Treasure Tides (The Coins) (23 page)

Joanna moaned and rubbed the back of her head. She had evidently
hit her head on that desk a little harder than she had originally thought.
She felt a sticky matted glob in her hair.
I don’t remember that much blood!
Forcing her eyes open, she tried to focus in the darkness. As her eyes
adjusted to the darkness, she was shocked to find that she was in a cell of
some kind.

Joanna struggled to breathe as bile rose in her throat. Her entire body
began to shake.
A full-fledged panic attack loomed just around the
corner.
She was in a cell
. Capture.
Torture.
Abuse.
Joanna knew she
could never live through that again. She made the difficult decision in
the blink of an eye.
She would will herself to die this time. She only
hoped her family would understand…and forgive her. Her family, she
couldn’t-- she
wouldn’t
let them down without at least trying. Catching
her breath on a sob, she tried to force herself to calm down and think
clearly. She had to find a way out.

“Child, are you ok?” she felt the question whisper through her. It
drifted through her, over her… like soothing hands… gentle and caring.
“Child, are you ok?” There it was again, something soothing and
strangely familiar.
“Where are you? Who are you?” Joanna whispered, pulling herself
out of the pit of despair and hopelessness that had threatened to
consume her. She shivered and forced herself into a sitting position on
the cold floor.
“Look to your left, along the back wall.” This time the voice could be
heard.
Joanna turned her head slowly in the direction of the soft voice.
Three women were seated very calmly on a long wooden bench
running the length
of
the cell.
A
soft light
illuminated
their
surroundings.
Apparently they
were unconcerned with the chains
securing their wrists to the wall behind them.
Thank God she had not
been chained up…yet. Shivering, Joanna pushed that thought quickly
from her mind.
“Child, we have not been harmed.
You will not be harmed either.
My name is Grace,” the oldest of the trio assured her.
Nodding to the forty-something red-head on her left, she introduced
her; “This is Lucy.”
“Hey,’ Lucy said with a smile. Nodding to her left, she continued,
“and this is Joyce.”
Joyce looked like a movie star. She was stunning with dark hair and
lavender eyes.
“What is your name?” Joyce asked, smiling as if she were not carrying
on a conversation while locked in a dungeon.
“My name is Joanna,” she answered warily.
Her brow furrowed in
confusion. Unless she was mistaken, her companions were obviously
Witches. They could have probed her mind to find out whatever they
wanted to know while she had been unconscious.
“Oh, we try not to pry,” Lucy said batting her eyes.
Joyce looked at Lucy and rolled her eyes.
Well, some of us try
harder than others.”
Lucy chuckled, “Some of us don’t pretend to be a puritan.”
“Girls, that is enough,” Grace interrupted the banter. “Joanna will
think she has fallen down a rabbit hole.”
“Now that you mention it….” Joanna rubbed her head again,
making a face as she encountered the matted patch in her hair.
Blood!
Panic began to overtake her; sucking, pulling her into the
past. The room began to spin.
Pain. Midwives. Soldiers. Grief. She had
to get out
!
Escape.
“No,” Joanna said aloud. She struggled to her feet swaying as the
world continued to spin.
“Joanna,” Grace said harshly. Joanna jerked to an abrupt stop as a
jolt of electricity ran through her. She felt as if she had been touched
with a cattle prod.
“Lucy,” Joyce scolded.
Shrugging her shoulders, Lucy said, “What? She was freaking out.
I just
grounded
her a little.”
Grace frowned at Lucy, who seemed to shrink for a moment.
“Joanna, you are safe here. I promise. We need your help,” Grace
spoke softly.
“Yes, those idiots think we can’t escape,” Lucy laughed. “As if…
The truth is, we are just waiting for the--” she stopped abruptly and
looked toward Grace, who shook her head, “right moment,” Lucy
finished lamely.
“What? Where are we?” Joanna asked still fighting confusion.
“Ohhh, we are on Castle Pinckney,” Joyce answered with
excitement. “It’s such a cool place.”
Joyce
was
obviously
long
on
beauty
and
short
on
brains.
“Yea…not so much,” Joanna responded drearily.
“Why did you leave earlier? We thought you received our
messages. That was you out near here, right?” Lucy asked, almost
accusingly.
“With all the bulging muscle surrounding her earlier today, Joanna
obviously had her mind on other things, Lucy,” Joyce chimed in with
a laugh.
“Wait! That was you?” Joanna asked.
“Yes, dear,” Grace answered. “I knew we were pushing too hard,
