My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (14 page)

"I don't need to know," he said, which was kind. "Doesn't matter what happened.

Point is, we feel the ache of it every time he's near you. Makes the wounds twinge something awful." He unconsciously rubbed his chest, where the musket balls had pierced. She wondered if they were still in there, black pearls at the heart of a bony oyster.

"You all feel it? Everybody?"

"Every lad I've asked. Well, two of them lied, but I saw it in their eyes. The curse holds us all, and if it breaks, it breaks for all. She cursed him, and through him, us. The cap'n's the key."

"No wonder he's afraid, if he's hurting you all."

"Afraid?" Argyle laughed softly, sourly. "Nay, lassie. Not Liam Lockhart, not over causing his crew a wee bit of pain. He's a ship's master. Men suffer and die, and that's the way of the sea, and well he knows it. The point is, the pain means you're making him feel, warming his blood, and his heart."

"Breaking the curse."

"Aye." Argyle sighed. "Not that he'll ever let himself truly love you."

"What? Why not?"

"The harpy that doomed us dinna have a happy end in mind, in this world or the next. If he lets himself love, he might well break the curseand likely the moment he does, we fall dead in our tracks, or turn to dust, or some such nasty bit of business. Captain Lockhart has two hundred crew on this ship, and he puts considerable store by that responsibility. Better half a life than none, he'd say."

"But if there's a chance it could save you, maybe I should talk to him"

Argyle took her firmly by both arms, looking her straight in the eyes. "It's not for you to save us, lassie. Everyone saves themselves. Everyone. Look to your own skin, and don't you worry about"

He winced suddenly, and looked around toward Captain Lockhart.

So did every sailor visible on the deck of the 
Sweet Mourning,
 an eerily orchestrated turning of heads.

Captain Lockhart was watching them, leaning on the rail. If he was in pain, there was no way to tell from this distance.

A sigh rattled uneasily out of Argyle's narrow chest, and he rubbed the area over his heart.

"He's jealous." That made her feel annoyed and flattered at once.

"Aye. Knew that already."

"Then why parade me around like this?"

"Had to be sure, didn't I? I've been doing a bit of thinking, too, lass, on behalf of the crew. Most don't find half a life to be worth living. Not if there's a chance of ending it. So I've a mind to . . . provoke a reaction."

"Does the captain know what you're doing?"

He let out a soft bark of laughter. "Conspiracies on a sailing vessel get you flogged, or worse. We're having a theoretical discussion, like two people of reason.

Do you trust me?"

"Of course." She did, she found, crazy as that was.

"Then stand fast, for I'm about to betray a man I've served for close on three hundred years. For his own good, mind."

She was about to ask what the hell he was talking about when Argyle yanked her forward and, quite firmly, kissed her.

He was clumsy, and she could tell his heart wasn't in it, but he made it quite a show. She stood shocked, wondering whether she ought to push him away, but it didn't matter. In the next heartbeat he was lurching away with both hands clutching his chest. He hit the rail and slid down to an awkward sitting position, panting.

Cecilia lunged toward him and then hesitated. What was she supposed to do? Feel for a pulse? Take his temperature? How did you diagnose a dead man, anyway?

Under the red coat, she saw the grubby white shirt flower with fresh blood.

Gouts of it. Argyle gasped in shallow breaths, color gone a pale, unsettling green.

All around them, sailors groaned and slumped and fought back cries of pain.

"What did you do?" she cried, and grabbed Argyle's lapels to shake him. "Oh my God, what is this? What's happening?"

"Proof," he said, white to the lips. "Proof he loves you. You have to find a way, lass. Don't let him put you off the ship before you do. Break the curse. It's all on you now."

Lockhart was on the quarterdeck, clutching the rail. She saw his knees bend and then straighten with what must surely be a superhuman effort. When his voice came, it sounded angry and ragged. "If you want the woman, Argyle, take her below and ride her proper. Get out of my sight, the both of you!"

Cecilia bolted up, furious and wild. "You're an unbelievable bastard!" she screamed. "He's 
your friend!"

Lockhart jumped down from the quarterdeck and stalked toward her, sinuous as a cat. If he was hurtingand he had to be, because Argyle was still white to the lips and panting with painhe was hiding it under a mask of pure fury. "Woman, if you fancy rough trade with my crew, there should be a lottery. Wouldn't want anybody saying it wasn't fair."

