The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural

by Stefany Valentine Ramirez

  “You’re okay with that, right?” asked Ace. Lee had been so caught up in looking around, that she hadn’t noticed he was holding the airport doors open for her. Instantly they were swarmed by leisure tourists and rushing business men.

  “Okay with what?” asked Lee. There were people bustling around everywhere and yet it still wasn’t even close to Tarrillian’s pedestrian traffic. She followed him silently through the terminals for a moment before Ace answered.

  “You and me,” he began in a low voice, “In a hotel room.”

  Lee flushed. The thrill of coming to a new exciting place had completely overridden her thoughts on living requirements. Once more an awkward atmosphere was beginning to creep over them and Lee swallowed hard as she tried to act casual. “When the gang was still together, we lived in the same home remember?”

  Ace frowned, his eyes illegible as stone. “Yeah, but this is different.”

  Ace was right. While living with Ace and the rest of the gang, there were rooms to separate the two. But now that they were planning on sharing a hotel room, there would be nothing to separate their embraces.

  That should have been a perfect time to talk about their boundaries. Except, Lee wasn’t even sure how far she was willing to go. Her body and her mind were like two different things. During their kisses, she would want so much more from Ace. But when his fingers brushed against the skin beneath her shirt she flustered and would insist that they stop immediately. Sometimes kissing him was fun. But other times, it was embarrassing. She couldn’t talk to him about the physical part of their love life if she couldn’t even figure it out.

  So instead of saying anything at all, Lee just continued to follow Ace through the airport. It was like navigating through a corn maze but Ace seemed to know the way as if he owned the place. Once they reached the front of the entrance, there was a train of cab cars waiting to transport visitors. They hopped in and watched the scenery zip past.

  As they sped along, the radio buzzed with a traditional Hawaiian song over the dry rumbling of the car. When no one said a word, Lee pulled her eyes away from the magnificent mountainous scene and glanced at Ace. Through the reflection in the car window, she could see the dead tone in his eyes. Anyone who didn’t know him would have thought he did well in hiding his expressions, but Lee knew him better than that. She would have thought he would be overjoyed that they had arrived in Hawaii and finally his list of questions was about to be answered. Yet why was there a faint frown in his perfect lips?

  “Ace,” she called reaching for his hand. “Are you okay?”

  At her touch, Ace slowly raised his eyes to meet her. “Don’t worry about me angel.” He said; his voice weary. “I’m just thinking.”

  “About…?” pressed Lee.

  The corner of his lip raised in a dreary smile. It was the sort of face he made right before leaning in for a soft kiss. “I need to treat you right Lee. I can’t mess up with you.”

  Lee raised her eyebrows as she giggled. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He replied calmly, “Just know that I love you. Endlessly.”

  After a short drive they finally pulled up to a hotel. It wasn’t beach front, but even as Lee ducked her head out of the cab, she could see the endless stretch of white sand just down the street. Every fiber in her being craved to sprint across the practically empty street just so she could feel the sand on her toes and the moist ocean breeze through her hair. She wanted to experience something so unique and foreign and take in as much of it as she could before returning to Tarrillian.

  Silently, Ace paid the cabbie then hauled the luggage through the spinning glass doors before reappearing in the lobby of a four star hotel. He wasn’t surprised to see that everything there was themed Hawaiian- except for the purple Christmas lights strung up around the glass elevators and climbed ten floors to the top.

  Lee took Ace by the arm and shivered. The Christmas lights brought up memories. They were wonderful at first- memories of dancing in Ace’s arms in a silent lobby with nothing but the glittering Christmas trees illuminating the moment. But what had followed was the bloodshed. The grotesque level of that memory was enough to outweigh the brilliance of a short dance.

  The clerk at the front office didn’t even find it odd that Ace had requested a two bedroom suite. In fact, the clerk didn’t even blink when Ace paid for two nights in advance with cash. The clerk simply handed Ace the room key and mentioned that breakfast was free in the morning from five to ten. After declining the luggage cart, Ace ascended up the elevator to the seventh floor.

