at Pete. “Fight like a man, you scurvy rogue, or die like a dog!” Wow, Pete thought. Somebody’s swash is buckled a little too tightly. The cutlass was obviously messing with her head. As Pete knew too well, certain historical artifacts could become imbued with powerful tangential energies stemming from past owners and events-with bizarre, unpredictable results. Pete had hoped that he and Myka could get their hands on the cutlass before it stirred up any trouble, but clearly their timing sucked. The sword already had Lainie in its spell. “Hey! Unshiver your timbers, lady!” He tried to talk her down.
“You’re not thinking straight…” “Belay that! A short life and a merry one, I say. Especially for you!” She lunged at Pete, hacking wildly. The flashing cutlass struck sparks off the cannon as he ducked away from the multiplying blows. “Not really feeling the merry right now.” He reached again for his gun, but reconsidered. Lainie was an innocent victim here; she wasn’t herself. No way did he want to resort to deadly force. Too bad she didn’t feel the same way. “Stand still, you villainous cur. Or I’ll slip ye the Black Spot!” Uh-huh, he thought. Not going to happen. Dousing his flashlight, he retreated from the possessed guide, trying to blend in with Captain Kidd and the others. By now his eyes had partially adjusted to the dark, and he could dimly make out Lainie stalking up and down the red carpet, cursing profanely in a manner that would have seared the tender ears of any grade-school kids visiting the museum on a field trip. Pete assumed she didn’t use that sort of language during business hours.
She slashed at the air, slicing it to ribbons. Whistling repeatedly with every swipe, the cutlass keened like a chorus of dying men. No doubt it had claimed the lives of many sailors during Anne Bonny’s bloody heyday. Pete considered his options. Reasoning with Lainie appeared to be a lost cause; the cutlass’s influence was too strong.
He needed to get the sword out of her grip-and vice versa. Ideally without getting turned into confetti in the process. Moving as stealthily as he could, he circled behind her. Decorative cables and anchors threatened to trip him up, but he somehow managed to skirt around the edges of the exhibit without knocking anything over or getting tangled in the mock rigging. Creeping out from behind a painted wooden figurehead in the likeness of a busty mermaid, he snuck up behind Lainie, hefting his flashlight like a bludgeon. His eyes zeroed in on the back of her skull. All he needed to do was knock her out long enough to separate her from the cutlass and neutralize it.
With any luck, she wouldn’t remember any of this. Lainie was only a few paces ahead of him. Her blond hair was tied back in a pigtail. He raised the flashlight. Sorry ’bout this, he thought in advance. The aspirin’s on me. Before he could make his move, however, a harsh electronic buzz emanated from his jacket’s inner pocket. Pete felt the Farnsworth vibrate insistently-at the worst possible moment. Not now, Artie! But it was already too late. The jarring signal alerted Lainie, who whirled about, swinging the cutlass in a deadly arc. Pete threw himself backward barely in time to avoid getting disemboweled. The tip of the blade shredded the front of his shirt, sending threads and buttons flying, but just missing the skin underneath. The close call sent his heart racing. Ignoring the persistent buzzing from his pocket, he took cover behind the carved wooden mermaid. He glanced down at the tattered fabric in shock. “Hey,” he protested. “I liked that shirt!” Lainie didn’t care. “Avast, ye filthy bilge rat! I’ll feed your salty guts to the sharks!” She came at him with a vengeance.
The cutlass hacked away at the figurehead like a chain saw in disguise. Wood chips and splinters pelted Pete’s face. The makeshift barricade was being whittled away right before his eyes. In seconds, there would be nothing left of the mermaid but a toothpick. He backed into the wall behind him. Lainie had him cornered. He reached for his gun. Could he really bring himself to shoot an innocent victim? “Sorry. That’s my partner you’re trying to turn into fish food,” a familiar voice called out from the opposite end of the hall. Myka Bering appeared in the doorway. The tall brunette aimed an exotic-looking handgun at Lainie. The weapon looked like something from an earlier century, all polished brass and crystal, in contrast to her black blazer and slacks. Copper coils and batteries glowed inside its transparent barrel. Miniature gauges monitored its charge.
Myka’s stern tone made it clear that she meant business. “Feeding time is over. Hand over the cutlass.” “Never! I’ll send ye down to Davy Jones’s locker ’fore I surrender me blade, you poxy wench!” Waving her cutlass, Lainie charged at Myka. Pete opened his mouth to warn his partner of the sword’s rapid-fire capacity, but he needn’t have bothered. A bolt of crackling blue electricity shot from the muzzle of the pistol, which had been designed and built by Nikola Tesla over seventy years ago. The galvanic blast stopped Lainie in her tracks.
