The Seadragon's Daughter (38 page)

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Authors: Alan F. Troop

BOOK: The Seadragon's Daughter
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Chloe walks back into the room while I’m in the midst of giving him instructions on what media coverage I expect to see given if an incident happens during the evening concerning Jordan Davidson. “No problem, Peter. They’ll do what I ask,” he says, and I hang up and turn my attention to consuming another, larger steak.
 
After I get up and dress, I go over the Uzis and the shotguns with Chloe, teaching her how to load, cock and shoot them. I take her outside and walk with her to each cannon and rail gun, pointing out the torches and the Zippo lighters. Then I take her down to the dock and show her the switches to the two fuel pumps.
“Do you think all of this is necessary? You said we’re much larger than they are. Can’t we just fight them? There
are
three of us you know.”
“Only if your brother stays and fights,” I say. “Derek hasn’t always shown any great willingness to risk death. Even if he does stay, we still have the problem of facing too many Pelk. If we could just fight one-on-one or even two of them to one of us, I’d agree with you. But there will be more of them than that—and they use weapons. Tridents. I told you about them. They can slice right through our scales.”
“Don’t worry, Peter. I’ll fight them any way you want. We’ll win. I’m sure. Even if Derek wimps out on us.”
I smile at her, wish I felt as confident as she sounds.
 
Claudia comes out at noon, docking her blue speedboat by herself, joining Chloe and me on the veranda. “Ready for tonight?” I say.
“Sure, boss.”
“And Toba understands exactly what I want?”
“Yeah. She and Pepe will leave Black Point at nine thirty. They’ll be through the Featherbed Channel and heading east by ten at the latest. I’ve gone over everything with her. “She’s not too happy that Pepe has to be hurt. . . .”
“She does understand that I’m not out to hurt him? We just have to make things look right.”
“Don’t worry boss, she’s great. She just hopes nothing screws up. She’ll do everything just like she’s told.”
 
Leaving Claudia with Chloe, I go searching for Derek. When I can’t find him anywhere outdoors or up in the great room, I walk down to the second floor, open Lizzie’s door and grin at Derek’s sleeping form on my daughter’s bed. I shake him awake.
“Why? What? Is it time already?”
“No. It’s early. We’re not leaving until after six,” I say. “I just wanted to go over everything with you again.”
“For Christ’s sake, Peter. How stupid do you think I am? It’s nothing. Really.”
“Are you sure you can still do it?”
“You should know you don’t forget that sort of thing, old man,” Derek says.
“Show me.”
“Bloody hell,” he says, but he stands and shifts shape while I watch.
I walk around him, examining his new form, nodding. “Good,” I say. “You can change back now. It should work fine.”
“Don’t know any reason why you doubted it. It worked damned well the last time I used it in Miami,” he grumbles.
 
Derek stays in his room after I leave. Chloe and Claudia go up to the great room, Claudia to read through my father’s log books again and Chloe to review her mother’s book of potions. “Maybe between the two of us, we’ll come up with a way to handle the poison,” Chloe says.
I find I can’t sit and watch them. Nor can I read or watch TV. My mind keeps going to seven o’clock and the events that should unfold after that. I go downstairs and out on the veranda, Max tagging along with me, glad to pace and wander aimlessly along with me.
Together, we wander out on the sand dunes on the ocean side of the island. The rest of the dog pack rushes up to us, surrounds us, their tails wagging furiously, their bodies bumping into us as they vie for our attention. But when I pet them only a few times, and when they realize I’ve brought no food, they drift away into the underbrush.
Going down to the beach, I pick up a piece of driftwood and fling it into the water. Some days the waves will rush it right back to the shore. But today, the few waves that lap up to the sand have hardly enough size or speed to carry anything along. I grin at the calm water and the weak breeze and hope little changes after dark. Rough water will only make everything more difficult.
Dorsal fins show again, far offshore this time, many more than the last time I spotted them. Holding my breath, I count each dolphin as it passes, before they all disappear from sight. Twelve in the pod, not too abnormal a size for the local waters. I let my breath out. When the Pelk come, it should be far more than that.
 
