Destiny Defied (The Destiny Series)

by Marx, J. A.

  Science holds the answers to life. But Akiko could never declare that to his friends. They still trusted fairytale religion over human intelligence. Considering their secluded setting, Akiko wouldn’t ruffle any holy feathers until after vacation.

  He walked the panels into the mini-shed attached to the bungalow, an act he would’ve had in the can last night had it not stormed. Dust attacked his nose. Sliding the panels behind the workbench, he sneezed curses at the fried ham radio, another storm victim. He then fled the allergy chamber and returned to the deck.

  Isaac raced past. “Later!”

  The show begins … without me. Pausing at the sliding glass door, Akiko watched the EMT disappear down the trail. Akiko went on inside and headed back to the bunkroom. Their sleeping quarters presented a lesson in order versus disorder. A remake of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple set in one room.

  His best friend, Sabio Elías Quinn, positioned a duffle on his freshly made-up bunk opposite the two messy bunks belonging to Jase and Isaac.

  Akiko leaned against the wooden frame and watched Sabio take out his bottles of herbals and arrange them on the dresser along with a vial of lavender oil. The guy was a major health fanatic born with Newton’s IQ. Not fair.

  “Each bottle looks like a tombstone.” The scholar shook his head at the dresser. “Illogical. I know.”

  Poor guy. A week had passed since the funeral, but the cemetery apparently lived on in Sabio’s mind. Akiko was sure paradise had rehabilitating powers—if his friend would just get out of the bungalow. “The game’s on, dude.”

  Sabio rubbed his temples. “If only I could roll back the clock.”

  How many times had Akiko heard him say that? He folded his arms. “That wouldn’t necessarily stop what happened.”

  “You weren’t his lab partner.” Sabio faced him with sad eyes. “I saw the distress signs, Kiko, and did absolutely nothing about it. That suicide didn’t have to happen.”

  “Sorry.” Not only had Akiko not been there, he didn’t even attend Cornell. His pursuit of a theater degree wasn’t worthy of the Ivy League.

  Jase rushed in and laid his guitar on the top bunk. “T-T-F-N.” He darted out of the room.

  The screen door near the kitchen rattled open … and closed.

  Akiko couldn’t let the musician get away with all play and no work. He went and taped the list of chore assignments to the fridge door. Glad to hear the mourning scholar whistling down the hallway, Akiko waited near the exit to begin act two. “Everything’s unpacked. You’re it.”

  Sabio veered right toward the living room bookshelf.

  Give me a break. Drumming his fingers on the metal jamb, Akiko waved to get his attention. “School let out a week ago.”

  The scholar fingered the book spines as if decoding Brail. “Did you find the two-way?”

  Brilliance definitely had drawbacks. Akiko pointed out the two-way radio attached to Sabio’s jean shorts. “The second unit left with Jase.”

  Sabio pulled a book from the shelf. “This week’s going to be awesomely anomalous.”

  “I give up.” Akiko faked a loud yawn. “What’s anomalous?”

  “Deviating from, or inconsistent with, the common order, form, or rule.” Thankfully, his knack for humbly modeling genius never intimidated anyone. “Irregular or abnormal. Picture Jase Simon.”

  Chuckling, Akiko glanced outside, but tie-dye Jase had already vanished into the trees. I should’ve swapped partners.

  “Do you want to check the ham radio—”

  “I did! For the zillionth time, lightning fried the wires.” Akiko had earned a Technician Class License to operate the radio specifically for this vacation, and now they had zero means of communication with the outside world.

  Sabio shrugged. “We’ll make do.”

  Easy for you to say. Akiko had envied Sabio and Isaac since kindergarten, both hardcore Eagle Scouts, skilled and resourceful.

  The more he thought about it the more Akiko blamed his own peewee size. Of the four of them, he ranked last in stature—a finger-length shorter than Jase’s five-ten frame with twigs for limbs. Useless in all the physical pursuits his friends loved.

  “Remember our Canadian expedition last summer?” The scholar sounded distracted. “Kayaking and—”

  “Who could forget?” Akiko bumped the doorframe. “After a six-hour bike ride, you decided we should build tree shelters instead of sleeping in the tent.”

