The Kotahi Bay Quartet

by J. C. Hart

  "Black. And you? I want to know everything about you, all the things you like."

  "Black with sugar," she said as she made the coffee. She had turned away from him, trying to gather the threads of her thoughts. It was impossible not to want him, she was just going to have to get used to that—but clearly he wanted her too, even if he didn't know who she was, he felt something, something intense and deep. But she had to get him on side before she could trust him enough to help her with the Bay.

  Sam bought their mugs to the table, watching as Kyle lifted his and sipped, his eyes closed as if he were enjoying coffee for the first time in a long time.

  "This is so good."

  She laughed. "It's black coffee, pretty hard to get that wrong isn't it?"

  "Yeah, I guess. I never thought about it like that. I don't know what it is, but it tastes better than it has in years."

  Sam's stomach clenched. Years. How many years? Had everything tasted off to him since... since whatever happened that meant he lost his soul? She shrugged and took a sip of her own.

  Kyle caught her gaze, something ineffable in his. "You said you knew who I was. What did you mean by that? I'm just Kyle."

  "You're not just anything, Kyle." Sam shook her head and let out a sigh. "You're here in the Bay doing jobs for someone who wants to hurt us, you're missing a chunk of who you are, and the panther you have tattooed on your back is mine."

  Kyle leaned back in his chair, the air rushing out of him. "Okay."

  "Okay? Is that all you're going to say? Not going to deny why you're here or what you've been doing?"

  He shrugged. "No point, is there. Like you said, you know who I am. The panther... What do you mean he's yours? He's a part of my body, Jake said it was like he'd been there all along and just needed a hand to come out, so that sounds to me like he's a part of me, not a part of you."

  Sam pursed her lips, had to stop herself from saying that Kyle was a part of her too, they were parts of each other. It was too much to lay on a stranger, and yet...

  She put her hands behind her neck, undid the necklace and passed it to him. "Does this look familiar?"

  He held it in his palm, the fingers of his other hands brushing over the surface, a frown etched into his forehead. "Yeah, yeah it's familiar, but... I have no idea why. What is it?"

  Sam swallowed, felt the weight of the words on her tongue and then spoke. "You gave me that necklace in another lifetime, not long before I died. It came into my shop a few days ago and I remembered—"

  "Another lifetime? I don't know if I buy into all that."

  "And yet you somehow sold your soul." The words snapped out, harsher than she intended. If he hadn't done that they'd have found each other sooner, she had no doubt. She wouldn't have been so lonely, with a spirit her only deep companion.

  "How did you know about that?"

  Sam waved it away. "What deal did you make? That's the more important question."

  Kyle took a sip of his coffee, slow, careful. He didn't speak until the mug was firmly on the table, his fingers shook slightly until he wrapped them tightly around the cup. "My folks weren't good people. I ran away as soon as I was old enough to make it. Lived on the streets. Got by. And then a woman came along, she wasn't that much older than me, but she had money. I said I'd sell my soul for a slice of what she had, and she said yes." He paused then, knuckles white from gripping the mug. "I thought it was a joke. I didn't even believe in that kind of thing. We're born, we live, we die. Ashes to ashes." A rough laugh tore free. "Turns out she wasn't joking around. I've been working for her ever since, trying to earn back the piece of me she took."

  Samantha shook her head, sadness welling inside her at his story. Such a simple mistake. Teen arrogance. It wasn't something she'd dealt with herself but she'd seen it in others, ten foot tall and bulletproof, she could just image Kyle, too young to know any better.

  "You came to the Bay to hurt us. You must have known that. You must have hurt a lot of people over the years."

  His gaze moved away from hers, fixated on the mug which he was now turning in a circle on the table. "Like I said to you in the street, I've done some bad shit. Not stuff I'm proud of, but it was all for a reason. To get back what I lost. I don't—I didn't feel bad about it, she took my conscience, my feelings, my essence I guess. It wasn't hard to do those things, not until I got that bloody tattoo."

  Sam couldn't help but smile. Shadow had changed him, made him more himself. He might not be all the way there yet, but she could work with this revised version of Kyle. "And now?"

  His eyes flashed up to hers, pain in them like she hadn't seen before. "Now I can feel again, and I don't know what to think."

  Thank you Shadow, Sam thought, warmth flooding her. He might be gone from this world, returned to Kyle, but he'd given them both a gift.

  "The person you're working for, what's her name?"

  "Anahera. But I didn't tell you that. I didn't tell you anything." He gave her a pointed look and she drew her fingers across her lips as though she were zipping them.

  "Is she working for Tū?"

  Kyle frowned. "Tū? Yeah, she's trying to bring him back from the dead."

  "Is she a godchild?"

  "Anahera?" Kyle frowned and then shook his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the slip of paper he’s taken from Mrs Nolan’s house, unfolding it on the table between them. "This was the first time I'd seen anything much about you lot. It could be Anahera. It would make sense."

  Sam leaned forward, peering at the paper. "And Mrs Nolan?"

  Kyle's face fell. "I put the hard word on her. Made her stall things to keep the barrier down. But I wasn't there when..."

  Sam's chest constricted. "Is she dead?"

