When Jack Sparrow woke up in his cell at the fort, he was somewhat less then pleased. He groaned and swore under his breath. I smiled in sympathy. I was in the cell with him.When he was unconscious Ihad takenthe opportunity to examine my wounds the best I could. There was a scar on my chest and I could feel one on my back as well. I decided to make the best of them. "They'll give me something to talk about; a little souvenir," I thought.
Kneeling down beside Jack, I attempted to sooth the situation over for him. "Hey. How's your head?"
Jack shot a quick glance over to the cell beside ours. There were four men inside it. "Bloody blacksmiths," Jack muttered. He sat up and scooted over to the far end of the cell, away from the other prisoners so they wouldn't over hear him talking to someone they couldn't see.
"You said that I wasn't going to regret trusting you, Calypso," the pirate whispered. "I must tell you, I am beginning to re-think my decision. So far, it's gotten me no where except for here." He pointed to the straw covered floor.
"Look, I said that I was going to get you your Pearl back and I will," I reminded him. "It's just going to take a little while, that's all. You have to kill Barbossa first."
"I already knew that." Jack spoke as if I were a simple-minded little girl. "But you tell me how I'm supposed to accomplish Barbossa's murder when I'm locked in jail awaiting my hanging in the morning?"
I gave Jack a sly smile. "Who ever said you were going to die tomorrow?" The pirate gave me a look and sighed.
"So I have nothing to worry about?"
"You have nothing to worry about," I said aloud. I couldn't help adding "yet" in my thoughts.
Jack nodded. Then a look of concern crossed his features. "Last time I saw you, you had a sword sticking out of your chest." I felt flattered. He was worried about me!
"Yeah," I chuckled, looking down at my chest. "I didn't know I could survive through something like that." Jack grunted in agreement. "Look, it will be a little while before anything interesting happens. So we might as well get some rest."
"Aye. Do you think they'll give us anything to eat?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Probably not."
"Oh well," Jack sighed. He propped some straw on a small ledge in a corner to act as a pillow. Sitting there, he made himself as comfortable as he could and tipped his hat over his eyes. I adopted a similar pose in the opposite corner across from him, talking the opportunity to relax before the Black Pearl arrived.
As the sun went down, I noticed how dark it was getting inside the cell. I was beginning to feel uneasy. If there is one thing I fear, it's total darkness, especially when I'm alone. Even though I wasn't alone, I decided to take the edge off the darkness. I spotted some candles on the ledge between me and Jack. When the criminals in the other cell weren't looking, I touched the wick of each candle and instantly they burst into flame. Jack saw me do this and smiled. I smiled back. Then one of the other prisoners noticed the light.
"Hey, you!" he called to Jack. "How'd you light them candles?"
"Magic," Jack said without looking at him. A grin escaped my lips.
There was a sudden noise at the door to the jail. The other prisoners and I looked up. Jack didn't move. I chuckled in amusement when a scruffy grey and brown dog trotted down the stone stairs. In its mouth was the metal key ring. Jack peeked over his shoulder at the other criminals. They had gone into a sort of mild frenzy. One found an old bone, another found a length of rope which he tied into a lasso. All four of them huddled against the bars, attempting to get the mutt to come towards them. The dog seemed less then willing to comply. Jack sighed and leaned back again.
After about five minutes of the criminals' very annoying and unsuccessful pleading, Jack got fed up. "You can keep doing that forever. The dog is never going to move," he said.
The other prisoners looked back at him. "Oh, excuse us if we haven't resigned ourselves to the gallows just yet," one retorted, and they went back to their beaconing. Jack smiled, showing his teeth in the candlelight. A small smile crept across my face and I sighed.
"Not long now," I thought.
A weird feeling swept over me. It brought an uncomfortable sense of unease. I shivered, but not because I was cold. I could feel the cursed pirates coming. I knew the wait for their arrival was over.
