I descend so rapidly that when I finally open my wings, I shoot past my island. Banking, I circle back, land on the dock near the meat. Thankfully, it’s still there, one carcass untouched, the other only partially consumed by Charles.
Rushing forward, I tear a chunk from the untouched side of beef and swallow it almost whole. I bite another piece, then another, desperate to fill the void inside me. It takes half a side of beef before my hunger begins to subside. Even then, I continue to gorge, my heart still thumping too quickly, aching as it shoots blood to my tired muscles.
I bite into the frozen carcass again, rip another chunk of meat and chew it — more slowly this time as I begin to concentrate on mending the wounds Charles inflicted on me.
Something, someone? slams into me, landing on my back hard enough to force the air from my lungs and send the meat shooting from my mouth. Another beast crashes into my head and neck, dazing me. Teeth bite into me, claws rip through my scales. “In the old days, Zal warriors were sometimes defeated by the Undrae,” Charles Blood says. “All it took was teamwork and surprise.”
Roaring, I twist under them, flailing my tail, raking the air with my claws. A clawed foot appears before my face and I bite into it. Derek howls and loosens his grip on my neck. I push up against their combined weight and force myself erect. Standing on my hindquarters as they rip and bite me, I knock Derek away, then Charles.
Bleeding in more than a dozen places, aching in a hundred more, I leap into the air, the other two creatures in close pursuit. Flying low, I skim over the island, race above the crashing waves, beating my wings as fast and hard as I can, finally climbing skyward in order to gain enough room to whirl and attack.
“What’s the matter, boy? Must you run? Have we been too rough with you?” Charles Blood says. “Turn and face us. It’s just a matter of time before we catch you and finish this.”
Each beat of my heart sends jolts of pain into my shoulders and foreclaws. My lungs already hurt again. My burning stomach feels as if it will burst. I open my mouth to relieve the pressure and a blast of flame erupts from it, turning the raindrops before me into steam.
I shake my head as I continue to build distance between me and the two dragons. Why hadn’t I thought of that and used it before? The picture on the box had shown a fire-breathing dragon. The Zal could do such things. It only makes sense that I can too.
If not for my pains and aches, I’d roar out in celebration. But hunger returns again and exhaustion and I begin to understand Father’s and Chloe’s warnings about the potion. As large and powerful as I’ve become, my body can’t seem to cope with such rapid growth. Worse, I can’t do anything to stop my heart from growing. Only the antidote can do that and it’s in the bushes by the dock on my island.
Suddenly my conflict with Charles and Derek becomes less worrisome to me than my body’s capacity to fail me. “Charles,” I say. “You’re right. It’s time to end it.” I whirl in midair and race back to confront both him and his son.
Lightning crackles through the sky, bolt after bolt of it. Thunder shakes the night — the wind gusting, shooting bullets of rain as I race through the storm. I see Derek and Charles in the brief flashes of light well before they’re aware of me. They’re both too intent on scanning from side to side, searching the sky above and below them, trying to anticipate a sneak attack, to notice my frontal approach.
I zoom straight at them on a collision course, almost laugh when they finally see me, both flaring their wings and attempting to peel off, one to each side. But I’m already too close. I open my mouth and release a burst of flame. The blaze engulfs them, sears their skin, evaporates the rain near them, surrounds them with steam.
Both creatures yowl and contort their bodies, but somehow they continue to fly. I bellow fire at them again and they fall from the sky like moths who’ve come to close to the flame.
Spiraling down after them, I mindspeak, “Charles, Derek, can you swim?”
Neither answers.
I skim over the roiled sea. “Charles? Derek?”
Nothing again.
Circling over wave after wave, I search for them. “Damn it,” I say. “I promised Chloe I wouldn’t kill you.”
I find Derek first, floating, his scales no longer green but bright red, like a lobster fresh from a boiling pot of water. As I descend to rescue him, I see Charles, just as red, only a few yards away.
