Wake of the Bloody Angel (33 page)

We stood very still, but there was no response. In fact, there were suddenly no sounds at all, no birds or insects or wind. Even in the bright sunlight it was spooky.

“I knew it,” Clift said as he drew his sword. “I had a feeling.”

“Hey,” Duncan asked softly, “is this an ambush?”

Before he could reply, there was a loud
hiss
from the jungle to our right. It sounded like an old man clearing his throat. A very, very large old man.

Instantly we were all armed. Jane and I reflexively stood back to back, to cover all sides. I glanced at Duncan, but he showed no sign of panic. Except for Dietz frantically putting on his boots, no one spoke or moved.

The sound came again. I watched the undergrowth for any sign of movement.

Jane whispered, “Thar she rustles.”

I followed her nod. At the edge of the undergrowth, something blue, forked, and as big around as a child’s arm snaked out, touched the ground in a couple of places, then drew back. A moment later it reappeared and repeated the motion. It was far too big for a snake’s tongue, even the huge tropical ones you might reasonably expect here.

“What the fuck?” Dietz barked, hopping up and down to settle his boots on his feet.

“Quiet!” Clift rasped.

Suhonen drew both his swords and took a step toward the strange sight.

“Wait!” I whispered urgently. The image had suddenly clicked into place. “We might consider running.”

“No,” Suhonen said, and spread his feet. “What ever it is, I’ll face it.”

“Yeah,” Jane said, drawing her own enormous weapon. “It’s just some animal. How bad can it be?”

Only Clift took my warning seriously. “If LaCrosse thinks it’s bad enough to—”

I looked behind us and saw another blue tongue flash in and out of the jungle shadows. “The one in front will get our attention,” I interrupted. “The one in back will attack first.”

“There’s one in back?” Dietz cried, and tried to watch all sides at once.

Then the first one emerged, and even Dietz fell silent.

It was a lizard. It had gray-black skin that seemed to be the same color and texture all over. Four squat legs lifted the upper body off the ground, while the tail dragged behind it, deceptively limp. The blue tongue continued to check its environment, and its black eyes showed no interest in us at all. Its thick, goopy saliva trailed in strings along the ground, collecting bits of dirt and leaves.

And it was fifteen feet long.

And it wore a metal collar.

“Holy shit,” Dietz whispered, mesmerized.

I knew Jane watched for its companion, so I kept my eye on the one in front. The collar threw me: who would keep this sort of animal as a pet? Even right out of the egg, they’d snap a chunk out of you. But pet or not, its casual stalking behavior told me it was far from tame.

It turned its huge head and looked right at us. Then it opened its mouth and hissed. I saw the hole in its lower jaw where the tongue retracted, and rows of even, very sharp teeth. The saliva in its mouth made a wet smack when it closed.

“Get ready,” I said. “This one’s just for show.”

As I predicted, the one behind us burst from cover hissing like a newly forged lance head dropped in a bucket of water. It undulated side to side as it ran straight for Duncan, who yelled in terror but stood his ground. The problem was that from head on, the lizard presented virtually no target. It would be on the boy before he could get into position for a blow. I yelled, “Duncan! Run!”

Fortunately, Suhonen covered the distance between them in two steps and, coming in from the side, brought both swords down on the lizard’s spine.

One blade bounced off. The other broke.

I caught this peripherally, because the one in front now had my complete attention. It moved slowly toward us, not giving away until the last moment that I was its target. It lunged between Clift and Jane and snapped sideways at my legs. I jumped back, simultaneously jabbing my sword toward that open mouth. I hit some of the soft tissue, because it hissed and arched its back in pain. Clift swung at it and sheared a layer of skin and flesh off one shoulder. The muscle beneath it was white and ropy.

“Nice,” I said gratefully.

“There’s a reason I sharpen my sword every night,” he said.

