Demons & Pearls (The Razor's Adventures Book 1) (16 page)

“Aye, uh, Captain,” River hesitated as he rushed the girls toward the gang plank. It sounded to me like he wasn’t sure what to call Rasmus, but it was obvious who was going to lead this crew. This was most certainly a commandeering, but there wasn’t another among us who’d even think to challenge him.

“I will call all hands, sir, and we will have her ready. She was loaded today for a run up to Bermuda. With a lighter crew, she should more than adequately support us for a while in supplies…and guns if necessary,” I overheard Master Green tell Rasmus while I chased behind them down the dock.

“Sailing where? Wait, don’t we have any say at all in this?” I asked, grabbing his arm.

Rasmus turned sharply to me and barked, “You had your say, and I’ve had mine. Don’t question me, Ivory. I’ve had enough for one night.” When he pulled away, I suddenly felt like an ungrateful and horrid wench. It had been a horrendous night—the worst night I’d survived in many years. I hung my head and started down the dock to the ship to help, when I heard a whistle and looked back. Rasmus was waving me towards him and I felt my heart speed up and a deep breath of joy filled my lungs. I ran back to him as fast as I could and stopped before I ran right over top of him.

“Green? How long?” Rasmus inquired.

“Ten minutes, sir.”

“Come with me, Ivory. I believe we have some things to say to each other before we go.” He checked his pocket watch and took me roughly by the arm. He led me away from the dock and around a corner into the alley where we’d stood the day before to escape the rain. I glanced back several times, but they were all so busy readying the ship that no one had seen us. He turned to me and held out his hand. When I looked down at it, he was holding my razor.

“I took it off of Rip,” he said.  I lifted it from his hand and slid it into the pouch on my belt.

“Razz, I…” I barely whispered the words when he pulled me against him. He wrapped me up in those huge arms so tenderly I wondered if he was the same man who only minutes before had swung his sword and fired his pistols to save us all. He cupped my head in his hand and pulled it against his chest. I pressed my cheek into the brush of the damp amber fur above his heart, and I slid myself into his arms, safely inside of him.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered and kissed the top of my head.

“None of this is your fault. I thank you, and I thank God for putting you in my life.” I spoke the words into his heart and then leaned back and looked up at him. “I do love you. I truly do.”

The soft lines around his blue eyes were glistening, and his bright red hair had changed to almost auburn with sweat. I reached up and pushed it back away from his face, and my hands rested on his beard. He swallowed hard and cradled my head in his hands and his face went flat and hard, but his eyes burned with blue fire.

“I will never, ever, leave your side again, and I’ll kill any man who dares to so much as even
think
to threaten you in any way. Do you understand?”  

  I nodded my head to him.  When I did, his hands, so tender moments before, suddenly clutched my head as his mouth crashed hard onto mine. His lips pulled mine between his and devoured me in an inferno of passion, fear, and pain until I nearly fainted. The softness of his beard was the pillow I rested my cheeks upon as his miraculous kisses embraced my inexperienced lips with tender patience. He led me through it by the hand until my heart let go, and I kissed him back until I could barely breathe. I used what little air was left in me to tell him again, “I love you, Rasmus Bergman, and I’ll kill any man who even thinks to threaten you as well.”

He looked down into my face and said, “I believe ye, and as much as I longed to hear those words, ye need to tuck them away fer now. We have to get away from here.”

“Why? They don’t even know where we are.”

“Unless that shot we heard was Willy pulling the trigger, how long do you think it will take Calvert to find out about what happened tonight?
Thunder Cay’s
fast for a large ship. I could have outrun her in the
Oyster
, but the
Demon
…maybe not. The quicker we can get to open water before sunrise, the safer you’ll all be.”

“So, what you’re saying is that once we’re aboard that ship, my cousins and I will once again be held under guard until we reach land.” I pulled back away from him.

  “Only for a few days, lass. Once we’re in Nassau, you’ll be free to do as ye wish, all of ye will.”

