Drowning in Fire

FOURTEEN

An hour later and Keko still hadn’t come back. It was all the time Griffin was willing to allow before he knew he had to go after her. Before he began to think that maybe she actually had memorized enough of the star map to try to find her own way. Before he started to fear that the Son of Earth had found a way to come back.

Which scared him more? Her trying to give him the slip again? Or another threat to her safety?

Locking up the room, he pounded down the porch steps and headed for the row of connected shops a quarter mile up the road. The rain had transformed into giant drops that hit him like bombs.

At home in San Francisco, when he listened to Ofarian issues, he had to be prudent about which emotions he displayed, and when and how. But here, alone and worrying about Keko after all that had happened between them—and all that had shifted and changed in the last few days—he threw away his guards and let himself feel.

She tended to do that to him.

The row of shops were lined with a boardwalk out front, a closed ice cream parlor capping one end, a long-shuttered theater in the middle, and a bar at the far end. A tourist trinket shop and an artist’s studio were dark for the evening. The pub was open, however, acoustic guitar music trickling out to mix with the rain, and Griffin headed toward it.

A blast of heat and fire and magic assaulted his mind and took over his senses.

The whole front and one side of the bar were windows, all thrown open to the salty air, the eaves long and deep enough to keep out the wet. The place was small, the short bar to the right with a glaringly lit kitchen just behind it, a ledge and stools lining the two walls of windows. Three old men sat at the bar with glasses of beer.

Keko sat at the ledge overlooking the ocean, bare feet hooked over the rungs of her stool, one finger toying with the straw in her can of ginger ale, and two wrapped hamburgers sitting untouched at her elbow.

She’d told him once, sitting in that hotel room bed, that she didn’t drink. She didn’t like how it stole her awareness. That said a great deal about her, now that he thought about it. The watchful warrior, always at the ready.

She hadn’t ditched him again. And she was safe.

Keko didn’t even notice him until he slid a hand onto the ledge near the burgers and said, “Hey.”

She blinked up at him in surprise. “Hey.” Peering into the corner where a neon clock hung above a faded, curling nineties-era beer poster, she asked, “What time is it?”

“Not that late. But you left over an hour ago. I didn’t know what to think.”

“Sorry.” She nudged the hamburger closer to him.

He pulled out the stool next to her and perched on the edge, not taking the food. The wind off the ocean felt nice. Fragrant flowering bushes just outside filled the bar with a sweet scent. Beyond the ever-present line of clouds that clung to the shoreline, he could see the stars trying to inch closer to land.

“No, you’re not,” he said.

“You thought I’d taken off.”

“I worried you might try.”

She turned her face to the ocean and the breeze pushed her hair in a long stream behind her. “I’ve been sitting here considering it. Considering a lot of things.”

He was dumbstruck by her profile, how so fucking beautiful and so completely strong it was. “Like?”

“How I don’t like this.”

“Don’t like what?”

“This . . . this . . .” Her hand hovered over her chest, her fingers wiggling. “Doubt. Wondering. Questioning.”

“Ah, I see. That’s what most people call ‘thinking things through.’”

“It sucks.”

“You’re used to just acting. Making a quick decision and going for it. Balls out. All in. No turning back.”

Her almond eyes assessed him but she did not deny any of that, because she knew he was right.

“The stars are out,” she said, still looking only at his face.

“They are.”

“Does your vow still hold?”

He tried not to let his—trepidation? Curiosity?—show. “Always.”

She inhaled but it wasn’t of the Chimeran kind. She ran the heels of her hands up and down her thighs. “None of this is about my honor. At least, not anymore.”

“That’s what you said before, that it wasn’t about you.”

“It started out that way, partly. I wanted to restore my status and rise above the ali’i. I thought I could get back at Chief. But there’s another reason—a bigger reason—and it’s become the only thing that matters to me now. If I tell you, it’s because I want what you can give me. If I tell you, it’s because you can help me help my people.”

“Your people?”

She ignored him. “I don’t know how to sort this all out on my own, so I’m asking my faith to carry one hell of a burden.”

“Faith means a lot to you. It won’t let you down.”

Neither will I, he longed to say but didn’t. Because how could he be sure that he wouldn’t? How could he finally learn her true goal, give her the location of the Source as he’d vowed, and then prevent her from reaching it?

