Dragon Moon Read online

  Though Philip too, impresses me as much as his sisters did. So much so that I have no objection to him taking my son and entertaining him for the rest of the day.

  Henri returns to my room after dark, babbling about his adventures. Our conversation is interrupted by a knock on the door. I open it to find Samantha Blood.

  “I’ve come to remind you about the antidote,” she says. “You do remember you need it, don’t you?”

  I nod, remembering all too well the warning at Elizabeth’s feast. “You told us that the potion of Dragon’s Tear wine and Death’s Rose we drank altered our body chemistry forever. If either of us ever drank it again without drinking an antidote of alchemist’s powder and Angel Wort, we’d die.”

  “Quickly and painfully,” Samantha says. “The antidote is a vile drink. I just wanted to warn you, you’ll have to take it after we change to our natural forms. Before you and Chloe share your wedding potion.”

  “No problem.”

  “The feast’s first bell will ring in about fifteen minutes,” she says. “Please come upstairs to the great room when it does.”

  As soon as she leaves, Henri says, “Papa? Do I have to go to the feast too?”

  I turn to him. “Of course, you have to go.”

  My son’s lower lip trembles. “Do I have to drink a potion too?”

  Laughing, I shake my head. “The feast is to celebrate my marriage to Chloe.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Nothing. You just have to stand next to me. We’ll all undress and change into our natural forms.”

  Henri giggles. “All of us?”

  I ignore him. “And then Samantha will mix a potion. She’ll say some words and Chloe and I will drink it. Then we’ll all feed and Chloe and I will go off by ourselves for a little bit.”

  “Who’ll watch me?”

  “Chloe said Philip offered to let you sleep in his room tonight. Is that okay?”

  Henri nods.

  After what feels far longer than fifteen minutes, a bell gongs, its sound reverberating down the halls. Doors open and close, footsteps sound on the staircase.

  I take Henri’s hand and lead him out of the room, the hallway lit by wavering candlelight, the dark shadows moving with each flicker. Henri moves closer to me, squeezes my hand.

  A second bell rings and we walk up the massive wood staircase, passing the second-floor landing, arriving at the great room on the third floor just as the third gong sounds. Henri and I both blink at the lights of hundreds of candles burning in chandeliers, in wall sconces, in candelabras and candlesticks placed everywhere but the north side of the room. There, a hearth filled with a roaring fire runs almost the whole length of the wall.

  Chloe stands in the center of the room. Just as her sister had, she wears a white cotton dress almost translucent in its thinness. It acts as an outline for her dark body accentuating her human curves. I breathe in deep at the sight of her and smile when I see Elizabeth’s necklace around her throat — the gold clover leaf and the green emerald in its center, reflecting the lights all around her.

  Ignoring Charles and Samantha Blood standing to either side of her, I approach Chloe, dig my hand in my pocket and bring out the earrings I’d bought to match her necklace. My bride smiles when she sees them, mouths the words, “Thank you.”

  “Chloe, no talking,” Samantha says.

  I start to put the earrings in Chloe’s ears but Derek says, “Don’t bother, old man. She’s just going to have to take them off again in a second.”

  Chloe nods agreement and Samantha Blood holds her hand out. I give her the earrings, which she places on the wood floor next to Chloe’s bare feet.

  “Derek,” Samantha says, tilting her head to the corner of the room where a half dozen Jamaicans stand patiently, no fear apparent on their faces. I know all too well the effects of the Dragon’s Tear wine they’ve been forced to drink, how it can numb the mind and body, steal any human’s will — or the will of a being like me if he’s so foolish to drink such a thing in his human state.

  Samantha Blood points to a long table on the other side of the room. A white porcelain bowl and a green ceramic pitcher sit on top of it, next to a pewter mug and a small leather bag. “Philip,” she says.

  Philip rushes to the table, returns with the bowl and the pitcher, makes a second trip for the mug and the bag. He places all of them on the wood floor in front of Samantha.

  Derek ambles over to the Jamaicans, examines them, going from one to the other, feeling their arms and thighs, pinching their skin to check their fat content.