She stiffened in shock, her hair standing on end, toppling backward onto the carpet. The cutlass slipped from her grip. Myka hurried forward and kicked the sword away from Lainie’s limp fingers. She scowled at the prone tour guide. “First off,” she said, “I know exactly where Davy Jones’s locker is, and it’s nowhere near the bottom of the ocean.” She nudged Lainie with her toe to make sure she was down for the count. “Second, don’t call me a wench.” Pete emerged from behind what was left of the mermaid. “Duly noted.” Myka eyed her partner with amusement. She was an attractive woman, only a few years younger than Pete, with curly auburn hair and dark brown eyes. She lowered the Tesla gun. Now that the immediate threat was over, her voice adopted a more teasing tone. “‘Bilge rat’?” “Don’t start.” Pete brushed sawdust from his face and clothes. “What took you so long?” “I stumbled onto a security guard upstairs. He was lying on the floor in the Sunken Treasure exhibit.” She glanced at Lainie’s unconscious form. “Our Anne Bonny wannabe here had got to him first.” “Eww.” Pete imagined what the supercharged cutlass could do to a person. He grimaced at the grisly images flashing across his mind. “Was he…?” He pantomimed a chopping motion with his hand. “What? No, no,” Myka assured him. “He was just out cold. I figure he interrupted Lainie on her way to the cutlass.” Pete was glad to hear it. Sweeping up shredded security guard was nobody’s idea of a good time. “Why do you think the cutlass latched onto her?” “Proximity? Aptitude?” Myka shrugged. “Maybe she just spent too much time around the sword, and eventually it started invading her psyche? You know how it works.
Sometimes artifacts can lie dormant for years before the right person-or the wrong one-comes into contact with them. Lainie probably just clicked with the cutlass for some weird metaphysical reason.
After a while, she couldn’t resist stealing it from the exhibit.” “And we all saw how well that worked out for her.” Pete decided that he could skip any new pirate movies from now on. He nodded at the cutlass. “Let’s neutralize this bad boy before Johnny Depp gets his hands on it.” “Better late than never,” she agreed. “You care to do the honors?” “Why not?” Carefully following procedure, the agents donned specially treated purple latex gloves before handling the artifact. The last thing they wanted was for one of them to become possessed by the cutlass. Pete plucked the short, broad blade from the floor while Myka unfolded a lightweight metallic-silver evidence bag large enough to contain the cutlass. A small quantity of viscous purple fluid sloshed inside the bag; the concentrated “goo” could temporarily neutralize the arcane energies in certain artifacts. She held the bag open. “All set?” Pete asked. He held the cutlass gingerly over the bag like it was radioactive. Myka nodded. “Ready when you are.” “Okay. Watch your eyes.” Pete dropped the cutlass into the bag, then hastily looked away. A fountain of incandescent golden sparks erupted from the bag as the energized cutlass reacted with the goo.
The pyrotechnic display faded quickly, but the flash was still bright enough to make Pete’s eyes water. Glowing blue dots danced briefly in his field of vision. Myka was blinking too. Wow, he thought. That was a bright one. The sparks were a good sign, though. They meant that the cutlass really was the artifact they were looking for. An ordinary sword, with no supernatural properties, would not have triggered the reaction. Myka sealed the bag for safekeeping. In theory, the goo would keep the cutlass quiet on the way back to the Warehouse. Pete’s jacket buzzed again. Artie obviously wanted an update. “You going to answer that?” Myka asked. “Yeah. Hang on.” He fished the insistent device from his pocket. Resembling an old-fashioned cigarette case, the Farnsworth was encased in a burnished bronze lozenge. He flipped open the lid to reveal a convex glass screen above a number of antique-looking knobs and dials. A video cell phone, the gadget was based on a prototype developed by Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, one weekend back in 1929. Completely off the grid of more conventional telecommunications networks, the Farnsworth provided the most secure line known to the Warehouse and its agents. Pete and Myka shared a single Farnsworth. A red light flashed in sync with the buzzing. Pete flicked a switch to accept the call. “Hi, Artie.”
Preceded by a burst of static, the face of a grizzled older man appeared on the miniature TV screen. Bushy black eyebrows that looked like they were on steroids bristled above a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Gray hairs infiltrated his frizzy black hair and beard. Artie Nielsen shoved his face forward. A fish-eye lens distorted the black- and-white image slightly, giving it the look of a funhouse mirror. A brusque voice emanated from the Farnsworth. “Did you get it?” “We’re fine, thanks for asking,” Pete replied. Artie could get a bit curmudgeonly where bagging artifacts was concerned. After being cooped up in the Warehouse for nearly four decades, his phone manners had grown rusty. “But, yep, we got it.” “Thank goodness.” Artie sighed in relief. He relaxed visibly. “Run into any problems?” Pete glanced around at the trashed museum. Calico Jack was nothing but shavings.
The figurehead was kindling. Lainie Evers was sprawled upon the floor.
