The Dragon DelaSangre

Chapter 19

When I was much younger, I once asked my father why our people, who had the ability to shift our bodies into other shapes, were so locked in to our male and female identities. Couldn't we eliminate the need for opposing sexes and give ourselves a form capable of bringing its offspring into the world by its own solitary endeavors?

Father chuckled before he replied. "I suppose it could be possible, but it would be a dull world, " he said. "We already have so much power. We take what we want, feed when we wish. We have little reason to fear other beings. If we didn't have to confront the uncertainty and aggravation of romance, the constant ebb and flow of our relationships, how could we possibly avoid boredom?"

Life with Elizabeth is anything but dull. She rarely wakes before noon. But once she arises, she amazes me by managing to be in constant motion, sometimes gardening, other times roaming around the island or the house, borrowing the boat to race across the water, insisting on hunting each evening, demanding we make love afterward before we sleep.

Keeping her entertained remains a constant challenge. "Watching humans on TV only makes me hungry," she says. Elizabeth cares little for the books I read or the recordings of Mozart, Handel and Bach that I play. She dismisses all of it as "Human foolishness." But human-made goods, especially clothes, fascinate her and she asks me almost every day to take her to the mainland to go shopping.

Still busy getting the island in shape after my long absence, I try to channel her energy in more practical ways but, except for her garden, she remains aloof from all household chores. When I request her help in any type of housekeeping she sniffs, shakes her head and dismisses it by saying, "That's slave work," and punishes me with her silence.

By the time Arturo visits the island to return Elizabeth's necklace, almost a week after our confrontation with Jorge Santos, I welcome his presence. The Latin beams as he steps onto my dock and I greet him as if he were a long-missed, cherished friend. Elizabeth-also glad for the break in our solitary lifestyle, I suppose-joins us at the dock and acknowledges Gomez's presence with a smile before she takes the gold chain from his hands and fastens it around her neck. She stays by my side and listens as we begin to discuss Santos.

"All the man did was shrug when I showed him the receipt from Mayer's," Arturo tells me, handing me the receipt I told him to acquire. "I doubt he's convinced of anything."

"All the more reason for your associates to keep a watch on him and his girlfriend," I say.

Arturo grins. "They already are. The day after our meeting, Casey Morgan tried to sell her editor a story on your family and its businesses." He chuckles. "As soon as I heard about it, I called and had a long talk with the man. He turned her down. A few days later, he called to tell me he had her transferred to their Fort Lauderdale office, to write for the local news section up there."

"What about Santos?" Elizabeth asks. "Can't we arrange the same sort of thing for him?"

"It's not as easy," Arturo says. "He's a bartender at Joe's. I have enough influence to get a table there when I want. But I certainly can't get him transferred. We have to wait to see what he does and act when he gives us the right opportunity."

"And the white speedboat?" I ask.

"My people told me one was reported stolen from the Miami Beach Marina a few days before the shooting. It turned up, abandoned, in Eleuthra."

"And?"

Arturo holds up his hands and shrugs. "And that's all they know. I'd like to say it was Santos but this looks like it was contracted. I don't think he has the resources."

I nod agreement. "Under any circumstance, I don't think he'd want to let anyone else do it."

"True," Arturo says. "Which means we probably have another problem."

"I think so too." I smile, then say in half-jest, "You better get more of your people looking into it before I start to think it's you."

Arturo doesn't smile back.

Elizabeth's busy arguing with me about cars, neither of us thinking about the shooting or Santos, when we arrive at the dock at Monty's the next afternoon. "If we're so rich," she asks as we wait by the restaurant's valet stand for a taxi, "why don't we own our own cars?"

I shake my head, thinking of the dozens of times my father had lectured me about lack of necessity for car ownership and the waste of owning one. "We live on an island," I say. "We need to own a boat. But for the few times a month we come to land, it makes far more sense to hire a taxi."

Elizabeth grins. "We're rich," she says. "We don't have to make sense."

She looks off, frowns as I begin to explain if we used a taxi every single day for two years, it would still be cheaper than any car we'd choose to buy. She doesn't answer when I finish and I ask, "Are you listening?"

"Peter, look in the public parking lot across the street," she mindspeaks.

I follow her gaze, see nothing but cars. "What?" I say.

"In the row by the water, next to the tall palm tree."

The green MGB, parked in position to observe both our boat slip and Monty's parking lot, means nothing to me until the driver sitting behind the wheel grins and waves. Not wishing to let him think he can intimidate me, I smile and wave back to Jorge Santos.

Elizabeth continues to pester me about cars. I finally give in when we pass by a red Corvette in Monty's parking lot and she stops and says, "I'm not moving until you promise to buy me one of these."

To Arturo's dismay, I purchase a silver Mercedes sedan for me too. He frowns, and says, "I don't see why you need any car let alone two."

"With Elizabeth, it's easier to give her what she wants than to argue about it," I say. "Besides you should have seen her face when we bought the Corvette."