He had to physically bite back his anguish, the burn of it making his chest feel hot and tight.

Tell me, he silently begged. Don’t tell me.

Keko inhaled again. “Chief has lost his magic.”

The words blurted out of her mouth and hit the ledge between them, leaving him as cold as the hamburger sitting there. The rain stopped suddenly, as if someone had turned off a faucet.

“What?” he finally managed to sputter out.

As she chewed her lip, he realized he’d never seen her struggle with words this much. Like her actions, she’d always just . . . spoken. “It’s some sort of disease. It stole his magic. He can feel it inside but he can’t bring it out. And I guess he’s not alone. Apparently it’s hit other Chimerans, too. I don’t know who exactly, but it doesn’t matter. Our magic is everything. Fire means honor and life. You know that.”

“Jesus, Keko—”

“If I can get to the Source, if I can tap into the pure, raw magic there and bring it back to the valley, I can cure them. I know I can.”

Griffin had to hold fast to the ledge to keep from tipping sideways. The whole island seemed like it was flipping end over end.

“So you see,” she was saying, “it truly isn’t about me. I almost brought them to war, Griffin. Over my own stupid fucking broken heart. I shamed them when I shamed myself. I made a mess, and I need to clean it up. I owe this to them, to bring back what they’ve lost. And if I die trying, well, then that’s what the Queen wills. At least I tried. At least I tried to make it right with them.”

He just sat there, feeling carved hollow, pulled inside out. This changed . . . everything.

He rubbed his chin. “You made me think—”

“I had to,” she said. “If it were just Chief, I would have shouted his weakness across the valley and challenged him right then and there. But this disease is affecting others, innocents. I couldn’t tell anyone else in the clan where I was going or why, or it would’ve compromised the infected and brought them dishonor when they’ve been so good at hiding their disability.” She shook her head. “When I left the valley I had power on my mind. I wanted to be followed and respected again, and the only way to do that was to become ali’i. Bigger than the Queen, even. Now . . .”

He edged closer. “You still want that, Keko. You’ve always wanted it, but now your motives are truly honorable. Before, it was just a name.”

She searched his face for a long moment, and he heard her unspoken question.

“Yes.” He nodded ardently. “Yes. Your purpose, what you just told me, is honorable. It might be the most honorable thing I’ve ever heard.”

It hurt to say, because barely an hour ago he’d reassured the premier he’d still bring Keko in.

So much of what had happened at the Senatus and later in the chief’s house now clicked into place. And so little of it he could actually tell her. With a growl of frustration, he shoved his hands into his hair. “I thought that the chief was acting weird. Like his mouth was telling me one thing—to go after you and stop you—but his eyes were saying just the opposite. I couldn’t figure it out.”

Her laugh was tinged with disgust. “I don’t think he’s figured it out either. He wants desperately to be cured, but he also doesn’t want to be shamed and deposed, which he thinks will happen if I return to the valley with the Source. He knows he can’t have his magic back and still be ali’i. He’s constantly looking over his shoulder, I bet, wondering when and how he’ll be called out.”

Griffin had seen all of that in the chief’s demeanor.

“If I go back with the Source,” Keko continued, “he’s cured but I’ve also proved myself above him. There’s a greater chance I won’t make it, but he knows me too well, knows what kind of Chimeran I am. That I don’t accept failure. He’s more scared of my success, so that’s why he’s having me stopped. Because he also knows I won’t say anything about the disease if it compromises innocents. This is his way of winning, of holding me down and keeping his own lying ass out of the Common House.”

Yeah, all that seemed correct. There was something else, of course, something Griffin couldn’t tell Keko: that the chief had been all but forced to agree with the Senatus. There was no way Chief could’ve gone against Aya when she’d burst from the ground spouting doomsday predictions. There was no way he could’ve gone against the premier either. Revealing his illness and Keko’s true cause would have compromised his position within his clan and also around the bonfire.

Griffin suspected that deep down the chief really did want Keko to succeed because she would cure him and because she wouldn’t ever expose the blameless Chimerans or him. He thought he would win either way.

No longer, though. Not with the Senatus behind her retrieval. That had been the origin of the anguish Griffin had detected.

Fuck, it wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.

Then he remembered a certain detail. “You know, I thought the chief’s signature felt weak, but I just assumed it was because he was standing next to Bane. Your brother and you, I think you both have some serious power.”

