The Dragon Delasangre (28 page)

The massive lead ball strikes me in the back, between my wings. I bellow, struggle to maintain control of my wings, even as pain and weakness overwhelm me. I try to roar, but groan instead and crash to the ground—just feet away from Santos.

“Ha!” he yells. Then the pain of his injury strikes him and he sags to the floor.

We both lie still, man and dragon, side by side, moaning from our injuries.

Santos struggles to a sitting position first, glares at me.
“Fuck you!” he says, reaches for one of his pistols, pulls it from his belt and fires.

The ball hits, but hasn't the power to penetrate my scales. Before he can fire the other pistol, I whirl and smash him with my tail, throwing him across the veranda, stunning him.

While he lies on his back, dazed, a trickle of blood seeping from the side of his mouth, I drag myself across the veranda toward Chen's body. Once there I rip him open, take bite after bite, feeding on him, letting his meat nourish me and help me heal.

I keep an eye on Santos while I feed and concentrate on mending my wounds. He doesn't move, but he watches me, his eyes widening with each bite I take. Planning his next move, I'm sure, looking for any advantage he can find.

I've no intention to give him any. It is time, I think, to end this thing. Time for him to know just who and what I am. I flex my wings, stretch my limbs, feel the renewal of my energy and roar, breaking the night's calm with my sound. Santos winces, prepares for my attack. Instead I shift into my human form. Naked, I walk over to him, remove the remaining pistol from his belt and hold it in my right hand, pointing it at him.

The Cuban moans as he forces himself into a sitting position. “What the hell are you?”

“Tired,” I answer. I have no desire to do a song and dance for this human. The glint of the torchlight on the gold clover-leaf chain around his neck catches my attention. I hold out my free hand. “Give me the chain.”

“Sorry,” the Cuban says. “I don't think I can do that. It belonged to my sister.”

“I know. I took it from her after she died.”

“After you killed her,” Santos corrects me.

I look at the man, the human, and understand the loss he
feels. But I no longer feel guilt for what occurred. I shrug. I am what I am, I think.

Tindall emerges from the shadows, comes into the torchlight, the AK-47 in his hands.

“Shoot him!” Santos shouts.

Jeremy points the machine gun at me. “I always knew you were some sort of monster, but I never imagined this.”

I stare at him, wonder if he has any idea how to use the weapon in his hands, wonder how many rounds are left in the machine gun's magazine. “Put the gun down, Jeremy,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Then you'll kill me. You put
your
gun down.”

If I try to shoot him first and fail, I chance leaving my child in jeopardy. It's a risk I find myself unwilling to take. I know Jeremy. If he thinks there's a way out, he'll take it. I nod, lay my pistol on the ground. “Have I ever tried to kill you before, Jeremy? You've certainly given me reason enough to do so. Put the gun down.”

Santos screams. “Damn you, shoot him!”

Tindall pauses, seems to reconsider, but then his eyes harden and he stares through the gunsight at me.

Before he can squeeze the trigger, I say, “Think, Jeremy. You've seen me survive wounds that would kill any man. What makes you think that your bullets are any more powerful than the others? Are you sure you want to risk this?”

“What choice do I have?”

“Jeremy, what good would it do me to kill you? Who can replace you at the office? You know I need you,” I say. “We've always worked out our differences. Put down the gun. I promise I'll let you leave.”

“You asshole,” Santos mutters. “What good are his promises?”

“Have you ever seen me break my word?” I ask.

Tindall shakes his head, says, “I didn't want it to come to
this, but you left me no choice. The Red Army owns Chen's factory. They were furious he lost so much money. Chen promised them he would take revenge and recover their investment. He threatened to kill me if I didn't help him. I had to. Besides, you killed his son and mine. You shouldn't have, Peter.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “But it's time now to put the gun down.”

“Don't!” Santos growls.

Tindall takes careful aim again. I suck in a breath, wait to see whether his finger tightens or not.

No one speaks. Only the crash of the waves, as they rush and retreat from the shore, breaks the silence of the night. I stare at Tindall, at the rifle's black muzzle. Somewhere in the dark a dog whimpers. A gust of wind rushes across the veranda, sends the torchlight's flames into frenzied spasms, the shadows dancing all around us in sympathy.

Finally, I shake my head, deciding it's time to push this worthless creature, see if he thinks he can withstand my power, see if he actually possesses any courage. “Jeremy, shoot or put the damn thing down,” I growl.

Tindall adjusts his position, seating the rifle butt a little more firmly into his shoulder. His eyes harden, his jaw clenches and I prepare to jump to the side as soon as I see the first twinge of muscle movement in his hand, wondering if I can move and change fast enough. But then sweat breaks out on his forehead, streams down his face and the rifle barrel begins to waver ever so slightly.

