by K. D. Keenan
“Do you still have my medicine bag?”
“Yes,” said Clancy, pulling the thong over his head. “Here.”
“No, Clancy. You keep it. Be sure to wear it,” Rose said, replacing the thong around his neck. She tucked it carefully into his shirt and smiled, but her eyes were worried. She walked away to stand at the rail, and Clancy gazed after her, looking puzzled.
“We want to go to one of the jack ships out there,” Sierra yelled to Sam over the sound of the engine. “Jack of Diamonds. It’s the one closest to shore.” Sam nodded. Apparently whatever she had done was lasting.
The journey took much longer than it had by helicopter. Kaunakakai was located almost midway along the island’s southern coast. Polupolu followed the coast past the westernmost tip of land before heading out into the channel. As before, they saw spinner dolphins near the boat and many whale spouts in the distance. Sierra spotted several turtles swimming gracefully near the surface, but as they left the island behind she saw no more of them. A flock of what appeared to be silver birds began soaring all around the boat. She saw they were fish—called malolo, she knew—flying fish, launching out of the water a hundred or more at a time, gliding incredibly far across the surface of the sea. As she watched these sleek, silver creatures glittering in the sun, the installed towers of the WestWind project began appearing on the horizon, growing ever taller as they neared.
The wind farm presented a surreal vision out here in the deep sea, with land barely visible as a streak of blue-gray on the horizon. Sierra thought there was something weirdly beautiful about this monument to human ingenuity standing alone in a vast expanse of water. The ocean was calm, reflecting the wispy clouds and the sky amid the evenly spaced towers and the installed bases not yet topped with towers. None of the turbines had been activated yet, so the towers equipped with blades stood silent and still. It resembled a strange, watery cathedral, unfinished, its pillars reaching to the sky instead of a roof. The uncapped yellow bases looked like the broken stumps of columns in an ancient temple. Instead of a stone floor, the gleaming sea stretched between the towers and stumps, a lake of quicksilver. Gradually, Jack of Diamonds grew larger, sitting atop its six legs like an enormous water beetle.
Polupolu chugged its determined way amid the bases and the standing towers toward the jack ship. As they approached, a small boat launched from a dock at the base of one of the jack ship’s steel legs and headed toward them. A man with a bullhorn stood in the prow. As it grew closer, he raised the bullhorn to his mouth.
“Ahoy! What’s your business? We weren’t expecting anyone.”
Sam peered down from his perch at the helm of Polupolu. He was holding out a bullhorn to Sierra. “Maybe you should answer him,” Sam said. “I have no idea why we’re here.”
Sierra took the bullhorn, located the “on” button and pressed it. “Polupolu out of Kaunakakai,” the bullhorn roared as she spoke into it, startling her. “Um, looking for Houghton Roberts.”
There was silence from the other boat as this was absorbed. Polupolu, idling at low speed, rocked as waves sloshed against her sides.
“Mr. Roberts isn’t here,” came the amplified answer. “I can’t let you board without authorization.”
“Okay,” roared Sierra’s bullhorn. “We’re just going to stay here for a little bit. Okay?”
A longer silence ensued. “Why? I told you Mr. Roberts isn’t here.”
“Well, call him and tell him that we’re here.”
“You’re nuts. You can’t do this.” The speaker seemed flabbergasted. Apparently they hadn’t had a lot of day-trippers at the construction site.
Sierra handed the bullhorn back to Sam. “Let’s stop here.”
But Sam seemed to have recovered from Sierra’s persuasion. “I’m getting us out of here.” He turned to go back to the cockpit.
“It’s all right, Sam,” said Sierra, again in that soft, soothing tone. Now Sierra could see tendrils of rosy light reaching out from her to Sam. She was reasonably certain no one else could see them.
“Alright. Sure. It’ll be fine,” Sam said. He cut the motors. Sierra began to don fins, wetting them first with seawater so they would slip over her feet more easily. “Please drop the platform so I can get in the water.”
Freshly alarmed, Sam said, “You can’t do that. There are sharks out here. And really strong currents. You’ll be killed!”
