Colleen charged straight at him, and he shifted his gaze to her. His eyes lit up, he smiled, and the blade started to swing.
Time seemed to slow down. She had all the time she needed to calculate trajectories, to see that the blade was going to strike her neck right where it met her shoulder, that she was moving too quickly to stop. Her arm came up reflexively, and a quiet voice in her head informed her that the machete was perfectly capable of cutting off her arm.
She extended her arm as far as she could, hoping to catch the blade before it had too much momentum. She blocked with her forearm, as low on the blade as possible, where the force of the swing would be minimized. She felt a jarring impact but no pain as the steel bit into her arm.
Her other hand came up, her fist swinging with desperate strength. She could still feel the ache in her hand from the last time she'd hit a man in the jaw, so she aimed for a softer target, driving her fist into his throat.
He flew back as if he'd been shot, the machete tumbling to the ground, his hands clutching his throat as he crashed onto his back. She stumbled forward, planting her foot on the blade, and looked around.
Two men were sprawled on the ground, the man Libertad had hit and one other. Crashing sounds from the jungle told of other men fleeing the sudden attack. Libertad had a knife in his hands and a wild look in his eyes. Sol, looking somewhat calmer, was cutting the ropes on Abe's wrists. Then he glanced at Colleen and his eyes went wide.
She followed the direction of his gaze. Her entire hand was covered in blood. It dripped from her fingertips onto the ground, a steady flow that was fast enough to scare her.
Abe pulled the hood from his head, looked around, and grinned. Sol handed him the knife, then stepped past him and hurried to Colleen's side. She looked away while he cut her sleeve open. He cut up one of the hoods to make a bandage. He was tying the bandage around her forearm when Keefe began to speak.
"This whole island's gone insane, Cap. We've got to get out of here."
Colleen leaned over to look past Sol's head. Keefe, blood crusting the ginger thicket of his beard, dried blood spattered across his ample stomach, was speaking earnestly to Libertad.
"We should leave tonight. Forget those damned passengers. They've brought us nothing but trouble. Leave 'em here, and to Hell with getting paid."
She could hear the smile in Libertad's voice as he answered. "I would agree with you, Jake, but there's just one complication." He met Colleen's eyes, and Keefe turned to follow Libertad's gaze. He scowled when he saw Colleen. Then Sol stepped back and Keefe's eyes went to her bloody hand. His eyebrows rose when he saw the puddle of blood by her feet.
"You see, we owe them a debt," Libertad said quietly. "That big one on the ground there was just about to take off your head when Colleen here piled into him."
Keefe reddened and dropped his gaze. "Right, then," was all he said.
The cut on Colleen's arm had begun to hurt in earnest, and she cradled the injured limb against her stomach. Blood was seeping through the bandage, and she longed to sit down, maybe lie down. A cozy bunk on the Persephone and no more excitement for a few weeks sounded like Heaven, but Bill was still out there. So she stayed on her feet, walking over to pick up a lantern one of the cultists had dropped during the fight.
"We do need to get back to the ship," said Libertad. "Jake's right about that. Young Abe here is in a bad way."
Abe was white-faced, wobbling on his feet, with another sailor supporting him. Colleen nodded. "I understand," she said. "I have to keep going, though."
"I'll send the boat back to shore. We'll wait as long as we can." Libertad gave her an unhappy look. "I don't like seeing you go off on your own. Especially with that cut on your arm."
She shrugged. "You need to take care of your people, Captain. I understand."
She led them back up the path to where she'd set the little hurricane lantern. Then she gave the big lantern to Keefe and kept the small one.
"Maybe I should go with you," Keefe said, and she smiled gently. The rescued men were a mess. Abe had a concussion. Keefe had hurt his neck, and could barely turn his head. He was getting visibly stiffer with every passing minute. Another sailor had blackened eyes that had swollen so badly he could barely see.
"Your crew needs you," she said. "And I need to move quietly. If you come with me, we'll just be twice as easy to see." She wasn't entirely sure she believed it, but she was afraid of leading him to his death.
