Chapter One

The man stared at the woman, momentarily caught off guard.

She sat upon the ground, her torso resting against the moss covered tree trunk, and his eyes roved over her.

Such perfection. Attractive face with small nose and plump lips parted slightly as though poised to speak. Cinnamon skin dappled from the filtered sunlight in an intriguing pattern of tawny, dark, and gold. Thick tendrils of coal black hair curling softly over her bare shoulders, her breasts defiant and full in their youthfulness.

Perfect.

Except for the musket ball hole blasted squarely into her shattered breastbone.

He blinked in surprise. Catching his breath, the hunter dropped into a crouch as he slid back into the protective camouflage of the jungle’s foliage. He reassessed the scene, his heart pounding, all senses on full alert.

Damn it! He cursed this part of his job. Competition. Incompetent fools! He was the best–everybody knew it–and if he had found this pretty little Maroon first, he’d still have her to collect the bounty on. An’ make no mistake about it, the bounty on this one woulda’ been worth plenty, that‘s fer sure. His annoyance at such a loss edged him towards a full-fledged temper fit.

I coulda’ kept her fer a little fun myself, fer awhile anyways! Shit! What the bejeezes happened here? She ain’t even armed. She escaped with nothin’ more than the rags on her back. What a total friggin’ waste!

He shook his head. What was there to salvage? He’d tracked someone, something, from the plantation in the lower land. He’d trudged up through this godforsaken hothouse–who knew it was gonna be so damned hot this far up the mountain–for nearly a full day, following subtle signs through the misery of clouds of biting insects. And finally, in his haste, he’d brushed up against clusters of poisonous leaves that had caused his hands and arms to blister, only to come upon this disaster.

He peered over at her corpse. Now all that he had to show for his time and effort was the tiny scrap of a baby still cradled in the crook of her lifeless arm.

Mewing brat! That was what had drawn him in this direction in the first place, only a heartbeat before the sound of the musket blast.

An’ that sucklin’ ain’t gonna last long neither, he grumbled to himself. Unless he could find a wet nurse back at the sugar mill, there wouldn’t be a hope in hell. The thing would starve. And if it didn’t quit bawling right now, he might just have to put it out of its misery himself. He squinted over at the baby, its tiny mouth stretched open in a primitive howl. And then he saw it.

The sole of a boot.

Tension crackled through him, the shock of his discovery hitting hard. No Maroon, this body. The boot’s leather had been shaped by a reasonably skilled cobbler. Its style practically shouted ‘bounty hunter’ to him. His rival, probably. He frowned, his forehead wrinkling up in confusion.

What the hell happened?

Cautiously emerging from his hiding place, he stepped forward for a closer look and squinted down at his newest discovery. His eyes suddenly bulged with comprehension, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling with fear. His rival’s shirt collar was wrapped around a bloodied stump of a neck, the slain hunter’s head nowhere in sight. He had only a moment to consider this as the swish of a machete blade closed in around him. The sharp blow to his neck felled him and he pitched forward, dead before his own body crashed down upon the corpse at his feet.

***

Laying down his machete, and repositioning the baby boy in the dead woman’s arm, Jacko held the infant in place while the child nursed greedily for what would be the last time at his mother’s breast.

When at last the child’s belly was sufficiently full, Jacko dipped a moistened finger into a leather satchel tied at his waist, and slipped the powdered fingertip into the baby’s mouth, feeling the reflexive tug of the baby’s sucking. The calming effect of the powder was nearly immediate and he wrapped the now sluggish child in a chest sling, before turning his attention to the young woman’s body.

Glancing at the clotting wound in her chest, white-hot grief stabbed him in his own, and for a moment he clenched his eyes shut, dizzy with the effort to suppress his rage. Taking deep breaths, he forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand.

It would not do to have any bodies found so close to the secret village. The bounty hunters had nearly discovered the small encampment of Maroons, only another valley away from here. Making a separate trip with each head and a corpse, he dragged them deeper into the undergrowth.

Limping heavily with the exertion, he recalled his own near death during an attack from a bounty hunter. The flesh on his thigh and buttock had never fully recovered from the gunshot and knife wounds he had suffered at the hands of such a man, although he had miraculously lived through his injuries. Had it not been for his mate’s potions and prayers to the gods, and the healing powers of the white woman who called herself Tess, Jacko knew he would have been just another body left to feed the jungle’s spirits.

He breathed up a prayer of thanks and a request for continued safety for himself and the village’s people, before rolling each set of body and head down into a steep crevice at the bottom of a narrow ravine. Not even the dogs would be able to track the missing slave hunters any further.

And they would come, he knew. With more trackers. They always did.

Returning finally to the remaining body, he bent down and gathered the woman in his arms. Holding her close, her child between them, he nuzzled her cheek with his own, inhaling deeply in an effort to capture her scent one last time. His nostrils flared and the crushing grief returned, scalding him as it bored deeper into his chest.

