The Messiah Choice (1985) (22 page)

"Oh, yes, mother! Not a sailboat, but ones with motors."

"And are there such boats in the village?"

"There are but two now, my mother, which can run."

"And do you know where they are?"

Maria nodded. "They are in a small shed near the fishing pier. But they are guarded by two men with guns."

She suspected as much. "And do these boats need keys?"

"Yes, my mother. One of the guards has them."

"And the
essence
—the gasoline. Is it there, too?"

"They are used by the security people, my mother. They are always kept ready to go."

"Very well, then. You will at some time today get a pen and a small piece of paper and bring it with you. Now, you will do as I say
exactly.
When I dismiss you, you will forget all this, forget that anything of this sort took place. You will not remember. But at two this morning you will remember, and you will do as I say. ..."

She didn't often come into the village, even in the dead of night, but only because there was nothing there for her There was a strict curfew in effect, and professional-looking toughs with nasty-looking sidearms saw to it that it was enforced. There was revelry in the meadow with the Dark Man presiding, so she knew she had at least a little time.

There was a clock atop one of the village's Tudor structures. Greg had pointed it out to her, noting it was always inevitably ten minutes slow, but it gave her the edge she needed to keep appointments.

The patrols didn't bother her, although she hoped Maria was up to bypassing them. She looked at them, swaggering arrogantly, and thought how easy it would be for her to kill them.

There was a small office in the back of the boat shed, and two men sat in it playing cards. She watched, and waited, until she saw one of them say something to the other and the other glanced at his watch. She crept up close, invisible in the darkness, bare feet silent in the sand.

"Time to go check 'em," one man said, sounding very bored. It was clear that he thought it a waste of time, but orders were orders and these days you could get creamed for disobeying those orders.

The man came out, went down the small stairs to the sand, walked over to the padlocked door, then took out a keyring, selected a key, and unlocked it. He opened it and went inside. She checked and saw that the other man was still inside, peeking at the absent man's cards, then moved swiftly and silently to the door and peered inside. The man had turned on a bare bulb and now was looking at the boats.

She moved like an animal, incredibly swift and powerful. The act was instinctive yet professional, and so swift that later on she could not remember what she did or how she did it, but the man fell to the floor, turned, confused, and before he could do or say anything, let alone go for his gun, his throat was torn out.

She drank of his blood and dedicated the kill to the moon goddess, absorbing much of his life force as she did so. The force was heady and strong within her, yet she did not linger. There was another to take care of, and she felt a tingling excitement, even an eagerness for the kill.

She heard a door open in back of the shed, and a man called, "Hey, Jerry? What's the problem?"

Receiving no answer, he grew suddenly cautious and suspicious, and drew his pistol. Quietly, he crept up to the half-open door to the boat shed, and, pistol raised, he put his back to the door, then with a single motion turned and pointed the gun inward, ready to fire.

Somehow, in one motion, the pistol was kicked from his hand and at the same instant a bloody stone spear pierced and ripped out his throat. He looked incredibly confused, then fell backwards, dead before his body hit the ground. She dragged him in, removed the spear, and used it to smash the light bulb. She performed the ritual, dedicating the kill to the spirits of the water through whose domain she still had to travel.

These were proper kills, not sacrifices, but still the power she had absorbed from their dying life forces was tremendous. Her mind worked on several levels, but it was basically a thinking version of the type of women who'd killed Jureau. She was Angelique, and she
knew
she was Angelique, yet nothing that she had done seemed unusual to her or in any way troubled her conscience. It was natural. Good and evil, God and the devil, didn't enter into it. These men were of the tribe of the Dark Man, who was the enemy of her tribe and her people. To kill an enemy was an honorable thing; to kill one of your own was evil.

But she was stuck here, now, until Maria showed up. She went back to the first body, having no difficulty in the near pitch darkness, and got the keys. There were a
lot
of keys, and there was nothing left to do but to try them all when they needed one. She walked forward on narrow beams with perfect balance and reached the double doors to the boat house. There was, as expected, another padlock, this one on the inside. She began trying keys, and finally hit it, unlocking the lock but not yet removing it from the hasp. She went back to the door and checked outside. No sign yet of Maria, and that was trouble. She had to have the girl here before somebody noticed that nobody was back in the little office.

Finally, she saw a small figure creep back and forth in the shadows and finally approach. She wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing, but she carried something in her hand.

Angelique did not worry now. She had the power to make it stick, and she used it. Maria kneeled before her in the darkness. Maria would be a good girl and obey.

"First, get some sand from outside," Angelique ordered. "There! Good. Now put as much as you can in the gas tank of one of the boats. We will use the other."

Now the doors were open and the chocks were removed, and Maria got inside while Angelique pushed. The boat slid almost silently into the water. Now the wild girl judged her distance and the bobbing of the boat and leaped, spear in hand, and landed in the boat.

Maria had tried the keys and found the right one, but waited for orders to turn the engine over.

Angelique had hoped the boat would drift out a little, but instead it slowly turned and looked as if it were going to be carried in. There was nothing to do but try, hope the engine caught quickly, and gun it as the patrols raced to see what was going on.

"Do it!" Angelique commanded. "Do it before we wash ashore or crash into the pier!"

Maria turned the key and pumped the starter, and the connected outboard motors in the back coughed and turned over but didn't start. Twice more she tried it, the noise seeming to echo and reverberate through the village and up the mountain, but to no avail. There was a sudden calling of voices from the town, and the sound of running feet.

Maria tried again as the boat, carried by the water flow, headed toward the pier. The engines coughed, then sputtered into life as the first footsteps hit the pier itself. Angelique found herself thrown down and to the rear of the boat as it suddenly took off.

