The Devil's Tide (25 page)

"To the ship," he said, pointing at
Crusader
.

She rolled her eyes. "After that?"

Jenkins winked. "Probably I'm not supposed to tell you. Not with our dear captain and his strumpet right over there." He flashed a glare in Annabelle's direction.

Kate leaned close and whispered in Gabe's ear, "I think you meant to say, 'whore.'"

He smirked. "Maybe I did, but I'm not sure which one of them is more deserving of the word."

Kate laughed.
Smart boy.

Jenkins continued to glare. There was something dangerous in those pretty eyes, barely concealed beneath the surface. Was it jealousy? Did he fancy Annabelle? Kate couldn't be sure. Either way, this was probably not someone she wanted to get involved with.

Nathan had taken a seat at the front of the longboat, as far removed from Kate as possible, with his beautiful strumpet at his side. It was obvious why he was so infatuated with this woman. She had just the right amount of curves, amazing black hair, and a supple face, apart from the scar. Her wicked eyes and the evocative arch of her back suggested she knew more about sex than she did about anything else. She whispered something in Nathan's ear that made him laugh, and then she glanced at Kate, and Kate knew the jest had been about her.

Make all the jokes you want. I was just having a laugh about you with Mr. Jenkins here.

It was midafternoon when Kate climbed aboard
Crusader
for the first time, helped up by Jenkins. He favored her with half a smile and took his leave. He seemed very distracted, and she doubted he would even remember he had met her.

The deck was a mess from the battle with Hornigold's ship. There were splotches of blood here and there and splinters everywhere. The port bulwark was pitted with large holes.

Kate stared at Griffith's Isle as
Crusader
pulled away, confident that she would never set foot on those cursed sands again. Nothing good had ever happened there. It was a graveyard.

When she turned back to the ship, she nearly ran into Nathan. He stared in surprise. "Kate," he greeted . . . and immediately started in another direction.

"Nathan," she called.

He halted and slowly pivoted. "Yes?"

There were a hundred things she wanted to ask. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking, trading a man's life for a strumpet who in all likelihood was far more interested in the hold's plunder than she was in Nathan. She wanted to ask him why he was risking his neck yet again for piracy, after Rogers had set him free. She wanted to ask him why she of all people was free to roam the deck, instead of being secured with the others. She wanted to ask him why he had locked up poor Calloway for trying to put an end to a notorious murderer. Above all, she wanted to ask how someone so smart could be so stupid.

Instead, she shook her head and said, "Nothing. Nevermind."

He grunted and walked off toward his cabin, where Annabelle was likely waiting for him. Kate glanced around at the crew. Some of them were scowling at Nathan behind his back.
He's already losing them,
she realized.

Late that night, as
Crusader
sailed through a calm sea with no land in sight, Kate descended to the hold. She made her way through the many crates, to the two crude square cages in the back. Hornigold's men, who now totaled nine, were secure in the larger cage. She knew all their faces. Harrow, Bastion, Dumaka, Laurent, Clemens, Elegy, Fat Farley, Billie, and his older brother Avery.

Dillahunt and Calloway were huddled in the smaller cage, which was tucked further away in a dark corner. Dillahunt's state hadn't changed, wrapped in bandages and blankets. Calloway looked up, eyes red with fury. "Why are you out there while I'm in here?" she demanded.

"You'll find no argument," Kate said, raising her hands. "I've been wondering the same. It's not fair."

Calloway opened her mouth, as though preparing for a retort, before she realized Kate had agreed with her. "No, it's not," she said, blinking rapidly.

Kate smiled. "While I'm out here, can I get you anything?"

"A pistol, maybe?" the girl sneered.

"Anything other than a pistol?"

"Food?" she said hopefully. She held up a half-eaten clump of dried bread. "This is all they gave us. I didn't eat the other half, by the way. It came like that." She grasped a pile of white cloth between her and Dillahunt. "Nathan was thoughtful enough to provide new bandages, but forgot to send real food. Occupied with his whore at this hour, I suppose. He's forgotten everything else. We'll probably rot in here. I thought him a friend."

"He's just a little out of his mind," Kate assured her. "I'll get you some real food."

