Afterwards, we lie together, Lorrel on top of me, her head on my chest, her legs straddling me, her hands holding my shoulders. I stroke her back, her buttocks, her hair.
“I like this,”
she mindspeaks.
For her sake, I nod.
“Shall we again?”
Lorrel mindspeaks.
“In a bit. Let me rest a little first,”
I mindspeak. But I begin to explore her body with my hands, stroking, probing, palpating until she begins to move with each touch of my fingers.
“Is this resting?”
she mindspeaks, pressing her crotch against mine.
I press back, smile as I will myself to stiffen.
“Sort of,”
I mindspeak, maneuvering my body, sliding myself into her.
She starts to ride me, but I grip her hips and hold her still.
“Easy, there’s no rush,”
I mindspeak.
“Please, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I need to ease my mind. Please help me.”
Holding her, kissing her ear, I partially withdraw and slowly thrust back into her.
“Is Mowdar planning to harm my family?”
Lorrel stiffens and tries to pull away, but I hold her and press myself against her.
“I enjoy doing this with you. I enjoy it so much that I’m ashamed,”
I mindspeak.
“But I could enjoy it more if I could be sure my family was safe.”
“No one cares to hurt your children,”
Lorrel mindspeaks, her body no longer reacting to my touch.
“Mowdar worries that your wife might do
us
harm.”
I say nothing, only touch and stroke and thrust until her body relaxes and begins to move in rhythm with mine again. Then I mindspeak,
“Why is he worried about one female?”
The Pelk girl groans and pushes herself free of me, rolling onto her back.
“This is so unfair of you,”
she mindspeaks.
I sit up, wishing my erection would go away quicker.
“But I need to know. Would you expect any less if you were my mate? Please answer my questions now and I promise you, I won’t bother you with them anymore. We can lie down and just concentrate on each other.”
Lorrel sighs and sits up too.
“No more after this?”
she mindspeaks.
“No more.”
“You’ve seen what our li-srrynn can do to your mind,”
she mindspeaks.
“But just as only our females have the power to sing into other’s minds, your females have the power to resist our songs. Because of this, during the Great War your females won all the battles, not your males. You Undrae are much larger than we, and much more powerful. Mowdar knows it would cost many of our deaths to defeat her.”
“But if she’s in Jamaica or even on our island, she poses no threat to the Pelk.”
Lorrel glares at me.
“You think us fools. If she comes close enough to mindspeak with you, masked, then she can pose a threat to us. I am not the only one to think you have been in contact with someone. Jessai has shared his concerns with my father.”
“I told him that was Derek!”
“He told Mowdar you said that, and Derek confirmed it. Still, Mowdar has to watch for the safety of his people. But you should know he has not decided to send anyone after your wife. I think, if you give him no further cause, she will be safe.”
“But what else can I do?”
I mindspeak.
“I do not know.”
Lorrel shrugs.
“I am tired of this conversation. You now have your answers.”
She lies back down on her back, her legs spread.
“You promised to concentrate on me,”
she mindspeaks.
“So do it.”
By the time we finish and open our drapes, most of the males have left the cavern for a day of hunting, and most of the females have gone above to start their chores. Lorrel walks close to my side, choosing clothes for me from the clothes pile and insisting I try to choose clothes for her that she’d find pleasing—laughing at and rejecting my first three picks.
She leaves me once we get outside, taking the path to the gardens. I go to the lagoon, find Derek lounging on the rock, watching the women work, and join him there. “So, old man,” he says. “Saw your drapes pulled this morning. Looks like you were a busy dodger. I’d hate to hear what my sister would say about that.”
I frown at him and say, “So would I.” Lying down on the rock on my stomach, I bury my face in my arms.
“Tired you out, did she?” Derek says.
“Just let me rest a little,” I say, then mindspeak masked, {
Chloe?
}
{
You son of a bitch!
}
{
What?
} I mindspeak, stifling a gasp, wondering for a moment if she could know what Lorrel and I have just done.
{
Claudia and I are on the Grady White. Fortunately she can’t smell what I can. Your Pelk girl’s scent is everywhere. On the seat where I sit. On the back bench, mixed with yours. In the cabin, in the same berth as you. You had to give her my blue bikini too?
}
{
She’s not my Pelk girl. I told you what happened,
} I mindspeak. {
I had no choice.
}
{
She forced you to sleep in the same berth with her?
}
{
Not exactly.
}
{
What exactly is she forcing you to do now?
}
I say nothing.
Chloe waits for a minute and then mindspeaks. {
Well, I guess I have my answer. We’re going to leave. I want to get the boat back to Bimini in time for me to get home before dark.
}
{
Wait a minute. This isn’t fair of you,
} I mindspeak.
{
Fuck fair,
} Chloe mindspeaks. {
I’m going home. I need to let Claudia read through your father’s log books for you, and I need to make some humans disappear for you, and right now I don’t want to do a damned thing for you. So fuck fair, Peter, and fuck you too!
}
I want to shout. I want to pound the rock with my fist. But I can do nothing that might appear as if I were mindspeaking masked with someone. {
Chloe, I love you,
} I mindspeak.
{
Obviously not enough,
} she mindspeaks. {
I’m going to go now. Oh, by the way, Claudia translated that sentence for you. It means, ‘I don’t have the antidote, but I think I have an idea.’ I’ll be back in a week with her. God knows why. Try to have the next few paragraphs ready so I can give them to her then.
