Brian sorted through the plants. “Good job with the fire. These stones will do nicely.”
“Salad?” Michael asked.
“I was lucky enough to find some chenopodium ambrosioides and some croton lechleri.”
“Oh, goody.” Couldn’t the man speak English? Or was he just showing off? He caught a glimpse of a thick red stalk. “Wait, that’s Sangre de Grado. Dragon’s blood.”
“That’s its common name, yes. Excellent for sealing wounds. Paico is the common name for chenopodium. Fights parasites.”
“You’re a regular pharmacy here.”
Brian laid the Paico leaves across the hot stones, where they began to sizzle. “When Tremaine Enterprises teams first get to a disaster site, they’re usually ahead of the drug shipments. We train our people on what local plants can help.”
“That what you do? Disaster relief?”
“Among other things.” He laid the Sangre de Grado carefully on the largest rock. “Sit here where I can see you and take off your pants.”
“But I think Kemble....”
“Kemble can’t find Drew. He’s second in line.”
Michael was shocked. His own son...?
Brian turned his leaves on the stones. Did he realize what he’d just implied? “Kemble’s wounds aren’t infected. He hasn’t been trotting around the jungle like you have.”
Michael’s wounds were infected. He couldn’t argue with that. He pulled down his pants and sat. Did he spend all his time naked around these guys? Brian untied his makeshift bandage. The wound looked bad. He’d seen some bad wounds, and he recognized the signs.
“You know survival skills,” Brian remarked.
“Delta Force.”
“Looks like you’ve seen some action.” Brian gestured to the scars on Michael’s torso.
Michael grunted. “These weren’t from the action.” Brian lifted a brow in question as he turned the leaves once more on the hot stone. “Taliban prison.”
“How long?” Tris asked.
“They tell me it was fourteen months. Seemed longer.”
“It would.” Brian peeled the plants off the stones and squeezed their juice into Michael’s wound. The Sangre de Grado sap ran blood red.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Michael swore. That juice seared like acid.
“Brought up Catholic?” Brian asked.
Michael did a double take. Had he heard the man right?
“Not that I care,” Brian continued. “We’re not really religious in the conventional sense.”
Tris emitted a gusty sigh behind him. “Here it comes.”
“Stay out of this, Tristram,” his father said. He laid the leaves themselves in Michael’s open wound.
Michael tried to keep his stomach from heaving. “Stay out of what?” he croaked. “I’m ‘lapsed’ Catholic. What do you care?” What was worse than lapsed? Whatever it was, that’s what he was. He had no use for a God that would let Alice get cancer.
“Well, if you want to raise the children Catholic, I wouldn’t have a problem.”
“What ... what children?” The pain must be making him stupid.
“The ones you’ll have with Drew.” Brian tied the bandage around Michael’s thigh.
“Wait a minute, now,” Michael said. “Kids?” He’d be backing up if he could stand.
“You raised her magic. That means she loves you.” Brian’s voice had steel in it. He took some more steaming leaves and blood-red stems off the hot stones. “So, you’re going to marry Drew and you will damn well make her happy.” He squeezed juice into Michael’s hip wound.
He raised her magic? Wasn’t she always a Seer? “Uh, I like Drew,” Michael hissed. Damn that hurts. “I really do.” He more than liked her and he knew it. But he wouldn’t be backed into a corner. There were metaphorical ways of being tied up as well as literal. And why did everyone think they were destined “mates” anyway? He steadied his breathing, just to prove to Tremaine Senior that he could. “But aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? We have to find her first.” Michael hated to remind a father who obviously cared for his daughter that he might have lost her, but he was under attack. He couldn’t marry Drew. He was still too confused about everything. He saw Brian’s expression grow even grimmer.
“You’re right. We’ll find her. Then we’ll talk.”
Brian got up and went over to tend to Kemble. He talked softly to his eldest son while he squeezed juice and laid on his leaf poultices.
