toes, and reached the other arm straight up, measuring the pirate’s height. “Have it for you this afternoon, sir,” he said before he rushed off.
“Tie him to the mainmast until then,” Clift said to Carrisimo. “And keep an eye on him. Your health is directly tied to his.”
“Yes, sir,” Carrisimo said.
Clift strode off, and Jane took advantage of the moment to pull me to the rail. “Okay, talk. What did you do?”
I didn’t want to keep things from my partner, especially after berating her for doing the same thing. “Just between us, right?”
“Sure.”
“I sicced a ghost on him.”
She stared at me. Then in a whisper, she said, “You mean there really was a ghost?”
I nodded. “You saw him, too. When you were delirious. The little blond cabin boy.”
She let out a long, low breath. “Fuck me.”
I had nothing to say to that, so I added, “And you saw his friend, the little girl.”
“You said I hallucinated her.”
“I thought you had. I hadn’t seen her yet. She said she was killed by Marteen’s monster.”
“She spoke to you?”
I nodded.
Jane shook her head. “Does this sort of thing happen to you a lot, LaCrosse?”
I recalled a freakish little man who’d been kept alive by magic for over five hundred years. “More often than you’d think.”
That night, we had dinner in Clift’s cabin. There was still a lingering hint of Marteen in the air, but Avencrole the cook had put together a suitably pungent dinner to cover it. The main course was a fertilized chicken egg cooked and eaten in the shell, known as the “treat with feet.”
As we ate, Clift said, “We need to clear the air about the treasure.”
“Yeah,” Jane said.
I said, “I told both of you, if we find it, I have no interest in it. You two can have it.”
“Will you sign something to that effect?” Clift pressed.
I was still tired and sore from the battle yesterday, and the experience with the ghosts last night, and this was the final straw. I stood and slammed my fist on the table, rattling the dishes. “Yes, I’ll sign anything if it means you two will stop asking about it. In case you’ve forgotten it, you both work for me right now. I’d appreciate a little more diligence in that and a little less counting imaginary gold pieces in your head.” I threw my napkin on my plate, as petty a gesture as it sounds, and slammed the dayroom’s door behind me as I went on deck.
There, the night wind cooled me off and I immediately regretted losing my temper. It was a sign of how exhausted I must actually be, and I decided to have Suhonen moved back to his hammock. After all, having room to stretch his legs hadn’t appreciably sped up his recovery.
Then it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked Marteen about the poxbinder. Certainly he’d know what it was for, and at this point, he’d probably tell me more than I ever wanted to know about it. I found Celia Zandry in charge for the night shift and said, “Can I get a couple of strong backs to pull Marteen’s cage up? I need to ask him something.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Does the captain know about it?”
Despite everything, I felt a flash of anger, which I did my best to choke down. “He doesn’t. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go tell him.” I was careful not to say, go ask him.
“No, I suppose it’s all right, you being the paymaster and all.” She sent three sailors with me, and they wound up the winch that pulled Marteen’s cage up from where it hung. The boom holding it creaked under its weight.
When it rose into the light from the deck lanterns, though, it was immediately clear Marteen was dead. He slumped in the floor of the cage, one arm hanging out through the wooden slats. I grabbed the cage with my good arm, swung it over the deck, and by the time it landed with a thud, I had the lock off and the door open.
I dragged Marteen out. There wasn’t a mark on him, just a look of absolute terror on his face. Flies already clustered around his wide-open eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. The news spread in whispers through the crew.
Clift appeared from below, followed by Jane. He pushed through the crowd and knelt beside Marteen. “What happened?” he demanded.
“I wanted to ask him some more questions,” I said wearily. “He was dead when he came up.”
Clift examined him as well, and like me found no sign of injury. “That stinking bastard,” he seethed.
“He wasn’t a young man,” I said. “And he was terrified. Maybe his heart just gave out.”
Clift got to his feet. “Well, he’s no good to us anymore. Throw him over the side.”
Two of the men who’d helped lift the cage did as Clift instructed. The splash as Marteen’s body hit the dark water was barely audible on deck. Clift kicked the cage in frustration.
“I sure hope he wasn’t joking about that island,” he snarled. “For everyone’s sake, but especially yours, Mr. LaCrosse.” Then he turned and marched off.
Jane came close and said, “You’re doing a real good job of pissing off the people you should want on your side.”
“You mean the ones that are only interested in treasure?”
Jane looked around to see if anyone had overheard the T-word.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re a piece of work, Jane.”
I turned, and Suhonen stood right behind me, towering over me as always. I jumped. So did most of the others on deck; somehow the gigantic sailor had slipped up on all of us. He wore only a loincloth and the bandages around his chest.
“We need a new piss barrel, I overflowed this one,” he said. “How long was I out? Did I miss anything?”
I looked up at him and began to laugh. So did Jane. After a moment, so did Suhonen. It spread to everyone. And by the time we finished, I wasn’t angry anymore, just eager to finally reach the island and confront the other Edward.
Alex Bledsoe
Wake of the Bloody Angel chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Eighteen days later, I stood with Jane and Captain Clift at the bow, staring ahead through fog so thick, it was like pastry frosting. The cool damp felt nice after the tropical sun, but it also had us on edge-we wanted to find Marteen’s island, but not by crashing into it.
We found the archipelago he’d indicated on the map, but we’d hit it at the far southern tip. The first island was big, and fires told us it was occupied. The one Marteen specified was in the middle of the group, so we thought we’d have no trouble locating it. We passed all the others, and knew Marteen’s should be next, slightly to the west. Then the fog closed in. We sat at anchor for four days until it lifted enough for us to get our bearings, but it was only yanking our anchor chain. Now we were wrapped in it, sailing at a crawl, and everyone was on edge.
“No bottom at twenty!” someone called from amidships, where he constantly played out a knotted line. If the sea floor started to rise, it meant land was near. Usually.
“This is inconvenient,” Clift said. Then he called up to the lookout, “Anything?”
“Nearly got decapitated by a seagull who looked as lost as we are,” Estella called back.
“We’re not lost,” Clift said. “We’re exactly on course; we just can’t see where we’re going.” He turned to me and said more quietly, “I’d have bet Marteen was too scared to lie to us, but now I’m not so sure. Think he plotted us into a trap?”
“How could he?” Jane said. “He sent us to a real island. It was on all your maps. Everything else was accurate.”
“It was an island, maybe not the island,” Clift said. “Maybe he sent us to an island always cloaked in fog, with a ship’s graveyard waiting for us.”
“He thought he’d be along for the ride,” I pointed out.
“Might have been worth his own death to ensure ours,” Clift said.
