The Oldest Story in the Book

Chapter 28

Author's Note: Terribly sorry this is so late. Thank you all for being so patient.

"I thought you were dead, but I'm mighty glad you aren't. I want to finish this properly."

"I'll finish it properly," Jack murmured, suddenly pulling his pistol from his waist band and aiming at Bootleg. The old pirate grinned and continued to walk nearer.

"Jack, no!" Pearl reached over to grab his arm. "We don't do things that way."

"We're pirates, luv," Jack replied. "We do things exactly that way."

"I don't," Pearl said. "This is my fight." She leaned closer. "Hal would understand."

Jack sighed, uncocking the pistol and settling for shooting glares at the man who had stopped walking some ten feet from the boat.

"Now that's a pity. Not having your father fight your fights for you?" Bootleg called.

"I can gut my own fish," Pearl replied.

"Ah, what about the rest of them, hm? What say you to an oath that they'll not interfere."

Pearl nodded and turned to the gathered group. "An oath. While I live you'll not raise a hand against him."

"Pearl!" Elizabeth cried. "What if..."

"Even if," Pearl answered.

With a sigh Jack said, "Given."

Emmie quickly parroted, "Given."

After a glare from her to the Turners they each murmured the word.

"Edward," Pearl said.

He glared at the pirate, then glanced at her. "Pearl, I can't promise, if you're on the ground at his mercy, to do nothing."

"You must," Pearl said. She stepped closer. "If I am close to death and at his mercy Jack will see me ended." Jack nodded once, sharply. "He will be yours then."

"Pearl-"

"It won't come to that," Pearl put in. "I'm just saying the worst you're imagining won't come about. Please, Edward."

He sighed heavily, then nodded. "It had better not come about. I couldn't do it." His gaze settled on the pirate. "Given."

"Ethan?" Emmie said.

The boy shook his head. "This isn't right."

"You've entered a new world, lad," Jack put in. "And it ain't never easy out here. For now, Pearl's asking for your oath. That should be enough."

The boy blinked at Jack, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. His gaze turned to his father, who nodded. "Given," he finally said.

"Please, Pearl, for my sake, take care. I'm not ready to lose another one," Norrington said.

"You won't," Pearl promised. "Of course, if I break that promise I'll be dead so you'll be hard-pressed to be angry with me."

"That's comforting," Norrington chuckled.

"Oy, if you're done with the loviness," Bootleg called.

"Leave off that subject. You know naught about it," Pearl called, unsheathing her sword and striding toward him. "What with your needing to whip a woman into warming your bed. Except that didn't work so well for you, did it?"

"Something I intend to remedy now," he answered, raising his sword.

He struck first, a blow that left the clang on metal on metal echoing around them. She returned, forcing him back a step. He circled her to attempt a stride at her side. She turned her wrist under, taking a double handed grip to force his sword back. He stumbled in the shifting sand, but managed to block her next move.

"Your leg's bothering you, isn't it?" Pearl asked with false sweetness.

"Speaking of which, your arm don't look so good," Bootleg returned.

"It's tolerable," Pearl answered. "You wouldn't believe the threshold I've developed for pain. You helped with that, you know. And my darling daughter."

"Lovely. Perhaps we'll have a little test to see how high it goes," he said.

"I wouldn't count on it," Pearl said. She cut in with a fury of blows that made him stumble again, but he quickly recovered to force her back with a swift thrust of his cutlass. It was her turn to stumble over a large shell, sliding to find her balance in the sand just in time.

She backed up carefully, now mindful of the large shells that littered the beach. Suddenly Bootleg pulled back instead of following up a blow, twisting so his left side was exposed, his left hand pulling out his pistol and aiming it at Pearl.

Pearl's eyes widened and she dove to the right. The pistol fired.

"I told her," Jack hissed, suddenly pale beneath the blood still clinging to his face. "I told her pirates do things like this."

When the smoke cleared Pearl lay on the sand, left hand clutching her right side as Bootleg stood victorious. "Tough luck, my dear," he said, kneeling beside her. He pulled her hand away to examine the growing blood stain spreading over her shirt. He clucked his tongue. "Very tough, I'm afraid." He removed his hand, allowing her to clap her left over the wound again.

"Jack," Will gasped. "What do we do?"

"Hold on," Jack answered.

