Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 56~57

56EscapeKimi was trying to call up din and was having no(prenominal)luck at all. Hed been chanting and motion his arms for half(prenominal) an hour and there slake wasnt a cloud in the sky.Youre non h senioring your arms right, Sarapul said. He was lying under a laurel wreath tree, che propagation a betel nut and offering constructive reprehension to the navigator. Sepie coiffure close watching.I am too, Kimi said. Im holding them the same agency you do.Maybe it doesnt work for Philippines.Its because Im picture, Kimi said. If I wasnt shot, I could do this.Sarapul scanned the horizon. none even a bird. Thats it. Its because youre shot. He spit bring out a red menstruation of betel nut juice. And youre not holding your arms right.Kimi resumed chanting and waving his arms.Hey Sarapul said.What? Did you hear thunder? I knew I could do it.No. Be quiet. Some peerless is calling you.Kimi listened. Someone was calling him, and they were discoverting closer. He limped peck t he shore toward the voice and saw puckerer Case coming near the island.Hey, boss, what you doin out here during the day? The mavin gonna be plenty upset at you. garner was out of breath. He is mad. I need your boat, Kimi. And I need you to navigate for me.Not his ship, Sarapul said. My ship.The doc is going to start me if I dont stand by off the island. Can I use your boat?The old cannibal was silent for a moment, thinking. Where you go?I dont k at a time. Guam, Yap, anywhere.Can I ejaculate?Yes, yes, if I can use your boat.Okay, we leave five days. Right, Kimi?Kimi savored at knit. It not be good sweeping for five days.I absorb to go immediately, Kimi.Can Sepie come?Sepie stepped back, move. You want to take me? Women dont sail.You come, Kimi said. Okay, boss? he said to Tuck.Tuck nodded. Whatever. Sepie, go tell Malink that I need e rattlingone to come drinking coconuts. Many drinking coconuts with the husks taken off. Bananas, mangoes, papaya, and dried fish if he h as any.There is plenty shark kernel, Sepie said.I need it now, Sepie. Go. Tell Malink that Vincent demands it.Sarapul began to cut up at the underbrush in front of the sailing boat to pop off a path to the water. Put down decoration leaf to luxate ship on, he told Tuck. Tuck began to gather coherent palm fronds and get down them down in a path to the water.Kimi, can you go repair the things from my pack? Theres things we can use.What about Roberto?Call for him, hardly go get the stuff. The money too.Okay, boss.Ten minutes afterward Tuck carryed up to get a bourn Malink leading a line of cheat state by dint of the jungle. all(a) were carrying baskets of food and husked green coconuts.You be leaving?Yes, I allow to go, Chief.You ar taking our ship and our navigator.And our mispel, Abo added from behind Malink.I have to go, Malink. The Sorcerer and the Sky Priestess are going to kill me.But Vincent send you. How they ache you?They dont truly believe in Vincent. They use him to get you to give up the chosen, Malink. Theyre going to start killing off your peopletoo.They no kill the Chosen. Chosen are for Vincent.No. I told you before. They take out your organs and sell them to be put inside of other people.Malink scoffed. You can no put one man kidney in other man.It was in People magazine. Didnt you perk up it? Demi Moore, Melanie Griffith, Mariel Heming means, all of them? You didnt read about it?Recognition lit up Malinks face. Boob jobYes, Tuck said. Where do you think they get those boobs?Oh, no.Yes.He speaks the truth, Malink said to the islanders. It was in People. Put the food in the boat.He took Tuck aside. You will come back?Ill try.And set out our navigator.Ill try, Malink. I really will.You try.Tide, Kimi called. We go now.The center of the canoe was filled with coconuts, fruit, and bundles of dried shark meat wrapped in banana leaves. Kimi directed the men to get on either side of the canoe and push it over the mat of palm fr onds to the water. When it was afloat, Tuck lifted Sepie in, whence climbed in himself. Kimi, standing on the outrigger platform, started to swipe the sail. It was the shape of a tortilla chip stood on end with a confidence trick taken out at the top. Tuck recognized the pieces of his pack sew together into the nylon patchwork.Where is Sarapul? Kimi said.Here The old cannibal was authorizening out of the jungle, key outming stronger now than Tuck had ever insuren him. He had deceased back for his spear, a long shaft of mahogany with a wickedly barbed metal tip. Tuck caught the old man by the forearm and pulled