Island of the Sequined Love Nun

and fill the Sky Priestess with all manner of cannon and machine gun slugs, sending us down in a ball of flames and killing me and everyone aboard quite dead."
    The guy with the beard cleared his throat and said, "That was a swell story the first dozen times we heard it, Vinnie, but are you going to talk or play cards?"
    "Bite me, Jewboy, it ain't like we haven't had to fight the yawns through your loaves and fishes epic a hundred fuckin' times." Then Vincent flashed him a feral grin. "And since it is now your bet, I will advise you to fold, as I am now holding a hand that is so hot it is about to burst into flames like the proverbial bush."
    The guy with the beard held up a punctured palm to silence Vincent. "You're holding a pair of eights, Vinnie."
    "I hate fuckin' playing with you," Vincent said.

25 – We Ask the Gods for Answers
    and They Give Us Questions
    Tucker Case heard the beating of wings above his head and suddenly there was a familiar little face in front of him. Roberto was hanging upside down from the harness ropes around Tuck's chest. He never thought he'd be glad to see the little vermin.
    "Roberto! Buddy!" Tuck smiled at the bat.
    Roberto squeaked and bent forward to lick Tucker's face.
    Tucker sputtered. He could smell papaya on the bat's breath.
    "How about climbing up there and gnawing through these ropes, little guy?"
    Roberto looked at him quizzically, then laid a big lick on him, right across the lips.
    "Ack! Bat spit!"
    Tuck heard a weak voice from above. "He no gnaw rope. His teeth too little," Kimi said.
    Roberto took flight and landed on Kimi's head and began licking and clawing him ecstatically.
    Kimi was suspended about two feet above Tucker and about five feet away. It hurt his neck, but he could see the navigator dangling if he stretched. "You're alive!" Tucker said. "I thought you were dead."
    "I am bery thirsty. Why you put us in tree?"
    "I didn't. It was an old island guy. I think he's going to eat us."
    "No, no, no. No cannibal in these islands for many years."
    "Good. You tell him that when he comes back."
    Kimi struggled against his bonds and set himself spinning. "These ropes hurt on my arms. Someone put us in crab harness."
    "I figured that out," Tuck said. He craned his neck and eyed Kimi's harness. "Maybe I can swing to you and catch on to your harness. If I can get hold of it, I might be able to untie you."
    "Good plan," Kimi said.
    "Yankee know-how, kid."
    As Tuck started to swing his arms and legs, he felt the harness tighten around his chest. Soon he was swinging in a wide elliptical pattern that brought him within a foot of Kimi, but the harness was so tight he could barely breathe. Weakened from lack of food and water, he gave up. "I can't breathe," he gasped.
    "That good plan, though," Kimi said. "Now I have Roberto bring that knife over by door of house and I cut the ropes. Okay?"
    "Roberto can fetch?"
    "Yes."
    "Why didn't you say so?"
    "I want to see Yankee know-how."

    Sarapul tried to run back to his hut, but the pain in his ancient knees wouldn't allow him to move faster than a slow amble. If only he could absorb the power of an enemy or two, perhaps the pain would subside and his strength would return along with his courage. It was courage he needed now. Instead, he had questions.
    Why, if Malink dreamed a message from Vincent, did the white bitch say that he did not? And if Vincent had sent a pilot, why did the Sky Priestess not know about him? And if Vincent had not sent a pilot, who is hanging in the breadfruit tree?
    In the old days Sarapul would have asked the turtle, his clan animal, for an answer to his questions. Then he would have watched the waves and listened to the wind for an answer, perhaps he would have gone to a sorcerer for an interpretation. But he was too deaf and blind to see a sign now. And the only sorcerer left was the white man who lived behind the big fence and gave medicine to the Shark People: Vincent's Sorcerer. Sarapul didn't believe in Vincent any more than he believed in the god Father Rodriquez had worn around his neck on a chain.
    Father Rodriquez had said that the old ways-the taboos and the totem animals-were lies and that the skinny white god on the cross was the only real god. Sarapul was prepared to believe him, especially when he offered everyone a piece of the body of Christ. But Christ tasted like dried pounded taro and Father Rodriquez lost the old cannibal as a convert when he said that you would be thrown into fire