Wake of the Bloody Angel

Chapter Thirty-two

It wasn’t Angelina, of course. The resemblance was striking, but the voice was completely different. It took a minute for that to register, though.

The woman laughed. “No, I’m… My name is… My name is.. ” She seemed to be struggling to remember. “Barbara. My name is Barbara.” She shook her head. “But he called me Angelina. Or Angie. Or Angel. And made everyone else do it.”

I really needed to sit down now, but made do with leaning against the wall. I said, “Are you the only person on the island?”

“Except for him,” she said with a gesture toward the treasure cave.

“It’s just you now,” I said.

She blinked a couple of times, and her face went blank. Then she grabbed me by the hair. When she snarled, “What?” I felt spittle on my cheek. “What did you say?”

I didn’t try to break free. At the moment, it didn’t seem to matter. “I said, he’s dead. Just now.”

“Oh, no,” she whispered, and let me go. She walked a few steps away, quietly repeating, “No,” to herself.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “I’m sorry.”

It was the wrong thing.

“Sorry?” she yelled as she whirled on me. “For a month, I’ve been sitting outside that cage, waiting to watch him die! I’ve given him just enough water to keep him alive, watched him wither, listened to him beg the way he made me beg! And now you tell me I missed it?” She began to laugh. Then it changed to sobs. Then it exploded into full-blown hysterics that rang off the ceiling.

I glanced nervously at the pool, but the surface was motionless.

I couldn’t just sit by and listen to this, so I stood up and put my hand on her shoulder. “Look, is there anything I can-?”

At the moment of contact, she drew a knife from her belt and spun at me. I reacted reflexively, blocked her thrust with my forearm, and hit the point of her chin with the heel of my other hand. Her head snapped back and she dropped to the ground. The sound of her skull hitting the rocky floor rang like a lone drumbeat.

The whole altercation happened so quickly that it was over before I really comprehended it. She sprawled on the rocky cave floor as if she’d fallen from the sky. “Shit,” I whispered to myself. I seriously worried that I might have killed her.

I picked up the knife and waited for the shakes to stop and my breathing to return to normal. When my fingers were steady, I checked her neck for a pulse. It was there, and she moaned when I pulled my hand away.

I carried her to the wall and propped her against it. There was nothing to cover her with, but the tropical breeze wasn’t exactly chilling. I tore a strip from my tunic and risked dipping it in the water, but again, there was no sign of the beast. I returned and wiped her face until, at last, her eyes opened and focused on me.

“You didn’t kill me,” she said.

“Hell, I didn’t even mean to hit you. It was a reflex.”

She looked down at herself. “I’ve still got my clothes on.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

She smiled wryly, without humor. “You’ve never been a woman captured by pirates. Even old pirates.” She gently felt the back of her head. When she pulled her fingers away, there was no blood. “There’s a lump, but it doesn’t seem to be serious. What’s your name?”

“Eddie.”

She laughed, again without any humor. “No.”

“Yeah. Eddie LaCrosse.”

“Another one. Two Eddies. Well, he’s an Edward. Was an Edward.” She paused, took a moment to compose herself, and said, “Is he really dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see? I need to see it for myself.”

“Sure, if it won’t wake up Grabby.” I nodded at the pool.

“Cherish,” she corrected.

“Cherish? That thing’s name is Cherish?”

“Everything needs a name. Wendell picked it; he said she was an old girlfriend who went crazy on him.”

“Wendell Marteen?”

“Yeah.”

I wanted to ask her more questions, but the desperate need in her eyes was hard to ignore. I helped her to her feet, led her around the wall, and showed her the corpse of Black Edward Tew.

After giving her a few moments to take it in, I asked quietly, “How did he end up in there?”

She kept her eyes on the body. “A comedy of errors. He dropped the key to the treasure chamber out here and didn’t realize it until the door slammed shut behind him.”

“So where were you when that happened?”

She smiled, again with no warmth. “Right here. He took me everywhere, and I mean that literally. One of his favorite places was bent over his precious treasure. This time, though, he told me to wait outside while he filled the box. His last and best mistake.”

She knelt and reached through the bars toward his nearest hand, too far away to touch. “You have no idea what that man did to me. You can’t imagine. And all I wanted in revenge was to see him die. And I missed it.”

“Where were you?”

“Where do you think? Following you. Didn’t you see my footprint in the mud? I didn’t have time to go back and cover it up.”

“Did you sic the lizards on us, then?”

“No, they don’t need me to help them find meat.”

I looked at the way the door was constructed. There would be no removing it easily, and picking the lock would take time. “So the door just happened to close when you were out here and he was in there?”

“Think whatever you want,” she said wearily. “I threw the key into the pool when I realized he was locked in. It was the only one; no copies. There’s no fishing it out, and there’s no way to break into the cave without stirring up Cherish, and she’s so big and pulpy, weapons don’t hurt her. Which means you’ve wasted your trip.”

“I’m not interested in the treasure.”

She laughed. It came out as a sharp little snort.

“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Why does nobody believe that?”

“Are you a monk?” she taunted.

“No, I’m a sword jockey. I was hired to find Black Edward Tew, nothing more.”

She looked up. “Then… did my husband send you? To find me and bring me back?”

“No,” I said. “But I will take you back, if you want.”

She just stared at me. I couldn’t imagine the feelings going through her, so I just waited. At last, she said, “You really are just looking for Edward? Not the treasure?”

“Yes. Someone wanted to know what happened to him.” Now I laughed without any amusement. “You reminded me of her, actually. That’s why you startled me so much.”

“The other Angelina?”

I nodded.