Tris scooted up beside Michael and handed him a cleaned crescent of jackfruit. He looked like he was going to speak. “Don’t start,” Michael said. “I get it. You both love Drew, and you think you know what’s best for her. But believe me, you don’t.”
Tris held up his hands in mock surrender. “I get it too. You know you’re not a great catch. Alcoholic. In love with the dead wife. Issues with authority figures.”
Michael grunted. The bad boy wouldn’t have had a great time growing up with Mr. Captain of Industry. “Knowing Drew, she wouldn’t let him push her into marriage either.” Michael couldn’t help sounding bitter. Like Drew would want to shackle herself to him anyway.
“Well, Senior isn’t used to anyone standing up to him besides me. Probably a shock to know he may just have found a guy who can. But what say we wait for the showdown until we get out of here?”
“And why aren’t we already gone, if you can power the boat?” Michael asked, loudly, so Brian could hear him.
“Because powering the boat is going to take all the energy Tristram can muster. He needs his strength. And you and Kemble need to survive the trip.”
That sobered both Tris and Michael. “Where’s the nearest landfall from here?” Michael was already thinking. “Jamaica? Or the coast of Venezuela. Santa Marta, maybe.”
“We’ll head due east,” Brian said shortly. “Tristram won’t have enough strength to make it to Jamaica or Santa Marta.”
“Sure I will,” Tris said. Michael could tell he was overplaying the “no doubts” tone of voice. Brian just gave him a hard look. He didn’t need to roll his eyes.
“Well, there’s nothing due east of here for six hundred miles,” Michael said.
“Cruise ships heading back to San Juan from the Lesser Antilles,” Brian said. “We’re probably only fifty or seventy-five miles off their route.”
Well, Michael had to give him that one. But it was chancy. “What if we miss? What if a ship doesn’t come along?”
“We won’t and they will.”
Michael shrugged mentally. If he was right, it was the fastest way to get to an airport. They’d have doctors and medical supplies on board. “Worth a shot. When can we start?”
“As soon as we’ve eaten. Sailing at night gives us better navigation, and we’ll be able to see the lights of the ships from farther away.” He glanced up from Kemble. “Plus we avoid the dehydration of the sun.” He stood and came to stand over Tris. “Brace yourself, son. You need protein. So I saved these for you.” He reached into his pocket and came back out with a handful of white, squirming things.
Tris didn’t even make a face. He looked stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”
Michael grinned. “Palm weevil grubs?”
Brian nodded. “They taste rather like almonds when they’re raw,” he told Tris. “Or I’ll cook them on the stones and you can pretend they’re chicken.”
Tris’s horror was growing.
“Come on, Tris, take one for the team.” Michael couldn’t stop his grin.
That sobered Tris, though Michael hadn’t meant it that way. “Put ’em on the stones.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Time for your rest,” Brian yelled back to Tris over the roar of the engine, after checking his Rolex. Michael guessed it was maybe four in the morning. Brian was seated at the prow of the launch, so he was taking most of the spray and the bounce as it jolted over the waves with all the speed Tris could give it.
“I’m fine,” Tris shouted back from his po
sition at the launch’s engine.
“Let’s not do this again.” Michael smiled to soften the fact that he was siding with Brian. “He’s right. You’ll last longer if you take five.” Michael had spent most of the wee hours in a state of exhausted amazement. Tris pulled power directly from the water and channeled it to the engine. He had to concentrate to do it. Apparently taking power from water was harder than pulling it directly from the earth. Most amazing of all was the phosphorescent glow of the sea around them as Tris collected its inherent energy.
Tris pulled his right hand out of the water, and took his left hand off the housing of the motor. The engine cut off abruptly. “Every half hour? He’s driving me nuts.”
“We’ll get there, son,” Brian said, looking around the dark waves and the night sky. “In fact, we might be there.”
The sea was empty for as far as they could see. Not promising. Brian passed the flask around. Michael noticed that he didn’t take any himself. Saving it for his sons. Brian’s lips were cracked and rimed with salt. Michael took the tiniest sip and passed it to Tris.
