Many years ago, the world was fairly unified. There were only seven continents, and all of them could be accessed by sea. But after the Rift, the great calamity caused by the unholy union between a vampire and a witch, the world had fractured. There were now sixteen divisions, each one protected by a magical shield provided by the most powerful witches in that division. The shields also kept anyone from traveling from one division to another.
Although the divisions were able to communicate somewhat via old CB radios, they didn’t always work. She examined the maps a bit more, and it looked as if Rainier’s crew had been exploring the very edges of the NOLA shield. Were they looking for a way through? She laughed to herself. That would never happen. For such vicious pirates, they were certainly foolish buffoons.
She moved one of the papers aside and found a small leather-bound book. Upon opening it, she realized it was a diary. Rainier’s diary! He had not written in it since he brought her on board, but he had the day before.
Today we ran out of food. We have no choice but to return to NOLA and raid for humans.
Our latest trip to the Edge was just as fruitless as all the others. Many of the men fear we will never find a way through the Shield, never connect to the other divisions. While our division is surviving for now, it is only doing that, no more. It is not thriving. The food output for the humans and witches is slowly declining. The waters are rising. The human numbers are dwindling. It might take decades, but eventually, our division will no longer be inhabitable. We must find a way through. Must find a way to connect to the rest of the world.
I fear the crew is losing its faith and hope in not just the mission, but me as well. Even though there is no one who could lead them better, any failures fall on my shoulders.
How much longer will they allow me to lead them, when even I am unsure where I am going?
Heavy wears the crown, Catheryn thought. Even bloodthirsty monsters had to contend with the stresses of daily life. But was it true what he had written? Was NOLA slowly dying? As a slave, she wasn’t kept abreast of the larger concerns of the area. She lived only day to day, purely in survival mode. But the Hoodoo Queen had recently decreased the slaves’ daily rations. She had been so hungry…all of them were...
The day before
Catheryn rummaged around the pantry. The cook was at market, and the other servants were all out running errands, but they would be back soon. The Hoodoo House was home to many, many people. You were never alone for long.
The queen had cut the slaves’ daily food allotment by nearly a third. It wasn’t enough. They were all so hungry. Some more than others. Many of the adults were sharing their rations with the children, but they couldn’t survive on such meager food stores for long.
Catheryn held a burlap sack as she picked through the kitchen’s fresh supplies—the fruits, the vegetables, the loaves of bread. She only took one or two of each thing, hoping they wouldn’t go missing that way. She was leerier of taking any canned goods. The cook probably kept a better inventory of those kinds of items.
Two potatoes, one carrot, several handfuls of rice, a few rolls, a small bag of flour. Was there any way she could smuggle out just a small amount of oil?
As she rifled through one cabinet, looking for a small jar she could use, a voice spoke abruptly behind her.
“What do you think you are doing?” a woman asked.
Catheryn turned and saw a young witch.
“I asked you a question, slave,” the woman said.
“I’m just…” Catheryn floundered. “Cook told me to help prepare the daily rations for the slaves…”
The woman stepped over and grabbed the bag, opening it. “Are you stealing?” she asked.
Catheryn could not reply.
The woman’s face contorted. “I’ll just have to ask cook about this!”
Catheryn couldn’t let that happen. There had to be some way to stop her.
At that, a knife that had been sitting on the counter flew across the room and stabbed the woman in the arm, and she screamed.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! What…” She cast her eyes around the room, as though looking for her invisible assailant.
Catheryn looked, too. Was there someone else in the room? Had she done that? She couldn’t let the woman expose her. She’s be whipped to death for stealing!
Finally, the young witch pulled the knife from her arm and dropped it. She held her hand over her wound to staunch the bleeding, and her eyes landed back on Catheryn. “You!” she nearly screeched. “What are you? You’re nothing but a slave! How did you…what did you…I’m going right to the queen. She’s take care of this right now!”
The woman turned quick on her heels and headed for the door.
Catheryn’s fight instincts kicked in, and she ran after the witch. She grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around. The witch shot at Catheryn with a burst of energy, which sent her flying backward, and she landed on her backside. The witch turned again toward the door, but Catheryn raised her hand.
“Stop!” she said. A cast iron skillet that had been hanging from a hook above her suddenly fell free and hit the woman in the head. She crumpled to the floor.
Catheryn held her hand to her mouth. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Was she dead? Had she killed a witch?
She slowly inched over to the woman’s body and checked her pulse. Still alive. Catheryn wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. She dragged the witch over to the pantry and secured it closed with a broom, then grabbed a cloth and wiped the blood from the floor. But it didn’t matter. She would be caught. The witch would expose her. She’d be revealed as a thief and an attempted murderess. The Hoodoo Queen would have no choice but to put her to death.
Catheryn couldn’t see a way out of this mess. She forgot about her bag of food and ran to her nook under the stairs and tried to come up with a plan.
And then, the pirates attacked.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Catheryn mused. She sighed as she walked to the widows and looked out. How was she going to get out of this mess? And if she did, what then?
One step at a time, girl.