“Put it down, Jeremy,” I say again. “We both know you're no assassin. It's time for you to go home.”

Trembling, shaking his head, the thin man slowly lowers the AK-47 to the ground.

Santos groans. I smile at him, then look at Tindall. “Go back to your boat, Jeremy,” I say. “We'll settle this later.”

“Thank you, Peter,” he says, backing away. “You won't be sorry. Thank you.”

As he makes his way across the island, I hear the growls and barks of the few remaining dogs. Glad some have survived, I whistle them back, to make sure they allow him safe passage.

Once I hear the outboard motor cough to life, I turn to Santos. “Get up,” I say. “I need your help.”

He winces and moans, but still manages to struggle to his feet. “That man is a fool, isn't he?”

“Aren't you all?” I ask.

My child yowls loud enough for his wails to reach us outside. I glance at the third-floor windows, wishing I could rush upstairs to hug and reassure him. But there are things I still must do to make him safe.

“Jesus!” Santos says. “What is that?”

“My son,” I say. I point to Elizabeth's remains. “And that's my wife. You killed her.”

Jorge flexes his shoulders, grimaces at the pain the movement brings. “I don't suppose you're going to let me go, huh?”

I shake my head, then look seaward, follow the white foam trail of the inflatable's wake, calculate how long it will be before Tindall reaches the Grand Banks.

“Come on,” I say. “We don't have much time.”

“Why should I help you?” Santos says.

Why indeed? I think. I look at the man, standing upright despite his wounds, defiant even though he knows he has little hope. “You want to get away?” I ask.

He nods.

“After this is over, I'll give you the chance.”

“Like the one you're giving Tindall? I told him not to trust your promises.”

“You'll get a fair shot,” I say. “I told Tindall he could
leave and I let him. I told him we'd work it out later.” I smile. “This is later.”

Santos laughs bitterly. “Okay, DelaSangre, let's get this over. I can't wait to see what you think a fair chance is.”

I bring the powder and ball and watch him load the cannon. Together we turn the old ship killer, aim it for where Tindall's inflatable will be in a few minutes.

“It's going to be a tough shot.” Santos shakes his head.

“I thought you said you were good,” I say. I go to the arms room, bring back Father's ancient spyglass.

“It would be easier to hit the trawler.”

“No,” I say, extending the telescope, studying the dark water, finding the white churn of the outboard's propeller, the silhouette of the motor, the dim form of Tindall's back slightly forward and above it. “A shallow trajectory should do it.”

I hand the spyglass to Santos, go for a lit torch while he gets a sense of what I suggest. Finally he says, “I think you're right.”

Santos checks the wind, sets the elevation on the cannon, shows me just where he thinks the ball will hit.

“I'll tell you when he comes into range,” I say, taking the telescope, handing him the torch, both of us keeping our eyes seaward, following Tindall's movements.

Santos stands by my side, a flaming torch in his hand. He stares at the ocean, waits for my command.

I wait until the inflatable is within a few dozen yards of the trawler. By now I'm sure Tindall thinks he's reached safety. I smile.
“Now!”
I shout.

The cannon roars, belches flame. The ball, traveling almost parallel to the water, strikes the outboard motor first, turning it into a thousand flying metal fragments, sparking the fuel line and the gas tank at the same time as it strikes Tindall.

Tindall and the inflatable both disappear with one brief flash of fire.

Santos, still staring out to sea, whistles, then mutters, “Wow.”

The night settles around us. The sea breeze washes away the sulfur stink of the cannon's smoke. In the house, Henri has quieted. I sigh and stare at the sea. Any time before this night, I know, I would have laughed and grinned with Santos, celebrating the success of our jointly executed cannon shot.

Santos turns to me. “Now what?” he says.

I sigh again. Death lies all around us, blood stains the veranda's floor and still, one more life has to be taken. I can think of no other way. Father was right. No human can ever be trusted. But as easy as it would be, I have no desire to simply execute this man.

“Go get one of the rail guns and load it,” I say, walking over to the ancient flintlock pistol I placed on the deck, picking it up.

“You sure I can't get one of the machine guns?” Santos says.

“I'm sure.”

He wanders the veranda, collects one of the spent blunderbusses, takes it to the arms room for ball and powder and returns to load it within my view. “We're having a duel, is that it?”

I nod. “I promised you a fair chance.”

“What if you lose?”

“I won't,” I say, thinking how easy it is to read his movements.

“You never know, DelaSangre, you never know. I almost had you tonight, twice, and you know it.”

“Just load the damn thing.”

When he finishes ramming the load home, he looks at me and shrugs. “Well, it wasn't all bad. . . . Another time,
another place, who knows? After all, you thought we were friends, didn't you?”

Santos cocks the rail gun, primes the flash pan and aims at me.

