum, stared at the bottle for a moment, then fixed Bart with a very serious look. "This not a good idea. Captain Benjamin won't suffer dis . . . dis . . . what's the word?"

"Disobedience," Francois answered.

"Yes, that one."

"We're pirates again," Bart hissed. "What's a little disobedience amongst scoundrels?"

"Bart," Farley said, finger raised. "Your hand is bleeding."

"Shuttup," said Bart.

Bastion shook his head sternly, his large eyes unblinking. "Captain Benjamin work with Blackbeard. Him learn a thing or two about dealing with disobedience."

Bart gave an exaggerated shiver. "See how I tremble! You know what they call Hornigold in Nassau? 'The Gentleman Pirate!' Not a fiercely name by any notion."

"Bart," Farley said, "your hand looks ill, mate."

Bastion's head was still shaking. "Captain Benjamin won't be happy if you kill the only person knows where the treasure is hiding."

"He's got a point there, mate," Farley said, grabbing the bottle.

"I don't mean to kill her," Bart replied, blinking at the blurry blob that had just spoken. "Maybe I'll just teach her a lesson."

Harrow tittered. "From the look of her, I'll wager she's learned many lessons."

"None so hard as mine," Bart said, and he swiftly pivoted on his heels and made for the exit before bravado could flee him.

"No stopping him now," he heard Francois say.

"I'm not about to try," Farley muttered.

Bart shouldered through many crates, which seemed to be sliding in on him. The walkway was far more cramped and difficult to navigate than when he had come in. A chicken scurried about his feet, flapping its wings and squawking. He kicked the bird with all his might, propelling it into a crate. The chicken landed flat, one wing flapping spastically. "Might want to cook this one now," Bart called back. "I tendered her up for you."

"Stairs are the other way, Bart," Harrow called.

"Don't need stairs," Bart guffawed.

He found one of the ladders to the deck and started climbing, scraping his nose on a rung. He cursed, shaking the dizziness from his head. Halfway up, he peered over his shoulder. The crewmen stared after him from their distant patch of light. Farley waved, his face bright red as though he was ready to burst out laughing. Bart spat at them and continued climbing.

His hand slipped on the next rung, leaving a smear of blood. A massive splinter was jutting from his knuckle, blood seeping between his fingers. He tore the splinter free with his teeth, feeling no pain, and wiped his hand on his pants.

He slapped both arms on the deck and wrenched himself upward. He stood, invigorated by the cool fresh air. He scanned the deck, his vision blurring in and out of focus. Pirates were scattered everywhere, sleeping soundly. He looked to the bow but didn't see anyone. Had she run to her captain at last, fearing the inevitable?

He looked to the captain's cabin, set in a stairway carved in the deck. The door was shut. Bart started toward it. They were pirates again, after all, and the captain's quarters on a pirate ship were not exclusive to the captain. Bart would barge in and take what was rightfully his, and there was nothing Hornigold could do about it.

A slender shadow stirred above the cabin on the aft deck. Her hair was unmistakable. Bart sprinted up the three steps to the deck. No pirates were sleeping here tonight. It was just him and her. She smirked suggestively and slowly moved to the bulwark. She set the bottle of rum at her feet and faced him. She was framed by the black storm clouds in the distance, ever vigilant on the horizon. "What took you so long?" she said.

"I knew you wanted me to follow you," Bart slurred.

"Picked up on that, did you? And here I thought myself subtle."

Bart moved closer, wobbling on unsteady legs. He had overdone it with the rum, but that never seemed to damage his libido.

"The others wouldn't have picked up on it," he said.

"You're smarter than them," she replied knowingly. She placed her elbows on the rail behind her, stretching her shirt across her chest, nipples pressing against the fabric. Bart's heart thumped in his chest as he advanced.

"You were right, you know," she said. Her voice was wincingly raspy, almost masculine, as if she had screamed too many times.

"About what?" Bart said, pausing.

"About ghosts," she replied.

