The Mind Pirates (Harbingers Book 10) Read online

  Tank and I exchanged a look, and slowly let her up.

  The fight was over. We guided Andi to the dinette where she sat down and, with a trembling hand, removed the scarf from her head. “I could see them. I could even smell them.”

  Brenda pulled the knife from the wall and placed it back in the drawer. Then she turned, arms crossed, and studied Andi. We all studied Andi, so much it made her nervous.

  “I didn’t ask for this.”

  “Like . . . heck you didn’t.” Apparently Brenda was trying to be gentle with her words. “Playin’ pirate with all that pirate talk and that getup when you got wires loose? Yeah, you were askin’ for it.”

  “And you could have hurt yourself,” I added. “You almost hurt us.”

  “Almost?” Tank said, discovering blood from fingernail gouges near his eyes.

  I waxed fatherly, a role I hardly expected. “The pirate show on St. Clemens captured your imagination, and we don’t fault that, but it’s definitely time to put this fantasy aside.”

  “But ––”

  “But nothin’!” said Brenda. “How much is enough for you? You threw a knife at me! That’s enough! That’s plenty!”

  “But . . . ” Andi actually marveled. “I didn’t do that. I mean, I did it, but . . . but I didn’t do it really. I don’t know how to throw knives.”

  “You do now,” said Tank.

  Awkward silence.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go ashore and just . . . vacation,” I said. “It’s what Adrian Pugh and his family did anyway, and it’ll give you a chance to have some solid land under your feet. And please, doff that pirate outfit. Just be my geekish assistant for a change.”

  Andi removed her scabbard and rubber cutlass and placed them on the counter.

  Brenda put out her hand. “And how about that earring?”

  Andi’s hand went to her ear. “Oh! It’s still there!” She smiled, relieved. “I dreamed they tore it off.”

  “Who tore it off?” Tank asked.

  “The guys who killed me.”

  Brenda still had her hand out. Andi removed the earring and, with sadness, handed it over.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “we’re getting off this boat.”

  Chapter Four

  A Pirate at Breakfast

  The next day dawned bright and clear, a perfect day to go ashore and repeat Adrian Pugh’s itinerary: snorkeling, hiking, a visit to a bird sanctuary. It seemed these benign, diversionary activities held little promise of a revelation, but at the very least they would be helpful toward reconnecting Andi’s “loose wires.”

  When we sat at the table for breakfast Andi remained topside, primping, we supposed. When she finally descended the companionway, it was with a flourish. “And the top o’ the mornin’ to ya!”

  “Good morning,” said Brenda and Tank.

  “Good —what did you do?” I said.

  As she sat at the table, she looked fairly normal in a sun suit and matching sun visor.

  It was the beard and mustache she’d drawn on her lip and chin that struck us as a little odd –– a thin, handlebar mustache with loops at each end, and a tight little goatee. “Am I not fit for your table now, as smart as a bright feathered cock, and trimmed for the finest company!”

  Our staring seemed to perplex her. She checked herself over. “Have I overlooked something, and begging your pardon!”

  “You still doin’ that pirate stuff?” said Brenda.

  I gave a little signal with my hand and Brenda, much to be commended, put her lecture on hold. “Andi. You’ve drawn a mustache and a beard on your face.”

  She stared at us for a moment, then looked for something that would serve as a mirror. A shiny cream pitcher served the purpose. “Well –– !” She touched her chin in wonderment, and then turned red. “All right, who did it?”

  We went blank, still a step behind whatever was happening.

  Which only fueled her anger. “Don’t give me that innocent look!”

  Tank ventured, “We didn’t do anything. You did it to yourself!”

  I corroborated, “That artwork on your face wasn’t there until you went topside to fix yourself up.”

  Suddenly, with a different demeanor, she set down the cream pitcher, nodded grimly, and crossed her arms. Andi the Pirate spoke again, “Aye, so that’s the way of it. Betrayal again, and by me own shipmates. If you cannot trust your chin to your friends, now where can you leave it, tell me that!”

