“Well, if they were stolen, then congratulations: your fingerprints are now all over them.”
My brother shrugged and tossed the potentially priceless artifact over his shoulder. “Sooo Ryoko told me that you and Aolani are in a bit of a catfight.”
“More like an all-out war,” I muttered, scanning through webpages. “I don’t know what her problem is, Raf. That Nik guy was bad news. I only stuck up for Lono. Everybody knows he’s loved Aolani forever.”
My brother sat down on the sofa arm, squeezing one of my red stress balls. “Yeah, but that’s Aolani’s choice to make. In this case, she’s right. Lono’s my bro, but even I know he isn’t ready for some meaningful long-term relationship.”
I snapped my laptop screen shut. “You’re right. He hasn’t been ready since Kai’s death, and he’ll never be ready. Geez, I keep forgetting how much time the rest of you have.”
Rafael chuckled softly, staring at the small red ball. “Actually, you’re the only one who remembers. Lono’s not just smoking the bud, Tica. I caught him stealing money from my top drawer yesterday.”
“Meth again,” I whispered, memories of Lono’s old habits rising.
“I’m pretty sure of it. Mason and I are gonna talk to him about it tonight after work.” Rafael glanced at me. “Would you wish that on your best friend right now?”
“She’s not my best friend,” I grumbled, before meeting his gaze, “but point taken.”
He grinned, draping an arm over the Hawaiian manuscript. “So, do you want me to give her this to translate?”
“She won’t do it.”
“Tica.”
“Fine. But don’t tell her it’s from me.”
He smirked. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
My phone beeped, and I thumbed open a message from Jinho. A smile spread across my face.
Rafael didn’t leave. “Jinho’s coming over again?”
“What do you mean again?” I teased. “I thought he was ‘family’. You convinced Mom to hire him under the table so he could take all of your shifts at the Stop n’ Shop, remember?”
“You and Mom like him better than you like me,” Rafael said, springing off the couch. “It’s like he’s your soul mate and the son Mom never had rolled into one. Honestly, I don’t get what you, Aolani, and Mason are so excited about. He’s not that good-looking.”
I reclined back, grinning. “True, true, false.”
He huffed. “At least Ryoko’s still faithful to me.”
“Not really. I’ll convert her in no time.”
He put on his Seahawks cap. “Fine. I’m outta here. Got an evening dive out near Shark’s Cove for some big-time scuba divers.”
“The price to live in paradise,” I began, and he finished, “work all day and night, neva see it! Well, tonight I will. One of the divers was warming up to me at the dive shop. Says she likes tattoos.”
He lifted up his shirt to reveal the compass inked across the lower part of his ribcage, eyebrows waggling, and I turned away in horror.
“Get out of here! You only have one tattoo, by the way.”
“She doesn’t know that. Later she won’t care.”
“Okay, please go.”
“Laters.” He swung away, keys jingling, but then my mother entered the room with phone in hand.
“Tica,” she began, voice heavy, and immediately all merriment evaporated.
Rafael froze. “No.”
“Dr. Kaiser called. Your test results are back,” my mother continued, voice strangled.
Rafael strode back and forth in agitation. My eyes followed him, but I felt weirdly detached and numb, as if I wasn’t really here at all. I’d already known this was coming. Hadn’t I?
“They want us to come in as soon as possible to discuss treatment options.”
“NO!” Rafael threw the stress ball at the hallway mirror, shattering it.
My mother closed her eyes. “That’s not helpful, Rafael.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he bellowed. “There is NOTHING I can do. My sister already went through this. She beat it! This is such fucking bullshit!” He kicked the ball against the wall, leaving a mark.
“Rafael,” my mother tried again.
“What are they gonna do? Fry her? Cut off her shoulder? How much more of her do they have to take away before she can go back to normal?”
His voice broke, and I reached for his arm. “Hey,” I said, “they haven’t taken anything away. I’m still here.”
He awkwardly patted my stump in return, and that seemed to wake something up. “Well, I guess we’re going to need more money then,” he said, and picked up his keys and left.
