The Dragon Delasangre (12 page)

He looks at me. “And I wouldn't like that. You should understand. You're a man. You know what it's like to be without a woman of your kind. All we can do is turn to humans.” Derek grins. “That's why I wanted to avoid Falmouth. I mucked up a bit with one of the local women, left a tad of a mess behind me. You know how you get hungry afterward and there's a live meal, ready for you, right in your arms . . .” He pauses and shrugs.

I look away, study the passing trees and bushes, ignore the drone of his words as he goes on about his weekly trips to the coast to find women, sounding more like the world's oldest teenager than a grown male of the blood. Why, I
wonder, doesn't he go off on his own, try to find a woman of his own kind?

The greenery clears again and I absentmindedly look down at the ground alongside the road and gasp.

“Welcome to Cockpit Country,” Derek says and guffaws. There's a sheer, five-hundred-foot drop just twelve inches from the left side of the Land Rover.

“The ground's all limestone out here,” he explains. “Eroded and collapsed by centuries of rain—sinkholes and hills, caverns and caves—all of it camouflaged by trees, waist-high grass and bushes. Wait till we get to the bad road!” He brays laughter again.

My ears pop, the air grows cooler as we climb, our angle so steep at one point that most of what I see out of the front window is blue sky. Then we descend again. My ears pop once more and Derek says, “Barbecue Bottom.” We pass a small group of wood shacks, some Jamaican men on the porches, their carefully tilled fields nearby.

They make a point of looking away from us. “Real friendly,” I say.

“Don't take it personal, sport,” Derek says. “You're with me and I'm not very well liked around this area.”

“Oh?”

“These are superstitious people. They believe in all types of evil spirits and odd ghosts. They're most afraid of duppies, night spirits. They think such beings reside deep in Cockpit Country.” He smiles. “It's well known around here, I come from that area. . . .”

“And people do disappear in the night around here, don't they?” I say.

Derek laughs, then says, “All the time.”

 

A few miles farther, Derek stops the car, leans back and smiles at me. “Now the real journey begins.”

I look around for any sign another road might exist, then
groan when Derek puts the Land Rover in gear and drives off the road and down the shallow sloped side of a bowl-shaped sinkhole. A canopy of green closes over us. Branches and tall grass slap the sides of the car.

“If you look carefully, you can see the footpath,” Derek says, slaloming the car around trees, boulders, his eyes fixed before him, a grin stretched across his face. “The Maroons made it centuries ago. You should see me doing this in the dark.”

No amount of staring enables me to see the path he's mentioned and pointed to. I shrug and decide I've no choice but to trust in his abilities.

At the bottom, we skirt around a small lake, then ascend the other side. I grow used to the constant climb and fall of our travel, the jolts and lurches we make as we traverse each successive valley, the sheer drops we just avoid every few miles, and I turn my mind back to Elizabeth.

“Why,” I ask Derek, “can't Elizabeth and Chloe leave Cockpit Country? You certainly seem free to come and go as you please.”

He shakes his head, downshifts and guides the Land Rover around another obstacle. “Elizabeth said you had an outstanding lack of knowledge about our ways. . . . With us, men are not at risk, women are.”

“Elizabeth can certainly take care of herself. . . .”

“Not when she's in heat. Then she belongs to the first male who takes her. You should know that.”

“I do,” I say. “But what has that to do with leaving Cockpit Country, visiting the coast?”

“You saw how hard it was to find a female in heat. God knows, I've been waiting to find one too. Longer than you, I think . . . if Elizabeth's right about your age.” Derek sighs. “And you were fortunate to have won the fight for her. So if you knew where an immature female was, wouldn't it be tempting to take her and hold her until she reaches her first
oestrus—without any further search, without any risk or challenge—after which she'd be yours for life?”

I nod.

“In the old days such kidnappings were common. But no proud female wants a mate who wins her that way. No parents worth their name would want to see their young daughters taken before their time and matched for life with a male too impatient to wait for her, too lazy to search for her and too cowardly to fight for her.

“That's why we keep our young women close to home,” he continues. “The men, they're another matter . . . no one worries about the men.”

Derek states the last few words with such venom that I stare at him. “Why do you stay?” I say. “Why not leave Jamaica, search for a bride?”

