The Gift of the Dragon

by Michael Murray

  Alice went into the bathroom and changed into the pants. They were too big in the waist and short in the leg, but they had a drawstring that she tied tightly. They seemed as if they would stay up. The pants had a small inner pocket, where her iPhone fit perfectly. Cool!

  She found a twist tie and got her hair under control. Now she just needed some kind of weapon. She noticed the ball-shaped, black crystal faucet handles on the sink. Better than nothing. She unscrewed them. The heavy balls felt as though they weighed half a pound each. She took both and stuck them in her pockets and walked to the elevator. “Armed and dangerous!”

  The ship looked deserted, but she smelled something like rusty metal as she vaulted over the side to the deck. She realized it was the smell of blood as she saw a man down in the light from the hotel.

  The man’s head lay cut off, next to his bleeding neck.

  The last of the fog left her head.

  The Endurance had two decks in the center, the lower deck she stood on and an upper deck above that. She noticed a staircase in front of her, and she quietly crept up it to the second deck. She saw another shape dimly and approached it. Her heart beat like a drum, and she thought that if anyone were alive on this ship, they must be able to hear it.

  As she got closer, she smelled blood again, mixed with the smell of excrement. This one got shot. And his head also lay there, cut from his body. Who in the world does things like this?

  Suddenly, she heard a shout of pain from the cabins behind the bridge in front and above her. Jacob’s voice!

  “Jacob!” she yelled and then realized she should not have. What if she alerted Northwin or his remaining men? What if someone from the shore heard her and called the police? I want to deal with Northwin on my own!

  Alice crouched down in the shadows of the mast of the ship, in the center of the deck, trying to hide. She pulled the crystal balls out of her pockets and held one in each hand.

  She heard a door open up on the upper deck of the ship. “Alice!” The voice sounded familiar, but it didn’t belong to Jacob. She drew back into the shadows.

  Alice heard nothing more for several minutes, and then she heard a sound behind her. A whisper. “Alice.”

  She spun around and saw a man pointing a gun at her from the side of the deck about ten feet away. He hadn’t fired. Alice focused in on the man’s hand, and it seemed as if she was staring through a tunnel with the barrel of the gun at the end of it. Continuing her turning motion, she released a heavy, black crystal faucet handle. It flew true. She heard a loud crack as the ball hit the man’s gun, and it clattered to the deck.

  “Bitch!” he shouted, pulling his hand back. She spun again and threw the second ball straight at his head as she rolled forward.

  The man ducked the second ball with a fluid nod. Alice came out of her roll and stood up, her fists raised. The feeling of knowing what to do came over her again.

  “Hello, Alice Sangerman. I’m Callan Grant.” As the man said the last word, she saw his leg move in a blur, and she barely blocked his vicious kick. Pain shot up her arms as she stopped the kick just short of her chin.

  The man named Grant shook his gun hand as though it smarted. Otherwise, he seemed calm. “We’ve met before, Alice. I killed your friend Sara.”

  “Keyah!” Alice shouted as she kicked at Grant’s midsection with her right leg. Grant blocked it, but Alice spun into the kick and fired her left leg at the same spot. Grant blocked that also. Alice continued her spin, leaping high into the air and striking with her right leg again, this time hitting Grant solidly on the side of his neck. The force of the blow enveloped her leg, and pain shot from her shin up to her own neck. That must have hurt him! Grant just shook his head and smiled at her.

  Alice moved in then, her hands flying. First her right palm, then her left fired up at Grant’s face. He ducked her right, but her left hit with a solid smack. Again, she felt the shock of the hit roll up her arm. Grant still didn’t seem fazed. Alice danced in again, this time rolling in with her left forearm. Grant again ducked her, blocking. That set her up for a right, and she stiffened her fingers and drove the blade of her hand into his throat.