  We looked at each other. The trouble wasn’t over.

  Where to begin? “Andi, I think maybe you need –”

  “I’ll tell you what old Ben needs!” she spouted, pointing her finger at me. “Maybe just one day, nay, one little moment, when –” She stopped, staring at her pointing hand, rubbing her third finger with her thumb, looking at it as if she’d never noticed it before. “Blimey! Me finger’s back on.” We were nonplussed, so she explained, “Lost it, you see. Had a mainsheet wrapped around it and I weren’t aware. A good gust of wind come along, and yank! Off she went. Became food for fish, you can lay to that.”

  “You lost a finger?” I asked.

  She gave me an impatient scowl. “Long you’ve been a mate of mine, Cap, and now you don’t remember? Been touching the rum again?”

  “Well . . . ” I looked around the table, at every other set of eyes. “The food’s getting cold.”

  We acted normal, passing eggs and French toast around, enjoying it as best we could, and talking about our plans for the day. Except Daniel. As Andi the Pirate stabbed her food with her knife, chewed rudely, and drooled, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He reached for his knife –– and Brenda intercepted that whole notion before he could touch it.

  But at some point I didn’t notice, Andi resorted to her fork and wiped her drool with her napkin. “How far to that coral reef?”

  Tank answered, “Just around the point, over on the west side.”

  “Gotta snorkel today. Can’t miss it.”

  Andi again?

  Brenda was ready for a retry. “What’s that on your chin?”

  Andi found the cream pitcher again and used it as a mirror. “Oh!” She laughed with embarrassment. “Sorry. I guess I got carried away this morning.” She promptly went to the head - the washroom - to wash it off.

  And so began a perfectly glorious day –– that ended much worse.

  Chapter Five

  Kidnapped

  All day we enjoyed the pleasure of repeating the Pugh family’s vacation: snorkeling, hiking to the top of the island’s highest mountain, exploring the closely arranged, meandering village of St. Marie to the sound of Caribbean music. We had dinner in a family run seafood shop on the waterfront and could see the Barbee Jay through the front windows, rocking ever so slightly on the end of her anchor chain. Whether any of this had anything to do with the loss of millions in investors’ money we did not discover.

  As dusk approached and we sat on the wharf enjoying ice cream bars, Andi was still restless. “Hey, before we go back to the boat, how about walking the beach?”

  The rest of us were tired, ready to call it a day. Daniel was already asleep, his head in Brenda’s lap. Nevertheless, Andi was being herself, and anything that could help her remain in that condition suited me. I steeled myself against my own exhaustion and said, “I’ll go with you. But we have to be back before sunset.”

  She jumped up. “Come on!” Before I could reach walking speed she’d run from the wharf to the sand below, sending the tiny sand crabs scurrying. True to her plan, she kicked off and carried her shoes.

  I made my way along after her, staying close to the wet sand near the water for better firmness under my feet, and I left my shoes on, thank you. She slowed her pace, I caught up, and we walked together, stepping around tiny crab burrows and watching a pair of pelicans nabbing fish from the waves. Entirely therapeutic, or so I hoped.

  As we rounded a point, Andi reached into her pocket, drew out her oversized, gold earring, and looped it th
rough her ear.

  “Well now,” I said, “where did you get that?”

  “From Brenda’s stash of stuff.”

  Wishing to avoid any further debate on right and wrong and whether or where a basis might be found for them, I didn’t question her ethics. “But of course there’s a risk involved, as we’ve observed ––”

  Abruptly, she stopped in her tracks and assumed a familiar, roguish posture. “And from what tired old scow did you scrape that one? I’ve a right to me druthers, same’s do you!”

  I winced. Oh no.

  She swaggered in front of me like bar scum wanting a brawl. “Learn if you can, laddie. There’s no right or wrong in this world, only what a man makes for himself, you can lay to that!”

  So we were into it again –– whoever we were.

  She turned her back on me and stomped away with a masculine gait. I followed, temper rising above discretion. “Andi –– or whoever you are, I don’t give a hoot in hell –– that will be quite enough!”