“My father won't allow it.” He barks out a laugh.

I look at the size of him. “How can he stop you?”

“He's killed two sons before me, for disobeying his wishes. Pa prefers that I deal with the outside world for him, bring back whatever riches I can find to add to his coffers.”

He looks at me, as if he wants me to think well of his family. “Pa can be difficult, but he's fair. He's promised, I can leave when I pass one hundred. By then my brother will be old enough and experienced enough to take over.”

 

We break out of the greenery once more, crossing a wide trail that Derek tells me leads from the Windsor Caves, six miles below us, to the town of Troy, four miles above. “Bloody damn tourists walk this trail all the time,” he mutters, jams on the accelerator and speeds us past it.

Derek stops the Land Rover a few miles later, in a clearing, on a ledge overlooking a wide, deep sinkhole. “Ready to stretch your legs, old man?” he asks as he steps out.

I nod, throw open my door and get out, arch my back as I study the rugged terrain below and above us. “Certainly
looks different when you're driving through it rather than flying over it.”

“If we were flying, we'd have been home long before this,” he says.

“How much longer going this way?”

He stares up at the sun, studies the hills around us. “We're about halfway.” Derek goes to the car, releases the catches on a steel, six-gallon jerry jug, holds it in the air and pours water into his mouth. Afterward, he hands it to me.

As I do the same, he asks, “How was it? The scent . . . I mean, her scent, old man. What was it like? What did it do to you?”

A blush burns its way onto my face. “My god,” I say. “I smelled it all the way up in Miami. You had to smell it yourself, here.”

“You don't get it, old man.” Derek shakes his head, goes about the task of replenishing the gas tank from some of the other jerry jugs the car carries. “Of course I smelled it. The air reeked of it. But it couldn't affect me. A family member's scent can't work on close relatives.” He shakes his head again. “That would be insane. Didn't your parents teach you anything?”

Derek moans when I tell him about the aphrodisiacal qualities of the aroma, laughs as I describe how out of control it made me. “One day,” he says as he gets back in the Land Rover, “I'll leave this bloody small island and find a woman of my own.”

“I'm sure you will,” I say, getting in too, knowing how hard that task will be, more grateful than ever to have found and won Elizabeth.

 

The shadows have lengthened, the sun has descended in the western sky by the time we finally come through the narrow pass that leads to Morgan's Hole. The Land Rover skids to a stop next to a small tower of stones piled by the side of
the trail, about a half-mile from the house. A similar pile marks the trail only twelve feet ahead of us.

“What?” I ask.

Derek waves off my question, leans out the window and whistles a sharp loud blast. Then he drums on the steering wheel and waits until seven Jamaican men run up carrying long, thick wooden planks.

An older Jamaican, the obvious leader of the men, carefully studies both piles of stones, the placement of the car. Then he motions where the men should lay the planks down. At no time do any of them step any closer than the farthest pile of stones.

Derek watches them. Drives forward as soon as the men secure the planks. He stops just past the pile of stones, waits while the men retrieve the planks and trot off toward the house.

Close up I can see the ragged condition of their clothes, the steel rings around their necks, wrists and ankles.

“Slaves?” I ask.

He grins. “Why not?”

I am their guest, I think. Who am I to insist it's okay to eat them, but not to profit from their labor? I choose only to say, “Father said they're more trouble than they're worth, always plotting to revolt or run away.”

“Come,” Derek says. He gets out of the Land Rover, walks to the pile of stones behind it, waits until I join him.

“There's a narrow chasm that runs the width of the valley right here.” Derek holds out his hand, motions for me to clasp it with mine. “Take a step forward,” he says.

I do and the ground groans and crackles beneath me.

Derek yanks me back just before it collapses. “The ground's barely thicker than an eggshell here, with a thousand-foot drop beneath it.” He tilts his head in the direction the Jamaicans took. “They know that. They know there are hundreds more pitfalls like this all around us.”

He whistles a different note, lower, more challenging and somewhere in the distance behind us, the howls of a dog pack answer him. “They know the dogs are out there too.” Derek nods. “They'll stay put. They always do.”

We pass well-tended fields, pastures packed with cattle, sheep and goats, tidy rows of wood shacks for the workers, carefully maintained stables and paddocks for the family's horses.