“So I do look a lot like her.”

“A lot,” I agreed.

She gazed down at Edward’s haggard face, now gray with death. His wet hair lay plastered across his cheeks and forehead. “Edward kidnapped me from Kontis, where I worked in my husband’s tavern. He said I reminded him of someone, and I guess it was this Angelina woman. He brought me here… my God, fifteen years ago. My husband barely knew I was around when I was underfoot all the time; wonder how long it took him to notice I was gone?” She paused. “Of course, that was before Edward went crazy.”

“Crazy how?”

“You know how every ship has a bell with its name on it? He took the bell from his ship before he sank it. He used to say he could hear it ringing still, even when it sat there on his desk, collecting dust. Finally, he gave it to one of the old men in town.”

“The ones you released the lizards to get?”

“They got what they deserved. And if the lizards kill some of Wendell’s crew when they get back, that’s even fewer people around to hurt me.”

“So who were the people that lived here? Not Tew’s original crew.”

She snorted. “No, they’re dead. You know, even after he gave away the bell, Edward swore he could see their ghosts accusing him of treachery and murder. He painted that mural to try to quiet them, to give them a memorial. But they only lived here,” she said, tapping her temple.

She shook her head back to the moment. “The ones in the huts were people Wendell accumulated whenever he left the island. For years it was just me, Edward, and Wendell. Then when Wendell would leave, he’d bring someone back. They were harmless, or so I thought; just bums too lazy or old or injured to make a living at sea, and wanting nothing more than a beach to lie on and enough rum to make them forget. They were afraid of Edward, so they mostly left us alone. But Wendell gathered enough of them that he finally made a crew after Edward’s accident. If you stay long enough, you’ll get to meet them. They should be back soon.”

“Wendell’s crew isn’t coming back.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What happened?”

“The ship in the harbor is a pirate hunter I hired to help me find Edward Tew. We captured the Bloody Angel and sent the survivors back to Blefuscola to hang. Wendell’s dead.”

Now her lips twisted in a little smile, one very Angelina-like. “You expect me to believe you got away from his trap?”

“Sank it right on top of the monster.”

“Without poxbinder?”

Many things clicked into place in my head. “Is that what was in those jugs you used?”

“Mostly water. Just a tiny bit of poxbinder.”

That explained the cache on the Bloody Angel. Marteen wanted enough poxbinder to tranquilize or kill Cherish so he had time to break through the bars and get to the treasure. “So how did Marteen get the other monster to cooperate? Did he drug it, too?”

“Yes. He called that one Abigail. Cherish is too big to leave the cave, but the males are smaller and they get in through some underwater passage. She lays eggs every year, and they grow fast. He caught Abigail when she was no bigger than his hand, raised her until she was the size of a rowboat, and then chained her to the bottom of an old ship he stole. She kept growing, and when she was big enough, he towed the ship out into the ocean, figuring any ship that stopped to check on it would get its crew eaten. Then he could raid the poxbinder from their medicine chests.”

“Never occurred to him to just go buy the stuff?”

“Did you meet him?”

“I see your point.”

She turned and leaned back against the bars. Eyes closed, she said, “So Edward’s dead. And Wendell. And everyone else.”

“Except you.”

She let out a deep, long sigh. “Does the real Angelina know about the treasure?”

“She’s not interested in it, either.”

“So what happens to it?”

I thought about Jane, Clift, and Suhonen waiting above. I thought about dirt-poor, dirt-farming Duncan. It was better for all of them if they never knew. “You and I are the only ones left alive who know about it. Do you want it?”

“No,” she said emphatically. “I’ve been raped on top of it, and now that he’s dead, I never want to see it again.”

“Then if you don’t mention it, I won’t.”

“You can really walk away from all that?”

“Doesn’t seem to have done anyone else very much good, does it? Besides, I did what I was hired to do. I found out what happened to Black Edward.”

Her expression changed to one of almost little-girl desperation, disconcerting on such an obviously grown woman. “So you’ll be leaving soon?”

I nodded.

She licked her lips nervously. “And you really will take me with you, like you said? Off the island?”

“Of course.”

She ran her hands through her hair, trying to straighten and arrange it, and arched her back so that her breasts strained against the leather vest. “I’ll do anything,” she said demurely, her assertiveness gone. “Just please don’t hurt me.”

“You don’t have to. And I won’t. No one will.”

I saw gratitude like I never imagined I could see in a human being’s eyes, shaded with the skepticism a life like hers demanded. “You swear?”

“I swear. We’ll get you back home.”

“Not home,” she said quickly. “It’s been too long. Just… somewhere else. Somewhere away from the ocean.”

“Okay. Now let’s go catch up with my friends. They’re probably getting worried by now. And I’d rather not be here when Cherish finally wakes up.”

“I’ll show you the quick way.”

“Quicker than the shaft from the cottage?”

She laughed. “There’s an easy path up the hill outside that crack.”

“Really? Then what was the shaft for?”

“Oh, the crack is recent. It opened up just after Edward got locked in. Before that, they had to use the shaft to bring up the gold he sent off with Marteen.”

“He sent Marteen off with the gold? It looked like most of it was still there.”

“Most of it is. He just sent a single box at a time. He did it a couple of times a year, but never told me why. I asked once, and he tied me to a tree and beat me. I never asked again.”

I suddenly knew exactly where the gold went, but I said nothing. I was too tired for more epiphanies. We climbed the hill just as the rain began, and by the time we found Jane and the others, it fell steadily. It was not a storm, though; it was a hard shower, washing clean the years Barbara had been forced to live here under another woman’s name.