Chronicles of the Dragon Pirate

by David Talon

  “Bill knew,” Arabella replied, her face full of a dark hunger as she looked to where Black Pox Bill was still standing next to Mr. Smith, who seemed to be keeping the Shadowman under guard. “I told him all about you when I was begging for my life, so many years ago. Mr. Smith, pray bring him here so I may finally have my revenge upon him.”

  “I ain’t going anywhere near ye,” Bill snarled at her. A moment later Mr. Smith seized him by the arm and dragged him towards Arabella and the captain, the Shadowman unable to break his grip as Bill’s cracked and crumbling boots scuffed the stone floor. Mr. Smith reached them and threw Black Pox Bill at Arabella’s feet. Mr. Smith stared down at the Shadowman in silent contempt as he spewed insults up at the large African for a few moments before turning his gaze on Arabella. “What’re ye going to do?”

  “Cure you of the black pox then return you to being human again.” Bill gave her a look of disbelief and she added, “I am a Dragon, which means I am unable to lie. I will do both.”

  “Yer up to something; Olde Bill knows rotten fish when he smells it.”

  “There are enough strong men here to hold you down while I cure you,” Arabella motioning towards Mr. Smith and Redbeard, who’d lingered to watch. “So it is your choice: agree to be cured or be held down while it is done.”

  Bill looked around at the unfriendly faces surrounding him and his face turned sullen. “Aye, Olde Bill sees who his true friends are after all he tried to do for ye. Well, go ahead.”

  Reaching into the pouch at her belt, Arabella pulled out a metallic looking Artifact that resembled a grey goose quill, feathers and all, but its shaft was glowing an ominous green. “I need to stab each of your pox nodules with this, so they may be transmuted into something else. They will not bleed or cause bad humors to enter your body.” She held it up. “Are you ready?” Bill gave her a way nod and she stabbed the large one on his face with the pointed tip of the Artifact. She withdrew the quill and moved on to a nodule at his neck as the black pox nodule she’d stabbed began to glow.

  She had Bill remove his shirt and trousers, and I winced when I saw how the nodules had clustered around his the area between his legs, turning it into black, misshapen flesh. Arabella didn’t hesitate or be offended but stabbed them all, until every black area on Bill’s body glowed with a greenish tinge. Suddenly the one on his face began to quiver. Everyone took a few steps away as the pox nodule seemed to come to life on his face, the mass of flesh slithering out of the depression it had formed in Bill’s face and dropping to the stone floor with a wet smack. Bill froze in horror as the rest of his pox nodules did the same, until he was surrounded by quivering mounds of black flesh. Then he got a strange expression as his hand went to his face. Where the pox nodule had been there was now a depression in his cheek, as there was where all the others had been, the member between his legs now almost non-existent. “What have ye done to Olde Bill?”

  Arabella smiled. “Pray forgive my omission to tell you that when the nodules leave, your normal flesh does not return. At least this way you do not bleed to death, as you would had I returned you to being human again first. Now, let us accomplish the second part.” Arabella took the quill by its feathered end and ran one finger along it in a deliberate way. The shaft of the quill glowed red for a moment, as if she’d put a piece of steel in a hot fire and left it there, before it returned to its normal metallic color. Arabella gave me a sardonic smile. “A cleansing procedure to make sure I do not give myself the black pox by accident.” She held the quill over a blood vessel in her arm then stabbed it, keeping the shaft in place a few moments before pulling it back out. Her arm bled freely for a moment before it began to slow, but she ignored it as she held it up in front of Bill, who’d taken the time to put his dark leather trousers back on. She smiled again. “This is going to hurt.”

  Arabella stabbed Bill hard in the chest where his heart lay. Bill gasped and dropped to his knees as Arabella pulled it out again, making the quill go red for a moment before putting it away. “As my master’s blood transformed me so I now transform you. It will take time, but by the time the beast-men are ravaging the island you should be fully human again.”

  Captain Hawkins folded his arms over his chest. “Is that how you mean to have your revenge, by letting Olde Roger’s creatures have him?”