  Sabio flashed him a look. “The shelters were Isaac’s idea.”

  “Whatever.” Akiko only remembered hauling in the mud to cement the boughs and leaves then having to wash off in the freezing lake. His sole enjoyment surfaced that night as they played Risk … until Isaac started taking over the world. As usual, Sabio had to employ the United Nations Act—a measure he’d introduced years before to impede tyrants like Isaac Young from global domination.

  Heaving a sigh at the memory, Akiko breathed his impatience across the room.

  “Interesting.” Sabio held up a light-brown leather-bound that matched his skin. “Mr. Fletcher has a mini Bible warehouse here.”

  Who cared?

  Mr. Fletcher, owner of the island and benefactor of their vacation, had said church groups routinely used the place.

  Rubbing his itchy nose, Akiko pressed his forehead to the glass and pawed the moss-colored tiles with his foot. Would Sabio freak if I just left?

  “The Bible is full of wisdom, right? Let’s play Holy-Word roulette.”

  What? Akiko wheeled around.

  The scholar opened the outdated rulebook. “Every game needs a cerebral dynamic.” Letting the pages fan apart, he planted his finger in the middle of one. “‘Be completely loyal to God. The nations you’re about to run out of the country consort with sorcerers and witches. But not you. Your God forbids it.’”

  Sorcery—as credible as monkeys living on Mars. If Akiko didn’t make a move, Sabio would probably waste time recording the verse in his journal. “Got it. I’ll beware of anomalous sorcerers. You carry the camping gear.”

  He fled the bungalow. The gear wasn’t heavy, just bulky, making this game a challenge of honor. Akiko hated the thought of becoming a pack mule. Navigating the rooty trail toward the boathouse, he reached the landmark strangler fig.

  Sabio caught up and tackled him. “Ten, nine, eight—”

  Akiko wormed out of his grip but got pinned against the tree’s aerial roots. Recalling lines from the last school production, he put on his best British accent. “Pray you sir, a word. For there is no flattery in this friendship. I am in a pickle.”

  The scholar planted a finger in his chest. “Alas, poor Kiko, bearer of the camping gear.”

  Clutching his chest as if stabbed, Akiko let his knees buckle. More Shakespearean excerpts came to mind. “Your hands … have spoken for you … I declare foul play.”

  The two-way radio clicked. Sabio let him go, and Akiko slumped to the ground like a corpse. He kept one eye partly peeled.

  “You guys out there? Over.” Jase panted, as if out of breath.

  Detaching the radio from his shorts, Sabio depressed the button three times, an affirmative reply.

  “We found a body.”

  Akiko’s heart hiccupped.

  His friend raised the radio. “A carcass?”

  “Not yet. Rolling her over now.”

  Clambering to his feet, Akiko grabbed Sabio’s arm. “Did he call it a her?”

  Sabio shook his arm loose and spoke into the unit. “Clarify her. Over.”

  “Curved hips. Melons. Over.”

  Annoyed by Jase’s flippancy, Akiko squeezed Sabio’s fingers against the transmitter button and cried into the receiver, “No pranks, you—” Moron.

  Sabio pushed him away, and the radio slipped. The unit clacked against an aerial root and plopped on the hard-packed sand. Fortunately, its guts stayed intact.

  “No joke.” Isaac’s confident bass drowned out the waves sloshing in the background. The Emergency Med Tech wo
uld never fake a rescue. “We’re on the south beach. Directly across from the bungalow.”

  Akiko and Sabio gaped at each other.

  Picking up the radio, the scholar wiped off the sand. He depressed the button, but it didn’t work. He slapped the unit. “We copy. Out.”

  A body. In paradise.

  What luck. Akiko dumped himself back on the ground, realizing he’d probably broken the two-way in his rush to scold Jase.

  “The last thing I need is another cadaver to bury.” Sabio re-clipped the unit to his shorts. “We’re needed. Let’s go.” He took off in a run past the boathouse and disappeared toward the helipad.

  Akiko pulled himself up. He took two steps, and something grabbed his ankle.

