Page 108 of Blow Me Down
Bart looked over to me, his eyebrows raised. “If ye had done as I asked and killed him when you had the chance, we wouldn’t have to be goin‘ through this now. But ye didn’t listen to me, did ye, dearie?”
“Like I would kill the man I lo—” I stopped, something in the back of my head clamoring for attention. “What did you say?”
“Ye heard me well enough,” he said, prodding the still downed Corbin with the long, curved blade of a scimitar. “I’ll take care of yer business this once, but I’m afraid ye’ll not be makin‘ officer in me crew just yet.”
“Dearie,” I said, struggling briefly with the two men who held me. They jerked back on my arms in a way that had me seeing stars for a moment. “You called me dearie. But you never call me dearie—only Renata does that.”
Corbin groaned and rolled onto his side, pulling his knees up in a protective gesture… only I could see the hand underneath his body sliding slowly toward his boot.
“Still haven’t figured it out? And I was so sure you did last night when you caught me coming in to dope the grog.” Before my stunned eyes Bart’s form shimmered and changed into that of a small, elderly woman with shrewd eyes.
“I’m disappointed in ye, lass, I truly am. I thought ye were so bright.”
My mouth hung open for a moment, I’m not in the least bit proud to admit, but only for a moment. “You’re Renata, too? How can you be two people at once?”
Renata changed back into Bart, her smug smile morphing into his. “I confiscated the mentor character when I learned you would be logging on. I had a feeling a hostage might be useful in forcing Corbin’s hand.”
“How on earth did you learn I was going to log on?”
Bart’s smile was so obnoxious, I wanted to slap it off his face. “Do you seriously believe I don’t have a program in place to spy on all of Corbin’s e-mail? Your daughter sent him an e-mail saying she was giving you a character on her account. I was happy to see that, actually. An adult player worked into my scenario much better than a teenager.”
“You… you…” My brain came up with lots of descriptive words, but I reminded myself that calling a madman a slimewad wasn’t the most prudent of ideas.
“Now, now, lass,” he said, back to his pirate voice. “Time for talk later. I’ll explain everythin‘ then that ye’re a little slow in understandin’.”
I raised my chin and gave him a frosty smile. “I might not be the brightest bulb in the pack, but I’m not the one about to fall down those stairs with a stupid look on my face.”
Bart narrowed his eyes at me. “What are ye talkin‘— aaigh!”
A silver flash shot out and sent Bart reeling backward… right into the opened hatch. He fell into it screaming.
I stomped down hard on the bare foot of the pirate nearest me, spinning around to plant a kick in the groin of the man on the other side of me. Corbin, who had leaped up as he threw his knife into Bart’s chest, snatched up the scimitar that Bart had dropped and used it to take down the nearest man before waving it at the two men near me.
“You even look at her and you’re dead, understand?”
The man I kicked in the happy sacks dropped to his knees clutching himself, moaning loudly. The other one looked like he was about to tackle me, but straightened up slowly as Corbin took a step toward me.
“Come here, love,” he said, holding out a hand for me. I didn’t have to be asked twice. I threw myself toward him, clinging to him for a moment before I swore and pulled back to look at his side.
“Oh, my God, we have to get you to shore. We have to get a doctor—”
Corbin laughed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Mind over matter, sweetheart, remember? It’s not that grievous an injury. All right, ye scurvy lot—
on yer bellies, yer hands behind ye.”
One or two looked like they thought about trying to fight him, but evidently they had seen him fight earlier—I found out later that he’d taken out eleven men on his own—and opted for the sane route of surrender.
“Shouldn’t we check on Bart?” I asked nervously, glancing toward the dark hold.
“Now, why would you want to do that?” Corbin cut a bit of line free, using it to bind the hands of the pirates.
“Well… to make sure you got him in the heart. He could be down there loading up more pistols or something, biding his time to blow us to bits. Or he could be escaping.”
“He’s not escaping. He’s dead.”
“But how do you know for sure? You were on your side, and although I’m sure your aim is really good, you can’t know for a fact that he’s dead unless you go down and check.”
Corbin laughed again. I put such an unreasonable act down to loss of blood.