  The hungry smile returned to Arabella’s face. “Oh no, my revenge goes much deeper than that.” She turned towards the darkness where the gate I’d passed through was and raised her voice. “Madonna, it is time.” She turned back towards us. “Pray stay your anger until you see how my revenge plays out. I think you will find there is nothing you can do to her worse than what she will do to herself.”

  From the darkness I heard the soft patter of footsteps, and a moment later a young woman stepped into the light, quailing as Redbeard roared, “That be the little traitor of Bill’s!”

  Arabella strode over to where the girl, comely but for her long broken nose and still wearing a ragged dress, looked on the verge of fleeing. Arabella whispered in her ear as Pepper got in front of Redbeard and did the same, Captain Hawkins motioning for me and Jeremiah to hold our positions as Master Khan moved to stand beside us as well. Redbeard and Pepper moved back to where we stood as did Mr. Smith, while Arabella and the traitor girl walked towards the place where Bill still knelt in pain. Arabella faced us. “My friend has taken the name Thomas Tew gave her, Madonna of the Isles...but she is to become a dark one.”

  To our horror, the girl knelt down beside the still quivering nodules and, without a moment’s hesitation, picked one of them up and held it to her mouth. She closed her eyes as it slid down her throat, and Pepper spoke for all of us as she said in a horrified voice, “Kyrie eleyson, what’s she doing?”

  Arabella had walked up beside the girl and now put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Only the first one is hard; after it takes hold, you will be eager to consume the rest.” The girl nodded with her hand to her mouth as if willfully keeping it down, as Arabella turned back towards us. “She was Bill’s pet back in Freehold, and when I arrived and eventually opened my heart to her, she begged me to become the agent of my revenge not only upon Bill, but the Shadowmen as well.” The girl took her hands away from her mouth, smiling as she reached for the next quivering nodule and swallowed it, eager as a child gobbling sweets as Arabella continued. “The transmuted nodules will transform the Dark Madonna into something that looks human on the outside but in truth is not even close. As the black pox consumes humans so will she, but because the nodules came from a Shadowman she will crave their flesh as well.”

  Pepper asked, “What do you mean, crave their flesh? Arabella, what have you done?”

  “I have created a monster,” Arabella replied, reaching down to run her fingers through the girl’s dirty hair as she eagerly consumed another of the faintly glowing pieces of black flesh. “She will crave flesh, any flesh; in truth, she will be able to survive on nothing else.” Arabella looked up at me. “You know how at the end the black pox makes a woman carnal beyond all reason?” I nodded and she said, “My Dark Madonna will be the same. Shadowmen do not pay much attention to their pets when they are not slaking their lusts, and my Dark Madonna is clever. She will kill them in a weak moment, one by one, and even if they discover what she has done and slay her, the pox will heal her and restore her to my Dark Madonna’s semblance of life.”

  Mr. Smith spoke in his rumbling voice. “How does this give you revenge upon William?”

  Arabella looked down on Bill, whose eyes I realized were no longer red as he stared back up at her. “She will crave all men’s flesh, no matter who they are, but the flesh she will crave above all others is Bill’s. She will not be greedy and consume him all at once but will ration him out, if you will, taking a finger here or perhaps an eye there, until the time comes when she decides she has played with him enough and consumes him slowly, over a period of days. Run where you will,” she said to him, “a
nd my Dark Madonna will find you. The beast-men will leave the both of you alone, since neither of you will smell right to them, and the Shadowmen will find you unappealing as well. My Dark Madonna, however, will fire their lust in a way no other mortal woman ever can.”

  Master Khan said, “You have thought this out most carefully, yes?”

  “Over many years,” Arabella replied.

  “But you’ve destroyed her life,” Pepper said, pointing at the girl now giggling like a child as she went after the remaining nodules with abandon.

  Arabella shook her head. “The Shadowmen already did that. Ordinary women are not like Dragons; they cannot invite a dragon-ghost to share their skull and block out the memories when they crowd around her like vengeful ghosts, or merge with one permanently so the memories lose their horror.” Arabella gave her a sardonic look. “A shame Tomas is not of pure blood, for then you would have no need of potions to keep your life from burning out and you would live a normal lifespan...or perhaps more.”