It shames me to realize I once thought some sort of friendship had formed between us. I raise the pistol, cock and aim it. “My kind and your kind can never be friends.”

“And what kind are yours?” he asks.

I look into his eyes, wait for Santos to signal his intent. He doesn't turn away. He doesn't flinch. His bravery earns him the right to a response, I think.

But Santos doesn't wait for my reply. He sucks in a steadying breath and, sure of what that signals, I squeeze my finger on my pistol's trigger—just an instant before he squeezes his.

My gun flares at the same moment I spit out the answer to his question. “Dragons.”

 

Since Elizabeth's death, Henri and I have lived alone. I find little reason to leave my island, to seek any other company. My son's very presence, his constant need for my attention make it impossible for me to succumb to loneliness and grief. For this I'm grateful.

At first the thought of raising a child by myself terrifies me. I have no background for this, no training. Elizabeth knew what to do. Her mother taught her from birth just what was expected of her. “She even allowed me to help take care of Chloe, after she was born,” Elizabeth told me. “Babies are easy.”

Only childbirth itself frightened her. “It's when our women most often die,” she said.

I call Arturo Gomez and tell him a much-modified story of my son's birth, Jeremy's perfidy and Elizabeth's death at the hands of him and his henchmen. “At least, Henri came to no harm,” I say. The Latin offers to rush me books on human childcare and, out of curiosity, I allow it.

But as I read Spock and Lear and the others—during the times Henri sleeps—I shake my head over and over again. I end up disregarding and discarding all of the books. Mine is not a human child. Mine has different needs.

Elizabeth had laughed when I suggested buying a bassinet for the baby. I understand now just why. After all, no manufacturer has ever designed diapers with a dragon-child in mind. I find that hay—as she suggested—makes the
perfect bed for my sleeping son. It conforms to his sleeping shape. When fouled, it's simple to replace.

Arturo offers to find a nursemaid for the child. I stifle a laugh at the suggestion. The Latin knows we're different, but he has no idea just what we are. Besides, I know no one else can ever take care of my child as well as I can.

Even if there were a way for a nursemaid to cope with such a creature as my son, I wouldn't surrender the closeness Henri and I have. With Henri, I can share his thoughts. When he cries from hunger, I can sense his pangs. When fear grips him, I can see what scares him. When he looks at me, the love that pours from him almost staggers me. And when I look at him—especially when he sleeps, quiet and innocent and oh so vulnerable to all the dangers of the world—the love I feel for him brings tears to my eyes.

I find it ironic that had Elizabeth lived, she would have been the one to tend to our child's needs, to grow as close to him as I have. In a way, her death has brought me an unintended blessing. Not that I wouldn't undo it in a moment if I could.

Not a day goes by that I don't visit her grave—the ground still bare where I buried her, adjacent to her beloved garden. I report to her the growth of our child, pledge I will keep my promise. I will teach Henri about his mother.

I tend to Elizabeth's garden too, make sure all is cared for as she would have wished. When Henri grows older, I will bring him here often and tell him stories about her.

I don't know when I'll tell him how she died. He certainly will never see anything to make him wonder about it. Within days after Elizabeth's death, no reminders of her disaster remained. The bodies of Jorge Santos, Casey Morton and the other humans now decay somewhere in the depths of the Gulfstream.

Every remnant of their blood and Elizabeth's has long since been eliminated, the veranda sanded and refinished.
Even the cannon that took my bride's life has been discarded. It now lies rusting at the bottom of our island's tiny harbor.

Tindall's Grand Banks is lost somewhere at sea, wherever its motors and the heading I programmed into its autopilot delivered it. When last I saw it, the empty craft was following a direction that should have taken it between Cuba and the Bahamas—out into the vast Atlantic.

No sign of Jeremy, of course, has ever been found. Not that anyone seems to miss him. As soon as the Coast Guard search was called off, his wife and sons sued in court to have him declared legally dead. Arturo says they're already arguing over his estate.

Good old Arturo. He and my new attorney—Jeremy's oldest son, Ian—handled all the paperwork expediting Elizabeth's death certificate and arranged for all the necessary papers to record Henri's birth. A new will was written, money shifted and trust funds set up. Thanks to their machinations, within days after my child's birth, his future was secure.

 

The future becomes a very important thing after a child is born. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, making plans. All children, I suppose, want to correct their parents' mistakes by doing differently themselves in the rearing of their own children. In this I'm no exception.

I've come to agree with Father that Mother erred when she insisted I be so exposed to humans and their ways. I spent far too many years wishing I had been born human, yearning for their company, wanting their approval.

I hate that it took so long for me to embrace my heritage. Yet I don't want Henri to grow up like his mother, bereft of all exposure or interest in art and music and literature. Humans may never be our equals, but there's much they create that I want my son to be able to appreciate.

