Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (30 page)

“Temper, temper, young Morgan,” said the Count, smiling down at Jim. “This island is deadly enough without diving headlong into a fight you cannot possibly win. Besides, running across old friends on enemy shores is considered a good omen, is it not?”

Jim rolled off his back and onto his hands and knees, coughing and gasping for air. He scrambled away from the Count and Bartholomew as Splitbeard and his Corsairs slowly surrounded him and his friends in the clearing.

“You’re not my friend,” Jim shouted between gasping breaths. “You’ve taken everything! But I promise you this, one day I’m going to take it all back!”

“You shall find taking from the Cromiers a bit more difficult with my sword through your heart!” Bartholomew raged. He dashed forward with his blade raised to strike. Lacey screamed again and Jim did his best to seem brave as he waited for the blow to finish him forever. But once more, the Red Count stopped his son’s deadly intentions with a sharp command.

“Bartholomew! Sheath your sword!”

“Father!” Bartholomew shrieked. His sword’s razor sharp point had stopped only inches from Jim’s chest. “This is the son of your sworn enemy. The only heir of the man who stole our glory all those years ago. Every breath he draws is an insult to you…and to me.” A further dose of venom seeped into Bartholomew’s eyes. Murder glinted in his bared teeth.

Jim’s heart pounded. There was no way out of this trap. The pirates, including the grinning Splitbeard, had them surrounded. Jim was not entirely sure that even Bartholomew’s father could stop him from killing Jim for much longer. The poison in his veins from the blackened rose had all been for nothing. He and his friends were about to die on the Veiled Isle.

The south wind blew again and rustled the grass.

Somewhere behind the flute song in Jim’s head, which had been steadily gaining strength as the day wore on, a tiny idea pricked the back of Jim’s mind. There was a chance, he thought, still one small
chance at the revenge he had been promised in the blackened rose – or if not that, at least hope for escape.

“I took my revenge on Lindsay Morgan, Bartholomew - if you recall,” said the Count. He walked up behind his son and once more swatted the sword down with a gloved hand. “And we would not have needed to set foot on this wretched island were it not for
other
failings.”

Bartholomew’s face went as dark crimson as his father’s curled wig. His sword shook in his hand. If the young Cromier’s eyes had been blades themselves, Jim thought, he would have run Jim through that very moment. But Bartholomew, his face trembling as violently as his sword, turned away from both Jim and his father and stalked off into the tall grass. He sliced at the brown stalks as he went, mowing them down until he disappeared into the field.

“You see, Jim, I’m not such a bad fellow, am I?” The Count forced a stiff smile across his face, but his scar quivered upon his cheek. “This is the third time I’ve saved your life from my own son, is it not? Now, that must count for something, don’t you think?”

“Should I say thank you?” Jim tried as best he could to ignore the gnawing ache in his arm. But the pain only grew worse as he undid his wrappings behind his back, exposing the wound to the open air. “If you’re keeping me alive just so you can steal something else, I think you’ll be disappointed. There’s nothing left to take.”

“Oh, my dear boy.” The Count leaned down to look Jim in the eye. The fake smile slipped from his lips. His voice coiled into a snarl. “There’s always something left to take. This time I shall take you and your friends as shields from the devilry of this cursed island! Your father’s map has led us along dangerous paths, and the number of our hired hands has begun to dwindle.”

Jim looked the Count and his men over. Indeed, at least six or seven corsairs had been in the little boat with the Count, Bartholomew, and Splitbeard when they had slipped by the
Spectre
. Yet now there remained only two. Bruises, welts, and cuts to spare covered them both. All save for Splitbeard that was. The sinewy captain of the
Sea Spider
seemed as fresh and cheerful as when Jim had first laid eyes upon him.

“The Lord Lindsay Morgan was nothing if not a most clever man, oh great Count,” said Splitbeard in his thick accent. “To have drawn a map through which even the holder would struggle to follow was a stroke of genius. And, most honorable one, does his son not seem equally as clever, to have come so far with no weapons and no map of his own? A great surprise indeed.”

