Mark The Earth With Ruin

Chapter 11

Annie Palmer was in a towering fury. "This is absolutely unacceptable," she hissed, leaning close to Nicodemus' face. "I had both means and method here in my grasp, and thanks to your incompetence, twenty years' watching and waiting is to go wasted? I think not." She turned away, a hand on her stomach, drawing in deep breaths through her nose. "Find Sparrow. Bring him to me." Annie gave the captain of the Seraph a darkling stare, crossing to him and cupping his jaw in her palm. She spoke gently, almost caressingly, reaching up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. "Or I shall make a meal of you, and devour your very soul." Her pink tongue snaked out and trailed its way up Nicodemus' jaw.

Nicodemus blanched, bowed, and left in haste. Will felt slightly sick. He'd no doubt whatsoever that hers was not an empty threat.

He'd heard the same stories everyone else had, of vodoun priests capable of stealing the soul of a man and trapping it forever while the body was used as a tool for crimes of the most foul. Zombies, they were called. He glanced at Edmund, at the queer, impassive expression on his face. Like a child's slate that had been wiped clean for the next day's lessons, Will thought, and the thought made him shiver.

The young blacksmith winced behind his gag as iron scraped against the raw skin on his wrists. They'd exchanged the bellrope for shackles on arrival here at Rose Hall. The tall black man who'd held a sword to his throat while Ned locked the manacles in place was not merely a pirate, but employed by Annie specifically to attract the notice of Jack Sparrow's particular brand of high seas retribution. She'd taken a certain glee in announcing that she'd known all along Jack wasn't killed on Tortuga; Annie was adept at detecting supernatural activities, and there hadn't been any in this part of the Caribbean for nearly a decade. So she'd concluded that the sightings of the ghostly Captain Sparrow were the result of a hoax, and had set out to trap him.

But Jack was free. That was important. Annie needed Jack, somehow, that much was obvious. But she didn't have him. The thought made Will feel much better. Surely help was on the way.

Now Annie was looking at him. Speculatively. Will felt his skin begin to crawl as Annie began to smile.

"Bring him," she barked at Ned, who roughly shoved Will toward the door. "We'll have Jack Sparrow yet."

~*~

Zaid inserted his iron bar into the loop on Jack's remaining gyve and gave it a mammoth twist, shearing off the link. "Faulty ironwork," he said with a nod. "It does not handle torque well."

Jack shook the iron cuff to the ground where it landed on the others with a clank. "Praise be for faulty ironwork," he said with a grimace, rubbing his raw wrists. "Those were effective enough, faults and all." He looked upward, assessing the nearest tree. "That'll do." Jack swung himself up on the lowest branch and nimbly climbed out of sight.

"What are you doing?" hissed Zaid, looking about himself nervously.

"Taking a bearing," came the reply. After a moment, Jack dropped lightly to the ground. "They're still searching, but too far inland. We can swing around toward the beach and come up the back of the house." He strode off.

After one astonished look, Zaid hurried after him. "I don't suppose you'd care to share the reason we'd be making this particularly suicidal gesture?" he inquired mildly.

Jack grinned without looking at the gentle giant. "Told Gibbs I'd be back for him," he said. "No time like the present, as me gray haired old mum used to say."

A rumbling chuckle issued from the general area of Zaid's chest. "You haven't got a gray haired old mother, have you?"

"Not that I know of," Jack answered with a wave of his hand. "I mean obviously I have one, or did have. Otherwise I'd hardly be here now. Though whether she is or was gray-haired or not is open to debate. In any case, I'm sure she'd be a wonderful woman, full of folksy wisdom and charm. Like her doting only son." He paused long enough to sketch a bow, his hand on his heart. Zaid snorted.

A shape darted out from the shadows with a hiss. "Jack!"

The pirate clutched at his chest and staggered back, his eyes wide. "Ana! What the flaming hell –" His eyes narrowed. "I told you to go to Port Royal. Dunno if you've noticed, love, but confidentially, this isn't it."

Ana thumped him in the chest. "Stop fooling around, Jack. We have to get out of here."

"Aye, we do, which is why I'm just on my way to collect Gibbs – who the bloody hell is that?!"

A second shape had materialized in the darkness behind Anamaria. Emmy leaned forward with a grin. "'Tis only me, my lord."

Jack rolled his eyes in disgust. "Marvelous. Another Norrington. Where did you sprout up from? I thought we put you on a boat to Aruba."

Emmy nodded. "I thought so too. Evidently the captain disagreed, for the ship is just off this coast and has been for days. We grew weary of his company. So we decided to leave."

"We?" Jack asked sharply. "Never tell me you brought the little one ashore to this accursed place."

"Belle has her, is taking her to safety."

Jack nodded. "Good woman, Belle." He turned to Ana and poked a finger at her. "You, however, are a harpie and a shrew, disobeying a direct order like that. I ought to have you keelhauled or something. If you've looked around here at all, woman, you know bloody well this is an unhealthy place to be."

Ana bridled, but before she could say anything Emmy interrupted, hands on her hips. "So everyone keeps saying, and I find myself less than enthused about the place myself. Can someone tell me why, please?"