Landing by Derek, I grab him by a scalded foreclaw — to pull him with me toward Charles. He moans as soon as I touch him, mindspeaks, “Leave me be. I hurt too much. Let me go.”
“The hell I will.” I tug him through the water, grab Charles too.
He lets out a yowl. “Boy, you beat us. Let us die in peace.”
“Can’t do that. I made a promise.”
“We’re baked through our scales. Neither of us have the energy to mend ourselves. We’ve no food, barely the strength to stay afloat. Can you lift either of us into the air and fly us back to your island?”
In truth, I’ve barely the energy to take myself back to the island. My breath comes in rapid gasps. My heart has begun to break rhythm at alarming intervals. I shake my head.
“Then leave us, boy. We knew the risk we were taking.”
I shake my head again. “I can’t fly with you, but I think I can swim with you.”
“You’re daft. We’re more than a mile from your island.”
“I know,” I say as we come to the top of a wave. I look around, searching for the light that I think should be near. A glint of its flash shows through the rain and the light repeats itself ten seconds later. I begin to swim toward it, tugging each creature along with me. “But we’re not too far from the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse.”
For every ten yards of progress I make, the pounding waves push me back six. I swim on my back, ignoring the rain, the whipping wind, stroking the water with my wings, sculling with my tail, holding Derek with one claw, Charles with another. Neither of them able to do much more than moan.
I mindspeak, masked, to Chloe as I swim, {It’s over.}
{Peter, are you all right?}
{I’m here.}
{And my father and brother, are they dead?}
{They seem to wish they were.}
{Are you on the way back?} she says.
{Not yet.}
{What’s wrong. What aren’t you telling me?}
A wave crashes over us and I fight through its foam. {Neither Charles nor Derek can fly. I’m towing them to the lighthouse. After they’re safe from the storm, I’ll try to fly home.}
{Try, Peter? What’s wrong? How badly are you injured? }
{It’s not any injury. It’s the potion. I’ve outgrown my ability to maintain my body. I can feel my strength draining away.}
{Take the antidote!}
{I don’t have it. It’s on the island — in the bushes by the dock.}
{Then forget my father and Derek. Fly home now, while you can.}
Even though Chloe can’t see me, I shake my head. {Neither of them have the energy to change to their human forms. Can you imagine if one or two dragons washed up on a beach, what a fuss there would be? Besides, I promised I wouldn’t kill them. There’s no need for their deaths now.}
{There’s no need for yours either,} Chloe says. {I’m coming. I’ll meet you at the lighthouse.}
{Can you, without hurting yourself? There’s still a storm out here you know.}
{I’ve healed well enough to fly a little ways. I’m my father’s daughter, damn it! I’m not about to be intimidated by a storm and I’m not about to lose a husband to his own stupid stubbornness.}
By the time I reach Fowey Rocks, the storm has started to abate. Still, the waves push and pull at us, threaten to beat our bodies against the wrought-iron legs of the unmanned lighthouse’s skeletal structure.
It takes most of my remaining strength but, by timing my shove to the surge of the waves, I manage to heave first Charles and then Derek onto a metal platform, a walkway that circles the
lighthouse’s frame just above the tips of the highest waves.
But when I try to climb up with them, my body betrays me. All I can manage is to hold on to a girder and let the waves pound me.
I forget about Charles and Derek safe above me, concentrate instead on breathing, on trying to slow my racing heart. I measure time by each wave that strikes and fails to dislodge me, by each gust of wind that rips at me to no avail. When Chloe finally says, “Peter?” I try to answer, but have no energy left to do so.
A cold glass tube is pressed against my lips and my bride says, “Drink. Drink all of it.” I let some fluid flow into my mouth and it’s as if I’m swallowing liquid ice. The cold fluid tastes of apples and citrus — and something bitter, with a hint of ammonia. It quenches the burning within me, but makes me shiver. I stop drinking. “All of it,” Chloe says.
“Pushy woman,” I say, emptying the rest of the vial.
