Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  “It is. It is also cold. Clarice can produce a cloak for you.”

  “A cloak? How about just a down jacket? And how about some jeans and a t-shirt?”

  He half-smiled at her. “We dress for the place we are in, Charlotte. Your wardrobe is what you’ve seen.”

  { Chapter 10 }

  Triaten pulled up to the ranch slowly, headlights reflecting off the white snow, and put the jeep in park. His eyes unconsciously drifted up to the far left window on the second floor. It was dark. His eyes always did that. Always pulled him there, looking at that window, hoping that light was shining. Because when it was, it meant Charlotte was home, in their bedroom, waiting for him.

  Even with the world in turmoil, the last two months were, without doubt, the best in his life. Charlotte was his.

  So seeing the black hole through the window sent a pang across his chest. He had hurried at Hotel Auric with the elders. And even though he knew Charlotte was leaving for Africa right away, Triaten had held out a small hope that she would be delayed, and that they could go to the refugee camp together.

  But by now, she would already be down there. She hadn’t called yet, and Triaten hoped that didn’t mean Doctor Saima was gravely ill.

  No matter. He would pack and be at the airfield in forty-five minutes. The plane was already there waiting for him.

  Stewart caught him in the hall before he started up the stairs. “Triaten, you’ve had several calls in the past hour, but the woman won’t speak to me, only you. She kept hanging up before I could give her your cell. She said she would keep calling.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. She has a thick accent.”

  Triaten ripped out his phone, hitting Charlotte’s speed dial as fast as his fingers allowed. No answer. He tried again. No answer.

  He barreled past Stewart into the kitchen. He picked up the land line and clicked it on. Dial tone. Pacing, he went back to his phone, calling Charlotte again. Still voicemail.

  Chest tightening, he flipped through contacts on the phone, direct dialing the pilot of the plane Charlotte had taken. The pilot’s quick report was that they had landed in Tanzania, and Charlotte had left on the waiting helicopter with the same pilot as always—nothing unusual.

  It was twenty minutes of anxious waiting before the ranch’s landline rang again. Triaten had it answered before the first ring ended.

  “This is Triaten.”

  “Triaten. Thank god. This is Saima. Betrayed, betrayed, betrayed,” she bellowed, words tumbling out.

  “Saima, hold up. What are you talking about? Where is Charlotte?”

  She let out a small cry. “My beloved Charlotte. They took her. Oh my lord, Charlotte. Her helicopter land, and they took her. They killed the pilot, and took her.”

  “Who took her, Saima? Where?”

  “I do not know. I only know about betrayer. After we saw the helicopter and found pilot.”

  “Who? The one who called Charlotte?”

  “I found out. She new assistant. She betrayed us. I have her here.”

  “Keep her under lock and key, Saima. Do not talk to her. Do not feed her. Do not give her water. I am coming to talk to her.”

  ~~~

  Aiden stuck his thumb under the strap and shifted his heavy backpack. He stole a glance back over his shoulder at his wife. She trudged along behind, complacent now. Ten minutes ago, he was fighting the terrifying thought that this was the time. This was the time it was finally going to be too much for her.

  He rubbed his arm through his jacket. The latest cut on his arm was deep, to the bone. It wasn’t going to heal as quickly as he wanted—needed it to. But it brought Skye back from the edge, and that was what mattered.

  They were five days into the trek through the Himalayans, and Aiden knew he was losing her—losing her mind to the demons that manifested in the fire. She had hiked behind him for half of those days, the other half, he had carried her. No matter what, he was moving them forward, and he wasn’t going to let her stop.

  Aiden pulled up. The rocky trail along a tributary to the Seti Gandaki river split in front of them—three choices—three valleys. After Helen’s approximations, and peppering countless locals for information in multiple broken languages and local dialects, this had been the path they were set on to find the crazy Panthenite-Malefic that lived somewhere in these mountains. For days they hiked, and the trail had passed countless Buddhist monasteries, but no half-breed habitats.

  And now, a choice.

  Aiden looked at the three trails, and the three valleys beyond them. He scanned the sides of the mountains, searching for the smallest clue. A direction.

  Skye took a step forward to stand next to Aiden’s side. It was the first motion Aiden hadn’t directed in days. Her eyes followed his, scanning the ranges.

  Then, out of nowhere, her left hand slipped into his palm. He couldn’t remember the last time she had entwined her fingers in his, and it near broke his heart.

  “I know where we’re going.”

  Aiden looked down at her, surprised to hear her talk. Her breath crystallized into little puffs in the cold air. Oddly enough, her eyes looked clear.

  “There.” Skye raised her arm, pointing at the far right mountain. “That is the place.”

  Following the tip of her finger, Aiden scrutinized. And then he saw it.

  The tallest mountain peak in that range had a swath of snow across the face of it. From their vantage, the snow was shaped like a sword, tip pointed downward, with a wide scrolling hilt spanning wide to the outer edges of the mountain.

  Aiden knew unequivocally in his gut, she was right. Hiking fast, it was at least two more days away.

  He squeezed her hand. “Let’s go.”

