Not only did I get Honua’s attention, I had the attention of half the class. Honua stuck her head forward, wrinkled her brow, and looked on the verge of laughter.
I signed, “How many people know about the Club.”
She glanced around and pulled one hand under her desk, with her fingers, she spelled out, “J-U-S-T M-E.”
I quickly followed with, “Who told you?”
“M-Y B-R-O-T-H-E-R.”
Brother? What? How could I not know Honua had a brother? Now that I thought about it, I knew absolutely nothing about Honua’s family.
A blonde woman with glasses stuck her head out, obviously the teacher, and said “Can I help you?”
“Thanks, no.” I said, walking away before she could write me up or something. As long as the world wasn’t about to crash down any more than it already had today, I could wait for my answers.
Chapter Four
“Guess who Auli tried to set me up with after you ran out at lunch?” Mele said as we walked among the fleeing hordes of students toward her little blue car. She lifted her lighter, a fake-gem encrusted monstrosity, to her obligatory after school cigarette; two sparks ignited and died before a small flame appeared. She inhaled slowly, obviously not going to just answer what I assumed was a rhetorical question.
“Who?” I supplied.
“Keanu.” she said, smoke pouring out of her smile. “Supposedly we’re perfect for each other; though oddly enough when I was in eighth grade and bat-shit crazy over him, I wasn’t good enough for him, hmmm.”
“What did you tell her?” I asked, for an instant worrying that I would have to compete with the only best friend I’ve ever had, over a boy. I did not think I could do it, even if it was a job.
“I told her that you can’t stop love. I don’t think it made her very happy, she pretty much packed up and left after that. So, I figured out why she hates you so much,” she said, pausing by her car.
Swinging my head to look at the back of the lot, I found the minivan. How did Glacier always get that spot? I turned back to Mele and said, “Wow, don’t worry about sugar-coating it or anything…”
“I won’t. You’re welcome. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the only reason she would want me to be with her brother, as opposed to you, is because I’m more Mabiian than you are. Her dad is all into that shit, you know?”
Possibly, it never occurred to me, Auli was always talking about her lineage and how she was a direct descendant from the Mabiian royalty, before the Mabi island chain was annexed by New Anglo. Looking at Keanu, I could believe that the Hale’s had some royal blood.
But yet, that explanation did not quite fit. She’s never shown any derision towards the twins, and they were one-hundred percent blonde hair, blue eyed, Anglo-descendants.
Even though Mele was entirely Mabiian, I appeared just as Mabiian as she did. We both had brownish-black hair, a dark tan complexion and a distinctly Mabiian tilt to our eyes. Also, the last name I chose for myself after my father died, Kekoa, was my grandmother’s last name and completely Mabiian. Furthermore, I had never told Auli that I was only one-quarter Mabiian, so how would she know?
I backed up to show Glacier that I was coming and I said, “I always assumed that she’s just rabid from malnutrition. The girl needs to eat a hamburger. Love you, have to run.”
I did not run. My philosophy being that unless a person is in clothes specifically designed for running, or there’s a big boar chasing them, they’ll look ridiculous doing it. But I walked briskly, pretending not to see the hands that waved at me or hear Missy yell my name as I rushed to jump in beside the stoic part-dragon in his minivan.
“I know, I know,” I rushed to say. “Please don’t tell me, I should have been prompt and ready. Okay. But, eighty percent of my day was so terrible and nothing you can say could make me feel worse.”
My fingers shook with anticipation as I unlatched the little metal clip to my charm and slid the bracelet off stuffing it into my pocket. Every day, before my charm left my skin, there was an instant that I was sure my aspect would be gone forever; truly I would rather lose any other sense than seeing souls, sensing the ever present emotional currents that buzzed off of every living thing. I had two aspects, but if I had to pick, there would be no question that I would choose seeing and being able to touch souls.
Slumping in the tan leather seat, I inhaled deeply. “Why does your car always smell like pine?” I asked, peeking in his glove compartment, “I have never seen an air freshener in here, but it always smells like an artificial Yule-tide tree.”
“Why just eighty percent?” Glacier said. Tendrils of his soul spread toward me, sparking with amusement. But under the amusement was a deep emotion that was pushing out into his surface emotions, he was concerned, really concerned, so much so that my skin started itching.
To cover how fidgety I was feeling, I started searching in the center divider sure that I would find a car air-freshener slipped between his registration and the ‘permit to have charm upgrades’ on the van.
He grabbed my hand, pulled it away from his important papers, and said, “The air fresheners are in the air conditioning vents. Now, tell me what good came of your day?”
“The vents, huh? Who would have guessed.” Stilling the smile that attempted to pull up the corners of my mouth, I said, “Keanu Hale asked me to go on a date with him.”
“Tell grandfather,” Glacier said, “How close are you to infiltrating the Hale compound?”
“I was invited to their house Saturday…” I said, barely concealing my groan.
“That’s not—”
“I know,” I said, not needing or wanting to hear it. “But he invited me out tonight too, so, we’ll see.”
Glacier pulled off in front of a small crowded beach park, and turned to me. He was nervous, on anyone else I would have expected fidgeting, it was absolutely terrifying. Glacier was never nervous.
“What is going on?” I demanded.
Glacier’s face never changed, not a twitch, but his anxious emotions intensified. For some reason, he had always been easy for me to read.
He ignored my question. “Where and when is he taking you tonight?”
“Big Beach look-out at six thirty.”
“A beach?” he asked.
I could sense the objection coming, so I quickly said, “A look-out.”