  "No. She's not...” Kyle took a deep breath and glanced away. “She’s not in the healthiest of ways, but she's not dead."

  The 'yet' hung unspoken between them. Sam wanted to tell him they had to help her, but it wasn't the most pressing issue. Not today. Sam's hand shook as she reached across the table and grasped Kyle's. "You can either be with her, or with us. You have to choose."

  "I want to choose you. I want to be on whatever side you're on, but she has a part of me. She's holding it over my head and if I don't do as she asks she'll never return it."

  "Do you honestly think she's going to? How many years has she been promising it, how many times has she gone back on that promise for just one more job?"

  He let go of her hand, leaned back in his seat and was silent for a minute. "I don't know any other way. I don't want to be half a person anymore, do you know how much that hurts? I would do anything to be myself again. Shadow made me feel, he gave me some strange, magical connection to you, but it's not enough. I want it all, the full range, the whole spectrum of humanity. I want to be awake, not sleepwalking through life. It's the only thing I've wanted ever since she took it from me. But now that I’ve met you I want it ten times more, a hundred times more."

  He looked at her then, his eyes full of tears. He probably hadn't cried since his soul had been ripped from his body. Samantha got up from her chair and walked behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, across his chest, holding him as he let the emotion pour out.

  Her heart was breaking too, because she didn't know what this meant. Would he help them? Could she find some way to help him?

  "I know it's not going to be easy, but if you can find a way to trust me then I promise we’ll get your soul back. We'll find a way, together." She moved so that she was in front of him and he pushed the chair back, making room for her on his lap. She straddled him, their foreheads touching as they leaned into each other. "I promise. I want this as much as you, you have no idea. I've been missing you my entire life and I'm not letting you go now."

  Their lips met, magic sparking between them, not real magic, but the magic of lovers reuniting. She was home.

  Chapter Eleven

  He walked out of Samantha's house on a whole other plane of existence
. The world he thought he knew when he went through those doors had been shattered, revealed as the sham it was. Not only had she worked magic with her kisses, but also with her words. And the scary thing was that he believed her, right to the core of who he was—what was left of him anyway.

  How else could he possibly explain this inextricable connection they shared? How else could he make any sense of the fact that a woman had the power to steal his soul and hold it hostage?

  Rather than heading home he made his way back to Alyssa's house. He needed something to take back to Anahera, even if he had no intention of killing this woman. He trusted Sam when she said she'd free him, he had no idea how that might be possible but if anyone could he knew it would be her. He still needed to cover his ass though.

  The lights were on and he could see the couple in the lounge, arms around each other, swaying to music he couldn't hear. His chest constricted to think that just a few days he'd had very few qualms about the thought of putting the woman in the ground. What if he hadn't had his tattoo finished, had that small slice of feeling returned to him? He'd never killed before, but it would have been so easy to do it, back when he still couldn't feel anything other than rage.

  He took a few pictures on his phone then slid it back into his pocket and headed home.

  She'd still be there and he needed to come up with some kind of story to sell her. Something good. Something believable.

  Anahera was waiting on the steps when he walked up the path. He sat down beside her and kicked his boots off.

  "You were gone a long time," she said tonelessly.

  "Just getting the lay of the land. Our woman has a live in boyfriend, so it's probably not ideal to do it there, just in case he's home, though I guess I could wait and hope he leaves..."

  "Nah, better to wait until she leaves. Follow her. Do it somewhere isolated. You might have to lure her out, but I'm sure you can figure out a way. Right?"

  He swallowed down on the words he wanted to say. "No problem, boss. How long until it has to be done?"

  "You tell me, you're the one who's been keeping tabs on the place. Sooner is better, sooner is always better, but I'm willing to wait if there's the right incentive."

  He took a breath, let it out.

  "What?" she asked impatiently.

  "Nothing." He pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, suddenly feeling hot, but then she grabbed his arm, her nails digging into his skin as she drew it close.

  "What's that?" She traced beneath Samantha's address with a finger.

  "I went to see a local woman today, she runs the curio shop, seems to have a good feel of the beat of the town."

  "And what did you talk to her about? Is she pretty? Should I be jealous?" She raised an eyebrow, her lips turned up in a smirk, though he couldn't tell if she was mocking him or not. She was always so hard to read, so hard to figure out, and most of the time he'd known her he didn't care to. Now she puzzled him, and he had to wonder what it was that drove her.

  "Yeah she's pretty, but you don't need to worry. You know my soul belongs to you." He tried to smile, to keep the self-loathing out of his voice, but it was so hard.

  "So why were you talking to her then?" She let go of his arm, though her hand moved up, traced the muscles of his shoulder, danced across his chest.

  He reached for her fingers, gripped them in his, not unkindly, but in a way that told her he wasn't in the mood to play. Usually, she respected that, and he was thankful this was one of those times.

  "Just trying to get some information. Alyssa has been playing the role of town witch nicely, but this woman did mention there seemed to be a lot of new folk in town, asked what I was doing here, whether I was planning to stay. She seemed a little... antsy about it. They've definitely noticed there's something going on, but I didn't get the vibe like they have any idea what to expect next." He took a deep breath, then asked the question he knew Sam would want him to. "What can they expect next?"

