The Dragon DelaSangre

Chapter 1

Since Mother's lonely demise on an and isle beyond the Gulfstream, Father and I have lived alone. He sleeps most of the time now. The years have caught him in their grip and, during those brief times when he's awake, he's become quite fond of repeating that death lurks beyond each labored breath he takes.

I never detect any sorrow in those declarations. Father has lived long enough to savor whatever he wished. When death comes, he'll surely embrace it.

Dignity is all I wish for him. He's always admired those who fought for the joy they found in life. "And I've always regretted the necessity of their deaths," Father's often said. "Even in defeat, the brave ones surrendered only their bodies. "

But no matter how calm Father's death, no matter how well received its arrival-I fear the loneliness that will follow. "Don't despair," he reassures me. "There are still others. One day you will find a woman of the blood, just as I found your mother."

But each year passes without such fortune. Father can doze and dream his memories. I can only wish for my future.

Ours is a large house, made from coral stone. It sits on an island-a small spit of sand stuck between Miami's Biscayne Bay and the great blue wideness of the Atlantic Ocean. As much as I love the salt smell and ocean song that fills the air each day, I dread the thought of a lonely future spent roaming the cool stone corridors, from empty room to empty room.

We've owned this island, Caya DelaSangre, or Blood Key, since Philip II, the king of Spain, granted it to my family in exchange for gold, services rendered and the promise of Don Henri DelaSangra to never return to any portion of Europe. When first deeded to our family in 1589, the island measured eleven acres long and five acres wide. But over the years, wind, tide and storm have eroded our homestead, just as our family has diminished under the weight of time. My inheritance has worn away to no more than nine acres of dry land. Truth is, I wouldn't trade them for ninety anywhere else. My mother gave birth to me here. I grew up in the house Don Henri himself built.

Without a bride of my own, without children, I admit it's an empty kingdom to rule. Still, I pity those poor souls on the mainland who move every few years, from house to house, without any connection to their land, without any sense of their history or their responsibility to it.

The other night Father awoke and grew nostalgic. "Remember when you were a boy," Father wheezed and coughed, "how you loved to play soldier?"

I nodded.

"You'd go out on the veranda, climb on its coral parapet and point to the sea-shouting that pirates were coming to attack. Then you'd run, seeking pretend enemies, circling the house until you finally stopped by one of the gun ports cut into the coral and…"

"And I'd beg you to move the cannon into position," I said.

Father chuckled. "Your mother always hated that I kept a few of the old ship killers. When I'd fire one for you, she'd be mad for weeks. She always worried we'd be heard. She never believed we were far enough from land for the noise to go unnoticed."

It was a wonderful place for a boy to grow up… even a strange child like I was. I still like to stand in the great room on the third floor of our coral-stone house and overlook it all, like a captain viewing his ship from the top deck. Usually I dine alone each night at the massive oak table in the middle of that room, Father asleep, rumbling and turning with his dreams in the room below.

From my seat I can survey all the approaches to our island home. To my right, a large multipaned window faces the endless waves of the Atlantic Ocean. To my left, three smaller windows look out across the pale blue width of Biscayne Bay to the South Miami skyline on the horizon. In front of me, two other windows view the swift current flowing through the narrow channel separating us from the bird sanctuary on Wayward Key. And behind me, yet another window overlooks the mile-wide channel between our small island and the green tree-covered spits of land called the Ragged Keys.

When the windows are open, no matter which direction the wind blows, it washes through the room like an unending wave. Always the house smells of sea salt and ocean damp. Always every outside noise washes through too. Only birds and fish can visit our island and escape notice. Don Henri planned it that way when he built this house.

Tonight I choose to dine out far from our home, away from the endless waves and restless breezes that worry at our tiny island. I land our motorboat, a twenty-seven-foot Grady White, at our slip behind Monty's restaurant in Coconut Grove. It's been almost a week since I've come ashore.

I walk down the dock, ignoring the blare of reggae music and the smells of fried fish and spilt beer that always seem to fill the air around Monty's thatch-roofed outdoor patio. Just past the restaurant's parking lot, I pause for the light, and glance across South Bayshore Drive to the green-and-beige concrete tower on the left-the Monroe building-where LaMar Associates, my family's business, keeps its offices.