She smelled only of death. Her spirit had left the body, but would be hovering nearby, he thought, waiting for the appropriate rituals to be performed by Mambo. Without those, her spirit could not be set completely free from the physical body, and it would be forced to roam in the darkness of night forever.

Mambo, his mate, would know what to do to ensure that would not happen. She would ensure that this woman would not suffer such a fate.

Mambo would release their daughter’s soul.

With a heart that was as heavy as the body he now carried across his shoulders, Jacko staggered deeper into the foliage and up towards the hidden village. His sorrow drilled into his chest, morphing with every breath into a focused rage.

It was time.

Chapter Two

There were many ways to die on an island.

Boredom was surely one of them and Tess had thought it would be a most terrible way to die.

Until now.

Now she was sliding though slime-coated water in which, she was sure, lurked invisible horrors.

The hand-gutted canoe, being nothing more than a fired and carved out rotting log that she and the three others sat in, floated low, its gunwale dangerously close to the swamp water’s surface. The opaque water through which William and Smith poled this craft was a thick, sludgy green and the canoe left a dark cleft in the algae layer as it slid along the swamp’s edge.

It had been decided that four of them would go. Mambo, the Maroon’s priestess, would navigate their way overland, from the camp down to the foul-smelling swamp and the waiting canoe. The two young men, respective mates of Cassie and Tess, would be needed to push, paddle, and steer the craft, and Tess had insisted in coming along, desperate to free herself from the boredom that she loathed.

It’s just as well Cassie didn’t come. There was hardly enough room for the four of them in the canoe as it was. Cassie, Tess’s step-sister, had chosen to stay behind at the hidden Maroon camp, high up in the island’s mountainous interior. Tess couldn’t blame her. Being a pirate’s captive and suffering his torture, had destroyed Cassie’s confidence and had nearly destroyed her life. Besides, this was no place for a baby and Cassie never let her infant son out of her sight.

Both Mambo and Cassie bore Captain Carlos’ brand, and whether he was dead or not, Mambo had insisted that the scarred flesh on their arms permanently connected them to him. Only something stronger could protect and fend off such evil, Mambo had insisted. It was either cut the pirate’s brand from both Cassie’s and Mambo’s shoulders so that they could not be tracked by the pirate captain’s spirit, or wear an amulet containing something that would hold a power greater than the brand.

And Mambo was taking no chances on the pirate’s spirit tracking her and Cassie down.

Such strange beliefs. Tess shook her head. But who am I to judge? She glanced at her left hand and the three spinner rings that she wore. All of them had been fashioned by long forgotten crafters to have moving bands or spinning parts. The one with blue tourmalines supposedly brought on prophetic visions, while the emerald spinner healed in ways that were beyond normal explanation, and the third ring, the one with tiny ruby encrusted vanes, was the ring of persuasion. That one had been the one she had obtained– no, taken–from Edward, the fiancé chosen for her by her father. Frustratingly, the words that Edward had used to activate the ring as he spun it had died with him in the hurricane.

Tess gazed at William, who sat in front of her. They had been together for a few months on this island, dirty and hungry most of the time, but in spite of that, she thought that life here had improved William’s appearance. His sun-bleached locks glistened in a mass of unruly curls mostly refusing to be held back in a loose plait of sorts that laid down the back of his neck.

This sun of the West Indies has lightened our hair but darkened our skin. How peculiar. Her gaze slid over William’s skin.

His shoulders and torso had tanned to a dark caramel and were etched with the contours of hard muscle. Only the jagged white strips of his whipping scars broke up the broad expanse of his back.

His eyes are just as blue as the day we met, though. Tess smiled to herself, remembering how polite William had been in the presence of her overbearing father on the merchant ship, the Mary Jane. She recalled how attracted she had been to the young press-ganged sailor even then. He’s changed since, she nodded, but so have I.

She no longer wore her thick copper waves of hair in a left sided plait. The birthmark on her neck–an acorn shaped brown mark with a string of tiny teardrops beneath it–had been a thing of shameful imperfection to her family, but it did not have to be kept hidden here on the island.

At the camp of the escaped slaves with whom they now lived–Maroons, as the slaves were known to their white owners–superstition was as rampant as it had been back in the civilized city of London. However, no one in this secluded camp seemed to pay much notice to her. Instead they seemed to tolerate her with a higher degree of mistrust for her white skin than for the tawny blotches that trailed down her neck.

Settling in the canoe, Tess watched the muscles in William’s arms ripple in a smooth dance under his skin as he poled their precarious and quite water-logged vessel along. She had the sudden urge to reach out and touch those arms but at the last moment, the presence of the other two people made her blush with embarrassment that she’d even had the thought of doing so.

