Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (13 page)

“What’s the holdup? We’re in a hurry, remember?”

Udo answered, “We’re just coming. Get your stuff, Flora.”

“What? Are you a pirate, too, now?” I asked the Zu-Zu scornfully.

She grinned at me. “It’s a fike lot more fun than being a hostage, let me tell you.”

“The Zu is on our side, Flora,” Udo said. “Remember, I told you? She hates the Birdies, too.”

“What happened to your Boy Toys?” I asked her.

“Oh, we fed them to the sharks,” she said airily. I doubted she was joking.

“Come on, Flora, get what you need and let’s go,” Udo ordered.

“I’m not going anywhere with either of you!”

“You can walk or I can carry you,” Udo threatened. “You pick.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” But I could tell by the look on his face that he would. The Zu-Zu kept grinning. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. When the moment was right, Udo was going to get it. But for now,
Stay cool, play cool
, Nini Mo said. I fished my dispatch case out from under my berth and went up top, with the Zu-Zu ahead and Udo behind, Flynn scrambling next to me.

The deck was swarming with pirates. In the flaring torch light, I saw some tossing baskets of produce into the drink, while others supervised
El Pato
crew members as they carried boxes up from the hold. The pirate ship loomed just off the portside bow; the boxes from the
Pato
were being transferred to the pirate ship via a rope and a giant net.

“I’d think that pirates could do better than steal boxes of ladies’ underwear and cowhides,” I said as they marched me toward the quarterdeck. Flynn was so close to my legs that I could hardly avoid tripping over him.

“Oh, we can, we can,” the Zu-Zu answered. “I guess you didn’t know that the
Pato
is carrying a shipment of jade for the Califa National Bank in Angeles.”

“Shut up, Zu,” Udo ordered, and she actually did, but she gave me a little tongue poke. When I got through with Udo, she’d pay for that.

The crew members who weren’t being worked by the pirates had been tied up near the anchor. Thanks to our hustle, I got nothing more than a quick look as we passed by, but I didn’t think I saw Sieur Wraathmyr, or Elodie or Theo, for that matter. I was glad that the children had not been discovered, but too bad about Sieur Wraathmyr. His temperament would probably be improved by a good thumping.

On the bridge, a pirate held Captain Ziyi at gunpoint, while another was going through a sheaf of papers that I assumed was the ship’s manifest. The captain had a black eye and blood on his mouth, but his eyes were as sharp and flat as diamonds, and he was staring at the pirate with the gun as fixedly as a snake stares at its prey.

Udo hustled me past this scene and into the ready room. He shoved Flynn after me, and slammed the door shut on us. That fiking snapperhead! Here I’d thought Udo was dead—or worse—yet he’d been swashbuckling around the Pacifica with the Zu-Zu, with not a care in the world for all the pain and sorrow he’d caused those he’d left behind. And then he had the gall to say that I had dumped him! My blood boiled with Gramatica; I didn’t dare let the Words out, so I picked the nearest object—a coffee cup—and threw it. It smashed very satisfyingly against the wall.

“You snapperhead!” I shouted, and kicked the captain’s chair. The chair skidded across the floor and Flynn barked and jumped.

The door to the ready room began to swing open. I grabbed wildly—a compass—and threw it with all my might toward the man coming through the doorway. He lifted an arm to ward off the blow, but my second projectile—a book—knocked his hat off.

“Holy fike, Flora!” the Dainty Pirate said. “Let up the volley. You’ve crushed my feather!”

His command came too late to stop my next throw, but my aim went wide and the bottle crashed harmlessly into the wall, knocking a painting of a frigate askew. I didn’t stop throwing things because he had told me to; I stopped because I’d strained my arm, and now it fiking hurt. Flynn let out another howl and made as though to rush at the Dainty Pirate, but I grabbed his collar and held him, both of us panting with exertion.

The last time I had seen Boy Hansgen, the last true ranger, also known as the Dainty Pirate, he had just spent a month sitting at the bottom of an oubliette and hadn’t looked—or smelled—particularly fresh. Now he was clean as a kite, and decked out in full Dainty Pirate glory. In fact, he made Udo the Popinjay Pirate look slightly underdressed. His doublet was encrusted with silver lace frogging, and his trunk hose looked like giant puffy cinnamon rolls. The queue of his silver wig was stuffed into a heavily embroidered queue bag. Silver and green boots with high stacked silver heels completed the outfit. The only thing unfrivolous about him was the plain silver buckler he wore across his chest, from which hung a very long saber and two very large pistols.