  Chapter 4

  Isaac sacrificed his craved respite from tragedy and rolled the victim onto her back. The noise of squawking birds and fizzling waves faded into oblivion as he checked the girl’s pulse and observed her thoracic cavity.

  “Not breathing. Pulse erratic. Keep track of it for me,” he told Jase.

  Brushing the sand from the girl’s bluish lips, Isaac sealed his mouth to hers and blew a breath The chest rose. He blew again, watching the cavity expand, shrink, and stay deflated.

  Jase took up the girl’s labor-worn hand, his fingers fumbling for the pulse. “Please, God. Let her live.”

  No one’s dying on my shift. “Count for me.” Isaac resealed his lips and blew.

  “One-one thousand, two-one thousand …”

  Synchronizing each breath with the five-second count, he grappled with reality. No portable resuscitator, no defibrillator—just himself. This person depended on his rescuing abilities.

  His heart answered her silent cry. I will save you.

  “… Five-one thousand. Pulse is the same.” Jase’s temples drizzled with sweat. He sounded as shaky as he had back in junior high health class before he’d passed out while practicing CPR on a dummy.

  “Get it together in case I need you to take over.” Performing on autopilot, Isaac analyzed his options.

  No radio. He couldn’t even call the coast guard. The bungalow’s first aid kit would have to substitute for a hospital. No other options.

  “… three-one thousand, four …”

  The seconds mounted his shoulders. How many minutes of resuscitating someone could he handle before his energy gave out? What if she had a seizure? What if her heart stopped beating?

  I will not lose you. He forced each breath, defying death’s cackle.

  “… two-one thousand, three-one thousand …” Jase shifted on his knees. “Her pulse. It’s stronger.”

  Isaac scanned her features. Pink lips sent his fraught spirit on the rebound. “Come on,” he demanded, as if his words could awaken the dead.

  “One-one thousand, two—”

  The victim convulsed.

  Isaac quickly rolled her onto her side and seawater gushed through her lips. Wouldn’t have been the first time a victim vomited in his mouth, but here he had no CPR mask. Who knew what diseases infected this girl.

  He rolled her motionless frame back over for observation. Feeble with expectancy, he bent closer.

  Her soft breaths grazed his cheek, a dawning sun after a frigid night.

  Even though the faceoff with death lasted only minutes, Isaac’s sanity recorded a decade of strain. Sitting back, he inhaled deeply as a breeze whipped through his hair. He then traveled his fingers across the jagged teakwood slab beneath the victim and digested the other scraps of a ship hemming him in.

  Relieved at not seeing other bodies, his eyes clouded. “That was too close.”

  Jase still held the girl’s hand. “She’s breathing. You did it, Ize.”

  His tongue scraped in vain through his parched mouth. “I never want to do it again.”

  “You’re a certified lifesaver.” Jase lightly punched his shoulder. “You live for this stuff.”

  Isaac blasted him with a look. “You’re not getting me.” Remembering that misconceptions of heroism accompanied his job, he reined in his anger. “She was minutes away from death. Maybe seconds. At home, there’s an emergency team with equipment to back me. Here, there’s nothing.”

  Nothing short of a miracle.

  Using his shirttail, he wiped away perspiration, but he couldn’t wipe away the inadequacy impaling his pride. Humility admonished Isaac for exalting his rescue skills.

  He considered Mr. Fletcher’s legendary saying. There’s power in the Name, son—a reminder that life didn’t prosper without God. The deeper Isaac pondered it, the weaker he felt. Power in the Name … power …

  He swept the victim’s back pockets for identification but found none. Glancing over the body, he noted the multiple abrasions then rolled her onto her side again to check something he thought he’d seen earlier.

  A clump of blood-pasted, ebony hair stuck to his fingers as he peeled it back. The painful looking red gash made him grimace.

  “Company.”

  Isaac looked up, expecting additional victims.

  Hurdling debris, Sabio raced toward them, panting. “Alive or dead?”

  “Take it easy. I don’t have the energy to resuscitate anyone else.” Isaac returned the girl to her back and checked her pupils. Even, not dilated. He gently patted one shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

  She didn’t even thank him with a moan. How long had she been out?