  “Bloody well just bring one!” Charles finally growls. Derek grabs a male at random and leads him back to us, the Jamaican’s face expressionless, his eyes glazed.

  As soon as Derek’s in place, Samantha Blood looks at me. “Peter, do you want Chloe for your mate?” she mindspeaks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  She picks up the white porcelain bowl and sets it in front of Chloe. Then she takes the green ceramic pitcher and pours a clear liquid into the bowl, until it’s half full. “This is Dragon’s Tear wine,” she says and carries the pitcher back to the table.

  When she returns, she picks up the leather bag, undoes its rawhide drawstring and pulls out what looks like a small, dried-out, purple rose. “Do you know what this is, Peter?”

  “Death’s Rose.”

  “The petals can kill,” Samantha says. She crumbles one over the bowl, lets it mix with the Dragon’s Tear wine. “Are you willing to risk death to have Chloe as yours?”

  Looking at Chloe, thinking of the consciousness we’ll both soon share, I want to shout out my answer. But I know, to do so would violate custom. “I am,” I mindspeak.

  Samantha reaches into the bag again. She sprinkles a rust-colored dust over the bowl. “Alchemist’s powder,” she says. “To fight the poison.”

  It looks lighter colored to me than I remember, but I see little purpose in questioning the woman about it. After all, her daughter will be sipping the potion too.

  “It’s time,” Samantha Blood says. She begins to undo Chloe’s dress. Her husband fidgets with my mate’s necklace, releasing the catch, removing the chain from Chloe’s lovely neck.

  Behind me Derek and Peter undress. I help Henri get out of his clothes, rip mine off as quickly as I can. My son looks from person to person, his eyes big, giggling at the women’s nudity.

  “Quiet!” I say.

  Chloe transforms herself first. I watch her as her features sharpen, desiring her more as her skin roughens and turns to scales, her wings unfold behind her. After five years of waiting, I think, she’ll finally be with me. I want to roar my excitement, but I know all too well the disapproval such an exhibition would bring from my past and future in-laws.

  As soon as Chloe finishes changing, the room fills with the grunts and groans of the rest of us as we shed our human bodies and return to our true and natural shapes. Henri is the last to finish shifting and to my pleasure, all the Bloods wait patiently while he struggles to properly fold his wings.

  When he’s done, Samantha Blood picks up the pewter mug. She holds it out to me. “This is a mixture of Angel’s Wort and alchemist’s powder. It will neutralize the poison in your body and enable you to both drink the wedding potion again and share its effects with your new wife. Without it, you and Chloe would never know the experience or have the connection that you and Elizabeth did.”

  Lifting the mug, I smell its contents, almost gag at the aroma, like rotten eggs mixed with acid. I pause, then drain it in only a few swallows, grimacing at its hot, bitter metallic taste.

  Chloe’s mother smiles at my expression. “Trust me, the other potion would taste much worse without this antidote,” she says.

  If anything, the taste of Samantha Blood’s antidote grows more bitter in my mouth, the hot metal flavor expanding, growing down my throat, heating my stomach.

  Samantha looks at me, at Chloe and at her husband. “Now we have to wait for the antidot
e to take effect.”

  No one speaks. I stare at Chloe, the brightness of her emerald-green eyes and think how close we’ll be in a short while. Henri waits and fidgets beside me, twitching his tail, unfolding and folding his wings.

  The lights, the heat of the fire, the hot bitter taste that seems to have overtaken every molecule of my body — all conspire to weaken my legs. I sway in place, wonder if the antidote might be too powerful, if the wedding potion will balance its effect.

  “Listen to me carefully,” Charles Blood finally says. “In a few minutes, you and Chloe will be offered the opportunity to drink from the bowl before you. What you drink won’t kill you, but it will change both of you forever. It will bind you to each other in a way you never imagined. Peter, knowing you have to do this, do you still want Chloe?”

  They’re the same words he used to marry me to Elizabeth. I stare into his cold, green eyes and mindspeak, “Yes.” I turn, look at Samantha, wait for her to ask Chloe the same question.

  “Chloe,” she says. “Knowing you have to do this, do you still want Peter?”

