"How can you touch her?" The Teen walked a slow circle around Drummond. "How can you even want that monster? She's gross! She's disgusting! You saw what she did to Pavla and her friends!"

Drummond sighed and slammed the Grimoire shut. He unfolded his legs and rose, stomping over to confront the Teen. "So that's what this is about, huh? You have one romantic interest, and now you're bent on revenge? You didn't know anything about her, punk." He jabbed the heavy tome in the youth's chest, making him stagger back a couple steps. "They broke in here regularly, stealing food and crap. This is an entirely different world than Earth, kid. What makes them different from a bunch of rats?"

The Teen's face grew red, and his hands bunched into little fists where they clutched the velvet runner around his shoulders. Drummond smirked to see the empty rage in the boy. "Don't go flying off the handle. I'm just messing with you. I know what's up, but what you need to get through your head is that when you find a superior opponent like this, you don't throw yourself at it, fists swinging, guns blazing. That kind of shitheadedness gets you killed quickly." He held up the Grimoire. "You need to study the enemy first, understand how they think, look for any weaknesses. And if there aren't any? You build yourself up, look for resources, strengthen your position, all while lulling your opponent into a false sense of security."

The Teen regarded him dubiously. "That's what you think you're doing? Making the giantess think you're her friend?"

"I can get a lot more done around here if she thinks I'm her friend, yes. More than if she thought I was planning on ruining whatever game she's got going on around here."

"So that's your plan. Sit next to her ear, moaning yes, Goddess and no, Goddess. Squirming between her tits, jacking yourself off while she stomps little people flat." The Teen narrowed his eyes. "While she chews them in half and shoves them up her ass! You just sit there, giggling and cooing at her while she decides who lives and who dies! Like some kind of… fucking lapdog!"

Drummond's hand flew sharply up over his opposite shoulder, a split-second from backhanding the impertinent youth. He himself was surprised that he didn't follow through. It wasn't the immature fury on the kid's face or his tear-streaked cheeks that stopped him. "Pathetic," he muttered, lowering his arm. "You don't understand a goddamned thing. You think it's noble to get yourself killed, right off the bat? Fine, good luck to you. But listen to me." Before the Teen could dart away, he snatched up a fistful of his shirt and drew him close to his face. The kid smelled like a teenage boy who hadn't showered in a week. "If you fuck up my game, what I'm trying to accomplish, I'll twist your head off without a second thought. Try me, if you think I'm lying." He shoved the kid back and stared him down for a long minute, before turning his back and sitting down to study the Grimoire some more.

The Teen was hiccoughing with fright, struggling to stifle the embarrassing noise. "What's your game, then? What are you trying to do?"

The Operator stuck an index finger on the line he was reading and slowly turned around to face him. "I'm trying to find a way home," he said quietly.

*   *   *

There was a respectful yet firm rap on the captain's door. "Cap'n? It's Nicholass, sir. If'n yer curious, it were a success." Pause. "The Spanish ship, sir, the merchants. Smooth as silk, as you said: 50 rolls o' tobacco, nine sacks o' pimento, maybe 20 pounds o' raw sugar, an' two hogsheads of… we dunno what it is, but it taste like rum." Pause. "The crew call it chinguirito, won't say where they got it."

The William rocked heavily from side to side, the Caribbean Sea sloshing against the hull with an especial laziness. "So, uh, the crew's fittin' to celebrate a bit, if'n yer not busy," the boatswain hinted hopefully.

Rackham's head burst from the crevasse of Lovely Mari's cleavage, gasping for breath against the advances of her joyfully bouncy spheres. "What's he going on about?" he hissed.

Bonny, with her mouth full, could only grunt at her companion. Read stage-whispered around where Mari kneeled over the captain like a coffee table: "Just tell him that'll be all, we'll be up anon!" Her own arm was wrapped mostly around Mari's outsized hips, thrusting the butt of Bonny's beloved flintlock pistol deep inside the fiery flower of Mari's womanhood. She laughed as Mari spattered intermittently over Bonny's beautiful flame-red hair.

"Well and good, bo'sun!" he barked, struggling to paddle Mari's abundant bosom out of his face; she only laughed and attempted to smother him. "That'll be all! We'll be up anon!" Nicholass muttered very good, cap'n and his boots tromped off and ran upstairs to the festivities already in progress.

"Is that a party?" Mari left off trying to suffocate the captain. "Did he say they're havin' a party upstairs?"

"Aren't we having a party down here?" Read said, slapping Mari sharply across her pronounced buttocks. Mari purred and nuzzled her hips into Read's tender ministrations. Rackham merely called out to a deity as Bonny slurped him down, wrenching her fine hand around the base of his cock, until his entire body tensed and shuddered. He dug his head into the pillows and drew a breath to cry out, when Mari seized fistfuls of his hair and pulled him possessively into her cleavage, muffling him almost completely.

"But I wanna party with the pirates!" Mari whined, rolling to her back. Read hauled Rackham off the mattress and perched upon her face, squirming until she felt the strange woman's nose rubbing against her butthole. She gestured for Bonny to proffer her hips, which she did: it took some awkward angling, but Bonny stood on the bed, bent over like an A-frame, with her face shoved deeply between Mari's sopping thighs. Her own hips she presented to Read, who took her sweet time, flickering her hot tongue around her blushing labia or teasing her anus.

From the floor, Rackham cleaned himself off and gazed with some wonder at the assemblage, watching it shudder, threaten to collapse, then miraculously find its balance again as the three women dug into each other. "Anything I can do to help out?" he asked plaintively.