}
{
Chloe . . .
}
{
Enough, Peter. I’ll be back in a week. I promise I’ll be calmer then. Right now I’ve had enough. Let me go now.
}
I lie on my stomach until the rock begins to hurt my elbows and knees. Rolling over, I sigh and stare at the blue sky above, the white puffs of cloud barely moving in it.
“You look sad, old man,” Derek says. “Anything wrong?”
“The question is—is anything right?” I say.
32
In the evening, Lorrel and I take dinner in the company of Mowdar, Jessai and Malka, just as we have each night since I arrived. Everything seems the same as before, as it does the next night and the evening after it.
On the fourth day after my talk with the Pelk leader, the hunting party returns early, carrying barely any catch with them.
“Bad day?”
I mindspeak to Jessai. He nods and averts his eyes.
When dinnertime comes and I get up to go join Mowdar, Lorrel shakes her head.
“Not tonight,”
she mindspeaks.
“We will feed here. Derek will feed at his nest. Mowdar has called for a hunting council. They will not want us about.”
“What’s going on?”
I mindspeak.
Lorrel shrugs.
“Whatever it is does not concern us.”
She pulls the shades early and insists on coupling over and over again.
The clank of a trident striking stone wakes me. I lie in the nest, my eyes open, and listen to the shuffling of feet, the occasional splash of someone entering water too quickly. Standing, I make my way to the drapes, part them and stare through the gloom in the cavern toward the lagoon.
Hunters carrying their tridents slip one by one into the water. I look from them to the hole at the top of the stairs. No light shows from there at all. But even in the gloom, I can make out the dark shape of a Pelk male standing guard at the top of the steps, holding his trident at ready.
“Come back to bed,”
Lorrel mindspeaks, touching my back, stroking it.
I whirl around.
“What the hell is going on?”
“They have gone for an early hunt.”
Lorrel grips my arm with her claw and tugs me back.
“Come back, lie down with me. It is too early to rise.”
Jerking my arm out of her grip, I growl and mindspeak,
“Don’t lie to me. What are they doing?”
“It’s too late, Peter. You cannot do anything about it. The boat should not have been moved.”
“What?”
“Mowdar and his men went to Waylach’s Rock yesterday to salvage what they could from your boat. It wasn’t there.”
“So what? The storm could have taken it.”
“Or someone else, your wife perhaps,”
Lorrel mindspeaks.
“And they’re on their way to my island?”
Lorrel says nothing.
I look into her eyes.
“You know I’m going to have to go.”
“Why, if she is not there?”
“But we both know she is,”
I mindspeak.
“You are to take the antidote tomorrow night again. You will die without it.”
“If I’m without it,”
I mindspeak. I peer out through the drapes again and nod when I see no one left on the beach. Behind me Lorrel begins to hum. I turn, rush to her, grab her throat with both of my claws and squeeze hard enough to choke off any sound.
She claws at me but I ignore each rip and gouge.
“Please don’t fight me,”
I mindspeak.
“I don’t want to harm you. Think of our son inside you.”
But she continues to struggle, and I squeeze more. I hold her throat only as long as it takes for her to go limp, not a second more.
Releasing her, lying her body down, I check to see if she’s still breathing and nod when her chest moves. Before she can wake and call for help, I rush out through the drapes and hurry to Malka’s alcove.
The old creature sits up and stands as soon as I burst through her drapes.
“Get out, fool!”
she mindspeaks.
I have a claw at her throat, another pressed against her temple, before she can make a sound.
“If you mindspeak for help I will drive my claw into your brain. If any note comes from you, I will rip your throat out. Do you understand me?”
“I have no fear of dying,”
she mindspeaks.
“And I will go with the satisfaction of knowing your death will be much more painful than mine.”
“Possibly,”
I mindspeak.
“It depends on whether I can find out how to make the antidote.”
“Lorrel has not learned how to make it yet. The knowledge will die with me.”
She begins to sing a low note that vibrates through my bones, and I slice through her throat, her blood spraying out, coating me.
“You forget,”
I mindspeak.
“My father Don Henri DelaSangre found a way to reverse your poison. He may yet show his son the way.”
“Undrae, you are a fool,”
Malka mindspeaks, wavering but still standing.
“What makes you so sure we have given you the same poison?”
She begins to blast a thought,
“HE . . .”
I drive my claw through her temple, into her brain, before she can finish calling for help. Malka collapses, her body falling back into her nest. Still I slice at her, again and again, ripping her open to make sure she never rises again.
Going to the small chest holding the bottles of temporary antidote, I rummage through it, searching for full bottles. I find pitiful few, line them up on the floor and count them. Only five. I sigh.
By killing Malka I’ve taken away all of Derek’s options. I can’t keep the bottles just for myself and leave him to die a miserable death. If he insists on going his own way, I will give him three of the bottles. That will leave me with a week’s worth of antidote. At best, if we can find no permanent antidote and share all five bottles, it will give me eight and a half days.
Time enough either way, I hope, to try to save my wife.
Taking a woven seaweed bag off of one of Malka’s shelves, I upend it. Roots and herbs and bags full of powder spill to the floor. Putting the bottles in the bag, I rush from the alcove.