Derek parks in the shade of one of the towering silk cottonwood trees, in the dirt drive in front of the house. Another Land Rover, a beige one, sits under another equally immense silk cottonwood on the other side of the drive. “My spare,” he says, tilting his head toward the car.

He honks his horn three times to alert his family to our arrival, then steps out of the Land Rover.

I look at the wide stone steps leading up to their veranda, and realize that this house measures easily twice the size of mine.

“Come on, Peter, you lucky dog!” Derek says, motioning for me to follow him. “The family's waiting for you inside. It wouldn't do to keep Pa and Mum waiting too long you know, old man.”

“Coming,” I say, breathing deep, forcing myself to move, patting my pocket, making sure the necklace still remains in place, feeling foolish, like a schoolboy before his first date.

“I envy you,” Derek says, putting his arm around my neck, whispering as if we had conspired to bring about this evening. “The feast, Peter! If only you had an inkling of what's in store for you.”

He laughs at the confusion he sees in my eyes, and says, “Come old man! Pa and Mum grow far too impatient far too quickly.”

 

Derek leads the way up the steps to the veranda, rushing in front of me so I have to half run to keep up with him. “I'm always glad to get home,” he says over his shoulder. “Too many humans out there. Bloody fools. Things make more sense here.”

On the veranda, he stops in front of two massive wooden doors, throws them open and motions for me to enter first. I pause, look into the dim interior, take a deep breath, smell the mustiness inside, try to quiet and slow the thumping of my heart. “Come on, old man.” Derek smiles. “It's just my family in there. Chances are, you'll survive meeting them. They might even like you.”

“Chances are,” I repeat, walking forward, not at all sure of Derek's assessment.

 

Elizabeth's family stands at the foot of a wide spiral staircase, the room lit only by the diffuse light filtering down from the great room, three stories above, and a series of large, circular iron chandeliers, each one holding at least three dozen burning candles—each fixture hanging from long metal chains anchored to the ceiling's wooden rafters.

The Bloods stare at us as we enter. I stare back, try to adjust my eyes to the room's irregular illumination, the dim light and half-shadows that obscure the family's features and make their pale visages look almost ghostlike. Elizabeth's father, mother and little brother all mirror Derek's
pasty complexion and sharp, thin-lipped features. Only Chloe's fine full lips, her rounded Jamaican features and the mahogany hue of her brown skin—contrasted with the white linen shift she wears—allow her to survive the pallor the wan light inflicts on the others.

Elizabeth's parents show no expression, make no movement, their youngest children frozen in place beside them—Chloe next to her mother, Philip alongside his father.

My smile seems fixed on my face. I wonder if I should look as solemn as they, wonder if I could.

Derek introduces us. “My father, Charles Blood,” he says. “His wife, Samantha.” Each one nods as Derek says their name. Chloe, alone, returns my smile.

Elizabeth's father, tall enough to tower over all of us, thicker than Derek, but not appearing much older, dressed in a black, three-piece, Victorian suit, tugs at the collar of his shirt, and fiddles with the buttons below it. “Bloody stupid thing to walk around weighed down with all this cloth,” he announces, and turns to his wife. “Look at them. They're dressed for comfort.”

Philip, hardly more than eight, but obviously his father's son, fidgets with his suit too, nods agreement with his father.

Equally formal in an elegant, flowing white gown and equally youthful in appearance, Samantha Blood puts her hand on her husband's arm and says, “Charles, you promised. . . .” She looks at me. “You'll have to excuse my husband. We rarely have company.”

Charles Blood shakes his head, steps forward and extends his hand. “You needn't excuse me at all.” He squeezes my hand, his grip tighter than Derek's. “You just have to endure me.”

He locks eyes with me. For all the warmth that shows in his eyes, they could be true emeralds, cold and hard. I stare back without blinking, my hand held captive by his. “You're
related to that old scoundrel, Captain Henry Angry?” he asks.

I'm well aware of the anglicization of my family name and like it no more than Father did. He told me, in the old days the English had called our island Angry Key just as they pronounced Caya Oeste as Key West—even though the Spanish words translated as Bone Key.

“Don Henri
DelaSangre
was my father,” I say. “When he was alive, no one dared call him by any other name.”