Clancy pulled Sierra aside. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
“It’s all I can think of to do,” she responded. “If Huff tries to install another tower, Kanaloa and Kauhuhu will do the same thing again. Kama and Pele are still out of the picture, so I guess our trip to the Big Island was a waste of time. Pig!” she said, nastily.
“Did you just call me a pig?”
“No, no, no. Not you. Kama. He promised us. Promised us—and the Menehune. And he’s done nothing. Except presumably frolic with his red-hot girlfriend. Well, someone’s got to stop Kanaloa and Kauhuhu, and I started this, so I guess it’s up to me to stop it.”
“Sierra, please don’t do this,” Clancy said. “I’m really afraid for you. You know for a fact there are a lot of sharks out here, and most of them aren’t Avatars.”
Sierra looked up at him from her seat on the deck. “You know,” she said, “the ancient Hawai‘ians thought of sharks as their ancestors. They worshipped them and looked on them as guardian spirits, ‘aumakua. Who are we to say they were wrong?”
“In general,” Clancy replied, gritting his teeth, “sharks are huge, hungry animals with big, sharp teeth.”
Sierra reached rosy tendrils out to him. “Clancy, I know what I’m doing…” Her voice was velvety, almost hypnotic.
“Don’t try that shit on me!” Clancy growled. “Sierra, please listen…”
But Sierra silently continued adjusting her gear. Making sure the mask was clean and unfogged, she rose and walked to the stern platform. The boat that had launched from Jack of Diamonds was still there, apparently waiting to see what they were up to. She sat on the platform, fins in the water, eyes searching the depths anxiously. She was so frightened she could hardly breathe. Her chest compressed with dread of whatever waited beneath the waves for her. She began a chant of protection, imploring Kanaloa and Kauhuhu for safe passage, as Auntie Keikilani had taught her. She motioned with her head toward the duffel bag she had brought with her. A fresh lei waited there as an offering to the gods. Clancy, moving like a man with lead weights on his feet, went to the duffel and opened it. He picked the lei up in two hands and turned back to Sierra.
At that moment, a deep rumble shook the air. Everyone started and looked around, including the crew of the other boat. There was a long silence broken by nothing but the slap of waves against Polupolu’s hull. Then another rumble was heard, a deep, resonating sound that seemed to shiver up from the depths of the ocean. But there was nothing to be seen. Gentle swells continued to rock Polupolu, and the sea appeared calm.
After several more minutes, a grinding roar shook the occupants of both boats, which swayed and dipped as the water grew agitated. But it was not the green-white agitation in the water that had brought down the towers; a sullen red glow now became visible, shining up through the leagues of water beneath. The water began to boil—literally, this time. After a few minutes, Sierra was horrified to see the cooked carcasses of fish, including a thirteen-foot tiger shark, bobbing to the turbulent surface where the corpses were flung about like noodles in a soup pot. She tore off her snorkel mask and hopped back onto the deck as the water at her feet grew painfully hot. Mike swung the platform back and secured it, wide-eyed with uncomprehending terror.
Then she saw the face beneath the waves. It was a face of fire, fire inexplicably raging beneath the ocean, and she would know that flaming, furious beauty anywhere. Pele’s face stared up at her through the water with incandescent eyes, her generous mouth parted in unmistakable laughter.
“What’s going on?” yelled Sam from the cockpit. “Wha
t’s happening?”
“Get us out of here, Sam!” Sierra shrieked back.
“Wait!” cried Clancy, running aft. “We need to warn them!” He was apparently going to shout at the other boat, where the crew was staring at the boiling water in disbelief. But as he raced toward the stern, Polupolu’s engines revved, propelling the boat abruptly forward. Clancy tripped as the surface beneath him accelerated, slammed against the railing—and was gone.
Sierra shrieked and lunged toward the railing where Clancy had disappeared, but Mike caught her in a grip made powerful by years of earning a living on boats.
“Let me go! Clancy!” she wailed, fighting against his immovable arms. But all Mike did was yell at Sam, “Go! Go! He’s gone.” He wrestled her into the cabin and forced her to sit, never relaxing his grip. Rose sat beside her, holding her like a warm blanket against the horror of what had just happened. As Polupolu raced away from the WestWind installation, Sierra struggled miserably for a few minutes and then began to weep as though she would never stop.
