Dragon Moon (28 page)

We drive out of town, Marcia and Barry talking non-stop, neither even asking what our names are.

“I'm telling you, as soon as we left Miami, I got sea-sick. We haven't been out of our room the whole time. I don't even know where our dinner table is,” Marcia says.

“It's okay, Marcia. You're better now,” Barry says.

“There's a road over there,”
Chloe mindspeaks. I look up ahead, at a dirt road to the right, just past a run-down shack, three half-naked children playing in its overgrown front yard.

I nod, say,
“Take it.”

“Look at that,” Marcia says. “How can these people live like that?”

A handmade sign says, WHITE RIVER, with an arrow pointing to the road. “We're almost there,” Chloe says out loud, turning onto the dirt road, the Land Rover sending up a cloud of brown dust behind it.

Marcia and Barry complain about the road's condition, the jungle desolation we drive through. Neither Chloe nor I speak until we come to a small clearing by the river's bank. My bride pulls into the clearing, turns off the ignition. “We're here,” she says and gets out of the car.

Marcia and Barry look around. “Where?” Barry says.

I open my door, get out. “It will be cooler for you if you get out while you wait,” I say.

The man and woman both get out slowly. “This is the middle of nowhere,” Marcia says.

Chloe gives her a sympathetic smile and walks over to her. “True,” my bride says, changing the shape of one finger, slitting Marcia's throat with a quick slash, grabbing the woman by her hair, holding her so no blood stains her clothes.

“No!” Barry shouts. Before he can move, I grab him by the neck and hold him in place as I strangle the life from him. After he goes limp, I lay him on the ground and undress him. Chloe does the same with Marcia.

Once their clothes are off, folded and placed in a neat pile on the car's hood, Chloe and I take our clothes off. “Me first,” she giggles, and studying the dead woman lying before us, she shifts shape until I see her becoming Marcia, her hips widening, her legs thickening, her hair growing longer, turning dark. Likewise, I change until not even Barry's best friend could tell I wasn't him.

Chloe stares at me, says, “Well, you look like him.”

I examine her. “You did fine too.”

My bride shakes her head. “Look at her face. I'm sorry,” she says. “I have no idea how anyone can put on so much makeup. I don't know how to do it.”

“You're fine,” I say.

“They were such disagreeable people.”

“True,”
I mindspeak as I remember how long it's been since I've eaten. I shift into my natural form.
“But I bet they make a most agreeable meal.”

We leave the Land Rover in a parking lot a few blocks from the pier and walk to the
Carribean Queen,
carrying the bags of souvenirs that Barry and Marcia had bought. I offer to carry all the bags but Chloe refuses, even though she clearly has a problem remaining upright in Marcia's high heels while carrying two shopping bags and Marcia's oversized sequined, leather handbag.

After she twists her heel the third time in almost as many steps, she says, “Why do their women do this to themselves?”

I shrug, don't even attempt an answer.

Our suite looks as large as most homes' main bedrooms. Chloe flops down on the queen-sized bed as soon as we get in the room, pulls off her shoes. She points to the closet. “She better have some sneakers or flat shoes in there or I'm going barefoot the rest of the time.”

I grin, say, “Whatever. We don't even have to leave the room until we get near Key West.” I point to the wide pair of sliding glass doors leading to a private outdoor balcony overlooking the water. “We can watch the ocean from here.”

“Uh-uh,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “I'm not going to let you off that easy. Don't they have shows on board these ships?”

“And gambling . . .” I say.

“And dancing and movies?”

I nod my head.

We don't get back to our room until after three in the morning — after losing four hundred dollars at blackjack, after seeing a truncated version of
A Chorus Line
performed on an impossibly small stage, after watching a comedian tell jokes that made most of the audience groan and mostly confused my bride and after dancing for hours in the ship's club.

“I loved all of it!” Chloe says, pulling off her clothes, dancing her way across the room, naked. “Didn't you?”

“Not all of it,” I say. “I could have come back sooner.”