“Yes, a great surprise,” the Count replied. He narrowed his eyes at Jim and a smile once more curled on his powdered face. “How ironic it is, young Morgan, that the two of us shall now finish what your father and I began? It is inspiring really. Cromier and Morgan, joining forces once more!”

“I’ve heard that before!” said Lacey, cradling the weary and injured Cornelius in her arms. “Joining forces is just a lie that means hiding behind children and sending them into traps and dangers first, so that we get hurt or killed while you get your treasure. No offense, mister Count, but we’ve heard better liars than you tell the same story.”

“Oh, my, my, my, what a bold little girl.” The Count glared nastily at Lacey. “So much wit and spirit amongst the five of you! I should have known there would be no reasoning. Fine then, let us forget joining forces.” The Count leveled his sword at the clan and slowly passed the blade before each of their faces. “When I say join forces, what I mean is to march you through every door, over every barrier, and into every hole we cross until I find the cave on this map. Then I will take what I came here to find! And if there are none of you left when I am finished, I shall consider myself blessed with but a little more peace and quiet!” The Count then rested the cold point of his sword upon Jim’s throat - the steel touch was cold as ice.

“All save for you, young Morgan. You shall watch your friends test the waters for us again and again. I will save you for last. For there is an even greater task in which you will yet serve me, to make amends for your father’s treachery. Now, Splitbeard,” ordered the Count, sheathing his sword with a flourish. “Bind our friends’ hands and march them north. We have miles to go and little time in which to cover them.”

Jim shook with anger at the Count. The more furious he became the hotter the poison burned in his hand. The black tendrils had worked their way farther up Jim’s arm. The only relief came from the cool, evening wind…

…the cool wind blowing south toward the crags.

Jim strained his ears over the rustling grass. A small smile fought its way onto his quivering lips. He finally heard the sound for which he’d been waiting.

“Sorry, Count.” Jim forced himself to his feet. “But we’ve already made some new friends on this island. In fact, I’d like you to meet them!” Jim thrust his poisoned hand into the sky, further into the wind. “Let me introduce you to Ocy, Celia, and Ally!”

A piercing scream split the darkening sky. The harpy sisters plummeted through the air, talons gleaming in the last traces of sunlight.

“Man-flesh!” shrieked Celia, bolting into the clearing.

“Harpies!” Splitbeard cried, diving into the dirt. The arrogant smile finally fell from his face.

The Count and his pirates scattered, waving their swords skyward as though they might offer some protection against the fury of the harpy sisters. Two pairs of arms seized Jim from behind and jerked him backward. It was Lacey and George, dragging him beneath the crossed, pistol-bearing arms of the stone pirates, where Peter and Paul already cowered.

But the stone pirates provided little protection for the clan. Ocy and Celia descended upon them. The harpies’ claws shattered the statue heads into white dust. Two winged sisters perched upon what remained of the stone pirates, leering down on the children. They licked their lips and chomped their needle teeth. Ally came in behind her sisters and landed on the ground beside the clan, waving a wing at the Ratts. Jim thought he even saw her give Paul a wink, as though they were old friends.

“Thought you could escape us, did ya, ya scrawny runts? Thought you could run and hide forever from we three sisters of the island?”
Celia glared at Jim, the scratch on the side of her face still fresh and red.

“Actually,” Jim said, holding his left wrist tight in his hand, for it throbbed and burned worse than ever before. “We felt really bad about that little incident back there, didn’t we? So, we decided to make it up to you.”

“Yes, indeed, Jim,” said Paul immediately. “Absolutely terrible form. You should know that I, for one, felt deeply ashamed of myself the moment we left. But, we said to ourselves, we
are
awfully scrawny – just as you said, madam. And even if we were to do you right, and walk all the way back to the crags and offer ourselves up to you, which we actually thought about doin’, well, we’d be no more than a snack! And that would just make things worse, wouldn’t it?”

