space. I need some room,” she said as she dematerialized for a moment.
“Lucy, get back here this instant,” Joyce snapped.
“Oh, calm down,” Lucy said from the far end of the cell. “I just needed a second.”
“I know, Lucy dear, but it shouldn’t be very much longer,” Grace said as Lucy materialized on the bench with her wrists once more in encased in iron. “I will take you on a vacation…wherever you want to go…for an entire week when we finish here,” Grace promised with a gentle smile.
“OK, I’ll just sit tight. Right where I am, bored out of my mind,” Lucy said with a syrupy smile. “But you know I would do anything for you, Grace. I even used my best spell box on Royce, just like you asked me to.”
Joanna felt blue sparks shooting from her eyes as she turned her lethal gaze on Lucy.
“You did that to my brother?” Joanna stalked toward Lucy, fury wrapping around her more tightly with each step.
Grace dematerialized and reappeared directly in Joanna’s path, placing her body between Lucy and Joanna.
Grace was an ancient. Her magic was stronger than Joanna’s even though temper did lend a definite boost at the moment.
“Two years,” Joanna said to Grace through clinched teeth, “Two years we looked for him,” she continued as tears ran down her face. “I needed him. I really needed him,” she sobbed as the flood gates opened, pouring out two years of emotion.
Grace wrapped Joanna in her arms and crooned soft comforting words in her ear. Finally, Joanna raised her eyes to Grace, who conjured a tissue.
“Why, Grace? Why did you take him away?”
“He was in danger, child,” Grace said leading Joanna to sit on the long wooden bench. “We were not trying to harm him,” she explained as she too sat down. “We were trying to protect him the most expedient way we could.”
“Protect him? What were you protecting him from?” Joanna asked, scrubbing her cheeks dry on the tail of her shirt.
“Death, child,” Grace answered softly.
Joanna gasped. “Death?” she repeated.
“Yes, dear...Lucy saved him from an eternity of death-without-dying,” Grace said with a smile in Lucy’s direction, as if that explained it all.
“I don’t understand,” Joanna said as her head began to pound with a stress headache. Death without dying? What the hell did that mean? She was now more confused than ever.
Very softly Grace whispered, “The coin, child. The night-walkers were seconds away when we found him. Your brother had the coin and would not have turned it over willingly. There would have been a battle that he had no hope of winning. He was ill prepared to deal with them. They were not supposed to have been in the city.”
“You could have found some other way to help him,” Joanna insisted stubbornly.
“There were too many, dear. We would not have been successful, and the coin absolutely must not end up with those who live for the darkness,” she said in reference to Vampires.
Suddenly, Joanna remembered the little package in her bra. Slipping her hand down the front of her shirt, she held up the coin with a smile. “I almost forgot I had this.”
#
“Step lively, Matey,” chains rattled as the dungeon door opened. Blackbeard and Stede were shackled and being pushed deeper into the dungeon.
“We will find the coin and finish what we started on Ocracoke
Island…immortality. Too bad the Witch died before she could finish her job. The bitch bled out like a wild boar after ye slit its throat,” Vane groused. “When ye remember where ye stashed the loot, I’ve got four new vessels fer the incantation.”
The voices drew closer to the cell holding Joanna and her companions. Grace pointed to the floor where Joanna had been dumped when the pirates initially cast her into the dungeon. With a nod, Joanna took her place, collapsing once again against the cold dungeon floor. As she glanced toward the other ladies, she was shocked to see the rumpled mess each had become. Three previously beautiful women had transformed into hags with stringy hair, dirty clothes, and not one speck of makeup.
With a wink for Joanna, Lucy shouted, “Let us out of here. We will never help you, no matter how long you keep us locked in this cell. I’m hungry. We need food, and the water is disgusting.”
Joanna chuckled silently. As Lucy began shouting, Joyce waved her hand and the light illuminating the room extinguished. The trio of Witches had this under control, but their captors were too full of themselves