"It's more for Dillahunt than me," Calloway barked defensively.

Kate doubted Dillahunt was doing much eating, but she didn't want to press the issue. The girl didn't want to be indebted to her. That was fine. Kate would allow her to maintain that stubborn pride, so long as she ate. "I'll be back later."

"Please hurry," Calloway said.

Kate walked past Hornigold's men on her way out, and they started talking all at once. "We didn't get no food neither," groaned Jeremy Clemens.

"Yeah, where's our love, love?" said Andrew Harrow. "We shared our rum with you, remember?"

Kate scoffed. "I
took
your rum, remember?"

"Well there you go," Harrow said, shoving a pleading hand through the bars. "You owe us."

Francis Laurent flashed a suggestive grin. "I would be eternally indebted."

"Can't live off scraps," Dumaka muttered.

Fat Farley just stared at her with sad eyes.

"My belly is screaming," said Gabriel Elegy, rubbing his stomach.

Kate put a finger to her mouth, quieting them. "I'll find food for all of you, but you have to keep quiet about it."

"Oh, bless you, missy," said Harrow.

Avery Dowling grunted. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"I'll make a believer out of you yet," she promised him.

"To what end, eh?" he asked, crossing his arms. "What's in it for you?"

She shrugged. "I sailed with you boys. We are bonded."

Avery snorted. "Not in the way I'd like."

She slapped the bars. "You're lucky you're not the only man in that cage, Avery Dowling, else I wouldn't be standing here taking orders like a serving wench in some seedy tavern."

Avery made a sour face and turned away. "No one's nice without a reason. Mark my words, men."

"She's a woman," Harrow said, as if the answer was obvious. "Women have good hearts. They like to make things right when things is wrong."

"Aye," agreed Clemens, although his face turned red as he stifled a laugh.

Kate managed not to bluster. She hastily took her leave. As she ascended the stairs to the main deck, she allowed herself a smile. She had just secured a handful of allies.

She had a feeling she would need them.

Whenever he woke, the world was in chaos. His environment kept changing. The first time he woke, he found himself in an oversized tent that stretched away from the little corner he was huddled in. He was covered in blankets and drenched in sweat, yet he was shivering violently. Filthy, bloodstained bandages were wrapped tight around his face, chest, arms, and legs. His throat felt like a desert, with tiny cactuses pressing against the inner walls when he swallowed. It pained his facial muscles just to part his lips.

Nathan Adams had been there, conversing reasonably with . . .
no, it couldn't have been him.

Yet it couldn't have been anyone else.

Edward Teach. Blackbeard. And Adams was striking a deal with him, handing him Benjamin Hornigold in exchange for some strumpet. Dillahunt cursed his stupidity in promoting the boy to captain. What madness had seized him? He should have promoted Candler. The man was a fool and a coward, but at least he'd remained loyal over the years. Then again, that loyalty only went so far. Candler must have been serving Adams now, or else he would have been in a cell with Dillahunt.

Is there no one I can trust?

Adams clearly had his own agenda, though it was directly at odds with a prolonged life. Bargains with Blackbeard rarely ended favorably. Dillahunt recalled shouting something at the two of them. Blackbeard had looked on him as a boy looks on an ant before squashing it underfoot. And then Dillahunt was lost to darkness, followed swiftly by those strange dreams like the ones he had as a boy, where he was assaulted with unsolvable patterns. On and on the dreams went, and he wandered lucidly through them but was unable to stir himself into consciousness.

The next time he woke, he found himself in a much smaller tent, with Jacqueline Calloway sitting beside him, hugging her knees while she rocked back and forth. When she noticed he was awake, she leaned in close with a sad smile. Her boyish black hair had grown half an inch since last he saw her. Her skin was darker, freckles more prominent. Yet her smile yielded no comfort, and her blue eyes were distant and somehow less bright than he remembered. She picked at his face, and he glimpsed the edges of a white bandage, mottled with red. "You're healing," she said, but she looked distressed.