“Well, my dear, so we meet again,” the Dainty Pirate said jovially Cautiously, he came all the way into the room; Udo, the coward, was hiding behind him. “Welcome to the
Nada.”

“Is the
Nada
your ship?” I asked, incredulous. During his heyday the Dainty Pirate had been known for his exquisite clothes and the exquisitely mannered way he treated those he pillaged. The Dainty Pirate was a ranger and had been Nini Mo’s sidekick. Surely he could not condone the brutal treatment that the crew of the
Nada
dished out.

“Ayah so. I have turned over a new leaf.”

“Keelhauling innocent people is a new leaf?”

“In case you did not notice, my dear, Califa is preparing for a revolution. I cannot afford to be Dainty anymore—”

“Ha—”

“Hold your high horses, Flora,” Udo interjected. “We are saving your skin here.”

“Saving my skin? My skin don’t need saving from anyone but you! If there were no pirates around, I’d be safe as houses.”

“Oh yeah, you think you are going to be safe as houses in Cuilihuacan—”

“How do you know I’m going to Cuilihuacan?” I countered.

Udo flushed and his mouth snapped shut. The Dainty Pirate shot him a look and said, “Hush, Udo. Hush. We are on the same side here. No use fighting. We don’t have the luxury for it. As soon as the cargo is transferred, we must be underway.”

“And by cargo, I guess you mean the jade, not the lettuce,” I said.

“Ayah, the jade.” The Dainty Pirate grinned.

“Buck’s never going to let you get away with this!”

He laughed. “Buck? Honey, I’m acting on her orders!” Her orders? The Dainty Pirate and Buck weren’t on the same side. If I hadn’t sprung him from Zoo Battery last year, he’d have been hanged on her orders. Did he think I was a total idiot?

I retorted, “As if I would believe that! The last thing I heard, Buck was going to hang you. I rescued you from that, remember?”

“Hang me! Ah, she never would have hung so pretty a man as me. And as I recall, you didn’t rescue me at all, darling. I recall being torn apart by Quetzals, or some such.”

“Which was a ruse, Axacaya said.”

“Did he, now?” the Dainty Pirate said. “Did he say that?”

“If it wasn’t a ruse, you’d be dead.”

“Perhaps, maybe so, but anyway, believe it. Your dear mamma and I have been quite the compatriots these last few months.”

Udo said, “Dainty and Buck are working together, gathering funds to help the revolution against the Birdies. You may call it piracy, Flora, but it’s for a great cause.”

Could this be true? Buck and the Dainty Pirate in league with each other? Why should I believe it? Buck would never dare cross the Birdies, and she and the Dainty Pirate had always been adversaries. It had been by her orders that the Ranger Corps had been disbanded and the Dainty Pirate had been outlawed to begin with.

“I do not have the time to be persuasive, Flora,” the Dainty Pirate said. “The longer the ships stay hooked together, the more danger that we’ll collide. We can talk about this all later. At leisure.”

“What do you mean 'we’?” I demanded.

“You are coming, of course. Buck sent a message telling me to take you with us.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Come on, girl, have some common sense. How would I know that you were on your way to Cuilihuacan to meet with the Duquesa de Xipe Totec if Buck hadn’t sent me a message telling me so?” the Dainty Pirate said, exasperated. “Look, it don’t matter to me if you believe me or not. What matters is that you are coming with us, chop-chop.” “

Flora, don’t be a snapperhead,” Udo said. “You don’t want to go to Cuilihuacan, do you? To the Birdies?”

My fury, slightly tamped after my lobbing spree, was beginning to flare again. First, Buck was going to hand me off to the Birdies. Now she was handing me over to pirates. And if Buck was in cahoots with the Dainty Pirate, then she had known Udo had never been in any danger at all. When she had gotten the Warlord’s message, her reaction had been a total act. She had let me get onto the
Pato
believing that Udo might be dead, or worse.
Trust me
, she had said, but she still hadn’t trusted me, not one bit. No one had: not Buck, not Udo, not even the Dainty Pirate, for whom I had risked everything to save.

