Chris dropped the perky-teen act. “Two guys followed me into the blood bank. Clean-cut, dark suits, not too bright. I tried to outrun them, and when I couldn’t, I took out their ride, which was the van.”
His expression darkened. “Were they mortals or Kyn warriors?”
“I think they were tresori.” She went and sat down on the edge of the bunk, and rested her elbows on her knees. “But one of them had a really creepy tat.” After she described the mutilated black cameo, she glanced up at him. “The scarring was too perfect for it to be accidental. Would the Brethren have done that to him? Wait, never mind.” She mentally kicked herself for reminding him of his own ordeal.
“They have been known to cut off tattoos from captured tresori,” he said slowly, “but it would be in their interests to preserve the likeness of any Kyn lord.” He sat down beside her. “Do not be afraid to speak of anything to me, Christian. I am your friend.”
“I know, I just hate reminding you of the bad old days.” She used her shoulder to give his a gentle bump. “We should get going.”
Jamys pulled her onto his lap and kissed her until she forgot to breathe. When he lifted his mouth from hers, he said, “Wear the dress.”
“It’s a lecture in a museum, not a night at the Mynt Lounge,” she reminded him. “But I could model it for you later.”
Chapter 13
Lectures at the Miami Maritime Museum were well attended, and Jamys and Christian arrived shortly before all the folding chairs provided for the audience filled up. Others stood as the museum’s director introduced Professor Charles Gifford, a short, thick-bodied man who looked distinctly ill at ease in his tweed suit.
“He looks like a repo guy,” Christian murmured.
Jamys spotted the scars on his hands and forearms. “He was a fisherman.”
“Good evening,” the professor said, and launched immediately into a talk about piracy and its evolution through the ages.
Jamys paid close attention to the details Gifford offered about specific ships and captains, but at no time during the next hour did he mention Hollander or the Golden Horde.
“Today we apply the label of piracy to any number of crimes: copyright infringement, illegal audio and video transmission, even unsavory corporate acquisitions,” the professor said in his summation. “We hear news stories about drug runners who hijack and kill fishermen for their powerful boats, or lawless Somalians who attack cargo ships and ransom their captains.”
“Or have our Facebook pages hacked,” someone among the audience muttered, causing a ripple of laughter.
Gifford nodded. “While the savage nature of any sort of piracy appalls us, it is in reality a seafaring tradition that has existed for thousands of years.” He curled his big hands around the edges of the podium. “Pirates are alive and well, ladies and gentlemen, and they aren’t going anywhere. Not as long as there are ships in the sea, treasures to be coveted, and men willing to kill for them. Thank you.”
As the audience applauded, Jamys noted the bashful reddening of Gifford’s blunt features, and the speed with which he left the podium. While the museum’s director took his place to invite the audience to help themselves to refreshments, the professor shook a few hands and then disappeared into an adjoining exhibit room.
“Seems like he’s better with history than people,” Christian said as she rose from the folding chair next to his. “Time to put my sad little jumper in action.”
“It is not sad.” He guided her around the exodus of people heading for the buffet tables. “It is modest.”
“So is a chastity belt.” She sighed. “But I think I look geeky enough to pass, while you”—her eyes shifted to the tattered blue jeans she’d asked him to wear—“are making me and every other female under this roof very hot and bothered.”
Jamys bent his head. “I should like to bother you again,” he whispered against her ear, and enjoyed the shiver he felt hum down her back. “Until you drench me.”
“Journal first.” She tightened her fingers. “Wet and wild later.”
They made their way into the exhibit room where Gifford had gone, and found the professor standing in the middle of a treasure display and adjusting some lighting.
“Barry,” he said as they approached. “These bulbs are too bright. Have we got any forty-watt back in the maintenance closet?”
“I can go check for you, Professor,” Christian said, “but my name’s not Barry.”
“Huh?” The historian glanced over his shoulder before climbing out of the display case. “Sorry, kids. This exhibit won’t be opening until the weekend.” He gestured at the door. “There’s punch and cookies out there.”
Christian gave Jamys a wry look. “We’ve already had our cookies, Professor. We were wondering if we could ask you a couple of questions about Father Bartley’s journals.”
A shuttered look came over the historian’s face. “I’m afraid I don’t have time for that. I wrote some articles about the journals. You can read them on my Web site.”
