Greg Cox - A Touch of Fever

Whoosh! In a blur of motion, the cutlass appeared to deliver fifty blows with a single swing. The air sounded like it was being churned up by a blender. One minute, Jack Rackham was striking a dashing pose in his brightly colored calico vest, the very picture of a rakish pirate captain; a second later the unlucky statue had been reduced to nothing more than a pile of shredded fabric and wax shavings.

Paper-thin flakes wafted down onto the carpet. A glass eye rolled across the floor. “Whoa!” Pete exclaimed. He scrambled backward, bumping into a rusty iron cannon. The beam of his flashlight swung upward, exposing his attacker: a blond woman clutching Anne Bonny’s missing cutlass. He recognized her as Lainie Evers, a tour guide who worked at the museum. He and Myka had met her briefly when they were casing the place earlier today. The formerly helpful guide was still dressed for work, looking like a theme-park version of a stylish female pirate. A plastic name badge was pinned to a ruffled white blouse. A laced red corset cinched her waist, above a black skirt and knee-high boots. A skull-and-crossbones motif was printed on the skirt. More like a Halloween costume than authentic pirate garb, in other words. The cutlass, on the other hand, was the real deal.

Snarling, Lainie wheeled around to confront Pete, who put the cannon between himself and the sword-wielding guide. Crazed eyes and contorted features mimicked Anne Bonny’s savage expression. She spit venomously at Pete. “Fight like a man, you scurvy rogue, or die like a dog!” Wow, Pete thought. Somebody’s swash is buckled a little too tightly. The cutlass was obviously messing with her head. As Pete knew too well, certain historical artifacts could become imbued with powerful tangential energies stemming from past owners and events-with bizarre, unpredictable results. Pete had hoped that he and Myka could get their hands on the cutlass before it stirred up any trouble, but clearly their timing sucked. The sword already had Lainie in its spell. “Hey! Unshiver your timbers, lady!” He tried to talk her down.

“You’re not thinking straight…” “Belay that! A short life and a merry one, I say. Especially for you!” She lunged at Pete, hacking wildly. The flashing cutlass struck sparks off the cannon as he ducked away from the multiplying blows. “Not really feeling the merry right now.” He reached again for his gun, but reconsidered. Lainie was an innocent victim here; she wasn’t herself. No way did he want to resort to deadly force. Too bad she didn’t feel the same way. “Stand still, you villainous cur. Or I’ll slip ye the Black Spot!” Uh-huh, he thought. Not going to happen. Dousing his flashlight, he retreated from the possessed guide, trying to blend in with Captain Kidd and the others. By now his eyes had partially adjusted to the dark, and he could dimly make out Lainie stalking up and down the red carpet, cursing profanely in a manner that would have seared the tender ears of any grade-school kids visiting the museum on a field trip. Pete assumed she didn’t use that sort of language during business hours.

She slashed at the air, slicing it to ribbons. Whistling repeatedly with every swipe, the cutlass keened like a chorus of dying men. No doubt it had claimed the lives of many sailors during Anne Bonny’s bloody heyday. Pete considered his options. Reasoning with Lainie appeared to be a lost cause; the cutlass’s influence was too strong.

He needed to get the sword out of her grip-and vice versa. Ideally without getting turned into confetti in the process. Moving as stealthily as he could, he circled behind her. Decorative cables and anchors threatened to trip him up, but he somehow managed to skirt around the edges of the exhibit without knocking anything over or getting tangled in the mock rigging. Creeping out from behind a painted wooden figurehead in the likeness of a busty mermaid, he snuck up behind Lainie, hefting his flashlight like a bludgeon. His eyes zeroed in on the back of her skull. All he needed to do was knock her out long enough to separate her from the cutlass and neutralize it.

With any luck, she wouldn’t remember any of this. Lainie was only a few paces ahead of him. Her blond hair was tied back in a pigtail. He raised the flashlight. Sorry ’bout this, he thought in advance. The aspirin’s on me. Before he could make his move, however, a harsh electronic buzz emanated from his jacket’s inner pocket. Pete felt the Farnsworth vibrate insistently-at the worst possible moment. Not now, Artie! But it was already too late. The jarring signal alerted Lainie, who whirled about, swinging the cutlass in a deadly arc. Pete threw himself backward barely in time to avoid getting disemboweled. The tip of the blade shredded the front of his shirt, sending threads and buttons flying, but just missing the skin underneath. The close call sent his heart racing. Ignoring the persistent buzzing from his pocket, he took cover behind the carved wooden mermaid. He glanced down at the tattered fabric in shock. “Hey,” he protested. “I liked that shirt!” Lainie didn’t care. “Avast, ye filthy bilge rat! I’ll feed your salty guts to the sharks!” She came at him with a vengeance.

The cutlass hacked away at the figurehead like a chain saw in disguise. Wood chips and splinters pelted Pete’s face. The makeshift barricade was being whittled away right before his eyes. In seconds, there would be nothing left of the mermaid but a toothpick. He backed into the wall behind him. Lainie had him cornered. He reached for his gun. Could he really bring himself to shoot an innocent victim? “Sorry. That’s my partner you’re trying to turn into fish food,” a familiar voice called out from the opposite end of the hall. Myka Bering appeared in the doorway. The tall brunette aimed an exotic-looking handgun at Lainie. The weapon looked like something from an earlier century, all polished brass and crystal, in contrast to her black blazer and slacks. Copper coils and batteries glowed inside its transparent barrel. Miniature gauges monitored its charge.

Myka’s stern tone made it clear that she meant business. “Feeding time is over. Hand over the cutlass.” “Never! I’ll send ye down to Davy Jones’s locker ’fore I surrender me blade, you poxy wench!” Waving her cutlass, Lainie charged at Myka. Pete opened his mouth to warn his partner of the sword’s rapid-fire capacity, but he needn’t have bothered. A bolt of crackling blue electricity shot from the muzzle of the pistol, which had been designed and built by Nikola Tesla over seventy years ago. The galvanic blast stopped Lainie in her tracks.

She stiffened in shock, her hair standing on end, toppling backward onto the carpet. The cutlass slipped from her grip. Myka hurried forward and kicked the sword away from Lainie’s limp fingers. She scowled at the prone tour guide. “First off,” she said, “I know exactly where Davy Jones’s locker is, and it’s nowhere near the bottom of the ocean.” She nudged Lainie with her toe to make sure she was down for the count. “Second, don’t call me a wench.” Pete emerged from behind what was left of the mermaid. “Duly noted.” Myka eyed her partner with amusement. She was an attractive woman, only a few years younger than Pete, with curly auburn hair and dark brown eyes. She lowered the Tesla gun. Now that the immediate threat was over, her voice adopted a more teasing tone. “‘Bilge rat’?” “Don’t start.” Pete brushed sawdust from his face and clothes. “What took you so long?” “I stumbled onto a security guard upstairs. He was lying on the floor in the Sunken Treasure exhibit.” She glanced at Lainie’s unconscious form. “Our Anne Bonny wannabe here had got to him first.” “Eww.” Pete imagined what the supercharged cutlass could do to a person. He grimaced at the grisly images flashing across his mind. “Was he…?” He pantomimed a chopping motion with his hand. “What? No, no,” Myka assured him. “He was just out cold. I figure he interrupted Lainie on her way to the cutlass.” Pete was glad to hear it. Sweeping up shredded security guard was nobody’s idea of a good time. “Why do you think the cutlass latched onto her?” “Proximity? Aptitude?” Myka shrugged. “Maybe she just spent too much time around the sword, and eventually it started invading her psyche? You know how it works.