“How you feeling, Dowser?” Brian asked, peering at Michael.
Like shit. He was decidedly woozy. Sweating like a pig. His leg was swollen and throbbing. His hip was screaming at him. Even the graze on his upper arm was looking infected as hell. The bugs had gotten a head start on Brian’s natural remedies.
“Fine,” he lied. Kemble lay propped against the inflated side of the launch. But Kemble was definitely more alert. His concussion must have cleared a little. And his cuts didn’t seem to be infected. He was improving while Michael was going downhill.
“Good.” Brian looked away to check his watch again. “Rhiannon must be well on her way to wherever she’s taking Drew. They may not have gone back the way they came....”
Yeah. He got it. Time for a little Finding. “I’ll give it a shot,” he said. No need of drawings or descriptions. He knew Drew, through and through. He felt a kind of sweet, sad longing well up inside him when he thought of her. Would he ever be close enough to feel that strange connection with her again?
The trance came over him without him even letting the power in. His eyes were still open, for God’s sake. He shut them hastily as the grid popped up around him. Drew was like a beacon, shining in the grid. Off behind them? A long way. She wasn’t moving.
And then she was. Above the earth. He practically felt the lift as Drew’s light rose. He bathed himself in that light for a moment. But he didn’t have the luxury of basking in Drew. He opened his eyes. “She’s in an airplane. It just took off.” He looked around. What was back behind them? “Kingston, maybe?”
Brian looked grim. “Or Santo Domingo. We’ll go back and forth across the cruise ship path,” he said, his voice hoarse. “They will have left Aruba in the evening, or maybe Bonaire or Curaçao. They all come through this way.”
If they hadn’t missed the ships for tonight. Those ships could move if they had to, twenty, twenty-five knots. And they’d had all night to pass this point.
*****
The sky was just beginning to lighten. They’d missed their window. Michael could see that Brian agreed by the slump in his shoulders. Tris was past the point of exhaustion now. He’d been powering the little launch for hours.
“Time for your rest,” Brian called to Tris. Tris didn’t argue, but just pulled his splayed hand out of the water.
“You okay?” Michael asked. His voice was slurred, as though he was drunk. His vision seemed to throb along with his head.
“Aside from having fingers that look like prunes, I’m fine.” But his face showed the strain he’d been under. Brian passed Kemble the flask. There were maybe two sips left in it.
Kemble waved it away. “Give it to Tris.”
Michael gazed off to the bobbing horizon, only slightly lighter than the indigo dome of the night sky. His eyes closed automatically, but not because he was dead tired. Power surged up from his belly. The grid snapped in place. He saw an arc, descending, and below, images of buildings. A skyline with the double tower he’d always known as Sears Tower, though it was called something else now. He sucked in a breath.
“What is it?” Michael felt Brian’s hand on his shoulder.
He blinked his eyes open. “That’s never happened before.” He looked down and his hands were shaking.
“What?” Brian’s blue eyes were concerned.
“I ... my finding sense. It just went on automatically. I didn’t even call it. And I saw things ... not just a grid, but ... but like I was looking around.” He sounded like an idiot. But this was finding on a whole new level. “I ... I’ve never felt like that before.” Maybe he was hallucinating. That was possible.
Brian went still. “Where is she?”
“Chicago.”
“Damn,” Tris swore under his breath. “We need a cruise ship.”
Brian stared thoughtfully at Michael.
“So we wait until the ships leave again tonight?” Michael finally asked. “Or do we make our way down toward Aruba?” He realized with a start he’d just looked to Brian for leadership.
“May not have to,” Kemble struggled up to a sitting position and pointed, giving a weak grin. “Is that a mirage?”
Michael turned with a jerk. There on the horizon were lights. A lot of them. Tightly grouped. Ocean liner.
“No mirage,” Brian said with a relieved sigh.
