The Devil's Tide

by Tomerlin, Matt

  "I stuck it in his belly," Kate replied flatly. She had hoped to find some kind of common ground with the girl, but this was not what she'd had in mind. "I pinned him to the deck of a ship and watched him burn to death."

  The girl shuddered, but she was smiling. "Did he deserve it?"

  "He didn't seem to think so."

  "Do you have nightmares about it?"

  "I've answered enough of your questions," Kate said. "How about you answer mine, for a change?"

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Why are you here?"

  Calloway laughed. "I don't know. I don't think you do either."

  "Most would conjure a reason," Kate said, joining in her laughter.

  Calloway stopped laughing at once, as though she didn't want her laugh mingling with Kate's.

  "Not so long ago," Kate said, "although sometimes it seems like a century, I knew a pitiful surgeon. When I first met him, I immediately saw something in his eyes . . . something very sad . . . a dreadful calamity I didn't understand at first."

  Calloway feigned a yawn. "Oh no. Is this going to be a long, sad story?"

  "Sad yes," Kate replied sweetly, "but not long."

  The girl waved her hand, allowing her to continue.

  "I knew very little about anything," Kate went on, "but I came to realize fairly quickly that this man wanted to die. He was not a pirate. He was not where he was supposed to be. They had stolen him from his ship and corrupted his purpose. He was forced to aid villains who brought harm upon innocents. It went against everything he was. He so desperately longed for release. I'd never met such a hopeless man. And then, after the sustained torture his life had become, death came for him at last, welcoming him with open arms. But just then, right before the end, something changed."

  "What?" Calloway said, unable to sustain her curiosity.

  "He wanted to live."

  After a moment of consideration, Calloway said, "That's very sad, but what's the point?"

  Kate ran her finger along Hornigold's desk, trailing a smudge across the polished surface. Tiny grains of sand rolled beneath her finger, grinding thin, barely detectable scratches into the wood. "The point is no one really knows what they want until they're certain to lose it."

  "Wants are fickle," Calloway said, adjusting a loose bandage on Dillahunt's forehead.

  "You lost someone," Kate realized suddenly. There was a haunted, elusive wisdom behind the girl's blue eyes that often accompanied tragedy. Kate had glimpsed it in her own reflection, after her husband died.

  Calloway nodded. "My mother."

  "I'm sorry. She was a strumpet too?"

  "Yes," Calloway said. "Until one of her clients murdered her. There was no reason for it. My mother was very good at making men feel good about themselves, so I can't imagine she offended him. She knew all the right things to say. Any good strumpet does. Maybe he just wanted to see the color of her blood. Maybe he couldn't get off. I've seen men get angry when that happens. They pretend like it's your fault. Can't be anything wrong with them, so it must be something you did or didn't do. Anyway, he must've been very angry. The other girls heard the screams, but no one would go in there. They tried to stop me. I wish they'd tried harder." She had gone distant now, projecting some unimaginable horror upon the wall of the tent. "I had no idea a person had so much blood in them."

  "I'm sorry," Kate said.

  "You said that already," Calloway snapped.

  Kate stopped herself before she could apologize for apologizing. She looked down at her hands and started picking at her fingernails.

  The girl kept going, sweet voice laced with disdain. "Ever since that day, when I see the color red, I see blood. I think I always will. Before then, I never realized how much red there is in the world. It's everywhere you look, really."

  Kate looked up from her fingers and found the girl surmising her with large eyes. Her pupils were dilated in the dim light, like a cat as it readies to pounce on a mouse. "I bet people tell you how beautiful your hair is all the time," Calloway said. "It is truly beautiful. So wild and perfect and so very, very red. How can hair be so messy and so perfect at the same time? That's probably what they say, isn't it?"

  Kate shook her head. "No one's ever said that."

  "I bet someone has," Calloway replied, nodding with a confident smirk. "If they haven't, they've at least thought it. You want to know what I think?"

  "Not sure I do," Kate replied, staring at the sliver of light where the flaps of the tent parted. She suddenly wanted out of this stuffy, dark place.

  Calloway's voice remained as sweet as honey. "When I look at your hair, all I see is blood."

