Cast In Dark Waters

She kneeled over the beast that had once been a raiding pirate and draped two rings around its neck. With its lips drawn apart in anguish, she saw all those spirals of teeth leading all around its mouth. It reacted violently, choking and bringing up gobs of black fluid and hunks of bone.

"Tyree," she said. "Does that name mean anything to you?"

The Blutsauger's mouth worked meaninglessly, chewing at the air as its fangs gnashed together and it slowly strangled on the properties of the iron. It gagged and moaned in agony. Its teeth were broken deep in the back of its throat. She needed to know what it knew about the other ghosts.

"Talk, you rotted beast, is my Tyree out there? Is he on the island elsewhere? Answer!"

It spoke only one word, pleading. "…forgive…"

"Lass," Welsh said, "put the damnable critter out of its torment."

"Not until I get what I'm after. You hear! I want to know about my husband and his haunting ways. Tell me, you moldy corpse or I'll leave you here like this for all the ages.”

“… mercy…"

"None, you bugger!"

Welsh drew his arm back and slapped Crimson hard across the face. Grunting, she toppled over into the dirt and watched as Welsh used the rings to choke the beast into its final rest.

He glared at her without a word and she could do little more than force back the sobs of frustration before they escaped. Her lip was split and she sucked at it, tasting the blood as it filled her mouth.

She spat it out, knowing that some day this would be her fate.

Rising, she strode to the headless body still weaving about, fumbling at the edge of the jungle as if searching a way to escape. She staked it through the back and Welsh buried the still blinking head face down in the sand.

When they returned to the hut they found Daphna slumped forward across Villaine's corpse. She'd taken one of the sharpened pieces of bamboo and propped it in Villaine's cold fist, then driven herself upon it.

7

Onboard the San Muy Malo, Crimson told her story to the Maycombs. About how she'd found the village completely empty and discovered two gravestones next to each other, one

for Daphna, the other for Villaine. FEVER had been scratched on both. And below that, GOD GRANT YE REST.

Beneath his sorrow, Maycomb's rage boiled until he was almost hissing. "And the other privateers?"

"All dead or shipped off to escape the disease, I'd imagine."

"So there was no Loogaroo? Is this what you say? You didn't find the Boabhan Sith, the Dearg-Due?"

"No," she said.

Instead of relief he grew only more frustrated. She understood why. It takes a great leap of faith for a man who prides himself on reason and common sense to believe in such spirits, and once the leap is made, there's no turning back. Then he must have his proof.

Crimson considered telling him the truth, but she knew that eventually this reality would eat away at him as much as his doubts. Better he went to his grave believing his daughter to be the same pure girl he'd last seen. It served her memory that much the better.

She retrieved the pouch of diamonds and returned more than half its contents to him. "This will pay my wages."

Elaine Maycomb did not cry. She had finished with that and now had to take her grief and make it into something else. Perhaps she would heal there on the coast of Virginia, perhaps not. "Thank you, Lady," she said.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Crimson told her.

She left the couple then and went to hold watch in the bow with Welsh, listening to Hedrick and his men carousing a bit below decks. She couldn't help scanning the waves to see what might be lurking within.

It was true that both Villaine and Daphna rested in the earth. Welsh himself had cut the words on the gravestones with his dagger, after hacking off all their heads and burying them face down. Then he and Crimson had built a bonfire and burned the bodies as best as they could. Let the animals of the jungle scatter those cursed bones and embers.

"We've a good wind pluming the sails," he told her.

"Yes, we'll make Port of St. Christopher's in three days at this rate." She caught him looking over the side. "Any mermaids?"

"They say Blackbeard himself died after twenty-five stab wounds and five bullets. His head was taken and hung on the bowsprit and his body tossed overboard. It swam around the ship thrice before finally sinking out of sight."

"You think Blackbeard might've been one of those beasts?"

"Nah, he was just a pirate," Welsh said, grinning. "Nothing special 'bout him."

There was a great deal inside her that needed to be said but she could find no way to frame her thoughts. They had come close tonight, she and the old man. Close to death and whatever might lay beyond it. I love you, father. "Welsh-listen to me, I-"

"In the morning, lass," he told her. "Now, get yerself some sleep, and blessed be that ye don't dream tonight."