The posse spends a while considering exactly who and what to take on their pirate hunting expedition. Their captain arrives, an old salt who introduces himself "Call me Ishmael!" Of course, that isn't his name, but he doesn't actually say what his name is - he's that sort of humorous old coot. They decide to take along four guardian angels as well as the captain, leaving Robert behind, still convalescing.

On the way there they are treated to a truly huge number of stories from the captain's sinnin' days. As he is now a member of the Church of Lost Angels, every story has a moral tacked to the end... but not very well tacked on. As they get close to Skull Island, the captain cuts the motor, and after night falls, they row quietly to the island. Cady spots a lookout and makes them row around the back rather than straight in the front.

The lookout notices them just as they enter the sea-level boat cave, and hits one of the angels in the back, wounding him. They row into the cave, where two boats are tied up, and quickly man the gatling guns on those boats while Tobey sets explosives. Cady uses her you don't notice me spell, and it works so well that the posse forgets they brought her. She sneaks ahead and kills the scout just as he emerges onto a ledge in the main pirate cave, before he can warn anyone. The rest of the pirates sleep on.

And they are still sleeping when the rest of the group arrives and take up positions. Bart and two of the unwounded angels are left manning the boats. James and Joseph take up shooting positions around the pirates (sleeping in a mass around the fire pit), while Tobey and the remaining angel start slitting throats. They kill five out of around twenty before the angel cuts across a concealed metal collar making a hideous noise. One angel wakes up during the process, but mysteriously keels over again (Cady and her blast spell, but none of the party can tell what actually happened, which creeps them out).

Once they begin waking up, James starts emptying both guns into the mass of them, killing and wounding a large number quite quickly. Cady kills a few as well (freaking everyone else out), but Tobey and Elder Tanner and the guardian angel aren't so useful, though they wound some pirates that get finished off later.

The pirate captain is finished by James as he tries to use some sort of chain hook on him. The pirate's strong man grabs Tobey after she has a bullet bounce off her head, and though James puts him down she is immediately thereafter shot badly in the chest, pretty much blowing her lung out. She dies instantly.

After the pirates are all dead, they debate a bit about whether to burn Tobey immediately. During this time Cady digs the diamond out of the lard. James and Joseph decide to burn Tobey, and start gathering the pirate's supplies to do so. They discover two things: first, there really aren't enough flammable supplies for a good pyre and second the diamond is missing. They're about to panic when they find it in Tobey's dead hands (placed there by Cady, who has by now figured out that they can't see her). Tobey then somehow acquires a note that says "Don't burn me on an island" which disturbs them all the more. In the end, they decide that it took Bart three days to return so they have time. James does last rites on the dead, including Tobey. The pirates get burial at sea, and Tobey gets taken back on one of the towed pirate boats. James and Joseph also determine that the fist sized rock is Evil.

Tobey finds herself having a strange nightmare that is washed away by a blinding light. A Voice tells her that James believes she wishes to rest. The Voice tells her that she can come back like Bart did, but the Voice can grant her dominion over the evil spirit. Tobey doesn't want to hurt any more innocents, but the Voice tells her that she has as good a chance of anyone as doing good. She can lose control, but so can anyone. The Voice says that it will not ask her to go back, that she has already earned her rest, but that she can go back. Tobey is worried about an episode in her past (in which she thought she was cursed and had caused the death of many children) but she is reassured that this wasn't her fault. Tobey says she wants to go back.

She awakens wrapped in sail-cloth, and finds herself on one of the towed boats. Cady is also there, asleep (they've stopped to rest before returning to Lost Angels). Tobey wakes Cady and asks "Am I dead?" Cady checks for pulse and answers yes. Tobey decides to lay low until they've returned to the city.

Back at the city, everyone discovers Tobey's animate state, and she attempts to explain her vision. No one is entirely convinced, but she's not killing anyone at the moment. James and Joseph decide to go to Grimme and tell him the diamond is evil. If he agrees, they'll ask for his help with their curse (and their dead friends). Everyone else goes to wait for them.

Meeting with Grimme, they tell him about the diamond and he agrees that it is evil. He says that his sermon to place it in the cathedral will become a sermon to destroy it. He gives them three silver coins which he felt they were looking for. After that, the two confess their curse to him, and their dead but walking friends. He thinks that he wouldn't have known about the coins if they weren't meant to have them. Perhaps they are delivering to their evil master the instrument of his own destruction? He says that after the sermon tomorrow he'll have had more time to consider their curse (and their dead friends) and hopefully he'll be able to help them. They go away well pleased.

A short character aside from later, reported by Meg:

Tobey "I'm worrying we might be getting too blood thirsty."

James says something like "I figure I'm damned anyway."

Tobey "I used to think I was too, but now I'm not so sure. "I was the midwife in town. Cows, people, not that different really. And I was pretty good at it. Sucked at having my own babies, but I was pretty good at delivering others. But all of a sudden I hit a patch of bad luck and babies started dying -- even babies I just visited."

Cady "Sounds like a plague."

Tobey "Nope, they were all different reasons. The townsfolk said I was cursed or something, but I just thought it was bad luck, until we started finding out about black magic and real curses. Then I thought I really did it. But God said it wasn't my fault. Just one of those delightful things that happens in life, I guess."

Cady "Or some other person did it."

While down with a fever, Robert has been having strange dreams. One he knows is a true vision, though cloudy, and two he is unsure about.

The true dream first:

In this dream you're a young brave, training to be a shaman. You are going to the tent of the present shaman, but some idiot has thrown smoky leaves on the fires, and the camp is full of thick haze and smoke. In the smoke, you stumble into what you think is the right hut, and you sit and listen to the shaman for a while as he gives you wisdom. Slowly, though, you realize that his wisdom is very strange - he tells you the best part of the buffalo is the tail, and that you should sleep with your sisters, and eat your parents. At the last you lunge forward to pull at the hooded robe you can barely see, and it falls away revealing a raven sitting on perch. The raven crows harshly and you awaken.

And the first dubious dream:

You're standing on a blasted plain. Twisted trees clutch at the sky like the hands of burned corpses. Brackish water lies still in the low places of the land, and the ground is white with salt. In front of you dogs fight over the carcass of a buffalo. A lone vulture sits atop it like a funeral director in his black suit, pecking at it now and then, and none of the dogs try to displace him. High above, an eagle circles.

Finally, the second dubious dream:

In this dream you're walking through a desert, where a huge herd of cattle roams. They are eating whatever plants they find, leaving behind only dung and prickly pear cactus and fouled water. Some of the cattle have become so hungry that they gnaw at each other's flesh with sharpened teeth. A few of them are orderly, though, and despite being hungry eat only the grass that they find, leaving the roots. A lone brave in a dark tunic herds them, continually trying to gather other cattle without losing the ones he has.