"What about ghosts?" he said, trying to sound casual. The ocean was moving slowly away from the ship, the sails billowing with all the haste of a snail struggling through molasses. If Bart didn't get to his business soon, he would pass out.

"When ghosts disappear, no one notices," she said, running her tongue across her upper lip.

He frowned, gradually recalling his conversation with Bastion. "You were listening in?"

She laughed. It was a harsh sound, like pebbles grinding. "I was passing by and overheard."

"You have good ears."

"I only have the one, you see." She trailed a finger across her temple, drawing back her hair to reveal a garbled mess where her right ear had been. Bart flinched. What had happened to this woman? "Don't look too disappointed," she chuckled. "It's only an ear. I have a spare."

He swallowed his revulsion, pushing the unsettling image from his mind. She was still very attractive, two ears or one. It was fortunate that her hair concealed the mutilation. He supposed he could get past it.

She curled a finger, summoning him closer. "You'd better hurry," she said, eyes descending to his crotch, "before the spirit absconds."

He moved fast, crushing her against the bulwark. His hands fumbled at her waist, sliding down and around to cup her ass. She gasped as he squeezed her. Her wet lips grazed his cheek, breath hot on his face. Fingernails dug into his ribs. He smashed his chest against hers, her nipples piercing his pecs. Her hair smelled like salt and sand. He licked her neck and struggled to untuck her shirt from her pants. She seized his arms and shifted her weight, turning him around so that he was between her and the bulwark. Her foot kicked the bottle of rum as she moved, and it clinked noisily as it rolled onto its side.

"Oh dear!" she said, giggling lightly. "It's spilling. Can't have that." She held up a finger, halting him, and bent down to forage for the bottle. She stumbled, and her fingers tapped the neck of the bottle. It rolled behind his leg. "Raise your foot," she said. He did as instructed, and she reached under him. Her gaze lifted suddenly, glaring at him through the red tresses of hair that had spilled over her face.

"What are you . . . ?" he started, scowling. Everything was moving so slowly.

She pushed upward, her shoulder catching the underside of his foot. Her left hand shot into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and when she withdrew it, something flashed silver and red. She summoned all of her weight to shove him up and over the rail.

The deck tumbled out of view, his legs flailed in the air, and every notch of his spine grated against the rail as he slid off. The world spun end over end, sea and ship swirling in a dizzying blur. And then he saw her looking down on him, hair burning crimson in the moonlight, face eclipsed in darkness.

Bart's back slapped the water.

He struggled to stay afloat as the ship sailed away from him at startling velocity, much faster than he had realized it was moving. He opened his mouth to scream and sucked water into his lungs. He hacked, ejecting something dark and faintly red into the water, where it expanded in a black cloud around him. He continued to cough, grains of salt scraping his esophagus on their way out. He thrashed his arms, slapping at the rolling waves, and pain shot through his torso like a bolt of lightning. His legs started to sink, as if gripped by invisible hands. The water rose above his nose, and he thrust himself upward, but the pain in his stomach was paralyzing him. The muscles in his arms were quickly growing numb and stiff.

The ship moved quietly into the horizon, and the woman remained a shadow at the stern, watching him sink. The last thing Bart heard was a crack of distant thunder from the storm somewhere behind him.

Flies circled the churned mess of Henry's ravaged kneecap, buzzing incessantly in a near perfect sphere. He swatted fiercely at them, his remaining eye gleaming with defiance. A sickly-sweet aroma wafted from the ghastly wound.

He doesn't know he's dying
, Nathan realized with a wry smirk.

"What're you smiling about?" Henry barked.

"We hang on the morrow," Nathan chuckled, "and still you swat at flies."

"They'll have me soon enough," Henry nodded. "But not tonight."

The late afternoon sun cast a ray of light through the small square window, projecting two bars across Nathan's legs. He found it amusing that someone had bothered placing bars in the window at all. Not even a ten year old girl could squeeze through that opening.

