Something, however, was wrong. His heart speeded up, galloping inside his chest until he gasped for air. Pressing his hand to the right side of his chest, Leon dragged in a series of deep breaths in an effort to calm himself.
He frowned, not wanting to face the fact, yet knowing he had to. Something was wrong with Noel.
Something had been wrong all day, ever since Noel and Baba Mondoun came face-to-face. Leon could not read Mondoun’s mind, and he didn’t want to. There were void pockets in Mondoun’s mind, places and sections where nothing existed, just dark blankness amid the shapes and patterns of the bocor’s thoughts.
Leon didn’t want to venture too close to someone with a mind like that.
When Mondoun had looked at Noel on the deck today, Noel had gone blank. He vanished, psychically. Of course he would not listen to Leon, but Leon had tried his best to warn the fool to take care.
Now Leon left his hammock and went quietly up on deck.
Around him the storm raged on, its wind tearing at his clothes and lashing him with rain. It shrieked and hammered at the ship as though it meant to batter her apart.
Standing at the railing, Leon faced the dim blur of the island in the darkness and reached out with his mind for Noel.
Nothing.
He shivered, frightened by that loss of contact. Although he could not read or manipulate Noel’s mind the way he could many others, he was always linked to his twin. Now that link was gone. Leon hugged himself and put his back to the wind.
Freedom?
Or loneliness?
He still felt uneasy, restless. His mouth was so dry he found it difficult to swallow. He was sweating beneath his oilskins. His heart still went too fast.
Noel?
The connection returned with an unexpected force that was like a blow. Staggered, Leon gasped aloud and bent over, trying to hang on to his own identity as a maelstrom of alien emotions and thoughts barreled through him.
Noel afraid. Noel running for his life through the jungle. Noel trapped out there, stalked by something he could not comprehend. Noel fighting things fashioned from that awful nothingness within the bocor. Noel losing, overwhelmed, going down…
“No!” Leon cried in anguish.
Shuddering, he managed just in time to snap the connection, to withdraw before the harm traveled across into him. But it had sensed him in that split second. Sensed and turned toward him.
Leon paced the rail, staggering now and then to keep his balance as the ship yawed on her moorings. She dragged anchor a bit, shuddering through her length. Near the stern, the sailing master and another figure Leon didn’t recognize were conferring with rapid gestures and shouts lost in the wind.
Noel was a fool, always a fool. He never tried to make any gain for himself, refused to accept the fact that they would never go back to the twenty-sixth century, and seemed determined to make things harder on himself than necessary. Furthermore, he wouldn’t listen to Leon, wouldn’t accept Leon, wouldn’t make any truce. He thought he had the right to dictate what Leon should and shouldn’t do. He thought being the original made him superior.
He was wrong. He was stupid.
He was also in trouble.
Leon frowned, worried more than he wanted to admit. There was something horrible out there on that island. Leon believed in protecting his own hide first.
But when things hurt Noel, they hurt Leon too. He could feel pain in his hand, pain in his laboring lungs, pain elsewhere. It wasn’t his. He bitterly resented the fact that he was doomed to forever experience Noel’s sensations while denied his own.
Yet he dared not abandon Noel now. He did not think he could exist if Noel ceased too. And Leon was very, very afraid of dying.
With a growl, he climbed over the side, struggling down the boarding net to the dinghy. Unshipping the oarlocks, he pulled away, and nearly capsized in the rough waves before he found the rhythm of rowing and could really put his back and shoulders into it.
He misjudged the breakers, which flipped the dinghy sideways and drove it through the lacy surf onto the beach. Jumping out, he heaved the dinghy up far enough where the tide wouldn’t drag it out to sea.
Puffing hard from his exertions, he looked around through the rain and the shadows at the sodden ashes and trampled sand of their evening camp. He listened inside, hoping he didn’t open himself to the dark thing out there.
At last, he sensed a glimmer of Noel. He started forward, knowing the direction he needed to take, but the sight of a figure coming across the beach stopped him.