  Grasping her wrist, he pulled her forward and hoisted her over his shoulder. He’d never lost anybody he resuscitated, but he knew that day had to come. Thank God, it didn’t happen in paradise.

  “Where’s Kiko?” Without waiting for an answer, Isaac started walking. He figured any remaining survivors would find their way to the bungalow.

  Chapter 5

  An abandoned child, lying on a mattress of rubbish with rotten odors as his blanket. Dogs licked his dirty feet. Hunger wrenched his stomach. Unloved. Destitute. Daylight burrowed through Lord Vétis’s closed eyelids.

  “No!” He snapped open his eyes, shattering the nightmares of his childhood as a Lisbon beggar. The hard ground bruising his back gave him pause … until he inhaled sea air, not rotting food or filthy dogs.

  The executive officer of Potestas et Lux sat up and examined the breeze-brick wall rubbing his back. A boathouse? Brushing at his wrinkly, soiled dress shirt, his fingers bumped over the twin beetle pendants hanging on chains around his neck. One was for Riki Hammad, the eighteen-year-old prototype enshrined in his soul. Their first face-to-face introduction aboard the Nave last night had exceeded Vétis’s expectation and inflamed his vision for her future. Though he had no inkling of the chosen one’s whereabouts, he sensed her energy.

  His sore muscles relived last night. An explosion had belched him off the prow of the Nave and pummeled him with debris, slicing his foot. He’d latched on to a wedge of the ship’s deck and warded off sharks. Shortly before dawn, he waded ashore on this island and made it to the first structure in his path.

  What wretch blew up the Nave?

  The mutinous act had wiped out the inner circle, his senior council of magisters. Once news of the shipwreck reached headquarters, Grand Master Rakshasa would accuse him of failure.

  Vétis’s soul raged. I’ll hunt down the mutineer and prove my innocence.

  Lifting one beetle out from his shirt, he pressed the graven image to his lips, absorbing its power. He would turn the loss of his senior council into an opportunity to recruit new blood for the coming season—Phase II.

  He closed his eyes and envisioned Riki in her eminent role serving his underground organization. Both were bound to a higher calling: purging humanity of false hope and futile religion.

  “Call me savior.” He acknowledged the global gratitude toward his mission.

  Aboard the Nave, he had completed the initiation ritual and marked Riki as Rakshasa’s phoenix—a paragon of eminence. Vétis had three days to find the chosen one and finish preparing her for an irrevocable destiny.

  Three da
ys. He squeezed the beetle. “Forces of the Air, guide me to Riki.”

  The skyscraping sun mocked him for oversleeping. He stood and stretched his kinked muscles, still fit and sculpted as Hercules. Taking note of the helipad a few meters ahead, he scanned to his right. A well-worn trail led inland.

  Where was the commotion of tourists in this tropical haven?

  In need of fresh water to rinse off the brackish slime and the dried blood coating his butchered foot, he limped along the trail, channeling pain into energy. The sounds of voices and running feet met his ears.

  Taking cover behind a curtain of aerial roots, he peeked through the woody shafts and espied two young men. Their speech and boisterous behavior distinguished them as Americans, specifically, the United States—mongrels, as few were of pure descent.

  Proving his judgment correct, the first looked like a Hiroshima war child. The second, a Latino with an onyx goatee. The mixed-breeds wrestled in front of the strangler fig, and something about Goatee made Vétis’s spirit growl.

  “We found a body.” A third voice interrupted their sport.

  Goatee spoke into a two-way radio. “A corpse?”

  “Not sure yet. Just rolled her over.”

  Riki Hammad. Vétis pressed in to hear more. He didn’t need to see her body when the flora was murmuring her name.

  “… We’re on the south beach …” A new voice raised the population count to four.

  Anxiety dominated the mongrel’s faces, but neither called for emergency assistance.

  No EMS. No tourists. A private island. These confining circumstances reduced the danger of social inferiority corrupting Riki, and that was assuming she would let them live.

  Needing a mole, Vétis cast his energy at the more vulnerable mongrel.

  Goatee fled.

  His sidekick, the one called Kiko, started to follow … and tripped face-first into the aerial roots. After a few seconds, he pushed himself to his knees and rubbed his brow.