Born Into Love (32 page)

Chapter 20

The captain chose an emergency landing on the closest island.

Mercedes tightened her hold
on Diego’s hand. “Tell me the plan again. Hugh got it the first time, I didn’t.”

Diego kissed her temple. “I will go for the emergency door. Once opened, you and Hugh exit. Take nothing with you.”

“Sounds simple, but you haven’t fed.”

“There’ll be time to eat when we are safe. I want to check Hugh’s belt.” He tugged the steward’s strap and patted the young man on the shoulder then returned to her.

Hugh tried to stay upbeat. “Captain called a mayday. Somebody will be looking for us and the seat cushions float.”

Mercedes forced fear out of her voice. “But we should make the island, right?”

“Yes, ma’am, but if we should go into the water, there’s a chance the plane will float for a few minutes.”

“Look!” cried Mercedes.

Black smoke tracked the inside windows like fingers of death. So dense, that she immediately struggled to breathe. Masks deployed. She needed air. Desperate to get the mask fitted, her hands fumbled. Diego strapped the oxygen over her face. The plane dropped.

Diego yelled over the whine of the struggling engines. “Brace! Heads down.”

The wings shuddered. Cargo boxes tumbled from the overheads banging, bouncing against the sides, the seats, everything. She sucked in air too scared to think. The safety buckle dug into her waist. Diego placed his hand protectively over her head. Metal shrieked protesting stress it was never meant to handle.

She squeezed her eyes shut. The plane slammed into the ocean with a terrific roar. Her belt snapped driven by pressure and she went airborne. The guts of the plane blocked any passage, filling the aisles. Wires. Padding. The plane shuddered as it died. Hot air scorched her face. She tried to stand. Fumes burned her throat. She could barely see. What had happened to Diego?

Sunlight flickered through a narrow gash in the plane’s shell. Diego—almost swallowed by fetid dark smoke--ripped it open.

“Come to me now!” he shouted. “Hurry!”

She had to reach him and the light. “I. . .can’t.” She stood in thigh-high water rising fast.

“Mercedes!”

She heard a pop. Fire!

A strong arm dragged her through the dangling wires. Diego tossed her into the ocean away from the plane.

“Swim!”

Her teeth chattered and she sank. She pulled the cord and
shot to the surface. The ocean bit into her seared cheeks and swamped her nose and mouth. Coughing, she spit out what she could, swallowed the rest. Diego swam to her side. He shoved the galley counter toward her and pushed it below the surface and held it submerged.

“Quick! Climb on!”

She crawled aboard like a turtle in a cumbersome shell. He let go and a wave snapped him away.

She leaped after. Behind her rose a sucking sound. She focused on saving Diego. But she couldn’t dive because of the vest. She caught a glimpse of orange and shot her arm out catching the fabric of his lifejacket. The galley counter had followed her wake. She reached behind grasping the edge and watched in horror as the shredded plane nosedived. An abyss, she thought, it’s going into the abyss and so are we.

Battling shock, she tightened her hold on Diego’s vest. “Get on the counter!” she screamed.

But he couldn’t. His head lolled against his shoulder. She thought of the life she wanted with him and pulled straining until she cried out in pain. She maneuvered Diego’s head and shoulders up to her chin then lurched backward onto the counter. It seesawed in the persistent waves. She gripped the edge but didn’t have the strength to climb aboard. The tropical sun bore down as merciless as the ocean was indifferent.

Steam rose in white spirals from Diego’s face. Tiny fish, with barracuda heads nibbled his flesh as if he were beef. They nipped his legs and ankles. She swatted trying to chase them, but only succeeded in spreading the dark liquid oozing from his wounds. One fat creature latched onto her finger. She screamed and pried it off.

A flash of silvery white flickered then disappeared in the crests. She shifted her weight t
o fight the force of the waves and the counter shot away. Fish dodged in and out attacking Diego. A horn blasted. She sensed movement behind her.

“Relax, little girl. I got ya.” A thick arm ripped her away from Diego onto a deck.

“No! Save him!”

The man left her then reappeared. He dumped Diego next to her. “Gotcha all now.”

“But the others. . . ”

“Sorry. Ain’t no more.”

Mercedes burst into tears.

“You gonna be all right. That shark goin’ skip a meal.”

Mercedes didn’t look. She’d seen enough monsters for a lifetime. Pain shot up her leg and she wept for Hugh and the captain.

“I’m Buck and you jest bin rescued.” He handed her a ragged towel and pointed to Diego. “He git burnt?”

“Yes. Please, help me move him out of the sun.”

“I can do it myself.”

She guessed no one argued with Buck the Giant with biceps larger than a baked ham. The boat shifted under his weight but he moved his bulk like a trained athlete. He lifted her under the faded canopy with a twist of his wrist.

“Ain’t got nothin’ to drink but water. Want some?”

“Yes, please.”

Buck handed her a plastic bottle then strode to the console and gunned the engine.

“Where’re we going?

“My home base. It’s real close. I got to radio ahead. We got a clinic.”

The doctor shook his head. “He’s barely got a pulse. His veins have collapsed, can’t hold an IV.” He looked at Mercedes with regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry, miss. The most we can do is make him comfortable, give him oxygen.”

She stepped closer to the cot. Pain zigzagged up her leg. “May I stay with him?”

“Of course, but first you need to be examined. I see abrasions and burns and you’ve hurt your ankle.” A young nurse with soft brown eyes rushed in with a wheelchair and eased Mercedes into the seat.