  NATHAN

  On the dawn of the sixth day at Griffith's Isle, Nathan was stirred from a deep slumber.

  He had been dreaming about Annabelle. They were naked on a little island with no trees. It was nothing more than an oval of sand amidst a shallow ocean, with the two of them in the center. The sand was warm and soft against his back, with no grain biting into his skin. The crystal water was no deeper than three feet for as far as the eye could see, and the sand shimmered beneath a fluctuating web of light. The sky made no sense, and its weirdness alerted him to the dream. The sun remained directly above for the duration of the dream, never descending toward the horizon. Nathan was able to stare directly at it without squinting, and it was not hot upon his skin, but pleasantly warm. The sapphire sky deepened into a navy blue near the horizon, and stars twinkled along the circumference.

  His left arm had grown back. Rarely was it missing from dreams. His subconscious had yet to catch up with reality. He knew it wasn't supposed to be there, but he was happy to fool himself for the time being.

  He held Annabelle with both hands, and her skin was smooth against his, her kisses wet against his lips, and her dark hair blotted out the sun. He stared at her, but he could not fixate on any single feature for long, as her face was too deeply shadowed by her hair. There was an overall impression but no detail. The more he tried to focus, the less he could discern.

  He wasn't sure what they were talking about. They giggled at each other's jokes, made small talk about the scenery, and whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears. He promised never to leave her, and she promised the same in return, and the promises made as much sense as the hand he held against her back and the stars on a midday horizon.

  She lifted her head and looked out to the sea. "A ship," she said.

  "No," he replied. He wouldn't allow any ships infiltrating this dream. No pirates. No plots. No thoughts of treasure. No fear of death. They had their little island, and that's all they needed.

  "Captain," she insisted, pounding on his chest. "A ship approaches."

  "No it doesn't," he replied.

  She balled her hand into a fist and brought it down hard on his chest, and the wind puffed from his mouth, and his eyes shot open.

  Candler was hunched over him, fear etched in his face. "Captain, there's a ship on the horizon. It's big."

  Nathan nudged Candler away with his stump as he sat up in his blankets. It was dim in the little tent, and beyond the parted flaps he saw the low purple light of early dawn. He threw on his shirt, which he had discarded at some point in the night, and retrieved his pistol and cutlass as Candler waited impatiently by the exit. He gestured for Candler to leave, and Candler ducked outside, holding the flaps open for him. Nathan stepped out, greeted instantly by a nip in the early morning air. He scanned the purple horizon, past Crusader, until he saw a much bigger ship not much further in the distance and approaching fast. A chill ran through him, but he could not attribute it to the morning air. "That's a bloody frigate," Nathan murmured.

  "Ogle says it's Queen Anne's Revenge," Candler replied immediately.

  Nathan started for the prisoner tent. Candler hurried after him. "Where are you going?"

  "To ask the expert," Nathan said.

  "Who's that?"

  Nathan withered. "Benjamin Hornigold. The reason we're here
, remember?"

  "You think Blackbeard's come for him?"

  "Amongst other things," Nathan said. Kate Lindsay had led them to the largest chest on the first day, and over the next week, Dillahunt's crew had discovered six more chests. All of the chests were concealed a little ways in the jungle, but Blackbeard would easily find them if he bothered to look.

  Many of the men were gathered near the firepit, staring at the approaching ship. Peter Lively signaled Nathan to come over, but Nathan ignored him. He turned to Candler. "Give me the keys."

  "The what?" Candler said, gawking at the ship.

  "The keys to the prisoners' chains."

  "Oh, of course." Candler slapped a ring with near a dozen keys into Nathan's hand. "It's the littlest one," he said.

  "I won't need you," Nathan said, and Candler gladly took his leave. The first mate didn't like associating with the prisoners. He was extremely agitated when Nathan assigned him to look after them, but Nathan knew he could trust Candler not to stray too close.

  Nathan reached the prisoner tent and pushed through the flaps. Most of them were asleep, sitting upright with their backs to each other, heads dropping. Hornigold was wide awake, staring expectantly. "I heard someone say Queen Anne's Revenge. Did I hear someone say Queen Anne's Revenge? I heard someone say Queen Anne's Revenge. He's come for me, Adams. He's come for me at last, as I always knew he would. He's come for me."