“Wait until all this is over,” she says, helping me up to the platform. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
35
Ever since Chloe and I rescued Charles and Derek in the final dark hours of the storm, we’ve barely had a moment alone. Sometimes I regret having ferried the two injured creatures back to our island on Arturo’s SeaRay, their natural forms shielded from view by the rain and the night’s last moments of gloom. Certainly, I wish there had been somewhere else for them to stay while they healed.
I never thought my house could feel so crowded, especially during the first few days. Charles and Derek seemed to never stop moaning — both creatures sprawled on their beds of hay in their natural forms, demanding food and care. Henri seemed to need endless attention too, rarely leaving my side unless Chloe lured him away. And Claudia seemed always to be visiting, bringing out supplies, updating me on her father’s rapid recovery, laughing and whispering with Chloe, helping us straighten out the house after its months of neglect and Charles’s rampage of destruction, but always staying far too long.
With no more need to fight for our survival, I yearn for time that Chloe and I can spend alone, learning more about each other. But not even our bed belongs to us.
Every night Henri comes to sleep with us. “The poor boy needs to be with us now,” Chloe says when he first asks. “He needs time too — to get over being taken away from you and to get used to me. Don’t worry, it won’t be forever.”
As much as I hug and kiss my son, as much as I reassure him that everything bad is over, he rarely ventures off by himself. Once Derek heals enough to leave his room, the boy clings to me even more, hugging my leg whenever he’s present. Not that I blame him.
Derek barely talks to any of us, only mumbling, “Sorry about all that, old man,” as a preface to asking me about Rita.
He storms off when I shrug and say, “They took her away. That’s all I know.” Fortunately, he stays mostly in his room after that.
“Don’t mind him,” Charles Blood says. “The boy never did handle disappointment well. He made the mistake of thinking all this was already his.” The elder creature laughs. “As if I would have trusted him to run such a large company.”
I find myself enjoying Charles Blood’s company. Once he heals enough to sit up and talk, he surprises me, saying, “You needn’t worry about me, boy. You won. I’ll never bother you again. It’s over for me as long as it’s over for you.”
Something in his gruff manner reminds me of my father. Like Don Henri, he loves to play chess. He challenges me to a game the first time he sees the chessboard set up in the great room.
“My father liked to play chess too,” I tell him.
“Most of our kind do,” Charles says. “Strategy is strategy, no matter what kind of creature you are.” He plays me every night, often winning, regaling me with stories his father had told him about sailing with my father.
Charles accompanies Chloe, Henri and me each morning too when we visit Elizabeth’s grave and tend to her garden. The first time he does so, I tell him the true story of how Elizabeth died at the hands of a human who betrayed me. “You know I blamed you for her death,” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t anymore, son. You did everything you could.”
It takes all my self-control not to hug him. Not that the elder creature can’t still be irritating. Sometimes he reverts to his old, unpleasant self. “Bullocks!” he shouts when told he must assume his human form whenever he wishes to go outside or whenever Claudia visits the house. “I’m not some bloody human who delights in chewing on dead cows!” he rails when Chloe and I serve him steak instead of fresh prey.
Still, grumble as he might, he accepts what we give him and does as we ask. He also never turns his gruffness on my son. The boy soon makes a habit of visiting with his grandfather at least a few times each day, sitting with his mouth open, his eyes wide as Charles tells him tales of the old days when our kind, the People of the Blood, flew openly wherever they wanted.
Claudia calls early on the morning of the eighth day after we took in Charles and Derek Blood. “Good news. Your Grady White is finally ready. I’ll bring it out later this morning,” she says. “After I pick up Pops. The hospital’s releasing him today. I told him to take it easy, but he insists on my bringing him along.”
I tell Chloe about the call, then say, “If I tell Arturo to arrange things, we can have your father and brother gone in a few days. It’s time for them to go, Chloe, especially your brother. They’ve healed well enough to travel. It’s time for us to be alone.”
My bride smiles. “I’d like that, Peter.”
“It’s time for Claudia to stay away for a few days too,” I say.
Chloe nods. “I’ll tell her.”