Despite the darkness, the height and forceful, long-limbed stride told Leon it was Black Lonigan. He was carrying something across his shoulder.
Noel.
Leon held his breath and watched, feeling as though his feet were glued to the sand. His twin wasn’t dead. For now that was enough.
Black Lonigan didn’t seem surprised to see Leon. He stopped just short of him.
“Good,” Lonigan said in his gravelly voice. “Ye brought the dinghy at the right time. Well done, Leon.”
Puzzled, for Lonigan had given him no orders to come here, Leon opened his mouth, then at the last moment changed what he’d been about to say.
“That’s Noel,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Is—is he drunk?”
Lonigan stepped past Leon and headed for the dinghy, obliging Leon to follow him. Not until the captain slung Noel’s unconscious form into the dinghy did he glance at Leon.
“Ye know the true answer,” he said. “Don’t pretend.”
Leon felt as though he was made of crystal, and this man could see everything. It was supposed to be the other way around. “What’s wrong with him? I came because he needed help.”
“Be ye linked, then? Good. Twins are favored by the loas.”
“The what?”
Lonigan only laughed and gave the dinghy a shove. “Ye’ll learn.”
Leon leaned over and touched Noel’s face. It was very cold and still beneath the rain. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He is being prepared,” Lonigan replied.
The pirate shoved the dinghy into waist-deep water and climbed in. Leon had to scramble quickly to join him. Once there, sitting across from the pirate with Noel’s body, Leon wasn’t so sure he’d been wise to get in. Lonigan seemed spiky at the edges. His aura held blood.
“Prepared for what?”
Lonigan laughed. “To be Mondoun’s servant. There be much spirit in him, this twin of yours. Much temper and much independence. That will change once the loa possesses him. Oh, Baron Samedi is very pleased to have this body marked for his use.”
Alarm rose in Leon. He didn’t like where this was heading. “Who is Baron Samedi?”
“Lord of the dead. Very powerful. Very dark. With this loa in Noel, Baba Mondoun will be unrivaled among all the bocors and the mambas. He will drive away the houngons and unleash great power over the seas. Then I shall rule all the pirates, and their treasure will belong to me.”
Leon swallowed and kept silent. He didn’t know what to say. Now, however, he knew why Noel had been afraid.
I warned you, Noel, he thought resentfully. I did my best to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen.
With rising worry, he thought about what might happen to him if Noel was possessed. He didn’t want to he sucked back into the time vortex again.
“Heave to, lad!” Lonigan said while Leon struggled with the oars. “Ye’re a lubber with this dinghy. Make for the Plentitude.”
Leon stared through the rain at the merchant ship. She was dragging her anchors a bit, and was close enough to the mouth of the small bay to be in danger of having the tide carry her out.
“The Medusa is safer in this storm,” Leon said. The waves tossed them high, making him gasp. “Harley says the glass is still falling. He’s afraid it may be a hurricane.”
“Naw, too early in the year,” Lonigan said scornfully.
“Harley said hurricanes can happen i
n June.”
“Harley’s an old woman when it comes to a spot of rough weather. It’s the Rada.”
“The what?”
“The white gods. They fear what’s coming. They want to make trouble for us.”
With the wind shrieking in his ears as it tried to rip the hair from his head, with the whitecaps tossing the dinghy like a toy and sloshing over the sides so that Lonigan had to start bailing, Leon thought the pirate was being far too casual about the storm.
“The Medusa is safer,” he said again. “Her flat bottom makes her more stable and—”
“Lad, don’t be telling me about my own ship!”
“The Plentitude is older, and she has a leak below the waterline. Even with men on the pumps, she isn’t—”
“Avast!” Lonigan shouted. “Mondoun wants a sacrifice. He wants a young heart, and a place of death.”
Startled, Leon stopped rowing. “Death! What do you mean?”
“She’ll sink tomorrow,” Lonigan answered. “It has been foretold. Baron Samedi must come into a place of death.”
“But—”
“Keep arguing with me, ye damned puppy, and I’ll heave ye overboard!” Lonigan roared. “We’re doing as Baba says, do ye follow? Interfere in this, and he’ll put a loa into ye as well.”