  “Seriously Ace, are you alright?” asked Lee timidly when the glass door slid opened with a ping.

  “I’m fine.” He said and Lee was astounded to see that his eyes didn’t lie, but his voice wasn’t convincing.

  “You’re doing it again.” She muttered as Ace counted down the rooms until they came to a stop at their door.

  He didn’t seem to notice she said anything as he unlocked the door. Ace flicked the light on and tossed the luggage down on the sofa by the door.

  Lee was too busy nibbling nervously on her nail to take a look around their room. She did notice the cool air conditioning smell and got a big mouth full of it when she said, “You’re not telling me something.”

  Ace wasn’t even looking at her. His serious set eyes gazed blankly at the ground. “I’ve just been thinking about the past lately. There are some things… never mind. I’m just tired, Lee. Jetlag, I guess.”

  The past? For some reason, Lee felt like he was talking about something that happened before the letter, before the blood. Even before he met Lee. Were there other questions he needed to answer? Even more so than what was triggered the night at the opera house?

  Lee’s eyes darted around for a clock then finally found one on the nightstand between the beds. She had to read the time backwards through the reflection of the sink mirror. “It’s only two, thirty.” She mentioned.

  Ace’s long fingers raked through his hair, “It is? That can’t be right…” he shook his head. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night,” he said stifling a yawn, “I guess that’s why I’m so tired.”

  She could hear it in his voice now. He was exhausted and it seemed like he was trying to do anything to keep him from caving into the sudden demand of sleep. His feet shuffled toward one of the beds facing the small bathroom and he barely had time to kick off his shoes before collapsing atop the covers.

  Lee glanced down at him and saw that even as he lay on his stomach with half his face hanging off the pillow, he was fast asleep. She had never seen him asleep before, and even then with that low amber light, she could still see the pinkness of his slightly opened lips and the faint blush over his cheek bones. His skin seemed washed out as if he had just collapsed out of exhaustion.

  Lee stroked the feathery black hair from his brows and wondered if it was normal for him to fall asleep so suddenly. She wanted to wake him, but he looked too peaceful. Instead she pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed and tucked the thin material under his chin.

  Her fare hair brushed against his nose and she tucked it behind her ear before leaning down and pecking him above the brow. She knew if it had been her asleep in that bed, Ace would have done the same. For a moment, Lee admired the tranquility in his face as he snoozed deeply.

  Lee crossed to her bed and for a moment, she sat there wondering what she could do. She didn’t feel jetlagged. If anything, she was ready to help Ace find aswers. Her eyes scanned their living space. There was a mini fridge by the front door along with a small kitchen and her beds sat facing the bathing area and a wall of dressers. Immediately, she knew how she would kill time as Ace slept.

  This was the only time she would feel comfortable showering with him around so she sprang to her feet and rummaged through her suitcase for pajama wear. The water steamed up the small room quickly. She took her time and even read the labels on the shampoo bottles before lathering. The
scent was an intoxicating fragrance of coconut and pineapple and, according to the shampoo; the fruits used to make the product were grown on the island.

  She showered until her fingers pruned, then dried herself off and dressed before flinging the bathroom door open. The steam flooded out as she wrapped the towel on her head. Her eyes went straight to Ace. Lee had figured the sound of the shower might have awoken him yet he continued to doze. He hadn’t even moved.

  Lee stood there for a moment wondering what else she could do. The clock indicated that it was roughly three so she figured she might as well unpack and set her things in order. Intentionally, Lee worked slowly and as she folded her pants, she found her thoughts spinning back to what Ace had said just before he fell asleep. Never had he shown her the words scrolled in that letter, but from what she was able to piece together, Lee imagined it had something to do with the supernatural race and something to do with his inability to remember where he came from. But what if there was more?