  "Alyssa dies, the town is open to everyone, and I can get about doing what I came here for."

  "Which is what, specifically?"

  "You're awfully curious. You don't normally ask questions. What's going on?" She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.

  "You've just been planning this for a long time, and it's my job to make sure that things go smoothly. You sent me here to pave the way, and I've done that, done everything you asked of me."

  "I need to convince Hine-nui-te-pō to return Tū. It's just one more job, Kyle, then you can get your pretty little soul back." She considered him for a moment. "Will you still want it?"

  "You know my answer. It won't ever change."

  "And what are you going to do? Are you expecting me to give you a reference and send you on your way?"

  If she'd asked him this question last week, he'd have had no idea how to respond. He'd had no goal in mind beyond doing whatever it took to reclaim the part of himself she'd taken. But now... Samantha had awakened feelings in him that he'd not expected to experience until after he'd completed his mission, but there she was, his new goal. If he could find a way to stay strong, to be the man she needed.

  But he couldn't tell that to Anahera.

  "I don't know." He shrugged. "I'm sure I'll figure it out."

  "You could always stay with me, I'd take care of you, give you anything you wanted. Unless of course you want to settle down and start a family. That's not on my list of goals." The cruel twist of her mouth made him wonder if she hadn't guessed at what was going through his mind. He'd never been able to prove whether their soul connection meant she could read him easier, or if she was just that good.

  "I'll think about it." Kyle stood and headed into the house.

  "You have a job to do, remember?"

  "I'm just going to freshen up, and then I'll head back out, make a plan."

  "It can be as simple as this, Kyle. You have a gun, just shoot her. Any time, any place. It doesn't matter when as long as it's soon."

  He paused at the door, tried to find something to say, but there were no words, none he could use and still sound like the Kyle that she knew. The Kyle who would do her bidding. He grunted his assent and went inside.

  He needed to find a way out of this. Could he convince Sam to get her friend to lower the barrier? Maybe they could trick Anahera into thinking that she'd won and then take her by surprise.

  Chapter Twelve

  Morning sun splashed the garden where Samantha was weeding with bright light when Kyle pushed through the gate. She was on her feet and halfway to him before she was cognizant of her actions. He reached for her, drew her in, their lips met and she sighed when they broke the kiss, inhaling the scent of him.

  "I didn't expect to see you here," she said.

  "You were right. About Anahera. She wouldn't say what she was planning exactly, just that she's hoping to convince Hine-nui-te-pō to give Tū back."

  "We think she wants to kill the gods. Once and for all."

  He pulled away from her, shook his head. "What does that even mean?"

  "They're already all but gone from this world, most of them slumbering, it would mean they’re gone forever."

  "But if they're sleeping, does it really matter whether they're here or not? Will the sky fall? The sea disappear? Will the land shift beneath our feet? I don't understand."

  Samantha looked at him, realizing just how little he knew, how little she knew as well. To her it didn't matter that they were asleep, they were still part of the landscape of the world, whether they exerted their will on it or not. They'd played their role, they'd created this world they lived in, and they deserved their rest. They didn't deserve to die.

  And besides, one of them was her father.

  "We're family, the gods and I. You saw that from the list you found at Mrs Nolan's. I know some of them, and there are no doubt more that I don't know, but I can't sit by and let Anahera kill my family, whether they do anything for me or not. They made me. They made this world. I owe them—we all do." She re
ached out, ran her hand down his face. His eyes were wide, as if he'd realized how foolish his words had been. But he didn't know, he couldn't know. He wasn't of the Bay.

  But he was of her. They belonged together, and the expression of wonder on his face now told her that he understood.

  "It was a shallow question," he whispered. "Thanks for explaining it to me."

  "I have all the time in the world for you." She smiled, her hand dropped from his face and she reached for his, their fingers intertwining. She turned, pulling him towards the house and then there was a sudden burst of noise and she gasped as a sharp sensation tore through her, pain radiating from her back as she tumbled, the ground hard against her.

  "No!" Kyle yelled as he fell to his knees beside her.

  "I'm okay. It's okay. I'm okay right?" She hurt so much that she couldn't cry. "What happened?"

  But he'd turned away, was facing the gate he'd entered by. Samantha looked there too, squinting because her vision seemed to blur. She could see someone else there, holding... a gun. It fell to the ground as the person turned and ran.

  "Anahera!" Kyle roared, but he stayed by Samantha's side. He turned his attention back to her. "You're not going to die, not like this. Not while I can help it."

  He tore off his jacket, roughly wrapping it under her and tying it at her waist. The pressure caused the ripples of pain to turn into tidal waves.

  "This is going to hurt, but I have to get you to help."

  "No, no please, don't make me move. I'll just wait here, you bring someone back."

  He looked down at her, brushed the strands of hair off her face. "We don't have time."

  And then he lifted her and the pain swallowed her.

  Kyle ran, well, ran-walked, toward Alyssa's house. A few cars passed them, but no matter how strange he looked carrying a bleeding woman down the street no one stopped. Small towns. Go figure. Everyone knew everything, but when someone needed a hand...