but we had hoped to get a message to the sisterhood.”
“I’m so sorry. I picked up on something, but it was too faint to
understand. I really tried. I just couldn’t zero in on anything specific,”
Joanna said, remembering Landon and how kind he had been to her.
Admittedly, it had not started out that way, she remembered with a
smile.
“That’s ok, Joanna. The walls are reinforced here. They were built
specifically to make things difficult for us,” Grace said with sorrow.
“Why did you need to get a message to the sisterhood?” Joanna
asked.
Grace let the first sign of her distress show.
She wrinkled her brow
and closed her eyes for a moment.
Joanna waited quietly for Grace to answer. A minute turned into two.
She glanced toward Lucy who was looking at herself in a compact
mirror, reapplying her lipstick. Joanna jerked her head fully toward Lucy,
not quite believing what she saw.
Lipstick? What the hell?
Not bothering to open her eyes, Grace said, “Lucy, put that away.
We don’t want them to know our powers still work in here.”
The compact and tube of lipstick disappeared.
Lucy huffed and
whined, “I’m bored in this small space. I need some room,” she said as
she dematerialized for a moment.
“Lucy, get back here this instant,” Joyce snapped.
“Oh, calm down,” Lucy said from the far end of the cell. “I just
needed a second.”
“I know, Lucy dear, but it shouldn’t be very much longer,” Grace said
as Lucy materialized on the bench with her wrists once more in encased
in iron. “I will take you on a vacation…wherever you want to go…for
an entire
week
when we finish here,” Grace promised with a gentle smile.
“OK, I’ll just sit tight. Right where I am, bored out of my mind,”
Lucy said with a syrupy smile. “But you know I would do anything for
you, Grace. I even used my best spell box on Royce, just like you asked
me to.”
Joanna felt blue sparks shooting from her eyes as she turned her lethal
gaze on Lucy.
“You did that to my brother?” Joanna stalked toward Lucy, fury
wrapping around her more tightly with each step.
Grace dematerialized and reappeared directly in Joanna’s path, placing
her body between Lucy and Joanna.
Grace was an ancient. Her magic was stronger than Joanna’s even
though temper did lend a definite boost at the moment.
“Two years,” Joanna said to Grace through clinched teeth, “Two
years we looked for him,” she continued as tears ran down her face. “I
needed him. I really needed him,” she sobbed as the flood gates opened,
pouring out two years of emotion.
Grace wrapped Joanna in her arms and crooned soft comforting
words in her ear. Finally, Joanna raised her eyes to Grace, who conjured
a tissue.
“Why, Grace? Why did you take him away?”
“He was in danger, child,” Grace said leading Joanna to sit on the
long wooden bench. “We were not trying to harm him,” she explained
as she too sat down. “We were trying to protect him the most expedient
way we could.”
“Protect him? What were you protecting him from?” Joanna asked,
scrubbing her cheeks dry on the tail of her shirt.
“Death, child,” Grace answered softly.
Joanna gasped. “Death?” she repeated.
“Yes, dear...Lucy saved him from an eternity of death-without-dying,”
Grace said with a smile in Lucy’s direction, as if that explained it all.
“I don’t understand,” Joanna said as her head began to pound with a
stress headache.
Death without dying?
What the hell did that mean?
She was
now more confused than ever.
Very softly Grace whispered, “The coin, child. The night-walkers
were seconds away when we found him. Your brother had the coin and
would not have turned it over willingly. There would have been a battle
that he had no hope of winning. He was ill prepared to deal with them.
They were not supposed to have been in the city.”
“You could have found some other way to help him,” Joanna insisted
stubbornly.
“There were too many, dear. We would not have been successful,
and the coin absolutely must not end up with those who live for the
darkness,” she said in reference to Vampires.
Suddenly, Joanna remembered the little package in her bra. Slipping
her hand down the front of her shirt, she held up the coin with a smile.
“I almost forgot I had this.”

“Step lively, Matey,” chains
rattled
as the dungeon door opened.
Blackbeard and Stede were shackled and being pushed deeper into the
dungeon.

Island…immortality. Too bad the Witch died before she could finish
her job. The bitch bled out like a wild boar after ye slit its throat,” Vane
groused. “When ye remember where ye stashed the loot, I’ve got four
new vessels fer the incantation.”