“What if that isn’t the freedom I want? What if I want to be out there on that deck with you?”

“What are ye saying? You want to play at this man nonsense again?”

“But you told me you’d teach me. Are you saying you’re a liar now? You shaved my head, for Christ’s sake, Razz. I didn’t do it because I like being bald. Please,” I begged him, but he stepped back and let me go.

“I can’t deny you’re a corker, lass. Ye can do just about anything I’ve ever known a man to do. And maybe…” his voice trailed off as he started to turn away from me.

“Maybe what?” I asked chasing after him, as always.

“Maybe having ye aboard as a young man will keep ye from running through my mind night and day as a woman. Lord help me, little Razor, when the day comes that I can wrap my arms around ye and love ye the way I wish to, I may never be able to turn ye loose.”

He took me in his arms one last time and held me so close I could barely breathe, and he kissed me again. This time, when that fire took hold of me, I pushed him away. I remembered what he’d told me. Now, with the love that carried all the scorching want and need of him to want me like a woman, all I wanted right now was for him to regard me as a man.

Chapter Fifteen

~Blood Is Thicker Than Water~

No one questioned Rasmus’s orders. He kept to his word and allowed me my freedom aboard the ship. He neglected, however, to mention I’d be swaying in a hammock below decks with the rest of the crew. River seemed to rather enjoy relaying that order, but we had a good healthy laugh over it, and I knew he’d be working at my side to not reveal my identity. It felt good to laugh, even though I knew it may be our last.

I was so exhausted that I did no more than pull a shirt and breeches from the ship’s stores.  Once redressed as a proper sailor, I found an empty hammock next to River and carefully climbed in. The crew didn’t even appear to notice who I was. With my battered face and sloppy clothes, at that point, I was so tired I really didn’t care much what they thought. We’d be lucky to get an hour of sleep before sunrise, and who knew what the dawn would bring?

I used my red scarf as a temporary binding for my chest, and I found a black one to wrap my bald head. They were hardly new garments, and they smelled like sour milk, but I didn’t care. I was going to be living the life of a pirate, and maybe the worse I smelled the farther from me they’d all stay. I laid in my hammock, and before the sea lulled me to sleep, I’d decided to speak only when spoken to and not make eye contact with anyone but those who knew my true identity. I was Ivan now, and Ivan needed sleep as much as Ivory did.

My body ached from head to toe. The knot on my head from where I’d been knocked out was tender and swollen. I felt sure it must show through my scarf. I kept my hat on until I lay down and then rested it on my face. It felt good just to be off my feet, once I figured out how not to fall out of my new bed. I closed my eyes in hopes of seeing Rasmus in my mind, if not my dreams, but every time I tried, all I saw was blood. Blood covered my hands and clothes, and the image of Barclay’s severed arm and Felix’s head were the worst. Now I knew why pirates drank, and in those moments as I tried to rest, all I could do was wish I was drunk.

“Ivo…
Ivan
, you asleep?” River whispered.             

“Yes.”

“Me neither.”

Judging by the snores I heard, at least someone was sleeping. I was grateful for them, because I think that soft rolling roar distracted my thoughts enough to allow me a few minutes of peace. I could not, however, stop trying to convince myself that if I’d survived everything I had in the past four hours, there was no way God would have let me live just to take me in battle.

xxx

It felt as if I’d just closed my eyes when the shouting began. I leapt from the hammock and raced to the nearest porthole and saw the gray dawn approaching. I could hear the men scrambling up the gangway behind me, and I swallowed what little saliva my parched mouth offered. I joined in the race to the deck and fell in line.  I heard a familiar call, but this time, I didn’t falter.

“Sail!”

The wind from our increasing speed nearly blew the hat from my head, and my hands flew to hold it on. I checked my weapons and awaited my orders from the Captain with my chin out, hat down, and my eyes straight ahead, until we were called to gather on the main deck.

