November 22, 1718 - Captured Merchant Vessel
The men entered the storage room and found an olive-skinned, black-haired woman chained to the floor by iron manacles, covered only by a shredded blanket.“You’re the stowaway witch, I take it,” Rackham said. Naked and with her wrists chained to the floor, John cringed to think of what the woman had been subjected to.
The woman seemed to read the thought on his face, “Is that a twinge of concern I detect?” the woman asked.
“I don’t have much regard for men who hurt women,” John said.
“Funny sentiment coming from a murdering pirate,” she said.
“I’ve never killed a woman,” John said.
“But no qualms with killing their fathers, sons, and lovers?” the woman asked, “Why is it so many men have such narrow perceptions of harm?”
“I don’t kill a man if he has the good sense to surrender.”
“Hm, cold comfort to Senor Garcia,” she nodded to the corpse behind them in the hallway, “falling to his knees and begging for mercy seemed to get him killed all the faster.”
T. and D.C. exchanged worried looks. The three of them had inferred what had happened, but when the rest of the crew found out there’d be hell to pay.
“T.,” John said, “go up and start organizing parties to move out the valuables. Make sure every man on our ship carries a load.”
“You want them to see this?” T. gestured to the bodies.
“What do you have in mind, captain?” D.C. asked.
“I just don’t anyone calling me a liar later on,” John said, “Now off with you, T., let’s get it done.”
“Aye, captain,” T. headed back up to the top deck.
“The men who came down here before us,” Rackham said to the woman, “Did they harm you?”
“Oh, they got one whiff of me and turned around,” the woman said.
John stepped a bit closer, and took a sniff. Ships always smelled below decks. A water-tight hull filled with sweaty bodies was a recipe for stench. Add to that the smell of the dead bodies, and John couldn’t discern anything especially pungent about the woman.
“I don’t smell anything,” D.C. said out loud.
The woman laughed, “Oh, you’re mortals.”
“’Mortals’?” Rackham asked.
“Human,” the woman said, “Not like your comrades who came down here first.”
“You think they weren’t… human?” Rackham asked.
D.C. looked back at the mutilated bodies behind them, “I wouldn’t say she’s wrong.”
“You haven’t noticed them acting strangely?” the woman asked, “Tell me, have you ever seen any of them out in the daylight?”
“Of course I have.”
“When was the last time?”
“Well…”
“We haven’t seen Captain Vane in the sun since he got married,” D.C. said.
“And when was that?” the woman asked.
“Over two months ago,” Rackham answered, “In September.”
“And it was just him being reclusive, wasn’t it. Then it was another, and another, and another…”
“I don’t know, I don’t sail on his ship,” that was half true – Rackham spent little time aboard The Ranger since the wedding, but he got an earful from her sailors whenever they weighed anchor together, and when they’d met up with Ed Teach to discuss an alliance in October, Blackbeard had warned John to go his own way, saying Vane had become something "unnatural." Rackham had assumed it was the rum fueling Teach’s notoriously dramatic approach to everything, but now he wasn’t sure. “What do you think they are?” he asked the woman.
“Empusa,” the woman said, “Mortals who’ve been transformed by a plague started thousands of years ago by Dionysus.”
“What’s ‘Dionysus’?” D.C. asked.
“Ancient Greek god of wine,” Rackham said, “the party god.”
The woman laughed, “So few of you understood him, even back then. You all saw the gentle, happy, fool. Only his most devoted saw the layer below that: the thirst, the hunger, the loveless hedonism. They used to worship him by cannibalizing each other, drinking each other’s blood. Eventually, he found a way to make people do so. He gave his followers a sanguine bargain to trade their souls for blessings of power and longevity.”
“And that became a plague?”
“Artemis, goddess of plagues and moonlit hunts, had already given a similar ‘blessing’ to mankind, and it inspired Dionysus," the woman said, "and he never cared much about consent in any of his affairs, so he was perfectly happy to inflict his ‘blessing’ on people whether they wanted it or not.”
“How does one catch this plague?” D.C. asked nervously.
“The bite that does not kill transforms,” the woman said, “Not always, but often enough.”
“The wounds on those men’s necks…” D.C. said.
The woman gnashed her teeth facetiously, “The quickest way to a man’s blood is through his carotid.”
“But they left you alone... because you smelled bad?” Rackham said.
“Maybe; does a lion smell bad to a wolf?”
“So, whatever they are, you’re saying you’re more dangerous than them?” Rackham found that difficult to believe.
“Yes," the woman gave John a chilling smile, "Free me, and I will deal with your problem.” She thrust her manacled wrists forward. She’d wrapped strips of the blanket she was under around her wrists to protect them from the raw metal, but John could see her skin was badly injured underneath, blistered and bloodied as if she’d been burned.
“Don’t do it,” D.C. said to Rackham, “You said she was a witch, didn’t you? We can’t trust her.”
“That’s what the Spaniard said,” Rackham said, “but that doesn’t mean she is. I’ve known plenty of story-tellers and cold-readers that could have sold the same scam. She’s probably harmless.”
“Skeptical?” the woman said, “Then you have no reason to unchain me, do you?”
Rackham studied her for a moment. Despite her unfortunate circumstances, her bearing and expression were those of a woman unbent by captivity. She seemed supremely confident that she would soon be out of her shackles. To Rackham, that was both alluring and terrifying.
“Vane wants you kept here,” John said, “possibly left here to die. If I release you, I’ll be at war with him, and regardless of whatever madness you say he suffers from, his ship has a good deal more guns than mine.”
The woman shrugged, “I'll sink his ship for you, then.”
“There are still good men aboard The Ranger!” D.C. said.
“And it would be a waste of a good ship, too,” Rackham said, “I don’t trust you, but I’m not going to leave you to die.” Rackham scrounged around for some tools and found a stone mason’s hammer and chisel. The woman presented her shackles again, but John ignored the gesture and used the chisel to free the chains from the floor. The woman remained shackled, but was free to move around.
“Thanks,” she said flatly, clearly perturbed at his decision to leave her hands bound.
“Now what?” D.C. said, “You can’t simply walk her to our ship; many of Vane’s men will still be up on deck.”
Rackham used the hammer and chisel to crack open a crate and began pulling things out.
“You can’t be serious,” the woman said.
“I take it such a ruse is beneath you.”
“If you knew who I was, you’d understand.”
“Well, we can talk about that aboard my ship. Until then, get in the box and keep your trap shut.”
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