Now there were great shouts, and spotlights came on all over the beach area. Dull-sounding popping noises came to them, and in and around the boat paint chips flew and small pieces of bullet richocheted.

Maria accelereated straight out, then turned and rounded the point to the west shore, the shore away from the meadow and the looming cliffs.

Angelique picked herself up but couldn't manage more than a sitting position on the boat deck.

The two rear seats were covered with vinyl and she didn't even bother to try them; she felt safer and more secure sitting low as possible anyway. She had never realized what speed these boats had; the bow was pointing up, almost out of the water, and every time they cut across the current or the chop of light waves it gave a crunching sound and the entire boat shuddered.

She knew there were security patrol boats about, but if she could endure this discomfort she was not about to put in anywhere near Allenby Island. She managed to crawl up near to the manic, spellbound pilot.

"How long can this boat run?" she shouted over the roar. "How far can it go?"

"Three to four hours my beloved mother," Maria responded.

There was a compass aboard. "Head north, then, away from those cursed antennas, until we can no longer see or feel the island. Then we will come around in a big circle and head west."

She settled back on the floor of the boat, feeling a bit queasy. Now, if the Dark Man were correct, she should begin to feel the numbness return, feel all sensation slip away. She did feel seasick, but there was no sensation of a spell breaking. Rather, it was almost the sensation of a spell
tightening
around her, illusion becoming reality, what was imposed becoming what was.

She knew that there would be other patrols out looking for them, and that they would be easy marks for radar and any other tracking system, but it was a wide sea and there were many things both in and upon it.

She drew upon her inner strength and power to suppress the nausea, and eventually she felt better.

Off in the distance could be seen the lights of ships and various navigation lights as well. She instructed Maria to slow down to half speed and begin turning.

She had never expected to get this far, and now she had to make a series of decisions she hadn't thought much about before. There were rocks and reefs out here that neither she nor Maria knew anything about, and certainly the main route to any nearby settled island would be the most watched. They had a compass, but no charts or other navigation aids to find this place, and she realized with a start that she didn't even know the name of the town they sought. Worse, she was feeling some of the changes within her, some of the hardening, that might be part of the spell but might also be the price she was paying for being too much the ancient warrior witch of a forgotten tribe.

She had come a long way from being that poor, paralyzed, naive girl in the powered wheelchair, but the changes had not been in a direction she particularly liked. When all else had failed, she had won by using some of the same powers and methods that the Dark Man had used on her. She realized she needed time to think, to adjust, to understand herself and to plot her next course. Yet, what was best? To get straight there, before the alarms could be in full cry, was tempting—if they could make it, blind to the route. Or should she try to put in at one of the remote islands along the way, hide the boat and rest knowing that they would have the whole southern Caribbean covered. Greg had used a silent sailboat, and even then had been taken aboard a commercial ship. They didn't have those options.

Greg had said that the village was small and very remote. She decided to instruct Maria to try for it, but not go in to the village. She crept forward to look at the speedometer, but she somehow couldn't see or get a grasp of what it was saying. What else was happening to her?

"How fast are we going?"

"Twelve knots," the pilot answered. "It is possible to do much more than that, my mistress."

"As fast as you can on the right course," she instructed. "May the spirits of sea and air take us there before sunrise."

It was clear after a while, though, that no matter what they did they could not make the complete passage in darkness and they were rather conspicuous and in an open boat. There were boats out now from many nations, and they had been able to ignore them in the dark, making certain they were clear of any trawling nets. They had ignored several hails as it was, and clearly couldn't do so in the light of day. False dawn was already making it easy to see, and the sun would be up any minute.

An island came up on their left; it was not much more than a large pile of rocks covered with thick vegetation, but it seemed possible to land on one side where the trees came right down to the water. The shape was sufficient to offer some disguise from the sea, and the overgrowth of trees made spotting anything by air unlikely. It was as good a place as they could hope for, although it was certainly uncomfortable and not foolproof. They had no rope and no anchor, and had to hope that the tiny inlet between jagged rocks would hold the boat fast.

Angelique left Maria with the boat and clambered up the rocks to the trees and then up onto the island itself. It didn't take much time to explore it and discover it had no usable water and nothing that really looked edible. It did, however, have enough ropelike vines to secure the boat to a tree.

After that, she helped Maria up onto the island surface and they walked back just a little.

Angelique was dead tired, and she knew Maria must be in an even worse shape, but she didn't dare allow herself to sleep just yet. Something within her told her that there was an urgency to doing the little things, and she didn't hesitate to believe it.

She stood and faced Maria, and began a small chant, placing a finger on the controlled woman's forehead. "Maria, Mother free you from spell. Remember all."

The captive girl's body swayed, and then she seemed to wake up and look around in wonder.

"Oh, my
god!"
she breathed. "It
wasn't
a dream!"

"No dream," Angelique told her, suddenly finding words difficult again. "We escape. Now my life, you life, whole plan in you hand."

"Angelique—what's the matter?" Maria was tired and thirsty, but she was scared most of all.

"Why are you talking so funny?"

"I use power of spirit. On you. On me. That why we here. More I use, more I am—
her.

Angelique still in head, but think
her
tongue. Much less words to speak, think. Think in her tongue, think her way. You see?"

Maria sat down and shook her head. This was much too much for her at one time. Still, she was aware of their situation and scared to death, and Angelique was all she had right now.

"Let me get this straight. You used—magic—to control me. But now because of that you're finding it hard to think in English or French?"

"Yes. Old tongue. Plain tongue. Must fight to find words for you to know my talk. Is curse. No power, no get away, no live. Power make me not her but like her."