by Debra Dunbar
“Someone is racking up the debt in terms of favors,” he teased. “If this keeps up, I’m going to have a pretty little half-elf love slave.”
“You already have a half-elf love slave.”
I felt the energy like a sharp knife cutting through the air, felt the tension in Irix’s muscles. He threw me to the ground, shielding me with his body as heat roared by, and the fire-being appeared a few feet away. Irix grabbed my head, shoving it under the protection of his shoulder right before bits of burning brush and wood rained down on us. I squirmed, terrified. The fire was right on top of us, burning Irix.
“Hold still,” he hissed. I could hear the pain in his voice, but I did exactly what he said, huddling as small as I could beneath him. The fire roared in my ears, but I could still hear the shouts and screams of the two homeowners.
As soon as I felt the temperature drop a fraction, I squirmed, trying to get up. Irix stood, taking my hand and pulling me to my feet. His front was drenched, his shirt and pants hanging in charred tatters from his body. I was afraid to look at his back, knowing how badly burned he must be.
The fire had crossed the road, and the man and boy were frantically beating at the flames with wet towels. I didn’t know how much help I could be, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch the fire consume their house — and possibly them. I felt the demon energy inside me, embraced who I truly was, and saw. Everything looks different when viewed through the lens of a spirit-being, even a half-spirit-being. Irix practically blinded me with his crimson glow; the two humans were connected dots of blue; our surroundings carried a pastel wash of residual energy and imprinting. Normal fire looked gray, but the fire-being was a beacon of gold. Inside the flames, it changed — bipedal, then stooping to crawl. I searched, moving around to the side, in spite of Irix’s protests, but I could see no leash. There was nothing tethering this thing. It was free moving, undirected, unbound. Why had it not just returned home as Kristin had said? Why was it still here?
A high-pitched scream sent chills down my back. The teenager was stomping on his smoking towel, holding his hands stiffly. A tree fell behind him, covering him with a shower of sparks and surrounding him with fire.
I had no time to think, to plan. I just acted. Reaching out, I grabbed a bright red leaf of the scorched plant beside me and sent everything I had into it.
Hawaiians called it a Ti plant and installed it as a sort of blessing outside their homes. It was sacred to Lono, the god of peace.
And that irony didn’t escape me.
Back in Maryland it was a Cabbage Palm. Cordyline Terminalis. Its genetic signature flowed into me. In the fraction of a second it had taken me to touch the plant, I knew everything about it — as well as how to make it grow like crazy.
The ground erupted, broad green and red leaves spreading as the plants shot up to the height of the house. I kept going, plants crowding against each other so thick that a piece of tissue couldn’t come between them. The fire-being tried to burn them, but I held steady. Waxy stalks, lush, damp leaves. They rose taller, bending heavy, a wall of plants smothering and choking the fire-being. More. More, piling on top of each other, sprouting additional plants from the sides of the canes. I didn’t stop until I was shaking and on my knees, drained of everything.
“Help! Help!”
Oh shit. I’d trapped that poor teenager inside a jungle. The older man picked up an axe and began hacking his way through while I rolled over onto the charred ground and laughed. Hands jerked me up from the ground, wrapping around my waist to crush me in a hug.
“You are amazing.” Irix pulled back to look in my face. “I’m so proud of you. Look what you did!”
I looked. And couldn’t see anything from the ten-foot-tall plants with fat, three-foot-long leaves blocking out the house, the driveway, pretty much everything. The man called out, and the teen responded. I laughed again, struck by the absurdity of it.
“Think we better get out of here?”
I nodded, hearing sirens in the distance. Probably not a good idea for us to be here when the officials arrived. I’m not sure how the ranchers were going to explain the explosion of massive cabbage palms on every square inch of their yard. Of course, that wasn’t my problem.
But something else was. I was out of energy, and I had a feeling this fire elemental would be back. I needed to get a hold of Kristin for more information. Then I needed to find whoever was causing this and deliver some very tough justice.
