AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Just fishermen," he whispered, mostly to himself, for Beth had drifted off into another of her somnambulistic trances. He had draped his compass-weighted velvet coat around her shoulders hours ago, and he shivered in the dawn sea breeze when he stood up and then laboriously hauled her up to stand swaying and blank-eyed beside him. "Come on," he said, leading her forward and touching his baldric to make sure the weight of all the gold scudos was still there. "We're going to buy us a boat."
He knew the two of them would be a strange spectacle with which to confront these fishermen on a chilly winter dawn - an evidently sleep-walking woman in a nightdress and velvet coat escorted from the jungle by a mud-splashed, blood-stained man in formal dress, both their faces smeared with mud - but he was confident that half a dozen of the gold coins would allay all misgivings.
By the time they had slid down the slope and begun shambling through the sand toward the pier, most of the hunched figures had turned to stare at them, though one man, wearing a weathered straw hat and wrapped in a blanket, continued to sit on the end of the pier and face the newly sun-tipped gray waves.
Shandy smiled and held six scudos forward in the palm of his gloved hand as he led Beth Hurwood out onto the echoing boards of the pier ...
Then his smile faltered and disappeared, for he had noticed the flat, filmed eyes in the gray faces, and the bound-up jaws, and the sewn-shut shirts and the bare feet.
"Oh, damn it," he whispered hopelessly, realizing that neither of them had the strength to run - it was all he could do to continue standing. With no surprise he watched the figure at the end of the pier get to its feet, shed the blanket and toss away the hat so that the dawn sun gleamed on the bald scalp. The man took the cigar out of his mouth and smiled at Shandy.
"Thank you, Jack," he rumbled. "Come, my dear." He beckoned to Beth and she stumbled forward as if pushed from behind. The velvet coat slipped off her shoulders and fell onto the weathered planks of the pier.
Almost at the same moment, Shandy's knees unlocked and he found himself abruptly sitting on the planks. "You're dead," he muttered. "I killed you ... on the stairs."
Beth took two more quick, balance-catching steps.
The bald man shook his head sadly, as if Shandy was proving to be a disappointing pupil. He puffed on the cigar and waved its glowing head at Shandy. "Come on, Jack, don't you remember the slow matches I used to braid into my hair and beard? Low-smoldering fire, that's the drogue that holds Baron Samedi's protective attention. A lit cigar works just as well. Your blade stuck me, sure enough, but the Baron, the good old Lord of the Cemeteries, repaired the damage before I had time to expire."
Beth was swaying halfway between them now, and the sun made her hair gleam like fresh-sheared copper. Shandy scrabbled at the wood and the tail of the coat, trying to find the strength to stand up again.
"But I don't hold grudges," the giant went on, "any more than Davies did, when you cut him. I'm grateful to you for escorting to me my bride - the only woman in the world who has shed blood in Erebus - and I'd like you to be my quartermaster."
Tears dripped from Shandy's squinting eyes onto the weathered planks. "I'll see you in Hell first, Blackbeard."
The giant laughed, though his eyes were now fixed on the slim, approaching figure of Beth Hurwood. "Blackbeard's dead, Jack," he said without looking away from the woman. "You must have heard. It's been absolutely verified. I need a new nickname now. Baldy, maybe." He laughed again, and his motionless dead mariners did too, whickering like sick horses through their nostrils. Shandy had been unthinkingly pulling the velvet coat toward himself, and now he felt a hard lump in it. He slid his hand into the pocket, and by touch recognized the brass-rimmed, glass-topped disk - it was the compass he'd bought. His heart began pounding, and with what he hoped was a convincingly despairing moan, he fell face down onto the pier, over the coat.
The giant reached out a hand toward Beth.
Shandy pulled the compass out of the pocket and then fumbled at it helplessly for a moment - he had nothing to break the glass with!
Blackbeard touched Beth Hurwood, and the air seemed to twang, as if the roof of the sky had been solidly struck.