The pain returns shortly after three. As soon as I feel the first mild pangs of its heat, I go back inside and rush to the great room. I find both women reading at the table. They look up as soon as I enter the room. “It started again,” I say.
“Shit!” Claudia says, slamming her log book closed.
“So soon?” Chloe says. “Is it as bad as yesterday?”
I shake my head. “Not yet . . . but it will be. I need to drink my share of the antidote.”
Chloe stares at the bottles standing on the counter. “There are two bottles left. There’s no reason you shouldn’t drink one of them. . . .”
“No,” I say. “Half of that bottle belongs to Derek.”
“Peter, yesterday you took three days’ worth and that lasted only one day. Half of a bottle might not take you until morning.”
I shrug. “If it takes me through the night, at least we’ll see part of my plan finished.” I look at Claudia. “You’ll have to help Chloe go tomorrow. If I’m not here, she’ll have to leave for Jamaica.”
Confused, Claudia looks from me to Chloe.
Chloe shakes her head. “I’m not going anywhere yet!”
She walks to the counter and picks up a bottle of antidote.
“Derek!”
she mindspeaks.
“Wake up, you lazy bugger! Peter needs to drink more antidote, and I’m going to give him your half bottle’s worth!”
Derek bellows loud enough for us to hear him from the second floor.
“Are you daft, woman? That’s mine. Didn’t your mate tell you that?”
he mindspeaks.
“Yes, he did. He told me he wouldn’t drink your half. But if you don’t give it to him and he dies before you because of that, I promise I’ll turn my back on you. You will die in pain without any help or any comfort coming from me.”
“Look at what your bloody help has done for him.”
“There’s still a chance we might find the antidote. But if you let my husband die, there will be no help for you, you fool!”
“You were always a strange child. Strange ways. Strange moods. I should have smothered you in your bed then. Give him the whole bloody damned bottle! Just bugger off now and leave me be.”
Chloe turns, grinning, holding the bottle up as if she had won it as an award. She walks over to me, pulling the cork with her teeth, and hands it to me. I take it and gulp down its contents, my wife watching, her hands on her hips, until I finish the last drop.
Claudia, who’s stared at us the whole time, says, “Okay, per usual, I have no idea what just happened.”
“Nor will you ever,” I say, smiling as the antidote quenches the heat inside me, erasing every vestige of pain.
“You know,” I say, looking at Chloe. “We probably didn’t gain that much more time. You still may have to go to Jamaica.”
She returns my gaze, and I sigh at the sadness I see in her eyes. “Stop talking about Jamaica. For now, I prefer to concentrate on finding a way for you to survive.”
39
 
Derek comes upstairs and joins us for an early meal before we leave for the mainland. But before he sits at the table he goes to the kitchen counter, picks up the last remaining bottle of antidote and pulls the cork.
“What are you doing?” I say. “You don’t need to take that until tomorrow night.”
“True enough, old man,” he says. “But the way things are going, I don’t know that I can count on it being here. Mind you, I trust you.” He tilts his head toward Chloe. “It’s my loving sister I worry about.”
Putting the bottle to his lips, Derek drains it with two gulps. “Now,” he says, “at least I can count on having three more days.”
 
Dinner goes too quickly. I help clear the table, wash the dishes and put everything away. By six I can’t find anything else to do. I consider going downstairs and walking around the island again, but I shake my head. I’ve spent too many days, too many hours waiting to take action. I need to do something, anything that feels as if it has purpose. “Let’s get ready to go,” I say.
Claudia checks her watch. “It’s early. Are you sure you don’t want to wait?”
I nod. “Let’s at least get on the water,” I say. “No one says we have to rush.”
 