Chapter 12
There was another fire.” Kai cast a nervous glance around the parking lot. She’d seen us pull in and had jogged out to meet us. The fact she hadn’t mentioned the battered, cow-poo encrusted state of Irix’s “borrowed” Jeep said a lot about her emotional state.
“Yeah. We were there.” I gestured at Irix’s ragged clothing, covered with singe marks and burn holes. He’d repaired his skin and hair on the ride back. Thank God he’d sheltered me from the fire. I might have survived, but I’d have an even harder time picking up men with third degree burns over half my body than with a mere black eye.
“You were at Makawao? The farmer’s market?”
“Noooo.” What the heck was she talking about?
“We were at a brush fire near Pa’ia, right on Hana Highway,” Irix told her. “It was that fire-being again.”
Kai rubbed a hand through her black hair, and I noticed the tense lines around the edge of her mouth. “This was a different fire. It started in the farmer’s market, from a cigarette tossed in a trash can, then just went crazy. It burned itself out after destroying half the fruit stands.”
“Do you think that was before or after our fire?” I asked Irix.
“Only one way to find out.” He turned to Kai. “I assume your brother is keeping you appraised. Can you ask him which fire was called in first?”
It was important to know if I’d managed to truly banish the elemental with my plants, or if I’d only blocked its momentum, sending it elsewhere. And that would completely blow Kristin’s theory to bits. If it could redirect, then it wasn’t targeting specific people or areas. Maybe this magic-user was more of a terrorist sort, wanting general destruction and not too picky over where or who it damaged. Or maybe it wasn’t a magic user at all.
“Sure.” Kai worried her lip between her teeth. “I don’t know for sure if the fire in Makawao is connected or not, but it’s too much of a coincidence not to take notice. I mean, we don’t have fires like this several times a day. It’s... .” her eyes met mine. “It’s weird.”
I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, running it lightly down her arm. “I talked to my friend, and she had some ideas, but I’ll need to talk to her again. Maybe she’ll have some insight into what this is and how to get rid of it for good.”
“What does your brother say the officials think?” Irix asked Kai. “Are they linking these fires together?”
She nodded. “Arson was the official ruling. They’re thinking someone is behind the beach bonfire, and the cane fire that jumped the break. Makani thinks they’ll link this one also — and probably yours. Of course, they think a human is behind it.”
“A human may still be behind it.” I gave her the details of what Kristin had said, and the things that contradicted her theory.
“So, what do we do now?” Kai’s shoulders slumped. “We can’t take much more of these fires, and if it’s truly something supernatural, then no investigation from the fire marshal is going to help.”
“You find out which fire this afternoon happened first. Amber gets back on the phone with Kristin.” Irix smiled. “And the pair of us go and gather as much energy as we can in case this thing strikes again.”
Kai’s eyebrows shot up. “Energy?”
Might as well freak her out even further. “Energy. Which means that Irix and I need to go out and have sex.”
***
“This isn’t going to work,” I hissed. “Look at me. I couldn’t seduce a troll looking like this.” I’d smeared eno
ugh foundation on my face to cover the side of a building, and still the stupid bruises showed through. My only recourse was going to be heading to a bar where the patrons were very drunk and not particularly picky — which wouldn’t exactly get me the quality energy I was going to need if the elemental returned tonight.
Irix frowned. “Well, no, of course you can’t seduce a troll looking like that. Double your body mass and develop a sweat secretion that smells like stagnant sewage and you might attract a troll or two. You’ll have no problems with the human males as you are right now. You’re a beautiful, sexy woman, ready to fulfill their sexual fantasies. Where’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I look like a female boxer. A losing female boxer.”
He snorted. “Amber, seriously. You got a vampire hard. You could be missing three of four limbs and have any guy with just a smile. Have some faith in your succubus skills.”
I sighed. “Okay. But if I wind up with a slew of rejections, I’ll need you to reassure me of my attractiveness. Several times.”
“You got it, babe.”
