these waters.”
“About Villaine?”
“That and… other concerns.”
Crimson said, “Name them.”
“You know of Benbow’s notoriety.”
“Yes,” she said, “as I said, everyone does in these waters. They say it’s a cursed island. Particularly among the slaves and South Americans you’ll find such prevailing stories. Benbow has a malevolent reputation. The myths go back hundreds of years, I’d guess, but saw a new resurgence a decade or so ago. A ship full of Africans coming in from Ghana was burned there by a trader angry with his competitors. Some sixty captives were burned alive and a few, supposedly, didn’t die. They were taken to the depths by the devil. In hurricane season they’re stirred to the surface where they set about and feast on men.”
Maycomb had obviously heard the tale. He may have been a proper Brit but she realized he had a superstitious streak beneath his lordly exterior. “And what do you think? Is it only a grand legend?”
“Not so grand. I’d say Villaine might have chosen a better place to put in. Quite possibly he settled there to take advantage of its unfavorable repute. It would help keep strangers away. Whether government officials or other buccaneers who might attempt to sack him.”
“In the West Indies, there are those who believe in beasts known as the Loogaroo.”
Crimson willed her fingers to stop trembling and poured herself another glass of wine. She tried not to swig it and hoped to appear calm. She had perfected a stony countenance long ago, but now she could feel the facade about to crack and slip. “Go on.”
“The creatures are also said to have once been human, men and women who’ve made a pact with Satan or some old world god, receiving profane powers in exchange for offerings of blood. The Loogaroo is a shapeshifter that’s presumably entered the Caribbean from Guinea and the African Congo. On the ivory coast they call it Asanbosam.”
“So they say.”
“I spent a great deal of time in Scotland as a child. There, this beast, if it exists, is known as the Boabhan Sith, a parasite that disguises itself and lures travelers to their deaths. The Germans have another name for it, the Blutsauger. In Ireland, the Dearg-Due.”
She did not need a history lesson in this area. She’d met people from all across the face of the earth and heard the epic fables and mythologies. The Chinese named it His-Hsue-Kuei, the “suck-blood demon.” Brazilians knew the Jaracacas, which appeared in the shape of a snake feeding from the breast of a nursing mother, which pushed the infant out of the way and kept it quiet by shoving its tail into the baby’s mouth. Until the beast grew tired of milk and began feasting on blood. She knew of at least a dozen more such tales.
“You’ve quite an imagination, Mr. Maycomb.”
“I pride myself on my reason and common sense.”
“Perhaps most men of wild fancies do, sir.”
Elaine Maycomb, who had offered nothing to this thread of the conversation, turned pale and managed to cough a single word loose from deep in her chest. “ Daemonia Wampyros.”
“There’s no such critter,” Crimson replied, as she always would.
Maycomb eyed her for a moment. “Have you ever been in love, Lady Sanglant Cheveaux?”
“The hell kind of question is that, you pompous bastard?”
“We’ve heard that you know something of these matters. That you yourself have lost one dear to you.”
“You’ve been told lies.”
“You needed to know my circumstances and now you do. I’ll pay whatever price you ask. I want to hire a private vessel and have you lead us to Villaine’s refuge. Once there, you can leave immediately if you so wish.”
“You can both sink to the bottoms.” Crimson toppled her chair as she stormed out, hoping none of her enemies approached just now. She wouldn’t be able to draw her cutlass with these damn hands. Her lip was bleeding again and she sucked at it, tasting the blood as it filled her mouth.
She spat it out on the lobby floor.
3
In the deep night, she gazes down from her snow-covered tower staring at the ice-choked sea and the splintered hulls of shipwrecks crushed against the rocks. Masts lay shattered and askew, lines flail in search of victims. Torn sails flap and hang loose as the shredded clothes of murdered men.
She glances at the cliffs and wonders if she’ll ever have the strength to leap to a complacent, satisfying death. So peaceful and extraordinary. There are dead sailors there, she thinks, drifting in the waves and crawling about on the reef. They wait with soulless gazes, gesturing to her, beckoning, always and forever watching. Some of them are her former crew members, some family.
Her mother is immersed in the rushing waters, with her nightgown floating up around her shoulders. Mama with her eyes glowing yellow and peering up at her, arms raised.
She brushes the curtains and those faces in the drapes glower and glare. No wonder Mama gave up so early, so young. No one could live for long with the weight of so much evil bearing down all the time.
The snow falls.
Turning, she hears the rustling of her husband’s entrance.
He slips inside through the bolted door and whispers for her. “Cassandra.” This has happened many times before, and yet she can remember no particulars—only the constant burden of failed responsibility. The unrelenting blackness grows thicker each night because of this.
Now she feels him here, gliding across the room towards her as his features take shape in the dark. Mama is singing so far below, one of the Irish songs about open fields of battle and dying beloved horses. The Irish whimpered over every ache but they knew how to sing of glory and tragedy. It could make you fall to your knees weeping when nothing else would. Mama goes on.
Clouds slither across the sky. Curtains snap against his collar and his long black hair is silhouetted by the moon, framing each angle of the face she knows so well. His arm reaches past and slowly closes the shutters, as though he’s aware of her thoughts. There was a time when she enjoyed that, feeling him warmly nestled inside her mind. His cloak sweeps against her thigh and she recalls dancing with him across marble verandas in Jamaica.
As the shutters squeak and ease together the light dwindles to almost nothing, until she is alone with him and the complete gloom of their attachment. Devotion is damnation. The cold intensifies until she’s shuddering violently, teeth chattering, knowing her love has found her again. She reaches out hoping to grab hold of him, if he’s there. He’s always there.
“Cassandra.”
“Leave me, Tyree.”
“No.”
“You must, for your own endless rest.”
“Never, love.”
“Be at peace.”
“Only with you.”
His voice is very much the same, most of the time, and it lifts her heart too far when she hears it. This is truly what hell is, she thinks: the living hope for the love of a dead man.
What more can God do to her?
Nothing, she decides, and with that belief comes resolution, even relief. It’s exactly what she’s been waiting for, here in her tower. She backs up to the bed and lays back against the thick covers once more. She’s as ready as she can be, and prays it is enough.
“Then come back to me.”
“I cannot,” he tells her. “I try but it is so…difficult…even this… touching you in this way…”
“What…?”
There are lives beyond the daylight, plateaus one can only reach in nightmare. Mama taught her that, back