While I've little interest in the daily functions of the company, I find it difficult to pass the building without giving it at least a cursory glance. After all it houses the company Don Henri founded to manage and grow our wealth.

Studying the office building's sparse, utilitarian lines, I wonder, as I often do, why anyone would pay an architect to fashion such an ungraceful edifice. Just to the south of it, workers swarm around the skeleton of another, taller tower, one probably just as sterile in design.

I curl my lip. I can remember a time when Coconut Grove was a simple bayside village, when a five-story building would have dwarfed everything in the area. Now concrete towers line South Bayshore Drive, the well-designed ones crowded and eclipsed by their inferiors.

Unfortunately I have to give myself part of the blame. My family's corporation probably has some money invested in every building in sight.

A shiny black Mercedes coupe sits parked on the street in front of the concrete tower. I recognize it as belonging to Jeremy Tindall, my family's attorney and the comanager of LaMar Associates. Frowning, I wonder why he's chosen to work late. It's unlike Jeremy to show such initiative.

I toy with the impulse to go upstairs and pay him a surprise visit. But I have little desire to confront him tonight. Knowing Jeremy as I do, I never doubt whether he's plotting against me, looking for new ways to divert some of my family's considerable wealth. Only the vigilance of his comanager, Arturo Gomez, and the threat of my family's power keep him in check.

A long time ago I asked Father why he tolerated such an employee. He sighed. "Great wealth always results in great temptation and great temptation invariably destroys honor. If I could, I'd do without them all," he said. "But if you have to have employees, it's better to know one is a thief than be surprised by it. I've found in my long life that the only men who could do great damage to me were the ones I trusted.

"At least with Tindall, I know what I have. I can rely on him to behave in certain ways and because of that, I can control him. But I would never trust him or any of the others, not even Gomez. And you shouldn't either."

I make a mental note to call Gomez in the morning, warn him to be more vigilant, and then I turn my attention to the bustle of the cars, the rush of people going about their business, celebrating another evening in the Grove.

As I cross the street, passing the office buildings, I smile. I've missed the feel of concrete and asphalt under my feet. As the neighborhood turns more residential and I walk past the manicured lawns and the towering trees that fill each yard, I take deep breaths, smell the richness of the vegetation, the sharp tang of newly cut grass and I relax-thinking only of the evening before me.

Detardo's Steakhouse sits on the corner of 27th Avenue and 12th, a good two-mile hike from the bay. Once fashionable, the area's on the wrong side of U.S. I now, almost hidden beneath the concrete columns that shoulder the weight of the elevated Metrorail tracks. Only the restaurant's legendary gargantuan steaks at picayune prices continue to lure patrons.

People still come, even though they have to park their oversize luxury cars in an unguarded lot, illuminated by a few murky yellow security lights. They scurry past the dozens of winos who spend their evenings lurking nearby, hidden behind the bushes and crouching in the shadows.

Max Leiber nods to me when I enter, motions me past the waiting crowd. "Mr. DelaSangre," he says, winking a wrinkled eyelid, "the table you reserved is waiting."

The ancient maltre d' grasps my right elbow with his bony hand and guides me to a small table in a dimly lit alcove. "You always seem to stay so young," he says as he hands me a menu he knows I won't use and lights a small table candle I don't need. "I wish I knew your secret."

I smile in return, hand him the twenty-dollar bill he's come to expect. "Remind the chef how I like my food prepared," I say, wishing him gone. He smells of age gone bad, weakened bladder and stale cigarettes.

"Maria will be your server. Just give her your order. I'll make sure the chef takes extra care with it." He rushes off to calm his waiting throng.

Everywhere people consume meat. The aroma almost overpowers me. I can close my eyes and still point to which tables have pork or fowl or beef-and where the rarest meat is puddling blood on its plate.

Maria looks almost too young to be waiting tables, a slightly plump girl with wide, strong hips and bright black eyes. She is in her menses. The smell of it floods my mouth with saliva. I have to swallow before I speak.

"I'll have a twenty-four-ounce Porterhouse steak, blood rare. Tell the chef it's for Mr, DelaSangre-he'll know how I want it."

