Pirate Wolf Trilogy (123 page)

“Wh-what happened? Where are we?”

“Good question.” He looked around, partly
shocked to realize he could see perfectly well even though there
was no visible source of light within the cavern to cause the
reflections off the walls. Behind them was the sheer slide of rock
and sand they had tumbled down, far too steep and high to attempt
to climb without ropes, though he gave it a few moments of
concentrated effort. There were no hand or footholds in the rock,
nothing to aid them in climbing back up.

He found his hat and slammed it firmly on his
head.

“We will have to find another way out. Either
that or wait until morning when the men go looking for us.”

“We could try shouting.”

“We’re too far from the camp. I doubt they
would hear us over their own snores anyway.”

He turned in a full circle, looking to see if
there was a tunnel or opening in the walls. There seemed to be a
dark gap on the opposite side of the pool that suggested a space
barren of the glittering creatures and he took Eva by the hand.

“Stay close. Put your feet exactly where I
put mine.”

This last precaution came as he realized they
were standing at the lowest point of the cavern and the rock was
slimy with wet moss, which meant a larger part of the cavern would
be under water at high tide. Just how high the water would rise was
not something he wanted to wait to discover.

They picked their way carefully around the
edge of the pool. Gabriel left her on her own for brief moments
while he explored indents of darker shadows but none proved to be
deeper than arm’s length or wide enough for a body to squeeze
through. Eva was intrigued by the glistening rocks, for the blues
and greens constantly changed hues and intensity. She touched a
finger to a stalagmite and dragged it downward, leaving a dark
streak behind on the rock.

“Look,” she said, smiling in awe as Gabriel
returned to her side. The tip of her finger was shimmering like the
walls.

He grunted to express his extreme fascination
and snatched up her hand again, leading her upward toward the
darkest end of the cave. As they approached, he was somewhat
relieved to feel a gentle flow of cool sea air on his face and
pleased to see that he had guessed correctly: there was a wide
opening in the wall that led into what appeared to be a tunnel.

“Stay here,” he ordered. “I’ll see where it
leads and come right back.”

She clutched at his hand, refusing to let go,
and he paused long enough to brush her cheek with the back of his
fingers and give her a reassuring smile.

“I will come right back.” He gave a loose
strand of her hair a reassuring tug and smiled. “Play with your
little sea creatures, Mermaid, until I return.”

She listened to his bootsteps crunching off
into the shadows and took a moment to check the condition of the
scrape on her arm, fearing Dante might use it as an excuse to leave
her behind when the march continued in the morning. Thankfully
there was not much blood, and the scrape could hardly justify
abandoning her, but the wound itself stung badly. To distract
herself, she touched the rocks again, this time splaying her hand
on the surface. When she lifted it again, she saw that she had left
a clear imprint behind. When she wiped her fingers on her sleeve,
the color glittered for a few moments, then slowly faded away.

She heard Dante returning and sighed.
“Whatever the little creatures are, they do not like being wiped
onto cloth.”

The footsteps slowed and she turned.

Whoever… whatever it was, it was not Gabriel
Dante.

The head of the creature was twice that of a
normal man. It stood well over seven feet tall and was built as
solid and thick as a tree trunk from shoulders to thighs. Eva
recalled Eduardo’s tale of the monsters that lived in the blue
holes and she jumped back a step. She tripped over a ridge in the
stone and fell hard against the stalagmite, banging her temple on
the rock. After that, she saw nothing at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Five miles away, Estevan
Quintano Muertraigo was pacing the floor of his cabin on board
the
San Mateo
,
his fury unabated since the first broadside had been fired from
the
Endurance
.
Since then he had ordered a dozen men, most of them former
lookouts, bound to the shrouds and lashed until the skin hung off
their backs in bloody ribbons. He had shouted orders and threats
until his voice had gone hoarse and foam had formed hard crusts at
the corners of his mouth. The portwine stain on his face had
darkened like a splotch of ink, and twice he had shot men out of
hand for merely looking at him the wrong way.

