Christopher Moore: Island of the Sequined Love Nun

“I think they’re leaving.”

“Not without us, they’re not. I am the Sky Priestess and I won’t allow it.” She started to get up and Sebastian pulled her back down.

“They were coming to kill us, Beth. You were out.”

“Right. If you ever drug me again—”

“You’re insane,” he said.

She reared back to slap him and he caught her hand. “Keep it up, Beth. I’m telling you that if they find us, they’ll kill us. Do you understand that?”

“They’re grunts. I won’t…”

Suddenly there was a huge explosion from across the runway and they turned to see a mushroom of fire rising from where the clinic used to be.

The guards had loaded onto the jet and Nomura was taxiing to the end of the runway.

The guards’ quarters went off next, then the hangar, the barrels of jet fuel throwing a column of flame five hundred feet in the air.

“Where did they get explosives?” Beth said. “Did you know they had explosives?”

“They’re destroying the evidence,” Sebastian said. “Orders from Japan, I’m sure.”

The Learjet started its run for takeoff as Sebastian’s bungalow went off like a fragmentation grenade, followed by Tuck’s old quarters and Beth’s bungalow. Fire rained down across the island.

“My shoes! All of my shoes were in there. You bastards.” Beth pulled away from Sebastian and ran out on the runway just as the Learjet passed.

“You rotten bastards!”

The Sky Priestess stood in the middle of the runway and screamed herself mute as the Lear disappeared into the clouds.

Mary Jean brought the pink Gulfstream in right on the tail of the 747. Tuck kept the speed over eighty in the taxi, turning it away from the terminal, where police jeeps and a hundred men in riot gear waited. He also noticed a half-dozen TV news trucks there as well.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Costa Rica, the new home of the Shark People. The temperature outside is 85 degrees and it’s clear that things are going to get ugly. I hope everybody’s ready.”

The police jeeps were speeding across the tarmac toward the two jets. Mary Jean turned the Gulfstream so that it was facing back toward the runway.

Tuck turned to Malink. “Where’s Roberto?”

Malink pointed up. Roberto hung from the handle of the emergency hatch. There was a spring-loaded spool of steel cable attached to the ceiling next to the hatch. “Mary Jean, you ready?”

“Sweetheart, we’d better git while the gitten’s good. We stirred a hornet’s nest out here.”

Tuck grabbed Roberto and stuffed him inside his shirt. “Stay,” he said. Then he opened the hatch and looked back at Malink. “I have to go now.”

Malink took Tuck in his big arms and squeezed until the bat screamed. “You will come back.”

“If you say so, Chief.” Tuck flipped the intercom switch and picked up the headset. “Go!” he said and climbed up into the hatch.

The six doors on the 747 all sprung open at once and the yellow emergency slides inflated and extended to the ground as if the jet was a huge insect suddenly growing legs. The Shark People piled

down the emergency slides and Mary Jean spooled up the Gulfstream for takeoff.

Tuck climbed onto the roof and reached back into the hatch for the loop of nylon webbing that attached to the spool of cable. The police jeeps were pulling up on the sides of the two jets; men with rifles stood in the back trying to figure out what they should be shooting at. The Shark People crowded in between the jets, making a human corridor. Tuck took a deep breath and leaped off the top of the jumbo jet. The spring-loaded coil of cable did exactly what Boeing had designed it to do: It lowered the pilot safely to the ground from four stories up. Once on the ground, Tuck ran under the cover of the Shark People and leaped into the open door of the Gulfstream. “Go!” he yelled.

The Shark People scrambled away and Mary Jean released the ground brakes. The jet shot forward. Tuck slammed the door and got to the cockpit just as a jeep swerved out of the jet’s path and flipped over.

“Don’t try to play chicken with me, snotnose,” Mary Jean said grimly. “I knew James Dean his own self.”

“Think they’ll let you get this thing in the air?”

“I’d like to see ’em try to stop me.”

The police jeeps seemed to part for the jet as it headed back to the runway. For all the guns there, no one seemed interested in firing a shot. Tuck looked back and saw the Shark People waving as Mary Jean made her takeoff run.

When they were airborne, she said, “Tucker Case, when you make a turnaround, boy, you don’t do it half-twiddle, do you?”

Tuck laughed. “Did you really know James Dean?”

“Sounded good, didn’t it?” She turned to him. Not surprisingly, her makeup was done perfectly to complement her outfit and the Gulfstream’s headset. She let out a little yelp. “Tucker, there’s a varmint in your shirt.”

“That’s Roberto,” Tuck said. “He no like the light.”

“Darlin’, if I had a face like that, I’d gravitate toward dim and unlit territories myself. Remind me to give your friend a sample of our new depilatory.”

“What was that all about back there?” Tuck asked.

“Heroics, son. I told you on the phone, I believe in redemption and I thought it was time I practiced what I preached. Were they really selling those poor heathens’ organs?”

“Beg your pardon, Mary Jean, I really do appreciate the rescue, but don’t bullshit me. Any one of those cops could have shot out the tires of this plane and we’d still be on the ground.”

She smiled, a knowing smile with a hint of mischief, the Mona Lisa in a big blond wig. “Media event, son. You’d be surprised how far a little palm grease goes in the Third World. Why, I couldn’t buy the media coverage my company’s going to get on this with a year’s profits. And of course you’re going to reimburse me for the bribes. Jake says you’ll be able to. The tax boys frown on taking bribes. as a deduction. Although we could take it as advertising expense. Never mind, you don’t owe me nothing.”

“So that’s the only reason you did it, the media coverage?”

“I was shabby to you, Tucker. Not that you didn’t deserve it, but I wasn’t feeling so good about myself for doing it. I aways kinda looked at you like my wayward little lamb. Course, I’m from cattle folk.”

Tuck smiled. “Whatever. Where are we going?”

“Little place of mine in the Cayman Islands. Jake’s going to meet us there with your little friend.”

The Sky Priestess awoke with a terrible pain in her head. She couldn’t feel her arms or legs, and something was cutting her between her breasts. She and the Sorcerer had been living in the deserted village for two weeks. The last thing she could remember was the Sorcerer going into the dark for more firewood and hearing a thud . When he didn’t answer her call, she had gone to look for him.

She opened her eyes and blinked to clear her vision. The world seemed to be spinning and for a second all she could see was a green blur that was the jungle. Then things popped into focus. She was slowly turning at the end of a coconut fiber rope, suspended six feet above the ground. The harness was digging in between her breasts and cutting off the circulation to her limbs. She lifted her head and saw an ancient native tending a long earthen oven that was spouting smoke from either end. The Sorcerer’s clothes were piled nearby.

The old native looked up and ambled over to her on spindly legs. There were chicken feathers stuck in his hair and his eyes had a rheumy yellow cast to them.