  There was a snap and a rustle in the trees beside us. I saw something stirring, most likely an animal. But a large one.

  “What are you looking at?” Andi asked.

  “Nothing. Now you –” As I looked at her, she was Andi again. “Andi?”

  With abrupt innocence, she answered “What?”

  “Andi?”

  She replied impatiently. “What?”

  I was stymied between three courses. What was I to be, her employer, her father, or her therapist?

  She said with a wrinkled nose, “You are acting so weird.”

  I rubbed my forehead, admittedly to hide my eyes. “Wouldn’t it be fair for me to know from moment to moment to whom I’m speaking?”

  She looked around. “It’s just us, Professor.”

  “So . . . Andi. May we talk about that earring?”

  Her hand went nervously to her ear. “Okay, okay. So Brenda’s gonna be ticked off at me.”

  “You’re quite right.”

  “But . . . ” A slight sneer curled her lip. “I been through heavier storms than what she can bring, and I’ll weather this one too! Besides, didn’t I tell ya there’s no right or wrong in this world, no true or false, and that’s the way of it?”

  Since when did Andi agree with me on that subject? “Ben, I presume?”

  A hushed voice came from the trees. “Aye, that’s her!”

  I saw no one, but someone was there. “We have company.”

  She pulled in close to me, crouching and wary. “Aye,” she answered in a stealthy whisper. “and it’s more than a creature afoot. I might know that voice.”

  I shot her a sideways glance. “You know who it is?”

  Andi looked back at me. “Who who is?”

  I gave up trying to talk to her. I just grabbed her hand. “We’re getting out of here!”

  “YAY!!!!” In a flashing moment, bursting from the jungle and hemming us in against the sea, a filthy band of hairy and sweating scoundrels with muscular arms, sashes, pistols, scarved heads, flashing cutlasses, and grinning teeth closed upon us like vultures upon carrion.

  Pirates! At least a dozen. It was unreal. It was frightening.

  Of course, I reminded myself, it had to be a paid prank, a bonus feature of the St. Clemens pirate show. Someone had put them up to this. I managed a good-humored smile, entirely a lie.

  Andi didn’t smile at all –– she snarled, facing down an oversized caricature in a black leather vest and three-cornered pirate hat. “Rock, if it’s a meeting the Cap wants, he coulda sent a note!”

  The caricature pointed at the earring and exchanged a nod with a bare-chested monster of superfluous muscle. “Aye, that’s her!”

  “Let’s take her!” said the monster.

  The other pirates burst into laughter and closed in on us like castle walls collapsing.

  Andi reached for a sword she was no longer wearing, found nothing, and looked at me, awakened. “What’s happening?”

  The pirate Rock grabbed her up. Three more pirates took hold of her arms and legs while a fifth threw a blanket over her. I spun about as pirates closed in, ready to inflict injury any way I could, but it was useless. The last I saw of Andi, she was writhing and kicking, wrapped in a blanket and tied with rope, carried by two laughing pirates. That was a millisecond before a blanket swallowed me and I was helpless in a woolen cocoon and borne aloft.

  I could still hear Andi’s muffled screaming.

  Chapter Six

  The Predator

  When our captors untied our bonds and lifted away the blankets, it was only because we were in a wooden boat and there was nowhere for Andi and I to run without the ability to walk on miles and miles of open water. Dead ahead, in silhouette against the reddened sky, lay our destination, a three-masted, square-rigged pirate ship right out of Robert Louis Stevenson –– or the pirate show on St. Clemens. Andi, now herself and immersed in the fantasy, drank in the sight. I could only hope Tank and Brenda had arranged all this. If not, they would have no idea where we were, and worse yet, these ruffians, whatever their game, weren’t kidding.

  Rowing with precision, our surly hosts brought the boat alongside. Andi scurried up the rope ladder and over the bulwark with no help. I climbed well enough, motivated by my preference for a larger boat over a smaller one.

