The woman makes it easier by rushing back on deck and pointing a stainless-steel, twelve-gauge, pump shotgun at me. She screams as she fires round after round, almost at point-blank range. The pellets bounce off my scales and I stifle an indulgent grin, wait until the gun's emptied, then leap toward her and end her terror.
Her fat-laced meat tastes better than the male's and I sate myself on her carcass, throwing the remains of both overboard when I'm finished. Before I leave, I open the sailboat's seacocks, shake my head at the necessity of having to sink such a fine craft.
I find the Grand Banks before dawn, go below and sleep most of the next day away.
The pattern of my life concerns me as I sleep through each day, hunt each night on the way to Cayman. I never dress, never sit down to the ship's table to eat, never take the ship's wheel unless it's absolutely necessary. Instead, I wander the deck, watch the waves and think of her. Hunger and lust fill my waking hours. To avoid alarming the authorities, I alternate my attacks, one night sweeping away a Bahamian as he walks alone along the shore on Bimini, feeding another night on a Cuban farmer in the fields neighboring Guantanamo—avoiding any more luxury craft but gorging on rafts full of Cuban escapees, plucking men and women at will from the decks of Haitian smuggling boats.
My hunger seems to grow each night. I realize if I continue at this pace that I will eventually put myself at risk, yet I do nothing to modify my behavior.
The memory of cinnamon and musk, the promise of a mate of my own kind overpower any thoughts of caution. The closer I come to her, the more my loins ache, the more sleep eludes me, the more I need to take to the air. Only the night and the hunting its darkness allows provide any relief. Then, at least, while I search for prey I can forget my need for her. Then I can lose myself in the kill. Then, after I gorge myself on fresh meat and blood, I can finally sleep.
When the low island of Grand Cayman finally rises on the horizon, I consider mooring in its busy harbor, but then decide to bypass it for the lesser island of Cayman Brae. Anchoring in an almost deserted cove, I resolve to go no further until I meet the girl.
I continue the pattern of sleeping through the day, hunting after dark. Some nights I see how far I can roam, trying to fly a wide arc between Jamaica and Haiti, attempting always to catch her scent.
Days pass, evenings go by. I sleep. I fly. I hunt. I search. And I sleep again.
When July first comes and goes without any sign of her, I worry that I may have miscalculated. Maybe, I think, I should have concentrated on Curacao. Maybe I should have waited in Miami.
A storm front comes through and for three horrible days I pace, caged in the cabin of my small ship, my mind filled only with thoughts of her.
The weather clears the next day and I take to the sky the moment the sun sets. The air rushes around me, rain-cleansed, fresh. I allow myself to hope again as I fly far to the south and curve north, then sweep back again.
Nothing.
I gain altitude and repeat the sweep once more. Toward the southern end of the arc something tickles my nostrils—a hint of an aroma, a possibility of cinnamon. I spiral in the air, breathe in, over and over again.
Nothing once more.
Widening the spiral, I circle down to the water, then rise back into the sky. A whiff of cinnamon and musk attacks my nostrils. Surprised, I roar into the evening air, roar again when I lose track of the scent. I reverse the path of the spiral, desperately sniffing the air, searching, hoping.
My nostrils flare when her scent hits me. Unbearably strong, its effect courses through me the way a drug must affect an addict. My heart races as I continue to follow its trail, my loins ache with want for her. I speed forward into the dark night air, her aroma growing more intense as I fly nearer.
The lights of a city pass underneath me and I realize I've reached land. Jamaica, I think; the time hasn't been long enough to reach Haiti.
Shortly after that the land goes dark below me, barely a light glowing anywhere in sight, only the stars and a half moon to light the countryside.
By now I'm mad with lust, lacking any care or caution, any thought of anything but finding this female, this temptress, and taking her, having her, using her until I'm spent.
The aroma intensifies. I wonder if I can endure it.
Something passes in the air, over and behind me and a delightful sound of laughter, a noise like silver bells ringing, fills my mind.