She did not stop weeping for a long time. Black guilt tore into her soul—He would still be alive if not for me! Why didn’t I mind my own business? It’s all my fault! Worst of all: Why Clancy? Why wasn’t it me? She was unaware of her surroundings until Polupolu docked at Kaunakakai. When Polupolu was securely docked, Rose reluctantly moved back, giving her air and space, and she became once more aware of her surroundings.
Sam, looking grim, saw them off the boat, saying, “I’m going down to the police station to report all this. I suppose they’ll want to talk to you. Auwē! I don’t know how I’m gonna explain what I was doing out there. I must’ve been off my rocker.”
Somehow, they all wound up back at Auntie’s house, though Sierra never could remember how they got there. Auntie took one look at her, enveloped her in a long hug, and put her to bed with a mug of something hot she had concocted. Then Auntie joined Rose in her living room. Rose was weeping softly.
“What happened?” Auntie asked, settling into her favorite chair.
Rose described the scene of disaster and chaos at the WestWind installation. “Sierra said it was Pele, that she saw her face in the fire under the waves. Maybe a volcanic eruption? The water started boiling, and dead fish were coming up from the depths. Sam revved up Polupolu to get us out of there, but it caught Clancy off-guard. He went overboard.” Rose gulped, and a single tear slipped down her nose. “He must’ve been dead as soon as he hit the boiling water. There was no point in trying to save him.”
Auntie put her head in her hands. “Oh, poor Clancy, how horrible. Poor Sierra.”
Chapter 30
Chaco waited patiently, sitting on the imprisoning stone. Something was coming. It would get here in its own time. In the meantime, he probed cautiously at the thing holding him there.
It was more like a ghost than a being or a spirit. Supernatural beings were complete; they had their own personalities, abilities and goals. Spirits likewise were whole, though insubstantial to human senses. But ghosts were the sad echoes of things that had once lived and left only a resonating vestige of energy behind.
The thing that had been set to trap him was just a fragment torn from a once-living human. Chaco reached out with his mana to see if there were more like it in the area and found a virtual sea of drifting, lost remains. A horrific repository of tragedy, violence, terror, and loss lay upon the vast platform like a toxic miasma. Each mournful remnant had been ripped away and forsaken by a human sacrifice up there on the flank of the mountain.
Chaco quickly withdrew the searching tendrils of his mana. Evil had been poured over these stones like poisoned syrup, he thought. But Kanaloa wasn’t really evil. In Chaco’s opinion, Kanaloa had his good side, though he was unreliable, unpredictable, and often untrustworthy. Auntie had said Kanaloa traveled around the islands with Kane, the creator god, creating freshwater springs for the thirsty people. He provided the ancient Hawai‘ians with food and other necessities from the sea. Perhaps the evil derived from the humans who had murdered other humans in the name of Kanaloa? Had Kanaloa even wanted or needed these ruined lives?
As evening closed in, the black moths began to flit overhead. The stars blazed brilliantly all the way down to the horizon, unaffected by the puny lights of Kaunakakai. Finally, the moon began to rise. It was a crescent moon, still waning from its fullest. The horn of the moon peeked over the tops of the trees, fading the stars and casting a veil of silvery half-light across the vast darkness of the heiau.
As the moon rose, Chaco began to hear strange sounds. They were not the sounds of the insects or birds or the wind in the branches of the surrounding trees. It was more like the sound of the Menehune as they processed into Kama’s valley. He could hear far-off chanting and the sound of conch shells being blown. With the senses of an Avatar—and a coyote—Chaco became aware of a foul odor on the usually sweet night breeze. The sounds grew louder, and now he could see a line of torches proceeding down the trail, though he couldn’t yet see the torchbearers.
Gradually, the processional approached near enough that Chaco could see. It was a group of warriors, ancient Hawai‘ians arrayed for battle with clubs and spears. Their faces were tattooed with black spirals and geometrical patterns that appeared to whirl and spin in the light of the torches. And the foul smell became the reek of a violated grave.