  Pepper’s voice became sharp. “I’ve got more than enough potion to keep me going, and if I don’t live as long as I might then I’ll live it the best I can.”

  Arabella gave her a slight bow. “Few people ever do that, and for what it is worth I wish I stood in your place and you in mine...but no matter. Go, return to your ship, have your useless meeting but persuade Tomas to choose the sea road with Cholula, hard as it will be for both of you. Jeremiah, stay with him; he will need your courage, and Karl will see you train together as a team. As for the rest of you...your path leads back here. Challenging a galleon under Captain Thorne is suicide.”

  “We will make our own choices,” Captain Hawkins snarled at her. “Come on, we’re heading back to the Davy.”

  “Harry,” Bill’s voice pleaded behind us as he gasped for breath in between words, “don’t leave Olde Bill here. Or at least come back fer me when ye make yer minds up. Olde Bill’s gonna like a life of reaving and yer never gonna find a more loyal comrade.” The captain walked away and the rest of us followed without looking back as Bill called out, “Harry? Say yer gonna come back...Harry!” The captain continued and Bill snarled, “So that’s how it is? Fine; Olde Bill’s gonna find a way off this rock and yer all gonna regret the day it happens, I swears it!”

  “When that day happens,” Arabella’s voice said, “you will be the regretful one...because by that time Harry will already be a monster.” We continued walking down the grey-stone road as her voice echoed behind us. “You are a monster, Harry Hawkins, whether you know it or not, and Olde Roger only seeks to make you into a better one.” The captain’s face remained a stern mask as he picked up the pace, but we couldn’t escape her echoing words. “I love you, Harry, and I will love you from this moment to the day I put a pistol ball deep into your skull, because that is what I do. When I am not creating monsters I kill them, Harry, because I have nothing left.” Her voice turned into a scream. “I have nothing left!”

  The light faded and died behind us, leaving only the sound of a man weeping in the dark.

  For the first time anyone could remember, the Admiral was wearing his Artifact cutlass. It was wide and thick, the tip long as a thumb and flat but still razor sharp, with a hilt bound in worn leather and a bell-like hand guard. Redbeard said it was a gift to him from Sir Francis Drake, during the days when they’d sailed with the Red Dragon of England around the world, along with then Lieutenant Hawkins and Mr. Smith. He also looked as he was ready to wield it at a moment’s notice, the same dark look on his face as the rest of the crew wore as we waited for the ship’s meeting to begin.

  Not everyone was present, of course. Selene was in the captain’s cabin, weeping while Sally tried to console her, although the Bo didn’t seem to understand what was about to occur. Master Khan had pulled Pepper aside to whisper in her ear, and now they were off in his workroom, while Hob had seemed to vanish. But everyone else was there including several women of Haven, including Jeremiah’s lover Maria and Panther, standing beside Claude with the other Frenchmen. I was standing beside the operating table with Jeremiah and Samuel, as Captain Hawkins strode down the corridor leading to the galley.

  Captain Hawkins was dressed in an elegant blue captain’s coat and a new white shirt and dark trousers, his boots polished to a brilliant shine and the gold buttons winking at us in the light of the bright dragon-globe hanging over the operating table as he stopped beside us. The leather bound hilt of the white sword peeked out from beneath his coat. Everyone seemed to be talking and arguing at once as he turned and faced the crew without saying a word, his arms folded across his chest as he waited for the men to notice him. Those closest to us spotted him right off and began nudging the ones around him, the quiet slowly growing until the entire hold was held in an angry silence. Captain Hawkins waited a few moments more as his gaze swept across the room.

  Then he began to speak. “I know how every single one of you feels right now: wrathful and betrayed. I don’t blame you, nor should you blame yourselves, for the blame should rightfully fall on the one who led you here.” He looked around the hold before continuing. “Therefore I, Harry Hawkins, do resign as captain of the ship, the Blackjack Davy.” In the sea of shocked faces his gaze seemed to find Master Le’Vass as he gave the quartermaster a bitter smile. “One of your desires is finally realized, Jean.”