He gave my ass a swat as I walked out the door, debating where I should head for some evening action. My stomach growled, and I wondered if I had enough time for a quick bite. Irix had given me keys to the stolen, I mean ‘borrowed’, Jeep as well as some of his energy. I was grateful for both. The Jeep would let me prowl away from the resort area and hopefully away from Cleo’s reach. The energy would keep me from collapsing before I could get the job done.
Grabbing a granola bar and a bottle of juice, I headed out, choosing to circle south and east around the West Maui Forest Reserve to some of the towns on that side. It meant I’d be driving about an hour and a half at least. But it was about as far off the tourist path as I could get. Kai had called as I’d left, letting me know the farmer’s market fire was right before ours. Everything seemed to be happening too fast, and I needed information. I glanced at my cell phone and grimaced as I dialed Kristin, realizing it was closing in on eleven at night there.
The ‘mmmm’ sound she made when answering the phone didn’t make me feel any better.
“Are you awake enough to talk? I’ve got an issue.”
I told Kristin of the day’s events and got a disturbing silence in reply.
“Kristin? You still awake?”
“Yeah, I’m just trying to figure this out. Is there some connection between any of the owners of the affected establishments?”
Kai or the bonfire group, Mr. Lee, ranchers, and a bunch of farmers selling at a market? “Not that Irix or I can figure out. Could it be some kind of mage-terrorist bent on general destruction?”
“Doubtful,” Kristin scoffed. “There would have been a demand of some sort by now — a ‘stop digging your pipeline under my sacred space’ demand. And honestly, most mages would be more subtle than this. Like they’d make the sacred space seem haunted or cursed, or make the accidents there so frequent and costly that the company digging stopped. This kind of thing wouldn’t be random. If a mage is summoning the elemental, he’s targeting it for a reason.”
“I’m just not getting it, Kristin. I mean, Kai lives near Mr. Lee’s place but she’s unconnected to the other two fires.” An idea came to me. “Do you think it could have something to do with the fire service? Like a mage who is also an arsonist and working for the fire department?”
I was really reaching with that one, and Kristin’s disbelieving sniff agreed. “That’s pretty farfetched. Are you sure it’s an elemental? I guess a mage could be summoning one of them over and over again, but it seems like a weird thing to do. Ceremonial magic takes a lot of energy. Summoning and binding an elemental twice or three times per day... that’s really beyond a mage. Honestly, that’s beyond even a group of them.”
“I... I don’t know.” I remembered something. “And there was no leash, Kristin. I looked. I opened myself to see the energy around me, and that thing wasn’t connected. It was wandering around on its own.”
Kristin let out a whoosh of air. “If it was an elemental and it wasn’t tethered, it would have just gone home. Are you sure there wasn’t a leash? Are you positive it’s an elemental at all?”
Shit. I was really hoping we weren’t back to square one, but it would be better to know now, before we went even further down the wrong path. “I didn’t see any kind of energy line or any sort of leash. And Irix called it a fire-being. I really don’t know enough about elementals, or any of the supernatural beings, to positively ID it.”
“Well, some demons and angels can manifest as fire. Are you sure it’s sentient? It could be someone who has a fire affinity just controlling and directing a natural fire.”
“It only appears if there’s a small fire first — like the bonfire, or the cigarette in the trash can of the Farmer’s Market. I’m positive it’s not a demon or angel. Irix would know that. Are there other things that could be fire?”
Kristin was silent, and I worried about what she was gearing up to tell me. “A demi-god, or an old god, perhaps? I’ve never heard of an old god manifesting in modern times, but they’re supposedly able to control elements, bind supernatural beings to serve them. They’re kind of like angels, only much more powerful.”
I didn’t want to think about something that was far more powerful than an angel. The idea scared the crap out of me. “Let’s forget about that idea and keep on the elemental one instead.”
“I’ll research it.” Kristin ignored my plea and went on. “I’ve got sources that can tell me what has to happen to awaken an old god, and I’ll start going through my mythology notes. I’ll check with Jordan, too. We invoke old gods quite a lot in Wicca, and she’ll have more knowledge than me on the framework of those rituals and what they entail.”
