River of Ghosts (Haunted Florida Book 2) Read online

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  HAUNTED FLORIDA

  NOVEL

  GABY TRIANA

  Copyright © 2018 Gaby Triana

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ASIN: B07F2YHSTQ (eBook Edition)

  Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Book cover and interior design by Curtis Sponsler

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  First printing September 2018

  Published by Alienhead Press

  Miami, FL 33186

  Visit Gaby Triana at www.gabytriana.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Book 1 – Island of Bones

  Book 3 – City of Spells

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Gaby Triana

  Author Links

  ONE

  1719

  Through his warped spyglass, Captain Bellamy gazed at the silhouette against the setting sun and snorted with disgust. “Córdoba! She sails at us!”

  “Take action, sir?” Newell asked.

  As the sun sank toward tangerine waters, Bellamy gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let the Córdoba get away a second time. “Prepare to intercept!”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Bellamy lowered his spyglass to watch his crew, as the deck of the Vanquish bustled in preparation for battle.

  “Seven bells!” The watch rang out 2-2-2-1.

  “Sounding?” Newell called.

  One frazzled seaman gathered rope and lifted the plummet. “By the mark of three.”

  “Shallows, sir,” Newell said to Bellamy. “We have the keel, but the Córdoba is overloaded. Gold, most likely.”

  Bellamy peered through his spyglass again, gaze transfixed on the distant Spanish galleon. He pointed northward at the treacherous sandbars of the Floridian islands. “Then it is our duty to relieve them of their burden. We’ll ground her there. Come about smartly.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. Look sharp.” Newell snapped his fingers at the coxswain whose thick arms turned the ship’s wheel larboard, cutting Vanquish’s hull through the heaves of the shallow straits.

  Bellamy dug his fingers into the bridge’s rail and waited. Its splintered surface told of his ship’s last engagement with Córdoba when she’d escaped by the skin of her teeth. “She gave us the slip last. To be certain, she’ll not get away again.”

  He turned back and addressed his startled crew.

  “Hear me! No quarter. Tonight, you men will earn your share of gold!”

  Cheers erupted, as the lower deck burst into another frenzy of preparation, transferring powder from the dry magazines below and stacking cannonballs.

  “Round-shot?” Newell asked the captain.

  Bellamy sneered. “Bolas, my friend. Tear her apart enough to cease sail, not to spoil her treasures.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Newell grinned in approval. “Chain-shot, it is!”

  “One thousand yards!” the watch called.

  Bellamy smacked the rails. “Boom us about. We’ll careen her aground.”

  Córdoba’s great sails overflowed with volumes of wind, but she could not alter her course in enough time to escape the Vanquish. Bellamy gazed patiently at the merchant vessel filled with treasure that would soon be his.

  “Come to me, bilge rats. Come to this watery grave of eternal damnation.” He laughed under his breath.

  “Five-hundred!” the watch announced.

  The captain’s nerves sizzled like a lit fuse, as his point of view scanned back and forth along the enemy ship’s rails.

  Suddenly, he caught sight of an unmistakable shape—a young woman standing intrepidly at Córdoba’s bow in flowing green garb. A female aboard a merchant ship? Córdoba’s captain truly did wish to die an unlucky death. He was nearly asking for it.

  The beautiful creature sent a signal. With chin up high and orange tendrils flailing around her face, she lifted two fingers in a rude gesture. Bellamy was taken aback. Damnation, once he eliminated the enemy crew, he would not—could not—entertain this woman aboard his ship as prisoner. Such would be bad luck for everyone.

  “Very well, sassy wench, you’ll be last to die,” Bellamy mumbled.

  “Two-hundred!”

  “FIRE!” Bellamy’s command ripped through the decks.

  Reflexively, the gunners set their igniters to the cannon fuse, and the blasts rumbled across the decks. Vanquish’s eighteen-pound shot shattered Córdoba’s weakened sides. The ship wallowed like a sow in mud and lurched at every iron punch. Chain-shots burst from cannon muzzles twirling skyward.

  Direct hit.

  Each of Córdoba’s three masts buckled and snapped, her tattered sails billowing like death sheets over the ship’s broken body.

  More chain shots blasted from Vanquish’s formidable cannons. The engagement lasted but two minutes, a stark contrast to the hour of last encounter. Marksmen, high in the ship’s rigging, eliminated most officers, even piercing the cannon ports, felling gunners and loaders. Sulfuric clouds transmuted into an ominous fog, plunging the Spanish ship into a suffocating curtain-fall.

  Bellamy held a hand in the air to cease fire, for he was not a brutal man.

  He waited to assess the damaged ship. He did not wish the enemy vessel sinking below the water, or all would be lost. Silence settled over the straits. The ringing in his assaulted ears lingered.

  Suddenly, the fiery glow of the setting sun gave way to blazing tentacles of Córdoba’s powder magazines. The enemy crew abandoned their doomed ship, leaping into the water, flailing, screaming curses, begging for life, many impaling themselves on splintered debris in misguided efforts to avoid capture.