Darkness swept in from the perimeter of his sight. He tried to focus on her pretty young face, but his eyes slowly rolled upward in their sockets without asking his permission. The dreams and their infuriating puzzles returned. A mess of long, thin white sticks was scattered before him. As he struggled to arrange them in bundles, he realized they were bones. Leg bones, arm bones, here and there a rib, a femur, little fingers and toes, and finally a skull. He arranged them properly, constructing a full skeleton on the ground, for that was surely what the dream required. When he had finished, his nostrils picked up a foul sent. A fly trailed before him, taunting him with an annoying
buzz
. His eyes tracked the fly as it buzzed around his head, sailed downward and landed on a glistening mound of hot, steaming flesh. Dillahunt sprang forward uncontrollably, moved by an inexplicable urge, and plunged his hands into the flesh without thinking. He had trouble scooping it up, as the squishy red chunks slid through his fingers. He bowled his hands, filling as much as possible, and began piling the flesh atop the skeleton. The pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. He kept going until the skeleton was completely covered, save for the skull. He gathered the final bits of flesh. Pieces of a face, two ears, the full cap of a scalp with brown hair permeated with light blonde strands, and two eyeballs that dangled on red nerve stems. He quickly assembled the face and stuffed the eyes in the two dark hollows.

He recoiled as he looked on what might have been a mirror image. "Thank you," the other Dillahunt said. "I feel much better now."

He awoke in a dark hold, with strips of white light streaming through seams in the planking above. He was surrounded by bars. Calloway remained at his side. Her forehead was beaded with sweat. Her skin had lost some of the color it had previously gained. She looked at him, but this time offered no smile, sad or otherwise. "Oh, you're awake," was all she said.

He raised his hand to his face and felt the bandages. He wondered how bad he looked, but he wasn't sure he really wanted to know. Calloway would probably lie if he asked. Some of the bandages had been removed from his arms and legs. His right leg was almost completely freed, with thin lacerations that had healed nicely, but his left was shrouded, save for the knee. His arms were sporadically wrapped, and his chest was completely covered.
I'm only half a mummy, now.

He tilted his head to the right, where he saw several black chests with gold accents occupying a far corner of the hold. Griffith's fabled treasure, no doubt. That fortune had lured Hornigold to his death.
How many more lives will it claim, before this journey is done?

He heard male voices and swiveled his head left, peering between two large crates. Through the gap, a group of nine men were exchanging bitter words. They were in a cage of their own. He recognized a few of them from Benjamin Hornigold's ship,
Ranger
. Francois Laurent, who he had met in a tavern in Nassau, was staring back at him, nudging a huge black man beside him. "Looks like Dillahunt's waking up," he said. This provoked the curiosity of the other men, who crowded together to see through the gap.

"Him won't like what Captain Nathan did with Captain Benjamin," said a man with dark skin. "Him won't like that one bit."

"And what's he gonna do about it in his condition?" spat Avery Dowling, who had served under Dillahunt a few years ago, with his younger brother Billie, who was presently sitting quietly beside him. "And in a cell, no less. We've just got to keep kissing Adams' ass until he lets us out of here."

"Adams don't trust us," said a thin lad Dillahunt didn't recognize.

"Why should he?" replied a very fat man. "We attacked first."

"We was under Hornigold's orders, we were," the thin lad said with a shrug. "Adams isn't exactly on the side of the law no more, hisself. He'll have to let us out someday."

"Or he might just leave us here to rot," the fat man sighed. "He barely feeds us. I'd starve if not for Kate sneaking us a good meal now and again."

"You're always starving, Farley," quipped the thin lad. "And why does Lindsay get to roam free, anyways?"

"Don't know, but I'm glad she does," Farley replied, rubbing his stomach.

"Adams is probably afraid to lock her up," Laurent laughed.

"Bah!" Avery sneered. "She's just a woman."

"She's always been nice to me," said Farley.

"She wasn't nice to Bart," scoffed the thin lad.

"Bart fell off the ship," the dark-skinned islander replied.

"You keep telling yourself that, Bastion," chuckled the thin lad. "I'd wager he had a bit of help over the side."

"He probably deserved it," said Laurent.

Billie Dowling picked at the blistered skin on one of his arms. "No one deserves to die in the ocean, all alone."

Avery cackled scathingly in his little brother's face. "Billie here captains his own ship, did all you know that? It's called
The Obvious
."