  Mr. Smith was standing amongst most of the Africans. “You’ve tried resigning before.”

  “You have the right of it,” Captain Hawkins replied, “but this time everything’s changed, and the White Lady knows it. Now, since you have no captain to lead you into another deceptively quiet harbor, every man must decide what choice he will make. As I see it, we can try evading the beast-men for a time and hope to hail a passing ship. We can also steal every canoe we find and make our escape out to sea, striking for the closest island to Big Bluff we can find.”

  Master Walters blew out his moustache. “Olde Roger said not to try that.”

  “Perhaps because he knew it is our best chance.”

  “What about taking Olde Roger’s offer?” Black-leg Bart asked, adding, “Seems to me a better portion to be a monster than be ‘et by one.”

  “Only if you trust Olde Roger’s word,” Captain Hawkins replied. “It may be that the Shadowhunter’s right and I have no choice, but I refuse to give in to him nonetheless. Now, are there any other suggestions?”

  I moved to face towards the captain. “What about hoisting the Jollie Rouge, sir?”

  Captain Hawkins looked at me like I’d lost any wits I’d ever had. “I said suggestions, not suicide.”

  “But the sun’s still high in the sky,” I argued, “which means the Shadowmen will be sluggish.”

  Redbeard called out in a sympathetic voice. “Sluggish or nae, the boyos be tough to kill. Now if it be raining they be less sluggish but less tough as well, and can nae see well to boot.”

  “Why don’t we ask Hob if he’s got a spare chest or two of Artifact weapons stashed away?” Captain Hawkins said in a mocking voice. “Because with only steel weapons, we’ve got more of a chance of putting out a fire by spitting on it than we do fighting Shadowmen.”

  A wild idea suddenly lodged itself inside my skull, and the words Jade had spoken echoed in my thoughts: The way will come but once. “Sir, permission to be released from my vow.”

  My heart began hammering in my chest as the captain said to the empty air, “Jade, what must we do?”

  I gasped as her claws painlessly pierced my chest. “Swear to release Tomas from all obligations and I shall release you both.”

  The stern mask Captain Hawkins normally kept his face in softened for a moment. “It was the best decision at the time.” I nodded, perhaps not in agreement but in acknowledgement, and he let out a sharp breath. “I do so swear.”

  As Jade’s claws withdrew from my chest a knot I hadn’t realized was inside me loosened and dissolved, leaving me feeling as
free as I had for a time aboard the Dutch Flyte. For a long moment I savored the feeling. Then I vaulted onto the table and stood up. “As a free man I’ve made my choice: I’m going to raise the Jollie Rouge against Olde Roger!”

  The catcalls began at once. “Laddie,” Redbeard called out above the others, “you be as daft as an Irishman. Dafter!”

  Other voices echoed his, but they quieted as I raised my hands. “Maybe I am but hear me out,” my wits running fast like a ship braced up under sail in a fierce wind. “How many of you have seen the White Lady?” There were confused looks then everyone’s hands went up. “Now, how many have spoken to her at one time or another?” Some hands went down but many stayed up, including all the important men in the crew, the ones the others would listen to, as I went on. “I know all of you know the story of how she died on the captain’s deck of our ship, and became a ghost...but she is no true ghost.” The truth struck me like a lightning bolt. “Because of me she exists in a place trapped between life and death, part of the ship, waiting all this time for me to return.” They watched me in silence as my gaze swept the room. “I am Tomas Rios, trueborn son of Long-Mu, an ancient Dragon of Atlantis, and even if I’m not a pureblood I’m not turning my back on the civilization the survivors of Atlantis helped to build, our civilization, yours and mine.”

  Curly called out, “Why should we give a flea’s arse what happens to them who think they’re our betters?” His voice turned mocking. “Give me a good reason, ‘Prince-o-the-Pirates.”