him out of the surf and into the canoe.The canoe was already fifty yards from the shore. Sarapul took the long oar at the rear and steered it toward the rut as Kimi stood on the outrigger platform and manipulated the sail.The Shark People stood on the beach feel stunned. A few waved. Malink looked forlorn, Abo heartbroken. give thankss, Tuck shouted over the wave. Th ank you, Malink.You will come back. Malink said. It was not a question.Tuck turned to look out to sea, then looked back to see the Shark People wade into the water after them. Behind them he saw a lamentable figure come out of the jungle. There was no warning shot or demand to halt. cut came out onto the beach and opened up with the Uzi. Tuck pushed Sepies head down under the edge of the gunwale clean as a line of bullets stitched and splintered the wood. Kimi screamed and Tuck looked up to see a row of red geysers open in his back. He clung to one of the lines for a second, then fell into the sea.Another scream, this one from Sarapul, the hideous grizzle of a raging lynx, and the old man went over the side. The gunfire halt and Tuck risked popping his head up to look back to the beach. Stripe was slamming a new clip into the Uzi as he waded after the canoe. The Shark People had fled from the water and disappeared into the jungle or were cowering on the beach, unable to move.Wi th the sail loose, the canoe had swung around and was being carried by the tide toward the reef. They would miss the channel by merely a few feet, entirely they would miss it and run aground on the reef. Tuck reached up to grab the steering oar effective as Stripe let off another burst from the Uzi. At a hundred yards he was spraying a wide pattern, but Tuck heard a mates of bullets thunk into the side of the canoe.The normally watch glass water near the shore was clouded with the sand and silt throw up by the Shark Peoples retreat, so Stripe did not see the dark shape moving through the water toward him. He wanted a shot. He set the Uzi to semiautomatic and unfolded the stock to take elaborated aim.Tuck was standing now, leaning hard on the steering oar to bring the canoe around and through the channel. The outrigger scraped over the reef as the canoe approached broadside.Stripe lined up the sights between Tucks shoulder blades, held his breath, let it out, then squeezed the trigger.Sarapul came out of the water like an angry marlin, spear-first. The metal point entered provided under Stripes chin and exited his skull at the crown, dragging brain and bone on its evil barb. As Stripe fell back, he emptied the clip into the sky.The canoe slipped through the channel into the open ocean. Out on the horizon, a minor(ip) cloud appeared and dropped a mercurial lightning bolt into the sea, followed a few seconds later by Kimis thunder.57West with the BatThe Sorcerer stood on the beach over the supine dead body of Yamata. The spear was nonoperational sticking out of the guards skull like a gruesome note spindle waiting for a canceled receipt from the Reaper.How did this happen? the Sorcerer asked.Malink looked at his feet. The Sorcerer seemed more surprised than angry. A day had passed since Sarapul had killed Stripe, and Malink had waited in fear for the time when the Sorcerer would come looking for him. The other guards had torn the village apart looking f or Tuck, and Malink had confessed that the buffer storage had left the island in an old canoe, but he had claimed ignorance of the whereabouts of the guard. Sarapul had been right. They should have pushed the body out to the edge of the reef for the sharks to eat. Actually, that had been Sarapuls second suggestion for the disposal of the body.It look like accident, Malink said. Maybe he running and fall on his spear.I want the man who did this, Malink, the Sorcerer said.He is dead.The Filipino did this?Malink nodded. The other guards had gear up Kimis body in the village, where the Shark People had been preparing it for burial.I dont think so. The Filipino took four bullets in the back. Whoever did this was very strong. Now you must tell me the truth or Vincent will be angry.Malink was not acrophobic of Vincents wrath. He only now realized that all the wrath his people had ever mat from Vincent had comeby way of the Sorcerer and the Sky Priestess. He was afraid of the Sky Priest ess.The American do this before he leave in the canoe. The guard shoot the girl-man and the American kill the guard.Why didnt you tell me about this before?I am afraid Vincent will be angry.Where did they get a canoe? None of the Shark People hunch over how to variety a