Disclaimer: I finished killing three of my own characters, driving one insane, and having the other become basically a hermit to protect the crazy one (ten other characters survived completely intact, there was a marriage and a child, and two of them were gifted with special powers (the others already had them), for those who think the above sounds rather disturbing), so I decided to play with someone else's and see what damage could be done . . .
AN: Keep reviewing. It helps. Send me a new muse, because this one is now jumping all around the story and driving me absolutely nutters.
A Taste of Misery
Part 14
It took them a full five minutes to finally corral the pirate, and the small portion of his mind that still cared about such things supposed it would probably have been hilarious to anyone watching if not for the seriousness of the participants and the young man lying in a spreading pool of his own blood not ten feet away.
The redcoats had fashioned another noose, but they were forced to use it as lasso in order to capture the belligerent pirate captain. When they finally brought him to his knees, barely able to breath through the pressure on his neck, both redcoats were bruised and bloodied. They made quick work of tying his hands, this time in front of him rather than behind his back, and shoving the blindfold over his eyes, his weak resistance earning him only kicks and cuffs to the head.
Anything intelligible that he had been attempting to say had long ago evaporated into snarls and growls, and his feral responses and bitter struggle despite the obvious hopelessness of his situation frightened the two men more than they would have ever admitted.
Not that they had all that much time left to admit it in.
They eventually had to more carry than lead the half-strangled man through the fort corridors.
"Not long now, Tom, and he gets what he deserves. This time there won't be no last-minute rescue, not a chance. This is probably even better than hanging him—more blood in repayment for what he took."
The other man just grunted and the two continued on in silence.
"Here. He said to bring him here."
Jack began to struggle again, but a tightening of the noose that they had left around his neck quickly returned him to a twilight state halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness.
"You were supposed to bring him alive." The voice was vaguely familiar to Jack, but it was incredibly hard to concentrate.
"He is alive. What're you going to do?" Thomas shifted his hold on Jack's arm.
"What I said I was. I'm going to kill him." There was a small pause. "Hang him over there."
Jack came back to awareness with a strangled cry of agony as he suddenly lost the opportunity to slouch down. The rope around his hands had been loosened and retied quickly before his arms were dragged up over his head, he was lifted up off the floor, and the loop of rope was slung around some kind of hook suspended from the ceiling.
Doing anything but standing straight up and almost on the tips of his toes brought his weight down upon his injured wrist, which informed him of the problem in no uncertain way.
He stood, knees shaky, as the agony dimmed to a burning pain and began dropping back to its now-customary throb, while the noose was cut from around his neck.
A warm liquid splashed into his face and he tasted copper on his tongue.
"Such a pity. They don't make them to last anymore, do they?"
The same voice that had spoken earlier whispered into his ear as the blindfold was removed from his eyes.
"Recognize me, Jack Sparrow?"
Jack blinked once, fighting down the urge to lash out with anything and everything that he had, heedless of the consequences, his reasoning abilities slowly resurfacing.
The delay was not appreciated by the man before him.
The backhand slap caught him full in the face, and he felt his lip split open in a new place. "Captain Jack Sparrow, I asked you if you recognized me!"
Jack snarled, his control loosening again, as he struggled to remember why the man looked and sounded so familiar. He glared at the other as best as he could, flicking his eyes to the scars on the man's cheek . . .and pausing.
"Almorte."
"At your service, Captain. Funeral service, that is. Silverfirth can be so long-winded at times like these, you know, and this place hasn't been used for a small eternity. No one knows we're here, Jack, and I can disappear before they realize what's happened. You're mine now, Jack, to dispose with as I wish."
Jack turned his gaze towards the room, which was indeed full of dust and cobwebs . . .and two corpses. Thomas lay by the door, the hilt of a dagger protruding from the base of his skull. Jack recognized both the force and the finesse needed for a kill like that. John lay not three feet from Jack's feet, his throat slit so deeply that the white of vertebrae showed through the gap. It was his blood that coated Jack's face now. A fire blazed, providing the only illumination. There were no windows. Tools lined the walls, and he suddenly understood where he was.
"A forge."
"Aye. Fitting, isn't it? It hasn't been used since Mr. Brown set up shop outside the fort." The man walked over to the fire, where a small pile of objects had been laid out. He picked up a hat and a pistol, flinging the hat into the fire before turning back to Jack. "Ashes to ashes. This is the gun that you shot Barbosa with, no? Oh, yes, I've heard about your little adventure. I found out all that I could about you, Jack Sparrow, and I've returned the favor that you gave me."
With a flick of his wrist, Almorte sent the pistol into the hottest part of the fire.
"And this, Jack, this was a gift from young Will Turner. Perfectly balanced, finely made, well cared for . . .have you drawn it in the last month, Jack Sparrow?"
Jack's response was another snarl.
"Oh, Jack, I'm sure that of course it was an accident, of course, but didn't it feel good to see what you could do? To feel that power in your hands? The power of life and death over innocence?" Almorte stepped over to the bound pirate, staring him in the eye as he brought the blade up by Jack's neck, one elbow nearly resting on the pirate's shoulder, though his face was too far away for Jack to do any serious damage by lunging at it. "That's a feeling you took away from me, Jack. You took my anonymity and you took my career. I've taken your reputation, your career, and, soon now, your life. I think that's about fair."
Jack suddenly lunged his head down and to the left, pulling as tightly as he could on the bonds around his hands despite the flare of agony in his wrist, and sank his teeth into the other man's wrist, drawing blood.
The assassin leapt back in shock, his skin whitening slightly, as he stared between the pirate and his bloodied wrist. "You're mad. A bloody rabid sparrow."
Jack licked his bloody lips and grinned that feral grin that he had gotten very good at over the past eight days.
Almorte stalked over to the fire, placing the sword in until the metal glowed red-hot.
"And you'll pay for that. You've only made it harder on yourself, Sparrow."
Jack merely snarled again.
End Notes:
One, it is possible for a human being biting in the right place with enough force to draw blood. My brother has proven this to me.
Two, for those who care, I know from Biomed (a very informative but still evil in its difficulty level) that the method of rabies transmission was discovered in 1804, so I'm figuring that at the time of this they would know that it was a disease and hopefully be calling it rabies.