Arturo shakes his head. "All you two do is shop. You're spending more money faster than Don Henri ever did." But he arranges for the cars to be kept and maintained in Monty's private parking lot, just next to the valet stand.

At Elizabeth's insistence we begin to come to shore more often-both for her to shop and to drive her car around town. Not a day passes that we don't arrive to find Santos's green MGB parked in the free lot near the docks, the man watching our comings and goings.

Finally, I complain about it to Arturo. "You should have told me sooner," he says.

The next morning, as soon as Jorge Santos pulls into Monty's lot, two Miami police cars cut him off. Arturo has trouble stopping laughing as he tells me about it. "I watched from my office window," he says. "The cops yanked him out of the car, made him breathe in their machine-even though he was completely sober-and then arrested him for driving under the influence." He stops to laugh again."They threw him in the drunk tank. They promised me they won't let him arrange for bail for at least a couple of more days."

The next day Elizabeth and I come to shore for another day of shopping, this time at the ritzy stores at Bal Harbour Shoppes. We arrive back at the docks in the afternoon. Relieved to see no sign of the green MGB, I say, "Look, our friend's still missing. I wonder when they'll let him out?"

"Never, I hope," Elizabeth snarls.

She takes the helm of the Grady White, turns the key in the ignition while I stow her packages from Gucci, Saks and Lord and Taylor in the cabin. The Yamahas cough to life without the slightest hesitation.

I undo the dock lines, settle into the companion seat next to my bride. By now, when it comes to handling boats, I trust Elizabeth as much as I do myself. Relying on her to pilot us home, I close my eyes and prepare to allow the fresh air and the rolling motion of the boat to lull me into an afternoon nap.

"Peter!" she says, about halfway across the bay, the brittle tone of her voice jolting me awake.

"What?"

"Something's wrong. The boat's not handling properly."

Still groggy, I check, listening to the Yamahas' drone. "The motors sound okay."

"But we're slowing… the steering feels strange…"

I take over the wheel, turn it slightly to the right. After a slight pause, the boat reacts to my touch, heeling more than I would have expected from such a slight move. We hit a small wave and plow through it, the boat shuddering, rather than cleanly slicing the water. I push the throttles forward and the engines rev but, instead of leaping forward, the Grady White only slowly increases its speed.

"You're right," I say, cutting back on the throttles. "We're riding lower in the water than we should." The boat settles into the water, wallows as we slow, the bow dropping lower than the rest. I check the depth finder, find it reads eighteen feet.

Opening the cabin hatch, I shake my head when I find what I expect to see. Water everywhere-seat cushions, Elizabeth's packages floating, ruined. "We're taking on water," I say. "Something's leaking, somewhere."

"What do we do?" my bride asks.

"Worse comes to worse, we'll take a long swim. Still I'd rather not sink in the deepest section of the bay." I take the wheel, throw the throttles forward, my anger growing at the boat's sluggish response, the water rushing back as we speed forward, weighing down the stern, slowing our movement. I turn us toward shore, hope we arrive at the dock before we sink low enough to stall the engines.

I have Elizabeth call Arturo on my cell phone, arrange to have him speed out to meet us on the water, somewhere before we reach shore.

By the time the yellow Seatow boat approaches us, we're already close enough to make out the large green marker of the marina's main channel. The Grady White has sunk low enough that saltwater reaches up to our ankles in the cockpit. Arturo, still in his suit, stands next to the rescue boat's helmsman, waves with one hand while he dials a cell phone with the other.

Our phone rings and Elizabeth answers, listens. "They want you to cut the engines and let them come aside and pick us up," she says.

She frowns when I shake my head. "They say we're too low in the water to keep going…"

I push the throttles further forward, aim the Grady White for the channel to Monty's a few hundred yards to the north. "Tell them to follow us. If we sink, they can pick us up."

We make it as far as the pine-covered spoil islands on the perimeter of the marina before I'm willing to concede defeat. "Brace yourself!" I tell Elizabeth and steer the craft toward the sandy shore of the northernmost island, shuddering at the yowl of the Yamahas as they collide with the bottom and tilt back from the impact, wincing at the scream of sand tearing at the hull bottom-even before we reach the beach-furious that my boat has to be treated this way. The Grady White slams to a stop, its bow dug into the sand, water rushing forward from the cockpit, then sloshing back.

I cut the engines and silence overtakes us, interrupted only by the whisper of the seawind through the pine trees and the growl of the Seatow's engines as it approaches us.

"Are you all right?" Arturo yells.

"No," I say. "After you get us to shore, you damn well better get someone to bring my boat in and I damn well better be told, damn soon, what the hell happened to my boat!"

Arturo brings the Grady White back to my island two days later. I meet him at the dock. "I thought I'd save you the bother," he says, and nods his head toward the twenty-five-foot Wellcraft tied nearby. "I'll take the rental back for you."