To his dismay, Chaco knew who and what these warriors were: huaka‘ipo, the Night Marchers. Auntie had told him about these spirits and warned him to avoid them should he hear them coming. She described their chants, conch blowing, the foul reek, and the tramp of many bare feet. He’d heard them coming, but due to the ghostly power that held him to the stone, he had been unable to keep clear.
Now the marchers came to a halt and surrounded him where he sat. They were faceless. Their bodies were powerfully built, shining like statues in the torchlight, but their faces were indistinct, as though each countenance were shrouded by black mist—except for the eyes, glowing luminescent green in the dark like something out of a horror movie. While they were terrifying to behold, Chaco himself was an immortal and had seen far more frightening creatures.
“This one is none of my blood,” said one grim warrior. “He looks right at us. This is kapu, and he should die.”
Another warrior peered more closely at their bound captive. “He’s no mortal. We have no power over him.”
A muttered discussion ensued. As much as Chaco wanted to hear what they were talking about—after all, it concerned him—he was distracted by a new glow, tiny and far off, a spark that flared in the middle of the great platform of stones. It started as a light no bigger than a firefly and grew rapidly. At this stage, Chaco could see that it was a man—or at least something in the form of a man. The form began to stride toward him, covering the uneven footing of lava stone with easy grace. The figure was that of a Hawai‘ian man, much like Kama in appearance. He was clad in the trappings of an Ali‘i chieftain, with a kapa cloth malo, feathered cloak, and whale’s tooth necklace. On his head was the same type of red- and yellow-feathered helmet Chaco had seen Kama wear, and one blocky hand grasped a long spear.
As the glowing figure strode toward the stone and the Night Marchers, Chaco saw that in the hand not occupied by the spear, the new arrival held a small, struggling animal. No, not an animal—Fred. The figure held the little mannegishi upside down, his twiggy arms and legs bound with rope. Despite being trussed like a turkey, Fred was wriggling in violent protest and screeching at the top of his lungs.
The Night Marchers stood back and lowered their eyes.
“Lord Kanaloa,” said one. “How may we serve you?”
“This one is mine,” said Kanaloa, gesturing at Chaco. “He betrayed me and his life is forfeit.”
The Night Marchers fell back to the accompaniment of more murmuring. Then one of the spirits stepped forward. “He is yours, Lord. He has great mana and we can’t harm him.” The spirit’s eyes glared green. The marchers turned as one and s
ounded the conches as they resumed their endless march.
The glowing figure strode to the stone where Chaco sat ensnared and stopped, glowering down at him. Chaco saw that despite the classically carved Polynesian features, the eyes were blue. Not the blue of human eyes. These eyes were all blue with no whites. Like…like the eyes of the giant white octopus that had swept Chaco and Sierra into the sea.
“So we meet again,” Chaco said, affecting a casualness he didn’t feel.
“Why did you do it?” growled Kanaloa, not bothering to acknowledge the question.
“Do what?” Chaco was genuinely puzzled.
“You called on the wrath of Pele to oppose me!” roared the figure, seeming to swell, becoming even more menacing.
“I did?”
“You and that witch you were with! Why did she plead with me for help—then turn around and send Pele to destroy my work? I want to understand before I kill you. Then I’ll kill the witch.”
Obviously something’s happened since I left. Chaco hadn’t yet been able to escape the bonds of the ghost-energy that held him, but he had no doubt that given time, he would find a way out of its mindless grip. With his Avatar powers intact, he had no fear of dying. But he was immobilized, looking up at a visage so suffused with rage he thought it might explode, and he had no idea what Kanaloa was talking about.
“So Pele finally showed up?”
“You admit it!”
“Well, sort of. You and your shark friend were trying to make mincemeat out of the workers out there. Sierra didn’t ask you to kill the people, just stop the building.”
“What better way to stop what people are doing than to kill the people doing it?” grated Kanaloa through clenched teeth.
Chaco paused. Seen from Kanaloa’s perspective, this was perfectly reasonable. Kanaloa was an old god, older than Hawai‘i, Auntie had told him, and the old ways had been bloody and grim at times. But hopefully, times had changed.