“We will, thank you.” Jamys reached out, and as soon as Gifford began to shake his hand, he nodded to Christian and sent his thoughts into the other man’s mind. You want to answer our questions completely and honestly.
Gifford’s tight expression smoothed out. “What would you like to know about the journals?”
Christian quietly closed and locked the door before rejoining them. “Professor, are the journals authentic?”
“Yes, they are. I bought them from a private collector who let them go for a song.” He grinned like a boy. “Would you like to see them? They’re right over here.”
“We would,” Jamys said.
Gifford led them over to another display where a small collection of leather-bound books had been arranged inside a glass case. “The priest wrote everything in Latin, so it’s difficult to read, but I can translate it. I went to Catholic school and I almost became a priest.”
Christian made a face. “What changed your mind?”
“Sex. I discovered I liked it too much to spend my life as a celibate.” Gifford unlocked the case. “Father Bartley was much more devoted to the church. He came to Port Royal in the late sixteen hundreds, but on the day he arrived, he decided to move his mission to the north side of the island.”
“Why?” Jamys asked.
“The governor of Jamaica at the time was Sir Thomas Modyford,” Gifford said. “Sir Thomas didn’t care that England was no longer at war with Spain; he hated the Spaniards, and by extension loved the pirates who attacked their ships. He protected them from prosecution, allowed them to use the port as safe haven, and was rumored to have personally funded a few raids.”
“Like a private army of cutthroats,” Christian said.
The professor nodded. “Sir Thomas had a strategic advantage as well. Jamaica lay smack in the center of the major shipping lanes in what at the time was considered the Spanish Caribbean, so for the hundreds of pirate ships that were based out of Port Royal, it was like fishing in a barrel. Their raids made Port Royal one of the wealthiest—and most decadent—cities in the world.” Gifford stopped at one page. “Ah, here it is. Father Bartley wrote this the day his ship came into port: ‘Never in my most despairing moment could I have envisioned such a garden of demons. Everywhere I turn there are pirates, assassins, and prostitutes, all engaged in the most brutal of behaviors, and the vilest of carnal acts. The port is riddled with gaming houses and grog shops, each packed to the very walls with villains. From the windows of the brothels, which occupy every fifth building, women lean out with bared bosoms to proposition those passing on the street below. I fear if I were to remain in this New World’s Sodom, I will be torn apart by the very beasts that inhabit it.’”
“Sounds a little like spring break,” Christian murmured.
“Leaving was a wise decision, because Port Royal was already doomed,” the professor told her. “A few weeks after Father Bartley went to the north side of the island to set up his mission, a major earthquake and tidal wave leveled half the city. Two thousand people were killed instantly, and another thousand died from injuries, starvation, and cholera in the aftermath. The survivors attributed the disaster to God’s wrath, visited upon the wicked as judgment for their countless sins. A few claimed to have seen a blood-drinking angel of death stalking pirates at the docks just before the tremor started. Whatever the cause, the city never recovered.”
Jamys exchanged a look with Christian. “Did the priest write anything about this ‘angel of death’?”
“Not a word,” Gifford said. “He never returned to Port Royal. Would you care to hear a passage about an interesting conversion of the native heathens, or how to conduct mass in a grass hut?”
“We are interested in the confession the priest took from the dying pirate,” Jamys said.
Gifford sighed and shook his head sadly. “I promised I wouldn’t talk about that, but okay.” He reached for one of the journals.
“Who made you promise?” Christian asked.
“A man who gave me a lot of money I didn’t report to the IRS,” he admitted. “I buried it in some airtight cases in the backyard but the dog kept digging them up. So I donated most of it to the museum. Anonymously, of course.”
“He seems to be volunteering a lot of information,” Christian murmured to Jamys. “Does that usually happen?”
“No.” Although his ability was powerful, humans under its compulsion always responded directly to the suggestions he made. “Professor, why do you tell us of these private matters?”
“The man who gave me the money said that if anyone made me break my promise, I should tell him all the terrible things I’ve done. Like the time I dressed up in my seminary clothes and pretended to be a priest having sex with my girlfriend.” Gifford thumbed through the journal. “Here’s the passage. It begins with the priest offering absolution.”