She eyed him strangely. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Bane was with this other Chimeran—a shorter guy with a tattoo covering one shoulder?—and Bane’s signature almost knocked me out, but the other guy’s was barely more than a whisper.”

One hand covered her mouth. Her obsidian eyes went wide as she, too, realized what he’d just inadvertently revealed. “Ikaika. Holy shit. Ikaika, too.”

“Yeah, that was his name. He’s one of the sick ones?”

She shoved off the stool and it clattered to the tile behind her. One thumb went into her mouth and she chewed on the nail, her eyes on the floor. “He’s got to be. And Bane must know about it.”

Griffin rubbed his forehead. “But if Bane doesn’t know about the chief—”

Keko waved a frustrated hand. “Bane doesn’t give a shit about Chief. He’s general. He’s Chimeran and he’s like me. He wants to be ali’i so he wants our uncle gone.”

“So that’s why he told me to help you.”

Her head snapped up. “He . . . what?”

Griffin leaned down and righted her stool, patting the seat, though she didn’t take it. “I told you the truth, that he wanted me to come after you, but there’s more. He pulled me aside separately, told me he didn’t care what the chief or the Senatus said, that he wanted me to help you get to the Source and bring back the magic. I get it now. He wanted me to help him throw over your ali’i.”

“No.” She sat slowly, her eyes dancing back and forth in thought. “He’s doing it for Ikaika. He wants me to cure Ikaika.”

“Why—oh.”

The embrace of the two men, the way they’d touched, witnessed through the grimy window of that convenience store, came back to Griffin.

“I think he wanted me to do it for you, too,” Griffin added. “To make sure you’re safe.”

Keko shook her head at the ceiling. “That’s not how the Chimeran world works, Griffin. I’m a threat to him. I always have been.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Look how you’ve changed.”

She recoiled at that, like personal change was evil.

“You have,” he asserted. “And yeah, maybe Bane wants his lover cured and maybe he wants to see the chief go down in the process, but he’s still your brother. I saw his face. He wants you to succeed and he wants you back in the valley alive.”

Hands on her knees, she took a breath and leaned forward. “Now do you understand what I have to do? And why?”

He did. Oh, how he did. Because it was exactly the same thing he would have done for his own people. And she wasn’t even their leader.

A surge of emotion washed over him, took him under. He was helpless against it, flailing, gasping for air. Drowning in her.

He must have been wearing an odd expression, because Keko suddenly flared with rage, a wave of heat exploding out of her. “You gave me your word, Griffin. You use this against me or the Chimerans and this time I will come after you.”

Reaching out, he took her face in his hands. She tried to fight him off at first, but he dug into her hair, finding the back of her skull, and brought her to him for a kiss. A tender, swift meeting of the lips that had less to do with passion and more with promise. She stiffened, understanding.

When he drew back, a profound look of shock transformed her face.

“You are amazing,” he whispered.

Not a day ago, he’d thought her foolish and suicidal and selfish. Beautiful and desirable and . . . his . . . but still all of those things.

She blinked under the shadow of those words, then cleared her throat. “And you have something I need.”

He did, didn’t he? Going to the bar, he asked the bartender for a piece of paper and pen, and a map of Hawaii. The silver-haired, leather-faced man handed him a ratty tourist map marred by brown coffee cup circles.

“Come with me,” he told Keko. “And bring those burgers. I’m starving.”

They walked in silence away from the lights of the bar and the tiny town center, chowing on the cold burgers that tasted like ambrosia, heading down to the edge of the land where a rickety fence half-heartedly kept people from falling over the side. He could hear the ocean far below but could not see it.

The stars threw a billowing blanket over their heads, and he knew each and every one. Kneeling before a bench, he spread out the Hawaiian island map and took up the pen and paper.

Keko crowded him on one side, peering over his shoulder. Her breathing quickened.

An image of Aya came to him, of her emerging from the ground, horror on her humanlike face and words of doom and destruction on her tongue.

Great stars, what had he done, making these bargains with Aya and then with Keko? What the hell was he about to do by giving Keko the key to triggering a potential natural disaster? Why was he about to send her right back into the violent arms of the Children of Earth?

Because of her purpose. That damned honorable purpose that he understood so well.