Ana nodded. "'Tis a place of the left-handed magic, Petro. Evil ways, practiced by some believers of vodoun. There is death here, and worse."

Emmy blinked. "Yes, that would seem to cover it." She looked at Jack thoughtfully. "Why you, then? Ana told me they came for you. Why?"

Jack shrugged, refusing to meet her frank gaze. "My magnetic personality, I expect. Come on, Zaid. You," he pointed at Ana again, "stay here. That. Is. An. Order." He waved his hands aimlessly in the air. "Somewhere about, anyway. Don't let them find you, obviously. But stay away from that peristyle. Savvy?"

Emmy's eyes narrowed as Jack and Zaid disappeared into the gloom. "Are we going to listen to him?"

Ana shot her a look. "Oh, aye. We'll be somewhere about. Come on." With that she boldly followed Jack's trail.

~*~

"Jack Sparrow!"

Jack ducked into the shrubbery. Damme, that had been close by. Where was the witch? He popped his head up to locate her. There she was, in the middle of the peristyle, by the poteau-mitan, or what passed for one in this forsaken place. Amazing how voices carried when one was in a bit of a panic.

Annie Palmer snapped a riding crop against her leg. "I know you're near, Jack. You carry my mark. I'll find you eventually, and you will be mine."

He growled softly.

"I tire of this game, Jack." Annie gave someone a nod, and Jack bared his teeth at the sight of Ned dragging Will toward the poteau-mitan. The blacksmith was gagged and heavily shackled at wrist and ankles. "Perhaps we will change the game a bit," Annie purred. "You know this part, I know you do. This is the part where you give me what I want, or I take your friend's life."

Jack clenched his jaw as Ned, at a signal from his mistress, tore Will's shirt from him and hung his wrists from a hook on the poteau-mitan, facing Annie.

"Very nice," Annie said, running the tip of the riding crop down Will's chest. "A pity to mar such a pretty thing. However, needs must as the devil –" Annie grinned. "As I drive, actually." She raised her voice. "And to add some piquancy…"

Torches circled the peristyle casting an eerie ring of flickering light. A figure stepped forward, carrying a thick blacksnake whip.

Bootstrap.

Jack felt sick as Bill's plea to be burned suddenly had a context.

Bill unfurled the long weapon at Will's feet. The blacksmith struggled futilely, his shouts muffled by the gag around his mouth. Annie folded her arms, her face a study in triumphant satisfaction.

"Well, Jack?" she called.

Zaid grabbed for his arm, but Jack shook him off, wanting desperately to vomit, or scream, or something. Wishing he had a pistol. Or a brace of pistols.

But the only weapon he had was himself. Jack got to his feet and stepped into the circle of light. "I'm here, damn you," he growled. "I'll do what you want."

Annie smiled as several of the Seraph's crew ran forward to surround and bind Jack, forcing him to his knees. "Aye, Jack. You will." She turned to Bill. "Flog him."

Bill raised the whip; and Jack could see the glimmer of tears trailing down his old friend's face as the lash came down.

~*~

Kelpie skidded to an abrupt halt, nearly tossing her rider over her neck to the ground. Rose slipped quietly from the mare's back and rubbed her cheek against the creature's velvety nose, whispering her thanks.

She looked around. The trees were tall and eerie, their broad leaves weaving shadows to form a canopy of darkness that surrounded her. Rose could smell smoke on the wind, and there was an orange glow flickering through the underbrush. She picked her way carefully toward the light, ignoring the sting of sharp detritus on her bare feet, an odd thrill of dread in her stomach.

Rose leaned against the broad trunk of a tree, peering from behind. Her blue eyes went wide. A peristyle, the circle of torches, Annie Palmer a Petro priestess… She nodded. Edmund's sudden illness and marriage fell into place. Her nails dug into the soft tree bark as Will was dragged forward, and then… and then…

What did one do when one's deepest desires and darkest fears collided in harsh reality? Rose struggled not to scream, to run forward, to strike the witch down, to fall to her knees and kiss the earth, or curse it. She tasted a metallic tang and realized she'd bitten her lip hard enough to bleed.

Her dreams had been echoes of reality. Bill lived.

A gentle hand fell on Rose's shoulder, and she nearly leapt from her skin, spinning around. Maman smiled, her blind eyes glinting white in the reflected light from the fires that burned beyond. "You found him," she said approvingly. "Now you frees him, and you keeps him. 'Tis a simple task, but a hard one, Rose."

"Maman," Rose panted, trying in vain to slow her racing heart. "How do you come to be here?"

The old woman shrugged. "I was called. And," another smile played about the crone's wizened lips, "I been waiting for this day. I is glad you is here, cherie. You is a good girl, you deserves to start again."

Rose blinked back tears. "But… how can I fight this kind of evil? What do I do?"

Maman seemed to be looking beyond the girl to where the poteau-mitan pierced the starry sky. "You needs to find the vessel."

"Vessel? I don't understand."

Maman turned her attention back to Rose and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You needs to find the bottle," and she proceeded to explain.