  Lee hadn’t realized she had stopped folding just to ponder and hesitantly placed her shirts in a small wooden dresser before moving back to her thoughts. Ace; leader of the Uncatchable yet she had never seen them rob a bank. Come to think of it, she hadn’t understood half of the underground things the ginger twins had mentioned when the gang was still together. Was that what Ace had been thinking about? She never knew the dark side to him because from the moment they met, he had changed for her.

  For a strange reason, Lee couldn’t continue thinking about what Ace was like when stuck in the heart of the gang life. It was odd to be thinking about him like that and as she finished tucking the last of her clothes away, another question popped into her head.

  What to do next? Ace was still sleeping like a baby. As quietly as she could, Lee crept to her bed and flopped down. She glanced over at the clock, and for the first time noticed the television remote sitting beside it. She hadn’t seen a television in the suite anywhere or else she wouldn’t have wondered around the room. Hanging on the wall across the bed was a random cupboard and as Lee fidgeted with the remote, she realized that inside the cupboard was the television.

  She smacked herself in the forehead after realizing how dumb she felt at the moment, then scurried across the room to thrust the cupboard open. Once nestled back in her bed, she flipped through the channels. Finally she found a station that played movies and leaned back to watch the climax of Jurassic Park. Then the sequel came on and Lee had expected Ace to have at least rolled over in his sleep. He didn’t.

  After several premieres, Lee finally nestled down and let the low voices of the television lull her to sleep.

  ~“This is the second payment.” Hotaru announced in the damp cold rum cellar of a Waikiki pub. “It totals to seventy-five percent of the whole payment.”

  The two other head members of Pele sat around the beer stained pool table as a pair of guards stood by the door. A single light bulb swung on a string attached to the ceiling and whenever a car drove overhead, the light bounced across the dark room. The only other illumination came from a barred hole in the wall form which every high officer could see the flip-flopped feet of pedestrians moving about the Honolulu afternoon.

  Hotaru scratched his balding head; his fingers felt the taught part of his skin where the fiery ink permanently imprinted. His firm hand continued down his jaw to the graying goatee before he finally grabbed a hold of the suitcase at his feet. With a thump, the heavy container landed on the old table and he flipped the lid open. With a bewildered gasp, the slim woman to his right leaned in to make sure she was seeing all the paper correctly.

  Heather whistled. “Only two payments?” She had been working on her English, and if it weren’t for the fact that Hotaru wanted her to perfect in English, she would be speaking in her Japanese tongue. But the fresh snake bite piercings on her lip weren’t helping her speech. Her bites didn’t aid much with anything other than making her appear angrier than she really was. Heather was already short, poorly nourished, and her eyes hung from years of smoking. Her once radiant black hair now hung in a thin mess down her tattooed back. As she leaned over for a closer look, the back of her cami rose up to expose an intricate tramp-stamp swallowing her entire lower back. “How much did he say he was going to pay?”

  “Enough,” Hotaru replied. “After we finish distributing the pay among ourselves, I guarantee that we will all live luxuriously for the next several years.”

  “Murder pays.” Heather muttered under her breath. She was nibbling on her new piercings again and they began to bleed but she made no attempt to wipe away the dribble.

  The man from across the table finally tossed down the newspaper shielding his face. It fell on top of the money with such a slap that the men guarding the door glanced back. “I can’t believe this.” He scowled pointing to the cover of the paper. “It’s sickening. An inconvenient mishap with a chopper?” He spat quoting a line from the article. “And we were the ones who-”

  “Enough, Hamilton!” Hotaru bellowed. He didn’t slam his fist on the old table for the tone of his voice was harsh enough.

  Ryan Hamilton tucked back the shaggy strands of his sun bleached hair and ducked his head like a beaten dog. He would have looked like any other typical Hawaiian surfer boy if it weren’t for the tattoo of a phoenix rising out of the collar of his beer stained V-neck. His eyes were still blood shot from the high of his favorite blend, but he claimed he was fully functional. “Just, stuff like this really pisses me off…”

  “You knew exactly what you were getting in to when you signed up for this!” Heather exclaimed. “Don’t even start-”

  “Heather!” Hotaru bellowed and this time he rose to his feet. “Don’t you dare start fighting with him! We are not splitting Pele into two sides!”