Well, fike them all.

“I’m not going with you,” I said. “I’m staying onboard the
Pato
. You can be pirates without me.”

“I thought you were my ally, Flora,” the Dainty Pirate said sorrowfully “Buck told me I could rely on you, that you were afire for our cause. We are on the same side.”

Nice try, but if I could withstand the Expert Guilter (Buck), then he could have no effect on me.

“No, we aren’t. I’m not on the side of someone who can treat innocent people like he treated the passengers of the
Happy Rabbit
, like he is treating Captain Ziyi—”

“Flora—” Udo tried to hush me, but I ignored him.

“You have no right or good reason to treat the captain that way,” I said furiously “No reason to treat the crew like that—”

The Dainty Pirate said softly “You think this is a game, girlie?” The sorrow had been replaced by a steely edge that sent a little shiver down my spine. “This is the real world, honey, not some Nini Mo novel. This is war, not a tea party. This is what a ranger does. A ranger gets the job done. By any means necessary. You are either with us or against us. Choose.”

No longer was the Dainty Pirate amiable. He stared at me grimly, his hand on his sword hilt, and I had no doubt that he would spear me through the liver if I didn’t go his way. I was outnumbered. I said, deflated, “You are right, sieur. I cry your pardon. Of course I am with you, always.”

“Good choice. Go with her, Udo. And be snappy.”

“Aye-aye, sieur. Come on, Flora.”

Halfway to the door, I saw my chance and took it. I pretended to stumble over Flynn. Flynn yipped and twisted, and Udo yelped and tripped. As he started to go down, I shoved him, knocking his hat over his eyes, then grabbed the oil slicker hanging on the door and threw it over him. While he thrashed about, I snatched the whip off the whip rack, glad that Captain Ziyi liked to enforce discipline the old-fashioned way Udo was trying to clamber to his feet, but Flynn was jumping all over him, yelping with glee, trying to play. The Dainty Pirate lunged at me, saying, “Don’t be a fool, Flora!”

“Hit him,” the ghost of Hardhands said, materializing behind the Dainty Pirate. “Hit him hard. Go for the eyes—”

I snapped the whip. The lash curled outward and caught the Dainty Pirate hard on the shoulder. The force of the blow juddered through the handle of the whip, and I stepped back to absorb the recoil, the lash curling behind me.

“Fiking hell!”
the Dainty Pirate howled. He staggered back. I flicked the lash again; it undulated through the air with a hiss and landed on his other shoulder. The Dainty Pirate let out a holler that was half yelp, half laugh. Udo was clambering to his feet. As I ran by him, I gave him a good kick in the middle of his back and he went down again.

shouted the Dainty Pirate. The Word missed me, but not by much; I felt it scorch my head as it whirled by. With a loud splat, it blew a hole in the cabin door.

At the door, I turned and lashed out at the Dainty Pirate one last time, barely missing his eye. Blood sprayed from the cut on his head, blinding him. I flung the door open and ran, Flynn at my heels, past the pirates who were rushing toward the Dainty Pirate’s roars. They tried to grab me, but I dodged them.

The deck was a melee of sailors and pirates, flying lettuce and asparagus, random gunfire and fog. The crew must have rebelled. Good timing. I weaved my way through the confusion, shoving and pushing, Flynnie snapping and growling behind me, and dashed behind the chicken coop, where the poultry were shrieking and fluttering. A pirate lurched for me, but I kicked her in the shin. Ahead of me, a dark figure swirled out of the confusion, bare rapier in her hand: the Zu-Zu.

“Come and get it, Nini Mo,” she said mockingly.

Oh, ayah, this was going to be sweet. I didn’t bother to hold in the Gramatica Curse. While she was reeling from its impact, I charged at her, whip snapping, and knocked the rapier out of her hand. I was almost upon her when my foot came down on slippery liquid. I did a sudden painful split and hit the deck. The Zu-Zu crowed and bore down on me as I struggled to get my footing, and something small and dark plummeted from the rigging above and landed on top of her.