027
The waves on Friday morning weren’t the stuff of surfer dreams, but my spirits rose the moment I hit the water. I joined some other surfers I knew by face more than name, and hung with them awhile. Later, I paddled out farther than the others, just to sit and be, but about levitated off the board when something hit my right foot. Last time that happened, a dead body had surfaced. This time a dorsal fin broke the water in an arc. Not a shark, a dolphin. Whew! I watched as it swam nearer, and wondered for a moment if it could be Triton in his shape-shifted form. But no, the moon would be full tomorrow. Triton changed only at the dark of the moon. Well, he did unless his inner shifting clock had changed over the centuries.
“Triton?” I said as the dolphin approached.
It dove under my board, then did a Marineland-worthy leap out of the water on the other side.
“Triton, damn it, if that’s you, you’d better get your flipper over here now.”
The dolphin bobbed up near my left leg, clicked and whistled, but a fast mind probe told me this wasn’t Triton. This was a dolphin out to play, willing to connect with me. I reached to touch, and it lifted its beak to my hand. For a moment suspended in simple, profound accordance, we met gazes. Then the dolphin slowly rolled away from me. It circled back once more before arching away toward the shore.
I paddled hard to follow, and in an exhilarating minute, we had both caught a wave, the dolphin and me. We were nearing the shallower water when the dolphin peeled off. I rode the wave until it fizzled into froth, and packed it in for the day.
How can you top surfing with a dolphin for a natural high?
Something in me must’ve healed that morning, because I felt better than I had in a week when I woke up Friday afternoon. It helped that Saber had news. First, Kevin had called to thank us for catching Gorman. I knew Kevin would be on my tour tonight, even if he had to crash it, and I didn’t care.
The second bit of good news was that Saber had sweet-talked his former Realtor, Amanda, into giving him the information I needed to claim my property. I’d wait to file on Monday, but I could hardly wait to talk with Maggie about fixing up the place. Even Candy had checked in with cautiously optimistic news. Vlad stonewalled them in the interrogation, but the offshore account hadn’t been closed yet.
The one surprise was having visitors ring my doorbell at six fifteen that evening. I didn’t recognize the two men in their sixties dressed in green polo shirts and gray Sansabelt slacks that I spied through the peephole, but they weren’t selling Amway. Saber stood at my back, hand on his holster as I opened the door.
“Ms. Marinelli?” the slightly taller and thinner man said.
“Yes?”
“I’m Reggie Princeton, president of the local Covenant organization, and this”—he indicated Polo II—“is our vice president, Phil Jameson.”
“Gentlemen,” I said, being pleasant as you please, though my muscles tensed for trouble.
“I’m Deke Saber. What do you men want?”
“To apologize for the actions of Victor Gorman,” Reggie said without hesitation.
“Which actions, exactly?” Saber pushed.
“All of them. The stalking, the threats, the arrow incident. None of his actions have been or will be sanctioned by our branch of the Covenant.”
“Why not?” Saber asked. “That’s part of what you do. Provoke vamps until they defend themselves, then call for an execution.”
“Some branches do those things,” Phil piped up. “We don’t. Not anymore.”
“Ms. Marinelli has proven herself harmless,” Reggie said.
“And?” Saber pressed.
“And our activities are under law enforcement scrutiny. From now on, we’ll merely keep an eye out and report problem vampires to the VPA for them to deal with. Gorman has been a—”
“Rambo wannabe?” I supplied.
Reggie smiled. “I was going to say he’s been a challenge to deal with since he joined, but your description is on target.”
“We appreciate knowing your new policy,” Saber said, “but what are you going to do about Gorman?”
“We’re tossing him out at the meeting tonight,” Phil stated. “That’s the worst we can do to him.”
“Um, can’t you do something less than your worst?” I asked. “Like fine him, or give him some very specific job?”
Phil’s eyes bulged. “You want us to keep him?”
I shrugged. “It’s better for someone to have an eye on him than for him to go completely renegade.”
Reggie and Phil exchanged a look. “You have a point, but Gorman is stuck on half-cocked. We don’t want to be blamed if he attacks you again.”
“What if,” Saber said, “you demand that he surrender his weapons, and tell him he’s not allowed to restock until you tell him to?”