  Bellamy smiled. “Scramble aboard and save what you can. Run out the plank!” he ordered, turning to the helm. “Where’s my boatswain? Where the hellfire is Knox? Do not let that ship go down!”

  Knox grimaced, a disheveled man in a blue and red jacket with stolen Commodore rank markings. He scrambled up the aft steps holding a shimmering sabre. “Here, Captain. Me and Smith…we was down below. We, eh, knew you’d want this sharp and handsome.”

  The captain took the sabre and spun it about in quick swings, testing its aptitude. Abruptly, a massive impact shook the Vanquish, sending several men tumbling to the deck as the captain hung onto the railing. “What the devil is it now?”

  A black cloud rose starboard side. Embers fluttered like fireflies in a field of soot, the glow of the blaze spreading across the water’s surface. From the charred remains of the Córdoba, crew members of the Vanquish worked diligently to save the merchant ship’s cargo.

  From his own lower deck, a seaman called up to Bellamy. “Sir! Córdoba’s cap
tain set her magazines—and his self—ablaze. These are all who survived.”

  Shouts of anguish and rage filled the pungent air, as Bellamy glanced down to see fifteen Spanish crewmen, and that one blasted woman, staggering across his deck, chains and shackles weighing down their hands and feet.

  “And the gold?” Bellamy asked.

  “Has all sunken, Captain. But these are shallow waters, and—”

  “I know that, fool!” Bellamy shouted.

  Blasted cannons. He hadn’t intended to rip them apart. Whose fault had it been, though, for giving Vanquish aggressive chase on their previous meeting? He would have to return at sunrise to salvage the sunken treasure. And here, he’d hoped to sail back to Port Royal tonight, victory under his plumed hat.

  Bellamy pointed his sabre at the unlucky lot. “Line them up on the larboard rails, then put a league between us and that scow.” He frowned at the crew, especially at the woman whose wet, ginger locks reflected the fire emanating off the waves. “You will pay for this trouble.”

  Blasted woman.

  His quarter master and boatswain scrambled from the helm, lining the weary prisoners against the rails. All manners of odor spoiled the fresh ocean scent, from stale sweat of the damned crew, both his and his captives, to the sulfur of cannons.

  Bellamy strolled the length of prisoners from his high position of the upper deck. “You gave us trouble once before,” he told them. “And again tonight. Now look at the result. I assume it wasn’t worth it?”

  His heavy boots descended the bridge ladder, as his gaze followed the smoldering carcass of the Spanish galleon sinking into the straits. A bright flash washed over the Vanquish, and Bellamy flinched in preparation for the Córdoba’s final concussion.

  Yes, they would return to retrieve the gold in the morning, though it would have been infinitely simpler to carry it ship-to-ship, rather than sacrifice his valuable crew to the bottom of the sea like shark food.

  Bellamy paced before the sixteen fearful prisoners, but only one dared to stare into his gaze—the same wench who’d given him rude gesture aboard her master’s ship. Gauging from her fine threads and features, he gathered she’d been the captain’s wife. He paused, slipping the point of his sabre underneath her chin.

  “¿Quién eres, diablo?” the woman asked.

  “Pardon, madame, but I seem to have left my Spanish dictionary in my cabin.” Bellamy laughed, examining her facial features. Proud nose, bright green eyes, lovely lips. A fine creature indeed. Shame he would have to dispose of her.

  “Who are you to declare war upon Córdoba de España?” Her English was quite good to his surprise, and her accent sent a thrill through his loins.

  Bellamy reached into his coat and held up an envelope sealed with red wax and royal impression. “By the word and seal of His Majesty King George the First, I hold this letter of marque.”

  He approached the woman and waved the envelope at her face.

  “So I ask—who are you, woman, to query?” He put the letter back in his coat then lifted his sabre, its point shifting aside the hair obscuring her delicate face.

  “Mi nombre es María Pilar Carmona, wife of Capitán Agustín Lara of Córdoba.” She spoke in heaving breaths, her voice laced with heartbreak, eyes rimmed with tears. “Why would you lay waste our ship, my husband’s life…why, capitán?”

  “Well, if it pleases you…” Bellamy suppressed a smile. “I’ll have his remains raised alongside the gold tomorrow morning.”

  The woman’s eyebrows drew together. “Gold? Córdoba carries no gold or treasures of worth. Any precious cargo sank in the fog of México during the storm we encountered. We were simply making our way back home.” She began cracking a laugh then held it back, as if realizing the mistake too late.

  Bellamy’s chest filled with ire at her mockery. He was a good captain who tried to be kind. After all, he’d saved most of the enemy crew, including the bad luck charm herself, had he not? And here she was, making a fool of him?

  Without another thought, he brought down his sabre and sliced off the wench’s ear, sending the fleshy appendage spattering onto his pristine deck. A crewman picked it up and tossed it overboard. The woman cried out in agony, pressing a pretty hand to the side of her head, as blood splashed across the faces of the men chained beside her.

  Mockery! He would have known of this storm, as most wended their way west from the eastern reaches of the ocean. She spoke of a storm borne from curse.

  Bellamy was many things—a fine captain, a kind man, and a brother when needed—but one thing he was not was tolerant of witchcraft.

