Pointe of Breaking
Page 31
The blackened blood flaked off. In its place was a tattoo instead of the cut marks. “What have you done?”
“I blessed you with the longevity of the gods.” The Privateer grinned, revealing his yellowed teeth. Bourbon was fragrant on his breath.
“You will not age a day until your debt is repaid,” an equally short Negro woman answered, walking up to the scene. She casually sipped tea from a white China cup like it was common to step over dead women on the docks.
She was dressed more prestigiously than the Boss. For a privileged woman of her color, she was a glaring minority, due greatly to the Dutch West India Company. Nearly half of the city’s population came here with shackles around their ankles. He may have carried a great disdain for the woman, but it wasn’t because of her cocoa-colored skin. He loathed slavery and the way it brought out the worst in people. Just like the other two, he knew who she was even though he couldn’t recall meeting her before. Her reputation superseded her. She was the infamous Widower.
Upon smelling the Privateer, she wrinkled her nose, and she handed him her cup of tea. Her fingertips were cased with underdeveloped birds’ beaks. They looked like claws from a demonic creature. “You stink like a whiskey barrel.”
“And you smell like a wench, darling,” the Privateer whispered like he would to a lover. “The good Doctor will go positively dumbstruck when she gets a sniff.”
She nodded to the bleeding man on the ground. “Am I to thank him for making you better looking?”
The Privateer’s lip curled. “He got lucky.”
She shoved the teacup against the Privateer’s chest. The Privateer pretended not to notice the rude gesture. The lingering scent of the morning tea was tempting enough. He raised it in the air in salute to thank her, and then downed it in one gulp. His blackened fingerprints dirtied the cup. He nonchalantly twirled it around on his finger, watching the Negro dwarf circling around him.
“The Queen has given you as a gift to us until you are able to fulfill your penance. Thus, you are to be Seven’s indentured servant—a lieutenant,” she lectured like the words had been spoken many times before. “In a matter of speaking, we own you.”
“’Tis a pity about the party you are planning with the Sons of Liberty, Boss. Brits make the best brew.” The Privateer tossed the Boss the empty cup.
The Boss was forced to lower the rifle or watch the expensive cup smash to pieces. He let go of the weapon so his fine China would not be destroyed. The Privateer snatched up the gun. Judging from his grin, the gun was exactly what he had wanted from the Boss. And he knew how to manipulate the situation so he’d get it.
“The Queen insists upon the matter. Thus, I will convince the colonists to do what she asks,” the Boss replied, making his annoyance for the Privateer’s behavior clear in his voice.
The Irish dwarf aimed the gun at the nameless man’s head and said, “Pow!” He chuckled to himself and lowered the gun. “You are a man of nice things. Oh rubbish, I mean, you were a man of nice things. What was once yours is property of the Seven now.”
“Enough,” the Widower barked.
She walked up next to the man. Her black spectacles almost made her approachable, but damn it if he didn’t get chills when he caught glimpse of her white eyes. She stood in silence as she eyed the dead woman and her swollen belly. He hated that the Widower smiled with pleasure as she took in the sight of the corpse.
“We cannot call for the Doctor,” the Widower said, looking at the dead woman’s swollen belly. “An innocent has died.”
The Privateer rubbed the back of his neck. “An unfortunate casualty but necessary.”
“Let me deal with the Doctor. No one is to mention what happened,” the Boss said and then nodded to the nameless man. “Just take care of him, will you?”
She withdrew a locket from around her neck and pried it open with one of the beaks on her fingers. The locket was made of black glass. She whistled softly and then blew on it. Coal residue was cast into the air. Within the locket, smoke twirled around. The Widower’s spectacles mimicked the smoky twirl. She took them off, revealing red eyes. Widower was possessed.
She grabbed his thumb up and pressed it against the blackened glass. The moment his skin touched the glass, it shattered and cut his finger.
“Your future is undone, shattered like glass,” the Widower said in a voice that was not her own. Like her eyes, her voice sounded like it was coming from a different person. “You are the Queen’s property, until the fairest harlot whose skin is as white as snow and hair is as dark as night is sacrificed by your doing. Be warned. Lies spew from her blood-red lips, but she will give you a worthy epithet.”
He questioned, “A harlot will be my penance?”
“How am I to know? The Mirror only shows me a future, he doesn’t decipher it,” the Widower said, speaking once again in her normal voice. “When you find her, you are to bring the Queen her dead body.”
“We all do what the Queen requests. If she wants you to sacrifice a woman on her behalf that is exactly what you’ll do,” the Boss said gravely. “And the Seven will ensure that her wishes are met.”
With that, the Widower closed the locket. She reached for his left hand. He was shocked to see he had been wed-locked. She pried the piece of metal off of his ring finger. The dead woman bore a matching band on her finger. Had she been his wife? When he looked up at the Widower, she was slipping his ring between the chains around her locket. His ring melted with the chain until there was nothing to indicate he belonged to the deceased woman, other than the tan line around his ring finger.
“I must get going,” the Widower said. “The good Doctor wishes to have a word with me.”
“Send her my love,” the Privateer said with a wink.
“She’d rather catch scurvy than lay with you,” she retorted.
“She might get both as quickly as you spread yours,” the Privateer said, flashing his rotten teeth.
The Widower kicked the cement buckets into the river, dragging the woman below the waves. Acting upon instinct, he swung at her. When his fist collided with her face, it cracked. He stumbled away, unsure of what was happening. Chuckling venomously, the Widower’s skin flecked away and broke off in chunks. The moment they collided with the ground, each chunk turned into a blackbird. Her body continued to become more and more decrepit until there was nothing but coal cinders on the ground. Hundreds of blackbirds circled overhead a few times before flying off to the horizon.
“Come,” the Boss said. “There is much the Queen insists upon, and there are only the Seven of us.”
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