Book 1: The Rebirth of the Aztecs

Chapter 2 Part 3: Murder Weapon Preferences

“Lady, I’m your captor not your captain,” Drake managed to only sound moderately irritated. Getting yourself hyped up to a life or death situation only for a false alarm was brutal on the constitution not to mention sanity.

“My captain told me to kill you.” Drake cocked his head at Beatrice, and her massive kitchen knife. Keeping the captain of the ship they'd just commendeered alive was a calculated risk. They’d guessed he was connected, but they decided to let him live to tell his masters the whos, the whys, and the hows. The sooner they comprehended the concept that they could be ambushed anywhere, even out in the middle of the ocean on a fancy scuba yacht, the sooner they’d be telling their pee-ons to leave those prickly Catalinans alone. For now. They never left you alone forever.

“I was told to pleasure you, and then stab you in your sleep,” Beatrice looked straight ahead out over the sea while she spoke. A slight tremor went up her arm was the only sign of the turmoil roiling underneath her rigid demeanor.

“Captain Clint will have drugged your guards with their coffee, and will be radioing the local warlords goons passing for coast guard these days by now. It’s already too late,” Beatrice continued,” He wants you to look like an idiot. A vicious idiot who was killed by his own hostage in a cabin room doing very unprofessional things.”

Drake felt a sardonic smile crease his face as the lady talked. In response to the revelation the pirate discreetly chucked the kitchen knife into the head’s wall so hard the blade quivered. The sudden movement made the woman jump in shock, even her tears frozen on her face. A look of resignation filled the First Officer’s sculpted features. The pirate had seen that deadpan gaze before. She was waiting for him to kill her. A fair assessment given she’d just admitted to being a makeshift assassin for the illuminati types, but you’d be wrong.

“Why didn’t you do it hot stuff?” Stoneman asked with iron in his voice. The tone made the woman flinch like a teenager caught in bed with a drunk marine on the Sabbath.

“I know what Cohen was. I won’t kill the man who snuffed that freak for his sins,” Beatrice said with matching steel. Her voice was cold as an arctic current, and twice as deadly. Drake caught onto the tone in an instant. Dropping his towel the pirate ignored Beatrice's eyes turning to saucers at the sight of his piece strapped to his arm, and sat with a thump on the bed next to her. Stoneman glared into her wet eyes with keen interest. This was a surprise.

“You’ve killed before,” Drake said. It was a statement not a question. He already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Beatrice answered through hot tears.

“You didn’t care for the last fellow who bought it.”

“The pig deserved worse than being crock breakfast,” Drake felt his eyebrows raise at that admission. He looked her up and down, for the first time not appraising her figure or checking for hidden weapons. She’d fed a man to a crocodile. That was more personal than a knife fight. No wonder she was less worried about completing the task as much as the morality of the act. After all, most men wouldn’t be able to deny a raving beauty in their bed, and most would’ve never seen the knife coming. Or crocodile as it were.

“Do you prefer killing by massive reptile or oversized kitchen utensil?” Drake asked.

The beleaguered hostage snorted, and giggled through the stress and strain. It was the kind of laugh only a murderer on death row, or a man who’d been in the trenches too long could produce. Either you learned to laugh at the morbidity of life or you let it consume you. So you laugh because it’s hilarious, and horrible all at the same time like a clown at a funeral.

“Aren’t you going to try to escape before the rejected coast guard gets here?” Beatrice managed to ask through her tears and ragged shaky breaths.

A knock saved Drake from having to answer the question. A second later the door opened, and in walked a very startled Ex Sergeant Reynolds still dressed in full battle rattle splattered in blood. Beatrice couldn’t stop laughing which was a tad disturbing since she seemed on the verge of falling off the bed from a lack of oxygen. Drake assumed the stress bleeding off, and a weakness for bad jokes was the likely culprit. Though the pirate captain felt tempted to join in at the sight of the grizzled veteran’s disturbed look. The man had stumbled upon mass graves around human sacrifice hotspots, but this was what took him over the edge? Now that was absurd.

“You dealt with dear old Captain Clint?” Drake asked as he did his best to squash the laughter rising in his chest. Seeing the woman flailing about crying and laughing was contagious for some reason.

“Yeah, he’s fish food now. Yosef force fed him the entire bottle of roofies the late Captain tried sneaking into his coffee, and then threw him overboard.”

“No one touches Yosef’s coffee,” Drake agreed as this latest information seemed to send the First Officer into ever more hysterics as she fell to the floor kicking her feet. Stoneman shook his head while letting a chuckle escape his mouth. This was not where he had expected his night to go. Wouldn’t have called this series of events. Not by a long shot.

“L.T. I don’t know what you did to this woman, but I expect you to fix it.” With that Reynolds turned on his heels, and stomped out of the cabin with a cacophony of psychotic laughter chasing him out of the room. At the sight of his old sergeant’s retreat Drake had no choice but to give into the laughter wearing away on his self control.

Next thing the pirate captain knew he’d collapsed on the cabin floor, and was rolling and laughing uncontrollably with one of his captives. A hostage who had just admitted to have come to seduce and kill him, and to also have fed another man to a crocodile. At least the third craziest moment of the ex marine’s life, and that was saying something.

“You knew I was coming?! And the Captain’s plan? That dead dogfish,” Drake fell onto his back losing all control at Beatrice’s name for her ex boss. The late Captain Clint had indeed resembled a fat dogfish before his timely demise. Drake knew he was being absurd, but he decided not to care. He might die tomorrow in a wave of machine gun fire or machetes after giving up on life, but he was going to enjoy this nonsense.

“No idea you were coming hot titties, but we were watching the late captain fish food,” Beautric threw her head back onto the bed at the horrible joke. The momentum of the laughter was making them drunk on the absurdity of life, and they knew it.

“We also know which local warlord is in your employer’s back pocket now that we caught the old dogfish attempting to radio him. Worth the charade. Also discovering that you feed your ex boyfriends to crocodiles was a win for our intelligence I’d say.”

“I wouldn’t have touched that sack of meat with a ten foot pole pirate boy!”

“Good to know. You still going to try to kill this pirate boy?”

Beatrice sobered a moment. Then giggled again, and hid her face to control herself. When she reappeared her right hand had produced a dagger out of thin air. With a serious look that nonetheless had a smile tickling at the woman's dimples the fabulous blond threw the dagger after the massive kitchen knife sticking it right beneath the oversized blade. She knew how to throw a knife. Drake narrowed his eyes, and just managed to sober up long enough to beat down a bubbling chuckle of his own. He managed to suppress the volcanic eruption of laughter long enough to raise an eyebrow as he looked for more concealed weapons. This lady was full of surprises. Some of them were quite deadly.

“That’s all I got, pirate boy.”

“Prove it hot stuff.”

Beatrice stood erect with both hands on her hips like a woman about to give a lecture to a particularly rambunctious student in the back of anatomy class. Then without a word she ripped off her uniform revealing a skimpy and over the top provocative red and black lingerie piece underneath that couldn’t conceal her assets let alone another knife. Suddenly Drake was reminded that the plan had involved seducing him. This night just got way crazier.

The Story Will Continue Every Monday

Thanks for reading! Click the image below to go to my blog so you can be updated on future projects, and support the Grizzly Clan so we can keep the stories flowing.