The Devil's Hand

--Chapter Six--



    The battle didn't last very long. Between them, Jack and Will managed to kill several of Roccelli's men, but within minutes, one of the Black Pearl's masts was down, the ship had a large hole in her side above the water line, and the Blood Storm was off to the horizon.

    Jack dropped his arm to his side, the barrel of his pistol smoking, and looked to Gibbs as his first mate found him. "Report, Mr. Gibbs."

    "No crew loss on our side," the portly sailor said. "Couple of 'em are out, but no one's dead. Don't think they had it in mind t'kill us, Captain."

    "No," Jack agreed, "I don't think they did. They had us outgunned and they didn't sink us. Why?"

    Will didn't much care. "I'm going to check on Nicola. That probably frightened her."

    He thumped down the stairs, calling, "Nicola!"

    She didn't answer, and when he got to her cabin, he found one of Roccelli's men lying dead on the floor, Nicola's dagger buried in his chest. But his cousin wasn't there, just one of her shoes. Stark fear propelled him back down the corridor.

    Will nearly tripped coming back up the stairs from belowdeck. "She's gone!" he gasped out. "Jack, they took Nicola."



-----

 

Tortuga



    They had to sail back to Tortuga for repairs. It was slow going due to the damage, and Will spent nearly the entire trip seething and pounding the rails, shouting about how they had to find his cousin.

    Jack wasn't much pleased, either, that the beautiful young woman had been taken. He could admit to himself that he found her very attractive, and she was entertaining. She didn't deserve whatever Roccelli was going to do to her.

    "We'll find her," he promised Will. "Might take a bit, but we will. Repairs should be done in a day or two."

    "A day or two?!" Will exploded. "That's not good enough!"

    "Look. Roccelli wants the chit. I don't think he's going to hurt her." Not yet, anyway, he mentally amended. "We'll track him down an' get her back. Maybe she'll have driven him insane by then, too."

    Will made a frustrated noise and stomped off. Jack took a sip of rum and muttered, "She certainly drives me crazy."

 

-----

 

    Nicola woke to near darkness. Her head pounded, and when she raised her hand to the source, she found her hair matted with dried blood. The last thing she remembered was that man running into her cabin, and her stabbing him with her dagger. Then everything had gone black.

    Groaning, she sat up and found that she wasn't restrained. She'd been lying on a bed in what appeared to be a ship's cabin, but it certainly wasn't the Pearl. With her skull throbbing as it did, she couldn't make much sense of where she was.

    "You're awake at last," a voice said by the door, and instantly, Nicola wished she hadn't regained consciousness.

    Giacomo Roccelli leaned in the doorway, his white linen shirt open to his waist and tucked into tight black breeches. He was as devilishly handsome as ever, his olive skin tanned and his body muscled, dark hair pulled back at the nape of his neck. Black leather boots came up over his knees. His blue eyes were startlingly light in that burnished complexion.

    He set a candle on his desk, the light not doing a lot to relieve the oppressing shadows. Nicola blinked, though, the flickering flame hurting her eyes.

    "What, no thank you for rescuing you from those pirates?" he asked mildly, at her stunned silence. He smiled beatifically, likely convinced he actually had rescued her.

    Mutely, Nicola narrowed her eyes and glared at him.

    "I've done you a favour, you know. Pirates are notorious for ravishing innocent maidens." He approached and reached out a hand, touching her hair.

    She jerked back and spat at him. Still smiling, Roccelli drew back a hand and slapped her. Nicola fell over, stars swimming before her eyes. She gagged from the wave of nausea that accompanied the celestial lightshow.

    "Really, cucciola mia, is that any way to treat me, your fiance?" Roccelli tilted his head and adopted a forlorn expression. "Then again, I'm not your only intended, am I? That garrison commander in England is probably still pining for you. And yes, I know about that. I know everything about you, Nicola."

    Not everything, she thought.

    "I have a gift for you," he said, and dangled a necklace from his well-tended fingers. A golden bird swooped from a delicate chain, the ruby in its eye winking in the low light, seeming to glow by itself.

    It was the dark, gleaming pearl in its clutches that drew Nicola's gaze, though, and her throat tightened. She thought of Jack, and how he made her feel so alive and free. There was so much unresolved between them. And what of Will? Would they come for her?

    Roccelli leaned in and fastened the bauble around her neck. The cool metal heated on contact with her skin, almost painfully so, and her hand went to lift it away. He caught her, though, fingers vise-like around her wrist.