My mother sat down beside me. We stayed motionless for a while, staring at the broken glass littering the carpet.
“We don’t have to think about this tonight,” she said finally.
“You’re right.” I leaped off the sofa, feeling returning to my fingers and toes. “Tell me when Jinho gets here, okay?”
“Do you still want him to come over?”
“Yes,” I said, heading toward my room with shoulders hunched. “More than ever.”
***
I was half-asleep when I heard the door creak open and Jinho’s soft “Tica?” I flew off the bed and hurtled into him.
“Do it.”
He held me back at arm’s length, steel-blue eyes dancing with wariness under the candles’ glow. “Your mother told me what happened. These are not the circumstances under which you should make these decisions.”
I broke down laughing, a half-mad sound made of tears and delirium. “I have thought about this. I have thought about you being a vampyre who drinks blood, and I thought about why I had a problem with it, and I realized that it’s because Crispin and Nik and all of those Dark Spirits just drink and drink from others to take. They never give anything back. So here’s what I am not okay with: you can’t use being a vampyre as an excuse to be apart from the earth—apart from life. So you’re a child of death. It only makes you a monster if you’re the part of death that isn’t part of renewal. Drink from me. Give something back to me. Free me from this pain.”
He swooped in on me, hands quivering, and I saw the need in his eyes. Then his fangs clicked out. They hovered over the bare skin of my neck, hesitant for a moment. Then his jet-black hair brushed my collar as he lowered his head to my stump. As soon as he bit me, relief flooded through my veins, dissipating the raw pain hollowing out my bones and leaving me blissfully floating on high tide.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “There is little I can give you.”
I half-turned to his shadowed face. “There is this.” My lips touched the corner of his mouth.
He exhaled, lips meeting mine, and both of us toppled backward onto the bed. His arm sprang up to catch my back before I fell. Lowering me gently into the sea of covers, his cool lips continued to wander, touching my cheeks, behind my ears, and down the length of my neck. I arched against him, fingers caressing the lean, muscular contours of his back.
His hand gripping my waist tensed, and my breath caught as his fangs teased my hips. His bowed head leisurely traveled all over my body before returning to rest on my chest.
“Hi,” he said, his grayish-blue eyes deepening to the color of a storm-tossed sea. The tip of his wing teased my cheek, and I turned into it, sighing.
“Hi yourself.”
His grin widened. “I got you something.”
Reluctantly, I let him tumble off of me. He propped himself up on his elbow and showed me a photo on his phone.
I gasped. “Is that a…surfboard?”
“Custom-made.” His black-haired head leaned against mine, and his rough feathers brushed the small of my back. He turned to kiss my ear. “Just like your Bethany Hamilton’s. Think of it as something to fight for in the coming months. I think you’ll look hot riding it in those tight pink boardshorts of yours.”
“Jinho! Thank you. You’re better at this giving back thing than you thi
nk.” I giggled as his lips grew more attentive, tangling my stomach in hot, twisted knots. “How did you know that spot is so sensitive?”
“Mmmm…I hoped it would be. You’re such a mystery to me, Tica Dominguez.” His cool breath coasted over my damp skin, setting my body aquiver. “My local girl who can take down Dark Spirits.”
I laughed, cuddling against his chest. “I just remembered you telling me objects listen to you in Eve, and a moment later, Crispin’s desk was flying across the mausoleum to smash Ahal—I mean, the Jaundice Lord.”
His forearm tensed, and his eyes sharpened. “You told Crispin’s possessions to move and they listened to you?”
“Yep. They were a lot more cooperative than that spirit world vending machine. Of course, I was really desperate.” I stopped at his intent look. “What?”
“Objects do listen in Eve, but usually they will not heed your command unless you have a long and personal relationship with them. Or…” Jinho reclined back with an arm behind his head, thoughtful.
“What?” I demanded.
“You may be less ordinary than you know. How much do you know about your father, Tica?”
Rafael’s angry voice flashed through my head, along with vague memories of a short, balding man who would swing by seasonally to take us out on his fishing boat.
