Dragon Moon (10 page)

She shrugs. “Oh, I have something Pop wanted you to see.” Claudia jumps on the boat, returns in a few minutes with the local section of the
Herald.
She points to a picture in the center of the page.

Taking the paper from her, I examine the photo. A man in shirtsleeves is addressing a crowd of protesters. I recognize him: David Muntz, a congressman from South Broward. My lip begins to curl just looking at his picture. I know all too well what a dunce he is, how incapable he is of any true reasoning. If it weren't for his innocent face, his Jewish background and my money, the elderly Jewish residents of the region's numerous condominiums would never have put him in office. But, I smile, at least he is
my
dunce.

The protesters' placards say, SAVE WAYWARD KEY, SAY NO TO DEVELOPMENT OF BISCAYNE NATIONAL PARK and SAVE THE BIRDS. The headline below the picture declares, CONGRESSMAN MUNTZ VOWS TO SAVE WAYWARD KEY FROM DEVELOPMENT.

“Pop thought you'd like that. He said to tell you, ‘See there's more than one way to stop Tindall.' ” Claudia laughs. “I can't wait to get to the office. I bet Ian is livid.”

“I think he might be,” I say, laughing too.

After Claudia leaves, I wander the island, go from floor to floor in the house, trying to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. I recheck all the items that need to be maintained, especially the wells and the cisterns. Henri follows me. “Papa, can't we do anything else?” he says.

“You can go play.”

“I'm bored. I want to go to the mainland.”

Shaking my head, I say, “Not until it's time to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because there are things I need to do.”

“Can't we do stuff with Rita?”

I sigh. “No, but I'll tell you what. How about if tonight, after it gets dark, we practice flying and then I'll go on a hunt for us.”

“Fresh prey?” The boy salivates at the mention of it.

I nod, saliva flooding my mouth too. Just the thought of taking to the air and seeking prey awakens my hunger, speeds my heartbeat, makes me yearn for the dark to come more swiftly.

“Tonight,” I say, thinking of Arturo's note sitting on my dresser and the information it details — Dr. Sean Mittleman's address, who lives with him, what their routine is.

Well after dark, I enter Henri's room. The boy is still wearing his daytime clothes, sleeping, his pink stuffed rabbit lying beside him. I turn on a dim lamp on his dresser, stare at him, shake my head. He looks so small, his bed seems so tiny and frail, dwarfed as they are by the dimensions of the room: the twelve-foot-high ceilings, the wide, double oak doors — one set leading to the veranda outside, and the other to the landing in the interior of the house.

Father didn't have children in mind when he designed this house. Every room of the house, every feature was fashioned to accommodate the most massive of our kind, in our natural forms. Toward that purpose all the sleeping chambers on this floor measure as large as an ordinary living room.

“Plenty of room, Peter,”
he chided me when I first took to sleeping in human form in an ordinary bed.
“That's all we need. A dry room and a good clean pile of hay.”

Henri's only recently taken to mimicking me — using his bed, sleeping in his human form. “I'm too big for straw now,” he told me. Still, I maintain a fresh bed of straw in the far corner of the room, for whenever he chooses to change his habits.

I sit on the bed, rub Henri's back to wake him. He remains lost in sleep until I whisper in his small, perfectly formed ear, “It's dark out, Henri. Time for a hunt. Don't you want to fly with me before I leave?”

The boy burrows his head into his pillow, facedown. But I can see from his cheeks that he's smiling.

“So. Do you want to go flying, Henri?”

He nods his head into the pillow.

“Then let's go!” I stand up, walk toward the doorway.

Henri moves his legs over the side of the bed, lets their weight carry him down to the floor. He drags the rabbit after him.

“Stop playing,” I say. “Leave the bunny on the bed.”

He nods, carefully props the pink rabbit so it sits up against the pillow and then he runs for the doorway, giggling as he rushes past me onto the landing.

I allow him a lead, chase after him as he scampers up the open, thick wood slats of the staircase that spirals through the center of the house.

Henri shrieks when I catch up to him on the third-floor landing, laughs as I sweep him up in my arms and kiss him on the cheeks, his arms, the top of his head. “No, Papa,” he says between giggles. “Please let me down. Please, Papa. I want to do it myself. I want to show you.”

Putting the boy down, I follow him into the great room, throw the lights on and watch as he sits down on the planked floor and pulls off one sneaker, then the other.

“Do you want anything to eat?” I ask.

Henri pauses midway from pulling off one sock and looks up at me. “Can I ... after I change?”

“Sure. I'll just get our meat ready now, while you undress.” I leave the boy, walk to the kitchen in the far corner of the room and open the freezer. I smile at the thick, frozen steaks packed within it. Father had never been impressed with most of the improvements I'd installed over the years.
“Generators,”
he'd snorted.
“Air-conditioning, electric lights — who needs them?”
But he'd never complained about my ability to keep fresh meat ready to be thawed in the microwave at a moment's notice.

I remove a huge steak and a smaller one, place both in the microwave and set it to run for a few minutes, just long enough to bring the meat to room temperature and eliminate the chill from its core.

“Papa! Look at me!”

Pressing the microwave's switch, I turn toward my son, who is standing above the pile of his cast-off clothes. “Me first,” he says.

I grin at his naked form, put my hands on my hips and nod.