Instead she closed her eyes and let the sunshine splash down on her face and she replayed another use for those powerful arms. In her mind, they were wrapped around her, one hand locked in her hair and the fingertips of the other sliding so lightly down her neck and past the small dip above her collarbone that her skin buzzed with excitement. Her breathing deepened as she imagined his hand slipping deliciously further down–

“Tess!” William had twisted around and was smiling his dazzling smile. “This is no time to fall asleep. Look!” He pointed straight ahead. Startled, Tess blinked and then stared. The canoe had stopped. Tess stiffened with alarm and sucked in a breath.

Twenty-five feet away, life and death played out before them. From their perch on an overhanging branch, two tree-dwelling rodents munched contentedly on the leaves of their chosen tree. Cat-sized and covered with coarse brown fur, the plump hutias seemed oblivious to the danger that had gathered in the watery mess of mangrove roots below them.

The attack came with stunning fierceness and speed. Without warning, a crocodile exploded from the water and, launching itself upward, snapped at the branch, narrowly missing its target. Beside it, a second reptile burst out of the turbid water and seized a doomed hutia, crashing back into the mucky liquid below, the rodent captured and crushed in the powerful, tooth filled jaws.

The first crocodile attacked again, having re-estimated the branch’s height. Its eight foot long scaly body was propelled into the air by the enormous strength of its tail. Like its companion, the reptile splashed back into the swamp, this time its mouth full with its intended victim. In only a moment more, the two crocodiles and hutias sunk from view, the marshy water’s surface closing over them.

Sweet Jesus protect us! Tess’s heart pounded in her chest. And we’re here to collect crocodile teeth! Why on earth does Mambo think that Cassie is in greater danger from a pirate’s spirit than we are from these ravenous, horrible creatures? And a dead pirate at that! Thank God, Cassie didn’t come! She doesn’t have the stomach for something like this.

The canoe bumped against something and Tess lashed out, groping for a handhold in the canoe. God! I hate being on water! She felt her chest tighten. I don’t think I can stand this much longer. I hope Mambo knows what she’s talking about.

The African priestess had explained that the “cocodrilo” as she called them, constantly shed their teeth–the crocodile teeth would be easy to find and collect from bits of logs and roots, or perhaps would have washed up along the swamp’s margin–but she hadn’t gone into detail about the giant reptiles’ actual presence.

Tess’s heart was still thrashing about in her chest. The log canoe’s top edge floated only inches above the water’s surface.

Not that it would matter. The primitive beasts were like demons out of a nightmare. Tess was certain that even a larger boat would offer little protection from the creatures’ attack, should it happen.

They are so large. And fast. And coordinated. It was as though they had actually planned out the attack. Tess felt a chill run through her in spite of the oppressive heat of the swamp’s atmosphere. They hunt as a team.

Her chest was aching with apprehension and remorse for having insisted in coming along. Nothing, in her short life of just over seventeen years, not even in her wildest imagination, could have prepared her for this situation.

I think my chances for survival may have been better back among the pirates. At least the human predators were only six feet in length.

She tightened her grip in an effort to control the shaking she felt and snapped her head around to speak to Mambo.

“What in hell have you gotten us into?” Swiveling around to face forward, she pleaded, “William! Please get us out of here!”

White knuckled, William poled the canoe slowly forward, his paddle being no more than a long branch. “Tess, sit still. We really don’t want to capsize.”

“Closer.” Mambo pointed to a half-submerged log to their right.

The log had an indent in its midsection. A large indent. Bumping along side of it, the canoe tipped to one side as Mambo leaned over to run her hand along the log’s surface.

“Hah!” Mambo cried out. “Cocodrilo bite here,” she explained.

She pulled and tugged, digging at the log’s depression with her fingertips. Water slopped over the canoe’s edge, pooling along its bottom. Tess looked down, horrified to see small, undulating bodies in it.

“Can we please go? There are worms in this water!” she shrieked, scrambling to raise herself up out of the collected water. It was one thing to inset fly maggots into wounds where they would harvest the decaying and dead flesh, and which, when he was alive, she had once helped her physician father do, and quite another to purposely sit with one’s unprotected bottom planted amongst a colony of probable burrowing parasites.

“An’ I’m guessin’ there’s plenty more in this swamp, if ya tip us,” Smith warned from the back of the canoe, his voice tight. Mortified at the thought, Tess sat back down.

“See?” Mambo cackled with delight. She held out her hand. Two long, pointy, hollow triangles lay in her palm, their white tips blending into a deep grey near the bases. “Now we go,” she announced, her fingers curling into a protective fist over the teeth. Satisfied and smiling, she nodded and remarked, “This be good trip.”

A good trip? Because none of us were eaten alive? Tess didn’t even want to know what would constitute a bad one.