  With incredible precision, Grant’s head came down, catching her hand between his chin and his collarbone. For a second she couldn’t pull it back. Then Grant’s right fist slammed into her open stomach and it felt as if all the air she had breathed in her life left her at once. Gasping, she stumbled backward, and Grant followed with a left foot to her chest, raising a star of blinding pain from her sternum. Her teeth clenched together on her cheek as what little air she had gasped in left her again. She tasted blood in her mouth.

  Grant kept coming with his left foot shooting straight for her throat. She barely managed to get her hands up in time to block it. She heard the sharp crack before she felt the searing bite of her right pinkie finger breaking as Grant’s foot shot through her guard, striking her just below her throat, flipping her backward. She hit the deck so hard it felt as though her shoulders cracked, and the back of her head bounced a few times off the hard wood. She managed to get to her feet and back into a fighting stance with her arms up.

  Grant faced her. He didn’t seem to be breathing hard, while Alice drew huge shaking breaths, trying to regain her control. Get back to the center!

  “Look, Alice dear, I’m still interested in only one thing. That necklace Sara gave you. You have it?”

  Without thinking, Alice put her hand to her chest, where the necklace lay under her shirt.

  Grant reached out, palm up. “Come on, save us both some time and you some pain. I’ll let your boyfriend up there go too. Just give me the little dragon.”

  Sara’s face flashed before Alice’s eyes then, with the look she had that night by the falls. She seemed to be crying to Alice not to give it to Grant. “I’m not going to!” Alice said to Sara’s ghost. Then she realized she had said it aloud.

  Callan

  He glared at the bleeding, panting woman in front of him. Did she have the necklace, or didn’t she? She had acted as though she had it, patting her chest when he had mentioned it. Saying she would not give it to him. But could it be a ruse? Women could be devious when cornered. Sara, poor Sara, fooled him. Faith almost did. He would not be fooled again!

  Be careful, Callan. Control your instincts. If he killed her, he might never find the dragon necklace that must be the key to unlocking the encrypted files on his tablet. If she had hidden it somewhere, she might have told Castellan where.

  Or she might be foolish enough to have worn it to this little dance tonight. He knew but one way to find out. Stop fooling around!

  Callan fired a kick at Alice and then another and another. She ducked the first two, but the third she blocked with both hands. He heard another bone crack. She shrieked.

  “Another finger, Alice. That makes eight more to go, right? Give me the necklace!” He aimed another hard right kick at her. This one she ducked, and he couldn’t stop before his leg glanced off the mast of the ship. That hurt, but he trained hard, and he shook it off. He swung his leg back and around again, his long legs giving him the advantage over her shorter ones.

  Alice ducked under it, but Callan reversed direction and brought it down at her head. She blocked this again, no crack this time as she rolled back, her hands up. Callan followed up with yet another kick, and Alice blocked again, but the force of it drove her down and back into the metal rail around the deck, and he heard her head strike it with a hollow thud.

  She snapped back upright, though, and charged him, this time getting one kick, then a second through his guard, slamming into his chest, knocking him backward and down. He wore a padded Kevlar vest with a ceramic shield that could stop an assault rifle’s bullet. That hurt her much more than it did me!

  Alice

  Alice watched Grant fall to the deck. She didn’t follow him. She needed to catch her breath. Her foot hurt badly where she had kicked him. He must have some freaking body armor on! She would need to aim f
or his head, then. Callan got back up and came toward her again. At least he stopped talking!

  She saw Grant’s foot shoot toward her, and she blocked it with her own left foot, forcing him backward. Then before he could start another of his leg-powered blitzes, she started her own. She whirled her right foot up, and Callan blocked it with his left. She repeated with her left foot, and Callan blocked that with his right arm. Aiming to keep him off balance, she sent another kick at his centerline. He blocked that, but it moved him backward toward the mast. Thinking him shaken up by her rapid attack, Alice went into a spinning roundhouse kick that should flatten him. As she came around, the man she saw didn’t look shaken but fully aware, and he side-stepped inside her kick and then stopped her charge by slamming a hard right palm into her already sore solar plexus.