I say nothing, even though I'm glad to have my own boat again, glad not to have to endure a lesser craft.

"I don't know what they were thinking," he says.

Cocking an eyebrow, I ask, "Who?"

He shrugs. "We don't know yet but whoever it was certainly didn't wish you well. They reversed both your bilge pumps and opened the seacock to your head. If a plastic bag hadn't been sucked up by the intake and blocked the seacock, you would have sunk far before shore."

"Saved by litter," I say, and can't help grinning.

Arturo grins too, then turns solemn. "It could just as easily have been a bomb."

"Santos?" I ask.

"I don't think so. He just made bail yesterday. We both know where he was before that."

"Then who?"

"My people are checking."

"Your people are always checking," I growl.

Arturo sighs. "Be patient, Peter. These things take time. Just be careful in the meantime. Check your boat and cars before you use them. I'll have my people watch them but, until we get this resolved, you have to take care too."

To my relief, my bride agrees to cut back on her landside shopping trips. Our life as a couple settles into a comfortable pattern. Elizabeth turns her attention to her garden, which prospers under her renewed and constant ministry. Within weeks, new plants-many of them strange, brightly colored ones I've never seen-begin to crowd the formerly empty earth. The Dragon's Tear and other herbs become so numerous that she has to harvest her first crop.

Most of the time I go about the necessary chores to keep up the maintenance of our household while Elizabeth divides her free time between the garden and the kitchen, planting and weeding in the former, processing herbs and potions in the latter. Sometimes I work in the garden alongside my bride, brushing against her, both of us smiling, enjoying the intimacy of quietly sharing the same tasks. She never mentions Jorge Santos's name and, while he remains in my thoughts, neither do I.

"I've just brewed my first pitcher of Dragon's Tear wine," Elizabeth tells me a few evenings after her first harvest, just before we're to venture forth for our nightly hunt, both of us already in our natural forms. "Here," she says, placing a blue ceramic pitcher and two large crystal mugs on the oak table in the great room. She pours the clear liquid into the mugs. "Let's try it."

I recognize the pitcher as one of my mother's and wonder if she used it for the same purpose. I pick up my mug, sniff the colorless liquid, then swirl it. It gives off no smell. Looks like simple tapwater. "Should we, before we go out?" I ask.

Elizabeth nods. "Just remember, never drink this in your human form."

"Why?"

"In that form you have no defense against its power. It will stun you the same way it stupefies them, " she says, and waits for me to drink first.

I have a hard time believing it can affect anyone. The wine looks harmless, tastes as featureless as it appears. I drink two large swallows and then glance at Elizabeth. "It tastes like water, maybe a little thicker, a little greasy.…"

She laughs, drains her mug with one long, sustained swallow. "Finish yours and then tell me what you think," she says.

I shrug and follow her example. The warmth follows a moment later, radiating from my insides, tingling its way to my extremities. For a moment I feel dizzy. I have to readjust my stance, brace on my tail, to remain upright.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Elizabeth asks, moving closer, rubbing against me with her body, her tail.

My senses explode wherever she touches. I feel nothing like on my wedding night when Dragon's Tear wine, mixed with Death's Rose and alchemist powders, enabled us to merge our minds, but I find myself unable to stop grinning and unwilling to defer any of my appetites.

We begin to make love in the great room, let our passion take us from its floor to the sky outside, soaring upward until we consummate our union in the midst of a long dive toward the sea. Then we fly, side by side, in search of prey, the Dragon's Tear wine still warming our insides, making us hungry. I guide us offshore, thinking to take us to the island of Bimini, only sixty miles away.

Elizabeth, who has long complained about my insistence on our hunting over the waters, preferably far from home, asks again, "Why fly so long for food when there's so much prey nearby?"

"Father always insisted we do most of our hunting far away from our island," I say. "Even if we weren't spotted, too many missing people would make the humans too suspicious, too wary. Cuba and the Bahamas lie close enough and their people remain primitive enough to dismiss our acts with their superstitions."

But Elizabeth turns back toward land. "I'm hungry," she says. "It won't do any harm to feed close to home this one night."

"I don't like the homeless ones. It takes months holding them in the cells, feeding them, to make them edible," I say.

"Isn't there somewhere out of the way? Where we can find what we want now?"

Warm and content, my hunger a pleasant rumble in my stomach, I sigh, wishing she didn't have to puncture my mood. But either the wine or her enthusiasm makes me reckless. I guide us south, so we can approach the agricultural area west of Homestead from the Everglades.

By the time I decide on a white, two-story farmhouse, acres away from any other dwelling, I'm as ravenous as my bride. We burst through their windows, go from room to room, slashing, killing. I feed on the father, while Elizabeth feeds on the three small children and the mother.

We dispose of their remains over the ocean before we return home. Later, lying in each other's embrace on the hay in my room, the wine still coursing in our veins, we make love again.

News reports flash the missing family's pictures on the TV the next day and for days afterward. I have to turn away each time they show the children.