“Master Green!” Rasmus called out as he burst forth through the crowd of our mere forty or so men and was handed a spyglass. He raced to the stern and eyed the pursuing ship and then handed it back. “She’s a quick one, that’s for sure, and in the dark, no less. Prepare the guns and give us some more room. If we can outrun her, all the better.”

“If it is all the same to you, Captain, I would like nothing more than to watch her masts fade beneath the surface of the sea,” Green said.

“We’ve innocent women and boys with n’er a hair on their ass on this ship, Master Green. I’ll not take that shot…unless I have no other choice.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Master Green, if I could have ye join me in my cabin, sir? We have some things to discuss.” Rasmus’s eyes crossed over mine as he spoke, and then he turned and stormed off with Green close behind. I wanted to follow them so badly, but I was relieved when I saw him turn back and call out, “Watts, you, too.”

I knew River would tell me everything, but the waiting was going to torture me. For the first time since I’d met Rasmus, he was beyond my reach. I couldn’t even look at him without fear that one of the crew would see what was in my eyes and think I was a risk to their manhood. I didn’t get to stand around long because we had work to do, and I needed to fall in and play follow the leader.

This ship had no one to take on their usual jobs. Most of those who held the highest ranking positions had either run off or were dead. I’m sure Rasmus’s meeting was to quickly qualify with Green those whom he felt could fill those positions. I saw less than ten of the original faces, and most of the rest were barely men at all. However, I followed them anyway, because no matter what they knew about this ship, it was at least ten times as much as me.

“Hey!” one of these veteran boys called out to me, “Ye’re new here. What’s yer station?”

“My station?”

The young man stood, twisted his face at me, and said, “Yer station, ye idle-headed puke!”

“I can do anything,” I rambled, “Anything you tell me to.” I swallowed hard and waited for his orders, when I was snatched up by the arm by River and drug off.

“I’ve got this one. He’s new, and Cap’n just gave me the whistle, ye dogs. I’ll find his station,” River said, and he pulled the small brass toot from inside of his shirt where it hung around his neck on a leather strap.

“Where are we going?” I asked, and I pulled my arm free and followed him fast to the gangway.

“Cap’n said ta’ take ye below and put ye on guard a’ the girls.”

“Guard of the girls?” I stopped and looked at him.

“Just followin’ orders, and ain’t no one else can do it better than ye, anyway.  There’s no one else he trusts, so’s he said.”

“I suppose he’s got a point,” I said as we continued on. Once we reached what was our home for those weeks on our way to Jamaica, I turned to River and asked, “What else happened in that meeting?”

“Cap’n made me boson,” River said, folding his arms and squaring off his shoulders at me.

“Aye, the whistle.  I saw that. What else?”

“Cap’n wants ta’ outrun ‘em, but he was troubled over why Calvert would risk a fight and waste so much time and resources on ye girls. I mean, he has a good point.”

“And what point might that be?” I wondered deeply beyond my questioning.

“If Calvert hadn’t paid a single shilling fer none a’ ye yet, what the ‘ell did he care if’n ye run off? He could find more girls. It ain’t as if yer the last girls in Port Royal.”

He was right. What difference did it make if he didn’t get us? I mean, Rasmus had been stealing girls and carrying them to safety for quite a while. Yet last night was the first time anyone had taken such drastic measures to stop him. There was a whole lot more to this story, and if River didn’t have the answers, I’d get them from Big Red, somehow.

“Anything else?” I asked. I started to pace back and forth in front of the cabin door.

“Once they gave me the whistle, they sent me outta the room.”

“Dammit, River.”

“Oh, I hung outside the door and listened a bit, though,” he said with a grin and a wink.

“And?” I groaned.

“There was somethin’ ‘bout pearls.”

“Pearls? What about pearls?”

“But more important than that, Green said Calvert and Barclay went
way
back.”

“How way back?”

“All the way to their mother’s belly.”

“Wait…are you telling me that Barclay and Calvert were brothers?”

“Accordin’ ta’ Master Green, they was.”

