Rising In The East by Rob Kidd Page A

with’ meaning ‘manipulate,’” Billy whispered to Diego. Diego nodded, but he was watching Jack, who was clearly edging toward Mistress Ching while trying to look subtle about it—and, unsurprisingly, failing. She cast a sharp glance at him and he looked up at the ceiling, whistling innocently.
    “It is not so easy as that,” Mistress Ching said. “We have tried to assassinate him, but it seems almost as if he is magically protected in some way.”
    “Magically protected?” Sao Feng scoffed. “He is just a man, like any other. We should not turn him into a figure of sorcery for our easily frightened pirates.” He gave his men a hard stare, and they shuffled uncomfortably.
    “You may make the attempt yourself,” Mistress Ching said coldly. “But I assure you it will fail.”
    “I can’t take this anymore!” Carolina exploded suddenly. All the pirates in the room turned to stare at her. Jack waved his hands frantically, trying to get her to stop, but she stepped forward bravely. “You think this Benedict Huntington—this little mortal man with his business papers and official seals and his nose up in the air—you think he’s a danger? You have no idea! There’s something out there so much bigger, so much more awful and terrifying and deadly and horrible, that even talking about something as meaningless as the East India Trading Company is ridiculous right now!”
    “Jack, can you not control your crew members?” Sao Feng said exasperated.
    “Obviously not,” Barbossa sneered.
    “It’s probably the opium smoke. Gone to her head,” Jack said, waving a finger by his ear as if Carolina were crazy. “Don’t mind her.”
    “No, wait,” Mistress Ching said with a frown, silencing them with one gesture of her hand. “What are you saying, girl-child?”
    “There is a man called the Shadow Lord,” Carolina said, shaking off Jack’s hands as he tried to pull her back. She stepped forward and knelt by Mistress Ching’s chair. “He commands an army more powerful and vicious and cruel than any this world has ever seen before. We saw what it could do—a whole town, wiped out by fire and destruction. Not a single soul survived. And his power is only growing stronger. Jack knows it’s true! He’s heard the prophecy—the Day of the Shadow is coming.”
    A shiver ran down Jack’s spine as he heard those words again, and he could feel the shadows clustering in the corners of his eyes, threatening to block out all the light of the world. But when Mistress Ching looked at him, he shrugged, trying to look like he had no idea what Carolina was going on about.
    The way he figured it, if Mistress Ching believed in the Shadow Lord and his army, she might decide to keep the Shadow Gold for herself. She might even drink it before he could! And Tia Dalma had been very clear that Jack needed to drink all seven vials to be cured of his shadow illness. He couldn’t risk losing a single one of them. Generally people only gave up things that they thought were unimportant. So he needed to convince Mistress Ching that the vial around her neck was a meaningless trinket— not the only hope for the survival of pirates everywhere! But Carolina was really not helping his little plan at all.
    “The Day of the Shadow,” Sao Feng murmured thoughtfully.
    “When is this Day of the Shadow?” Mistress Ching asked Carolina.
    “I don’t know,” Carolina said. “But it’s soon—and we all have to be ready to fight together, or we’re all going to die together.”
    There was an eerie silence as her warning echoed around the small room. All the pirates shifted uneasily, rubbing the goose bumps from their arms.
    Mistress Ching stood up abruptly.
    “What a supernatural web of words this child weaves!” she snapped. “A Shadow Lord indeed! We don’t have time to slash at shadows and worry about mysterious days that may never come. You might think only of your nightmares, little girl, but we have real problems to