The object of his initial fury had been
presented to him by a crewman who had dived behind a capstan to
avoid an exploding canister shot. When the shell split open on
deck, instead of spraying an array of razor-edged shrapnel, it had
sent a flag luffing into the air. It was crimson with a pair of
wolves depicted in black silhouettes crouched on either side of a
cannon.

Muertraigo had clutched the
pennon in his fist and screamed a stream of obscenities that could
be heard above the roar of cannon fire. There were few captains of
any nation who did not instantly recognize the Dante colors, fewer
still who could say they’d had the upper hand on one of the Hell
Twins but squandered it. Knowing he’d been duped set every vein in
his body on fire. One of his ships,
La
Asuncion
, was now crippled and useless.
The temporary repair on the main mast of the
San Mateo
would likely not hold in a
strong wind… not that there had been anything above a breeze to
test it. The third galleon,
El
Gato
, had half of her battery of guns
rendered useless and was now burdened with the extra crew from
the
Asuncion
.

As soon as the morning sun
had burned the fog away a wind had allowed the
Cormorant
to pull up closer and
cross the reef into the bight. By late afternoon a jolly boat had
been lowered away to bring Lawrence Ross across to the galleon,
where he had spent most of the evening listening to Muertraigo rant
and rave and berate his officers one after the other in his
cabin.

While he listened and
sipped inferior wine, Ross managed to piece enough of the story
together to grow almost bored with the Spaniard’s fury. Muertraigo
had admitted to presenting himself under a fake name; the Dante
fellow had done the same thing. Touché. Muertraigo had fully
intended to open fire with first light; Dante had lit his fuses
first, thus gaining the upper hand. The only misstep, Ross rather
recklessly pointed out, was going on board Dante’s ship instead of
insisting that Dante row across to the
San
Mateo
.

“It was a chivalrous gesture,” Muertraigo
spat, “an attempt to spare discomfort to the captain’s wife. Had I
insisted he come alone, he might have become suspicious sooner, and
at the time, I still had hopes of taking the ship as prize. The
armament she carried was impressive and could have added
considerably to my fleet.”

“And now, for that gentlemanly gesture, you
find yourself minus a ship.”

“Gabriel Dante will pay heavily for the
loss… and the insult,” Muertraigo hissed.

“How can you be sure which brother you were
facing?”

“Jonas Dante has hair as red as the devil
himself and a volatile nature to match. This one was dark-haired
and refined, with the golden eyes and the calm bearing of a panther
lying in wait. He spoke flawless Castilian, as did his wife… if,
indeed, she was his wife and not just another of his whores. She
seemed to be too well spoken and refined, however, for him to have
found her lying on her back in a brothel.”

Ross chuckled dryly and brushed a fleck of
dust off his cuff. “You see, my friend, how a pretty pair of
breasts can addle a man’s mind?”

Muertraigo sloshed wine into his cup and
took a deep swallow. “The green-eyed bitch should hope I never see
her again.”

Ross smirked. “Green eyes, you say? And did
she have long silvery-blonde hair and heart-shaped mole over her
left breast?”

Muertraigo frowned. “Yes, she did. How could
you know that?”

Ross glanced up, startled. He stared at the
Spaniard so long and with such a stunned look on his face that
Muertraigo’s hand drifted toward the hilt of his pistol.

“What is it? Who is she? Do you know the
whore?”

Ross turned his head briefly to glance at
the doorway where Augustus George was standing like an enormous
stone statue. “Green eyes, you say?”

“As green as the rarest of emeralds, hair so
pale a yellow it was almost white; the face of an angel, the soul
of a devil’s spawn.”

“And you said her name was—?”

“I did not say, but I doubt very much it was
Carmelita. She wore a locket with the letter E engraved on the
silver and when I questioned it, she blushed through the lie and
said it had belonged to her mother.”

Lawrence Ross’ grip tightened on his wine
cup. “A silver locket with the letter E? Was it oval and mounted
with jewels?”

Muertraigo’s face flushed
to show his increasing impatience. “No. It was round and plain
though I am hard-pressed to understand why it should make a
difference if it was shaped like a pig’s ear.
Who is she?”

But Ross was staring at Augustus George
again and when he spoke, he switched to English and his voice came
out a dry rasp. “You told me she was dead.”

