The Devil's Fire (29 page)

Her arm was quivering from the weight of the weapon. She allowed it to fall slightly. Griffith misinterpreted this as an opening and took a step forward. She tensed her arm and pressed the nozzle into her chin. He halted, but stayed exactly where he had advanced. He was making progress.

"If you truly care for me," she said, choosing her words carefully, "you will release me at Nassau. Tell Governor Rogers that you rescued me from the last pirate ship you plundered. I will corroborate your story. No one need know otherwise. Take the reward for yourself."

"I will do no such thing," he said. "I do care for you, but that very concern prevents me from releasing you. I’m sorry. I know you don’t understand right now. I hope that one day you will."

"You speak boldly to a woman with a loaded weapon."

"A woman who possesses no intention of using it."

"What makes you so certain?"

"You would have pulled the trigger by now."

She blinked, and her vision was blurred with tears. The gun was shaking in her grasp, its weight tugging at her arms. She wanted nothing more than to let it fall to the floor.

Griffith took another cautious step forward. He smiled softly and outstretched a hand, fingers slowly uncurling. His hand resembled an overturned spider, slowly waking. "Let me have that," he said.

"No," she said. "There’s no other way out of this."

"There’s always a way," he hissed, abandoning tact. "You just have to look a little deeper. This ship will not be our lives forever, don’t you see that? We’re so close now. So very close. If you end it now, you’ll rob yourself of what might have been."

She pictured Nassau port, with its lush trees, and its pirate-hating governor.
So close.

"Yes," he said, his eyes gleaming hungrily, hand outstretched and beckoning her. "There is always another way."

"You’re right," she nodded. She aimed the gun squarely at his head.

The gleam instantly left his eyes and his cheeks went a shade paler than his heavily sunned skin normally permitted. "What are you doing?"

"You’ve convinced me."

"Convinced you?"

"Only one of us will leave this cabin, Captain. Sweet of you to bargain so diligently for my life over your own. You see, I don’t really want to die. I never wanted to die. But I cannot suffer another minute of this world with you in it. In order for me to live, I must kill you."

"My crew will slaughter you."

"Maybe," she shrugged. "Whatever happens to me, that silly expression on your face is more than worth the trouble. When I am reunited with my husband in the next life, I’ll relate to him just how pathetic you looked when I killed you."

All kindness vacated his face. His features contorted, clenched teeth showing behind snarling lips, cheeks blooming a homicidal shade of red, a single vein bulging from his forehead. "You ungrateful little whore!"

She squeezed the trigger, but it required more pressure than she was prepared for. It didn’t budge, and Griffith saw his opening and lunged at her. The next few seconds seemed to stretch into long, sluggish minutes in which she viewed the events distinctly and without distortion. Griffith was no longer pathetically comical; he had twisted into some kind of merciless animal. She finally glimpsed what his enemies must have seen before he killed them. Muscles rippled beneath his clothes as he thrust himself at her. His face was bright red now, his bulging eyes threatening to explode from his skull, saliva frothing from his mouth. His hands stretched before him, fingers splayed and gnarled like claws.

He had advanced within two feet when she heard a metallic snap, followed at once by a deafening blast. Something stung her eyes, forcing them closed. She blinked rapidly, cleansing her eyes with tears. An impenetrable cloud of white smoke was suspended before her, obscuring Griffith.

And then, over the ringing in her ears, she heard his bloodcurdling shriek. A pair of clammy hands grasped her arms. His face passed through the smoke. She gasped and dropped the gun. It landed with a distant clunk on the wooden floor. The bullet had ruptured his left cheek and exited behind the ear she had bitten on their first meeting. Blood spewed from each end. The gaping, smoldering hole revealed shattered molars. He tried to say something, but only blood spilled out of his mouth, like water from a faucet.

Katherine tore herself away from him. He staggered after her with frenzied desperation in his eyes, wailing and clasping at his cheek. She moved around the table as he followed. His arm swept over his liquor cabinet, toppling bottles of rum and wine. In her hectic retreat, the backs of Katherine's legs touched the foot of the bed and she nearly collapsed. She rolled out of the way as Griffith advanced, his blood-soaked hands pleading to her. He loosed a final, mournful wail, and then he collapsed face first onto the bed and lay still. Smoke wafted from the hole in his ear and blood soaked into the sheets.