“I think you're taking your impersonation of Barry Liebman a little too seriously,” she says, coming to me, rubbing my bald spot, kissing me, undoing my clothes for me. “Don't be an old fuddy-duddy accountant. Wouldn't you like to balance my register?”

I look at the dark-haired woman in front of me, attractive but not my Chloe. “I'd rather make love to my real wife,” I say.

Chloe smiles, changes before me. “You too, Peter,” she says.

It takes me only a moment to shed Barry's image. “Wait for me on the bed,” I say, going to the sliding doors, pushing them open.

The room fills with the fresh, salt smell of the open ocean. I breathe it in. “This is what it smells like on my island,” I say, returning to my bride, admiring her brown body, her chocolate breasts.

“I like it,” she says and we make love surrounded by the salt air, the ship gently rising and falling as it makes its way through the waves.

Afterwards, we lie on our backs, naked on top of the sheets, letting the ocean breeze cool our bodies. Chloe nestles against me, her head on my shoulder, her hand on my thigh. I sigh, glad to just be lying beside her, happy that for the next day, we have nothing we must do. So much has happened since Chloe and I met, that all I want right now is to take this time for us to pay attention to each other.

This evening on the ship was the first time we were able to relax and to play together. Chloe's enthusiasm to try to do everything available almost wore me out, but it also delighted me. “This can be sort of like a mini-honeymoon for us,” I say.

“That sounds nice,” Chloe says. “Of course, you know, technically, we're not married yet.”

“No?” I frown. “Screw the technicalities, I think we are.”

“Don't worry, I think we're already bound to each other for life too.” She pats her stomach. “Your daughter thinks so too. It's just that, according to our tradition, you're not officially wed until you've shared the potion.”

“Is this your family's tradition or our people's?”

“Didn't your mother teach you anything about your heritage?”

I shake my head. “My mother was raised by humans. All that she knew about our people's traditions, she learned from Father. I don't think he taught her very much. He certainly didn't teach me any of it.”

“Not even which castryll you're from?”

“I don't even know what that is,” I say.

Chloe turns on her side, looks at my face. “It's sort of like a clan or a tribe. Mum taught me we're all descended from one of the four castrylls — the Zal, the Thryll, the Pelk and the Undrae. According to Pa, we're of the Undrae castryll but with Zal blood.”

“Which means what?”

“In the old days, it sometimes meant war. Do you know any of our history?”

“Only that our kind once ruled the world. Father said we only lost control after the humans outbred us. He said we couldn't cope with their numbers.”

“You can thank the Undrae for that. They're the ones who bred them into what they became.”

“And how's that?” I smile at my bride. “Did they raise and breed humans like cattle?”

She nods. “After the great explosion — the same one, I think, that killed the dinosaurs. And only after they won the war.”

“Okay, I don't know any of this.”

Chloe says, “Before the explosion there were no humans. Our kind, the People of the Blood, were free to hunt and feed as we wanted. We developed into four almost separate species. The Zal were the largest and most ferocious of our kind, the fire breathers. They hunted the big beasts, the tyrannosauruses and brontosauruses. The Thryll were the smallest. They spent most of their lives in the air, living in treetops, hunting whatever flew near them. The Pelk took to the sea, living in the oceans, hunting fish and whales. The Undrae chose to live on the ground and cultivate herds of beasts so they had no need to constantly hunt.”

“They sound like the smartest ones,” I say.

“Maybe too smart.” Chloe kisses my chest. “Something happened, a great explosion. The human scientists are saying now that it was caused by an asteroid. Whatever it was, it turned the sky dark, killed all the vegetation. Almost all the beasts died. There wasn't enough to eat to take care of all the castrylls. Rather than starve, the four clans turned on each other.”

My bride sits up, holds up one hand showing three fingers. “The war lasted three hundred years. The Thryll were the first to go, most of them dying, the remaining few changing, merging with the Undrae. The few Pelk who survived either merged with the Undrae too or retreated to the sea and cut themselves off from the rest. Ma says some of them still exist. She told me they're the ones who used to pose as mermaids to draw ships to their death.

