Pieces of Hate Read online

  The world exploded.

  Gabriel felt fire, and then water and darkness closed around him and drowned every sense.

  There were images, like dreams. Few real sensations; the pain had taken them away, drowned them, just as the Caribbean drowned so many men that day. Later Gabriel tried to separate those images, but they remained bound together, hellish visions that gave him no real answers to the one question that still always concerned him:

  Was Temple dead?

  The Oxford sinking quickly, the ship’s bow blasted away, flames consuming the remains as it dips into the sea, spurting steam as the waters welcome it down. Men falling from what is left of the quarterdeck, some of them on fire, some of them maybe men he knows.

  His wife, holding on to her stomach one day as they tend the crops, smiling at him because she is pregnant, even though he can see the certainty of future wounds there, the purple curls of her guts peeking through her fingers, and still that smile, Won’t it be beautiful, Gabriel, won’t it be just fine?

  The two captured French ships capsizing onto the HMS Oxford even as she sinks, their hulls ripped apart by the massive explosions, their masts tipping and breaking away from the deck as the pressures become too great, crashing onto the burning wreckage and trapping even more men to burn alive, or drown—the choice is down to fate.

  His daughter learning to gut a chicken and clean the carcase, grimacing but smiling at the same time, and he says, That’s right, you’ll learn, you have plenty of time to learn. She smiles up at him and keeps smiling, because it means she no longer has to look at the dead bird.

  Dead men in the sea around him, and pieces of dead men, and a million splashes as fish break surface to gobble down tasty morsels. The sharks coming in then, their frenzied feeding churning the waters red . . . but they are already red, because Gabriel is floating in blood. He has a timber plank beneath him, something that may keep him alive, may . . .

  The man with a snake in his eye. Feed your hate. His voice sounds as though it is coming from beneath the waves.

  Boats bobbing among the floating dead men, and rescue is here . . . but not at first. First they have dead men to plunder, fingers bearing rings to cut off, necks to sever to tear away precious necklaces, weapons to take. And it is only later when they find him still alive that Gabriel is dragged roughly into one of the boats and taken ashore.

  “Is he dead?” he asked. “Is Temple dead?”

  None of the men knew Temple, and few were inclined to even answer.

  “Is Morgan dead?”

  “Ha!” one pirate said, spitting at Gabriel’s feet. “He’s livelier than he ever was! He’s one of the few that got off, and that’s God’s work, for sure. Though now the Oxford’s gone, we’re down to measly coastal raiding again. And who are you, ya damned dog? Who are you?”

  He stayed with them for four weeks, always expecting Temple to show his face. But the demon was gone. Down with Davy Jones, hopefully, where all cutthroats find their place of rest. Burnt, blown apart, drowned, and Gabriel hoped that every single second of it hurt.

  And yet . . . could it have been that easy?

  His eye gave him pain, but the other wounds—those older wounds, meted out in older times—had finally calmed down. He only hoped that he could rest before they began to burn again.

  About the Author

  TIM LEBBON is a New York Times bestselling writer from South Wales. He’s had more than thirty novels published to date, as well as hundreds of novellas and short stories. His latest novel is the thriller The Hunt, and other recent releases include The Silence and Alien: Out of the Shadows. He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild, and Shirley Jackson Awards. Future books include The Rage War (an Alien/Predator trilogy) and the Relics trilogy from Titan.

  The movie of his story Pay the Ghost, starring Nicolas Cage, is out now, and other projects in development include Playtime (an original script with Stephen Volk), My Haunted House with Gravy Media, The Hunt, Exorcising Angels (based on a novella with Simon Clark), and a TV series proposal of The Silence.

  Find out more about Tim at his website www.timlebbon.net.

  Also by Tim Lebbon

  The Hunt

  The Silence

  The Shadow Men (with Christopher Golden)

  The Heretic Land

  Coldbrook

  Echo City

  THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON

  The Wild (with Christopher Golden)

  The Sea Wolves (with Christopher Golden)

  White Fangs (with Christopher Golden)

  TOXIC CITY

  London Eye

  Reaper’s Legacy

  Contagion

  Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi—Into the Void

  Alien: Out of the Shadows

  Predator: Incursion

  Alien: Invasion

  30 Days of Night: Fear of the Dark

  Hellboy: The Fire Wolves

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The AssassinBook One

  Begin Reading

  The AssassinBook Two

  2

  About the Author

  Also by Tim Lebbon

  Newsletter Sign-up

  Copyright Page

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella and novelette are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  PIECES OF HATE

  Copyright © 2005 by Tim Lebbon

  “Dead Man’s Hand” copyright © 2004 by Tim Lebbon

  Cover art by Gene Mollica

  Cover design by Christine Foltzer

  Edited by Lee Harris

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor.com Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-8449-2 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-0-7653-8844-5 (trade paperback)

  “Dead Man’s Hand” originally published by Necessary Evil Press, 2004

  Pieces of Hate originally published by Necessary Evil Press, 2005

  First Tor.com Edition: March 2016

  Thanks to Don Koish for originally publishing these novellas

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