Lonigan believed all right, and he would carry out his threats if Leon didn’t back off. Leon looked down at Noel, still unconscious, and felt the old jealousy twist hard.
“We are linked,” he said. “If Noel is possessed by the spirit, what will happen to me?”
Lonigan’s laughter boomed out. “Baba will make a potion to protect ye. Don’t quake yer boots. Ye still be valuable to me.”
Chapter Six
With the dinghy secured to the anchor chain, Lonigan called out his orders to the watchman. Soon a boatswain’s chair was lowered to them. Noel’s unconscious body was secured in it, and he was hoisted up to the deck while Leon and Lonigan climbed the boarding net hanging over the side.
In the wild wet, with waves crashing over them and the ropes slippery from water, Leon choked, sputtered, and struggled to make it, fearing at any moment he would be swept away and drowned. Lonigan passed him easily, then leaned over the railing to drag him the rest of the way.
Belly down on the deck, Leon gasped for air and wondered why he’d ever left the comfortable safety of his hammock on the Medusa.
Despite the late hour, it seemed no one slept aboard the Plentitude. The skeleton crew came running.
“Captain! Captain!” cried one, throwing himself at Lonigan’s feet. “The gods have turned their faces from us. Call back their favor.”
“Quartermaster,” said another, less frightened voice. “We need to put her out to sea. We’ll be run aground soon.”
Belatedly Leon realized the man was addressing him. Leon hesitated, at a loss to know what order to give. When they had been dividing the booty, he’d enjoyed his new position of high status. Now he could only stare in indecision, humiliation burning in his face.
“I said we need to weigh anchor,” the man insisted. “We’ll run aground—”
“And if you leave harbor the winds will blow you into the next island before you can raise sail,” Lonigan said harshly. His voice was curt and harsh; he sounded like the leader Leon had first met. Leon had joined him because he’d felt drawn to the charisma of this man. Now he felt it again.
Lonigan gestured angrily. “Are ye daft? There’s no sea room in the Antilles. This isn’t the Atlantic, where ye can let a storm sweep ye two hundred miles off course.”
“The Navy always—”
“The Navy be damned!” Lonigan said. The other pirates murmured agreement with him. “Navy ways are not the ways of the Brotherhood. We know these islands. Until ye do, keep quiet.”
“But, Captain,” said the man, “the wind’s circular.”
Lonigan paused. “Eh?”
“Aye. I’ve checked. Remember the long swell and the way the clouds looked today? I think it’s a hurricane.”
“We’ve got to get out, then,” Lonigan said. “Can ye navigate a semicircle?”
“Aye, I think—”
Lonigan clapped him on the shoulder. “Get aboard the Medusa! Prepare to weigh anchor. I’ll join ye in a moment.”
The men scattered. Lonigan turned on Leon and gripped his arm hard. “Get below, quickly, and find me a child and a woman.”
Leon stared at him. “You mean the passengers? Lady—”
“Fool! Check among the slaves first. Do it quickly. We haven’t much time.”
“Is your black magic more important than getting out of here?”
Lonigan struck him in the face. Leon staggered back, putting his hand to his jaw. Inside he felt rage boil hot. On the deck, Noel moaned and stirred. Lonigan stamped his foot upon Noel’s back, pinning him down.
“Go, I say! Do as ye’re told, ye ignorant piece of shark bait, or I’ll—”
“I joined you as an equal,” Leon said resentfully. “I’ve offered to share all my knowledge with you. Don’t treat me like a—”
Lonigan’s fist hammered him into the railing. Clutching his stomach and wheezing for breath, Leon lost track of what he’d been about to say.
Lonigan gripped his arm again. “It’s yer brother that has the power and the knowledge, not ye.”
“Wrong!” shouted Leon furiously. “Once, maybe, but not anymore! I took his power from him.”
Lonigan reached down and lifted Noel’s left arm, revealing the LOC fastened on Noel’s wrist. It was undisguised and undeniably real.
