Jim fired and took out the eye.
The beast screamed, the sound of pure torture, as it swung its single good eye toward him.
Jim fired again and took it out too.
The gecko wailed, a ghastly sound that chilled Jim’s spine. Then it charged, mouth agape, but Jim stepped aside and emptied the gun into its great head. It was blind, but still dangerous as it thrashed around the salon.
Kohler felt his pet’s pain, sensed its blindness, and for the first time in his long life, was afraid. There was fire ahead, he’d sensed it through the woman. His pet was blind and had been trapped. He couldn’t pass through the fire.
Neither could he.
Better to fight another day. He turned to flee the way he’d come, but all of a sudden there was smoke there. Someone had set fire to the front of the boat.
There was only one way out for him now and that was through the salon and out the rear hatchway or through the windows in the galley. Either way he had to go through that door and he had to do it now.
He kicked it open.
Donna grabbed the weapon as the doctor burst through the door, rolled back out from under the bed and started pulling the trigger.
The first shot hit the man who called himself Ngaarara square in the chest and sent him flying back into the corridor and somehow, despite the fact that she kept shooting, he managed to kick the door closed after himself. But she couldn’t stop, she kept firing, blasting round after round into the doorway until the gun was empty and then the salon was quiet, save for the heavy breathing of the gecko monster, now on its side in the galley, gurgling blood with every breath.
She grabbed onto the side of the bed, used it to steady herself, then got up off the floor, and all of a sudden she was conscious of the fact that she was nude.
“ The boat’s on fire,” Monday said. “We gotta go.”
They stared at each other for an instant, then she ran into his arms and he kissed her.
He pulled away.
“ Really,” he said, “we gotta go.”
The back hatchway, a doorway to the aft cockpit, was open, she saw the flames.
“ It’s through the fire,” he said, “but we’ll land in the water if we keep going.”
“ I’m gone.” She dashed through the doorway, felt the fire as she dove over the side and into the cold sea below.
The Maori men moved away from the galley after they set the fire. They were reluctant to leave the boat. They heard the screams and shooting from below, but these men were not old women, either the pakeha would save the girl, or he would not. They had done everything asked of them. It was in the pakeha’s hands now. Mohi was in agony, wondering if he’d done the right thing. The father in him wanted to rush through the flames and find his daughter, but Monday had convinced him not to do that. Monday was a pakeha, but he was Maori-brave and Mohi respected that.
He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw. Then he smiled as he saw Donna burst out the starboard companionway, dashing through the flames, and he grinned wider as Monday followed in her wake, leaping over the side into the cold sea below.
“ Quickly.” He jumped onto the pier, the three old men followed. “There’s a ladder over here,” he yelled to Monday, and the men silently congratulated themselves for a job well done as they helped the pakeha and Mohi’s daughter out of the sea. Two of the old men removed their coats and offered them to the shivering couple.
And then they all shivered as one long, agonizing scream roared out from the boat, waking up the night. Then all was silent-the only sound the licking flames and the quiet sea, lapping against the pier.
“ Cheeky little bugger,” One of the Maori men said.
“ What?” One of his mates asked.
“ Little green gecko just ran over my foot. See, there it goes.”
