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"Last chance," she whispered, glancing up at the deck Jack could not hear footsteps, but her dark eyes had gone wide, and her head was cocked to one side, listening to things he could not hear
"You won’t give me away?" Jack asked He breathed in deeply, and hers was the first clean scent since he’d boarded the Larsen She was fresh air, cool and lightly perfuhts to be having about a woht be the captain’s beloved, if one such as Ghost was capable of love
Jack pushed past her in the narrow corridor, and for a rille above It surrounded the Jack to the shadows beyond, and it was just the two of them, so close that when she exhaled, he inhaled her breath and found it intoxicating
Then, their first contact--she touched his hip and pushed hiain, turned froway toward the sinally entered the bowels of the ship
Whispers rose from the hold, but Jack barely heard theh, then glanced back just as she slammed the door behind her, hard He saw the first s above, co
Jack rushed in the opposite direction and slipped through the door where Sabine had entered and found hiith a steep staircase before hi , the soft moans of unknown dreams--and he paused for a moment She reads the sea, Louis had said Ghost calls it finding order in chaos She could find people and ships, predict where they would be at any given time
He wondered just what Sabine had come down here to find
Soe that Jack could not understand He moved cautiously to the foot of the steep staircase To venture fully into the forecastle would be to put hier--Sabine had saved him once, and now he owed it to her to return to his sh for one night And in truth, Sabine’s appearance had distracted hied his head on the staircase’s underside His stealth and sensitivity had been disturbed
Thenoise
"He’s crying for hoasped in shock
Ghost eh a doorway he had not even seen He seemed to fill Jack’s whole field of vision, bordered by shadow as Sabine had been fraht
"All of them do, on occasion," the captain continued "I coht be hard, but they’re all babies when they sleep"
"I…," Jack began, but he had nothing to say He didn’t want to offer an excuse for his nighttiht I slanced behind Jack at the closed doorway to the hold "Found ’eo"
"Must?" Ghost’s single word ain
"They’re not animals"
"Not aniot to give the more than bread and water," Jack said
Ghost pondered for athem scraps from the kitchen tomorrow, if it pleases you"
Jack nodded Perhaps if he had time alone with the other prisoners, they could conceive so to thank ht some laboratory specimen
"I’ll thank you quite effusively when you’ve put us all ashore, alive and well"
Ghost sive you that"
The menace in his tone, and the malicious implications of his words, were unht, panic descending If it came to it, he would kill this o Surely he could kill a pirate? Yet Ghost was h the Wendigo had a savage, wild hunger and ferocity unlike anything Jack had ever encountered, the captain of the Larsen had all that and one thing th, and out here on the wild ocean, they were all alone
"Coht we can talk for a while And I have a question" He cli for an instant that Jack would follow
And Jack, confused and disturbed by the terrible man’s presence, could only climb up after him
CHAPTER FOUR
NOBLEST OF ALL
The ht washed over the Larsen’s deck, casting the ship in shades of silver The night sky was clear, the stars infinite, lighting their way tohatever fates and destinations awaited The sails were full, and the vessel knifed through the Pacific as though it were soether by the hands of er fascinatesout a plume of smoke
Jack’s heart slammed and his temples throbbed to its pulse Ghost had known he was down in the hold, knew that he had discovered the other prisoners from the Umatilla, and yet he had issued no punishery waited, dorht erupt at anyto draw hi hiht He had wearied of watching his tongue
"Is there sory?" Jack asked
Ghost raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised and pleased that Jack had engaged him at last He pressed the pipe steht, and let the smoke curl slowly from his nostrils Jack could not help but see Satan in this devil’s face
Careful, he thought You’re sparring with Lucifer
"You believe you have soht to be treated as more than an animal--"
"I am more than an animal," Jack said
"You have been raised to believe in a morality that is a construct of those ish to control the bestial nature of mankind, in order to protect themselves and what they own," the captain said "In your life, young Jack, you will encounter two sorts of people: those who are stronger than you, and those who are weaker And I do not er, and if there is so you possess, why should I not take it from you?"