He nodded reluctantly and turned away. The little party of sailors moved away down the path. Her heart sank as the glow of lantern light faded, but she turned her back, opened the shutter on her lantern a crack, and set off down the trail into the heart of the jungle.
Chapter 7 - Rage
She left the lantern beside the trail when the glow through the trees ahead of her became bright enough that she could find her way. She crept into the trees and worked her way forward, staying parallel to the path but a dozen feet into the jungle, and it was well that she did. Someone coughed in the darkness, and when she crept near and peered around the trunk of a tree, she saw a sentry standing in the middle of the path.
She dropped into a crouch behind the tree, her heart hammering in her chest. It was one of the policemen, and in her brief glimpse of him she'd seen a pistol holstered on his hip.
For a moment she wished she'd taken the machete that had cut her arm. She'd left it where it had fallen, and she realized that she wasn't quite ready to wield a weapon like that in anger. Not if she could possibly avoid it.
Her hands went to the ground beneath her, patting the grass, searching by touch. She found a hefty rock that would fit in the palm of her hand, and collected a handful of pebbles. She didn't want to use her aching left arm, but finally she had no choice. She put the big rock in her left hand, let her arm hang straight, and held the pebbles in her right hand.
Warm blood trickled over her wrist. She wasn't sure the bleeding had ever stopped, but she was definitely making it worse. She edged around the tree and lobbed a pebble over the policeman's head into the brush beyond.
He must have seen a flicker of movement, because he ignored the sound of the pebble and stared straight at her, his hand moving to the butt of his pistol. Colleen swore under her breath, dropped her pebbles, grabbed the big stone in her right hand, and charged straight at him.
The policeman clawed frantically at his holster. The flap was buttoned, and he tore at it, then wrapped his hand around the butt of the gun and dragged it free. By that time Colleen was on him, swinging for his head, and he brought an arm up to protect himself.
The stone hit his arm, making him grunt. The pistol swung up between their bodies, and she slashed downward with the stone. A bone in his hand broke as the rock struck, and the pistol fell to the ground. He clutched his injured hand and screamed, and Colleen made a roundhouse swing, slamming her rock into the side of his head.
He fell, and she let go of the rock, grabbing the pistol, fumbling blindly for the safety catch, finding it already off.
She was on one knee in the middle of the trail, panting, the pistol wobbling in her hand, pointed in the direction of the light that glowed through the trees. The policeman was flat on his back, arms flung wide, not moving. Long moments passed. She could hear the mutter of voices up ahead, but nothing that sounded like an alarm. The scream seemed to have gone unnoticed.
Finally she crept to the policeman's side. He was breathing, and a little bit of the tension left her.
The gun belt wasn't easy to undo with her damaged hands, but she got it open, dragged it out from under him, and buckled it around her own waist. She took his whistle, too. Then she dragged the unconscious man off of the path. She didn't want to trip over him if she had to run for her life.
The crowd around the fire was bigger tonight. The cult of Katharis was doing well. At first all she could see was a sea of milling bodies. Then she spotted Bill.
He was on his side, his back to her, close to the fire. His hands
were tied behind his back, his ankles were bound, and his knees were drawn up close to his chest. Colleen quickly decided that there was no planning to be done. No clever scheme was going to draw everyone away. She holstered the pistol, checked that the safety was still off, and walked into the clearing.
At first no one noticed her. Glazed eyes and blank expressions surrounded her on every side. People crashed into her without seeing her, and collided with each other, shuffling around the fire as if dancing to no music that she could hear.
She bounced and rebounded her way through the crowd, and dropped to her knees beside Bill's inert form. His arm was cold under her hand, and she shook him, but she already knew it was too late. His eyes were half shut, his mouth slack, and she seized his wrist, searching frantically for a pulse.
There was nothing. He was gone.
She closed his eyes and stood. Fury flowed into her, more anger than she had ever felt in her life. A distant corner of her mind observed that the anger felt strange, unnatural, but it didn't matter. It filled her, soothed the jagged place in her heart where Bill's death had ripped a hole. There was no grief, no pain. Only rage. Only retribution.