    "I could have given you so much," he murmured. "But you cost me when you fled. Making me search for you forced me to change my plans. And now, I'm afraid that instead of being by my side when I rule, I'm going to have to use you to get there."

    He pushed her back down on the bed and left, taking the candle with him. The only light now was from the lantern outside the window. Nicola gazed out at it, hoping that it could be a beacon for her scoundrel.

 

-----

 

    Alone in his cabin, with repairs halted for the day and the men all bedded down save for the watch, Jack Sparrow reclined on his bed, a small lantern suspended from a hook on the bedpost illuminating the dagger in his hands. When they'd disposed of the man Nicola had killed, Jack had cleaned the blade and now studied it, recalling its owner with a strange, tight feeling in his gut.

    He'd gotten used to her presence on his ship, her quick intelligence and her ready laughter. She was a tiny thing, true, but she had the steady grace of a natural-born sailor. Jack cringed at the thought of what Roccelli or his men might do to her. He'd told Will not to worry, but he himself was consumed with it.

    "You're a bloody fool, Jackie," he murmured to himself. "She's not for you, aye?"

    But the memory of her mouth under his haunted him, and he angrily slammed the dagger's point into the wood of the wall above his head, throwing himself to his feet with confused frustration.

    The pistol he'd given her lay on his desk. She hadn't had time to use it, likely because her dagger had been closer at hand when she'd been attacked in the middle of preparing for bed. How could any of them have known that they'd be attacked so suddenly and swiftly?

    He dropped into his chair and swung his feet up, propping them on the edge of the desk. Cradling the pistol in his hands, he absent-mindedly went through the motions of cleaning and priming it as he considered their predicament. Not getting her back. That he was dead set on. It was that kiss they'd shared on the beach that had him in a quandary.

    "So you like the girl," he muttered. "Will's made it clear she's off-limits. Rightly so, too. She's not the type to trifle with."

    Calypso help him, though, he wanted to trifle with her.

 

-----

 

    "Where are we going?"

    Daylight had brought some magnanimous behaviour from her captor. While she still only had her nightrail, Roccelli had had a man bring Nicola some hot water with which to bathe, and she'd done what she could to clean her hair free of blood.

    Now, she was on deck, pointedly ignoring the looks of the crew staring lustfully at her. Nicola scanned the horizon, hoping to see some glimpse of black sails. There was nothing.

    "An island," the captain said unhelpfully. "I don't see what it matters to you, since you won't be leaving it."

    "I wish I'd never met you," she hissed. "You're a monster."

    He shrugged. "You cannot change the past. And I've seen enough of it to know."

    "Is this how you've lived so long?" she inquired, curious in spite of herself. "Sacrificing young virgins?"

    "One of the ways."

    "How do you know I'm still-" She paused, flushing. "-a virgin?"

    Roccelli's blue eyes cut to her. "If you aren't, I'd have no use for you and I'd kill you and throw you overboard."

    She gulped. "It was hypothetical," she quickly assured him. "Not that, I'm sure, you don't intend to kill me anyway."

    He smiled brilliantly. "You're right about that, but at least this way, you get a little more time in this world."

    Nicola stalked over to the rail, then turned back and glowered at him. "Captain Sparrow will save me. He'll stop you."

    "We shall see. But I wouldn't count on it. He doesn't know where we're going, does he?"

 

-----

 

    Gibbs stepped into Jack's cabin and informed the captain, "Repairs are finished, Cap'n."

    Jack tapped the compass that sat before him. It spun somewhat uselessly, in time to his whirling thoughts.

    "Captain?"

    He looked up, focusing on his first mate. "Aye?"

    "Repairs are finished. What's our heading?"

    Jack consulted the compass. What was it he wanted? To stop Roccelli to save his pride, yes, but also, he wanted to save Nicola. And he wanted to run from his feelings for the young woman.

    What, though, did he want more?

    He sighed. In truth, he wanted Nicola.

    The compass spun and stopped pointing south-east. He sat up.

    "We have a heading?" Gibbs asked.

    Jack hesitated all of five seconds, then jumped to his feet and slapped his hat on his head. "Ready the men to make sail, Mr. Gibbs! We have a damsel in distress to rescue and a dragon to slay."

    "A dragon? We're pirates, Jack."

    That didn't slow the captain. "They have water dragons in China, Mr. Gibbs."