The Dragon Delasangre (2 page)

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.”

 

Maria answers her phone on the fifth ring, just after her machine picks up. I disconnect and wait a few minutes before dialing again. Recording our conversation would serve me no good.

This time she answers on the second ring. “Hello,” she says, her voice small and heavy with sleep.

I smile at the sound of her, picture her lying askew, warm and comfortable in a rumpled bed. “Hi,” I say. “You told me to call any time.”

“So what time is it?” she murmurs into the receiver, then yawns. “And who are you?”

“Peter. The guy with green eyes . . . you gave me your number a few weeks ago. It's a little past one.”

“Mierda.
I just got to sleep.” She yawns again, rustles her bed sheets. “Peter?” Her voice turns coy. “I remember you. I didn't think you were going to call.”

“I told you I would.”

“Yeah, guys tell me lots of things . . . sometimes they even mean it.”

“Well it's a beautiful night and I was wondering if you'd like to go for a boat ride.”

“Now?”

“I have to come across the bay. I can pick you up at the Dinner Key docks in about forty-five minutes. Is that a problem?”

She says, “No, not really.”

* * *

The Chris Craft runabout hasn't been used for months. Its motors cough, sputter and die the first few times I try to start them. “Damn!” I shout at the boat, thinking I should have sunk the thing when I first saw it. I don't want to use my Grady White this evening. Too many people on the waterfront know who owns that boat. But then the Chris Craft's motors catch and settle into a purr.

Maria, I think, will like this boat better. It's a rich man's boat, all varnished wood, upholstered seats and gleaming brass—useless, of course, for fishing or serious boating. I chuckle. The boat was too pretty to ignore and the wealthy couple I took it from were just as pretty, just as useless and very, very surprised at their fate.

When I brought them home, Father had been so angry that I ignored his rules that he almost turned down his share.
“You forget, Peter, that we only survive because of our anonymity. You must not put us at risk like this. Hunt over Bimini or Cuba instead. If the authorities here ever became aware of our existence, of what we are, they would never relax until we were eradicated.”

 

Maria waits for me to tie up the boat and walk up the dock before she leaves the safety of her locked car. “Too many creeps around here,” she says.

I nod, hug her and inhale the warm smells of fresh skin, bath soap and fruit-scented shampoo that surround her. She giggles when I stroke her hair. “It's not dry yet. I just showered and didn't have enough time to blow-dry it.” Maria laughs again when I kiss her on top of her damp head, and hugs me back.

She smiles, striking a pose when I step back to admire her. She's come dressed sensibly for a late night on the open water. Still, even in baggy, long jeans and a windbreaker, Maria manages to be tempting. It helps that the jacket is
open, showing off her tube top, exposed stomach and pierced navel. She fiddles with her belly-button ring. “So? You like?”

I nod and return her smile. But I wonder. Dressed as Maria is, she could be just another adolescent at the mall. “How old are you anyway?” I ask.

Maria laughs, gives me a bad-girl sort of look. “Don't worry,” she says. “I just look young . . . I'm twenty-two.” She walks to the edge of the dock, examines the Chris Craft. “Nice boat. . . . How old are you?”

“How old do you think?” I step onto the boat's bow. It's low tide and the deck is a good three feet below the dock. Maria allows me to help her down, then makes an exaggerated show out of examining my face.

“I'd say about twenty-six.”

“Twenty-nine,” I tell her. I try not to look too pleased. If Father were nearby, he'd laugh at my vanity, point out that even he could look young if he wanted to expend the energy. I wonder how Maria would react if she knew I am almost twice the age she guessed.

I steer the Chris Craft from the docks, out the Fisherman's Channel. As we clear the last of the spoil islands that protect the marina, the boat rides up and down on lazy swells pushed north by a gentle southeast wind. Around us, on both sides of the channel, dozens of boats moored in the free anchorage bob in sympathy to the water's slow relentless dance.

“It's beautiful,” Maria says. She shivers from the coolness of the night air and presses against me. The top of her head nestles under my chin. I feel her warmth, smell her excitement.

I have no doubt she plans to end the evening as I do—in my bed. I study her young, plump, ripe body and feel lust and hunger grow within me.

We pass the last channel marker and I jam the throttle
forward. The Chris Craft's motors roar, its stern digs into the water, its bow rises high then settles and Maria laughs as we accelerate into the darkness of the open bay—the boat's props spewing white froth into our wake.

“Can I steer?” she asks. I let her take my place behind the wheel, show her how to guide the boat through the water and make sure she holds us on course for my island. The boat skitters across the water, seems to leap from wave to wave, barely slowing at each impact, spraying water to each side.

Near the island, Maria fails to anticipate a particularly large swell rushing toward us and slices through it, taking a solid slap of seawater over the bow. Saltwater spray fills the air around us, coats our faces. She laughs and I can't resist kissing her, mixing the salt taste on her lips with the sweet freshness of her mouth.

Overhead a jet drones its way toward Miami International, and a quarter moon dimly glows in the black sky. I take the wheel, slow the boat and turn into the island's channel. Behind us, Miami's lights glow on the horizon. The island, Blood Key, is a dark shadow to our front.

Maria points toward it. “Is that where we're going?”

I nod.

“It's so dark.”

“We'll turn the lights on when we get there,” I tell her and hug her close. “Sometimes lights attract the wrong sort of visitors.”

She nods. “But . . . wouldn't it make it easier for you to guide the boat in?”

“No. I grew up on that island. I know the way.” I slow the boat a little more. The motors' growls subside into throaty purrs and we glide through the water, rising and falling with the swells. A gust of wind rushes around us and I pull her to me, and press my lips to hers again.

