by Toby Tate
Jason smiled and glanced at Hunter.
“Hunter, I’d like you to meet the one man who knows more about Blackbeard the pirate than anyone alive.”
Hunter stepped forward and took the man’s hand. Instantly, he had the strangest feeling, as if unseen fingers were probing the recesses of his mind, searching its shadows. But Hunter merely attributed this to stress and lack of sleep.
Jason continued. “This, Hunter, is my old friend and partner in crime, Mr. Caesar Jefferson.”
Hunter’s mouth suddenly went dry.
Forty
As they stood inside Caesar’s house, Hunter looked in awe at the photos and paintings adorning the white plaster walls. Images of life at sea, of fishing villages and of men as salty as Barnacle Bill the sailor. He could see that Caesar himself was in most of the photos, surrounded by men posing with fish they had caught, some small, and a few sharks so large they had to be held up by cranes with steel cables.
Caesar made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “This is my humble abode, and I hope you’ll feel free to make it your own. My house is also your house.”
The house smelled like salty sea air. Hunter stared at bookshelves crammed with volumes by Mark Twain, W.E.B. DuBois, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Washington Irving. The bookshelves were constructed of plywood and bricks, as if Caesar had built them himself. Hunter couldn’t see a television anywhere.
As he drew his attention back to the photos, Hunter noticed some of them were daguerreotypes, an early type of photograph developed in the late 1830s. More interesting, however, was that Caesar—or a family member with an extremely strong resemblance—also seemed to be present in those photos, likely a father or grandfather. As they were led into the kitchen, he made a mental note to ask about it later.
The kitchen was cramped, with a table shoved up against one wall and surrounded by three chairs. The chairs resembled padded seats from a greasy-spoon diner, complete with sparkling silver plastic covers.
Caesar turned and smiled at them. “What would you gentlemen care to drink? I have green tea, and water, but not much else, I’m afraid. As you can see, I live by humble means.”
Hunter answered first. “Green tea is fine.”
After filling three tea cups and sitting down at the kitchen table, Jason took a sip of his drink, and then eyed the old man.
“Caesar, I’ve known you for many years,” Jason said, “and I know that you have special gifts. I know there are certain things you can see, things you can sense that no one else can. You know why we’re here, what we’re looking for. Is there anything you can tell us about the demon—the Obeah—and Blackbeard?”
The old man stared at him for a moment, then at Hunter, whose heart began racing at the mention of Blackbeard’s name. He was still having trouble accepting as fact a three-hundred-year-old pirate walking the Earth in the twenty-first century.
“I will tell you what you want to know. But first, you must understand what it is you are asking.”
The two men waited, expecting Caesar to continue.
Instead, he took another sip of tea before saying, “You are asking me to be a cackler.”
Hunter was bewildered. “I’m sorry. A what?”
Jason glanced at him. “It’s an old pirate term. It means someone who gives away secrets, someone who can’t keep their mouth shut.” He turned back to Caesar. “There are lives at stake. Many have died, and many more may die if we don’t put a stop to this, and soon.”
Caesar looked down at the tabletop and sighed, then seemed to make up his mind.
“Yes, it is him, it is Blackbeard. But that which resides in him is no longer human. The Obeah has taken over completely, and it means to recover the book, the one in which is written the ancient and forgotten rituals, which Blackbeard hid, expecting he would return one day. He has returned, and the book still awaits.”
Hunter could feel the dread building inside him. “What exactly is in this book?”
“Spells, gathered from all parts of the world. Spells that could make him powerful; so powerful that no mortal man could ever destroy him. But the cost of casting these spells was so great that Blackbeard, in his human form, was not willing to pay the price. However, the demon that possesses Edward Teach does not care about paying prices. That is why he is coming for me.”
Hunter couldn’t hide his surprise. “Why does he need you?”
“Because I was a bokor, one who practices Vodun, or Voodoo as most in America know it. I studied under the Teacher and learned things even Blackbeard did not know. Blackbeard the human was simply a vessel for a power he did not understand.”
“How do you know so much about the book and Blackbeard?”
A crooked grin crept up on his face as he stared at Hunter. “Have you not yet realized who I am?”
Hunter could feel the cobwebs slowly clearing. Not possible, he thought, yet he knew it was true. The ancient daguerreotypes hanging on the walls weren’t photos of Caesar’s distant ancestors—they were of Caesar himself.
Forty-one
Lisa and Jonathan rode in silence for much of the way, speaking only perfunctorily. Jonathan’s Land Rover was a far cry from her old Subaru, the comfort level well above average. The soft Wynton Marsalis tunes emanating from his CD player could have easily put her to sleep under other circumstances.
She still wasn’t able to trust Jonathan, at least not completely. She wasn’t convinced that everything he said was the God’s honest truth, or that he had even told her everything. But her instincts told her it was right. She just prayed that Jonathan Jefferson knew what he was doing. She chanced a sideways glance at him, thinking fleetingly about pulling her pistol and making him turn the truck around, but decided against it.