  Heather clenched her jaw and for the first time brushed aside the dribble of blood from her chin. She held eyes with the man for a moment before finally leaning back in her seat. “Yes, sir.”

  Hotaru’s eyes slid across the room before locking onto Hamilton’s fair blue ones. “And you. You know what we do. There is no turning back from your point. I will shoot you myself if you decide to snitch. Besides, only you are responsible for the actions you took to rise to your position. There is no one to blame but yourself.”

  A scowl rose to Hamilton’s face and he bit his lip to keep from making any other remarks.

  “That’s more like it.” Hotaru mentioned with a slightly relieved tone. “You had better remember your place. I don’t want any outbursts from either of you. Especially once Ithaca gets here.”

  “Is that what this is about?” Heather asked looking up suddenly. “What’s a member of the King’s Council want to talk to us about?”

  “It’s a proposal,” Hotaru answered then shot a glance at Hamilton, “One that concerns me actually. That is why I invited the two of you here.”

  Hamilton glanced up at the old man skeptically, “You already told us about her plan didn’t you?” he asked, “Something about being the first… a Supremacy?”

  Gravely Hotaru nodded, “It would be an honor, but-”

  Just then both of the guards were thrown back from their posts. There was no explosion to trigger their sudden flight, just an invisible force that threw them off their feet. Not even a sound was made until they collided with the opposing wall. Their bodies slumped to the floor unconscious and the rest of Pele leaped to their feet with guns and knives drawn. All eyes were glued to the unguarded door.

  Hotaru didn’t need eyes to know Ithaca was only steps away. Her eerie power was suddenly coated into the atmosphere. The Pele officers kept their eyes stuck impatiently to the door. Hotaru felt as if his eyes were going to burn straight from their sockets with anticipation, then finally the familiar cackle rang through the silence.

  The breath of her laughter was right on his cheek and Hotaru pulled away startled. Ithaca’s laughter didn’t stop. Like a ghost she materialized from the middle of space. Her brilliant white teeth framed
in a smile as she said, “This is too much fun. I can’t wait to get the real party started.”

  Chapter 6 Two Lessons Learned

  ~Lee knew she was sleeping well. It was a dreamless sleep, and in some ways it was better than fantasizing. The rumbling of the television didn’t stir her once nor did the fact that she had fallen asleep with the lights on. She lay atop the covers of the hotel bed, not shivering, but simply waiting in that hollow blackness for her eyes to flicker open. Then she would return to the fantasy of reality.

  Reality was right there to great her. One moment her world was blank, the next she was sitting up in an unfamiliar bed. It took her several moments for her eyes to adjust to the foreign surroundings and finally her memory told her she was in Hawaii. She swallowed an enormous ball of air to try and wake her tired body, and that’s when she heard it.

  A low moan escaped Ace’s lips and her head shot his direction. He was doused in sweat as if someone had just dumped several buckets of water all over his body. His blanket had fallen to the floor and even that reeked of sweat. Every vein in his arm bulged like blue streaks beneath his skin and as his head thrashed around, Lee could see the blood beating against the arteries in his wet neck. A jumble of nonsense trickled from his lips and beneath his glossy eyelids, Lee could see his eyes daring around.

  As swift as a heartbeat, the grogginess disappeared and her eyes went wide. She didn’t know if what she was seeing was real, but the next thing she knew, she was standing beside Ace’s bed, shaking his chest fiercely.

  “Ace,” she begged still shaking him. “Ace!”

  But that didn’t work. He only continued to thrash and she began to grow frantic. Shocked and anxious, Lee didn’t know what else to do. Both her hands sprung to his sweaty shoulders and she shook him again.