“Toward the end, only the Zal and the Undrae were left. There were fewer of the Zal but they were huge, powerful beings. As much as the Undrae tried, they couldn't kill any of them without receiving massive casualties, and while the Undrae could change shape, they were incapable of growing that big.”

“So how did they win?” I say.

“One of the Undrae women, of course,” Chloe says, grinning. “A potion maker named Lystra. She found a combination of herbs that enabled the Undrae to grow as large and as powerful as the Zal.” My bride shakes her head. “Only once the potion was taken, the Undrae warriors had just twelve hours to take an antidote. Otherwise, they were doomed to continue to grow until their hearts burst.

“By the end of the war only a pitiful few of either castrylls were left, but there were more Undrae than Zal. The remaining big beasts finally agreed to join with the Undrae. Mum says all of the People of the Blood can trace their roots back to to those mergers.”

I shrug. “Not me,” I say.

Chloe gives me a grin, puts her hand between my legs, stroking me until I respond. “From the size of it,” she says, “I'd say you have to have some Zal blood in you too.”

I want to sleep in late but Chloe seems determined to take in every experience the ship has to offer. Venturing forth as Marcia and Barry Liebman again, forgoing any shore trips to Cayman, we start with yoga on the top deck, followed by an aerobics class in the gym and massages after that. Later in the day, after an interlude in our cabin and a few hours in the pool, we return to the casino, taking advantage of the light late-afternoon crowd to try each game, losing equally as well at blackjack and roulette as at craps and the slot machines.

Through all of it, Chloe can't seem to keep her hands off me, touching me absentmindedly, stroking my arm, holding my hand. Since I do the same to her, everyone takes us for newlyweds, teasing us and fussing over us.

We spend our evening much as we did the evening before, though this time we win in the casino, taking away the grand sum of thirty-three dollars after two hours of play. And this time, once we return to our room, we undress and shift into our natural forms, flying away from the ship as it cruises in the open sea, hunting together.

A Russian-made Cuban patrol boat, searching the dark waters off the island's coast — looking for rafters, I presume — catches my attention. I explain their mission to Chloe, say,
“Shall we?”

Chloe strikes first, swooping down on the bridge, slashing out at the captain and his mate while I descend on the gun crew on the bow. It takes only moments until all is quiet.

My bride insists on examining the bodies, choosing the most palatable ones for our meal. She carries them to the rear deck, waits for me to take the first bite, then feeds beside me. Afterwards we make love on the deck in our natural forms, growling and roaring as we couple, filling the night air with our sounds.

Before dawn, just before we leave, I go below and open all the seacocks. We take to the air as the ship begins to settle, circling above until it and its dead crew sink from sight.
“Let the Cuban authorities try to figure out what happened,”
I say as we veer away and fly back to our ship.

Once we return to our bed, Chloe insists on making love once more in our human forms. I give a mock groan and comply, thinking how relieved my aching body will be once we arrive in Key West and our mini-honeymoon ends.

We sleep in late the next morning, but then spend the rest of the day in much the same way as we had the day before. But because we are at sea, we also have the opportunity to shoot skeet off the stern of the ship and to drive golf balls into the sea. After a few missed tries, Chloe proves to be amazingly adept at both pursuits.

In the evening, my bride sees a notice that a movie will be shown in one of the ship's auditoriums. “Can we?” she asks. “I've never seen one.”

I sit with Chloe, my arm around her, her hand on my leg, content to feel her warmth next to me as we both watch the movie. My bride enjoys every moment, gasping and laughing and crying along with most of the rest of the audience. I find I enjoy her reactions and enthusiasm more than I enjoy watching the screen. I've already seen my share of Hollywood movies. I know the handsome leading man will end up with the pretty leading woman — after some mutual misunderstanding and some manufactured crisis or chase. Besides, I'm aware the ship will soon be passing near Key West and my mind's on what we must do.