She stares at me, asks what else I want-salad, potatoes?

I shake my head.

Still, she stares.

My own fault really. Father has laughed many times at my vanity. Like all of my people, I'm taller than most men. My muscles strain against my clothes, especially at the shoulders and neck. But where Father's face is angular-his nose, long and sharp, his lips, thin and cruel-my features are softer, more middle-American.

"Your eyes," she says.

I grin at her.

"I've never seen such green eyes… like emeralds."

"They run in my family," I tell her. It's true. There's much about ourselves we can change, but no one of the blood has ever been able to conceal their eyes. In the old days that's how they would find us. Thankfully, such knowledge has long been lost.

Maria lingers at the table. "If everyone else in your family looks like you…" she coos, then blushes and rushes off to place my order.

I grin again. I can hear Father saying, "It's your damn ego, calling attention to yourself."

Father will never understand. He was born well before this time. To him, all human forms are equally unpleasant. "You might as well admire cattle.'" he says anytime I remark at a human's beauty. But I'm young enough to have been shaped by the movies and later, television. It's only natural for someone like me-brought up in a world where appearances matter more than reality-to choose to improve his looks.

Father laughed most, when, after viewing Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, I decided to have a cleft chin. For a creature who can change form at will, something like a cleft chin is a moment's thought-as are all the other shapings I've done. What Maria sees as she bustles around my table is merely an amalgam of years of watching movie heroes.

The steak tastes almost cool to my tongue, thick with its own juices, redolent with blood. I force myself to cut each piece small and eat at a measured pace. Even so, I finish before Maria comes back to check my table.

She eyes my empty plate, cocks one eyebrow. "I guess everything was okay, huh?"

I nod, smile and order a coffee, black. She returns the grin, lingers, as if she's going to say something, then blushes and rushes off.

There's no doubt she's available but my stomach's full. All I want to do is slouch in my chair and enjoy the warmth of the room.

My eyes are half closed when she returns-my thoughts far away. I smell the coffee and something else. An edge of nervous perspiration and a hint of sexual excitement now spike her aroma. Before she speaks, I know what she'll offer.

She hands me the check and another piece of paper. "My number," she says. "I get off by eleven most nights. I don't live far from here so I'm home by midnight at the latest." She grins. "I live alone, so don't worry if you have to call late."

I return her smile, carefully fold her note and place it in my pocket. "My name's Peter," I say. Tonight would not be a good time to take her. But in a few weeks, before she's forgotten me… "Things are difficult now"-I stare into her eyes-"but as soon as I can, I'll call."

Our hands brush when I pay the bill. The warmth of her tempts me. I resist the urge to make plans for later. Too dangerous. As Father always says, what is good will be better later.

Outside, the air smells of night jasmine and car exhaust. Stars crowd a black sky nearly devoid of clouds. Only a yellow sliver of moon breaks the darkness. I wish there was some place to lie down nearby. At home we doze after large meals. I sigh, fight the languor seizing my body and take slow steps away from the restaurant.

The shadows shift at the edge of the parking lot as a man walks out from behind the bushes. "Hey friend," he says, "can you spare a poor guy a few bucks?"

My nose wrinkles. He smells of alcohol, filth and decay. I shake my head and walk on.

"Just a dollar or two…" The man blocks my path. His height almost matches mine and he's quite a bit wider. He holds his right hand clenched at his side.

I grin at him. "I suggest you move out of the way." It's only fair, I think, to give the man a chance.

His eyes go hard. "Hey, mister. I asked nice." A metallic click punctuates his words and he shows the switchblade now extended in his right hand. "Now why don't you make things easy and hand me your money."

My heart speeds up and I laugh at the sweetness of the sensation. I'm aware of every drop of blood, every organ, every cell of my body. This threat calls for only a small response and I cup my right hand in my left so it's hidden from the wino's view.

In an instant, I adjust my right index finger-the stretching of skin, the elongation of bone and nail sending a small thrill of pain-laced pleasure up my arm.

Darting forward, I jab out, rake his forehead with the one talon, backing up before he can see just what has injured him.

The man's face fogs with confusion. He gasps, and staggers back as blood wells from the gash and runs down his forehead. "He cut me!" he yells to his friends in the bushes. "He cut me!"

