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THIS EXPLAINED LUTHER ROSS'S RELOCATION TO Roatan: the only route to the island was guarded by a pirate town. We now knew why that half-demon surfer had advised us to change our outfits before visiting La Ceiba. No part of the ghost world is off-limits, but just because you're allowed in doesn't mean you'll be encouraged to stay. Waltz into a themed afterlife town wearing your civvies, and you'll find yourself as welcome as a Mormon at Mardi Gras.
Themed afterlife towns were indeed a ghost-world Mardi Gras, a nonstop costumed paean to some romanticized bygone era. If you come to visit, you'd damned well better get yourself into the spirit of things...fast.
We slipped behind an abandoned hut on the outskirts of town and changed into more appropriate outfits. Kristof tried his damnedest to convince me to let him dress me, but I made him wait around the corner while I fashioned my own outfit.
"Still working on it?" Kristof called after a few minutes. "If you need help..."
I stepped around the corner. A slow grin swept over Kris's face. I'd dressed myself in hip-hugging calfskin breeches, knee-high boots, and a tight white laced bodice cinched at my waist with a jaunty black sash. Add oversize gold hoop earrings and a red bandanna, leaving my hair falling down my back, and I probably looked no more like the real Anne Bonney than Elizabeth Taylor looked like Cleopatra, but historical inaccuracy wasn't an issue--not in a place like this.
I surveyed Kristof's ensemble: a white linen shirt, black trousers tucked into low black boots, and a black naval jacket with brass buttons.
"Looks good," I said. "Now--Whoops. Forgot something."
I closed my eyes and conjured up two cutlasses.
"Hardware," I said, handing Kris one. I raised mine and sliced it through the air. "Think we'll get a chance to use them?"
"Only if we're lucky. But just in case we do, I'd better switch to this..." He closed his eyes and transformed the cutlass into a straight sword. He hefted it, spun it in his hand, then smiled, and lunged. "En garde."
"Uh, pirates, Kris, not the three musketeers."
"Close enough." He thrust the sword at an imaginary foe. "I always told my father those fencing lessons would come in handy someday."
"So you can really use that thing?"
He grinned. "Try me."
I raised my cutlass into something that vaguely resembled Kris's "en garde" position.
"Ready?" he asked.
I nodded. He lunged forward and knocked the cutlass so hard it flew from my hand, and left my wrist vibrating.
"Hey!"
I ducked to grab my cutlass, then stopped as I felt the tip of his sword pressed against my throat. Still crouching, I looked up at Kristof.
"It would seem, sir, that you have me at a disadvantage."
"So it would."
He slid the sword tip down my throat to my chest, and traced a line down my cleavage, caught the edge of the bodice, and plucked it off my breast. The moment his attention was diverted, I flipped backward, grabbed my cutlass, and sprang to my feet. Kris lunged, sword raised. I feinted and swung around him, then lifted the cutlass blade to the back of his neck.
When he felt the blade shift, he ducked and spun, sword raised. We sparred for a few seconds. Then he caught the underside of my cutlass and knocked it from my hand. I quickstepped backward--and slammed into a wide tree. Kristof lifted his sword tip to my throat again.
"Mercy?" he asked.
"Never."
Kristof laughed and slid the blade down my chest again. This time, he snagged the first lace on the bodice, and sliced through it.
"Kris..."
He caught the second lace on his sword tip.
"Kris..."
"Oh, you know I won't do anything," he said. "Won't even try. Not until I know you're ready. I just like to..." A small smile as he pressed against me. "Remind you. In case you've forgotten what it was like."