The one Suhonen whacked had turned and charged him, and he now lay on the ground beneath it. His legs were locked around its belly and those huge hands dug into its throat, holding the jaws just out of reach of his face. It snapped all around his head and tore at him with its claws, leaving great deep scratches. “Is that all you got?” Suhonen screamed at it. “Is that it?” Then man and lizard began to roll around the clearing, neither releasing its hold on the other.

Jane looked for a vulnerable spot while Duncan tried to stab the thrashing tail. That was a mistake: suddenly the tail cracked like a whip and knocked him ten feet through the air.

The one I’d stabbed saw this and rushed for him. I dropped my sword, leaped, and grabbed its tail. It was cool, dry, and the muscles inside it were hard as stone. I dug in my heels. At first it didn’t realize what had happened, and kept straining toward Duncan.

Dietz stuck his sword in the ground and drew his knife. “Well, I said I wanted a goddamned fight,” he snarled, then jumped on its back and drove the knife deep into it. Duncan scrambled out of range, still trying to catch his breath.

Clift and Jane rushed over to help, since against all common sense Suhonen was strangling the life out of the second lizard. Just then mine realized I was there and swung back to snap at me. It snagged part of my tunic and tore away the fabric, its teeth stroking but not breaking my skin. But that was nothing compared to the flash of silver as Jane used the huge sword Suhonen had given her to slice off the lizard’s head, and a lock of my hair as well.

The sword buried itself in the ground and the head rolled, jaws still snapping. The body began to thrash; Dietz and I let go and scrambled away. Jane yelled at it, “You’re a pair of boots now, ya bastard!”

I got to my feet and checked to make sure she hadn’t also gotten an ear. “A little close there, wasn’t it?” I yelled, my voice higher than normal. I’m sure it was just the exertion.

Jane wrenched her blade free of the ground and said, “Close only counts in venereal disease, LaCrosse.”

With a great roar, Suhonen heaved the now-lifeless lizard off his body. He lay there gasping, his arms and legs bloodied but a huge grin on his face. “Now that . . . was what . . . I needed. Worth breaking a sword for.”

“Not your third one, I hope,” Jane said, and the big man began to laugh.

I knelt to examine the collar on the strangled lizard. It fit snugly, as it would have to, since the creature’s head was about the same diameter as its neck. There was a lone loop welded onto it for a leash or, more likely, a chain. And a name was engraved in the metal:
_BUTTERCUP
.

“Someone’s pet, all right,” I said. “Or watchdog.”

“Stand aside,” Jane said, and when I did, she decapitated this one, too. “Always pay the insurance,” she said, and draped the huge bloody sword across her shoulders.

Now that the crisis was over, the cut on my shoulder suddenly announced itself, and I winced as pain ran through my whole right arm. I gingerly lifted the collar of my tunic and checked it; the stitches were intact, and it wasn’t bleeding. That was good news. It did nothing to ease the pain, of course.

Clift knelt and cut open the lizard’s belly. “Let’s see what this thing’s eaten lately,” he said, then lifted the carcass from behind. He wiggled it until its organs fell out with a splat.

“I’ve had to shake the lizard before,” Dietz said, “but never like that.”

Clift let the corpse fall to one side and used his sword to push aside coils of intestine and cut open the stomach. In addition to fur and feathers of their normal prey, there was a severed finger, a belt buckle, shreds of clothing, and a sailor’s pipe. “I think we know what destroyed those huts. And where the ones who stayed behind have ended up,” Clift said, wiping his hands on the grass.

“Except for whoever left those footprints we found,” Duncan said.

“And who wants to bet that Mr. Footprint is also the one who let Buttercup and—wow, this one’s named Pansy—off their leashes?” Dietz said.

We exchanged a look. The idea that Black Edward might have gone crazy now didn’t seem so unreasonable. If, of course, he hadn’t also become lizard food along with everyone else.

I said loudly, “We killed your lizards. You can’t possibly kill us all before we find you, so you might as well come out and talk to us.”

