Ed Gorman - Cast In Dark Waters

Keeping his voice firm but hushed, Maycomb said, "We did not know of the affair until after he and Daphna set sail for the Yucatan. I admit that my somewhat stolid ways, as well as the great distance between us, allowed for such an impressionable girl to fall for so worldly a figure. I should have kept closer watch on her. I've really only myself to blame."

"No more reproach falls to you than to myself, Trevor," Elaine Maycomb said, and placed her hand atop of his.

"How did you learn of all this?" Crimson asked.

"We hired a Fleet Street investigative agent named Widdins to set upon the case. Villaine wasn't so difficult to trace, though he and Daphna had been rather discreet, considering. Still, a girl has need of sharing her excitement, and she confided in various friends of hers at school. Widdins fell to tracking them and kept in contact with us via other agents. He mentioned that Villaine and Daphna might have taken refuge on the island of Benbow."

Crimson drew breath between her teeth. She tried not to react but her fingers spasmed against her glass and sent a harsh note ringing all across the room. Welsh had to be her father-in times of pressure, her hands often shook. She looked up from beneath the heavy curls of her hair. She tongued the spot where she'd bitten through her lip last night.

"Little more than two hundred miles south of us," she said.

"Have you been there?"

"No, but I know of it. Almost everyone in the Bahamas does. Did your agent land on Benbow?"

"He was supposed to do so, but we never heard word again. We don't know if he was killed by Villaine or other pirates, fell to disease or, in truth, what may have happened. Now that we've come so far and come this close to our daughter we refuse to abandon our obligation."

"She's just a child caught up in these worldly ventures," Lady Maycomb said. "Please aid us if you can. I must see my Daphna again, if only to hold her one last time and say goodbye."

Crimson rested her hands in her lap and shook her head. "This isn't my sort of affair."

"Pardon?"

"She's of age. If she wishes to be with Villaine then that's their decision. I see no reason for you to interfere or for me to intercede."

Maycomb finished his wine and ordered another bottle. His wife stared glassily at him but he ignored her and continued drinking. "I understand your reservations, and under normal circumstances I wouldn't dare ask you or anyone to aid me in this matter. However, we've received other disturbing news from friends and colleagues in these waters.”

“About Villaine?"

"That and…other concerns."

Crimson said, "Name them."

"You know of Benbow's notoriety."

"Yes," she said, "as I said, everyone does in these waters. They say it's a cursed island. Particularly among the slaves and South Americans you'll find such prevailing stories. Benbow has a malevolent reputation. The myths go back hundreds of years, I'd guess, but saw a new resurgence a decade or so ago. A ship full of Africans coming in from Ghana was burned there by a trader angry with his competitors. Some sixty captives were burned alive and a few, supposedly, didn't die. They were taken to the depths by the devil. In hurricane season they're stirred to the surface where they set about and feast on men."

Maycomb had obviously heard the tale. He may have been a proper Brit but she realized he had a superstitious streak beneath his lordly exterior. "And what do you think? Is it only a grand legend?"

"Not so grand. I'd say Villaine might have chosen a better place to put in. Quite possibly he settled there to take advantage of its unfavorable repute. It would help keep strangers away. Whether government officials or other buccaneers who might attempt to sack him."

"In the West Indies, there are those who believe in beasts known as the Loogaroo."

Crimson willed her fingers to stop trembling and poured herself another glass of wine. She tried not to swig it and hoped to appear calm. She had perfected a stony countenance long ago, but now she could feel the facade about to crack and slip. "Go on."

"The creatures are also said to have once been human, men and women who've made a pact with Satan or some old world god, receiving profane powers in exchange for offerings of blood. The Loogaroo is a shapeshifter that's presumably entered the Caribbean from Guinea and the African Congo. On the ivory coast they call it Asanbosam."

"So they say."

"I spent a great deal of time in Scotland as a child. There, this beast, if it exists, is known as the Boabhan Sith, a parasite that disguises itself and lures travelers to their deaths. The Germans have another name for it, the Blutsauger. In Ireland, the Dearg-Due."

She did not need a history lesson in this area. She'd met people from all across the face of the earth and heard the epic fables and mythologies. The Chinese named it His-Hsue-Kuei, the "suck-blood demon." Brazilians knew the Jaracacas, which appeared in the shape of a snake feeding from the breast of a nursing mother, which pushed the infant out of the way and kept it quiet by shoving its tail into the baby's mouth. Until the beast grew tired of milk and began feasting on blood. She knew of at least a dozen more such tales.

"You've quite an imagination, Mr. Maycomb."

"I pride myself on my reason and common sense."

"Perhaps most men of wild fancies do, sir."

Elaine Maycomb, who had offered nothing to this thread of the conversation, turned pale and managed to cough a single word loose from deep in her chest. " Daemonia Wampyros."

"There's no such critter," Crimson replied, as she always would.

Maycomb eyed her for a moment. "Have you ever been in love, Lady Sanglant Cheveaux?"

"The hell kind of question is that, you pompous bastard?"

"We've heard that you know something of these matters. That you yourself have lost one dear to you."

"You've been told lies."

"You needed to know my circumstances and now you do. I'll pay whatever price you ask. I want to hire a private vessel and have you lead us to Villaine's refuge. Once there, you can leave immediately if you so wish."

"You can both sink to the bottoms." Crimson toppled her chair as she stormed out, hoping none of her enemies approached just now. She wouldn't be able to draw her cutlass with these damn hands. Her lip was bleeding again and she sucked at it, tasting the blood as it filled her mouth.

She spat it out on the lobby floor.

In the deep night, she gazes down from her snow-covered tower staring at the ice-choked sea and the splintered hulls of shipwrecks crushed against the rocks. Masts lay shattered and askew, lines flail in search of victims. Torn sails flap and hang loose as the shredded clothes of murdered men.

She glances at the cliffs and wonders if she'll ever have the strength to leap to a complacent, satisfying death. So peaceful and extraordinary. There are dead sailors there, she thinks, drifting in the waves and crawling about on the reef. They wait with soulless gazes, gesturing to her, beckoning, always and forever watching. Some of them are her former crew members, some family.

Her mother is immersed in the rushing waters, with her nightgown floating up around her shoulders. Mama with her eyes glowing yellow and peering up at her, arms raised.

She brushes the curtains and those faces in the drapes glower and glare. No wonder Mama gave up so early, so young. No one could live for long with the weight of so much evil bearing down all the time.

The snow falls.

Turning, she hears the rustling of her husband's entrance.

He slips inside through the bolted door and whispers for her. "Cassandra." This has happened many times before, and yet she can remember no particulars-only the constant burden of failed responsibility. The unrelenting blackness grows thicker each night because of this.