Then I thought of a much clearer and powerful memory of a man who could turn into a fish.
“I think I don’t even know who he is,” I said slowly.
Jinho smiled, leaning in. “Try it.”
“What?” I pulled away, suddenly shy.
He nodded at the shadowed bedroom. “It’s twilight. The candles are lit. Let’s see how much of a connection you have to Eve, spirit girl.”
My smile grew mischievous. “Pillows, pin the vampyre.”
They rose up in a fury, pummeling a helpless Jinho with no mercy.
“This is unfair!” he protested, shielding his face to no avail. “How can one girl have so many pillows?”
I flounced on top of my trapped vampyre prince and grinned. “Don’t move. My pillows will whack you if you so much as twitch a feather.”
A lazy smile spread across his face. “So. Your command is strong because you are truly desperate to keep me prisoner.”
“Madly so.” I crawled up so our foreheads touched, his captivating gray-blue eyes so close to mine that my breath caught. The pain from his bite had receded to a dull throb beneath the pleasant warmth blossoming from my stump down to my toes. My heartbeat quickened, and my lips darted forward to catch his.
***
~Khyber~
I ducked out of the girl’s bedroom later and slipped as quietly as a shadow down the hall. Rafael’s bedroom door was open at the opposite end, and I could see a glowing television screen behind the rack of surfboards. I turned to slip through the kitchen.
She was waiting for me at the table, a cup of tea in her hands.
I bowed my head, strangely embarrassed. Customs and cultural practices changed throughout the ages, and in this place and time, it was definitively taboo to stay in a young unmarried girl’s room for long.
“Ms. Dominguez, I must apologize. Truly, nothing happened—”
Ana Dominguez cocked her head, short dark hair falling across her face. “How is she doing?”
I quieted my excuses, intrigued by the fearlessness sharpening her stare. “Better. She is readying herself for the fight ahead.”
Ana nodded, as if she expected as much. “Sit.”
I did as she asked, amused at feeling like a young misbehaving boy again. However, the words that left her mouth were the furthest thing from a lecture:
“I know what you are.”
I looked up slowly, my unseen wings unfurling. My alert posture changed something inside of her. There. Now I saw her fear. I was a young man in his early twenties no longer. I’d shown a glimpse of the dangerous predator that lay inside me, pondering whether to attack or disappear.
Ana took a deep breath. “You are not the first paranormal being I’ve encountered, vampyre. I’ve believed in the spirits since I was a young girl. The intentions of some were so dark that I fled Peru.”
I nodded. “I suspected as much.”
“I don’t mean you harm.” Her gazed dropped to the tabletop, and she blinked back tears furiously. “Indeed, I think you are the only one who can help me.”
I waited quietly, although my muscles were still poised for flight. “What do you want of me, mortal woman?”
She looked up. Her fearlessness had returned. “Help me save my daughter.”
I paused, weighing her proposal for an instant. “You know what that will take.”
Her callused fingers gripped the tea cup. “I’m willing to give it.”
Chapter 13: The Bigger Picture
~Aolani~
She was supposed to be brainstorming Hawaiian names for Crispin Summers’s underwater hotel project off of Fiji, but when Rafael brought her an unexpected gift, Aolani couldn’t concentrate. On the unveiling night of the new Kūkalahale Way, someone had broken into CEO Summers’s tomb office. Among the items stolen? A valuable 19th century Hawaiian manuscript. Aolani didn’t think it was a coincidence that Tica Dominguez had quit on the very night of the robbery—not to mention the photo of the stolen manuscript matched the one in her hand.
Crispin’s bodyguard let her into his private suite. Aolani strode purposefully forward, heart surging with excitement. However, the raised voices in the kitchen gave her pause.
“He is the one behind this! You heard Nikolaos’s testimony. Now my brother’s stupid little hapa girl thinks she’s safe?” Crispin bellowed.
“They can’t know about Kuaihelani, or else they wouldn’t have broken into your office. They’re still grasping,” the cool voice of Secretary Reynolds replied.