Her thoughts turned to Hunter and Jason. More than likely, they were probably up to their necks in trouble. She and Jonathan had discussed calling the sheriff to tell him about their hunch, but the more they thought about it, the more they realized if they thought the whole thing was crazy, the sheriff would think even worse.
Instead, Lisa called her father, Liang, who would at least listen without interrupting. And as a retired detective, he could also give her some advice. As her luck would have it, she got her father’s voicemail instead, so Lisa gave him the short version of the facts. It had taken two phone calls to get the entire message through, but she managed to fill Liang in on what Hunter and Jason had surmised, and that they were going to Charleston.
Farmland gave way to dense forest. Far above the trees the clouds began to turn dark shades of pink and red with the approaching twilight.
Lisa decided it was time for some answers. “Tell me again why we’re going to Charleston. Are we going there to see someone?”
“That’s a pretty good guess.”
“Does this someone happen to know something about Edward Teach?”
“Another good guess.”
Lisa looked at the road ahead and sighed. “My husband called just before you came and told me that he and a friend of ours—Jason Summerfield—were going to Charleston to find an old man who knows more about Blackbeard than anyone alive.”
“Did they say who it was?”
Lisa shook her head. “No, only that he might be able to help them solve this case. That’s why I’m going, because my husband sometimes gets into things over his head when he thinks there may be a story involved. I’ve found that there’s often a very fine line between bravery and stupidity.”
Jonathan grunted his agreement.
Lisa said, “Do you know who this guy is they’re going to see? Is it the same guy we’re going to see?”
Jonathan took in a deep breath. “Yeah, it’s probably the same guy. I might as well level with you, though, and tell you that this guy is my grandfather. In fact, he’s my great-grandfather ten times removed. My parents were both killed in a diving accident when I was still a toddler. Caesar took me in and cared for me like his own son. He and Blackbeard were inseparable up until Blackbeard�
�s death. My grandfather, in fact, was the one who introduced Blackbeard and the other pirates to the one they called the Teacher, or the Death Defier. Caesar came into possession of a very old book, passed down to him from the Death Defier, which contained spells and incantations that could do amazing things, like move inanimate objects and raise the dead. But there were other secrets in this book that even Caesar and Blackbeard would not dare to unlock, things beyond your worst nightmares.”
Lisa sat in stunned silence as uncomfortable minutes passed. She glanced at Jonathan. “You’re telling me that this shaman is the original Caesar Jefferson, from 1718? He’s been alive and living in Charleston for three centuries and nobody has noticed?”
“Not exactly. He hasn’t always lived in Charleston. When people he knows begin to get up in age, he moves to a different town in order to avoid detection. It looks a little weird when your friends are all ninety years old and you still don’t look a day over sixty. All of his wives have died and all of his children, as well, but he hasn’t bothered to remarry in years. I do have a few cousins living here and there, though most of them are twice my age.”
“Wow. It must really be awkward at birthday parties. I mean, the candles alone would cost a fortune.”
Jonathan remained silent.
“Assuming that I believe you, and I’m not saying I do, may I ask exactly how he has managed to stay alive all these years?”
“You may ask, but to tell you the truth, I’m not really sure. All I know is that he learned it from the Teacher. It’s probably in the very book we’re searching for.”
They sat silently for a while, the SUV’s big tires humming on the highway like giant bees in a hive.
Then Lisa asked a question that she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to—but curiosity overcame her fear.
“Has he ever sacrificed anyone?”
Jonathan remained unnervingly quiet.
Forty-two
The cabbie eyed the odd pair standing under the streetlamp by the boat docks—the small, balding geek of a man with glasses, and the hulking biker with shaggy black hair and jet-black beard who looked as if he could snap a tree trunk in half with his bare hands.
George Forehand had been driving cabs for nearly forty years up and down the streets of Charleston. He’d driven everything from drunken sailors to abused spouses and runaway teenagers in his taxi. He had even been held up a couple of times, and thankfully had escaped with his life. But there was an overwhelming darkness, a shadowy presence surrounding these two that made him want to keep driving past them.
Almost.
As he got closer, however, his hands and feet would not obey his brain. George felt a drop of sweat creep down his bald head as some invisible force directed him to pull his Yellow Cab over to the curb. The short one opened the door, allowing the big man to get into the back seat. George watched in the rearview mirror as the cab tilted to one side, then righted itself when the smaller man got in on the other side.
“Where to?” he asked after the geek closed his door.
The big man spoke, and his low baritone, calm as the night sky, held an underlying animosity that chilled George to the bone. “Drive where I say.”
George spied the man’s piercing, green eyes in the rearview mirror, and he suddenly felt as though he was sleeping. Was he dreaming this? He no longer felt like himself, but rather like a prisoner looking out through the bars of a cell as the world whizzed by.
George continued to stare into the mirror at his two strange passengers. The bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and dripped off his nose onto his pants leg.
“Sure. No problem,” he said without conviction.
George pulled out from the curb and didn’t even bother to start his meter, driving off into the night and thinking to himself that when he woke up from this dream he would seriously consider retiring from the taxi business.