First, she needed to get off this ship. It didn’t matter if she escaped at another port or ended up on a desert island, she just needed to get away.
Boom!
The explosion sounded very close. The ship rocked hard to one side, then the other. She struggled to maintain her balance. Got on her hands and knees and crawled to the door. Peeking out, she saw another ship had pulled up alongside The Cursed Storm, and several pirates swung on ropes from the other ship to this one. More explosions boomed from cannons being fired. Considering the way the ship rumbled, she knew some of the shots were being fired from this ship…and other at this ship.
Then, she saw him.
Captain Rainier ran up to one of the pirates that had landed on the ship, sliced through him easily, and tipped him over the side of ship. He turned and slashed another pirate that had hoped to stab him in the back. One after another, Rainier cut down his enemy. Catheryn couldn’t help but be impressed with his skill.
Then, a woman dressed similar to Rainier approached him. She carried herself with equal surety, and the two exchanged words before they assumed their fighting stances. It appeared Rainier had finally met his match. She must have been the captain from the other ship.
Catheryn was enjoying watching the two of them dance. So much so that she almost forgot she should be afraid. What if Rainier was defeated? This new band of pirates would take Catheryn and the others away. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, after all. A small voice in her throat cheered Rainier on.
She didn’t even notice that two other pirates who were fighting were getting closer and closer to the door. Not until they smashed through it.
Catheryn gasped as she jumped to the side. Scrambling to hide, she ducked behind the desk as the two pirates fought. It was clear the pirate from Rainier’s ship was losing, and before Ca
theryn could even consider intervening, the attacking pirate ran the other one through.
Catheryn stayed quiet, hoping the pirate would run off and join the battle elsewhere, but she had no such luck.
“Ah, just what we’re looking for,” the pirate said with a greasy smile.
Of course, Catheryn thought.
She jumped to her feet and quickly ran past the pirate and out the door. He must have been expecting her to cower instead of flee, because he stood stunned for a moment before reacting.
“Come back here, you!” she heard him yell from behind her.
But Catheryn was already running across the main deck toward the grate that led below deck. Once again, she found herself trying to free her fellow slaves. If they could sneak away while the pirates were busy fighting each other, maybe they could steal a lifeboat and row away before anyone noticed. Or at least before any of them could do anything about it.
The grating was open, so she slipped inside quickly and slid down the ladder. There were now pirates fighting below deck as well. Some of the pirates were chasing and catching the human slaves, trying to drag them above deck. They must have heard about Rainier’s raid on the Hoodoo House and wanted the slaves for themselves. For a moment, Catheryn wondered if all the vampire pirates, or even all the vampires in NOLA, were running out of humans to feed on.
If that was the case, Catheryn and her fellow humans wouldn’t be safe anywhere. They would always be hunted.
But she couldn’t worry about that right now. She had to focus on trying to escape. She lifted a sword off a fallen pirate and turned to one who was trying to drag a female slave toward the ladder up to the main deck. Catheryn used all her strength to run the pirate through from behind. He slumped over and then crumbled to the ground.
“Catheryn!” the woman gasped. “Where have you been?”
“No time!” Catheryn yelled. “We have to escape. Get up to the main deck and try to find a lifeboat we can escape in!”
The woman nodded and ran up the ladder. Catheryn tried to pull her sword out of the dead pirate, but it was stuck.
“Hey you!” she heard. She turned to face the pirate from earlier in Rainier’s quarters. “Got ya!”
Catheryn backed up, unarmed…and cornered.
Chapter 6
Pirates from the other ship swung over to The Dark Storm, including the opposing pirate captain. As the ships got closer to each other, gangplanks were lowered and the enemy pirates swarmed the ship like locusts.
“It’s been too long, Captain Rainier,” the woman with red hair said as she approached.
“Not long enough, Rene,” he said as the two circled one another.
“That’s Captain Lacroix to you,” she said as she tapped his sword with her own. “That’s always been the trouble with you. No respect.”
Rainier watched his men from over her shoulder and was pleased to see they were holding their own. Rainier trained them hard for just such an occasion.
“What’s brings you here, Captain Lacroix?” he asked. “You know your scrappers are no match for my hard trained men.”
“No respect but plenty of confidence,” Rene replied. “That’s what I always did like about you.” She advanced and thrusted her sword toward him. Rainier easily deflected her blow and moved to the side. He then advanced and parried, forcing her to retreat a few steps.
“Call off your men, Rene,” he said. “This is pointless.”
“Give me what I want, Rainier,” she demanded and struck again.
“And what is that?” he asked as he deflected.
“Your humans,” she said. “You know how rare it is to find humans on the high seas or even near the coasts anymore. They’ve all fled inland. We need the humans you stole from the Hoodoo Queen.”
“Not on your life,” he said. “I have my own crew to look after.”
“And I have mine,” she said. “I can either kill you and take your humans, or you can hand over your humans willingly and look for more elsewhere. You might survive if you hand them over.”
