Blade stopped and clenched his fists, expecting the Master to attack.
“Radnor!” Orm snapped.
“Let me kill him now, Father,” Radnor said.
“In due time,” Orm responded. He looked at the Warrior. “Radnor is my eldest.”
“One big, happy family,” Blade cracked.
“You cannot judge us by human standards,” Orm stated.
“He has already judged all of us, Master,” Paolucci mentioned. “He believes we deserve to die.”
Radnor, who was the only Master the equal of the Warrior in height, glared into Blade’s gray eyes. “Let me kill him, Father!” he reiterated.
“After we have questioned him,” Orm said.
“You’ll get nothing out of me,” Blade vowed.
“I wouldn’t be so certain,” Orm responded. “There are ways to force you to talk,” he added ominously.
“Give it your best shot,” Blade countered.
Orm sighed. “I was hoping we could conduct our business as reasonable individuals, but if you persist in this obstinacy, we shall commence the skinning.”
“The skinning?”
“Why do you think we instructed Director One to bring your knives?”
Orm asked.
Blade didn’t respond.
“Come with me,” Orm declared, walking to the east with his hands behind his back.
Blade hesitated.
“No tricks. I promise you,” Orm said.
What was the Master up to? Blade, suspicious yet curious, moved to the Master’s left.
Orm resumed walking, scrutinizing the trees surrounding the clearing.
“It is quite lovely here.”
“What are you trying to pull?” Blade demanded. “Why are you being so courteous?”
“What did you expect? Slavering monsters?”
“I don’t know what I expected,” Blade admitted.
“I repeat. You can not judge us by human standards,” Orm said. “To you, we are physically repulsive. Am I right?”
Blade nodded.
“Yet we have hearts and minds, just like you,” Orm said. “We can love and hate, just like you.”
“What do you know about love?” Blade asked scornfully.
“I love my wife and children,” Orm declared.
“But you don’t love humans.”
“True,” Orm confessed.
“Is that the reason you set up the Dragons? Is that why you use drugs to control the human populace? Because you hate us?”
Orm studied the Warrior for a moment. “I will tell you something no other human knows, because the knowledge will go with you to your grave.
I established the Dragons to protect my family.”
“What?”
“I am serious,” Orm insisted. “There is a natural animosity between humans and mutants. When my children were much younger, there was a great danger of being hunted down by your kind. Although I built a hideaway in the depths of the Everglades, I knew it was only a matter of time before we were discovered. I needed a power base, some way of ensuring my family would be protected. The drug war in Miami provided the ideal setting. I offered my services to one of the drug lords, assassinating his rivals. Such a task was easy. Our night vision and strength far surpasses the average human.”
“What happened then?”
“Once all the opposition was eliminated, I disposed of my so-called employer.”
“No one else in his organization objected?”
“Why should they?” Orm responded. “I promised each of them wealth and power beyond their fondest dreams, and I delivered on that promise.
They were eating out of my hand.”
“So your… children… didn’t help you take over the Dragons?” Blade inquired.
“No. They were too young at the time. Why?”
Blade glanced back at the six other Masters. “I’d heard all of you were involved.”
“There are a number of popular rumors concerning us,” Orm acknowledged. “Some we’ve deliberately fostered.”
“You have?”
“Of course. Our principal means of maintaining control over the humans are psychological, not physical.”
“What about the drugs?” Blade noted.
“The drugs are part of the overall picture. By legalizing drug use, we’ve promoted addiction. An addicted population is a dependent population.
The people now rely on the Dragons for drugs. They’re dependent on us.
We are indispensable.”
“You have it all figured out,” Blade remarked.
Orm halted. “It hasn’t been easy. Solidifying our links with the Colombian Cartel, minting our own money, picking sycophants as Directors.”
Blade looked the mutant in the eyes. “Why do you want to destroy the Family?”
“So that’s it!” Orm exclaimed, smiling broadly, exposing his sharp teeth. “The reason you came to Florida! You heard about our plans! How?”
“Forget how,” Blade declared. “Why?”
“Because your Family poses a threat to our operation,” Orm answered.
“Paolucci said the same thing,” Blade noted. “And it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Would it make sense to you if you learned the Dragons are planning to expand their market into the Civilized Zone?”
The Warrior’s shock was obvious.
“That’s correct,” Orm said, grinning wickedly. “We have made arrangements with a high-ranking official in the Civilized Zone, one of your allies in the Freedom Federation, to begin distributing drugs covertly. Drugs are illegal there, of course, but that won’t stop us.”
“You’re going to introduce drugs to the Civilized Zone!” Blade declared in consternation.
“Eventually, we’ll introduce drugs, as you put it, into each Federation faction. We’ll corner the market. Your accursed Family, though, stands in our way. You’re too idealistic, too damn spiritual. We could never foster drug dependence in the Home. And if we can’t turn you, then we must destroy you. We’re assembling a mercenary unit to pay your Home a little visit.”
Blade raised his hands to his forehead. “I’d like to know how you found out?” Orm mentioned.
The Warrior appeared to be in a daze.
“Oh, well. I guess it’s not important. I’ll track down the leak,” Orm vowed. “Only the Directors and a few of the Dealers know about our plan to send a demolition unit to the Home. If one of them was indiscreet, I’ll find out.”
Blade gazed at the ground with a blank expression.
“Don’t take the news so hard,” Orm said. “It’s nothing personal.
Business is business, and the Dragons have an opportunity to expand our trade in a big way.” He turned and started back.
The Warrior walked alongside the mutant.
“I’m impressed that you got this far,” Orm commented. “Once, a few years ago, a disgruntled member of the Colombian Cartel hired a professional assassin to terminate us. We caught him, of course. The assassin was a mutant! Can you imagine that? We cut out his tongue, but allowed him to live.” He paused. “You will not be so fortunate. I thought it would be poetic justice to use your own knives to skin you. We relish the taste of human flesh, all except for the skin. It leaves a bitter, salty aftertaste.”
Blade was scarcely listening, his mind in turmoil. All the pieces of the puzzle now fit, and a rage was simmering inside him, a fury born of his experiences in Miami. He remembered the boy of six or seven who had begged for coins to buy drugs for his dad, and the 15-year-old girl who hustled men to support her habit, and then he thought of all the thousands of innocent children in the Civilized Zone and the other Federation factions, children whose lives would be forever warped by having the drug life-style forced on them by peer pressure or the manipulation of conniving adults. All because the Dragons wanted to expand their drug market! With each stride he took his rage grew. He glanced down at the handcuffs, at the links connecting the metal bracelets.