Crispin’s voice turned cunning. “Then we strike back. Give them another enemy to go against.”
“Who did you have in mind?”
There was a pause. “Each other.”
Secretary Reynolds sucked in her breath. “Ah, so shall I give the order to use the—”
“Yes, yes, we’ll speak more of it later,” Crispin interrupted. “Right now we have a guest. Do come in, Aolani.”
Her heart skipped a beat. How had he known? His bodyguard must have messaged him. Nevertheless, Aolani found herself tucking the manuscript back into her purse before she straightened her aloha uniform and entered. How the hell had the CEO of Kalani Resorts, who hadn’t so far shown a shred of interest in the Hawaiian language, known about Kuaihelani, the land of the gods?
Crispin lurked in a large arm chair, unnerving her with the cold, reptilian intensity of his stare. Sunset had fallen, so his saggy folds of skin had begun to inflate again. Ms. Reynolds was at the counter, shaking up his favorite evening cocktail, a red Doll’s Eyes martini.
“Navid notified me you wished a word in private. What can I help you with, Aolani?”
“Uh—” Her mind went blank. All she could see was the stolen manuscript and Tica’s face.
“Word is that Tica is no longer on staff,” she blurted. “I was wondering if that makes the internship, um, mine.”
Crispin laboriously climbed to his feet. “I have been impressed with your dedication, Aolani. I know the late evening hours may seem odd, but they are when I am most accessible. As I have made clear, both you and Miss Dominguez are quite special to me. Sadly, it is true: Miss Dominguez is no longer with us.”
Aolani chewed her bottom lip. Rafael had seemed upset when he’d arrived late last night to hand over the manuscript, and she hadn’t bothered to ask why. Then Tica hadn’t been at school today. Dread stabbed her heart whenever someone mentioned the words no longer with us. Just in the past six years, she’d realized how much of a reality those words were, not some far-off whisper in a funeral parlor.
“The internship is yours.” Crispin gave her a toothy smile. “Get ready, my dear. Ms. Reynolds will keep you quite busy.”
>
Secretary Reynolds nodded, coming around to hand him his drink. “She starts leading tour groups on Monday.”
“Oh? Well then this will never do.” Crispin plucked the Aolani Kahananui nametag from her blouse and tossed it to Secretary Reynolds. “The name is too long to fit properly. Just use her first name.”
“Or we could shorten her name altogether,” Secretary Reynolds suggested. “Some of the guests were having trouble pronouncing Aolani. How about Lani Kahana?”
Crispin nodded thoughtfully. “Short and memorable. I like it.”
“You can’t just cut up my name!” Aolani protested. “It tells a story!”
Crispin smoothed back his dark gelled hair in the mirror. “You’ll be leading tour groups through a Kalani-catered, personalized Polynesian experience. By all means, tell them your name means ‘She who Dances with the Octopus’ and see if they know the difference. Ah!”—he raised a finger as Aolani opened her mouth—“You have great ambition, my dear. I admire that. So let me share what drives a successful business: convenience. Give the guests what they want in a convenient form that is easy to digest. You have a lot of cards to play, Aolani, but you must know when to play some and fold the others. Convenience is this island’s greatest asset.”
“Really?” Aolani reported bitterly. “Have you tried getting around O’ahu? There is nothing convenient about how the roads are set up here. Going anywhere is a traffic nightmare.”
Crispin looked over at Secretary Reynolds. She nodded and withdrew from the room. Aolani stood tall as the giant CEO approached, but she suddenly felt vulnerable in the starchy aloha uniform, beads of sweat trickling around her collarbone. She remembered Tica’s reservations about the man, but she had never understood them until now. It had been a long time since Aolani Kahananui had felt…afraid.
“Your heart is beating so fast,” Crispin muttered. “Of course, my dear, you touched on the thing that trumps convenience: security. Take a look.” He reached out to brush her hair behind her ear so she could look out the window. Aolani held her trembling fists at her sides, not daring to move.
Year of the Boar- Tica Page 8