"You're lucky we don't charge you to watch," grumbled Read, returning to lap the shy honey out of her partner. While she enjoyed Mari's own squirming tongue inside her, she struggled to spread her knees wide enough to encompass the new recruit's ample bosom.

Later, exhausted and sweaty, Mari, Rackham, and "Mark" and "Andy" limped their way to the main deck. The sun had set and a fog was rolling in from the sea to the shores of the Bahamas. One of the looted barrels was opened and the sailors were in an advanced state of hilarity. Lovely Mari charged at them, popping a man in the jaw (by strange coincidence, Miller the rigger) to clear a path to the rum, which she scooped up with two hands to gulp down messily.

Rackham smoothed his hair back and nudged Bonny. "Usually it's after a few glasses of the fire-water that I start seeing double."

Bonny nodded. "It's not you, John: our crew indeed seem to have doubled in size. Ahoy, sea dogs! Where the fuck y'all come from?"

One of the powder-monkeys piped up. "It's a group of Englishmen, sirs! Found 'em fishing for turtles off Negril! Asked 'em if they wanted in on the rum-party, they climbed aboard! Seem a good lot."

Read drew a long breath through her nostrils and looked meaningfully at Bonny. Missing this, Rackham laughed and joined the crew for a ladle of the mysterious new drink that had fallen into their possession.

"This is what I'm talkin' about!" cheered Lovely Mari. "Hey, don'cha got some kinda music-box or somethin' ta play with?" The quartermaster, Phillpotts, produced a concertina and lurched his way through a shanty that struck her in the right way. "Fuckin' A! Pirates, woo-hoo!" She hooked her elbow through the nearest arm, which happened to be rigger Miller's, who flinched and cowered as she swung him around in wider circles. The other pirates cheered her on, stomping to the music and passing their ladle around.

"Is this the best place to be doing this?" Bonny asked Read. "Right off the coast of Jamaica? We've been ravaging the north side of this island for a week. This is more than lazy: this is irresponsible."

Read frowned. "Agreed. Guessing John didn't feel like dealing with this kind of strategy when he put us in charge." She watched the gaudily dressed "captain" whooping it up with the crew. "Tomorrow we'll clear out. We've got supplies to get us to Trinidad, I reckon, and then we'll sail around the coast and cool off in Havana−" The two pirates ducked as a shot rang out. "The feck was that?!"

Lovely Mari stood in the center of the group. The crew and their new passengers were cheering her on. Her arm was raised to the night sky, with someone's pistol in her hand. She eyed the sky and pouted. "Dammit, I think it flew away. Can someone reload this?"

*   *   *

Not far to the north, two ships drifted silently past Bloody Bay, one of the westernmost points of Jamaica. A man on the smaller ship leaned over the side, waving a lantern to attract the attention of an officer on the poop deck of the much, much larger ship. "You 'ear zis, mon capitaine?"

Peering into the soupy mists, Captain Jonathan Barnet nodded. "If you don't mind, Monsieur Bonadvis, bear south toward Negril. Examine Coral Beach and report with anything you find amiss. We'll be right behind you." As the Bennet sailed off, he ordered his First Mate to alert the Master Gunner to get warmed up, but held the man from running off just yet. Slim muscles along his jaw clenched briefly, and his eyes narrowed. "And make the rounds with the bo'sun," he added, "to extinguish as many lanterns as is practicable."

*   *   *

A large, glowing cube hung in the air above an ebony bowl. Slowly it spun, faster and then slower, erratically turning to all directions without any pattern Drummond could tell. "You've seen her use this before?" he asked the Teen sternly.

"A couple times. I don't know how she uses it." The kid stared at the cube, backing up unconsciously. "She laughs and says things I don't understand, and then all sorts of crazy shit happens."

"Shit happens?"

"Ghosts and shit. I don't know. They talk to her and she sends them off. I guess they could be demons."

"They're yōkai. She fights them."

The Teen rubbed his nose. "Didn't look like fighting to me." Drummond urged him to continue. "I don't know! She usually pulls out one of her huge-ass books and reads it, activates that thing, and that's when stuff happens."

Drummond nodded and seized the kid around the waist. He dropped the heavy Bible, and before he could retrieve it the SWAT officer had pitched them both off of Lovely Mari's work table. The velvet runner flapped stiffly through the air as they descended to the floor.

"Go into the hotel behind the library. You'll find two large, black roller suitcases−"

"Why should I do anything you say," the kid said sullenly. "You're in league with the witch."

Drummond took a long breath. "Get the two roller suitcases and wheel them into the library."

"I'm sick of taking orders from you! All you do is boss me around! What's the point of this? Tell me to clean up this, file those away, while you crawl up into bed and try to fuck a huge psychopath!"

It would be so easy, Drummond knew, to sink his fist into the Teen's midsection, right up to brushing his knuckles against his spine. There would be no resistance whatsoever. He wondered if the kid had any inkling what was running through Drummond's head, when he stared him down like this. "Take the suitcases to the chief librarian's office. The door is locked; the key is−"

"Could you taste Andon? That was his name, you know. He had a name."

Drummond blinked. "What are you talking about?"

The Teen raised his chin. "Your insane goddess shoved Andon up her ass, after she broke every bone in his body. He died inside her ass. So when you shove your entire head up the witch's gigantic ass and eat her shit, can you taste−"

Nothing stopped Drummond's arm this time. The Teen was blown off his feet, twisting in midair before he collapsed to the floor, some distance away. Drummond bent and jerked the velvet altar runner roughly from the limp body, hurling it contemptuously aside. Sorely wishing to ram his boot into the kid's soft, unprotected guts, he instead trotted off to the hotel to start the work that only he, apparently, could do.