Leon stared, his mouth open, his mind blank with astonishment. “But I destroyed it,” he whispered. “I got rid of it. I made him give it to me, and I got rid of it.”
Lonigan dropped Noel’s arm. It thudded on the deck, slack and lifeless. “Baba brought the thing of power back,” he said. “Now will ye serve me, or will ye end our association? Know this. The only thing the dark gods savor more than the heart of an innocent child is the quivering entrails of a coward…served hot.”
Leon backed up a step, his mouth dry, his heart thudding. “What—what about the s-storm?” he stammered.
“Go,” Lonigan said.
Stumbling over his own feet, Leon hurried to do his bidding.
The hold was a stinking, black maw filled with the groaning of stressed timbers, the wails of frightened slaves, the squeaking of rats, and the rumbling shift of crates and barrels insufficiently secured.
Holding a lantern high, Leon picked his way through the mass of suffering humanity. The stench was as thick as a wall. Dark faces, marked by tribal tattoos and scars, stared back at him. Eyes worn blank with pain, hunger, and sickness shimmered in the light. Some of them were dead, and should have already been thrown overboard. The corpses lay chained to terrified companions. Among the living, some still possessed enough spirit to lunge at him like wild dogs, snapping with their teeth.
Cursing, Leon beat them back with a belaying pin.
Normally he would have been drunk on their fear. The emotions of others were like meat and drink to him. To be their master, to have the right to beat them as he pleased, to say who was to participate in Lonigan’s mumbo-jumbo and who was to be spared should have been an exquisite pleasure. But Leon was too worried to enjoy himself right now.
He had intended to form a partnership with Lonigan. The man was ruthless, successful, and rich. Glimpses into his mind had shown Leon that he had a fabulous trove of treasure hidden away somewhere on this tiny island. Leon thought he could sway the man, and when he was elected quartermaster within a few hours of joining the crew it seemed to be working. Yet Lonigan’s weird voodoo beliefs were an unexpected problem. Besides, the pirate had too much interest in Noel. Now that Noel had his LOC back, damn him, he was again the valuable one. Leon felt he had become expendable in Lonigan’s eyes. Already Lonigan was treating him like a servant. It was only a matter of time before Leon became even less.
Toward this end
of the hold, water was sloshing over the boards. About a third of the slaves were lying in it. Leon wondered if anyone was manning the pumps right now. He also thought about the information he’d overheard from Noel—that the Plentitude was supposed to sink tomorrow. Fresh sweat broke out across him. He considered sneaking off the ship and taking refuge on the island, but he couldn’t go there alone. He couldn’t exist alone. Without the energy of other people to live on, he grew too weak to resist the pull of the time vortex.
He needed a plan, an idea of how to escape Lonigan. More than that, he wanted to steal Lonigan’s treasure. Somehow he needed to peer into the pirate’s mind more deeply than he had heretofore dared. Lonigan would have to be distracted. Perhaps during the voodoo ceremony Leon would get a chance.
A fresh sense of urgency gripped him. The sooner the ceremony started, the sooner he could get out of here.
He found a woman, bare-breasted and clothed only in a loincloth and a necklet of beads. Her nose was pierced and she had three parallel scars on each cheek. She held a toddler, rocking it steadily in her arms while she crooned an eerie, monotonous sound.
Leon shone the lantern over them. The child was dead, had been dead for some time. Its glassy eyes, crusted lips, and small bloated body reached something inside Leon. He looked away quickly, swallowing hard, and closed his eyes to link himself with the woman.
Her grief pierced him like the stab of a spear. He was unprepared for the raw intensity of it and staggered back, breaking the link in desperation.
Gasping, he wiped sweat from his brow and glanced down to see the woman staring up at him. She stopped crooning, but her body went on rocking the child as though it could do nothing else. Her eyes were a light, clear brown. They held a flood of anguish and hatred like a barrier against the probing of his mind.
Mutely she held up her child to him. Leon shook his head. For the first time in his short existence he was conscious of having intruded, of having violated a place of privacy where he had no right to enter.
Pieces of Eight Page 8