  “Yes!” Chloe says.

  Samantha points to the white bowl. “Please drink it at the same time. Make sure you finish all of it.”

  Chloe and I look at each other, staring into each other’s eyes as we drink. When we finish, I wait for her thoughts to open to me, as Elizabeth’s did. Instead, a cloud seems to settle over my brain.

  My bride’s eyes glaze and she falls forward.

  I catch her just as hot metal sears through my veins. “WHAT?” I think, her weight dragging me down to the floor, the pain blocking any further possibility of thought.

  “PAPA!” Henri cries. He rushes to me.

  Charles Blood bats him out of the way. “DAMN IT, DEREK, YOU BLOODY FOOL! TAKE HOLD OF HIM!”

  Derek grabs Henri. My son wails, tries to break free, but the older dragon holds him in his grip.

  Samantha grabs the leather bag, rummages inside it, produces two glass vials, one filled with a red liquid, the other with green. She bends over Chloe, pries open her jaws, and pours the red liquid into her daughter’s mouth. “There,” she says. “In few minutes you’ll be fine.”

  She turns to me, forces the green vial into my mouth. The liquid sears its way down my gullet. My arms and legs turn rigid. Tremors overtake me and I lie shaking on the wood floor, my body changing form from dragon to human, once, then twice, then again, leaving me in human form, twitching and jerking, every cell of my body in pain.

  “Bloody stupid charade this,” Charles Blood says. “He never would have drunk from the mug without it,” Samantha says.

  “I could have just killed him as soon as he arrived. Saved us all this blather.”

  “You would have had to fight your daughter too. This way she couldn’t resist.”

  Charles glares at her, says, “Bullocks!”

  “And what about the information we need? Did you plan to rip it out of his dead body?”

  Samantha’s husband ignores her question. He steps over me, grabs Henri from Derek. “You damn well better show us if you can do this thing,” he says.

  “I can,” Derek says. His features smooth as he begins to change to human shape.

  Charles shoves Henri toward Philip. “Take the boy!”

  “I don’t want to,” Philip says. “I don’t like any of this.”

  The older dragon growls. “Boy, do as I say. I’ve killed sons for refusing less.”

  Henri tries to rush toward me but Philip holds him, more hugging than restraining him.

  I find if I breathe deeply I can persevere over the pain. My body fights me, but slowly I turn my eyes to Chloe.

  She moves first her arms, then her legs, turning on her side, forcing herself half up, sitting on one haunch. Chloe looks at me. “Oh, Peter!” She turns to her mother. “Why?”

  Samantha Blood looks past her daughter, grins.

  “Bloody good show of that!” Charles Blood says.

  I turn my head to see what they’re looking at just as Chloe does too.

  “NO!” she mindspeaks, then lets out a long yowl.

  If I could, I’d yell too at the perfectly copied blond human standing before us, completely like me down to his cleft chin. Only Derek’s smug smile mars the replication.

  18

  “You’re not my papa!” Henri says.

  Derek laughs, then says in a voice that sounds eerily like mine, “I’m Peter DelaSangre, son of Don Henri DelaSangre. I live on Blood Key, on the edge of Biscayne Bay, between Wayward Key and the Ragged Keys. I get around on the water in my Grady White — whatever the hell that kind of boat is — and I drive either a Mercedes or a Corvette on land.”

  Samantha Blood claps her foreclaws together. “Go on,” she mindspeaks.

  “My business, LaMar Associates, is located on the top floor of the Monroe Building, in Coconut Grove. Arturo Gomez and Ian Tindall manage it for me. Arturo’s daughter, Claudia, is currently watching my house. Someone by the name of Rita works as my spy at the office.” Derek beams. “How’s that?”

  I groan, realizing now why Derek had been so full of questions about my life. What else did I tell him during our long journey to the valley? But a cloud seems to be filling my mind, blurring my vision. The voices and thoughts around me grow distant and I have to struggle to understand them.

  “What are you going to do with Peter?” Chloe says.