  “Do not play with me, sorceress. Your life is forfeit, worth less to me than a full spittoon.” Bellamy jabbed his sabre between her breasts. He did not trust women, especially ones who cackled at his misfortune. To the prisoner beside her, he asked, “This be true? The gold was lost at sea?”

  He moved his sabre to the man’s neck.

  The poor seaman shuddered as if caught in winter’s blizzard. “Sí, capitán. It is gone. The storm, it bore down on us, and—” Bellamy plunged through his flesh, lacerating his neck, as dark blood sprayed across the witch’s voluptuous figure.

  She covered her face. “¿Diós mío, pero por qué?” she screamed.

  Bellamy could not contain his patience any longer. First, Córdoba had given him heavy chase, then they’d returned to taunt him with no pleasures for the taking. Now, her crew mocked him.

  “I condemn you all to die this night.” He shook with rage and slapped the woman’s cheek with his blade. “And you, sorceress, shall watch them, one by one, and be the last to die.”

  Her tears carved rivers through her blood-stained face, as emerald eyes burned with scorn. “In this case, you shall suffer before dawn,” she said in a hateful tone. Had this woman no remorse for her actions? “As above, so below, and within…you shall suffer and never see the sun again.”

  “Quiet!” he shouted, enraged for losing his patience. But her curse echoed in his mind, and for a moment, Bellamy wondered if truth might exist in her words. He wasn’t normally a superstitious man, but when it came to women…

  He thought of tipping her chin up with his fingers but reconsidered the touch. “Strong words coming from reptile food. What be the time?” he called out.

  “By the bell, a half-and-twenty.” A crewman struck the bell 2-2-1.

  “Take us to the corals of the bay,” Bellamy ordered Newell.

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The great ship cut starboard, due north, toward the mainland.

  He turned back to the Spanish woman—the Red Witch, he would always remember her. “You have one bell to make peace with God before eternal slumber welcomes you.”

  “I know no God.” She glared at him, as he turned back to his bridge to watch the spectacle unfold. No God? A witch indeed.

  The half moon loomed in the twilit sky casting a bloody pall over the seas, as the Vanquish sailed into the shallows. Crows and gulls swooped in great arcs above the masts, vultures of the sea waiting to gorge, and Bellamy was in a generous mood to feed them.

  Soon another bell rang out, and the captain readied to discharge the prisoner’s sentence. He pointed to the seaman standing beside the slain prisoner. “You. You shall be first to walk. Go, then.”

  The prisoner spoke through his tears. “Pero, señor, por favor…”

  Bellamy rolled his eyes. Must they always plead for their lives? Was it not better to walk silently and with dignity? “Keep the corpse chained for dead weight,” he instructed his crew.

  “HA!” Knox pulled the prisoner from the line and dragged him, attached to the dead seaman, to the gape where the wooden plank jutted over the sea. Knox pressed his cutlass to the shivering man’s back as he shuffled him toward the edge. “Any last words?”

  The man closed his eyes. “En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo…”

  Knox pushed him off before he could finish his trinity prayer. A loud splash sounded
below. Bellamy loved the commotion more than he cared to admit.

  “Green stars approach!” Newell called, Bellamy’s first mate’s favorite expression for the hungry sparkle in a crocodiles’ eyes. Tossing bodies overboard had attracted reptiles of the brackish waters before, thus they arrived quickly.

  “Next!” Bellamy ordered.

  One by one, he watched the lineup disappear punctuated by a Red Witch at the end of the line, one who would not weep, even as she awaited her fate. Nothing irritated him more than a woman who would not submit.

  With shouts of protest, the men shuffled back on their heels, while Knox shoved them off the plank with a kick centered on their backs when they would not jump willingly.

  The prisoners plunged toward the eager reptiles, happy for the rare delicacies. One by one, they ripped their flesh to pieces, much to the captain’s delight. See now, those are grateful creatures, he thought.

  Soon, the feeding frenzy had turned the orange waters deep purple. Fourteen became thirteen—became three, two, then one. Finally, as promised, the enemy captain’s sorceress wife was the last to walk.

  She stood still as a marble statue at the plank’s edge, chin lifted high in resolute pride. Her blood-stained green dress wavered in the salty breeze, and for but one moment, the captain considered keeping her for himself to distract him from long nights.

  But no—women aboard vessels, they be bad luck, and she had already proven this to be true. Rogue storms did not appear out of nowhere to sink loads of gold amid calm waters. She had been Córdoba’s downfall from the beginning—not the Vanquish—and he could not allow her to become his as well.

  “Prepare to join your husband,” Bellamy said, taking slow steps toward her. This fall he wished to watch from a better vantage point. “Any last words before becoming a croc’s sweet ending course?”

  The ginger wench stared at the horizon and quarter moon, a peaceful expression across her cheeks. She turned a rebellious gaze on him that filled him with momentary dread. “To all who sail this ship, may the waning moon’s light condemn you to an eternity of grief and pain...”

  Bloody hell? Was this blasted woman actually delivering a curse on his very deck?