Rainier doubted that. Rene Lacroix was as bloodthirsty as they come, in more than one sense. She was a vampire as well, but she was also a violent and merciless pirate. She was not above slaughtering other pirate crews simply to lessen the competition. She had no sense of professional curtesy.
“We made a rather fierce team at one point,” Rainier said. “Remember all that time we spent together, ridding the seas of the human pirates that once tried to sail as though they had a chance? Now look at you. Picking a fight with someone you can’t beat all for a few scraps of blood.”
After the human pirates had all been killed or ran aground, the vampire pirates started turning on each other. That’s when Rainier and Rene had to part ways. He couldn’t trust her to not stab him in the back if it would benefit her in some way.
“Look at you, trying to prey on my feminine sensibilities,” Rene mocked. “Must mean you don’t have as much faith in the strength of your crew as you once did.” She advanced and struck at him, hard. She practically stomped with each advance and grunted with each thrust of her sword.
Rainier had to be cautious as he fought her off. She had an anger, a desperation to her fight. He wasn’t sure why. As far as he knew, he hadn’t wronged her in any meaningful way, at least not lately, and he hadn’t heard of her having any skirmishes with any other pirate crews.
How long it had been since she and her crew had human blood to drink? If she and her men were desperate for food, that could explain her furor.
“I don’t want to have to hurt you, Rene,” Rainier said as he continued to let her advance. He was only on the defense right now, looking for an opening, testing her for weakness.
“Hurt me?” she asked. “I’m winning!” she screamed as she brought her sword down on his.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rainier saw a flash of black curls. He turned to see Catheryn running across the deck toward the hatch that led down below. She must have been trying to reach the other slaves.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered.
Rene turned as well. Her pupils grow big, like a cat who had caught sight of a mouse. Her mouth gaped, and Rainier could have sworn he saw her start to drool.
Rene took off toward Catheryn, and Rainier followed Rene. Rene was much faster than Catheryn, but Rainier was quicker than both of them. As Catheryn reached the hatch and started down the ladder, Rene reached for her. But she was wide open. Rainier easily slammed into her, knocking her onto her back.
The vampires moved so quickly, and Catheryn was so determined to reach the other slaves, Rainier thought Catheryn never even saw the danger she was in as she quickly disappeared below deck.
“I’ll kill you!” Rene bellowed as she attempted to scramble to her feet.
Rainier decided that Rene was indeed out of her mind with hunger. If there wasn’t such a shortage of humans, he would have almost felt pity for her. He was certainly not above helping a fellow pirate in need if he thought it might benefit him in some way later. But he didn’t see any way that helping Rene now wouldn’t put him and his men at risk. They were down to eight humans to share for the whole crew, and they wouldn’t last long. And Rene was right. The humans were fleeing the shores and heading inland, both to escape pirate raids and the rising waters. Even he wasn’t exactly sure where he was going to find the next supply of humans for his own crew.
Rainier grabbed Rene around the collar and threw her into the railing of his ship. He used all his strength to pin her down. She reached into her belt and pulled out a dagger, but Rainier grabbed her wrist. He pounded her arm on the railing to make her let go, but she kneed him in the crotch, causing him to flinch. She cuffed him on the side of the head with the hilt of the knife, and Rainier stumbled back.
“Yield,” Rene said as she pointed her sword and knife at Rainier. “Yield and you may live, though I can’t make any promises.”
“It’s you who’ll be begging for mercy in a moment,” Rainier said.
“Defiant to the end,” she said as she took a step forward. “I like that. I always did like—Ahh!”
Rene screamed as a bullet penetrated her shoulder. She screamed, dropped her sword, and clutched at the wound. She and Rainier both turned toward where the shot had come from. Rainier’s first mate, Mathis, stood with the rifle still pointed at Rene. Rainier scanned the deck. While the fighting between the two crews was still intense, it was clear that Rainier’s men had the upper hand.
Rene looked back at Rainier just as Rainier plowed into her, shoving her hard against the railing and knocking the breath out of her. He then reached down, grabbed her leg and flipped her over the side of the ship. Rainier couldn’t help but watch with glee as Rene fell several stories, screaming all the way, and splashed into the water below. She came back up to the surface of the water with gasps and one flailing arm.
“The sea water will help clear that wound right up for you!” he shouted down to her.
She responded by flipping him off.
Rainier couldn’t help but laugh, but Mathis called him back to attention.
“Sir!” he yelled. “Your orders?”
“Take care of these scallywags!” he said. He headed below deck to find out what had become of Catheryn.
The fighting below deck was fierce as well, but there were not as many fighters as above deck. Rainier made his way through the lower decks with ease, lending his sword to his crew who had already made good work of the invaders.
Finally, his gaze fell on Catheryn, who cowered in a far off dark corner, blocked by a rival pirate. Rainier bolted toward them with his full speed, planning to run the fellow through, but just as he was about to strike, a heavy beam fell, crushing the pirate.
“What the devil?” he asked as he looked from the dead man up to where the beam had fallen and finally to Catheryn.
Pirate's Curse: Division 1: The Berkano Vampire Collection Page 4