"What?" Elizabeth asked.

"Something isn't right," Emmie said.

"What do you mean?" Norrington asked.

"She should be kicking and screaming," Jack answered.

"She's wounded," Elizabeth pointed out.

"It's in her side," Jack said.

"I don't think it's that bad," Emmie put in.

"She's playin' him," Jack said.

"Cocky bastard," Emmie murmured.

"Clever girl," Ethan put in.

"Emerald! Mind your mouth," Elizabeth ordered automatically.

"Well, my dear, whatever should we do now?" Bootleg asked, smoothing her hair back from her face.

"Die, I think," Pearl answered.

"It's a bit early for that yet. I have plans for you."

"Oh, I don't plan on going anywhere," Pearl said. "I was talking about you." Her right hand, which had been twisted underneath her since her fall, flew in a streak, plunging into his stomach with a dagger.

Bootleg gaped. Pearl took her left hand from her wound to steady him, keeping him from falling forward onto her. She sat up, folding her legs beneath her to get onto his level. His eyes looked at her, disbelieving, as the sword still in his right hand dropped to the sand.

"I can cheat too."

Bootleg gurgled as she twisted the dagger viciously, shredding his insides. "Twenty years I've waited for this, dreamed of this. You took something from me that day, you bloody bastard. I'm taking it back, today." She twisted the dagger again. "The pain won't last as long for you, but I can live with that." He moaned as she drove he dagger deeper. "Because I'm taking something far more precious to you. Your life. Goodbye Bootleg," she said. With a final twist of the dagger she pulled it across his belly. The skin split and his innards fell to the sand.

Pearl stood and stepped back as he fell forward onto the mess. She kneeled beside him, slapping his hat out of the way to seize his hair and pull his head around to face her. He was moaning. Norrington couldn't help but wince. A shot to the gut, most anyone knew, was the slowest and most painful way to die. It could take him days, months if they gave him water. He moaned, turning it into a scream of pain as she jarred him. Norrington's stomach turned. Bootleg had hurt her, yes, but she was hurting him to the extreme. He didn't want to see her like this. Cruel. He'd spent years convincing himself there was kindness in her, that she wasn't the average bloodthirsty pirate. And here she was, proving him wrong.

"When you get wherever you're going, I want you to remind them that I gave you this kindness, which you had no right to expect." Norrington nearly drooped with relief when she put the dagger to his throat.

"Thank you," he whispered to her.

She slit his throat in one even movement, looking deeply into his eyes, watching the light fade from them. Gurgling one final time the pirate went still and silent.

She cleaned her dagger off on the back of his shirt before retrieving her sword. She wiped her boots, now caked in his blood, on the sand as well as she could. After a moment's thought she picked up Bootleg's sword as well, walking easily back toward the boats.

"Pearl, are you all right?" Norrington asked, going to meet her.

Her face was a mask showing neither pleasure nor pain. Marble there, but he could see the wheels turning behind her eyes, and knew things were falling into place inside of her in ways he couldn't hope to understand.

"I'm fine, Edward. Will, I've got some scrap metal for you." She threw Bootleg's sword into the boat. "Make something pretty from it, will you?"

Will smiled and nodded.

"But your side," Norrington argued as she reached the boats.

"Just a scratch," Pearl said.

"But all that blood," he said, pointing to the shirt.

Pearl lifted her left hand, the one she had been holding over the wound, to show him the small pool of blood in her palm. A red track down her sleeve revealed where the blood flowed from the wound on her upper arm. "You need more practice tying bandages."

"You'd been collecting the blood in your hand in case he did this?" Norrington asked.

"Indeed. I was lucky. I was actually planning to wait for it to clot and throw it into his eyes. He just gave me an opening. The things I learned about blood from him, you wouldn't believe." Pearl climbed into the boat before the boys could help her in.

"That's disgusting," Elizabeth objected as Ethan moved to help her. She glared at the boy as he guided her onto a seat.

"It's also effective," Jack said. "Are we set to go then?"

"Looks like it," Pearl said as everyone climbed back into the boat.

Author's Note: Ever closer to the end. I just need to wrap up. Never fear. That means Pearl needs to sort things out with Norrington and decide if they can handle each other. There are weddings to do, and gypsies to visit, and deaths ahead. While we're entering the final movement this is a long way from over.