  ~~~

  In addition to the two day hike, it took another day searching possible routes up the mountain, until they got lucky, and Aiden spied movement high on a sharp cliff.

  When they finally stumbled upon a small wood shelter abutting a stone wall on a rocky plateau, it was eerily silent around them, grey skies overhead. They both stepped lightly along the precipitous drop just steps away from the opening, and peered into the door-less structure. The leaning wood-plank roof bowed with the weight of snow atop. The front area was just a facade. The walls quickly ran into the stone of mountain, framing an entrance to a large cave.

  Past the wood structure and cave, the trail curved up along the mountainside, into what was a small, flat ledge. A fire pit had a black cauldron hung from a metal tripod above it. There was wood in the pit, but no fire.

  Aiden looked down at Skye and shrugged. Her hands were shaking again, but she pointed into the dark cave. Aiden slipped a flashlight from his backpack and crept into the haphazard structure, his palm up over his shoulder to stop Skye from following. She ignored it and remained at his heels.

  They made it ten steps into the dark cave, seeing only several rugs strewn about, when a voice behind them spun them around.

  “Visitors are unwelcome. Go the way you came.”

  Aiden immediately went in-between the figure at the doorway and Skye. He flashed his light at the face of the figure. A long, brown-grey beard covered most of his face, his long hair tied back.

  “Are you the half-breed?” Aiden asked.

  “Half-breed?” He jabbed the long stick he had in his hand at them. “Be gone with you. Out the way you came.”

  Aiden could hear the hiccup in his voice when he said half-breed. Holding his hand behind him to stop Skye from moving, Aiden advanced at the figure. “The Panthenite-Malefic half-breed. Is that you?”

  The figure grumbled incoherently, then jabbed again with his stick. “Bah. Do not make me harm you. Go the way you came. I will exit the cave and you may leave.” He turned and disappeared out into the light of the overcast day.

  Aiden started to pursue, but Skye’s hand on his forearm stopped him. “It’s him,” she whispered. “Do not force it, Aiden. It’s him.”

  “What do yo
u want me to do, Skye?”

  “Gentle.” She looked up at him, pleading as though her life depended on it. And maybe it did.

  “Like you are with me. Gentle,” she repeated, her hand jerking uncontrollably off his arm.

  Aiden’s eyes had adjusted to the low light, and the familiar terror ran through him when he looked at Skye. She hadn’t cut him in the last three days, not since they headed toward this mountain—a miracle—but she was paying the price, and he knew she was going to break soon. Hope had brought her this far, so he couldn’t wreck it now.

  He grabbed her shoulders and forced her down to sit on one of the rugs. “Wait here. I will go and talk to him.”

  Aiden exited the cave. The half-breed was lighting the fire under the kettle. Aiden wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the half-breed produce the fire from his fingertips. The half-breed stood when Aiden appeared.

  Voice casual, Aiden approached. “I apologize. We do not wish to intrude into your life, but we are in grave need of your help. Help that only you can give us.”