The
voices drew
closer to the cell holding
Joanna
and her
companions.
Grace pointed to the floor where Joanna had been
dumped when the pirates initially cast her into the dungeon. With a nod,
Joanna took her place, collapsing once again against the cold dungeon
floor. As she glanced toward the other ladies, she was shocked to see the
rumpled mess each had become. Three previously beautiful women had
transformed into hags with stringy hair, dirty clothes, and not one speck
of makeup.

With a wink for Joanna, Lucy shouted, “Let us out of here. We will
never help you, no matter how long you keep us locked in this cell. I’m
hungry. We need food, and the water is disgusting.”

Joanna chuckled silently.
As Lucy began shouting, Joyce waved her
hand and the light illuminating the room extinguished.
The trio of
Witches had this under control, but their captors were too full of
themselves to realize they were being played.

Jack said.
“It won’t be long now,” Vane said as he laughingly pulled on the
chains around Blackbeard’s ghostly neck. “My friend here can’t seem to
remember where the coin is stashed. Maybe some time in the dungeon
will loosen his lips.” Both Blackbeard and Stede were forced into the
cell next to Joanna and her companions.
As Calico Jack sauntered out of the dungeon, he stopped and turned
to Stede. “Ye have ‘till high tide ta get th’ whereabouts of the stash out
of Blackbeard. We be pay’in a visit ta th’ mainland after that, Matey. We
gunna be lookin’ fer them descendants ye be so proud ‘o. I would hate
fer bad thin’s ta happen ta yer kin, n’ matter ‘ow distant.” With that
announcement made, he slammed the main door shut.
As Vane and Calico Jack walked away, one of them said, “Ye better
hope one o’ th’ bitches live ta th’ end this time.”
Soft light illuminated the cell once again.
Blackbeard stood and crossed to the bars separating
him from
Joanna, “Are you ok, Lass?” he asked softly, concern shining in his eyes.
Joanna shifted into a sitting position. “Yes, I think so. What did he
mean by that last comment?”
Stede joined Blackbeard at the wall of bars and asked softly, “Are ye a
Witch, Lass? Tell us honestly. We have to know how urgent it is that we
get you out of here.”
Joanna looked at Grace for direction. Grace gave a nod indicating
that Joanna could disclose their secret.
“Yes, I am a Witch. That is how I boarded your ship,” Joanna
admitted with a sigh.

“Blast,” Stede said banging his fist against the metal bars. Turning
toward Blackbeard he said, “We have to get her and the others out of
here before they start the ceremony. They may eventually find the coin.”