  “He’ll die in a little while,” Samantha says. “Besides the Death’s Rose in the wedding potion — and the nightshade I gave you both instead of alchemist’s powder — he’s drunk a mugful of dogbane, snakeroot and powdered gumbo limbo sap. I’ve taught you how to mix potions. You know the strength of all that.”

  “You can’t let him die. He’s my mate. His child is growing inside me!”

  “Chloe, you know better,” Samantha says. “Only the serum of Witch’s Tongue I just gave him is keeping him alive right now. Once it fades, even the antidote I gave you won’t be able to save him.”

  Samantha Blood turns from her daughter, motions to Charles. “Pick him up. Make him stand beside Derek. I want to be sure everything matches.”

  The big dragon grabs me under my armpits, yanks me upright, holds me alongside Derek. I try to take control of my legs but they could just as well be made from rubber.

  “There!” Samantha says, pointing at my crotch, then at Derek’s. “You have it all wrong.”

  Derek grabs himself between the legs. “Mum,” he says. “I like my own better than his. Who’s to know anyway?”

  “Who knows?” she says. “The way you are, you’ll be using that as soon as you can. You have no way of knowing who he’s been with. For this to work, everyone has to think you’re Peter.”

  “Are you done?” Charles asks. Samantha nods and he releases me.

  I slump to the floor. Chloe starts to sidle toward me and both of her parents glare at her, say in unison, “STOP!”

  Samantha changes into her human form, goes to the table returns with a pad and pencil. She crouches next to me, naked, her breasts swaying with each small movement. “I need phone numbers, Peter, names, addresses.”

  “What about the treasure?” Charles says. “Ask him that.”

  “You should know that’s not the way Witch’s Tongue works. You have to let it build, start with small questions. ...” Samantha turns her attention back to me. “Tell me the phone number of your company, Peter.”

  The question seems to pierce the cloud in my mind. I answer her. She writes it down and asks another question. I answer that too, my voice strange to me, too willing. Still I continue to answer every question she asks as she fills a page, then another with her notes. “See?” Samantha says to her mate. “This is the way to do this. This way Derek will know what to do once he reaches Miami.”

  As the questioning continues, I find I can shade my answers, never lying but, at least, omitting some details. We fill two more pages of notes before Samantha finally asks, “Do you have treas
ure too, Peter? Gold and silver?”

  I tell myself not to answer but hear my voice say, “Yes.”

  The naked woman grins. “Is it a large fortune?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it kept, Peter?”

  It’s a struggle for me to stop my mouth from revealing the location, but I try to allow myself a partial answer. “In my house.”

  Samantha frowns, looks up from her pad. “But where?”

  “Underneath.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Underneath my house, in a stone room.”

  “How can Derek find it?” Her voice turns stern. “Where should he look?”

  If I could, I would grin at her frustration. “He should look underneath the house.”

  The woman asks again and I give her the same answer. She rephrases the question and I still repeat the answer. The interrogation continues until pain overtakes me and my words become slurred, then meaningless.

  Charles growls. “What’s this bloody nonsense?”

  Samantha says, “The serum’s lost its effect. I think we’re done.”

  “Give him more Witch’s Tongue.”

  “It would only give him a quicker, less painful death.”

  The elder dragon glares at Derek. “Our fool son managed to miss finding out the most important thing.”

  “He has so much else, Pa ... stocks, bonds, businesses, real estate, all worth millions,” Derek says.

  Charles whirls, slams his son with his tail, knocking him down. Then he straddles him and holds an extended talon to his throat. “I WANT THE GOLD TOO.”

  “Mum?” Derek stays down, looks at Samantha. “Please?”

  She holds up one hand toward Charles. “Let him speak.”

  “I found out everything else — just as you asked. I’m sure I can find the treasure. It’s probably in a room under his house. By their cells, like ours is.”

  “If you weren’t so useless, if you didn’t bring back so little, we wouldn’t have to do any of this.”

  “You could help!” Derek says, sitting up. “There’s nothing that stops you from leaving Cockpit Country!”

  “Enough!” Samantha Blood says. “There’s nothing to be done now but to go on with the plan. If Derek can’t find the treasure, so be it.”