I was bragging about our prowess, of course, but it seemed an appropriate bluff, given what we’d just done. It didn’t impress our unseen watcher, though, because he didn’t appear.

“Well, if there are answers,” Clift said, “they’ll be at the end of the trail.” So we resumed our hike. Behind us, smaller specimens of the same lizards ambled from the forest and began fighting over the corpses.

chapter TWENTY-NINE

The
trail grew more treacherous as it climbed the nearest mountain’s slope. Here the greenery had gotten a better grip, and in a couple of places we had to stop and seriously look around to figure out where the path continued. Suhonen, in a giddy mood despite the slashes covering his arms and legs, whistled and cut through anything that blocked our way.

No more giant lizards attacked us, and despite our best efforts, we saw no sign that anyone secretly pursued us. It wasn’t a big island, but there were plenty of hiding places, especially for a lone man familiar with the terrain. If Black Edward
had
left those bare footprints, this case could turn especially ugly. The only real way to find a single person on an island like this was to use what the Pontecorvans called
Kayhemadda:
set fire to the greenery and let it burn the island clean. It was a literal scorched-earth policy that would be a very last resort.

The trail ended at the base of a flight of stone stairs. They weren’t ancient, but neither were they recent: lichen and moss had already encroached. They rose above us to a small plateau. The stream we’d crossed earlier tumbled down beside it, making a narrow waterfall. The spray from the pool felt wonderful.

“Who goes first?” Clift asked, wiping his face.

“I will,” I said. The idea that Black Edward Tew was up there, whether in a castle or hiding in the bushes, filled me with impatience. After all this time and distance, I could be close to getting my answers. Why had he sunk the
Bloody Angel
? What did he do with the treasure? And most important, my actual job: Did he even remember Angelina Dirnay?

Then I felt cold steel at the back of my neck. A voice said, “Wait just a minute.”

I turned. Dietz moved his sword’s point to the hollow of my throat, and his square face creased in concentration. “We’ve all heard about Black Edward’s treasure, Mr. Sword Jockey. Some say it’s on the bottom of the ocean; some say it’s not. And if it’s not, what better place to find it than under Black Edward’s own bony ass?”

“Dietz,” Clift said, “put the sword away now.”

“You just hold on, Captain, I’m looking out for you here, too. I think we need to make Mr. LaCrosse swear a blood oath that whatever we find, we split. Just among us, of course. The rest of the crew, well—” He smiled. “—what they don’t know won’t hurt ’em much, will it?”

I stood very still. I was too tired to be scared. Mainly I was just annoyed. I had suspected the veneer of respectability was thin on a lot of these former pirates, and here was the proof. But he was keeping me from the culmination of my search, and that was pissing me off.

“Dietz,” I said, “put the sword down like the captain said, or die. It’s that simple.”

Dietz pushed my chin up with the blade’s tip. “You think you’re fast enough to get me before I get you, old man?”

“I won’t have to do a thing. Last chance.”

His smile grew. “Not a one of your friends could get me before I get you, and I bet they’re all considering my offer just now. Besides, the blood oath I want from you requires
all
your blood.”

I knew from the way he’d leaped on the big lizard that he was brave and tough, but smarts hadn’t been a factor then. Now he looked suddenly surprised; his arm dropped and his sword fell to the ground. A moment later, he fell atop it. There was a gash across the back of his neck that had severed his spine, and a matching bloodstain on Clift’s ultra-sharp sword.

“Dumb bastard,” Clift said, and used Dietz’s tunic to clean his blade.

Jane said in annoyance, “Well,
I
was going to do that, show- off.”

“Sometime today?” Clift deadpanned. “Or when your calendar cleared?”

Jane laughed. I said to Clift, “Sharpen that thing every night, huh?”

“Every night,” he assured me. “He’s not the first one to turn his back on his pardon.”

“Will you get in trouble for doing that?” I asked.