In the examination room the doctor discovered more bruises from the seat belt and confirmed a sprained ankle. “Bone’s not broken so we’ll wrap it. Pain
will keep you from walking for a while.” He reached for the elasticized gauze. “You have other lacerations, some of them deep like the one over your breast.” He opened a metal cabinet. “I’m giving you antibiotics. We don’t want your injuries to turn septic.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

He bandaged her ankle and dressed the lacerations. “You can stay overnight at the clinic or at the small hotel near the harbor.”

“I’d prefer to stay here.”

“You’ll need clothes.”

“Yes, if that’s not too much trouble.”

He handed her two robes. “Tie one in back and the other in front. They’ll do the job.”

“Reminds me of the robes my sister had to wear in the hospital back home.”

He smiled.

“Doctor, does the clinic have a blood supply?”

“No.” He patted her arm. “Don’t worry. You don’t need a transfusion.”

“But my friend. . . .”

“He is gravely ill, too ill to be moved.”

Mercedes held back tears. “Does the clinic have a phone?”

“In my office. I’ll wheel you.”

She called Luz and then Annie—one call to save Diego and the other to reassure her sister she was safe.

Fearing that the cattle blood might not reach them in time, that Luz’s efforts would be in vain, Mercedes crawled into bed with Diego and placed her neck by his mouth. She waited. Diego stirred, but only to turn his face away.

In the morning, the blisters had worsened. Soon they would peel. The sweet-faced nurse entered the room on tiptoe clearly unfamiliar with death and grief.

“Miss, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m expecting a package. I want to wait at the entrance, but I can’t leave my friend. Will you watch for me?”

“Of course, I’ll bring it.”

The
shipment arrived from Long Island. Mercedes didn’t question its rapid arrival. Luz had her ways. Mercedes thanked the nurse and when the girl disappeared into the main office, Mercedes yanked the curtain around the bed, punctured the can with an opener she commandeered from a drawer in the kitchen and poured the blood onto Diego’s lips and into his mouth.

He choked.

She tried to lift him, but he was too heavy. She cranked the bed. His eyes opened.

The whites had yellowed. He gripped the can with both hands, his fangs ripping from his gums and drained the liquid.

She gave him a second feeding.

The monitors started to beep shattering the quiet. “The nurse’ll be coming. Lie down!” Mercedes hid the empties in a pocket on the side of the wheel chair and wiped Diego’s mouth with the hem of her robe.

The curtain snapped open. “What happened?” The girl gaped. “How? How did he do it?”

Diego stretched kicking the sheet to the side of the cot. His skin appeared blotchy but so improved that Mercedes had no idea how to explain it. “Where am I? What happened?”

The nurse rushed to Diego’s side and grabbed his wrist checking his pulse. “You’ve been ill. You were dying.”

He offered a laugh. “No wonder I feel so bad.”

“But your skin! It’s healing right in front of me!”

“It’s amazing,” Mercedes said. “It is healing rather fast.
Maybe he suffered an allergic reaction. A bite from some creature.”

Upon entering the room, the doctor froze at the base of the bed. His gaze flicked between the monitor and the patient. “I’ve. . . never. . . seen such a recovery. I want to check you.”

After many questions, to which Diego purported not to know the answers, the doctor released him. “It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Mercedes hunched her shoulders. “I think it had to be a bite.”

The nurse drove them to the dock where Buck waited, his boat’s engine on idle. Diego carried Mercedes aboard.

Buck raised sun-bleached bushy eyebrows. “You two lookin’ much better.”

Mercedes shook his hand. “Thanks to you and many others.”

As they pulled into the busy port of another island to make a connection, Buck slapped Diego on the back. “You be careful now. This little girl don’t need no more trouble.”

Diego nodded. “I will not let her down.”

The only charter available at the tiny airport was a twin-engine seaplane.

Mercedes laughed and leaned against the airline counter. “Perfect. Knowing it can land on water makes me feel much better about climbing aboard.”

“Let us think happy thoughts.”

“What’re we doing about Manuel?”

“The Peruvian government is looking for him and I’ll offer a reward.” Diego’s jaw tightened. “The suffering you experienced is a sample of what can happen if you stay with me.”

“I’m not changing my mind. We’re getting married.”

He scooped her in his arms and settled her in a red plastic airport chair. “I have some papers to sign at the counter.”

“Wait. I know they didn’t survive, but when the plane crashed, what happened to Hugh and the captain?”

“Debris killed Hugh. The captain died on impact. I should have explained. Neither drowned, if that is what you were thinking.”

“The captain’s skill saved us.”

“Yes.”

Mercedes blinked away tears. “Hugh was so young and the pilot so brave.”

“We will get them the justice they deserve.”

Her ankle throbbed and her cheek itched. “When will danger strike next?”

“When we least expect it.”

Chapter 21

Luz folded her arms across her chest. The thick silver bracelets that covered her wrists jangled willfully. “Master, now that you’ve rested, I must say something.”

“I am listening.”

“I told you bad things would happen.”

“You were mistaken about Mercedes. She caused no problems. She saved my life as you have done. Your neighbor stood up to the jungle better than I.”

Luz nodded in that annoying way she developed during the sixties when she had a raised consciousness and knew everything. In my absence she had tinted her hair cherry red. Gone were the tufts. A small mercy. Now her short hair formed a cap on her head.

She pouted. “I’m not clairvoyant, okay? I issued a warning. Best I could do.”

“I understand that you tried to help. I am grateful for your effort.”

“Master, you spent lifetimes in South America. You should have recognized the fruit. Of course the roots are poison.”

“I was not on a nature walk.” Her eyes misted and he reproached himself for being too harsh. Sometimes even a vampire had to admit he was wrong. “I am sorry.”

“Apology accepted. What do you think Teodoro meant when he said his plan would be a good joke on you?”