The Phantom grew bigger in the horizon, running downwind with full sails, devouring the distance between it and the brigantine. Marina looked at it and smile. Just like Dolores, she'd taken her dress off to wear only her petticoat. She cut it at both sides from the bottoms up to her knees, so it wouldn't hinder her moves. Only then Dolores saw she had her high-topped boots on, and that she'd hidden a misericorde and a small pistol under her skirt. Now she'd added Segovia's sword belt around her hips.
"Where did you get those weapons?" Dolores asked, surprised.
"Maxó and De Neill left them when they came to the house."
"Damn sluts!" Segovia snarled from the corner where he had crumbled and never stood up, still bleeding.
The sole of Marina's boot hit him in the face. "Shut up, scumbag. I'm already tired of beating you."
She looked back, to the sea, and couldn't help another smile. Like every time she laid eyes on the Phantom flying after the brigantine, fast and mighty like before, like always. Watching it made her feel something she'd never experienced coming back to Tortuga: the longing and joy of coming back home. And her home was the best in the world. Because it was a home that ran to her.
"General!" a soldier called from the deck. "We're being chased, General!"
Dolores rested her shoe on his crotch.
"Leave me the hell alone!" Segovia snarled.
"They're pirates, General!"
"Let the captain handle it!"
Through the telescope, Marina saw the flashes on the Phantom's bows. She stepped away from the windows and made Dolores sit on the floor at the furthest corner.
"Maybe if I use the table as a shield?" the woman tried.
"The table wouldn't stop a cannon ball," replied Marina with affectionate patience. "If the ball doesn't kill you, the splinters would."
"Oh."
Marina hunkered down before her with a reassuring smile. "Now it's going to be noisy, because of the fight. But don't be afraid. We'll be fine." She waited for Dolores to nod, kissed her forehead and went to stand by the door, sword and pistol in hand.
Dolores recognized her attitude. That was how she'd first seen Marina when her husband's ship was boarded. She'd peeked out from the cabin, and she remembered how impressed she was by the girl's confidence and determination. And this time was just the same. Her amazing calm as she waited, ready to fight, not a hint of fear, her lips slightly curled up while Dolores cringed at every cannon shot.
Marina kept her legs a little apart to compensate the brigantine's sway, the slender waist climbing to the firm breasts under the petticoat tight collar. Her face, so beautiful and feminine crowned by that short raven mane like a boy's. She was a child, but not quite anymore. She was breathtaking and she was fierce. Fire inside, ice outside as she waited for the right moment to engage in the fight.
The time would come to see what was left of her heart after her visits to Maracaibo and Campeche. And Dolores guessed that those who loved Marina the most wouldn't be happy to find out.
The brigantine swayed violently when De Neill smashed the Phantom's side to it.
The pirates' howls filled the air. "FOR THE PEARL!"
Marina looked down at Dolores. "Lock the door until we take the ship over." She nodded to Segovia. "And don't hesitate to kill him if he tries anything." She smiled at her one last time and yanked the door open.
Dolores rushed to close it, seeing Marina faced a soldier at the very doorstep.
A moment later her shout sent a chill down the woman's back. "TORTUGA!"
The pirates roared in response.
Marina and Morris spotted each other and fought their way to meet by the mainmast. There was no time for hugging, but fighting together again, back to back, was enough.
"Hell, pearl! Your looks!" Morris cried.
"Have you seen yourself in a mirror?"
The young man laughed. "Dolores?"
"Safe, in the cabin."
"Castillano?"
"Dead, I hope."
Morris decided it wasn't the right time for questions and didn't insist.
Marina didn't bother to stop the battle and offer the Spaniards a chance to surrender, like she used to do. That morning, she fought alongside her crew, until a small group of survivors threw their weapons, begging for mercy.
It was Morris who held the pirates back with two shouts oozing authority, puzzled because Marina had allowed violence to go on longer than necessary.
Then the girl climbed to the bridge and pulled the Burgundy Cross down. The pirates saluted her with another deafening shouting.
"HAIL THE PEARL OF THE CARIBBEAN!"
Castillano woke to the thunder of cannons and the yelling below deck. He opened his swollen eyes as much as he could, trying to talk his feet into holding him up, because his arms felt like burning. There was nobody else in that side of the hold, and he saw the locker door open.
Marina had said her ship awaited. It wasn't surprising the Phantom had hunted them down. And Segovia would learn that sea dogs were harder a bone than the natives he liked to torture and slain in Peru. Especially if they fought for the Pearl of the Caribbean.
He spat blood and bile, his belly a solid block of constant pain and a piercing throb in his side every time he breathed. Through his mouth, because his nose was so broken and dislocated it was hiding behind his ear. Yet he didn't feel fluids when he breathed. Looked like none of his broken ribs had pierced through his lungs. Good news. God still refused to let him die and be done with.
He would survive, like usual. Because he was good at it. Even despite himself.
And whatever life he had left may not be enough to apologize to his child. Who had been true all along, and only tried to save him from his own blindness. Such a huge blindness that he'd thought she was able to lie in order to convince him, or that she would allow Dolores or anybody try to manipulate her.
Cannon shots ceased above his head, like the coming and goings below deck. The Phantom crashing against the brigantine made him swing like the puppet he was, hanging from those chains forged in Spanish furnaces.
Soon he heard noises of close fight. The pirates had boarded the brigantine. According to his usual bad luck, they'd come for him soon. To rescue him. Alive. To take him to his child, who had more reasons to skin him than to spare him.
Like one who liked to appreciate a good irony when he found one, his only comfort was that Marina was a sea dog, not a King's man. So if she wanted him dead, she'd give him a swift death. Because she didn't enjoy humiliating and torturing like Castillano's colleagues.
He would've liked to laugh out loud, but his chest kept his scant strength focused on breathing. Like he cared.