“What you ladies need, is a full-blown feast!” said Peter. He pointed to the Count and the three pirates, still picking themselves off the ground and beginning to run for their lives. “And we just happen to have a walking, talking feast waiting for you right over there.”

“’Specially that red-haired chap,” said George, thumbing toward the Count, who was stumbling backward into the grass. “Savory lookin’, in’t he?”

“And Ally,” Lacey added. “We didn’t forget about you, did we? Look at what all the tasty pirates are holding.”

Ally’s yellow eyes lifted to the pirates…then to their swords. If it were possible, her big, bird eyes went wider than they already were. They sparkled with some sort of madness and a greedy smile stretched across her hideous face.

“Glitteries!” Ally released a tooth-rattling shriek and launched herself between her sisters to chase down the Count and his men. She tackled one of the Corsairs to the ground before he reached the tall grass. Ally’s two sisters were quick to follow, but not before Celia shouted over her shoulder:

“Just remember little man-children,” she squawked. “There’ll still be room for desert!”

“Run!” Lacey cried. But Jim and the others were already on their feet. The Clan of the Ratt scurried to the edge of the clearing in the direction of the forest. The sound of screaming and cursing men, screeching harpies, and flapping wings roared behind them.

“You know, I’m beginning to like them bird-ladies,” George said, wiping his brow with a free hand. “Rather helpful in a pinch, ain’t they?” Jim was about to tell George that he was an idiot, but before he could open his mouth, Peter and Paul parted a wall of tall grass like a brown curtain. Behind the stalks, appeared the dirty, sweat-stained red coat of Captain Bartholomew Cromier, his teeth clenched in hate.

Jim’s eyes went to Bartholomew’s gloved hand. It squeezed the handle of his captain’s sword in a shaking grasp. The pale man’s raven-black hair hung in sweaty strands around his face. Red circles rimmed his icy eyes. He had been crying, Jim realized, crying from the way his father had shamed him. For the first time, Jim saw how young Bartholomew really was.

“You have no idea what it’s like, do you?” Bartholomew asked Jim, his voice tight and thick. “Not with your father, did you? Not with the perfect and honorable, Lord Lindsay Morgan. No idea at all.” Bartholomew spat the name of Jim’s father.

“No,” Jim said quietly. “I do know.”

“Know it all then, do you? Think you’re better than me too, do you?”

Jim’s heart hammered in his chest. Not the Count, not Splitbeard, not Hudson, not anyone else he had ever known was near enough to stop what was about to happen. Jim’s poisoned arm burned hot and he fell to one knee from the pain.

“On your knees again then, eh, Morgan?” Bartholomew seethed, raising his sword. “The way it is destined to end between us! One on his knees and the other with sword in hand!” Bartholomew raised his blade over his head.

But before Bartholomew could strike, a howl split Jim’s ears. The thumping beat of feathered wings clapped over his head and slammed
into Bartholomew. The younger Cromier was suddenly rolling head over heels back through the tall grass, tossed aside like a rag doll. The spread wings of a harpy landed between Bartholomew and Jim. The flying hunter slowly turned to face the clan. For one terrifying heartbeat, Jim was sure it would be Celia’s scarred face before him, ready to make good on her promise to devour them all for desert. Instead though, the face that greeted them was decorated with a deranged smile and googly yellow eyes.

“Hullo, ya li’l devils!” said Ally. “Couldn’t be havin’ my game - playin’ friends skewered by that bully, now could I? Who would we chase after dinner? Now, run along with you and I’ll make me sisters count to one hundreds before we come chasin’ ya again! Harpy’s honor!”

“Thank you, Miss Ally,” Lacey said. The children wasted no time and ran off again through the tall grass. Paul, however, stopped for a moment, reached into his pocket, and flicked something at Ally’s feet.

“You’re a real sport, Miss Ally!” he said, tipping his hat and bowing low. “A real sport, indeed!” As the children made their escape, Jim could hear Ally cackling and laughing at the top of her lungs about owning the roundest, most-glitteriest marble in the entire world.

NINE