Christopher Moore - Island of the Sequined Love Nun

A roar went up from the crowd on the beach as Abo turned the shark over to the slaughterers and held up his arms in triumph. The men on the reef slit the shark’s belly and cut off a huge hunk of the liver, which they handed to Abo. He bit into it, tearing out a ragged chunk and swallowing as blood ran down his chest.

Soon others were steering sharks onto the reef and the water beyond was alive with fins. The red cloud expanded as the sharks died and bled and more came to take their place. The gutted sharks were brought onto the beach, where the women continued the butchering, handing pieces of the raw flesh to the children as treats or prying out serrated teeth and giving them to little boys as trophies.

One of the men actually stood up on the back of a huge hammerhead that he was steering to the reef and nearly castrated himself on the dorsal fin as he fell. But the shark was held fast and died on the reef with the others.

In half an hour the shark hunt was over. The sea was red with blood for a thousand yards in all directions and the beach was littered with the corpses of a hundred sharks: black tips, white tips, hammerheads, blue, and mako. Some of the deadliest creatures had been taken like they were guppies in a net, and not one of the Shark People was hurt, although Tuck noticed that many were bleeding from abrasions on the inside of their thighs where they had rubbed against the sharks’ skin during their ride. The Shark People were ecstatic, and every one of them was drenched in blood.

Tuck was stunned. He’d never seen such courage or such slaughter before, and he was getting the willies thinking about all the time he had spent swimming in these waters at night.

Malink walked up the beach dragging a leopard shark by its gills. His Buddha belly was dripping in blood. He looked up at Tucker and risked a smile.

“That’s the chief,” Beth Curtis said. “He’s really too old for this, but he won’t stay on shore.”

“Do the sharks ever get any of them?”

“Sometimes. Usually just a bite. A lot of sutures, but no one’s been killed since I’ve been on the island.”

No one hunting sharks, anyway, Tuck thought. A little girl who had been helping her mother shyly peeked over the carcass of a big hammer-head, then ran up to Tucker and quickly touched him on the knee before retreating to the safety of her mother.

“That’s strange,” Beth Curtis said. “The women and girls won’t have anything to do with a white man. Even when they come to Sebastian, they talk to him through a brother or husband—and he speaks their language.”

Tuck didn’t answer. He was still looking at the little girl’s back. She had a massive pink scar that ran like a smile from her sternum, under her arm, to her backbone at exactly the place where the kidney would be. Tuck felt sick to his stomach.

“I think I’ve seen enough, Beth. Can we go?”

“Can’t deal with the sight of blood?”

“Something like that.”

As they walked back through the village, Tuck noticed a woman and a little boy sitting outside of one of the cookhouses. The mother was holding the boy and singing to him softly as she rocked him. Both of his eyes were bandaged with gauze pads. Tucker approached the woman and she pulled the child to her breast.

Beth Curtis caught Tuck’s arm and tried to pull him back. Tuck shook her off and went to the woman.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tuck asked.

The woman slid across the gravel, away from him.

“Tucker!” Beth Curtis said, “Leave her alone. You’re scaring her.”

“It’s okay,” Tuck whispered to the woman. “I’m the pilot. Vincent sent me.”

The woman seemed to calm down, and although her eyes went wide with wonder, she managed a small smile.

Tuck reached out and touched the child’s head. “What’s wrong with him?”

The woman held out the boy as if presenting him for baptism.

“He is chosen,” she said. She looked at the Sky Priestess for approval.

Tuck stood and backed away from her. He was afraid to look at Beth, afraid that he might strangle her on the spot. Instead, calmly, deliberately, although it took all his effort to keep from shaking, he said, “We’d better get back.” He led the way through the village and back to the compound.

The Sky Priestess threw the straw hat across the room, then tore at the high-buttoned collar of the white dress. She was losing him. She hated that more than anything: losing control. She ripped the dress down the front and wrestled out of it.

She stormed across the room, the dress still trailing from one foot, and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. She poured herself a tumbler and drank half of it off while still holding the bottle, then refilled the glass while her temples throbbed with the cold. She carried the bottle and glass to a chair in front of the television, sat down, and turned it on. Nothing but static and snow. Sebastian was using the satellite dish. She threw the vodka bottle at the screen, but missed and it bounced off the case, taking a small chip out of the plastic.

“Fuck!” She keyed the intercom next to her chair. “’Bastian! Dammit!”

“Yes, my sweet.” His voice was calm and oily.

“What the fuck are you doing? I want to watch TV.”

“I’m just finishing up, sweetheart.”

“We need to talk.” She tossed back another slug of vodka.

“Yes, we do. I’ll be up in a moment.”

“Bring some vodka from your house.”

“As you wish.”

Ten minutes later the Sorcerer walked into her bungalow, the picture of the patrician physician. He handed her the vodka and sat down across from her. “Pour me one, would you, darling?”

Before she could catch herself, she’d gotten up and fetched him a glass from the kitchen. She handed it to him along with the bottle.

“Your dress is torn, dear.”

“No shit.”

“I like the look,” the Sorcerer said, “although I’d have preferred to tear it off you myself.”

“Not now. I think we have trouble.”

The Sorcerer smiled. “We did, but as of tonight at midnight, our troubles are over. How was your walk this morning, by the way?”

“I took Case to see the shark hunt. I thought it would keep him from getting island fever, something different to break the boredom.”

“As opposed to fucking him.”

She wasn’t going to show any surprise, not after he’d laid a trap like that. “No, in addition to fucking him. It was a mistake.”

“The shark hunt or the fucking?”

She bristled, “The shark hunt. The fucking was fine. He saw the boy whose corneas we harvested.”

“So.”

“He freaked. I shouldn’t have let him connect the people with the procedure.”

“But I thought you could handle him.”

He was enjoying this entirely too much for her taste. “Don’t be smug, ’Bastian. What are you going to do, lock him in the back room of the clinic? We need him.”

“No, we don’t. I’ve hired a new pilot. A Japanese.”

“I thought we’d agreed that…”

“It hasn’t worked using Americans, has it? He starts tonight.”

“How?”

“You’re going to go pick him up. The corporation assures me that he’s the best, and he won’t ask questions.”

“I’m going to pick him up?”

“We have a heart-lung order. You and Mr. Case need to deliver it.”

“I can’t do it, ’Bastian. I can’t do a performance and a heart-lung tonight. I’m too jangled.”

“You don’t have to do either, dear. We don’t have to do the surgery. We’ll make less money on it, but we only have to deliver the donor.”

“But what about doing the choosing?”

“You’ve done that already. You chose when you went to bed with our intrepid Mr. Case. The heart-lung donor is Tucker Case.”