Nightbred(60)

“Like a private army of cutthroats,” Christian said.

The professor nodded. “Sir Thomas had a strategic advantage as well. Jamaica lay smack in the center of the major shipping lanes in what at the time was considered the Spanish Caribbean, so for the hundreds of pirate ships that were based out of Port Royal, it was like fishing in a barrel. Their raids made Port Royal one of the wealthiest—and most decadent—cities in the world.” Gifford stopped at one page. “Ah, here it is. Father Bartley wrote this the day his ship came into port: ‘Never in my most despairing moment could I have envisioned such a garden of demons. Everywhere I turn there are pirates, assassins, and prostitutes, all engaged in the most brutal of behaviors, and the vilest of carnal acts. The port is riddled with gaming houses and grog shops, each packed to the very walls with villains. From the windows of the brothels, which occupy every fifth building, women lean out with bared bosoms to proposition those passing on the street below. I fear if I were to remain in this New World’s Sodom, I will be torn apart by the very beasts that inhabit it.’”

“Sounds a little like spring break,” Christian murmured.

“Leaving was a wise decision, because Port Royal was already doomed,” the professor told her. “A few weeks after Father Bartley went to the north side of the island to set up his mission, a major earthquake and tidal wave leveled half the city. Two thousand people were killed instantly, and another thousand died from injuries, starvation, and cholera in the aftermath. The survivors attributed the disaster to God’s wrath, visited upon the wicked as judgment for their countless sins. A few claimed to have seen a blood-drinking angel of death stalking pirates at the docks just before the tremor started. Whatever the cause, the city never recovered.”

Jamys exchanged a look with Christian. “Did the priest write anything about this ‘angel of death’?”

“Not a word,” Gifford said. “He never returned to Port Royal. Would you care to hear a passage about an interesting conversion of the native heathens, or how to conduct mass in a grass hut?”

“We are interested in the confession the priest took from the dying pirate,” Jamys said.

Gifford sighed and shook his head sadly. “I promised I wouldn’t talk about that, but okay.” He reached for one of the journals.

“Who made you promise?” Christian asked.

“A man who gave me a lot of money I didn’t report to the IRS,” he admitted. “I buried it in some airtight cases in the backyard but the dog kept digging them up. So I donated most of it to the museum. Anonymously, of course.”

“He seems to be volunteering a lot of information,” Christian murmured to Jamys. “Does that usually happen?”

“No.” Although his ability was powerful, humans under its compulsion always responded directly to the suggestions he made. “Professor, why do you tell us of these private matters?”

“The man who gave me the money said that if anyone made me break my promise, I should tell him all the terrible things I’ve done. Like the time I dressed up in my seminary clothes and pretended to be a priest having sex with my girlfriend.” Gifford thumbed through the journal. “Here’s the passage. It begins with the priest offering absolution.”

Jamys frowned as Gifford launched into his reading. “I am not the first Kyn to compel this mortal. I can feel a trace of another lingering in the patterns of his thoughts. The Kyn who questioned him may have left a command in Gifford’s mind to expose his most guarded secrets.”

“Do you know any Kyn who can do that?” When he shook his head, Christian studied the historian. “If the Kyn who got here before us meant it to be a self-destruct button, it wasn’t a very good one. I mean, cheating on taxes and playing X-rated Confessional won’t get the guy arrested. At best there’d be a month of scandal mongering by the local papers and TV stations. He’d probably get kicked off the museum board.”

“Which would destroy his reputation.” Jamys reached out to Gifford and touched his shoulder. He intended to command the mortal to stop reading and tell him everything he knew about the man who had paid him for his silence, but as soon as he connected with the professor’s mind, he felt a now-familiar barrier.

Instead of hurling his ability at the wall as he’d done with Chris, Jamys held back, sending tendrils of his mind in all directions. In a distant corner of the human’s thoughts he found a gap in the barrier, and slipped into it.

You will show me who you are, Jamys thought, easing into the powerful presence and permeating it from within with his own ability.