  The half-breed waved his arm with an overabundant swing. “Go. Dammit. The popcorn. No. Stop.” He shook his head like something had attacked it, hair flying out of his tie-back. “I cannot help you. You do not need what I am.” He was crazy yelling now.

  Aiden took another step. “It is precisely what you are that we do need.”

  Both arms swung this time and he stood. “You think you—” he interrupted himself and looked past Aiden. “What is this? Is she the offering?”

  Aiden looked over his shoulder to see Skye coming out of the shack-cave. He turned back to the half-breed and tried to block the view of her. There was no mistaking the threat in his voice. “She is not an offering. She is my wife.”

  “Go. You have no business with me. I have none with you. Except popcorn. No, not that. I cannot help you.” He bent down to tend to his fire, disregarding their presence.

  “You can help us.” Aiden’s voice was hard against the scattered thoughts escaping from the half-breed’s mouth. “You are the one we need.”

  Gentle, Aiden could feel Skye’s body behind him saying. Thankfully, they were on a narrow part of the ledge and Skye couldn’t get past him. He didn’t trust this crazy, and she would be safest behind him.

  The Panthenite-Malefic ignored them.

  “She is the same as you.” Aiden said calmly, ratcheting down his tone.

  Head down, the half-breed continued to poke at the coals under the wood, but his arm slowed.

  Aiden recognized the opening. “She is Panthenite-Malefic, same as you.”

  His arm stopped. “What is her name?”

  “Skye.”

  At that, he stood and looked at Aiden. “Her powers?”

  “Control time.”

  He stepped closer. “And you brought her here why?”

  At that, Aiden paused. He wanted his wife whole again. He wanted her pain gone. “Demons…Balance.”

  Crazy stopped a foot away from Aiden. He coughed, bending over, hacking, then looked up and spit the phlegm straight into Aiden’s face.

  The world froze.

  Skye was the first to move from the shock, reaching up and grabbing Aiden’s shoulder.

  He jerked out from under her hand and stepped toward the crazy. Aiden was a good head taller than the half-breed, and the pummeling was going to be extensive.

  Toes touching, staring down at him, Aiden fought for control, eventually winning out against his own nature. Without word, he reached up and wiped the spit from his cheek.

  The half-breed started to laugh. A demented crow-cackle that echoed off the mountain walls.

  Aiden kept his composure.

  “Interesting. Anything to help her, huh?” The half-breed choked out through the guffaws.

  Aiden took a deep breath. “I will save what I just would have done to you, until we find out if you are a help, or not.”

  Half-breed nodded. “Fair enough. Popcorn.” His left eye twitched. “Did you bring me popcorn?”

  Aiden’s eyebrow crooked, fist tightening. His wife’s sanity better damn well not rest on popcorn. “No. I’m afraid not.”

  “The pity. You should have brought me popcorn.” He leaned around Aiden and his large backpack. “Dear lady, I would like to talk to your husband in privacy. Please go lay down.”

  Aiden was surprised when Skye turned and disappeared into the hut-cave without argument or questioning. Even in her state, she understood more about what was going on here than he did.

  But then her head popped back out of the hut opening. Her face was clammy white again, and the shaking obstructed the words coming from her mouth. “Aiden…I don’t know how much longer…”

  Aiden could see she trailed off in desperate embarrassment. He looked back at the half-breed, but he had already gone back to stoking his fire. Aiden grabbed the knife from his belt and went into the hut. He pulled off his pack and set it down next to one of the rugs.

  His left arm had still not healed from the last time, so he bent over, pulling up his cargo pants. The hiking was over for a time, so he could afford injury to his leg.

  He offered the knife to Skye, and, like always, she murmured a protest that both of them knew she didn’t mean. He let her go through the motions and then placed the leather hilt into her palm.

  Gently pressing down on her shoulder, he sent her to her knees and gave her position to his leg. She struck quickly, apologies and promises of the last time tumbling from her lips. Both of them knew she didn’t mean those words either.