"Where are you?" I mindspeak.
"Look down," she says, her thoughts touching me, smooth and cool as velvet against skin.
I look below and see a dark shadow skim over the equally dark landscape. Suddenly the shadow turns and the pale, cream-colored underbody of her shows in the moonlight.
My breath escapes me. I realize she's flying upside down to display herself to me and the pleasure of it is almost unbearable. "You like?" she asks. The pealing of silver bells fills my mind again and I fold my wings, plummet toward her.
She turns and swoops out of my way, flies between two hills, then another two—each one a dark mound jutting from the ground, looking like a half-buried giant egg. I follow and she drops out of sight. I descend until the treetops scrape my underbelly, follow her course without catching sight of her. Only her scent remains.
"Where are you?" I call as I regain altitude and spiral in search of her. "Where are you?"
No answer. No laughter. Only the sky scented with her aroma. I continue my search, strain my eyes to see into the irregular shadows of the terrain below me, unaware of any other presence nearby.
Something hard, heavy, hits me from above, five thousand feet in the air, wrapping around me, folding my wings. Stunned by the impact, I struggle to regain the use of my wings. I can't understand what holds them in place, why they won't unfold. Frustrated, desperate, I twist and turn and roar as I fall, trying to break free.
A deep roar answers mine and I freeze, finally recognizing my attacker as one of my own kind, his body above me, his wings wrapped over mine, riding me as we plunge toward earth.
"Why?" I ask him.
"For her," he mindspeaks.
"But you're going to die too."
He laughs, tightens his grip as the air whistles past us. "I think not," he says, holding me a few more long moments, then releasing me. He darts away as I struggle to spread my wings.
I just begin to catch the air when the first tree top crashes into me, knocks the breath from my lungs. I gasp for air, curl my body tight, to protect myself as much as possible as I hurtle toward the ground, and put my mind elsewhere—concentrate on the sound of her laughter, the silver bells ringing in my mind and think of the memory of the pale, white flash of her underbody against the black star-studded background of the evening sky.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
I cry out as I thud into the earth, roar in surprise when it cracks open beneath me like a breaking eggshell, and drops me into a shallow, subterranean pool of water twenty-six feet below.
The silver-bell pealing of her laughter fills my mind and I stare up through the jagged hole my fall just created, at the moonlit sky above. The pale flash of her underbelly passes by a few hundred feet overhead. "You're in Cockpit Country, " she says. "Here the ground is not always as solid as you think."
"Good thing," I say. Water sloshes around me as I flex my wings, move my arms, my legs and tail. Everything hurts but nothing seems broken. Relieved, I stretch, breathe large gulps of air, will my heart to beat faster, focus internally on speeding oxygenated blood to my injured parts so the cells can draw on its nourishment as they mend. After the first, almost-painful twinge of healing begins, I give way to the rage building within me.
"Who's your friend?" I demand.
"He's a stranger like you. I think he's nearby, waiting for you to take to the sky again."
"Lucky me," I say, still stretching and mending my body parts. "At least tell me your name."
"Maybe later," she says, laughing, the sound o
f it deeper this time, somehow promising to me.
"Later, after what?"
"You'll see." She laughs again—deep rich tones that resonate in my mind as she flies away.
Another shape, darker, larger, flies over the hole. "Are you finished hiding yet? Are you ready to come out and face your death?" he asks.
I stand, water dripping from my body. My jaw clenched, I hold back a roar. I am a thinking being, I tell myself, a creature of reason. I force myself not to take to the sky, and ask instead, "Who are you to appoint yourself my executioner?"
He flies lower, so I can see the size of him, larger than me, his wingspread reaching at least five feet more. "I use the name Emit Sang," he says, "If it matters to you."
"I'm Peter DelaSangre."
"I feel better," he says. "Now I know who I'm killing."
"But why?" I ask. "There are so few of us."
"There will be even less of us if one of us doesn't get the girl."
