Through a haze, Mike looked into the bucket. It was half full of blood. He found himself lifting it to his lips, unable to control his arms.

"Non!" called Louisa.

Michael stared into the bucket. The blood was swirling in a vortex, drawing him in.

"Non!" Louisa cried again, grabbing his arm. He dashed the blood into Papa Jacques's face, grabbed the asson, and smashed it on the pole.

The witch doctor's eyes seemed to grow in size. The drum stopped. The dancers froze. Louisa stared at the smashed asson in his hand. Her hand flew to her mouth.

He put his arm around her waist, pulled her to the door and flung bucket and gourd into the bush. They scrambled into her car and bumped down the road toward the beach.

***

"Ellen! Ellen! What are you doing?"

Carla's voice came from a million miles away, and all at once Ellen was staring into her daughter-in-law's face in the moonlight.

"Ellen, I've been shaking you and screaming! What—"

Release came instantly; why, she did not know.

"I... something happened. Oh, my God! Where's Thea!"

She was suddenly racing for the Sound.

"What is it?" Carla yelled after her. "Did she go into the water?"

Then there were two of them, dashing for the surf.

***

The great white, which had been drawn to Masthead Sound by forces few could understand, was suddenly on his own.

But he was not entirely without mental resources. Millennia of species intelligence were packed into his tiny brain, and his synapses were flashing swiftly, stoked by hunger.

He increased the beat of his tail. He centered on the vibrations of the living thing he sensed close to the beach. He suddenly became aware that two more beings had entered the water near the surf line.

His brain could perform any computation necessary to feed his body. In an angular interception of a seal playing in the breakers or a pelican skimming the surf, he could calculate a collision course, like a fighter tracking a bomber, rather than the long, inefficient pursuit curve of a heat-seeking missile zeroing in on its prey.

The targets he tracked now were traveling slowly and presented no mental problem at all, as long as they continued on their courses.

But now the original quarry, closest to him, stopped, turned back, and moved toward the two new sources of vibration.

For an instant he glided, as his brain evaluated this new data. Then his tail began to move again, dragging a vortex along the ebony surface above. He raced for the group as it merged.

***

Waist-deep in water, Ellen watched Thea dog-paddle into Carla's arms. All at once she wanted them out of the water, all three of them, right now.

"Carla, let's get back!"

"Okay." Carla's voice was brittle as she held Thea close to her breast. "Thea, what were you doing! If Daddy knew you were swimming here at night—"