“Shit, howdy,” Tris crowed. “I never thought we’d do it.”
“Let’s get closer.” Brian grinned. Tris lowered his hand into the water, took a long moment to focus himself, and then the water began to glow. The engine sputtered and caught.
Olly, olly oxen free, Michael thought. We made it.
But as they jetted toward the ship, it became apparent that they wouldn’t intersect her course. They were too far away, the angle wrong, and she was churning north at a good clip. They all realized it. Tris pushed for more power. Brian leaned off to the left to turn the launch into a more northward course. The engine whined and shook as Tris got white around the mouth.
No one had to tell Tris to push as hard as he could. He was clutching that engine with his big hand and trembling with the power that was coursing from the glowing ocean up through his body and into the machine. The launch bounced along the waves. There wasn’t any way to go faster. As it was, Michael thought the launch might break apart under the strain. And still the cruise ship pulled away. Its distant wake sloshed under them. Brian was waving his arms in the front of the launch, but it was a matter of form.
And then they started to gain on the ship.
“It’s not moving,” Kemble croaked. “They’ve stopped.”
*****
“Get these men down to sick bay,” the man in the uniform with shiny buttons barked, as several men in overalls pulled Brian into the hatchway near the waterline used for taking on harbor pilots. Brian had insisted he be the last to leave the launch.
Michael was propped against the wall of the passageway. Guys in white shirts and shorts were hauling Kemble onto a gurney. Tris had limped on board and promptly collapsed.
“How’d you finally spot us?” Brian asked, steadying himself against the passage wall.
“Passengers were bird-watching as the sun came up. They saw you and alerted the bridge,” the guy with the brass buttons said. “You were lucky.”
“We thought we’d missed the ships for the day,” Brian said.
“Stayed late to let the passengers party on Curaçao,” the officer said, as he motioned his staff over to Tris.
“And we’re grateful you stopped,” Brian added.
“Especially since you’re out of gas,” a sailor shouted from the launch tied off at the hatchway.
“Yeah,” Michael muttered. “That was hell.” He glanced over to where two of the guys in white were bending over Tris.
“He’ll be okay,” Brian said in a hoarse whisper, through cracked lips. “Just needs rest.” But Michael knew he was only b
eing reassuring. He was worried about his two sons.
Actually, Michael had never seen anything like Tremaine Senior. He’d found the launch. He’d navigated by the stars. He’d taken care of his sons, and even Michael, never thinking about himself. It had been his plan that had worked in the end. He was an impressive paterfamilias, Michael had to admit. Michael might have to revise his comparison of Brian Tremaine to his own father. His father was just as controlling, but had none of the underlying love for his difficult son that Brian obviously did for his family.
There was only one person missing in this touching family scene. Drew. “How fast can we get to an airport?” Michael managed to ask. He’d gotten strangely weak in the last hour or so.
“Officer?” Brian asked the guy with the shiny buttons. “When do we pull into San Juan?”
“Today is a sea day. We’ll be ready to disembark passengers at six a.m. tomorrow.”
Brian nodded, wiping his hands across his growth of beard. Michael could practically hear the wheels grinding with plans. “Can I use a sat phone? I need to call my wife.”
“You get checked out in sick bay. Then you can call whoever you want.”
“I’m fine. The sooner Brina can meet us in San Juan, the better we’ll all feel.”
“We need to go after Drew,” Michael croaked. The passageway was starting to swim.
“We do,” Brian said, and clasped Michael’s shoulder. “But we need to get healthy first.”
Michael began to worry that the expedition might not include him. He’d seen jungle infections before. He’d seen gangrene that antibiotics couldn’t stop. He knew what happened if the infection got into your bloodstream. “Drew,” he murmured, fighting the blackness that had begun to eat at the edges of his vision. He looked up at Brian, whose face appeared at the end of a long tunnel. “If ... I don’t ... make it ... you kill those bastards ... and get her back.”
He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) Page 24