"So let's tell her to choose."
"Are you sure you're of the blood?" He laughs. "None of our women would accept a male who wouldn't fight for her. How can you smell her and turn your back?"
I nod, think of Father's words. "Sometimes," he told me, "I think your mother ruined you with too much human nonsense. You have to learn to follow your instincts."
My nostrils flare and I allow her aroma to work on me. Cinnamon and musk envelope me, fill me, own my soul. If I must kill for the girl, then so be it. I leap into the air, shoot out the hole with a single beat of my wings. Roar my challenge as I regain the sky.
"Surprise won't be so easy again, my friend," I say, circling in the air, looking for the approach of a moving, flying shadow.
"Do you always talk so much?" he says, flying toward me, his talons extended.
We collide in midair and fall together—a whirling jumble of flapping wings, slashing claws, whipping tails. I gasp as he sinks a talon into my right wing, ripping a long gash in its thin membrane. I strike in turn at him, my claw cutting a deep red wound down the length of his neck. The air fills with the sweet, thick aroma of our blood, resounds with the din of our roars.
He disengages, wheels away, dives. I plunge after him, catching his tail, sinking my teeth into its soft meat. His roar changes pitch, almost to a scream, and he pummels my head and neck with his rear claws—slashing skin, tearing muscle, cutting tendons. The pain sears through me, but still I hold on, my jaws clamped tight.
Finally he manages to graze my right eye with one of his talons, ripping the flesh just below it. Partly blinded, I bellow, release him and dive away. With injuries of his own to tend to, Sang wheels off in another direction. Once we've attained some distance from each other, I spread my wings, stopping my fall, then soar upward, wincing at the pain of my injured wing, my eye, my many cuts and bruises.
I concentrate on controlling my blood flow and cell growth, clearing my vision, mending my other wounds. I glide in wide spirals as I heal, husbanding my strength, preparing myself for his next attack. But then the thought occurs—why should I have to wait for him?
I strain my wings as much as possible as I beat skyward, gain altitude until the air becomes hard to breathe, thin beneath my wings.
Far below me, Emil Sang circles, calling, "Peter! Where are you? Are you hiding from me again? " I hold back a roar, fold my wings, plummet toward him.
I hit him with the force of a ten-thousand-foot fall. The impact stuns both of us, but I hold my position above him as we drop, pin his wings against his body, sink my teeth into the back of his neck, penetrating his thick scales until I taste his hot blood.
He struggles beneath me, but I only hold him tighter, bite him deeper.
"You know it will take more than your miserable bite to kill me," he says.
"I know," I answer as we speed toward the ground. "But I think the fall should do it."
Sang laughs, tries once more to break free. "And you think you can let go of me in time to save yourself?"
"No." I drive my claws and teeth even more into his flesh. "I only hope your body will shield mine from the impact."
He roars in rage just before we hit.
The deep tone of her laughter is the first thing I notice when I regain consciousness.
"Is he dead?" she asks.
"I thought you said the ground isn't always as solid as it seems."
"Sometimes it is," she says.
I groan, roll off his inert body, force myself to my feet. Sang doesn't move. I kick him and still he lies motionless. "I think he's dead," I say, examining his face, his lifeless eyes—sniffing by his nostrils for any sign of breathing, smelling only the fresh odor of blood seeping from his wounds.
"Did you kill him for me?" she coos, flying close by overhead, cinnamon and musk overpowering me.
Her question irritates me almost as much as the pride I feel welling up within me. I want to say how shameful it is that one of our fellow creatures had to die, but I strut around his body instead, breathe in the scent of her. "Of course," I say.
"Oh." She passes so near the wind from her wings washes over me. "May I join you?"
I circle my fallen foe, puff out my chest, spread my wings and roar into the evening sky.
"May I join you?" she asks again.
The scent of cinnamon and musk intensifies and I breathe it in, my heart racing, pounding. This is a time for instinct, I know, not rational, scientific thought. "Of course you may."
