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"Beth Hurwood, the girl you're holding," he snarled. "Where is she?"
The bald man Morcilla had stepped forward as if to interfere, but at this he paused.
"Upstairs," wept Sebastian Chandagnac, his eyes closed, "locked room."
Women were sobbing and several men stood nearby with drawn swords, glancing at one another uncertainly. The second Navy officer had drawn his sword but seemed reluctant to approach while Shandy was apparently holding a hostage.
Shandy's left thumb was on his uncle's larynx, and he knew he could crush it as easily as he could break an egg; but he was sick of deaths, and didn't think he'd derive any sense of fulfillment from watching this scared little man flop around on the floor choking to death on his own throat bones. He switched his grip to the man's collar.
"Who ... are you?" Sebastian Chandagnac croaked, his eyes wide with horror.
Suddenly Shandy realized that, clean-shaven and with all the new lines of age and weariness in his face, he must look very much like his father had when Sebastian would have seen him last ... and of course this man didn't know that his nephew John Chandagnac had come to the Caribbean.
Having decided not to kill him, Shandy found that he could not refrain from stirring up the man's guilt. "Look me in the eye," he whispered chokingly.
The old man did, though with much trembling and moaning.
"I'm your brother, Sebastian," Shandy said through clenched teeth. "I'm Francois."
The old man's face was nearly purple. "I heard you had ... died. Really died, I mean."
Shandy grinned ferociously. "I did - but haven't you ever heard of vodun? - I've only come back from Hell tonight to fetch you, dear brother."
Apparently Sebastian had heard of vodun, and found Shandy's claim all too plausible; his eyes rolled back in his head and, with as sharp an exhalation as if he'd been punched in the belly, he went limp.
Surprised but not really dismayed, Shandy let the body tumble to the floor.
Then, almost side by side, Shandy and the bald man sprang for the stairs; presumably Edmund Morcilla was pursuing the pirate, but it was hard to be sure they weren't both racing toward some common goal. A few men with swords leaped quickly into their path, and then even more quickly out of it, and a moment later Shandy was bounding up the stairs three at a time, panting and praying that he wouldn't pass out quite yet.
At the top of the stairs was a corridor, and he paused there, his chest heaving, and turned to face the man who called himself Morcilla, who had stopped two steps short of the landing. His eyes were level with Shandy's.
"What ... do you want?" Shandy gasped.
The giant's smile looked cherubic on his smooth face. "The young woman."
There was more shouting and crashing below, and Shandy shook his head impatiently. "No. Forget it. Go back downstairs."
"I've earned her - I've been monitoring this house all day, ready to step in and interfere at the first indication of soul-eviction magic - "
"Which didn't take place because I undid Hurwood's plan," said Shandy. "Get out of here."
The bald man raised his sword. "I'd rather not kill you, Jack, but I promise I will if I have to in order to get her."
Shandy let his shoulders slump defeatedly and let his face relax into lines of exhaustion and despair - and then he flung himself forward, slamming the giant's sword against the wall with his left forearm while his right hand punched his saber into the man's chest. Only the fact that the bald man stood his ground stopped Shandy from pitching head first down the stairs. Shandy caught his balance, raised his right foot and planted it on the man's broad breast next to where the blade transfixed it, and then kicked, bringing himself back upright on the landing and propelling the bald man in a backward tumble down the stairs. Exclamations of horror and surprise erupted above the general clamor below.
Shandy turned and looked down the corridor. One of the doorknobs was wooden, and he reeled to it. It was locked, so he wearily braced himself against the wall it faced, lifted his foot, and with a repetition of the move that had freed his blade from Morcilla's chest, drove his foot at the door. The wooden lock splintered and the door flew inward and Shandy dropped his saber as he fell forward into the room.
He looked up from his hands and knees. There was a lamp lit in the room, but the scene it showed him was far from reassuring: nasty-smelling leaves were all over the floor, someone had hung several severed dog heads on the walls, an obviously long-dead black woman was tumbled carelessly in the corner, and Beth Hurwood was crouched by the window apparently trying to eat the woodwork.
But Beth looked around in alarm, and her eyes were clear and alert. "John!" she said hoarsely when she saw who it was. "My God, I'd almost given up praying for you! Bring that sword over here and chop this wooden bolt in half - my teeth aren't making any progress at all."
He got up and hurried over to her, slipping only once on the leaves, and he squinted blearily at the bolt. He raised his sword carefully. "I'm surprised you recognize me," he remarked inanely.
"Of course I do, though you do look thrashed. When did you sleep last?"
" ... I don't remember." He brought the sword down. It cut the bolt, barely. Beth fumbled the pieces out of the brackets and pushed the window open, and the cool night air sluiced away the room's stale smells and brought in the cries of tropical birds out in the jungle.
"There's a roof out here," she said. "At the north end of the house the hill catches up with it enough for us to jump safely. Now listen, John, I - "