Forty-three
Hunter lay on the floor in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. He had decided to rough it and let his friend Jason have the couch. It was only around ten o’clock, but all of them were exhausted. They had talked for hours, Hunter asking questions about Caesar’s amazing life and about the book he had written some two-hundred-and-fifty years ago. But Hunter was still dubious about his true age. Could a man really live three centuries? People had lived that long in the Bible, Hunter remembered, some for nearly a thousand years, but it was always difficult to tell which stories in the Bible were fables and which were fact.
Caesar told of amazing adventures, of how he had run away as a young slave and joined up with Blackbeard and his gang. Because he was strong and able to handle himself in a fight, they accepted him as one of them, not judging him by his station in life or the color of his skin. He had even seen women pirates, he had said. But the life of a pirate was extremely harsh, and not at all the romantic enterprise many thought it to be. The weather at sea was more often than not at odds with pirate travel plans, howling winds beating their sails like bed sheets whipping in a hurricane, driving them back a mile for every two that they gained. Then there was the hardtack and salted pork the men ate on long voyages, and the diseases that often ravaged the crew.
But the material wealth made up for the hardships.
They were usually met with animosity wherever they went, and found it difficult to gain anything other than the most shallow friendship or romance, usually in the form of a prostitute. Edward Teach had been somewhat of a ladies’ man, Caesar said, becoming infatuated with even the lowest bar maid, often taking them down to the nearest magistrate to be married. It was said he had seventeen wives, but no one could remember the exact count. Blackbeard had apparently taken to heart the saying, a girl in every port.
Blackbeard had also been a fierce fighter, Caesar said, carrying up to eight single-shot pistols in holsters strapped to his torso, and a long cutlass, with which he was an expert swordsman. At one point, Blackbeard had traveled to the Orient and had become adept in what were now called martial arts. Teach could fight barehanded better than any man he had ever seen, his hands deft and quick as lightning. The stories about Teach wearing lit fuses in his hair, using the smoke to create the illusion of a fiery demon, was also true. Caesar told them that Blackbeard—as big and as tall as Caesar—was already a frightful enough sight to behold without such enhancements.
As a friend, however, Caesar was adamant that Blackbeard was as loyal as they came, willing to lay down his life, if necessary. In the heat of battle, Blackbeard had more than once taken a bullet in the arm or the leg so that one of his crewmen would avoid harm. When they were sick or wounded, he tended to them like a caring physician would, bringing them food and medicine. His officers and men were disciplined and showed him great reverence, impressing the captains and crews of many a ship. He even loved children, handing out gold pieces and candy whenever he would meet them in port.
Of course, like most people, Blackbeard had a dark side, albeit a little darker than most. Once, while in drunken revelry, Blackbeard had been playing cards with some of the crew when he suddenly pulled out his pistol and shot his first mate, Israel Hands, in the knee underneath the table, crippling him for life. The unfortunate Hands immediately slid out of his seat onto the floor, wailing in pain, before being taken to sick bay.
“Just so nobody forgets who I am,” Blackbeard had said.
Blackbeard was a walking paradox, Hunter thought.
In his mind, Hunter imagined the pirate guzzling rum and singing, “Yo, ho ho.” Those images began to mingle with things Caesar had told them, becoming more like a confused fairy tale. Hunter smiled at this. Slowly, the images began to fade as he slipped off into sleep, his eyelids growing heavy.
His fuzzy brain barely registered the sound of the front door creaking open, and the long, dark shadow that spilled across the living room floor.
Forty-four
As Jonathan stepped into his great-grandfather’s darkened house, he motioned for Lisa to come inside, and then
quietly turned to close the door. That was when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.
“Lisa?” he heard someone say, and turned to see a dark-haired man moving towards them. Jonathan made the mistake of grabbing the man by the wrist.
The man immediately stepped back, lowering his arm and pulling Jonathan off balance. As Jonathan straightened and tried to regain balance, the man delivered a lightning quick blow to Jonathan’s face, sending him sprawling across the floor.
“Hunter, no!” Lisa shouted too late.
The lights suddenly flicked on, momentarily blinding them all. Jonathan, seeing stars, looked up at his opponent and rubbed his aching jaw. He noticed that there was also another man, tall and blond, standing by the couch, looking half-asleep and watching the proceedings with mild amusement.
“Ow,” Jonathan said, rubbing his jaw. “Remind me not to do that again.”
Hunter eyed the man lying on the floor. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“Hunter, this is Jonathan Jefferson,” Lisa said. “Jonathan Caesar Jefferson, great-grandson of Caesar.”
At that same instant, a door opened and Caesar himself bounded into the room, pulling up the zipper on a faded pair of blue jeans. He observed the scene before him with a chuckle. “I see everyone has met my great-grandson, overzealous as always, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Jonathan picked himself up off the floor, dusting off the seat of his pants. He extended a hand to Hunter. “Jonathan Jefferson. Glad to meet you.”
Hunter looked at the extended hand, then at Jonathan. After an awkward silence, he shook the man’s hand. “Hunter Singleton.”
Lisa had to fight to keep from smiling. “I hope you two are done beating the crap out of each other.”