She lands beside me, approaches until her side touches mine.
"What's your name?" I ask.
She presses against me. "Aren't you hungry?" she asks.
The question surprises me. After all my efforts, the long flight, the struggle with Emil Sang, I know I should be ravenous. Only my lust for her has held my hunger in check.
"You want to hunt right now?" I ask, hoping that isn't what she's implying.
"Why hunt when there's afresh kill right underneath our noses?" She walks forward to my dead foe. "Besides," she says, "you owe him the honor."
I regret anew that my parents, especially my father, neglected to teach me so much. "Women teach traditions, men live them," Father said whenever I questioned him. "It's your mother's fault, wasting all her time teaching you human nonsense. I've taught you what you need to know. You can damn well learn the rest by yourself."
"Honor?" I mindpseak.
"Yes, honor. You owe him that," the female says.
Hunger finally strikes me. "Who am I," I say, "to deny him his due?"
"May I?" she asks.
I nod and she slices Sang's carcass open with a single slash of her talons. Then she tears loose a piece of his flesh with her mouth and offers it to me. Our lips touch as I take it from her and, for a moment, I consider bypassing the meal entirely. Instead, I concentrate on dampening my lust, eating the meat she's so kindly offered. Only after I finish it and begin to eat more, does she start to feed herself.
We feast side by side, no words, no thoughts, our faces touching, our mouths wet with his blood, our lips brushing by each other's as we bite and tear.
My lust builds even more as my hunger abates and I find it difficult to ignore her presence beside me. My breathing turns ragged, my eating slows. She too slows the pace of her feeding. Her breaths also grow louder, more rapid. I press against her, nuzzle her neck and she shivers, stops eating entirely and backs away.
"Where are you going?" I ask.
"You'll find out." She spreads her wings and takes to the air—the deep full tones of her laughter resonating inside my mind.
The sight of her pale-cream underbody flying over me, her womanhood swollen and exposed, makes me suck in a breath before I leap into the air myself.
"Catch me if you can!" she mindspeaks and wheels out of sight.
I hear her laughter, smell her scent all around me, but the irregular terrain, the half-egg-shaped hills, the deep crevasses and ravines in between them give her hundreds of places to hide. I roar in frustration and she calls out, "C
an't you find me?"
Finally, I catch sight of her entering a deep, long ravine. I swoop in after her, strain to catch her. As I close, I marvel at the beauty, the delicate lines of a female of my kind, thinner, less broad than me, her length four feet shorter than mine, her wingspan six feet less. I wish it were daylight so I could examine her more fully, enjoy the delicate colors of her scales, the flashing brilliance of her emerald-green eyes.
She laughs just as I near her tail, then swerves and shoots skyward, beating her wings as fast and hard as she can.
I laugh too, follow and overtake her, soaring above her, close enough to prevent any further escape.
When she sees her position, she no longer tries to evade me. "My name's Elizabeth," she says, coming closer, turning so she flies upside down, her underbelly almost touching mine.
"And mine is Peter."
I soar slightly lower, let my body brush hers and, when we touch, we both say, "Oh!"
We separate for a moment. "I liked that," she says.
Flying closer to her, I know nothing but unbridled lust, insatiable need. I bump against her again, grab, hold and join her in midair, thrust myself inside her.
Sighs explode from both of us and we fold our wings against each other. I ride her, thrust in sympathy with the violent contortions of her body as we plunge toward the earth.
We break free of each other a scant two hundred feet over the trees, spread our wings and soar back into the sky, going higher this time, so we can stay coupled longer the next time we join. Elizabeth and I repeat this three more times. Then, "Follow me!" she calls and leads me, aching, wanting, on a twisting journey through ravines and hills until she lights on the lip of a cave, halfway up a hill overlooking a wide valley.
I land behind her, follow her inside the cave to a bed made from branches and soft leaves.
She says nothing, lies on the bed in front of me, watching me, her sweet underbelly exposed.
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