canoe.It was the girl-man. He know how. He build with Sarapul.The Sorcerer balled his fists. And Sarapul is gone too.Malink nodded. He sail away.Do you know where they were going?Malink shook his head. No. Sarapul is banished. We no talk with him.Wheres the guards weapon?Malink shrugged.The Sorcerer turned his back and began walk of life up the beach. Have your people bury this man, Malink. Dont let the other guards see him. And be ready. The Sky Priestess will visit you soon.Sarapul crawled out from some nearby ferns and stood at Malinks side, watching the Sorcerer walk away. We should have eaten this guy, he said, thrill Yamatas body.This is very bad, Malink said.He killed my genius. Sarapul kicked the body ag ain.The Sky Priestess will be very angry. Malink was, once again, feeling the weight of his position.The old cannibal shrugged. Can I have my spear back?Tuck knew that there was a way to use the hands of a watch in conjunction with the forepart of the sun to determine electric charge, but since he wore a digital watch, it wouldnt have done him any good even if he knew the method, which he didnt. He guessed that Guam lay to the west, so he steered for the setting sun, spent the night guessing, and turn his course to put the sun behind them at sunrise.He did know how to sail. It was required knowledge for a kid groannex up in a wealthy family near San Diego, but celestial navigation was a complete mystery. Sepie was no help at all. Even if she knew anything, she hadnt said a word since Kimi had been shot.Tuck forced her to drink the water from a couple of green coconuts, but other than that, she had lain in the bow motionless for two dozen hours.He was now looking at his second su nset at sea. He corrected his course and realized that they must have been change of location north most of the day. How far, he couldnt guess. He steered southwest until the sun lay on the water like a glowing platter, hoping to correct some of the damage.He really wished that Sepie would come around. He needed some sleep, and he needed some relief from his own thoughts. Thoughts of the Sky Priestess, of the Sorcerer, and of his dead friend Kimi. Despite the navigat-ors surly manner, he had been a good kid. Tuck, who had been brought up in relative luxury, couldnt imagine having endured the life that Kimi had lived. And the navigator had never given up. He had lived and died with courage. And he would still be alive if he hadnt met Tucker Case. tail end Tuck said to no one. He wiped his eyes on his branch and squinted at the gunmetal waves.There was a flapping noise up by the mast and Tuck adjusted the steering oar to catch the wind. The sail filled again, but the flapping contin ued for a second before it stopped.Roberto caught the shroud line that was secured to the outrigger and did an upside-down swinging landing that left him looking to the back of the canoe.Tuck couldnt have been happier if it had been an angel hanging from his shroud line.Roberto?Yes, the batter said. He was discourse in his own voice, not Vincents. The accent Filipino, not Manhattan.Tuck near burst out laughing. His mood swings were so rapid and wide now that he was afraid his sanity might be falling through the chasm. I didnt recognize you without your glasses.I no like the light, Roberto said.Tuck looked to Sepie, still lying in the bow. Look, Sepie, its Roberto. The girl did not stir.You are very good-for-naught about Kimi, Roberto said.Yes, Tuck said, I am sad.He tell you he was great navigator and you no believe him.Tuck looked away. Something about yeasty increases shame by a factor of ten.You are going the reproach way, the bat said. Go that way.He pointed with a wing cl aw. The wind caught his wing and nearly spun him off the shroud line. He braced himself with the other wing claw and pointed again. I mean that way.Youre shitting me, Tuck said.That way.Thats north. Im going to Guam. West.Thats west. I am born on Guam.Youre a bat.You ever see a lost bat?No, but Ive never seen a talking bat either.See? Roberto said, as if he had made his point. That way.After all the show is in after youve run all the facts by everything you know and youre still lost, you have to do some things on faith. Tuck steered in the direction Roberto was pointing.A few minutes later he looked up to see Vincent sitting on the pile of coconuts in the center of the canoe. Good call, earreach to the bat, Vincent said. I just wanted you to know that the Shark People are going to build some ladders.Well, thats a useful bit of information, Tuck said.It will be, Vincent said. Then he disappeared.