Author's Note: here's another little vignette, though I'm not sure I captured Barbossa as well as I did last time. sigh I'll try to get another of these out before Thanksgiving (that'll be three Thanksgivings that I will have been writing these), but I make no promises because the next few weeks are going to be busy.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last vignette. It really does me good to know that I haven't lost my touch or anything like that.

They faded like the light in a dying man's eyes. It was gradual, as if the curse had a sadistic mind of its own. As if it waited for us to spend every piece of that god-forsaken gold before it took hold with its full strength, luring us into allowing granting it freedom. Letting our own greed fulfill its purpose.

I thought then, before the last piece exchanged hands, that I was sickening. Then that dirty barman had snatched the money from my hand and the full weight of what we'd all done slammed into me with the force of the natives' kulakani. I killed the man in a instinctive attempt to reverse what couldn't be undone.

It was too late.

My men weren't happy. They found me immediately. When they discovered what had consummated the curse, they were ready to mutiny. Worse that mutiny. If I hadn't already been all but dead, I quickly would have joined those ranks.

Imbeciles. As if they could have figured out how to lift the curse without me. Perhaps they would have managed to bumble their way to redemption. Perhaps even vengeful, bloodthirsty gods would have taken pity on their stupidity. More likely they would have wiped my crew off the face of the earth.

I wouldn't have missed them.

Rage. Rage I could still feel. And hate. And the most awful of emotions, despair. For eight years that's all I felt. They had been held at bay in the eighteen months it took us to track down most of the coins. For the most part the black marketers and procuresses that take our coin spend their lives in the same dirty, squalid miles that their parents lived and died in. Unfortunately, there's a handful of others always on the run from debts, enemies, or the authorities.

Ten coins in all. But those ten coins took another year to trace.

And then there was the last one.

Once we were so close I could all but taste the success. And then nothing. Turner's brat evaded us somehow. And that led to eight years of idle villainy. Yes, we amassed tremendous amounts of loot, but to what purpose? What could we have bought that would have meant anything? That wouldn't have stirred the flames of rage, despair, and impotence higher?

Nothing.

And then finally – finally – just as my men were about to be drained of all hope, when Tuner's fate started to look attractive, when even our dreams were free of all sensation, the call came. It was a pull our curse-ridden bodies couldn't resist. To do so would have been to court madness that even ten years of being caught between life and death couldn't inspire. Not that we wished to. We wanted the curse broken for better or worse.

All our plans were ruined though when Jack – Jack! – couldn't keep his long nose out of our business. His thirst for revenge was understandable; I had the same thirst since it was his information that sent us to this cave. Not even I could have imagined he would have damned himself just to ensure our defeat.

I know his weakness though; he's always been squeamish about spilling the blood of anyone who isn't a sailor or soldier. I'm not sure why a coward like that ever turned pirate…if the term could even apply to him.

Never mind those thoughts. I am too close to feeling warm again to give up now.

One of Jack's wild sword strokes passes by my cheek and I aim my pistol at the false Turner-girl, knowing that whatever else her death accomplishes, I will have created a distraction. My finger tightens on the trigger –

A shot rings out, and there's a small impact on my chest. I turn my head in disbelief, just in time to see that same emotion take over Jack's eyes.

The stupid blighter… "Ten years you carry that pistol, and now you waste your shot." My voice rings with delight, drowning out the echoes of the pistol report.

"He didn't waste it."

Distain and disbelief turn my face into a mask as the Turner boy drops two bloodstained coins into the chest. Even before the sound of metal hitting metal hits my ears, an icy spear pierces my chest. I have to look down to see if there's something actually there.

Heat. I nearly moan in rapture at the sensation of heat even as I was blood gush out of the wound I didn't have time to heal by one last trip into the moonlight. The heat quickly vanishes, only to be replaced by the cold. Even the pain is gone.

"I feel…cold."

And as my vision goes dark, I can only think that it feels heavenly.

kulakani – Arawak term for "hurricane." The Arawaks inhabited Columbia, Venezuela, Guiana, the Amazon basin in Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, and most of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic).

Source: The American Heritage College Dictionary, 4th Edition