Ordinarily Claudia races across the bay as quickly as her boat can go. Even in bad weather, the trip takes less than half an hour. Today, the bay offers no more resistance than a light chop and a few small swells, and the wind barely blows at all. We cruise toward the mainland at half speed, the sun riding low in the west, throwing its heat at us and making us squint with its glare.
Chloe sits on the front bench next to Claudia, the two women talking. Derek lounges at the stern. I wander from one side of the cockpit to the other, staring back toward Caya DelaSangre for a few moments, turning toward the mainland, staring at the water to the south, looking north toward the Rickenbacker Causeway and the wall of high-rise condos lining Bayshore Drive just past it.
“Why don’t you sit and relax, Peter?” Chloe says.
I shake my head. If anything, I’d prefer to take the throttle and wheel and tear across the water. I want it to be dark already. I want to be at Jordan Davidson’s house. I sigh, concentrate instead on spotting what patrol boats are out.
Locating the first two just south of my island, I count another one north of Soldier Key and two more cruising south toward Boca Chita. Five altogether. Smiling, I nod. As I suspected, all the boats are positioned on the ocean side of the bay—where all the attacks took place.
 
Even taking our time, we arrive at the marina at Monty’s fifteen minutes before seven. Claudia pulls her boat into our slip, and Derek jumps off without a word to any of us. We back out of the slip and turn back toward the bay.
“Anybody care to tell me what he’s up to?” Claudia says.
“Later,” Chloe says.
Glancing toward the front, I see that both women have their eyes on the water in front of them. I turn my attention back to land, to Derek walking from the dock. He pauses near some high shrubs and looks around to see if anyone is watching him. Suddenly he seems to shrink, just a little, become a hair leaner.
He looks out to the water and waves. I wave back and he turns and walks toward the Monroe building.
 
With time to kill before it turns dark, we take a tourist’s tour south, cruising slow, close to shore, gawking at all the mansions. We motor up the Gables Waterway as far as Ingraham Highway, return to the bay and continue south, taking detours into Gables Estates and Old Cutler. By the time we reach the channel to Gables on the Bay, the million-dollar homes we see in the dying light of the day look small and tawdry compared to the palatial retreats we’ve passed.
Claudia’s cellphone rings. Taking it from her bag, she flips it open and says, “Yup.” She listens, nods a few times and says, “Soon,” and then closes her phone and returns it to her purse.
Turning toward me she says, “My boys are in. They’re ready for us.”
I smile, check my watch—8:10. I glance up at the sky. A few last gleams of the sun’s rays still fight the dark, but gloom is quickly overwhelming them. I look around. On the water, I see boat lights cruising south toward the Featherbed Channel. House lights glow everywhere on the mainland, making windows warm with light. “Let’s go,” I say.
 
Jordan Davidson’s cherry-red Robalo takes up most of his dock space. A large, gray inflatable raft—Claudia’s men’s no doubt—floats nearby, tied up to a cleat on the seawall. Claudia points her boat between the two and ties off the bow on one of the remaining dock cleats. Picking up a shopping bag she’s stored beneath her seat, she walks across the bow and onto the dock and motions for us to follow.
When we reach the lawn, a man dressed in black, his face covered by a nylon stocking, steps out of an open screen door leading into the screened pool area of the house. He waves us toward him.
“We have him in the bedroom,” he says, pointing to another open door, this time leading into the house.
I put my hand out to Claudia and say, “The gun.”
She shakes her head and reaches into the shopping bag, rummaging for a few moments and producing two pairs of clear latex gloves. She hands me one pair and slips the other on herself. “Put yours on,” she says.
As I squeeze my hands into the gloves, she reaches into her purse and pulls out a small automatic. I put my hand out again and she hands it to me. It looks like a toy, but its weight surprises me. Holding it by its grip, my finger on the trigger, I pull back on the slide and chamber a round. “This is Toba’s Berretta, right?” I say, clicking the safety on, handing it back.

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