  Hornigold had deteriorated considerably over the past week. He hadn't eaten much or taken much water. His cheeks were starting to sink in. His skin was a shade paler, lips cracked and bleeding, and he was constantly sweating. His hair was wet and stringy, resembling seaweed. Nathan was starting to feel sorry for the man. It was cruel to search for treasure at a leisurely pace while prolonging Hornigold's certain execution, but how could anyone pass up such an opportunity? Hornigold had made his choice.

  "I was hoping you'd tell me," Nathan said as he bent down to unlock Hornigold's chains.

  The one named Bastion was awake, eyes bright in the dark, though no other part of him was visible. "This is no good," he was saying, shaking his head.

  "Thank you, Bastion," Nathan said.

  "This is no good."

  He freed Hornigold's wrists and helped him up. Nathan's knuckles raked over the notches of Hornigold's ribs. The disgraced captain was surprisingly easy to lift with just one arm. How had he lost so much weight so quickly? If they lingered much longer, Woodes Rogers would have to settle for dangling a skeleton from the noose.

  Nathan helped Hornigold step out of the tent, steadying him from behind. Before the flaps closed, he heard Bastion say, "This is no good," one more time.

  "So tell me," Nathan said. "Is that Queen Anne's Revenge?"

  Despite the dim light, Hornigold squinted as though it pained his eyes. Nathan watched his face decline from anxiety to a state of sheer terror. "You lingered here too long," Hornigold quaked. "Too long, Adams. You've bloody killed me. You've bloody killed me."

  "That sounds like a 'yes,'" Bellamy quipped as he approached, bracelets clinking. His silver hair resembled polished metal in the low light.

  Nathan handed Hornigold over to the surgeon. "See that he doesn't die before Blackbeard sets foot in the sand. That would be bad for all of us."

  "You've killed me, Adams!" Hornigold shrieked.

  Nathan glared at him. "Oh, now it's me who's killed you? I thought it was Katherine Lindsay."

  "The whole bloody lot of you!"

  Nathan chuckled bitterly. "Anyone but you, it would seem." He handed the keys to Bellamy. "Take him back inside and keep him as quiet as possible." Bellamy nodded, dragging the prisoner back through the flaps. Hornigold's enlarged, terror-ridden eyes flashed at Nathan before he was drawn into the darkness of the tent. "You've killed me!"

  Nathan snapped his fingers at Dick Maynard (Dick had slightly shorter hair than Richard). "Maynard, stand watch over this tent. Make sure Hornigold doesn't leave."

  Dick grunted and lumbered to the tent.

  Nathan joined the crew by the firepit, stepping between Peter Lively and a middle-aged black man named Yarlow, who had very short, curly white hair and an equally white beard. Yarlow handed Nathan a telescope. The silver shaft was dotted with blood. It had belonged to Jones Thompson, the navigator who was killed in the accident that had earned Nathan his surprise promotion.

  Yarlow gestured to the approaching frigate, which was coming to a halt parallel to Crusader. No doubt the token crew Nathan had left aboard were preparing the guns. "Look at her colors," Yarlow said.

  Nathan peered through the scope, scanning the horizon until he found the ship. He scaled the long mainmast, and at the top he saw a white flag fluttering in the wind.

  "Mighty nice of Blackbeard to surrender before the fight," quipped Lively. "Not in his character, but let's not look a murderer in the mouth, eh?"

  "He's not here for a fight," Nathan said. "He's here for Hornigold."

  "Then we'd best give him over," Yarlow urged. "That ship could sink Crusader by looking at her."

  "Not quite," Nathan said. "Ours would do a fair amount of damage before she sank, and Blackbeard knows it. Hell, Crusader might even get a crippling shot in before she went under. Not worth risking his precious Revenge. He hasn't made it this far by being stupid."

  Nathan hoped the men he'd left on Crusader knew the meaning of a white flag. Some of them were quite daft. So far no one had fired. That was a good sign, at least.

  "A white flag," Lively muttered sarcastically. "The mighty Blackbeard doesn't disappoint. I think I just shit meself."

  "Only just?" said Gabe Jenkins, except he wasn't joking. He looked genuinely horrified. A lock of his curly black hair was matted to his forehead, which was glistening with sweat.

