Patriot (A Jack Sigler Continuum Novella) Read Free Page A

let out an involuntary squeal of apprehension. It served the oaf right for sowing the seeds of fancy among his men. “Come along, boy. Come along.”
    Slowly, on massive, quivering legs, the black man stepped out from the cluster of sailors around him and walked over to Greer, Finkle and the woman. “Aye, sir.” His voice seemed to tremble in rhythm with his legs, eliciting a cruel smile from his quartermaster.
    “I told you that you would be punished,” Greer whispered, before turning to Finkle. “Are you ready?”
    The old scientist nodded, and in unison they stepped toward the two ancient willows only to stop when they realized the bokor was walking in step with them.
    “Where do you think you are going, witch?” Greer asked.
    Gracing the officer with her most haunting smile, she pointed toward the graveyard. “Wit’ you.”
    “Oh, I don’t think so. My men, Nichols and Spratt will continue watching you while…”
    “You don’ be seemin’ to understand your circumstances,” she said. “Dis ain’t no negotiation. Enter dat place wit’out me, and every one of you will be swept up to da un’erworld in seconds. Da gates of da boneyard be locked, and I’m da key.”
    Greer glanced over at Finkle, who shrugged. “Makes sense. She does seem to be the caretaker here. I suggest taking her seriously.”
    “More likely, she’s simply a brigand’s harlot.” The quartermaster withdrew his sword, and brushed past her as he ducked under the hanging limbs of the weeping willow. “But I’ll gladly acquiesce, if only to shut the two of you up.”
    With her customary tinkling of laughter, the woman strode forward, passing under the drooping canopy and moving ahead of the three others.
    Once on the other side of the arboreal gateway, the late afternoon seemed instantly to shift to the dead of night. Where the orange-red glow of the setting sun had cut through the dense foliage like rapiers outside the graveyard, now there was nothing but darkness. If not for the warm glow of firelight from a handful of torches staked into the damp soil around them, Greer was certain they wouldn’t have been able to see their hands in front of their faces.
    William, towering behind him, let out a soft gasp. Greer turned to see the large man nervously giving the sign of the cross and then spitting on the ground beside his mud-caked boots.
    “ Mon dieu ,” the man hissed, and for once, Greer could understand the simpleton’s trepidation.
    “I highly doubt,” Greer said, “that God has anything to do with this.”
    They were looking out over a circular clearing in the jungle, roughly two hundred yards in diameter. Dozens of enormous bones, sharpened at the tips, jutted up from the moist soil like the fangs of some monstrous burrowing creature digging its way up. The bones seemed to mark at least twelve distinct graves in a semi-circle around the northeast edge of the clearing. To Greer, a few of the bones appeared to be the shape of human phalanges, only the size of a tall man’s femur. In the center of the graveyard, completely surrounded by jagged-tipped yellowing bones, sat a sarcophagus made entirely of sea shell fragments. A relief carving was cut into its lid depicting a macabre visage of a gigantic skull with a hole bored into its forehead. The entire casket was covered in a strange script, painted in what looked like dried blood.
    “When dey—Lanme Wa and his crew—came here a century ago, dey had been attacked,” the bokor said to no one in particular. She casually strode over to the sarcophagus and brushed the tips of her fingers intimately over its lid. “Attacked by creatures not seen in our world for thousands of years. Giants. Monsters wit’ a thirst for blood. Most of da Cap’n’s crew survived, but dese twelve didn’t. Lanme Wa brought dem to dis island to be laid to rest. Dis island be a sacred place reserved for dose what da church would deem unholy. As added contempt for da giants dat had done so