Shandy opened his mouth and wedged the compass between his jaws, and then he ground them together, tasting abraded brass and feeling at least one molar implode, until he was dizzy and sick and his teeth and jaw muscles were in agony; he lifted his head and saw Blackbeard's hand on Beth's shoulder, and the sight lent him a little more strength. The glass broke under his front teeth, and, spitting glass and blood, he took the device out of his mouth, pried the compass needle loose, then drew his saber and shoved the needle in under the leather wrapping until he felt it grind against the steel of the tang. After that he placed his gloved right hand gently on the grip so that the protruding end of the needle pressed into his palm ... and he squeezed the grip tightly, driving the needle deep into his hand. With a sudden flash of intuition he raised the sword over his head and yelled, "Phil!"
And without having to look around he knew he was no longer alone. With aid he got to his feet, raised his sword with his dripping, pierced hand and shufflingly advanced toward Blackbeard.
But, though the burly figure was starkly silhouetted against the brightening sea and sky, Blackbeard - perhaps against his will - wasn't alone anymore either. As if some kind of cosmic balance had to be maintained, Shandy's cry seemed to have summoned seconds for both of them. Shandy wasn't sure how he knew it; a sound? A smell? Yes, that was it - a smell - a faint, disagreeable mix of cologne, chocolate syrup and unwashed linen was disfiguring the clean sea air.
The unmistakable smell of Leo Friend.
Blackbeard's hand slithered up to Beth's shoulder and curled around it. His lips were wet and his eyes couldn't have been opened any wider and his breath was whooshing in and out through his open mouth. The cigar clung precariously to his lower lip. Shandy realized, even as he started forward, that the disembodied Leo Friend was somehow inhabiting the same space as Blackbeard, and, at least at the moment, was in control.
Shandy grabbed Beth's other shoulder and spun her aside, and then with the back of his hand he slapped the cigar out of the big man's slack mouth, and when it hissed as it hit the water below the pier, he drove his sword with all his remaining strength into the giant's belly.
The big man's eyes stayed wide open, but now they were staring straight into Shandy's and it was only Blackbeard looking out of them. The mouth opened in a bloody but confident smile.
Blackbeard took a step forward. Nearly fainting with the pain, Shandy leaned on the saber and tried to stand his ground, but though the blade was forced another couple of inches into Blackbeard's body, the needle was grating in his wrist-bones and he had to step back. The scuffing of his boots sounded loud on the planks of the pier.
The giant, still grinning bloodily, took another step, and again Shandy braced himself against the torment in his hand, and this time he felt the blade punch out through the man's back - but Blackbeard had reached the brazier now and reached down, picked up one of the glowing, ash-dusted coals as daintily as if it were a candy on a proffered tray, and squeezed it in his huge left fist.
All over the harbor, for miles up and down the shore, sea birds flapped up into the air, clamoring in alarm.
Smoke spurted from between Blackbeard's fingers and blew away, and Shandy could hear the flesh sizzling. "Low-smoldering fire," the giant grated. Blackbeard stepped lithely back, so that as Shandy kept his grip on the saber hilt the blade slid out of him, and with his right hand he drew his own rapier. For a moment he paused, staring at the quick drops of blood falling from Shandy's hand. "Ah, Jack," Blackbeard said softly. "Someone taught you the blood and iron trick? You've clenched your fist over a compass needle? That won't work against Baron Samedi - he's more than a loa and he's not bound by their rules. He was showing the Carib Indians why night is to be feared centuries before Jean Petro was born. Drop the sword."
Shandy was sure he had lost, but he could feel Philip Davies at his back, and when he spoke he half thought Davies was prompting him. "My men and I," said Shandy hoarsely but distinctly, "are sailing to New Providence, to surrender to Woodes Rogers." He bared his teeth in a smile. "I'm giving you the choice. Join us, wholly adopt our goals as your own, or be killed right now where you stand."
Blackbeard looked startled, then laughed -