He will never be sent to school with their kind. If necessary, I'll teach him myself on our island. I want him to grow up, proud to be what he is, yet aware of all the world has to offer.

 

It takes until Henri's third month of life for me to be sure just how I intend to pursue our future. For his own good, I decide, he should have a mother to nurture him too. Most certainly, it will also serve me if I find another wife.

Human women no longer hold any fascination for me. Father told me long ago,
“Once you've experienced a woman of our own kind, you'll never again want to touch a human female in that way.”
I find I agree. But finding a woman of the blood is never easy. The thought of the long search it will require fills me with dread.

My son, on the other hand, fills me with joy. Already he has grown enough so that some of his thoughts form almost as words. During his waking times he fills the air and my mind with an endless stream of baby talk. His scales are still baby soft, his color a light tan overall. He has yet to shift completely into a human shape, but when he sees me in mine, he tries.

Sometimes the results leave me laughing, the infant half-human in appearance, with a tail protruding in the wrong spot or an ear strategically misplaced. I open my mind to him and gently think him back to his natural shape. It melts my heart when one day he forms an entire baby face, complete with a cleft like mine, but far smaller, on its chin.

I often lie on the hay beside him and let him crawl over me, grabbing and tickling him, laughing in tandem with his giggles. Always at some moment during our play, he grabs the gold clover-leaf necklace I recovered from Jorge Santos and now wear around my neck any time I'm in my human shape. He loves to toy with it, the glistening emerald in its center fascinating to him.

“It was your mother's,”
I tell him. I'm about to say, one day it will be his, when a better thought occurs. It shames me that I haven't thought of it sooner.

The next morning, I compose the letter I've long dreaded writing. I tell Charles and Samantha Blood that their daughter died in childbirth. The truth, I decide, will serve no one. I assure them she gave birth to a wonderful baby boy.

I write a second letter too, this one to Chloe. In it I tell her much the same thing but add, “Your sister loved you very much. She wanted me to make sure you had something of hers. I'm sending it along with this letter. Perhaps, one day, I'll have the pleasure of seeing it around your neck.”

Gomez arranges for the letters and the necklace to be delivered to the Bloods' agent in Kingston, Claypool and Sons, the same one who took receipt of my gift of gold to Charles Blood. I give Arturo other instructions too. He raises his eyebrows when he hears them, but knows better than to argue.

 

In the evening, after the sun has set and the moon has risen, I carry my son out to the veranda. He sniffs the sea air and babbles and laughs when the evening breeze gusts at us. I hold him over my head and he spreads his immature wings, too small and chubby yet to take him into the air.

“One night,”
I mindspeak.
“I'll take you into the sky with me and we'll hunt side by side.”

He babbles something in return and I grin at him, pull him close. But he squirms and struggles until I release him and expose him to the warm night wind again.

Somewhere, out over the water, a large fish jumps and crashes back into the sea. Waves show up white against the dark of the ocean as they rush at the shore. The sounds of their endless crash and retreat seem as much a part of me as the beat of my own heart. I stare up at the stars, the dark clouds scudding by overhead, and smile. One day Henri will
love this island as much as I do, I think. One day, I hope, Chloe will too.

I'll have to wait a few years, until my son's old enough to control his shapes and actions. But I have more than enough time. Arturo's already located an estate inland from Montego Bay, near Cockpit Country. Henri and I will be able to move there long before Chloe reaches her first oestrus.

Charles and Samantha Blood will be furious, but they will just have to cope with it. With me living close by, I'll be able to catch the first scent of her first heat. I will have her before any other suitor can be aware of her existence. After that, we will be bound for life. Short of killing me, her parents will be unable to prevent our union.

I dislike that I'll have to win her in such a devious way, but I see no other choice. Even if I could find another woman of the blood, there would be no guarantee she would be compatible with me. Chloe likes so many of the things I value.

When I think of her, the same image of her human shape always forms in my mind—a young, dark girl in shorts, riding her horse bareback, galloping alongside our car as we depart the valley. Chloe grinning, her naked legs pressed against her mount's sides, her hair streaming behind her, her body moving in perfect rhythm with her horse's strides.

The child squirms in my arms, making no secret he wants to be put down on the deck.
“Not so fast,”
I tell him. I'm not ready yet to give up his touch.

In a little while, after he falls asleep, I'll leave him and take to the air. I look forward to the sensation of flight, the adrenaline rush of the hunt. Most of all I look forward to Henri's excited reception when I return, the closeness of feeding beside my son.

I think of how horrified any human would be, if they saw us, and I smile.

Another salt-tinged breeze washes over us and Henri squeals. I embrace him, rub my cheek against his and say to him the words my father said to me so many times as I grew up—words I hope my dragon-child listens to more carefully than I ever did.

“We are what we are.”