Katherine moved without thinking. She snatched the smoking pistol from the floor and threw it onto the bed beside Griffith. Not a split second later, Livingston, One-Eyed Henry, and five other crewmen piled into the cabin. They gawked in silence, slowly approaching the bed. Thick smoke collected above them, trailing steadily from Griffith’s head.

Katherine sat on the desk, staring at the corpse, hoping desperately that the joy welling inside her was not written plainly across her face. Fortunately, she still had a few tears in her eyes, facilitated by the stinging smoke.

Livingston loomed over the bed for a long while, like a statue. When he finally turned, she was surprised to see him smiling. "Tell me he shot hisself," he said calmly.

"He shot himself," she replied in a shaky voice. When she looked at Griffith again, the little plume of smoke seemed to be thickening. The hole in his cheek was illuminated orange from within and dimly flickering.

Livingston’s teeth showed as he grinned. "I'm glad you said that, Katherine."

"What's to be glad about?" cried One-Eyed Henry. "He's bloody dead, he is! Don't make no difference how it happened! He's dead, and dead is dead! That's the end of it! Oh, bloody hell!"

"He shot hisself," Livingston sarcastically as he moved slowly toward Katherine. "Our dear captain, what just made his life's fortune, shot hisself. I suppose our dear captain weren’t known for his smarts in recent months. Truth be told, there be more brains spread over those sheets than I would have wagered he had in his skull."

As she gazed into Livingston's abhorred face, a strange calm swept over her. "He shot himself," she repeated.

"And that might very well be the truth of it, strange though it be!" Henry wailed. He was crouched over Griffith, closely examining the hole.

Livingston guffawed, slapping his thigh. "Henry fancies hisself a doctor now," he informed Katherine in a conspiratorial tone. "Probably thinks he can patch up that hole and send Griff on his way."

Henry’s cheeks bulged and he covered his mouth, convulsing over the smoking corpse. "Oh Christ, someone get a bucket of water. His tongue is on fire."

In spite of herself, Katherine started to chuckle. The absurdity of the situation, of these pirates, of life in general, had overwhelmed her. The tremors in her belly gave to laughter, and soon she was cackling hysterically. Livingston scowled, and that made her laugh all the harder. She pointed at him and laughed, and then she pointed at the corpse of Griffith and howled. Livingston seized her by the hair and shook her violently to make her stop, but she couldn't have stopped if she’d wanted to. Laughter flowed out of her until she was at a loss for breath. And even then she didn't stop. She laughed until her face was bright red and her voice was broken.

One of the crewman said, "Somebody plug that bitch's hole!"

Out of sheer exhaustion her laughter finally died, but still she chuckled like a little girl who has stayed up far past her bedtime.

"Feel better?" Livingston said with an arched brow.

"I really do," Katherine admitted with a luxurious sigh.

Livingston shook his head in bewilderment and said, "We'll do this on the main deck, where everyone can see."

Livingston straddled her waist and, with cutlass drawn, spread his arms to the gathering crowd. "No guns for this bitch!" he bellowed. "Not till the very end! She's taken from us our dear Captain Griffith!"

There was a collective gasp from the many that did not yet know.

"Very convincing," Katherine said. "Even I almost believe you care."

Livingston had to admit, this woman impressed him. There was not a hint of fear in those pretty eyes. But he knew better. "I know what you want, Lady Katherine. You won’t have it. In the end you’ll beg me to do it. And even then, I’ll keep you alive a little longer."

If this terrified her, she did an admirable job of not showing it. "I know what you want, Edward Livingston," she taunted with an infuriating smirk. "You won’t have it."

"Kill her!" came a shout from someone in the crowd.

"No!" Livingston said, wagging a finger. "Slowly she did him! And slowly we’ll do her! She took one piece at a time! We owe her the same!"

Several random cheers rose from the crowd, but there was also a low, underlying hum of dissonance. Livingston ignored the timid naysayers. His chest heaved, and with each breath he felt larger, like a god perched atop a mortal. "What piece did she take first? Is there any man here what remembers?"

"His ear!" someone cried. "She bit off Griff's ear!"