“What coin?” Joanna asked, as if she had no idea what they were
talking about.
Blackbeard took a deep breath and began his story. “You see, one of
the ships we uh-- acquired had a very special coin hidden in her belly.”
“Yes, but we didn’t know the power or significance of the coin then,”
Stede interjected with anguish. “We would have tossed it into the
depths, Lass, rather than let it come to this. I don’t want you hurt in any
way.”
“I don’t understand; how can it hurt me?” Joanna asked, thinking
that
said
coin
was
currently
nestled
right
next
to
her
heart.
Thankfully, she had remembered not to touch the coin with her bare
hands.
Actually, she was pretty certain she had the grand trio to
thank for the reminder.
Stede and Blackbeard passed a look between them, and Blackbeard
began to explain, “Hundreds of years ago Vane spied the coin lying on
my desk. He somehow knew about the power the coin holds. He said it
was pretty and talked me into wagering it in a card game. I still thought
it was just another pretty piece of gold,” he said, hesitating for a
moment.
Stede took over filling in the missing details, “You’ve heard of the
great pirate gathering in 1718. Everyone assumed it was a week-long
party, a celebration for pirates… everyone but Governor Spotswood. It
turns out he was a collector of sorts. He knew of the coin and knew we
had captured the ship that had been carrying the coin to him.
He
fabricated a story about how we pirates were banding together and
insisted that we must be stopped.”
Blackbeard twisted his beard and reluctantly resumed his
story.
“Captain Maynard and his crew thought the coin was still aboard
Queen
Ann’s Revenge
. That was the real reason they set up an ambush. It was a
grand fight, but Maynard tricked my crew. Alas, that was the end for
most of us.”
Blackbeard chuckled as he added, “The jackass didn’t find the coin
though, and it’s well hidden. Back to Vane…a few months after he
swindled me out of the coin, he arrived at a pub one night with a Witch.
Vane had her family locked up. He threatened to burn them at the stake
if she did not do as he demanded.”
“Oh God,” Joanna murmured as she remembered the conversation
about a Witch dying.
“She was a pretty young lass,” Stede whispered in anguish.
Three Witches sat rigidly on the wooden bench, listening to the story
unfold.
“Sherrie,” Joyce whispered.
“Aye, that was her name,” Blackbeard confirmed, shifting his
attention to the Witches still chained to the wall behind Joanna. “Vane
pushed and pushed.
He planned to use the power of the coin to
immortalize anyone who would swear to serve him for eternity. It was a
chance to escape Davy Jones Locker. That is what the celebration was
really about.
The spell was working, too.
Incredible energy flowed
through our bodies. The winds swirled while lightning streaked across
the sky--” Blackbeard stopped, shaking his head, unable to continue.
Stede picked up the story once again. “And so it began. At first, just
a few drops of blood were running out of her nose and ears. Several of
us tried to help her.
We begged Vane to find another way, but he
refused to stop the ceremony. He said he would find another Witch and
then another if he had to.
Vane resorted to threatening her family. He
convinced the young lass that if she failed, her family would be dead by
first light. At that juncture the poor lass was terribly weak from blood
loss. She could stand on the altar no longer. When she fell to her knees,
Vane began yelling vile things. He promised to force her younger sister
to finish the spell. I could not let her die before me and do nothing…
even if it meant eternity in Davy Jones Locker,” Stede finished with a
shudder.
Blackbeard shook his head at the memory, “Stede drew his pistol,
intending to fire on Vane and end the poor lass’s torture. Alas, Calico
Jack was ready for trouble. He shot Stede, knocking the pistol out of his
hand. Tragically, the lead ball from Calico’s pistol glanced off the barrel
of Stede’s gun, hitting the lass directly in the chest. Stede stripped off his
shirt, pressing it to her wound, trying to stem the life blood flowing from
her wound. I rushed to help him apply pressure, but she had already lost
too much blood. With her life seeping out on the ground, she whispered
her plea to Stede and I. She beseeched us to free her family and hide
them from Vane. We agreed. As soon as she secured our promise, her
pale eyes sought Vane. Smiling weakly she whispered, ‘Your wish is
granted, Charles Vane, just as you demanded…
eternity
.’ Suddenly
thunder boomed with such intensity that we were forced to cover our ears.
The ground began to shake, and she disappeared before our very eyes.
She simply dissolved into nothing.
Vane was like a man possessed,
especially when he found the coin had disappeared with her.”
“We didn’t understand what she had done at the time, but all too soon,
it became crystal clear,” Stede said drearily. “Teach and I kept our
promise to the lass, didn’t we, Matey?”
“Aye, that we did my friend,” Blackbeard acknowledged.
“We hid her family away and left them with enough gold to live on for
the next hundred years,” Stede boasted gleefully and then dropped his eyes
regretfully. “But it did nothing to relieve our guilt over her death. Things
declined quickly after that. Within two years we had all been captured and
hanged or died in battle. ‘
Eternity
’ she had said. We indeed have
eternity…neither alive nor dead. We sail only during the full moon.”
“How did you get the coin back?” This from Grace, who waved her
iron shackles gracefully away, transforming into a regal beauty.
Joanna
suddenly recalled meeting the Royal Whitestone matriarch while visiting
her mother during a Council Recess several years ago.
As the memory
surfaced, Grace turned toward her with amusement sparkling in her eyes.
“My mother,” she said, “who much to my delight detests my involvement
in any field work what-so-ever.”
Lucy and Joyce gave up their pretense as well.
They moved to flank
Grace, one at her left, one at her right. Any misconceptions Joanna might
have had about the pair dissolved as she looked upon them now dressed
in black tees, close-fitting pants, and combat boots.
Each sported an
arsenal of weapons strapped strategically to their bodies.
Joanna chuckled, realizing they were far more than just pretty faces
after all.
“Girls,” Grace said turning to frown at her companions, “stand-down.
These men are--”
“Bloody Pirates,” Joyce interrupted.
“No,” Joanna corrected, moving to position herself between the
women and her new friends. “Gentlemen,” she corrected confidently.
“They are gentlemen in the truest sense of the word.”
“I agree,” Grace proclaimed.
Blackbeard and Stede bowed their heads slightly in appreciation of
Grace’s endorsement as well as in acknowledgement of her Royal blood.
Waving Lucy and Joyce away, Grace absently wiggled her fingers at
the bars separating the Witches from the Stede and Blackbeard. As the
bars melted away she said, “Come closer, gentlemen, we have plans to
make.”