Large flecks of dust trailed through the sunlight, in no hurry to greet the cold stone floor of the cramped cell. Straw was scattered about, and a brown river of feces streamed from the rusty pail Henry had carelessly kicked over in his sleep. The black sewage was littered with the corpses of greedy flies that had realized their mistake too late.

Occasionally, a fresh breeze would sweep in through the window, combating the mingling stenches of feces and Henry's festering wound. Nathan could taste salt on the wind, carried in from the harbor nearby. Two days ago, when he was thrown in here, he would stand on his toes to peek out the window to catch a glimpse of the impossibly blue water, white sails, and flocks of birds gliding above. Now, he didn't want to look at all he had lost. He was certain that no one was coming to his rescue, and he would hang alongside his pitiful cellmate in the morning.

He would never again see his beloved Annabelle, the beautiful strumpet he had spent a month with before so foolishly returning to the sea. She was the first woman he had ever been with, and she would in all likelihood be the last. When fate brought him back to Nassau, Annabelle was gone. According to gossip, she had left for Tortuga with her pimp, Charles Martel, after she had been viciously raped and disfigured. Nathan also heard that she'd fallen in with Blackbeard, but he didn't believe that for a second. He tried desperately not to think about her copper skin, her full breasts and hips, her thick black hair, and, above all, her big brown eyes and luscious lips.

He scratched the stump just beneath his elbow, where his left arm had once been, lost at sea thanks to a collapsing yardarm. In dreams the arm remained, and he had no knowledge of its absence until he woke. In dreams he wasn't in a cell. In dreams he scaled the ratlines of
Harbinger
, the ship he had served aboard under the command of Captain Jonathan Griffith. He climbed and climbed until he finally reached the top, where he was greeted by cool winds and curious seagulls. The deep blue sea stretched in an endless radius, with no sign of land in sight. The sky was a perfect cerulean, unblemished by clouds.

And then a fly or a foul scent or someone shouting orders in the harbor would rudely stir him from his wonderfully oblivious slumber, and he would find himself back in the darkened cell, minus a limb and smelling of shit and death.

The larger cells had been filled to the brim with pirates when Nathan and Henry were first brought in. Nathan recognized several of them as fellow crewmates from
Harbinger
, which now rested in blackened pieces at the bottom of the sea. Nathan and Henry were put in a "spare cell," as the guards called it, which was considerably smaller than the others, and minus a bed or even a bench. It felt extremely isolated, and it was the only cell partitioned by solid walls instead of bars.

Henry had made friends with the next inmate over, even though they were separated from view. Nathan couldn't be sure what the man looked like, as his sight hadn't yet adjusted to the dim dungeon block when he was first dragged past. He sounded older, with a coarse voice that broke on words with too many syllables, sending him into wheezing fits. He called himself Jethro, and claimed to have served alongside the infamous pirate Charles Vane, who had set fire to a ship in the harbor when Woodes Rogers first arrived to establish order. Jethro maintained that Vane was on his way to rescue him. "Vane's men are highly placed, they are," he claimed. "Some o' them work right under the governor's nose, they do, and he hasn't the foggiest notion. They wait for Vane's order, and when he gives it, the governor's in for a surprise. I can only imagine what they'll do to that pretty wife o' his."

Nathan wrote the old man off as crazy, but Henry seemed utterly convinced that Jethro was his ticket out of here. "He knows an awful lot of detail," Henry said whenever Nathan balked openly at Jethro's wild claims.

"You can laugh all you want," Jethro said nonchalantly. "But ask yourself why they bring me wine, and bring you soiled water."

"No one brings you wine!" Nathan scoffed.

"I'd show you," Jethro replied, "if not for the wall between us."

"Convenient," Nathan said. Jethro would probably swear his rescuers were right around the corner even as the noose was fitted around his neck.

A heavyset guard named Ferrell approached, raking his keys across the bars, as he liked to do every few hours. Sometimes he would wait until they were sleeping before he did it. When Ferrell reached the spare cell, Nathan fixed him with his hardest glare. He was met with obnoxious laughter. Ferrell enjoyed provoking a reaction from men who would soon be too dead to challenge him.