  When she fell onto her back, shaking ceased, waves of euphoria coursing through her body, Aiden opened his backpack, pulling out a t-shirt and rolling it up as a pillow for her. She didn’t even try to fight it anymore, not like she once did.

  He thought she was out—into the land of oblivion—when she caught his wrist in her hand.

  “Aiden, I can’t see myself anymore.” Looking up at him, her face was tortured. “I can’t see you. As ridiculous as my life has changed—the impossible happened to me, but still...still I always saw myself. I knew who I was. It changed, but I still knew who I was. I knew who we were. But I can’t see anything anymore. Nothing but this gaping, voracious hole of never-ending craving. It just doesn’t go away.”

  “Shhhh.” Aiden pushed the hair from her forehead. They were sane comments, some of the first he’d heard in a while, and that gave him hope. “Just sleep, Skye. We are here. We will figure this out.”

  “If this doesn’t work…”

  “It will work. This will fix you.”

  She nodded, the movement petering out as her head went down on the t-shirt and her eyes closed.

  He limped out of the cave.

  The fire was now full under the black pot, but the half-breed continued to poke at the flames. Aiden had no clue if he had just watched what happened in the cave or not. If he had, did it matter? What was crazy to an outsider was now normal to Aiden.

  The half-breed motioned Aiden to come closer. The second Aiden’s feet stopped, opposite the fire, the half-breed scolded him.

  “No, no. Not there. Theodore stands there. To your right.”

  Aiden looked around, even though he knew he stood alone on this side of the fire. He moved to the right. Who was he to judge if the half-breed had an imaginary friend.

  “What is your name?” Aiden asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  The half-breed didn’t look up. “Leander.”

  “Thank you.”

  Leander went to the sheer rock wall at the far end of the clearing. He stopped at a small hole in the stone, and reached into it, producing an orange plastic knapsack. He came back to the fire and poured rice out of the knapsack into the pot of boiling water. “How did you find me?”

  “Helen.”

  The answer made Leander pause. Pause and touch the top of the long scar that ran from the middle of his forehead, down across his left eye, and ended on his cheek. Defin
itely a scar begot by the end of a sword. Aiden couldn’t quite read what flashed across his face.

  Leander looked down, stirring his pot. “So what do you think I can do for your wife?”

  Aiden shrugged. “Give her a crash course in living with both sides.”

  Leander chuckled. “Do you not see, I am a bit on the crazy side? Unstable.” He tapped the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot and then hung it from a nail.

  “Yes.” Aiden countered. “But there is also saneness in you, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You are what Skye is and you walk, you talk, and you aren’t hurting anyone.”

  Leander looked up at him sharply. “I am also a hermit.”

  Aiden gave a nod of acquiescence. “Granted, I am ultimately hoping for a little more than that. But at this point, I just want her pain to be gone.”

  “Hmmm.” Leader turned from the fire and strode to the edge of the cliff. Just when Aiden thought he was about to walk off the precipice, he spun around, air under his heels. He paced for five minutes, then stopped mid-stride and jumped in a circle to face Aiden.

  “I think I have it.”

  He stared at Aiden, waiting for something. Aiden wasn’t sure what.

  “Care to share?” Aiden finally prompted him after an uncomfortable minute.

  “Do you see? I have to be sure you can do this. There are two things if you are to remain here. One I just did.”

  “Which was?” Aiden asked.

  “See what you’re willing to do for her. The spit in your eye told me a lot. ‘Anything’ would be the answer to the first question.”

  “I could have just told you that fact. And the second?”

  “The second is something you need to accept—you’re here to fix her. Can’t be done.” His eye started twitching. “Don’t think it. She’s not going to be fixed. She can be helped. But not fixed. One half of her is not what you want it to be. And there is no cure for half of one’s soul. It must remain. You can’t destroy it. Only control it, if you will. If you’re lucky. And strong.”

  “Skye is strong. She can do this. And she has me for luck. I can produce that. Some semblance of control is all we ask.”