I take her in my arms, hug her, feel her warmth against me and whisper in her ear. “And it’s time for Henri to start sleeping in his own damned bed again.”
I don’t know whether I’m happier to see my Grady White or the wan Latin sitting beside his daughter by the wheel. “Pop tried to take the wheel,” Claudia shouts as soon as the boat pulls up to the dock. “I told him you’d be pissed if he screwed your boat up.”
Arturo flashes a full-toothed smile. “I told her it would only be fair after all you put my SeaRay through.”
Jumping on board, I accept Claudia’s kiss on my cheek. Then I turn my full attention to her father, helping Arturo stand, clasping his hand in mine.
“Claudia’s told me everything’s that’s gone on,” he says.
Looking at the man, I wince at the bruises still apparent on his face, the bandage wrapped around his head.
“Don’t worry. The doctors say I’ll be fine. I will too — as soon as the bastards that did this to me are taken care of. My people think they found them. So it shouldn’t be long.”
Chloe lets out a happy squeal and we both turn and look at the dock just as Claudia hands my bride the wicker box we sent from Jamaica. My bride hugs Claudia, holds up the box. “Look!” she says.
I nod and the two woman walk off, talking and laughing.
“They’re awfully tight,” Arturo says.
“Like schoolgirl chums,” I say, wondering what they’re discussing now. “Claudia was great. Without her, we’d have had a hell of a time.”
The Latin nods. “I told you she was good.” He turns the subject to business, asks me what else I may want done. I tell him.
It takes only a few days for Arturo to arrange documents and airplane tickets for Charles and Derek Blood. “Ian will fly over with them. That way everyone can sign the necessary papers at Claypool and Sons,” he says.
I explain it to Charles the day after that, before I take him and Derek to shore. “I’ve had my people make arrangements,” I say.
“Oh?” Charles arcs an eyebrow.
“We’re buying out Virgil Claypool’s interest in Claypool and Sons. Don’t worry, we’ll let him stay on as long as he likes. But his main job now will be to protect your interests. We’ll be sending over enough funds to support you and let you invest, plus enough to pay
the politicians each year to keep the Jamaican government away from Morgan’s Hole.”
“Not necessary, but still it’s bloody decent of you.”
I shrug. “Or sensible self-protection. We’re going to keep Bartlet House. Chloe wants to be able to come visit and I’d like to do so without worry.”
“I gave you my bloody word,” Charles says.
Putting my hand on his shoulder, I smile at him. “No offense intended. You gave your word but Samantha and Philip didn’t. Neither did Derek and we both know how furious he is. This way, no one will have any need to be anything but pleasant. Besides, Chloe and I wanted to help. If you ever want to modernize, we’ll help you with that too. It would be nice if you had a satellite phone so Chloe can call when she wants.”
Chloe insists on saying good-bye at the dock. “Henri and I have things to do,” she says, grinning.
“What?” I say.
“Things. You go ahead take Pa and Derek to the airport. We’ll show you when you get back.”
“You’re being pushy again.”
Chloe smiles. “So? I warned you I would be.” She kisses me and, frowning, wondering what she has planned, I do as she says.
Once Charles, Derek and Ian walk up the concourse to Jamaica Air, I rush from the terminal to my car and speed back to Coconut Grove.
The day couldn’t be more perfect for boating. White powder-puff clouds sit, hardly moving, in a clear, light blue sky. The breeze barely ruffles the surface of the bay. I can’t wait to take my Grady White from the dock and race across the calm water to my island, where only Chloe and my son now wait for me.
But as I near Caya DelaSangre, a new, shiny, dark blue speedboat emerges from the island’s channel. I slow down and study the boat. Now what? I think, as it speeds up, throwing a rooster tail of white water behind it, turning and shooting toward me.
I gun my motors too, prepare to veer out of its way, should it not turn. But as it closes, the boat changes direction, so it will pass to my right side. I laugh when I realize that Claudia’s behind the wheel, wonder when she bought this boat, what new clothes or books or music she brought Chloe today.
Dragon Moon Page 27