Suddenly there was the loud boom of near-by cannon fire. At the sound, the dog scampered under a bench, the other prisoners jumped, and Jack was instantly alert. "I know those guns," he stated. He sprung up to look through the small window above us. I followed suit. What Jack and I saw confirmed Jack's suspicions and my knowledge of what was going to happen. "It's the Pearl," Jack said quietly, his voice laced with longing.
"The Black Pearl?" one of the other prisoners asked, his voice filled with fear. He and the others moved over to the bars that separated the two cells. "I've heard stories," he said, partly to us and partly to his cellmates. "She's been preying on ships and settlements for near ten years. Never leaves any survivors."
Jack and I both smiled. This guy obviously didn't know who he was talking to. If he knew that the pirate in his neighbouring cell was really the rightful owner and captain of the Black Pearl, I think he might have wet himself.
"No survivors? Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?" Jack asked, clearly amused. The other prisoner frowned and didn't say anything.
The town was in chaos. I knew that a group of pirates, led by Pintel and Ragetti, were probably up at the Swann mansion by now, making a mess and heeding the call of the cursed gold. Elizabeth would demand parley and the two sea rats would "honour the Code" and take her to Barbossa. Will would be fighting pirates in the streets and realising that there's more to them then meets the eye, before seeing his love being hustled away to the Pearl. Then he would get knocked out for the rest of the night.
Jack and I saw a flash from one of the Pearl's cannons and soon realised that they had fired in our direction. Jack's eyes went wide and he ducked to the floor. I screamed andfell onto the straw. Jack landed on top of me. There was an explosion as the cannon ball blasted through the stone wall of the cell beside ours. The pirate whispered "sorry" to me and got up.
"No problem," I grunted sarcastically, rubbing my bruised elbows and knees as I got to my feet. We saw the other four prisoners joyfully leaping out through the hole in the wall. The one who had been talking to us before paused at the hole.
"My sympathies, friend. You've no manner of luck at all." He laughed as he escaped. Jack slowly walked over to the portion of the hole that was in our cell. It was too small for even me to pass through. He sighed and rested his head on the opening for a moment.
"Yeah, well, what does he know?" I said. Frankly, I was glad to be rid of them. Jack turned and looked at me.
"Now what?" he asked. I craned my neck over to the dog's hiding place.
"That dog with the keys is still there," I reported.
Jack went over to the cell door, reached through the bars, and picked up the old bone the other prisoners had discarded. I couldn't help but notice that as he did, Jack become immersed in moonlight that came in though the window. Waving the bone around, Jack whistled for the dog.
"Come on, doggy! It's just you and me now. It's just you and old Jack." I resisted the urge to hit him.
"Hey! I'm here too!" The pirate ignored me. The scruffy canine crept out of its hiding place and slowly approached us.
"Come on. That's a boy! That's a good boy. Come on! A bit closer! That's it. That's it, doggy!" The dog paused just out of reach. Jack lost his patients. "Come on, you filthy, slimy, mangy cad!"
There was a loud thud from upstairs by the door. The dog turned its head and whimpered. Then it ran off down the stairs on our left. "No! No! I didn't mean it!" Jack desperately called after him. I sighed.
There was an even louder thud from the door. We turned and saw an unfortunate redcoat fall down the stairs. Two pirates from the Black Pearl, Koher and Twigg, ran down the steps after him. "This ain't the armoury!" Twigg angrily declared when they saw the room.
When I laid eyes on the two, I gasped. It wasn't because I wasn't expecting the to arrive, it was just that I could feel something missing from them. Every living human gives off a life force I can feel. Even though those two pirates were obviously alive; walking, talking, breathing, to me they were registering as being dead. I could feel no life force coming off them. It was a very creepy feeling.
When Jack recognized the two, I saw a change come over him. He remained calm, but I could see the anger in his eyes and his body tensed up. The pirates recognized Sparrow as well.