Maria holds me, kisses longer than I'd intended, then
backs off and smiles at me. “And just what are we going to be doing on this island of yours?”

I grin back. “Whatever two people do when they're deserted on an island together.”

She sighs, leans against me. “It's so beautiful here.” The wind gusts again, washes over us. Maria takes a deep breath. “I love the smell of the ocean!”

I breathe in too, savor the salt smell around us, the sharp scent of excitement building around her and then . . . another scent penetrates my nostrils, and makes my heart race. It smells of cinnamon and cloves, maybe musk and something else—pungent, almost rank, disturbing yet somehow familiar. I sniff the air, wonder whether I imagined it—disappointed to find only a memory of it in the air.

I cut the motors, let the boat wallow and I breathe deeply again.

“Is anything wrong?” Maria asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “I thought I smelled something.”

She frowns, watches me as I sniff the air. “Something bad? Fire?”

“Something strange,” I say, finding no trace of the aroma remaining in the air. “Maybe . . .” I let the word hang, leave the thought unfinished. My shoulders suddenly feel tense and I flex my back, stretch my neck and push the Chris Craft's throttle forward. Maria presses against me as the boat regains its forward momentum. I hug her and guide the runabout toward shore.

Dogs bark and growl in the darkness as we enter the island's small harbor. I feel Maria tense beside me, smell the acid aroma of fear building within her. “Watchdogs,” I explain. Two thick, dark forms pace and stare, snarl deep growls at our approach.

“Slash and Scar, the two alpha dogs. They lead the pack.”

“Sweet names,” she says, her sarcasm evident.

I smile at her. “There are at least fifteen others like them out there in the dark. We have them to keep the island private and prevent uninvited guests from disturbing our estate.”

Slash and Scar continue to growl, and hold their ground as we approach the dock. I pick up the boat's searchlight and flash it on them. They pause a minute, two black, furry beasts frozen in the beam—their massive teeth showing stark white in the artificial light—then they bolt off, into the darkness.

Maria gasps. “They're huge.”

I shake my head, cut the motors and let the boat coast to the dock. “They're no larger than German shepherds. They just have overly large heads and mouths,” I say. I hop off the boat and tie the lines to the dock cleats. “But they've been bred to look like that, to guard this island. My ancestor, Don Henri, brought the first dogs to control the slaves he used to build our house. Over the years we've added others, eliminated the weak and timid ones, until we ended up with our own breed, all of them like the two you've just seen.”

A chorus of growls comes from the dark shadows just inland of the docks. “Don't they scare you?” Maria asks.

“No.” I'm tempted to laugh at the question. These creatures know who is the master of this island. They tuck their tails and cringe before my displeasure. I bring two fingers to my mouth and whistle three times—short, sharp bursts that pierce the quiet of the night. The growls cease, their sound replaced by the rustle of the underbrush as the pack scurries away.

Maria reaches up and I lift her from the boat and place her on the dock. She giggles at the ease with which I handle her, feels my biceps and mutters, “So powerful.”

Something about the way she does it makes me feel boastful and I pick her up and cradle her to my chest. She looks up and we kiss.

“Peter,”
Father mindspeaks to me.

I sigh.
“Father, I'm busy.”
I carry Maria down the dock toward the house. She snuggles against me.

“I heard your whistle. . . . It woke me.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Have you brought me something? Something young and sweet?”
Father asks.

I heft Maria in my arms and she sighs.
“I don't know if I have or not,”
I tell Father.
“It's been a confusing evening so far.”

“How so?”

“There was something in the air . . . a strange scent, like cinnamon mixed with other things. . . . It disturbed me.”

Maria shifts in my arms. “Can you put me down? Is it safe? I'd like to see your house.”

“It's safe,” I say and put her down.

“I
knew
you brought me something!”

“She's here for
me
, Father. Go to sleep.”

“I may know what that smell was . . .”

“Tell me, Father, then go away!”

His chuckle fills my head.
“Later,”
Father mindspeaks.
“I'm an old man . . . tired and hungry . . . with an ungrateful and selfish son. Wake me when you have something to bring me and we'll discuss that strange aroma you discovered.”

“Father!”

“Later, Peter, didn't you tell me to sleep?”

I feel the emptiness around me and know he's closed himself off. Irritating old man.

“You said, ‘we,' before,” Maria asks. “You don't live here alone?”

“No.” I shake my head. “My father lives with me. He stays in his room mostly. He's very old and very sick.”

“Oh,” Maria says. “Sorry.” She takes my hand in hers, and squeezes it.

We walk to the end of the dock, neither of us speaking, the night silent except for the irregular slap of water lapping at the dock, the whisper of the evening wind rustling through the trees and the rhythm of the ocean waves' gentle rush.

At the end of the dock a massive iron gate, set into an archway made from coral stone, blocks access through the thick, high coral fence that guards the homestead. Maria and I stop in front of it and she waits while I take an ancient key from my pocket and unlock the gate's equally ancient lock.

Maria cocks an eyebrow at the darkness looming beyond the gate, then looks to me for reassurance.

“Wait,” I say and step through the gateway, reach for the weatherproof switchbox inside the wall and throw the lever on the side of the box. Maria gasps as the lights come on, illuminating the stone pathway to the house, accenting the gardens my mother planted so many years ago. Floodlights shine on the house's coral walls, throwing shadows that make the three-story building look larger than it is. At the end of the walk, coach lights ascend the wall in tandem with the wide, deep, rough-hewn coral steps that lead upward to the veranda that surrounds the house.