His mind reeled with doubt and confusion. Then he realized that by deciphering the map tonight she wouldn’t be waltzing into the Source right at that very moment. It was far away and it would take some finagling to reach it. That would give him some time to work shit out. And he would. He would figure everything out—how to let Keko heal her people, how to appease Aya and the Senatus, how to protect the Earth—but right now . . .

Twisting his head to the sky, he scanned the beautiful map of stars, instantly knowing his position below them. Pen in hand, he made a series of dots on the paper as he remembered them from the star map, taking into account the three-dimensional nature of it and adjusting it accordingly. A square marked the location the stone prayer had showed to be the Source, that glowing circle in the center of the carved figure’s chest. Then he turned to the map of the Hawaiian Islands and marked where he and Keko currently stood.

In his head he overlaid the current pattern of stars above with how they would change from the vantage point of the Source. His pen flew over the map, the angles and dimensions automatically shifting in his mind, pen lines mimicking his thought processes. Primaries would use equations and fancy tools and computers, but the stars were part of his Ofarian blood, and he just knew.

“There.” A swish of the pen out in the open blue part of the ocean northwest of Nihau, the last main Hawaiian island past Kauai.

Keko bent close to the circle and the X he’d drawn. “Are you sure? There’s nothing out there.”

He sat back on his heels, ignoring the sick feeling starting in his stomach. “The islands are an archipelago. Thousands of uninhabited little land masses stretching for thousands of miles into the Pacific. Your Source is on one of them. That one. Way out there.” He tapped his circle.

She straightened and gazed off into the dark inland. “I thought it might be a—”

“Volcano? Like Kilauea?”

“Yeah.”

He frowned. “Maybe it is. I don’t know what’s there.”

She faced him in her confident way that turned him on like nothing else. “Are you still going to try to stop me?”

Oh, that answer? He still didn’t know it. Still didn’t know which truth he would speak.

He could tell her now what Aya said, what she’d warned the entire Senatus about, but Keko wouldn’t believe him. She would still see it as manipulation, and he wouldn’t blame her.

Time. He had some time. And neither of them was going anywhere tonight.

Closing the space between them, he slid his hands around her body, loving how her arms came around his neck almost instantly. Brushing his mouth against hers, he murmured, “Not at this moment, no.”

He might have to, though. And he didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think what that might mean to the Chimeran people. To her.

Didn’t want to admit that stopping her would annihilate every last thread of connection he and Keko had ever formed. And that hurt most of all.

She tilted her head back, her dark eyes simmering. “But tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, I will think about tomorrow.”

A long, slow blink. “And tonight?”

Like his vision, his very existence at that moment narrowed down to her. He stole a page from her book of honesty and forthrightness and made every word count, let her see everything he felt inside. “Tonight? Be with me.”

• • •

It would be a long, cold hike across the fields to the natural, protected area by the tree at the edge of air elemental property. If only she could get out of the compound first.

The premier had dismissed Aya from his office, then locked the door in her face. Through the mottled glass she watched his shape righting the toppled bookcase and replacing the objects and books upon the shelves. He got a broom and swept up the broken glass, all but erasing the confrontation with Jason. Who was, chances were, already heading for Reno to destroy a human mind.

Aya went to the door leading out into the false church and knocked. A few minutes later the door swung open and fresher air rushed into the tiny, gray-painted room that was beginning to close in on her like the caves Within.

“You done?” Nancy asked, her forehead wrinkled.

Aya nodded. “Take me to the gate.”

Nancy took her on a completely different path to the outer walls. Aya could never track her way through the maze of alleys and narrow streets and strategically placed dead ends, but of course, that was the whole idea. When they reached the gate, a guard came out of a little hut whose windows glowed blue-green with computer screens. He unlocked the exit door and Aya peered out into the vast, windy fields beyond.

“Wait.”

Aya pivoted at the sound of the familiar voice. Aaron peeled himself away from the interior shadows and approached her. The guard fell back into his little hut and Nancy, with a respectful nod to Aaron, melted back into the city labyrinth.

Though Aya longed to make a run for the field, she folded her hands and looked up at the approaching Air, who wore a different expression—owned a separate demeanor altogether, actually—than that of the premier.

Aaron was older than his leader, somewhere in his fifties, Aya guessed, and his coloring was much paler than the premier’s tanned, worn appearance. He cocked his head as he regarded her.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“How can you look so human,” he murmured, “when you are so clearly not?”