  They waited an hour. Nathan instructed the crew to act casually but remain on their guard at all times. He had Calloway light candles in the large tent and then asked her and Lindsay to remove themselves to another tent. He had been keeping both women sheltered and under close watch, along with Dillahunt, as those three were the most vulnerable members of the crew. He did not trust some of Dillahunt's men not to rape the women or murder Dillahunt in his sleep. There were too many former pirates here, and some of them had worked with Blackbeard.

  The sun peeked as a boat from Queen Anne's Revenge slid upon the shore. A dark shadow stood tall at the bow, in a long coat and tricorn hat, arm resting casually upon a raised knee. He was flanked by five men. Four of them jumped off, and two of them helped their captain into the sand, taking care that his boots didn't get wet. He was at least six feet tall. He stepped in front of the quarter-sun that was ascending slowly from the water, and his towering silhouette seemed to swallow all light. He stood there, features indistinct in the gloom. The shadow emitted a guttural voice. "Where be Captain Dillahunt?"

  Nathan stepped forward. "Captain Dillahunt is unwell. I act in his stead."

  The shadow remained still. "Am I to guess your name?"

  "Nathan Adams," Nathan said, doing his best to keep a firm, commanding tone.

  There was a long pause. "That name be familiar to me."

  Nathan frowned. "It shouldn't be."

  "Nevertheless, it gives pause." Blackbeard turned and snapped his fingers at the two men who had remained in the boat. "Return to the ship."

  "You arrive under a white flag," Nathan said.

  "Aye. Normally I would take what is rightfully mine, but respect for Captain Dillahunt stays my hand."

  Nathan smiled thinly. "Respect, or fear of Crusader's many guns."

  "Don't fool yourself, boy," the shadow boomed. "Crusader would swiftly find herself at the bottom of the ocean if it served my purpose, and I would suffer a few holes in my beloved Revenge to see the deed done."

  "And what is your purpose, exactly?"

  "A thing best discussed away from prying ears," the shadow said.

  Nathan motioned toward the big tent. "Your men wait here," he said.

  "As do you
rs, boy."

  "That's fair."

  Nathan walked to the tent, hoping the tall man was following. He ducked through the flaps and into warm candlelight. Dillahunt was still comatose in his many blankets in a dark corner. Nathan turned.

  The flaps parted, and Blackbeard stepped in. The top of his hat skimmed the ceiling. Even in the light, his face was shadowed by a bushy black beard. His piercing blue eyes, however, seemed to yield a light all their own. He glanced around. "A touch decadent for Captain Dillahunt."

  Nathan took a seat behind the desk and gestured toward one of the two seats in front of the desk. Blackbeard walked over but refused to sit. He paced slowly, his hat gliding along the bowed canvas. He regarded Dillahunt for a moment. "If I didn't know better, I'd wager this man survived a battle with a shark."

  "You might say that," Nathan replied.

  Blackbeard's eyes found Nathan's. His right cheek was creased. Was he smirking under all that fur? "Did the shark survive?"

  "I know why you're here," Nathan said, not in the mood for games. He knew he should be pissing himself with fear, but Blackbeard had nothing to hold over his head.

  "And here I thought myself subtle."

  "You want Benjamin Hornigold."

  "Hornigold?" Blackbeard scratched his beard and looked up, as though searching for a clue. "That name be familiar to me as well, though far more troublesome. It's like I've put it away, for it harkens unsettling history."

  Nathan smirked. "I doubt you've forgotten the man that made you."

  "Made me?" Blackbeard looked shocked. "You cannot make a man such as me; you can only watch in horror as I am born. Hornigold's name may find its way into a history book or two, but not without mine to context it. Give the man to me, and I will warrant him a chapter all his own. Unless Captain Dillahunt offers protest." Blackbeard turned, placed two fingers behind his ear, and favored Dillahunt with a moment's consideration. "It appears he does not." He turned back to Nathan. "Point me to Hornigold's whereabouts and I'll be on my merry way."

  "Your merry way is littered with corpses," Nathan grated. "Don't think me evil enough to hand a man's life over to you with no better reason than making you happy."