A Most Unusual Interest

A Most Unusual Interest Chapter Twenty Eight (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… The cats are plotting again…be wary…. Readers/Reviewers: I’m going to be wrapping this up in the next ten-ish chapters, BUT… I’m plotting a sequel, lol. Thank you soooooooooo much for reading/reviewing!

Myrtle swallowed against the wave of nausea that threatened to overtake her. She was running on virtually no sleep, little food, and pure adrenaline, all of which were combining with a sudden, sharp terror as the Devil Ray began it’s slide towards the sea floor. Anna Maria grabbed a thick rope hanging from the mast to keep from slipping off of the deck itself as men began to abandon ship. “Myrtle!” she snapped. “Hold on to something!”
“I’m not going down with the ship!” she shrilled in return. “That’s your job!” Belying her words, though, she clung valiantly to the ship’s railing, her legs going out from under her as the ship took a steeper pitch. “Where’s the lifeboats?”
“Gone!” Anna Maria called back, sounding irritatingly calm. She pulled herself up a bit further, wrapping her legs around the rope.
“Gone?” Myrtle heard her voice enter a register that should have been heard only by dogs. “How?”
“I don’t know,” the captain snarled in return. “Not important now, is it?”
The cacophony of sinking ship pounded inside Myrtle’s head. Men were shouting, the ship itself creaking and groaning, the attacking ship’s guns were firing and, she froze as she realized, they were not aimed at them! Fairly wrenching her shoulder from it’s socket, she scrambled to look at the sea beyond the rising bow. “Jack!” she cried, the name torn from her throat before she could stop it. “Anna Maria, the Pearl!”
“Why do you think I told ye to hold on, you daft bint? Jack’s not gonna let us drown!” After a brief pause in which she swung forward and grabbed the mast itself, she added, “You can swim, right?”
“Um…a little!”
“Bloody Hell…” The ship lurched heavily, flinging Myrtle loose from her perch at the railing. She tried not to scream but did not quite succeed, the sound ending abruptly in a thud as she made contact with the deck mounted canon. Anna Maria winced in sympathetic pain but gla glad the gun stopped Myrtle’s downward slide. The ship was sinking rapidly and she had little or no time to act. The Pearl was far enough off that they would be in the water a good while but the other ship, the one brandishing a pirate’s colors unknown to her, was moving inexorably towards them. “Somehow, this is all Jack’s fault,” she muttered. With a silent, quick prayer to whoever was listening, she slid down the rope and braced herself, tilting haphazardly as she tried to fight the pull of gravity. The ship was pitching slowly into a near vertical position with the sea floor. This was not, she sighed inwardly, going to go well.
Myrtle’s eyes fluttered open and she sucked in a painful breath. She was still, she thought, on the sinking ship. “The story of my life,” she groaned.
“Oh, do shut up,” Anna Maria growled from above. She was precariously balanced between the railing and the gun, glaring at her. “Give me your arms.”
Myrtle did not hesitate, biting back a cry of pain as she was pulled up roughly, her shoulder screaming protest. “Thank you,” she gasped.
“Don’t be thankin’ me yet,” Anna Maria muttered. “We’re still on the ship.”
“Jack…”
“Is a ways off for us, lass. Listen to me and listen good. Once ye hit the water, get away from the ship fast. Grab something and hold on, keep your head up.” She was eyeing the bits of flotsam breaking off from her precishipship and she sighed. “Don’t try an’ help no one, savvy? If ye see a fin, say your prayers.”
“Sharks?” she asked meekly. “There’s sharks?”
“This isn’t the blood Thames, love. Yes, there’s sharks. When I say, jump out and away, got it?” Anna Maria was not even looking at her now, instead eyeing her men in the water, most of them moving, a few inert, dark shapes already sinking to the bottom. “Got it?” she repeated more harshly.
“Yes, I understand…” She let Anna Maria her her up onto the railing. It was difficult to balance but she had a feeling that she would not be there long.
Anna Maria glanced at her and smiled tightly. “Tell Jack hello for me, would you? Just in case…”
“What?” Myrtle barely had time to react as Anna Maria grinned fiercely and pushed her. Hard.
“Jump,” the captain called after her.
Myrtle hit the water and gasped, sucking in a lungful of sea water. It was cooler than she thought it would be and more painful—it was like hitting solid ground the moment she impacted the surface, knocking the wind from her. She plunged under, her eyes burning from the salt water, the world going green and murky for a timeless moment before she remembered to kick her legs. When her head broke water, she inhaled the sea water. Choking and gagging, she tried to dash the water from her eyes only to find herself struggling to keep her head above the surface. She could no longer see Anna Maria on the railing. The Pearl was still a distance off and the black ship was heading at a steady clip. “This will not end well,” she sighed, kicking her legs in a jerky rhythm, bobbing in the cool water. Belatedly, she remembered Anna Maria’s orders and struggled over to a broken plank, wrapping her arms around it and pulling herself halfway onto it, her legs remaining in the water as she frantically tried to paddle away from the suction of the sinking ship.

Jack glared forlornly at his broken spyglass. “Bring ‘er ‘round, Gibbs! Don’t let ‘er get too far afield!”
“Aye, Cap’n!”
Jack tucked the ruined instrument back inside his coat pocket and moved up the deck to the bow. The Devil Ray was lost, that much was obvious. He could not see any movement on board. Luckily, the attack had failed to ignite the magazine he knew Anna Maria kept aboard her ship. That gave him some hope. At their distance, he could not tell one dark shape in the water from another, just that most were still moving and a depressing few were now fish food. Try as he might, he could not pick out female from male as far away as they were. The dark ship beyond them was undamaged despite Jack’s best efforts. Anything he had attempted, the Captain of the other ship had evaded. It was almost like…”witchcraft,” Jack murmured, touching his fingers to the beads in his beard thoughtfully. “Dawson!”
“Aye!” Dawson slid to a halt, red faced and panting. “What is it, captain sir?”
“Bring me the dead man from below. And the head in my cabin!” Jack waved him off airily, staring at the mystery ship.
“The…what sir?” Dawson paled and began to turn slightly green about the gills.
“The dead man from below and the head in my cabin! I’ll not be tellin’ ye twice!” He glared briefly at his crewman and turned his attention back to the souls in the drink. “Then run up the banner. We’ve a parley to make.”