Nightworld

"Jack!"

Kolabati had followed Moki down to the lower level to see who was pounding on the door; she'd hung back in the dark hallway, watching the scene in the utility room over Moki's shoulder. Two wet and weary men there, one white, the other a tall Oriental. Something about the smaller man, the dark-haired, dark-eyed Caucasian, had struck her immediately as familiar. But she didn't recognize him until he spoke her name. It couldn't be! But even with his hair plastered to his scalp and down over his forehead, even looking tired and older as he did, he could be no one else. Her heart leapt at the sight of him.

She brushed past Moki and ran to him, arms outstretched. Never in her life had she been so glad to see someone.

"Oh, Jack, I thought you were dead!"

She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. Jack returned the embrace, but without much enthusiasm.

"I am," he said coolly. "I just came back to see how you were doing."

She stepped back and stared at him.

"But when I left you, you were—"

"I healed up—my own way."

Kolabati sensed Moki close behind her. She turned and was relieved to see that he had lowered his rifle. She manufactured a smile for him.

"Moki, this is Jack, a very old and dear friend."

"Jack?" he said, his gaze flicking between her and the newcomer. "The Jack you said you once loved but who died in New York? That Jack?"

"Yes," she said. A glance at Jack's face revealed a bewildered expression. "I…I guess I was wrong about his being dead. Isn't that wonderful? Jack, this is Moki."

Kolabati held her breath. No telling how Moki would react. He'd become so unpredictable—unbalanced was a better word—since the changes had begun.

Moki's jaw was set and his smile was fierce as he thrust his hand open toward Jack.

"Aloha, Jack. Welcome to my kingdom."

Kolabati watched the muscles in Moki's forearm bulge as he gripped Jack's hand, a wince flicker across Jack's features before he returned the smile and the grip.

"Thank you, Moki. And this is my good friend, Ba Thuy Nguyen."

This time it was Moki's turn to wince as he shook hands with the Oriental.

"You're both just in time," Moki said. "We were just about to leave for the ceremony."

"Maybe now that they're here we should stay home," Kolabati said.

"Nonsense! They can come along. In fact, I insist they come along!"

"You're not thinking of going outside, are you?" Jack said.

"Of course. We're heading uphill to the fires. The night things do not bother us. Besides, they seem to avoid the higher altitudes. You shall have the honor and privilege of witnessing the Ceremony of the Knife tonight."

Moki had told her about the ceremony he'd worked out with the Niihauans, a nightly replay of last night's bloody incident. She wanted no part of it, and Jack's arrival was a good excuse to stay away.

"Moki," Kolabati said, "why don't you go alone tonight. Our guests are cold and wet."

"Yeah," Jack said. "How about a raincheck on that? We're kinda beat—"

"Nonsense! The awakened fires of Haleakala will dry your clothes and renew your strength."

"Go yourself, Moki," Kolabati said. "After all, the ceremony can go on without us, but not without you."

Moki's glare spelled out his thoughts: Leave you here with your reborn lover? Do you take me for a fool? Then he faced Jack.

"I shall be insulted if you do not come."

"A guest must not insult a host," the tall Oriental said.

Kolabati noticed a quick look pass between Jack and Ba, then Jack turned to Moki.

"How can we refuse such an honor? Lead the way."

Kolabati held on as Moki bounced their Isuzu Trooper up the rutted jeep trail toward Haleakala's fire-limned summit.

"What sort of a ceremony is this?" Jack said from behind her.

"You'll find out soon enough," Moki said.

"I mean, is it traditional, or what?"

"Not entirely," Moki said. "It has its traditional aspects, naturally—ancient Hawaiians often made sacrifices to Pele—but this variation is one of my own devising."

Jack and his silent Oriental companion were two jouncing shadows in the rear as Kolabati turned from the front seat to face him.

"Pele?" said Jack's shadow.

"Hawaii's Goddess of Fire," Kolabati told him. "She rules the volcanoes."

"So what are we doing—throwing some pineapples and coconuts over the edge?"

Moki laughed as he turned onto Skyline Trail. "Pele has no use for fruits and nuts. She demands tribute that really matters. Human tribute."

Jack's laugh was low and uncertain.

Kolabati said, "He's not joking."

Jack said nothing then, but even in the dark Kolabati could feel the impact of his gaze. She heard his silent questions, asking her what she had come to, what had brought her to this. She wanted to explain, but she couldn't. Not now. Not in front of Moki.

The quality of the road improved as they approached Red Hill and the observatory. Moki pulled to a stop a quarter mile from the summit and the four of them walked under the cold gaze of the unfamiliar moon to the crater's edge.