  Silver fire seemed to flash in front of her eyes from the pain and Alice fell to the deck with the ship spinning around her. She got back up, but now Callan came at her like a whirlwind, with kick after kick and then punches coming at her as fast as she could duck or block. A knee got through, hitting her stomach, then another fist to her sore belly. She felt vomit in her mouth mixing with the blood and heard a roaring in her ears above the ragged sound of her breath. She thought about screaming for help, about running, about jumping over the side and taking her chances with the sharks in Miami harbor.

  This is the man who killed Sara! And he is here in front of me! She bit down on her cheeks then as his blows continued to land. She focused on the pain. I survived the Columbia. I can beat this little man! She fell to the deck and swept Grant’s legs out from under him, breaking his attack.

  He sprang back up and grinned at her. “I just want the necklace, Alice. You can’t beat me.” She saw a cut on his lip but only a little blood. Above his grin, his eyes looked grim. Like he feels sad about something.

  The vomit would not stay down then, and Alice threw up on the deck.

  She rolled away and got back up on her shaking legs. She put her arms up. “You will not get it, Grant. I will die first!”

  “Your choice!” Grant yelled and began another series of attacks. Alice blocked two kicks, but then something broke inside her head. Her body suddenly went numb, and she fell down, her left side seizing up, her legs curling.

  Callan whirled his kick through the air where she had been standing. The miss seemed to throw him off balance. As he landed, his feet went out from under him. Her body frozen, Alice watched him slip in the pool of her vomit and blood. He spun headfirst into the ship’s steel mast, and she heard a metallic bang followed by a crunching sound.

  He lay still. She found she could move her right arm some more than before, and she could feel the pain in her fingers sharply again. Short seizure!

  She elbowed herself over to Callan’s body. He won’t be out for long! Some feeling was returning in her left side as well. She could get to her knees. Bracing herself on a numb left arm, she made her right hand into a blade and jabbed it with all her weight into his throat. He made choking sounds but still did not move. That will keep him down longer! She looked around. They were only a few feet from the mast of the Endurance. Ropes lay coiled at the base of the mast, for raising the now-lowered flag. She still could not walk on her left leg, so she crawled to the mast, undid the rope, and then crawled back to Callan’s body.

  She rolled him over and tied his hands and feet with the rope. Heavy bastard! It took all her concentration to get her left hand to work well enough to tie the knots.

  Alice stared at Callan’s limp body, bound to the mast. She could stand again, and by the feel of pins and needles in her left leg, she would soon be able to walk. It always hurts the most when the feeling comes back.

  She saw Callan drooling and starting to blink his eyes as she left him and stumbled for the upper deck. “Jacob!” she shouted. “It’s over! Callan is down!”

  “Alice?” she heard, faintly.

  She found him in the office behind the bridge, bruised, bleeding, with chewed-looking tape hanging from his mouth, but smiling to see her. She threw herself into his lap, hugging him, and then realized he sat still bound to the chair with a bloody body next to him.

  She jumped up and stumbled back. “Northwin?”

  Jacob nodded. “Yeah. He didn’t make it.” He looked down at his bound arms, raising his eyebrows.

  “Shoot, let me get you out of there.” A knife lay among the photos, papers, and bloody pliers, on the desk. She saw a small tablet computer there also. She cut Jacob free. “What happened to him?”

  “He made Grant mad. What happened to Grant?”

  “He made me mad. Now he’s tied to the mast downstairs.”

  “Tied? We don’t have good luck with tying people, Alice.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “He used this heavy duct tape on me. And him.” Jacob nodded at Northwin. “Very effective.”

  Alice saw the roll on the floor and nodded. “This tablet important?”

  “He seemed quite interested in it.”

  “Nanette said this,” Alice clutched the dragon necklace, “could be a… hardware key.”

  “For a computer… or a tablet.” Jacob stretched his hands out. “We should take better care of Callan.” He picked up the roll of duct tape from the floor.