I laugh again, push him out of my way and walk on. Already my finger has shaped back. A small fleck of his blood remains on my fingernail. I sniff it, recoil at its smell and wipe my finger clean on the leaf of a nearby bush. The man's body is riddled with drugs and alcohol.

I'd rather eat offal.

The wind has risen with the night and, across the bay, waves jump in sympathy. No challenge at all for the deep-vee hull of my Grady White. Twin two-hundred horsepower Yamahas thunder from the stern as the boat dances from white crest to white crest.

The night is too black for most men's eyes, the water and wind rough enough to keep most boats in port. But I know there will always be a few fishermen too foolish to stay at home. "It's time to fly!" I shout into the night wind. "Time to hunt!"

The mugger has roused me from my languor; my stomach's no longer so full. It's one of the limitations my people have. Changing takes energy. Even such a simple adjustment as I used in my defense burned as many calories as running several hundred feet.

But no matter, I think… before dawn, Father and I will feast better than we have in months. Father will be glad. He's complained for weeks about the lack of fresh meat.

A pale light bobs in the water a few miles to the south of Blood Key. I kill my navigational lights, turn the Grady White and race toward it.

Their boat is anchored just north of Boca Chita Key. I approach close enough to make out the size of it, the dark shapes of two men hunched over their rods. The boat can't measure more than fourteen feet. The men constantly have to adjust their positions to cope with the pitching of their small craft.

I wonder at the wisdom of spending such a rough evening in such a puny craft for the dubious pleasure of hooking a few fish by the mouth. But I'm glad they have. If theirs was a larger, more expensive boat, I would have to bypass them. It's one of Father's rules. He has many when it comes to humans. "Never take rich ones, if you can avoid it. Their absence never goes unnoticed. The poorer the prey, the less likely the chance of retribution."

Intent as the two men are on their fishing and as loud as the wind and water are, I doubt they have any sense of my proximity. One brings in a fish, rebaits his hook and casts again. Good, I think, they have the look of men committed to a long night of fishing. I turn away and rush for home. When I return, it will be a simple thing, both to take them and to upend their craft so they will look as if they were lost to the sea.

The island is a black presence silhouetted against a darker sea and sky. I maneuver the turns of the channel at full speed, caroming from wave to wave, missing the sharp rocks below by inches. There are no markers, no buoys to show the way. No matter. I know it as well as I know my name.

"Father!" I mindspeak. "Wake up! It's time for a hunt!"

I have to repeat myself four times before he answers. "And about time too," he says. "Will you bring me a young one?"

"You know better than that," I say.

I can sense his disappointment, even though I'm still hundreds of yards from shore. It's an old disagreement. No matter how sweet they may be, I refuse to take children. Just like so many on the mainland refuse to eat veal, I insist on my preferences.

Father snorts at the thought of it. "You are what you are," he says. "When will you accept that?"

"You didn't grow up with them. You didn't go to their schools."

"We only do what we must." Father sighs. "We're no different from the lions that roam the Serengeti. We just happen to favor the taste of man."

"That doesn't mean I have to eat their young," I say.

"Don't forget. We were rulers of great kingdoms once, slayers of thousands," Father says, "Ours is a history older than the age of magic-"

I've heard this lecture all my life. I interrupt, and parrot back the words he's spoken to me so many times before, "Had we slain a thousand times more of them, we still couldn't have stemmed the explosive growth of humanity. And no matter how strong our power, no matter how long we lived, we were never numerous enough."

"Quiet!" Father says. "Don't bother me anymore until you have something to bring me."

I grin at his dismissal, guide the boat into the narrow channel that slices into our island and then empties into a . round lagoon-the two together looking uncannily like a keyhole from the air.

As soon as I tie off the Grady White's dock lines, I strip off my clothes, leaving them piled on the dock. I stand for a few moments and let the night wind caress me, play with my hair. I hold up my hand before me and marvel at its softness, the frailty of the human form.

How such weak beings could ever end up ruling the earth still amazes me. Any one of my ancestors could kill hundreds of them in a single skirmish. But, I know, as Father taught me, once the first of us was brought down in battle, mankind lost its fear of us. So what that it might take a thousand men to kill one of ours? There were always thousands more to try.

