The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,159

kindle into life. A relic of the time before he'd run out on her, when things seemed honest and straightforward. When he'd loved with abandon, unafraid.

His eyes fell to the ring on her finger. Then he turned back towards the men training guns on them. He'd gone beyond fury or grief, into a numb kind of calm.

'I suggest you let my daemonist deactivate his golem,' he said, loudly. 'Otherwise she's liable to tear someone's head off.'

Crattle waved his gun at them. Crake held up one hand. 'Nobody shoot me, okay?' He slowly reached into his pocket, pulled out his whistle, put it to his lips and blew. Once again there was no sound, but Bess drooped and stopped moving, the life gone from her.

Trinica and her men walked around in front of them, and she took the whisde from Crake's mouth. 'Search them,' she ordered her men. 'The daemonist especially. He may have various devices about his person.'

She reached up and took the silver cuff from Frey's ear. Their eyes met, but she looked through him as if he was a stranger. 'Watch out for his cutlass,' she told her men. 'Keep it away from him. It's dangerous.' Then she moved to Jez and took her earcuff, too.

'The compass,' she said, holding out her hand. Jez gave her a glare of pure hatred and pulled the compass from her pocket. Trinica consulted it, checking that it did indeed point towards the ring on her finger, then tossed it to her bosun.

'Keep hold of that,' she instructed him, and he slipped it into the pocket of his coat.

'Found these,' said another of her men, holding up Crake's pocket watch and his skeleton key that could unlock any door. Trinica held out her hand and took them, too, putting them away with the earcuffs and the whistle.

Then they stepped back to make way for the man who'd come out from behind the crates and was walking towards them, a cigar clamped between his grinning yellow teeth. Frey stared levelly at him. Harvin Grist, of course. The bastard might have outsmarted them again, but Frey wasn't about to show an ounce of humility, or bitterness, or sadness at the way this had all turned out. He wouldn't give them that satisfaction.

'Captain Frey,' he beamed, then launched into an explosive coughing fit that left him red-faced and wheezing, somewhat undermining his moment of glory.

'Captain Grist,' said Frey. 'You know, I have a doctor here if you want him to take a look at that cough.'

'I'll happily pull your lungs out your arse for you,' Malvery added. 'Cure your cough in a jiffy.'

Grist recovered and slapped Malvery on the arm. 'Aye, I don't think that'll be necessary, but thanks anyway.' He straightened and took another drag on his cigar. 'Now where were we?'

'You were warming up for a good, hearty gloat,' Frey replied. 'But under the circumstances, y'know, just skip it and shoot us, eh?'

'Oh, there might not be any need for that,' said Grist. 'I could've had Trinica blow you out of the sky if I wanted you dead.'

'Yes,' said Frey, turning a slow gaze on her. 'I'm sure she'd have been delighted to do that.'

'Don't be a child, Darian,' she said. 'It's business. Grist made me an offer. I accepted.'

'Heard from Osric Smult that you two were lookin' for me,' Grist said, through a cloud of smoke. 'Couldn't find Captain Dracken, but I found the Delirium Trigger in Iktak. I reckoned she'd come back sooner or later, so I left a man there to make her a proposition when she returned.'

'What happened to revenge, Trinica?' said Frey coldly. 'What about thousands will die?'

Trinica tilted her head. 'I didn't feel quite so vengeful after I heard his offer,' she said. 'Everyone has a price. He exceeded mine.' When Frey kept on looking at her, she waved him away. 'Don't act hurt, Darian. You'd have done the same. You know as well as I do that your intentions weren't half as noble as you pretended. As soon as you got your hands on that sphere, you were going to sell it to the highest bidder. Your thousands will die wouldn't be quite so important, weighed against a fortune.'

He laughed bitterly. Laughed because she was so, so wrong. All this time, she'd never even believed him. She thought he was chasing the sphere for his own profit. But for once, on this matter, he knew his own mind absolutely. No amount of money was that important.