I was glad Kristin was sounding more awake, and grateful for all her help, but this talk of old gods was scaring me more than a little. But as freaky as the old-gods theory was, I had more than my fears giving me doubts. I’d felt the energy from the fire-being. It was strong, but not that strong. Irix had blown it apart on the beach, and I’d managed to beat it with a bunch of plants. True, they were short-term wins, but still wins. I couldn’t see that happening with an old god. Zeus, Isis, Thor — they all would have soundly kicked our asses.
I hung up, having the nagging feeling that I was missing something. But there was no time right now to think further. I’d arrived in Wailuku, and it was time to party.
I pulled onto Main Street and felt the tourist Maui slip away. There were grocery stores, fast-food places, schools, and a medical center. There was even a mall. Cleo would hardly be hunting for sexual partners here, when all the glitzy resorts were on the other side of the island.
I needed energy fast, so I drove along the primary routes, looking for a place with a good happy-hour deal, preferably one that ran from five until seven. Guys were easy to pick up at closing time. Heck, everyone was easy to pick up at closing time. The challenge was getting sober, otherwise-occupied men to think about sex — to actually do more than think about it. Guys pretty much always had sex on the brain, and getting them interested wasn’t a problem, it was getting them interested enough to turn off all the other things they had planned on doing that particular moment. Pheromones were very useful when it came to getting guys to ditch their buddies (or to bring them along), leave during the last ten minutes of a playoff game, or procrastinate on that corporate report.
So I led with my pheromones as I walked into the little roadside dive, sauntered to the bar, and ordered a draft. Twenty patrons. Fifteen men. From where I stood, I could see at least four that met my criteria. The noise was deafening — people laughing, slamming beer mugs down, scraping chairs across the floor. It had a happy, cheerful, more than slightly-inebriated vibe to it.
“Where’s a good party in town, boys?” I asked, taking a long pull from my beer.
“My house.”
“Right here.”
“My pants.”
I was going with the
party-in-my-pants guy. He looked to be mid-twenties, his skin rich brown with hair to match. His face was broad, his smile equally so. Parking-lot fantasy. I couldn’t quite make out the details and rather hoped he wanted this to go down against his car rather than inside it. The guy wasn’t tall or fat, but I’d learned how difficult it was to make a man’s wildest dreams come true squashed between a gearshift and a glove box.
“Anyone else have a party in their pants?” I hadn’t sensed any reluctance when it came to sharing or taking turns from guy number one, and I figured I could maximize my time if I could swing a twofer. Or a threefer. I’m all about efficiency.
“Oh, heck yeah.”
And now I had two. Ernie and Parker, who worked together on an organic farm. Payment for their labor was in the form of food and shelter, which meant they didn’t have the funds to get out and about regularly — and rarely encountered available woman of reasonable age and attractiveness. They were staring at me as if they’d both won the lottery. I could have led them out the door right away, but I liked these party-in-the-pants guys. I wanted to build things up for them, make this last. Their energy shone, strong and plentiful. If I played this right, these two would help fill that emptiness my magic had caused. And maybe, just maybe, if I felt I could control myself, I might try a very slight tie.
Two hours later we were making our way to a battered pickup truck with Saul’s Organic Fruit emblazoned in dark green lettering on the side. I’d walked in for a hit-it-and-quit-it score but was actually having a great time. These guys were cool. We’d had a spirited discussion about environmental policy, rainwater management, and organic pest control methods. Two men after my own heart. We’d already exchanged cell numbers and e-mail addies, me promising to send them both copies of my thesis and them offering to share some data they’d been collecting on island fungus. For once, this was going to be fun. For once, I actually wanted a connection with my partners.
“Come here,” I wiggled my eyebrows at Parker, grabbing his once-white T-shirt with both hands and yanking him toward me. He smelled of rain and earth, of ocean breeze and beer; his t-shirt was stiff against my fingers from drying in the sun and wind. That wasn’t the only thing that was stiff. My mouth tasted his, and I rubbed myself against him. I felt Ernie behind me, his hand tentatively touching my shoulder then drawing back.