Charles barks out a laugh, slaps my back. “No offense intended, son. My father, Captain Jack Blood, sailed with him. The captain told me many stories. . . . Made me wish I'd been born in those times when our people could do as we wished.”

Near us a Jamaican woman busies herself sweeping the stone floor. I glance at her iron collar and say, “It looks like you recreate the old times fairly well around here.”

He nods. “Just because the British were fool enough to release their slaves doesn't mean we had to follow suit. Whatever goes on outside Cockpit Country, Morgan Hole is our land. We rule it as we desire.”

“Now,” Charles says, tightening his grip on my hand, a smile appearing on his face for the first time. “Tell me, Peter, just what did you bring for us?”

He frowns and releases my hand when he sees the blank look on my face. I glance back to Derek, hoping he will explain.

“Sorry, old man.” He shrugs. “I thought you had a reason for coming without gifts.”

“Gifts?” Wishing again my parents had educated me more on our traditions, I dig in my pocket, bringing out the gold necklace I've brought for Elizabeth and hold it in front of me.

“I brought this for your daughter,” I say.

“A trinket?” Charles Blood's face turns bright red as he
stares at my outstretched hand. “You want me to exchange my oldest daughter for a bloody trinket? How dare you, sir!” He turns his back on me and starts to stomp away. Philip follows on his heels.

“Charles . . . for pity's sake, come back right now!” his wife says. She turns to me. “Please excuse my husband's temper. It sometimes gets ahead of his reason.”

Elizabeth's father stops ten paces away, and glowers at us.

“Your daughter warned you he was brought up strangely,” Samantha Blood says to him, as if I'm not in the room. “I'm sure if Peter had been aware of the custom, he would have brought an appropriate tribute.”

For the first time in my life, I find myself empathizing with humans and their in-law problems. I'm tempted to tell them all just what they can do with their customs and their feast. Instead, I take a deep breath, think of Elizabeth and the life we can have on my island far away from these people. “If someone would tell me what the custom is, I'd be glad to try and work things out,” I say.

When no one else speaks, Chloe throws an angry glance at her father, another at her mother, and says, “You're supposed to bring your bride's family gifts, expensive ones like gold and gems. I was taught, the more valuable your gifts are, the more obvious it's supposed to be—how much you care for your bride.”

“Oh.” I nod, picturing the chests of treasure crowding the underground vault at home, thinking how little of it I ever use. “I wouldn't want you to feel I didn't value your daughter,” I say to Charles. “If I send you twice Elizabeth's weight in gold, once we return to my home, will that reassure you enough?”

“Righto!” Derek says. Chloe and her mother both beam at my answer.

Charles Blood grins, walks over to me, takes my hand
captive again. “My apologies, son. The anger sometimes gets the best of me. Bloody good gesture that. Your gift is going to go a long way toward replenishing the family's treasure.” He frowns at his older son. “Derek could learn from you. All he ever brings home are baubles, cameras, watches and pocket change. I think he lacks the piratical spirit we and our fathers had. He's certainly taken out more gold than he's put in the last few years.”

 

“Sorry about my father,” Derek says later, as he guides me to my room. “He likes to muck things up a bit, see who he can scare and who he can't. Honestly”—Derek's voice lowers—“there are times he still can scare me. Wait till you see him in his natural state. He can be most fearsome.”

He pauses outside my door. “Mum said to tell you, we're to meet just after sundown, in the great room on the third floor. She'll have one of the servants ring a bell when it's time. Wear your jacket. I think they expect you to.”

I pace the floor after Derek leaves and wonder how to pass the next few hours. I feel as if I've gone back in time. Nothing adorns the room's unpainted stone walls. I doubt there's any television, radio, books or magazines in the whole house. What little furniture graces the room—an oversize bed and a chest of drawers next to it—are made of rough-hewn wood.

Two wall sconces holding candles and a candelabra on the chest give testimony to the house's lack of electricity. A pile of hay on the far side of the room looks just as tempting to me as the lumpy, horsehair mattress and worn linens on the bed.

A gust of wind blows a few leaves into the room and I realize the window has no glass, only wood shutters to hold off the outside world. I shake my head, wonder why Derek, at least, doesn't do something to bring his family into the modern world.