She did not move and kept her features as still as stone. Evolution was the Children’s greatest secret—even greater than their hidden domain and their means of travel across the planet. No Primary or Secondary knew of the choice presented to each Child. None knew that some humans who now walked Aboveground had been born Within.

“What you did with the earth,” he went on, staring at her with bald curiosity, “seems impossible. For you to have been . . . that. And now you are . . . this. I have never seen a Secondary do anything like that.”

She sensed her hair respond to him, the long white tendrils coiling around her wrists like vines. His eyes dropped to the motion, then widened with wonder. Not with fear or mistrust or doubt.

Perhaps in this man she might find an ally. Perhaps someone more sympathetic and less leery than the premier.

“We are not Secondary,” she replied. It had never been declared a secret, that statement about her people’s history.

Aaron crossed his arms. “What do you mean?”

Aya laced her fingers. “Children are actually Primaries. We are sisters and brothers to humanity, born as one being at the dawn of time, and then separated as life changed with the earth.”

A heavy pause followed. “How come no scientists or archaeologists ever found skeletons or evidence of you, like they did early humans?”

“Because we die Within.” Or, if a Child had already evolved, they died Aboveground and no one was the wiser.

“Fascinating,” Aaron breathed.

She lifted her shoulders in a movement she’d copied from Keko. “So you see, we are not truly Secondary. We’ve always been here. And we will always be—”

A klaxon roared throughout the compound, the small device sitting on top of the guard hut throwing out the terrible, shrieking, repetitive alarm. She doubled forward, hands over her ringing ears. When she straightened, she watched with dread as the guard yanked shut the iron exit doors to the compound, locking her inside the walls.

After screaming something to her she could not hear over the cacophony, Aaron took off running back through the tangle of buildings. That guard had a phone pressed to his ear, his hands flying over various keyboards. She could stand here and wait to see when they’d actually let her go . . . or she could follow Aaron and find out the reason behind the horror in his eyes.

His feet disappeared around the first left corner and she sprinted after him before he could take another turn and be lost to the labyrinth.

They ran and ran, this path far more linear and shorter than the other two she’d been pulled along. Very soon she and Aaron burst into the tiny square in front of the church she’d just left. Air elementals spilled from the bland, narrow buildings, streaming toward the church, their hands to their mouths and eyes turned up to another alarm blaring on top of the steeple.

Aaron sliced through the growing crowd, pushing up the steps and toward the doors. Aya followed, taking advantage of the space his people afforded him.

The church doors gave way under Aaron’s mighty push, and only after Aya tumbled in after him did he realize she’d followed. But if he meant to shout at her or kick her out, there was no time because Nancy was running down the back hall toward them, panic making her face white and her eyes impossibly wide.

It was then Aya heard the screaming.

A woman’s scream, a piercing wail that shot down from somewhere on the second floor. It never ended. Just kept running on a terrified, intensifying loop.

“Is that Hillary?” Aaron demanded of Nancy when she finally reached them.

Out of breath, Nancy replied, “Yes. Are the gates secured?”

Aaron nodded, ashen face turned to the stairs.

Footsteps pounded on the floor above, how many sets Aya couldn’t say. At least three, maybe more. An explosion of shouting and the distinct sounds of a fight, fists and kicks and more things breaking. It was a violent one that made the scene she’d witnessed earlier through the premier’s office door feel like a child’s temper tantrum. Men shouted and grunted, cried out in pain or in threat. She could make sense of none of it.

A million emotions sailed through the building, bombarding her, wreaking havoc with her human senses. None of them were good.

“The premier!” Aaron had his hand on the railing, one foot poised on the bottom step.

Nancy grabbed his arm, pulled him back. “Already dead. Hillary found him in his bathroom. Throat slit.”

Aya felt like the earth was taking her under while locked in this human body.

The fight upstairs rolled closer, the walls practically bowing out from the force of multiple bodies repeatedly striking them. The sounds were almost as deafening as the klaxon that still blared outside.

Then all of a sudden it stopped, the air charged with dread. There was a different struggle above, this one more focused, less intense. The muffled sounds of men’s terse voices drifted down.

Two males appeared at the top of the stairs, each clamping hard to one of Jason’s arms. Jason. Who was covered in blood.