"In the end," Father said, "by the time of the beginning of written history, only a few dozen of our families were left. They learned how to survive in secret and became changelings and night slayers. They called themselves 'People of the Blood.' Mankind called them 'Dragons.'"

I draw in a deep breath of the salt-tinged night air, let out a slow growl as I will my body to change. Welcoming the pain, the almost pleasure that comes with it, I twist and stretch-my skin tightening, turning to armored scales, my torso lengthening and thickening until I'm more than twice as large as my human form.

My back swells, then splits to allow my wings to unfold. Taloned claws replace hands and feet. Fangs replace teeth. A powerful tail grows behind me.

My heart hammers out each beat. My lungs pump great quantities of air. Saliva fills my mouth. I think only of the hunt to come. The excitement of it, the memory of the taste of fresh prey overwhelms the possibility of any other thoughts.

I stand on my hindquarters, spread my wings to full length and block the wind with their strength. Opening and closing my claws, sweeping my tail from side to side, I run forward, take to the air with a few mighty beats of my wings.

The small boat still bobs in place near Boca Chita Key, the two men hunched over their fishing rods. I circle far above them, letting the winds keep me aloft while I watch and wait.

One of the men yanks on his rod, stands as he tries to reel in a fish, the rod almost doubling over, the boat pitching and yawing as the fisherman moves. The other man puts down his rod and shifts his position to compensate for his friend's activities.

I spiral down, gathering speed as I near the water, zooming forward just above the wave tops, rushing toward the boat from the rear, the wind whistling around me, salt spray coating my scales.

Intent on the battle with the fish, neither man seems to notice my approach. Unwilling to leave behind a bloody boat, I land just behind them so the impact and my weight upset the craft.

I take to the air again as the boat flips, the fisherman dropping his rod, both men shouting as they fall into the water.

Once again I circle above them. I wait until one man attempts to climb up on the boat's overturned hull. I spiral down toward him, snatching him with a clawed foot, slicing his throat with the slash of the other, carrying his still body to Boca Chita's abandoned beach.

I place the body on the sand, pause as the rich aroma of the dead man's fresh blood fills the air around him. I know I should return to the hunt immediately, find the other man before he works out a way to escape, but my stomach convulses with hunger. Lowering my head, I rip a chunk of meat from the body with my teeth and gulp it down.

It only takes the edge off my hunger. I'm tempted to continue feeding, but I know only too well the scolding Father will give me if I bring him a half-eaten carcass. I take to the air again.

I find the other fisherman far from the overturned boat, swimming toward Boca Chita Key. The man uses such clumsy strokes, flailing as he moves through the waves, that I'm amazed at the progress he's made. Circling over him, I admire his persistence, and wonder if he saw me strike his friend. If he didn't, if he never saw me, I think, I could let him go. After all, Father and I could have a perfectly ample meal with just one of them.

But I know I can't chance this one's survival.

I sigh, fold my wings and dive toward him. Leveling out at the last moment, I grab his shoulders with my rear claws, yank him from the water and carry him into the air. He screams, kicks and struggles, fights my grasp even as I dig my talons into him.

Beating my wings to gain altitude, I continue climbing until the water lies far beneath me. I wait until the man shouts again, then release him-the man still wailing and kicking as he falls. A great blossom of white foam and seawater splashes skyward when he strikes the ocean's surface and I spiral down after him.

I find him floating facedown. From the height I released him, the water couldn't have provided much more cushion than concrete. Still he surprises me by gasping for air as I fish his still form from the sea. Holding him with front and rear talons, I seize the back of his neck with my mouth, close my jaws and crush out whatever life remains for him with a single bite.

"Father," I mindspeak as I fly to the beach to recover the other man.

"Peter? Have you returned already?"

"Not quite yet, Father. But I will in a few minutes… with fresh prey-two of them."

"There was a time I was the one to bring you fresh prey."

"It's my turn now, Father. It's your turn to relax."

"I was powerful once. You should have seen me then."

"I did, Father. I was in awe of you."

"You'll feed with me tonight?"

"Of course."

"I wish your mother could see how well you've turned out."

"I do too, Father," I mindspeak. "I do too."