“I shot her. There was blood and when she
fell she couldn’t get up again.”

“Was she alive when you left the house?”

Augustus licked his fat lips nervously.
“Aye, but she couldn’t move. She were bleedin’ an’ beggin’ for help
to get out o’ the fire. She couldn’t move on her own.”

“Well somehow she managed to do just
that.”

Muertraigo brought his fist slamming down on
the desk. “What are you not telling me, senor? Who did you assume
was dead?”

“Evangeline Chandler, William Chandler’s
daughter.”

Muertraigo straightened and sucked at a
mouthful of air. “How could this be? You told me she had been dealt
with.”

“I thought she had,” Ross said coldly.

“And now you think the cub’s supposed wife
is this Chandler girl? How can you be certain they are one and the
same?” Muertraigo asked, switching back to Spanish.

“I can’t, of course, but you have described
her perfectly. Wait--!” Ross patted the goffered ruff at his
throat, his fingers finding and unpinning the jeweled brooch he
wore at the top of his doublet. It had been a gift upon his
thirty-third birthday and contained an enameled portrait of his
erstwhile fiancé. He had forgotten all about the miniature and
never looked at it; he wore it mainly because the filigreed edging
was crusted with diamonds and because, frankly, he had forgotten to
pry the little disk out.

He flicked the brooch open and passed it
across to Muertraigo. “This is Evangeline Chandler.”

Muertraigo studied the portrait and nodded,
the rage darkening his face again. “This is also Senora Carmelita
Padilla. There could not be two faces so much alike.”

For a full minute neither man spoke or moved
a muscle.

“And so,” Muertraigo growled. “We seem to
have another ghost we must deal with… if, indeed, the daughter of
William Chandler was ever meant to be a ghost.”

“I don’t know what you are implying,
Estevan, but surely you can see this is as much a surprise to me as
it is to you.”

“I am not implying
anything. I am merely wondering how the supposedly dead and buried
daughter of the man who claims to have found the wreck of
the
Nuestro Santisimo Victorio
suddenly appears, very much alive, on board a
ship belonging to the Dante band of cutthroats and thieves. I am
also wondering if, perhaps, you made two deals, senor: One with me
and one with the Pirate Wolf.”

“Why in God’s name would I do such a
thing?”

“So that once the treasure was recovered,
you could watch us destroy each other, then blithely sail away,
keeping all of the bounty for yourself.”

“That is a preposterous suggestion,
sir!”

“Is it?” Muertraigo drew his pistol and
cocked it.”

Augustus George took a menacing step forward
but before he could draw his own weapon, Muertraigo pulled the
trigger and fired.

The shot was explosive in such close
quarters and Ross ducked, nearly tipping over in the chair. When he
dared to raise his head again, there was a haze of smoke drifting
around the muzzle of the pistol. Ross glanced at his chest first
and neither saw nor felt any holes blasted into his flesh. When he
looked again, he realized the barrel was pointed over his shoulder
and he whirled around in his seat.

Augustus George had been stopped in his
tracks. A small red hole had appeared in his forehead and as
Lawrence watched in horror, a trickle of blood leaked out and ran
straight down the slope of his nose and dripped onto the bullish
chest. A moment later, George crashed forward like a felled tree,
dead before he struck the floorboards.

“Good Christ, man!” Ross shot to his feet,
shocked. “Why did you do that? Why did you kill him?”

“Because I am surrounded by liars and
fools!” Muertraigo screamed as he drew a second pistol out of his
belt. “And the next ball will be for you, my friend, unless you can
convince me this was not all part of your plan.”

“
My
plan?” Ross was still stunned by
the unexpected violence. “My plan was exactly the one I proposed to
you from the outset: to meet up with William Chandler, let him lead
us to the treasure, then kill him and take equal shares of what we
found. When Evangeline broke off our engagement, I could not afford
to leave her behind to cry foul, so I sent Augustus to the house
that night to find the letters and the coins and to silence the
little bitch once and for all. The fire was set to make it look
like an accident. My only
plan
after that was to leave Portsmouth as soon as
possible after the funeral to avoid having to play the part of the
grieving fiancé any longer than necessary.”