"What are you doing here?" It was a woman in her fifties, grey-haired and thick-bodied, and she stretched out a meaty arm, clamping a hand on Colleen's shoulder. The woman opened a gap-toothed mouth to shout, and Colleen calmly pressed the barrel of her pistol against the flesh of the woman's arm and pulled the trigger.
The shot seemed incredibly loud, and the shuffling dancers stopped in mid-step, staring around. Colleen put the policeman's whistle to her mouth and blew with all her might, and a babble of voices rose around her. People milled around, the glazed look fading, confusion and fear on every face now. The old woman reeled away, clutching her arm and screaming, and people instinctively drew back. For a moment Colleen had a clear path to the jungle's dark edge, but she turned away. Escape wasn't what she wanted.
She set off on a grim march around the fire. A man lunged at her and she shot him without looking, the gun bucking in her hand, gunsmoke mixing with the smells of blood and sweat and the bonfire. People drew back from her as she circled. When a wild-eyed woman refused to give way, Colleen lifted the pistol and took aim. Her finger was tightening on the trigger when someone grabbed the woman's arm and dragged her aside.
Two more steps, a fat young man in a filthy t-shirt scrambled out of her path, and she saw a pair of white men in front of her. Falconer wore his long blue cassock, his eyes cold behind his round glasses. She wanted to kill him, but the other man came at her. His lips were moving, but she couldn't hear the words he said over the roar of blood in her veins. His hand reached out to pluck the pistol from her grasp, and she fired into his palm. He screamed and clutched his hand, and she stepped around him.
Falconer had his cassock hoisted up to his waist. He wore pants underneath, and a gun belt, and he drew a black revolver. Colleen dodged to the right, darting behind the man she'd wounded. She heard the thunder of two shots and the man lurched against her, his mouth open in a silent shriek. She wrapped her injured arm around his neck, holding him upright, and shot Falconer.
When she let go of the man she was holding he collapsed at her feet. She stepped over him. Falconer lay on his side. The black pistol was beside him, and as she walked up to him, a trembling hand reached out for the gun.
She stepped on the back of his hand, leaning forward to put all of her weight on the ball of her foot, and twisted her foot, hoping to break bones. He cried out, and she smiled.
He looked up at her, sweat shining on his face, and his fear was like a drug. She laughed, and pointed her pistol at the bridge of his nose.
Kill him! Kill him! Kill, kill, kill! I will make you powerful. I will take away your pain. Destroy him. Hurt him as he hurt your friend. Kill him. Kill!
Her finger was already tight on the trigger, the hammer was beginning to rise, when the alien voice filled her mind and she froze. She was furious, so filled with rage that she could barely keep from shaking. She yearned for Falconer's death, but the anger, like the voice in her head, suddenly seemed alien and strange.
How many people did I just shoot? I don't even know if I killed anyone.
The anger in her brain was suddenly tinged with frustration. Kill him! He killed your friend. Destroy him now!
Fresh anger bloomed in the back of her mind, but it was different. This anger was entirely her own, and it was directed at the alien presence in her brain. She still wanted to shoot Falconer. She even thought it would be a good idea. Leaving him alive was hardly prudent. Only one thing stopped her.
It was what Katharis wanted.
She took her finger off of the trigger, and smiled at the frustration that echoed through her. She lowered the pistol, heard the voice in her head gibber in rage, and laughed out loud. That seemed to break her connection with the mad god. The alien rage drained out of her, leaving her empty and spent.
She stared down at Falconer. "Well, now, what am I going to do about you?"
He met her gaze, his eyes wide and fearful. In fact, his eyes seemed almost unnaturally wide. She holstered her pistol, reached down, and plucked the round spectacles from his nose. The lenses were remarkably thick. She squinted through one lens, and the clearing turned into a blurry smear.
