Tale of the Thunderbolt (12 page)

“But you might not want to be too visible,” she warned. “A lot of characters come into port. We're sure we get spies sent by the Kurians now and then. Once a small fishing ship blew itself up at the pier — perhaps you noticed the big patched-up crack. We depend on trade too much to deny access to the pier to strangers. But even men such as you whom we assume to be friends are not allowed in town, and are searched before going on board the
Argus
.”

Of all the choices Valentine had faced in the last twenty-four hours, the most unexpected was deciding what to wear to dinner at the Governor's House. With the message he had in mind to say to the commodore, he preferred looking like an ally rather than a castaway. Going in his full Coastal Marines uniform would be inappropriate — he no more represented the Kurian Order than the Zulu nation. Lacking anything else presentable, he wore his tailored uniform trousers and good boots, topping it with a simple white shirt. He washed and combed out his thick black hair and drew it back into a tight pigtail. Torres completed the ensemble with the loan of a short black jacket and a strange combination of sash and cummerbund, an item common to what passed for aristocracy in his native part of Texas. Valentine's long arms dangled from the sleeves of the jacket, but he at least looked properly dressed.

One of the ubiquitous messenger boys — this one had shoes on his feet — arrived at the rooms to escort him off the dock as the sun went down. The breeze had reversed itself with the cooling of the land. What had Carrasca called it? The Undertaker. It smelled of the decay on the seashore rather than the clean ocean.

The boy led him past another watchman's post on the dock and into the first of Jayport's streets. An open carriage rocked back and forth on a heavily patched turnaround at the base of the pier; a single horse shifted impatiently in the traces before an elderly driver. The old man's white hair and whiskers framed a round black face; he gave Valentine a look more like that of a suspicious police officer rather than a taxi driver.

Carrasca waited for him in the carriage, wearing a neat blue uniform tunic with her hair in a tight bun at the back of her head. Oddly, the uniform made her even more feminine, thanks to her wide, dark eyes and portrait-perfect face. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Carrasca — or the commodore — wanted to make as good an impression on him, mirroring his own efforts in securing proper attire.

Valentine assumed the attitude of one who took her presence there, in a cushioned and polished carriage, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Good evening, Lieutenant,” he said with a perfunctory bow that seemed to suit the occasion. “Does this mean you are doing me the honor of being my escort to dinner tonight?”

“Thank you, Mr. Valentine. My duties on your former ship were such that I could be spared for an evening.” She opened the tiny door to the carriage, and Valentine primly took the seat opposite her. The corner of her mouth flickered up, and he answered with a raised eyebrow that dissolved their playacting pretenses. She giggled and he snorted.

The driver called out a low “move on,” and the carriage lurched into motion as the horse started off at a brisk walk, iron-rimmed tires squealing on the mix of cobblestone and tar.

“Actually, Valentine, your presence is a bit of a coup for me. For a people whose ships travel a thousand miles in every direction, you'd be surprised how cut off we feel out here. We get shortwave contact sometimes, but it's usually passive — we've been burned a couple times by talking over the radio. The only people we really trust now are the Dutchmen to the south.”

He could smell her now, a mixture of soap, a coconut-scented lotion, and a hint of perfume blending with the warmer female scent escaping out the collar of her uniform. The animal in him wanted to tear open the tunic, pull her head aside, and let his lips explore her neck, his hands those round, high breasts beneath. . . .

Madness. He regained control of his thoughts, crated up his lust, nailed it down, and padlocked urges too long sublimated.

“Please call me David. We're both off duty, aren't we?” Her pupils narrowed for a second, then widened again. “Maybe. You may call me Malia, if you like.”

Valentine liked. “Gladly, Malia. So the commodore wants an interview?”

“He's always eager for news from the north. The people we pick up know less about the real story than we do.”

“I might disappoint him,” Valentine said. “I've been . . .

I suppose you'd call it ‘undercover' for about a year. My only current information is what the Kur are up to on the Coast between Florida and Texas. I'm sure it will be useful to him, but if he needs current news about events farther in than that, I'll be a dry well. Since I'm part of your triumph tonight, maybe you can tell me more about how you managed your ambush so well.”

She shrugged. “I had little to do with it. Your captain's mission wasn't a secret, though if you ask me, they sent out too small a force even if everything went right. This town has grown in the last few years, grown a lot. It's funny how word of a haven gets around — we have mariners showing up from all points of the compass looking for shelter. We've even started another settlement farther along the coast at Port Maria to help accommodate the newcomers.”

“Jamaica can provide for you all?” He looked at the few wanderers on the main street. The Jamaicans made up for the drab streets and whitewashed buildings by dressing in brightly dyed colors: deep reds, brilliant yellows, and heavy purples.

“Rich soil and richer waters.” She waved to a young couple out for a stroll. “But back to your ship. Your captain did not keep his mission a secret. We have a spy or two in most of the major ports on the Vampire Earth. They tell us when something worthwhile is shipping for the most part, but we heard about your — or
their,
I mean — plans while you were still outfitting. Just because the
Thunderbolt
's gun could sink anything we have afloat didn't mean we couldn't do something about you at sea. One of our cutters kept watch at the mouth of the Mississippi, waiting for you to come out, and then it raised every sail when it saw you, and beat you here by two full days. A coastwatcher told us of your landfall by radio. We need to keep an eye on Montego Bay and the west end of the island all the time as it is.

“We knew you were moving up the coast, so we went out to meet you on it. I had a motorboat full of men, cut low, it would be hard to see. We were heading out for you from the time the moon went down. When we heard the shooting and saw the gun flashes, Captain Utari brought the
Rigel
out and put the extra men in the boats. Your captain was foolish to hug the coast like that.”

“No one was expecting you to come after us. It turned out for the best. Or at least, I hope it will. I need the ship, Malia.”