"Well, well, well. Look what we have here, Twigg," the black pirate said as the two approached our cell, stopping just short of the pool of moonlight Jack was in. "Captain Jack Sparrow!" Koher spat at Jack's feet.
"Last time I saw you, you were all alone on a godforsaken island, shrinking into the distance," Twigg said to Jack. Koher smirked at the memory. "His fortunes aren't improved much."
"Worry about your own fortunes, gentlemen," Jack said quietly. "The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers." I recognized the reference to Dante and was reminded of the fact that for a pirate, Jack was a very educated man.
Angered, the black pirate thrust one arm through the bars and grabbed Jack's throat. When the limb entered the moonlight, it became skeletal. Cold, hard bones covered with bits of rotten flesh and ragged clothing. I gasped again despite myself. Jack examined the arm with a surprised expression and looked at the pirates.
"So there is a curse. That's interesting," he whispered.
"You know nothing of Hell," Koher said in a low, dangerous voice. He shoved Jack back and let go. Then the two cursed pirates turned and left. Sparrow and I watched them leave. Jack looked at the bone he still held in his hand.
"That's very interesting," he said to himself. I could tell he was making connections in his mind, like puzzle pieces falling into place.
"That medallion Elizabeth had was part of the cursed treasure." I was still a bit shaky from the encounter with the pirates and it showed in my voice. "That's why they're here, to get the medallion and the person who's blood they need."
Jack turned and looked at me. "Aye," he agreed. He noticed that I was spooked. "Are you all right?"
I explained to him how I could feel people's life forces and how the cursed pirates didn't have one. "It was the strangest feeling," I told him, regaining my composure. "I knew they were cursed, but I didn't expect to feel like this. I'm okay now though. And now I'll be ready for the next time we meet them."
"Good," Jack said. He walked back over to the window and looked out at the port. I knew that by now the pirates were on their way back to the Black Pearl. "I suppose I'll have to wait a little longer before I get my ship back," he sighed.
"Yes. We still need the right type of...leverage." A small smirk etched my face. Jack whipped around.
"Leverage?" he asked. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing," I said in the innocent voice you use when you're hiding something. "Just wait until the morning and you'll see what I mean." I smiled at Jack, who returned it.
"So, we're to be sleeping together, eh?" he said in a suggestive tone of voice. My eyes went wide, but I had been expecting something like this to happen.
"No, Jack," I said, my voice suddenly very stern. I felt the air around me thicken with my power, warning the pirate to keep his hands and thoughts to himself. "I'm not some whore from Tortuga you can take advantage of, so don't even try." I thought of all the people I knew back home who would love to be in my situation right now, but I had to lay down the law. It was against every rule in the book to have a romantic encounter with your assignments. You can fall in love with them, sure. It happened all the time. We just can't do anything about it, that's all. I glared at Jack, making sure my message got across. "Savvy?" I left no argument. The smile vanished from Jack's face.
"Okay, okay." He backed down, putting his hands together in mock prayer to clam me. It worked. I had a feeling that once I laid down that rule, Jack would know better then not to follow it. He didn't know just how powerful I was, but I think he had a guess.
"Besides," I said, my voice more mellow. "I don't sleep."
"Really?" Jack raised his eyebrows.
"Really," I confirmed. "But you should now. The next few days are going to be busy for us."
"Fine," the pirate said. He tossed the bone to the floor and settled back into his corner, which he found too uncomfortable with the hole in the wall and moved to my corner. He rested his head against the stone wall. I used my powers to send him into a deep sleep.
"Goodnight," I said.
"'Night," Jack mumbled. I heard him exhale as he drifted off.
I resisted the urge to sigh as I looked around the cell. I knew exactly what to expect tomorrow and I hoped there wouldn't be any more surprises like my impalement and my reaction to the cursed pirates.
Looking for something to do, I picked up the bone. I sat down cross-legged on the floor, leaning my back on the metal bars of the door and began to file the bone down to a sharp point. Jack could use it in an attempt to pick the lock in the morning.