Well, if Argyle had wanted to provoke a reaction, he'd certainly succeeded. She cast a tormented look down at Argyle, who was trying to say something. She read his lips in the moonlight. 
Finish it.

Lockhart was coming. She dodged around him, charged through the black door and down the narrow passage. She burst into her tiny cabin and slammed the door.

Then slammed it again, just for the catharsis of it. "He's trying to save you!" she shouted. 
Slam.
 "You don't deserve him, you blackhearted, coldblooded"

"Bastard," Lockhart finished, cool and low, and caught the door on its last slam.

"I did hear you the first time." She gasped and pulled back. "Mistress Taylor"

"I'M NOT MARRIED!"
 she shouted, at the end of her patience. "You know, curse or no curse, I'll bet you've always been like this. A coldblooded, vile little leech, feeding off of others. That's what a pirate is, a parasite"

"You seem drawn to parasites," Lockhart observed, and set his shoulder against the doorway. "Young Master Taylor, for instance. But then, he must have other talents you enjoy."

She felt a blush burn across her face and down her throat. "I haven't. Not that it's any of your business!"

"Indeed not. Nor would I care."

"Yeah, well, you cared just now, didn't you? When Argyle had his tongue in my mouth?"

She wanted to take that back, but it was too late. Lockhart was raising that famously satirical eyebrow at her, intending to lock all of his anger and jealousy and emotion inside. She lunged up off the bed and came very close to touching him. "You cared. You damn well care right now, too."

Very close. He didn't move back. Each deep breath she took strained the seams of the bodice and crossed the narrow fraction of an inch between them. A bare whisper of a touch. Oh yeah, he was in pain. She could see it flickering in his eyes.

There was fresh blood staining his shirt, and smeared dark across his faded blue coat. She heard the slow patter of drops as they splashed on the leather of his boots.

"You're killing us," he said. "You're as much a witch as that sea hag we put over the side."

"I certainly hope I am, because I curse you, too! I curse you to have what you want. Go on, condemn yourself to feel nothing, 
nothing,
 forever"

He captured her face between his hands and stared into her eyes. "Too late to feel nothing. Whether you're a witch or a saint, I don't know, but you're . . . inside me"

His knees gave way, and he hit the deck, gasping. Cecilia followed him down and caught him as he swayed. "I'm not a witch," she said. "I'm definitely not a saint. I'm just. . .just a dreamer. That's why I said yes to Ian. Because ... it was a dream come true."

"Argyle's a dreamer," Lockhart said. "He thinks ... it will all end well. . . but"

His breath caught hard. There was blood pouring out of the wound under his shirt, not just a trickle but a flood. He was dying, and it was because of her. "I'm not a dreamer, Cecilia."

She braced him on her lap, stroking his hair. This was too hard. Too much. Maybe half a life was better, maybe never having passion or love or life again would be all right, if only you didn't have to go through this. She never wanted to feel her heart come apart like this again.

He was bleeding, great gouts of it flooding hot across her lap. Time was running out. His dark eyes opened, wild and beautiful and full of warmth. Full of life.

"Argyle tried to stop me, you know. She begged for mercy, but I wouldn't hear her, I made myself cold, so cold, and I watched the sharks"

"Liam, stop it; justlook, I know what to do. I'll go. I'll take a boat and I'll leave"

"You should have gone before you smiled."

"Liam"

His eyes stayed open, but the pupils slowly relaxed, eclipsing the brown with black. A sky without moon or stars. She felt unnaturally calm, and everything seemed so bright, so sharp, so still. His long hair curled around her fingers, warm and intimate.

"You have to live," she told him. "It doesn't end this way. You have to live."

She let Ian out of the hold at dawn, because she needed him. It took more than two to sail a ship of this size, but at least the sails were still set, and after some trial and error, she found she could steer the ship into the wind. Her arms ached with the effort, but it kept her from thinking.

She'd waited all night 
for the fairy godmother to drop in,
 pronounce it all a terrible mistake, and wave her magic wand. But it wasn't a Disney movie after all.

It was a story about a curse, and blood, and pain, and it wasn't going to end well.