Someone knocks on the door and I open it to find an old Jamaican woman, her face averted, carrying a wash basin, a pitcher of hot water, some homemade soap and towels. I allow her to carry it all in, and place it on top of the chest.

After she leaves, I undress and bathe, using a wet towel, standing up next to my bed.

By now I've calmed enough to be aware of the sensations of the place, the dank and musty aroma that seems to permeate every inch of the room, the ongoing murmur of the servants, the distant sobs of captives, held in cells, deep under the house, the faint whiff of their unwashed bodies. I shudder, tell myself it's the chill of the air on my wet skin.

 

It is full dark outside by the time the bell rings. I listen to the gong reverberate, wait for the sound of doors thrown open and footsteps upon the stairs before I venture from my room. I've no intention of rushing up to the feast, looking like a nervous suitor once again. As far as I'm concerned, Charles Blood has already had as much fun with me as I'll permit.

The bell rings once more and I take measured steps as I ascend the stairs, candlelight flickering around me, shadows blending into the dark.

Another gong rings as I reach the third floor, and I blink at the bright light that fills the room, candles burning everywhere, a fire roaring in the massive hearth that takes up almost one full wall.

I stop and smile at the sight of Elizabeth, waiting alone in the center of the great room—the light glowing around her, shining through the form-fitting, almost gauze-thin, white cotton dress slipped over her body.

My eyes lock on hers and I walk to her, oblivious to the surroundings, ignoring her family gathered nearby. “You look beautiful,” I say, taking the necklace out of my pocket and fastening it around her slender neck, breathing in the
fresh, clean smell of her, wanting to take her away this instant.

She moves closer to me, fingers the gold, four-leaf clover charm with her right hand, examines it and a wide grin illuminates her face.

“Elizabeth!” Samantha Blood says and my bride's smile disappears.

I turn toward Samantha and glare at her. Elizabeth stares at the floor.

“Sorry, Peter,” Samantha says. “There are customs that have to be observed. Bear with us.”

“Elizabeth can't communicate with you until you're joined,” she says. She motions to Derek, then points to the far corner of the room. I follow her gesture and, for the first time, notice the Jamaicans huddled together, men and women, adults and children, none of them chained, all of them calm and quiet.

Derek walks over to them, culls a young, heavyset man from the group and leads him back. The Jamaican has a few fresh, deep gouges on his face and right arm, but otherwise appears unharmed. His blank expression amazes me. If anything, he looks indifferent to everything around him.

“Dragon's Tear wine,” Derek says. “A few drops of it and none of them care a bit about anything. It's most humane, old man. And God's nectar for us when we're in our natural state.”

“Enough!”
Samantha mindspeaks.
“Peter, do you want to have Elizabeth for your mate?”

I nod.

She motions for Chloe to bring a large, white porcelain bowl and set it in front of Elizabeth. Then Samantha walks to a long oak banquet table against the wall, and brings back a tall, green ceramic pitcher. Pouring a clear liquid from it, she fills the bowl half full.
“This is Dragon's Tear wine,”
she says and carries the pitcher back to the table.

Samantha returns with each hand clasped shut. She opens her right hand to reveal a small purple rose.
“Do you know what this is, Peter?”

“Yes,” I say, out loud.

She frowns at me, and holds a finger to her lips.

“Yes, it's a Death's Rose. The petals are fatal,”
I mindspeak.

“They can be,”
Samantha says. She crumbles a petal into the bowl, mixes it with the Dragon's Tear wine.
“Are you willing to risk death to have Elizabeth as yours?”

I look toward Elizabeth. She stares into my eyes and nods her head.
“I am,”
I say.

Samantha opens her left hand over the bowl and releases a handful of what looks like dust.
“They call it alchemist's powder. It should fight the poison.”

Derek puts his hands on my shoulders, guides me to stand facing Elizabeth. “It's time to change, old man,” he whispers in my ear. “If you drink that stuff as a human it will kill you.”

Chloe and Samantha take positions on either side of Elizabeth and begin to unbutton her dress. I take off my jacket, watch as they lift my bride's dress over her head, revealing the lack of underwear beneath. I breathe in at the sight of her naked, human body, tear the rest of my clothes off, drop them at my side. Behind me, I hear the rustle of clothes as Derek and his father and brother follow suit.