And there, half a mile below them, a sea of fire. The boiling center of the crater, the terminus of an express delivery tube from the planet's molten core, was alive with motion. Bubbles rose on the storm-tossed surface and burst convulsively, splattering liquid rock in all directions. Geysers of molten lava shot like whale spume, hurling red-orange arcs a thousand feet into the air. And governing the chaos was a steady downward flow to the sea in a wide fan of fiery destruction.

Even here, thousands of feet above, with the reversed tradewinds blowing cold against their backs, the fire stroked them with its heat. Kolabati watched Jack hold out his hands to warm them, then turn his wet back toward the fire. The wind had an icy bite at 10,000 feet. He must have been freezing. The Oriental, too, rotated his wet clothing toward the heat.

"I've figured out why Pele is so huhu" Moki said, shouting above Haleakala's roar. "She's seen her people abandoning the old ways and becoming malihini to their own traditions. She's sent us all a message."

Jack was staring down into the fire. "I'd say she's one very touchy lady."

"Ah!" said Moki, glancing off to their right. "The other celebrants arrive. The ceremony can begin."

He strode away toward the approaching Niihauans. Their elderly alii raised his feathered staff and they all knelt before Moki.

Kolabati felt a cold hand grip her arm. It was Jack.

"He's just kidding about this human sacrifice stuff, isn't he? I mean, I keep expecting Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy LaMore to show up."

Kolabati could barely meet his eyes. "I wish he were, but he means it. The group over there, the ones wearing the feathers and such, they're the last of the pure-bred traditional Hawaiians from the forbidden island of Niihau. Moki confronted them last night and told them he was Maui."

Jack's eyes widened. "He thinks he's an island?"

"No. He's mad but he's not that mad. Maui was a god who came up here ages ago, right where we're standing, and trapped the sun and forced it to make the days longer. When Moki told them he was Maui, the Niihauans didn't believe him. One of them stabbed him in the chest with a spear."

Jack glanced over to where Moki stood talking with the Niihauan alii.

"You mean tried to stab him in the chest."

"No. The spearhead sank to its full length right here."

She reached out and touched a spot over Jack's heart. She'd been wanting to touch him since her first sight of him, to assure herself that he was really here, truly alive. He was.

Jack gave her a quick look, then stared again at Moki.

"The necklace?"

Kolabati nodded.

"It didn't work that way when I wore it."

"It's never worked that way for anyone. Something's happened to it. It's been activated, stimulated in some way that I don't understand."

"I do," Jack said, still staring at Moki.

"You do? How can you—?"

"That's why I'm here. I need that necklace. There's someone back in New York who might be able to set the world right again. But he needs the necklace to do it."

The thought of giving away the second necklace to a stranger jolted Kolabati. She turned to look at Moki and held her breath as she saw a middle-aged Niihauan rise and step toward him with a raised knife. Moki stood firm, showing no fear. In fact, he gestured the man forward. The Niihauan stepped closer, and in a blur of motion raised the knife and plunged it into Moki's chest.

Jack cried, "Jesus Christ!" while Ba stiffened and muttered something unintelligible.

Kolabati watched the rim with fatalistic distaste as Moki staggered back a step, then straightened. He grasped the knife handle with both hands, and slowly, deliberately, his body shaking convulsively, withdrew the bloody blade from his chest. The Niihauan looked on in open-mouthed amazement, then raised his face and arms toward the sky. Moki gave him a moment, then rammed the dripping blade into his heart.

As the man screamed in agony, Jack turned away, cursing angrily under his breath. Kolabati continued to watch. Human sacrifices had been part of her childhood. When you are born to a priest and priestess of a temple where humans were regularly thrown to the rakoshi, it became a matter-of-fact event. It was a necessity—the rakoshi had to be fed. But this was different. This was obscene, serving no useful purpose other than feeding Moki's delusions.

As she watched Moki lift the Niihauan's corpse and hurl it into the fire, a sacrifice to the false goddess, Pele, Jack turned to her.

"How the hell did you get involved with this maniac?"

"A long, sad story, Jack. Believe me, he was nothing like this before the sun and the earth began to betray us."

Inside she mourned for the Moki who had been, the Moki she sensed was irretrievably lost to her.

"I'll take your word for it," Jack said. "But right now he's got to be stopped. And one way to stop him is to get that necklace from him."

"More easily said than done when you're talking about a man who heals like Moki."

"I might have a way." His eyes bored into hers. "Will you help?"

She nodded vigorously. "Of course."

But don't expect to walk out of here with Moki's necklace when we get it back.