  “Yeah, and then see whether this is the lock for our key.” Alice picked up the tablet and shoved it in the thigh pocket of her combat pants.

  As they went back out on deck, she shuddered, remembering the bodies. “This is a ship of death.”

  “We’ll make sure Grant is secure. Then I’ll call 911 and get the authorities here.”

  “We should probably leave before they arrive.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  They went down to where Callan Grant sat tied to the mast. Alice was glad he was still there. She saw his gun on the deck where she had knocked it from his hands. She picked it up and stood back while Jacob wrapped him up like a Christmas present for an ogre.

  Grant coughed.

  “Well, Grant, looks like she did come when I called. And now you’re the one duct-taped in place,” Jacob said.

  Grant spat. “Why, Jacob, my friend, are you still here?”

  “I am. And here you are. We’re going to leave and call the police to come see the mess you made.”

  “Ha! I’ll be out in a week, Jacob. And then I will be the one coming for you and your sweet little girlfriend. Untie me, give me the key, and you can go live your small lives in peace.”

  Jacob snorted. “Right, Miami PD will find you here with one of the world’s richest men and on a ship littered with headless bodies. This is Florida. You’ll have a quick trial followed by a quick lethal injection. Nancy Grace will make sure you get the needle. Welcome to the Sunshine State!” Jacob held out his hand to Alice. “Could you watch him while I call the cops?”

  Her eyes fixed on Callan, Alice absently handed Jacob her cell phone. He walked a few paces away.

  Callan looked at Alice. “Sweet Alice, this man you keep having to rescue, is he not so good? Is that why you are keeping me alive?”

  Alice strode forward and whacked him across the face with her gun. “I will kill you, put your head in a box, and let it float to the other side of the sea!”

  “Let me help you, then. Hit me again, in the temple. Between my eye and ear. Hit me a few times there. That is the thinnest part of my skull. You are stronger than you look. It won’t take long.”

  “That’s what you want us to believe, that you’re not afraid of death.”

  Callan looked her in the eye then. “I’m not, pretty Alice. I’m like you.” His eyes stared at a point above her eyes. At my scar? “I’ve been kissed by the dragon.”

  That made no sense to Alice. His brain must be addled from the fight, or he wanted to confuse her. “That’s bull, Callan. You’ll die, and then you’ll go to that special part of hell reserved for people who kill children!”

  “You have me confused with Thorn. I
saw you met him. Michel Thorn, Ian McAlister, they kill children. Not Callan Grant.”

  “Sara was—”

  “Sara was an adult woman! Believe me, I know.”

  “And you killed her. Tried to kill me. Tried to kill Jacob. And what you did to the men on this boat. There is something seriously wrong with you!”

  “What’s wrong with me is wrong with you too. Hit me, Alice. Hit me a dozen times until my brain leaks out. I will lose my memories, as you did. But I will heal. Like you did. I will recover. We have the same disease, Alice, you and I.”

  “I’m not like you!”

  “Alice, we have to go!” Jacob came running up the deck.

  “Yes, go with him, Alice. Don’t worry about me. I promise you, we will meet again!”

  She looked at him over her shoulder as she went down the stairs to the lower deck. Alice felt sure that Callan was wrong about that.

  Nate

  Nate Achille put down the phone. “That’s the word, boys. It’s time to party!” After dropping off the shore teams around the corner from the yacht wharf in the Miami River, the Response Boat had loitered behind Claughton Island, out of sight of the Endurance.

  Now, the chief put the twin diesels in gear and lighted up the flashing lights on the boat’s radar arch as they dashed toward the ship.

  The men of the HRT checked their weapons, getting ready for action. In less than a minute the Response Boat rounded the island and surged toward the silhouette of the Endurance, dark against the glow of the Epoch Hotel, except for a few cabin lights. Achille thought he heard a low-flying plane before the Response Boat’s diesels spun up, but once the boat got moving, all he could hear were her engines, the waves being crushed beneath the boat’s broad prow, and the wind howling past his ears.