Livingston lowered his gaze to Lindsay and parted his lips in a macabre grin. He set down his cutlass and stripped off his shirt, revealing a hairy, muscular chest glazed in sweat. Still she offered no hint of distress.

"Leave her be!" came a feeble cry from the crowd. The voice was familiar.

Livingston frowned and glanced about. And then his eyes narrowed. He smirked. "Best stay out of it, Nathan! You won't be saving her with one arm! You’d have enough trouble trying with two!" The majority of the crowd roared laughter. Livingston silenced them with a fierce glare. "And any other man tries to stop me will get a bullet twixt his eyes!"

"Do it already!" someone shouted.

"Get on with it, Livingston!" exclaimed another.

"For pity’s sake," came a weaker voice, "she’s only a woman!"

"Do what you done to Thatcher!"

Livingston took a deep breath, reared his great chest, and then fell on Lindsay. He jerked her head sharply to one side, pressing her left cheek against the cold deck, and enclosed his mouth over her right ear. He licked the inside of the lobe, letting her squirm beneath him. He then retracted his tongue, took a breath, and bit down. He gnawed through her flesh, twisting his head this way and that, until his teeth clamped together. He came up with blood bubbling out of his mouth and streaming down the sides, and spat the ear at the crowd. A pirate snatched it out of the air and held it aloft for all to see. Most of them cheered. Some fell silent, as they had done when Livingston tortured Thatcher.

Lindsay’s shrill screams carried into the night, long after the cheers faded and only wayward moans of disapproval remained. Much of the crowd stared in collective shock, startled by the grisly sounds that came out of her. Livingston felt vindicated. "You lied. You’ve given me exactly what I wanted. Thank you."

She freed a hand and slapped it to her head, her fingertips scraping the gooey, curdled surface where her right ear had once been. A steady gush of blood splattered her palm and poured down her head, mixing nicely with her red hair.

Her screams gradually dissolved into pathetic whimpers. Livingston glanced about the crowd and glimpsed an uneasy anticipation on their faces. "Is this not what you wanted?" he demanded. "You feel sorry for her, is that it?"

There was a minor delay before someone half-heartedly yelled, "Never!"

"Good!" Livingston replied, scanning for the man who shouted. He couldn’t find him. "This is what they do! They wake sympathies we didn’t know we had! Sympathies are best left on land, where they belong! They rob us of our ambitions! They make us forget that the sea is our only true mistress . . . and she does not suffer women! Neither must we!" He pointed toward Nassau. "Women belong there! On land! Our dear captain forgot that, he did. And he paid for his infidelity with his life."

Several of them started to cheer, but the riposte felt forced and unsatisfying. They were frightened of him, Livingston realized with a smile.
Good,
he thought.
Let them be frightened.
He would soon be their new captain, after all. Who better to run this ship? And what better way to newly christen it than with the blood of the bitch that had murdered the previous captain?

Livingston looked down on her and snarled. "You're not done, missy. You're not done yet." He took up his cutlass. "There be Griffith's sliced up arm to consider. I think it was the left one, yes?" He pressed the blade to her left arm and gave it a brusque tug. She merely flinched, and Livingston inwardly cursed himself for starting so ambitiously with her ear. A sword slice was probably just a sting compared to the ache pulsating through her head right now.

There was a distant look in her eyes, which were directed past him, to the stars. He shifted, obstructing her gaze. She turned her head to look away and he squeezed her cheeks between thumb and forefinger, angling her head toward his. He would not allow her to see anything but him. Her eyelids fluttered as she shifted her gaze sharply to the left.

The nerve of this bitch!
She had been nothing more than a bony, whimpering waif when Griffith first dragged her aboard. Livingston allowed himself a moment of respect, taking in the fiery red halo splayed about her head. Her bosom, now full with the added weight she had acquired over the past year, heaved between his legs, cleavage mashing together. He felt his manhood struggling against the inseam of his breeches. He reached down and took hold of her shirt, tearing it open and freeing her breasts. He bent over to suck at a nipple. She moaned, probably from the pain of her absent ear, but he pretended she enjoyed his touch. And maybe she did, in spite of herself. "Little whore," he muttered as his tongue circled the areola.