Cecilia put Ian to work gathering up bodies.

"We should dump them overboard," he called up, panting, as he dragged another body to the port rail. He no longer looked elegant and princely. He looked fey and dirty and savage, and she didn't imagine she looked any better.

"No," she said. She wasn't giving them to the sharks. As Ian reached for Argyle, she snapped, "Don't touch him!"

"What, is he some personal friend, Cess?"

She pulled one of Lockhart's deadlylooking pistols from the makeshift leather belt wrapped around her waist. "I swear, if you call me Cess again . . ."

He held up filthy, bloody hands. "Right. Whatever, 
Captain."
 He put a lot of contempt into it, but she was the one with the pistols. 
She'd spent the night
 
clearing away all of the weapons she could find
 and locking them away in Lockhart's cabin. She was wearing his tricorn hat. It did a good job of keeping the sun off of her nose, and besides, it smelled like him, and she found that an odd comfort.

"Crazy bitch," Ian muttered. She fired the pistol, bracing it with both hands. The mule kick of it stung. She was aiming for him, but she missed, and it gouged an impressive chunk out of the railing next to him. "Hey!"

"Hey, what?" she challenged, and pulled the other gun. "Warning shot. Next time I see daylight through your chest. Be nice."

The sails flapped. She'd lost the wind. She put the pistol away and turned the wheel to find it again.

"Where are we going?"

"That way," she said, and nodded at the horizon. "Funny thing about the planet, it's round. Sooner or later, we'll hit land."

"Oh, great. Brilliant navigation. Here there be monsters." Ian swore and wiped his grimy forehead on an equally grimy sleeve.

"Just keep in mind that out of everybody on this ship,
 J 
like you
 the least."

They ate tough bread and salted beef in midafternoon, and drank enough water to fight off the sun's relentless glare. Nothing to talk about, except for Ian's periodic attempts to bait her into doing something stupid. She was too numb to respond. She wanted to curl up somewhere and cry, but she couldn't. Lockhart wouldn't have approved. Besides, she had to survive this. It had to mean something, in the end. It had to be . . . worth it. 
Worth that many dead men? You've
 
got one hell of a price tag, honey.

As the sun moved toward the western edge of the sea, Ian ambled off toward the poop deckaptly namedand came down the ladder fast. "Cecilia!" he yelled.

"There's a ship!"

"What? Where?" She turned, startled, and saw a small, iron gray freighter steaming toward them on the port side. "Oh my God!" Salvation. Civilization.

Home. She felt tears burn, and then blinked them resolutely away. "Well, don't just stand there! Signal them!" Ian tore his shirt off and waved it energetically over his head, whooping.

This was it. This was how the story ended. Yohoho, and a floating ship of the damned. It didn't seem right. She'd left Lockhart below in her cabin, silent and pale, and she wanted to see him again. She wanted to hear him say her name in that low, caressing tone, the way she'd heard it when she was sick and lost. She wanted

. . . wanted . . .

It came to her, finally, with the force of a sun bursting inside, that she wanted Liam Lockhart, in a way she'd never in her life wanted anyone else.

"I love you," she whispered, and the tears spilled over. "You evil pirate bastard.

You can't leave me like this. I love you, do you hear me? I 
love you.
 And I know you can hear me. Being dead is not an excuse. Now 
wake up!"

She held her breath. 
Come on, fairy godmother, you dithering old biddy. . . .

The moment came, and went. A gust of wind whipped tears from Cecilia's eyes.

It was over. There was no magic, there was no happy ending, and she was going to get off this ship and go home and never, ever dream again.

"They're coming!" Ian yelled, and swarmed down the ladder. "Slow down or something! Hit the brakes!"

She turned the wheel and dumped the wind out of the sails, and the 
Sweet
 
Mourning
 slowed to a hissing amble as the sun began to slip beneath the waves.

"Um, Cecilia?" Ian was backing away from the starboard rail. "Remember when you said there were still pirates out here?"

"Yeah?"

"You might have been right about that."

She rushed over to take a look. Yep, pirates. Not the quaintly costumed kind.

These were modern killers, at least twenty or thirty men armed to the teeth with modern weaponry. And worse, they looked like they knew exactly what they were doing as they lined up at the rail, grinning and gesturing.