Chapter One
Lightning streaked across the horizon.
Though it was twilight, the heat of the day lingered. The air was heavy with the promise of rain.
“Move yer lazy asses – or the storm will drown ye before the sea gets ’er chance!”
The first mate’s voice cracked like a whip as he muscled his way past the row of weary deckhands hauling sacks of coffee beans up the gangplank. The line snaked across the deck to a ladder leading down. Below, drenched in sweat, more crew members piled the bulging sacks to the rafters, stuffing them on top of the casks and crates filling every inch of the hold.
He made his way to the helm. “My apologies, Cap’n. I know we’re behind schedule.”
“It’s not your fault, Mr. Sprague. The poor lads are all exhausted, barely able to stand. And who wouldn’t be – after three solid days of drunken whoring.” James shook his head. “Too bad we can’t get the same effort out of them when we’re at sea.”
“They’re nearly finished, sir,” Sprague replied. “With any luck we kin still be far out ta sea afore the storm hits. Well past the reef.”
“We’d better be.” James studied the dark clouds massing on the horizon. “I have no desire to end up on the bottom of this harbor. When all these ships start tossing around, our hull could get bashed in here as easily as it can on jagged coral.”
He’d watched the storm’s approach earlier in the day from the tall windows circling his room at the top of Blackbeard’s Tower. His grandfather was no fool. The old rogue had known what he was doing when he chose the site to build it. Sitting on the highest peak overlooking Frenchman’s Reef, it afforded a perfect view of the bustling port of Charlotte Amalie on one side, while other windows faced the waters surrounding his island refuge. No vessel could get near the harbor unseen – and no storm would ever take down those massive stone walls.
But a ship? The ocean floor was littered with wrecks piloted by sailors who had no respect for the power of nature.
James Teach had no intention of adding his vessel to them. As a lad, he’d heard tales of waves three times the height of a mast, winds so strong the crew had to lash themselves to the ship’s rails to keep from being swept overboard. Tales of a crafty old pirate outrunning killer hurricanes far more deadly than the gunships sent out to capture him.
James clapped his first mate on the back. “I hope they got their fill of lechery, Mr. Sprague. It’s time to get these buggers back to work.”
***
On a hillside north of town, a solitary figure paced the terrace outside the great hall at Whitaker Manor, watching with dread as the storm approached. She murmured a prayer to Barakiel, the angel of lightning, asking the tempest pass by this island, all the while knowing her appeal was in vain.
She knew how the night would end. She’d seen it over and over on too many sleepless nights through the years. No matter what charms she used, what chants she uttered, the outcome was always the same.
Skilled in the arts of divination, Mercy’s Creole nanny taught her to read the bones and interpret signs of nature when she was only a child. Later she learned to scry, using the blackened mirror Miz Sairy treated with such reverence.
“This was giv’n me by my granny,” Miz Sairy explained the first time she opened the old mahogany box and unwrapped her treasure in front of Mercy. “An’ she allus said it was giv’n to her by her granny. I reckon no one knows for sure how far back ’twas made. Not everyone can see into it, mind ye. But I kin. Now ’tis your time to be tested.”
Gently, Sairy laid the old mirror in the center of the table. She showed the child how to light a candle, whisper her request into the flame, then blow it out and let the smoke carry her question up to the heavens. The old woman taught her to recite an incantation Dante stole from ancient sorcerers when he wrote of Beatrice preparing to guide her dead lover to the halls of Paradise. “All are blessed as their sight descends deeper into the truth, wherein rest is for every soul. Happiness hath root in seeing. Now I call upon all my angels. Bless me and let me see the truth.”
Mercy stared at the murky surface of the mirror but it was empty of any vision. Carefully she lit the candle, whispering, “What does my future hold?”
She blew out the candle and watched wisps of smoke rise into the humid air. As they vanished, swirling shapes appeared across the surface in front of her, blending and merging. Somewhere, whether in the mirror or in her mind’s eye she knew not, the images began to take on forms she recognized.
There was her mother, lying peacefully in a pine coffin in the great hall. Next to her lay the empty shell that had once been her father, his body frail, ravaged by the fever that would overtake hundreds of the islanders.
Mercy shuddered.
“I didn’t see a thing,” she declared. “I don’t have your stupid gift.” She rubbed her hands roughly over the surface of the mirror, as if to wipe away the images, then shoved it across the table. “Take this worthless abomination away.”
“All right, chile.” Her old nanny gently wrapped the scrying mirror in layers of yellowing linen and laid it back in the wooden box. She nodded, sadness dimming the fire in her dark eyes. “Soon enough, ye’ll know the truth of what ye see.” For Sairy had seen it too.
Now, as night descended, she sensed the doom she had seen so long ago, carried on the rising winds, moving relentlessly toward her peaceful island.
Sairy appeared at the doorway, beckoning her to come inside.
“’Tis time, chile. Ye must go now, while ye still can. I’ll tend to yer mama and yer poppa. Soon, they be at peace. No one can hurt them now. But ye must not tarry. With every minute the danger grows.”
Mercy grabbed the tiny woman in a fierce hug. Sairy had been part of her life since the day she was born. She had no idea how old her nanny was. Sometimes Sairy spoke of things that had happened in days long past as though she’d been there to witness them, but she was spry as a young maiden. Her heritage was as colorful as the island’s tropical blooms.
Among Sairy’s forbearers were an African princess brought to St. Thomas by slave traders over 100 years ago and an Arawak medicine man whose people had been all but wiped out by diseases carried by European sailors – and by the genes of some of those conquering sailors as well.