Henri's eyebrows furrow, his lips purse and tighten as he concentrates on his body. Nothing happens. The boy frowns, his eyebrows furrow even more. Still nothing. The microwave dings and I step forward, reach to touch my son, ready to change with him, to make it easier for the boy.

I don't remember it being that difficult when I was little, wonder if I should make him practice more, every day, like my father made me.
“Each of us has a size, both in our natural and human shapes, where our bodies are most comfortable,”
he taught me.
“That's the simplest form of shapechanging. Once you know your human form, it will grow just as your natural form does — without your thinking about it. But there will be times you'll want to force your form into other shapes and sizes. When you're older and more practiced, I'll teach you how.”

Henri steps back from me, shakes his head. “No, Papa. I'm a big boy now.” His shoulders start to swell and a smile momentarily breaks out on his face. “See?” he says, his skin convulsing, tightening, forming scales — his jaws enlarging, his face stretching to accommodate them, as his teeth lengthen and his hands and feet turn into claws.

“Look, Papa!”
He spreads his wings, fans me with a few quick strokes.

I study the pale green creature in front of me. Twice as large as his human form, the only resemblance he has to the naked boy who just stood in his place is the emerald-green color of his eyes. Still, there's no doubt he's a child. I know eventually the pudginess around his jaws will go away, his light green scales will darken, the paunch of his cream-colored underbody will slim, his muscles will turn hard and bulge beneath his hide, his wings will lengthen and thin — and I have little desire to see any of it happen anytime soon.

“You certainly are growing up,” I say. I go to the microwave, remove the lukewarm, raw steaks, put them on platters and place them on the massive oak table in the center of the room.

Henri eyes the meat, sniffs the blood pooling on the platter.
“May I, Papa?”

I nod and the boy grabs the smaller steak, wolfs it down in only a few bites. I understand the boy's hunger. To be able to change shape is a wonderful gift nature has given us. But I've long ago learned, nature rarely gives anything without extracting some sort of a price in return. For People of the Blood, the cost extracted is our energy. Feeding is necessary to avoid growing weak.

Throwing off my clothes, I will my body to change, grunt with pleasure at the almost pain of my splitting skin, the itch of scales erupting to the surface of my body, the stiffness of my wings as they unfold and flex.

I spread my wings out to their full span and sigh at the relief of stretching them. This is the only room of the house where I can fully extend them. Measuring eighteen feet from nose to tail, with a wingspan twice that, I dwarf my son.

“Papa, you're so big!”
Henri mindspeaks.

The aroma of fresh cow's blood catches my attention. With a half-growl, half-chuckle, I turn from the boy, seize the remaining steak in my claws and devour it.

“You'll be this big or bigger when you're grown,”
I mindspeak once the meat's gone.

“Soon?”
Henri asks.

I nuzzle the boy, sniff his scent, take in the slightly sweet, slightly fresh leather smell that is uniquely him. I know I could recognize Henri from this aroma alone — even from miles away, surrounded by dozens of his own kind.

“Shall we?”
I mindspeak and turn to go down the staircase.

Henri rushes toward the room's southernmost window, the one facing the wide channel between us and the Ragged Keys.
“I want to go out here!”

I shake my head. It's the only window in the room which can open large enough for the two of us to pass through, something Henri only knows because I'd demonstrated it recently. I wish now I'd never shown off for the boy, never dived through the window.

The boy shakes his head.
“I don't want to go downstairs. I want to fly like you did. Please?”

“Come,”
I mindspeak.

“No!”
The window catch clicks as Henri releases it. Warm, salt-tinged air rushes into the room as the child throws the window open and crouches on the sill and prepares to jump into the outside air.

I growl and rush toward him.
“Don't you dare!”
I mindspeak, twirling as I near him, slapping him from the sill with a quick stroke of my tail.

He falls to the floor and wails.

Approaching him, I lay one of my wings over his sobbing form.
“It's dangerous out there, Henri. We have to make sure we're not seen. You can't just fly out of a window anytime you want.”

In his natural form and in his rebellious behavior the boy reminds me of his mother. I find it hard to remain stern with him, and cuddle him some more.
“Sometimes you just have to do what I say,”
I mindspeak.

I sigh, find myself once again giving the answer that all parents give at one time or another.
“Because I'm your father.”

Henri pouts all the way downstairs, but his sulkiness gives way to delight as soon as we reach the veranda.
“Me first!”
he mindspeaks, running forward, extending his wings, flapping them just a few beats before going airborne.

“Stay low!”
I warn him. Following behind, flying slightly above him, I study the sky. Dark thick clouds obscure what little moon there is this night. I welcome the darkness they ensure. Scanning the waters around the island for boaters, I make sure we're safe from human eyes, then fly higher, surrender to the pleasure of gliding through the evening's air.

Below me, Henri skims over the beach, waking the dog pack, leaving behind a pandemonium of growling, barking dogs as he flies out over the ocean, just barely over the tips of the waves.
“Watch Papa!”
he mindspeaks, wheeling around, gliding back to the beach, inches over the sand, in a collision course with the dogs.

He laughs as their barks and growls turn into yelps. They scatter before him and, with a few beats of his wings, Henri rises far above them.

I match his altitude and speed. Together we fly south over the Raggeds, then east over the ocean, then north, then west, making wide circles around our island — the lights in the windows of our house, warm and bright against the gloom of the evening sky. Henri follows me as I gain altitude and dive. He giggles when I chase him. Yelps with delight when I allow him to tag me.