“I can't imagine what your Southern Command would do with a gunboat, other than sink it trying to get it back up the Mississippi. I promise you we will make better use of it. You have enough problems, judging from the shortwave we get.”

“What's that?”

“Battles, shortages. It seems that nothing but bad news ever comes from the north.”

“We're still standing. That's something. So you made for the
Thunderbolt
when the firing started?”

“Yes. We expected it to be a lot worse. We had an inflatable boat full of explosive we were going to use as a last resort. All the confusion you caused made the difference; otherwise, I expect it would have been a lot bloodier.”

“It was bloody enough,” Valentine said. “If it weren't for you and Captain Utari, I doubt I'd even be alive now. I'm in your debt.”

Her voice turned colder than any winter Jamaica had ever seen. “Then pay us back by leaving us alone. We do not need more trouble from Vampire Earth. We have problems enough.”

The carriage moved up a slope, clusters of white buildings giving way to trees and lush ferns. Valentine smelled the rich aroma of green growing things all around and felt newly invigorated in the cooler night air. “Aren't you afraid some cruiser is going to show up and get your town under its guns?”

“We're pretty sure they do not bother with big warships. Our worry has always been a strong landing force. We've also heard rumors about some kind of Grog that takes to the water — that's one of the reasons you saw armed men on the docks. It's well for us the vampires don't organize themselves properly.”

“It's their weakness,” Valentine agreed. “They're about as cooperative as a cave full of rabid rats. They can't see past the next infusion of aura.”

“Aura?”

“Do you call it something else here? It's what the Kurian Lords live off. Kind of an energy created by sentient beings. No, strike that — it's generated by anything that lives, but it's just hundreds of times richer when it's created by an intelligent being.”

“I thought they drank blood,” she said, puzzled.

“Their Reapers do, but the Reapers are just puppets, walking and talking tools for the dirty work of killing. There's some kind of mental link between the Kurian Master and his Reapers. The Reaper feeds itself off the blood, yes, but its Lord gets the energy we call ‘vital aura.' Either way, your calling it vampirism is correct, even if it sounds kind of . . . poetic.”

“Not a pleasant subject for conversation on such a beautiful night, David. We're almost there.”

There
emerged out of the palms and night. The Governor's House turned out to be a substantial building constructed on a flat prominence jutting from the steep hill, or small mountain, just west of the town. Behind it, somewhere in the forest, the wooden wall wound down from a watch-tower at the top of the hill. The building itself was fashioned of cut and whitewashed stone with a red clay roof, reminding Valentine of an old Spanish mission he'd seen on the Texas coast. The driver waved to a pair of white-shirted police at the entrance to a flowered courtyard and wheeled the carriage around a fountain in the center of the circular drive. The horse seemed to know the routine better than the driver, and it stopped before the door at the tiniest murmur.

“Thank you, Jason,” Carrasca said, patting the driver on the shoulder. “We will be several hours, so be sure to have your dinner.”

“I'll see to the horse first, but thank you, miss.”

Valentine stepped out of the carriage, and held the door open for his escort. “Miss?” he asked, as the driver moved off.

“Jason taught me to ride and drive. I grew up here. He's as much of a fixture of the place as the commodore. His father saved my grandfather's life way back when. He's a bit of everything: bodyguard, driver, interpreter. He knocked together my first boat, a little clinker-built toy I learned to sail. He also made that,” she said, pointing to a flag that fluttered from a corner bell tower on the building, built to cover the door as well as the road coming up the hillside from the sea. “It's dark so you can't see it. Our flag is half blue and half green, with a sun in the center, kind of like the old French sun-king design. Do flags mean anything anymore?”

“Flags? They're not much used up North. Maybe nobody in the Free Territory could figure out what color represents survival. I'll have to have a look when it's lighter.”

Valentine's night vision could pick up the emblem, even if the colors were muted, but he said nothing. The physical gifts of the Lifeweavers aroused suspicion in some people, as if he were no longer human. To this woman at least, he wanted to be a man rather than some kind of curiosity.

He sometimes wondered what exactly the Lifeweavers did to their human creations. The nearest thing he could compare it to in human experience was puberty, a sudden shift into an entirely new body type, complete with changed abilities and desires. Would any of it be passed on? His own father had been one of the Lifeweaver's elite, but apart from a remarkably healthy childhood — despite several bad falls, he had never broken a bone, nor could he remember a serious illness — he had not been the most athletic of the young men growing up around him. Only his ability to sense the presence of a Reaper, as a cold shadow appearing on the fringes of his consciousness, distinguished him from the others in the Lifeweavers' service.

“Mr. Valentine?” Carrasca said, calling him back to the present from his contemplation of Jamaica's night sky.

“Sorry, my mind wandered,” he said, turning to the door she held open for him.

“That's the only way it ever finds anything,” she said, following him into the wood-paneled entry hall.

A boy took them down the hall to another plant-filled courtyard. Valentine paused at the tile surrounding the door at the other side. Each piece had been painted with delicate tropical blossoms.

“Beautiful,” he said.

Carrasca turned. Her eyes arced up and across the span of tiles around the portal. She looked oddly wistful. “You like them? That's my work. I spent a few years obsessively painting. When I was a teen.”

“I was an obsessive reader. I was — ”

He had started to talk about his parents, his brother and sister, but stopped himself. He needed to watch his mood tonight.

She took a step closer, lowered her voice. “Orphaned? I know.”

“Same with you?”

“The same.”

Valentine read the hurt as if he were looking in a mirror. He extended the crook of his elbow, and she took his arm. “What can you do?”

She gave him a gentle squeeze with her forearm. “Go to sea. That's what finally worked for me. But let's change the subject. Tonight's a state dinner.”