"Interesting," she told him. "I bet you're practically blind without these things." And she tossed the glasses into the fire. Between that and a bullet wound he ought to be out of her hair for a while.
A foot scraped the earth behind her and she turned. A boy, no more than fifteen, was half a dozen feet away. His features were pulled into a grotesque mask, his lips pulled back to expose his gums, the tip of his tongue showing between his teeth, his eyes scrunched almost shut. He held an axe in his hands. He was putting his whole body into the swing. The axe head was behind him, already starting its deadly arc toward her skull.
For a single second that seemed to last an eternity she stared into his mad eyes. A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind. I shouldn't have holstered the pistol. That was stupid. But he's a kid, and I know exactly what it's like when Katharis is in your head. I don't think I could shoot him, even if I was holding the gun. There's no time to dodge. I wonder how long Captain Libertad will wait before he realizes I'm not coming. I've never seen Europe. I would have liked to have seen Europe.
Then another body collided with the boy and the two of them crashed to the ground in a heap. In a moment a young man in a dirty singlet was straddling the boy's chest and tossing the axe aside. The man glanced at her and said, "Are you all right?"
She gaped at him, trying to recover from her shock. After a moment she realized she recognized him. "Toma?"
He nodded.
"I'm sorry about your uncle."
His face clouded. "I'm sorry too."
The boy he'd disarmed struggled briefly, then lay still, staring up at Toma. Toma kept his gaze on Colleen. "I feel like I've been asleep," he said. "Having a horrible nightmare, even when I'm awake." He glanced at Bill's body. "Now I'm awake for real, and it's too late." He stared into the fire for a moment. "What's going to happen now?"
"I'm leaving the island," Colleen said. "I'm going to take my friends if I can, and I'm taking the things we dug up. When that happens, Katharis won't have any more interest in this place. I think things will go back to normal."
"Not everything," Toma said gloomily.
"No. Not everything."
He looked down at his hands and spoke so softly that she barely heard him. "What have I done?"
"You've saved my life," she said. "You saved this kid here from a lifetime of regret. You did something good today. That counts for something."
He shook his head, and she reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "Your uncle would be proud of you," she said. Then she pocketed Falconer's pistol, walked around the bonfire, found her little hurricane lantern, and set off on the path to town.
Chapter 8 – Jail Break
There was a
light burning in the front window of the town police station. It was a tiny brick building, squat and sturdy-looking, with a door and a window set in the front wall. When she knocked, a worried-looking Dutchman appeared at the window. Colleen tried hard to converse with him, but if he knew a single word of English he wasn't willing to share it with her.
She could see past him into the Spartan front office that took up half of the little building. He was alone. She could only guess why he was there. Perhaps Van Der Pot was that the prisoners would be mistreated. Still, one frightened bureaucrat wasn't going to offer much protection if a mob came to collect her friends.
She circled around to the back of the building. A little barred window pierced the back wall, and she grabbed the bars and peered inside. Almost immediately, faces of the diggers crowded the window from the inside. Eventually Carter and Maggie worked their way to the front of the crowd and peered out, smiling at the sight of her.
"Is everyone all right?"
"We're fine," said Maggie.
"For now," Carter added. "Listen, Colleen. You've got to dig up that tablet and take it straight out to the Persephone. Then get out of here. Go back to North America and get in touch with the rest of the team."
"I'm not leaving you here," she told him firmly.
"Nobody cares about us," he snapped. "They care about the damned tablet. If it's gone from the island, we stop being of any interest to anyone. Van Der Pot will release us soon enough. In a few days this will all blow over, if you'll just take the tablet and go."
"He's right," said Maggie. "You can't get us out. Get the tablet out instead. Then send Captain Libertad back for us. We'll probably be free by then."
There was nothing to be gained by arguing, so Colleen nodded and said, "Good luck." Then she turned and walked away. The shore was no more than thirty feet away, and she paused to memorize the location when she reached the water. Then she turned and picked her way along the shore until she found Sol and Mick sitting in the sand, leaning against the Persephone's boat.
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