  The ship smelled of oak and tar and creaked with the swells in deep, wooden tones. The rigging, stretched with a spider’s precision, the masts, yards, and sails, now furled, were worthy of a tour in themselves, but we were granted no time to gawk. Still prisoners and treated as such, we were hurried along toward a door below the quarterdeck, the portal, I supposed, that led to the Captain’s Quarters.

  I was right. Inside, under the low beamed ceiling, sitting at a map table under lamplight, was the Captain, a steely-eyed character from another age with black curls down to his shoulders and beard to his breast. I came within an impulse of laughing, but thought better of it. He gestured with his hand and his men placed us firmly in two chairs facing him across the table.

  He studied us a moment –– mostly Andi –– and then, of all things, began to sing what I guessed was an old sea shanty:

  “Haul on the bowlin’, the fore and maintop bowlin’ . . . ”

  And to my surprise, Andi gave the musical answer:

  “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”

  The Captain rose to his feet for the next line,

  “Haul on the bowlin’, the packet is a-rollin’ . . . ”

  And Andi, eyes widening at her own knowledge, sang the response,

  “Haul on the bowlin’, the bowlin’ haul!”

  The Captain cocked an eyebrow and exchanged a look with his men.

  To which Andi took on a scowl that wasn’t hers. “And what of it, Cap? Set your course with tremblin’ or you’ll stay in irons. The wind only blows when I whistle.” Then she marveled and looked at me. “What did I say?”

  “By the powers, it’s Ben!” rumbled the monster, and the room filled with a tension I could feel.

  The Captain stared at Andi’s gold earring, and then at her. “So, might you tell me where you are?”

  She answered as if she’d known it all her life. “Aboard the Predator.” She gasped, stunned. She looked around the room at the costumed cutthroats, and I saw recognition in her eyes.

  So did the Captain. “So you been here before, lass. You know these faces.”

  Of course, she had to have seen some of these thugs as characters in the pirate show, but we never heard their names. Even so . . .

  She looked up at the oversized caricature in leather vest and three-cornered pirate hat. “Rock.”

  Rock snorted a chuckle and nodded.

  “And . . . ” She recognized the muscular monster. “Scalarag.”

  He gave a mocking bow. “M’lady!”

  She stared, then pointed at the ship’s token bald guy, the one with the bushy mustache and oversized saber. “Norwig . . . the Bean!”


  Norwig cocked an equally bushy eyebrow and looked at the Captain.

  She named the other three: the mousy little raisin was Spikenose –– he served as the ship’s purser and cook; the morose man with the scar across his face was, naturally, Harry the Scar; the flamboyant, Doug Fairbanks throwback was Jean-Pierre DuBois.

  As for the Captain: “And you’re . . . Captain Thatch.” She looked at me. “How . . . how did I do that?”

  As if I had an answer. “I’m sure we’d all like to know.”

  “You bought that earring,” said the Captain. “We were missing it, and there was talk around St. Clemens about you. The rest we tried guessing, and we guessed right.” The Captain extended his hand. “I’ll take that earring now.”

  She shied back.

  “Let him have it!” I advised, touching her shoulder to steady her.

  She removed it from her ear and handed it over.

  He smiled, a glint of gold in his teeth, and touched a button on an incongruous intercom. “We have it. We’ll see if it talks.” He tried putting the earring on his own ear but only grew impatient. “Here,” he said, handing it to DuBois. “You and Sparks make an inquiry.”

  DuBois hurried out the door.

  The Captain gestured to Rock, who produced a three-cornered hat from a cabinet. “You want to be a pirate, lass, you need to look the part,” said Rock. “See how this suits you.” He placed it on her head.

  A little big. She started to take it off ––

  The Captain cautioned her with a wiggle of his finger to keep it on.

  There followed an odd space of time, a silence as if we were all waiting for something.

  It finally came, though clearly unexpected: the horrible scream of a soul in hell from somewhere in the hull of the ship. It made us all start. The sounds of a commotion followed: shouts, poundings, more screaming. I could plainly read fear and consternation in the eyes of the men as they looked to the Captain.