I started to tremble, and I could feel my whole body shaking so hard I had to sit down where I stood. I’d murdered not only the captain of a pirate ship, but the brother of an equally horrible and dangerous man. This was all my fault. Everything I’d touched since the night of that raid had turned to shit. Not only had I put our lives in danger, but I’d also put everyone on this ship in danger as well.

“River, I have to speak with Rasmus.”

“I’m not so sure that’s such a good idea at the moment. When Green broke the news to ‘im ‘bout the book…”

I turned and started off down the gangway to the Captain’s cabin, but I stopped. “Wait; you never told me about the pearls.”

“Oh, yeah.  Apparently, ’twas what Barclay called the girls. Ye know it’s illegal ta’ steal girls and sell ‘em…and not pay the King his share.”

“For Christ’s sakes, River, yes I know that.”  I paused.  “Pearls…”

“Ye better get yer arse back ’ere, Ivan, and guard these girls!” he shouted at me as I raced off to speak to Rasmus.

xxx

“Captain, a word please?” I asked as I knocked and then poked my head in the door.

“Unless ye haven’t noticed, we’ve got a ship bearing down on us.  So, I don’t have time to listen to any nonsense, Razor.” He was loading guns and laying them on the desk in front of him, as well as shoving one in each side of his belt. I stepped inside while Master Green gathered his own weapons and excused himself.

“I know about Calvert and Barclay. I just wanted to say…” I barely got the words out when he interrupted me.

“Are ye loaded and ready? I want ye on them girls. Get them hunkered down, cover them up with anything ye can find. Now that ye know about them being brothers, and the real reason they’re coming for us, I have to face the fact that he ain’t gonna give up until he sees blood spilled.”

“I’m sorry, Razz. Wait, you already knew?”

“Sorry for what? Fighting for your lives? Killing a stone-cold murdering bastard? And yes, I knew. I didn’t tell ye because what was the point? I figured a girl as smart as ye could figure out sooner or later that there ain’t no pirate gonna risk a ship and crew over a few females, pearls or not.  But a dead brother ye do business with on the regular? Now that’s worth fighting for.” He rounded the big oak desk and snatched me by my shoulders. “This is how it is out here, little Razor. This is the life ye wanted. This is how we live. Now do ye understand why I told ye to go home?”

“How can we ever go home now, unless we win?”

“We’ll win. Don’t ye doubt it for a second, but not without losses.  Stop blaming yourself. Ye didn’t ask for any of this; not even me.” His eyes were bloodshot, which only intensified the glow of those icy blue irises. I didn’t see a hint of fear in them though, and I longed for the day I could be that strong.

“I did ask for you, remember? I asked you to let me help you, and that’s the same thing.”

“That’s not what I meant about asking for me, and ye know it. I thought hard on what to do and how to keep ye safe, but I knew it would come down to a fight. I could have easily hid ye all out in my cove, but sooner or later, Calvert would have found ye. This is the only way. Now load up those guns and do what I told ye, or ye and I won’t ever see that cove again, or our future together.  And God help me, today, that’s what I’m fighting for.”

The kiss hit me like a wave. He gripped me by the arms and then tied me up in that tight embrace that stole my breath away every time. I threw my arms around his neck, and for a few moments, I believed I’d never be safer in my life than I was right then. When he let me go, he grabbed the guns from my belt, checked them, and then put them back.

“Go on now. Get to your cousins, and if ye can find some arms for them, all the better.” He waved me off. Then, he went back to the desk and put on his baldric and armed himself with four guns and shot.

“I love you, Razz.  By tonight, we’ll be planning our life together.”

“We won’t have a life together, if ye don’t get your arse out of here.” He looked up at me and winked, and I ran out the door.

xxx

“Pull those cots over and get under them,” I told the girls as I watched out the window. From the stern of the ship, I had a perfect view of the
Thunder Cay’s
sails, and she was definitely closer than she was only an hour before.  But, she was still not yet in firing range.

“Ivory, what if she attacks from her bow? Won’t we be right in her line of fire?” Cass asked as she continued to pile everything she could on top of the cots.