He looked at the van’s canvas roof. “That is on the south side, it’s across the island. Two hours total driving, stops, and two hours for socializing, estimated time of return would be at the earliest ten at night. You can’t go to his house that late, you would have little chance to slip away from his attention. Eighteen year old males can be single minded when they see an opportunity for…you know…”
Screwing up my face did not work in preventing my laugh from slipping out, and I interrupted what he was saying. He seemed grateful in response since coming from Glacier, that was like giving me the ‘boys only want one thing’ speech.
“You need to go, I will come up with a reason for you to request a second date and be in touch after father returns you home,” he said.
For some reason, though, I thought for the first time ever, I was better equipped than Glacier to plan this assignment.
I stepped out into the sweltering day, shut the minivan door and spun to climb directly into the back seat of the next parked car, a black luxury sedan. I once told my grandfather how cliché his mob-boss car was, especially with the tinted windows. He did not say a thing and grinned just a little.
“My darling girl,” my grandfather said as soon as I crawled in beside him. Like always, the power of his soul rang my head like a bell.
The density of my grandfather’s soul always struck my senses like the shock of stepping into the sunshine after spending an hour in a dark classroom. However, like the sun, the intensity of my grandfather’s presence was so familiar that I attuned to it after a minute.
My grandfather stayed quiet, letting me adjust completely as his dr
iver steered us out of the parking lot.
“Hey, Grandfather,” I said as I pulled away to look at him. My grandfather looked maybe forty tops, which in a half-dragon showed how truly old he was. He had the impossible beauty made up of fine chiseled aristocratic features that all high ranking half-dragons seemed to be blessed with. Born among the first dracons, he barely had an inch on me, tall for his time, but shorter than most women now. He looked exhausted; it was subtle, just a slight droop in his eyelids. By showing any weakness, even that slight, he told me both that he trusted me and that I was safe with him.
Something was going on. Glacier did not get overwhelmed with concern for me, he was always confident that any situation I could stumble into, he could cut me out of. And my grandfather was never exhausted enough to show it, never.
My hand reached for my grandfather’s arm, but I set it back down in my lap. Not that I would ever ask him if something was bothering him; to him, showing concern would be me saying, ‘I am not just assuming that you have everything under control’.
“Oh,” he said, “I want to return your ring. I reformed the emotion-portal. You gave me a little buzz last night; it lasted almost half an hour.”
“Half an hour?” I said, snorting, “I did not sleep and I only had the emotions pass through me on the way to you. I wish I could digest it all like you can, it just, stays in me.” I slipped my ring back to its usual home on my index finger.
“Yes, it is unfortunate, your limitation. That is why I renewed the portal,” he said. “The portal only works for twenty or so uses.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But if Glacier has his way, I won’t be able to use it or anything else for three months.”
“Do not rekindle my anger at your disobedience,” he said. “I have given the punishment to Glacier to dole out, and he has chosen to coddle you. If a soldier followed his ideas rather than his orders when I was your age, he was flogged.”
“If you flogged me,” I said, smiling and settling into his arm, “At least I wouldn’t be able to wear that hideous halter dress my mom is forcing me to wear Saturday. I’m going to look ridiculous on the stage; I should wear a suit like the other soldiers.”
His voice was toneless, matter of fact, as he said, “The plan has changed; you will be presented with your sisters.”
The fear that blasted through me was primal, growing from the deepest strongest fear I’ve ever had in me, clustering in my chest. The black interior of the car seemed to squeeze in. My grandfather was setting me aside; this must have been what Glacier was worried about.
How did everything go so wrong from one tiny mistake, one tiny happenstance? If that band had been any other random band, the chances were slim that the entertainment itinerary of the Midnight Club would have ever been brought to my grandfather’s attention. Stepping out of line would have probably earned me a slap on the wrist from Glacier, rather than being tossed to the proverbial curb. I had always taken my grandfather’s favoritism for granted, become overconfident, and now I was going to pay for it.
My grandfather examined me with his coal black eyes, obviously sensing my fear. Like me, my grandfather could sense the emotions that people threw into the air and feed on them, digest them, especially fear. His emotional vampirism was one of his very useful and often used aspects. He could not, however, go beyond what people unwittingly threw off into the air, could not see nor dive into souls as I could.
He said, “Those dresses better look as if they are made of starlight. Your mother finagled another ten thousand dollars for you and your sisters’ wardrobe for the next two weeks.”
Grandfather looked at me with the sharp intellect that even his exhaustion could not dull. “I indulge your mother, but only because I love you. I am growing tired of being taken for a fool by her.”
“I need her.” I managed, through the cords of fear that tightened around my chest.
“You lie,” he said with absolute certainty. Then he sighed, “What am I going to do with my children? You lie for your mother, Bobby lies for you, yet perhaps it is only inevitable as I was sired by a dragon of trickery.”
“Probably,” I said.
He laughed, and squeezed my shoulder; as his thumb touched my skin I felt the fear I was probably filling up the car with, seeping out of me and into the pad of his thumb.
He rarely did this to me, but I knew it was giving me a taste of my own proverbial medicine. My aspect, at least partially, came from this exact ability of his. We were made from the same blueprint, though, unlike him, I could not keep the emotions. For some reason, my aspect had also morphed into something much more than I should have inherited. In this one way, I was more powerful than my grandfather. Unless I sent it to him, he was limited to feeding only off the strongest emotions people dumped out of them, whereas I had the potential to consume the entirety of a person’s soul.
By the time the driver turned off the main road, a warm numbness had replaced the ice cold fear and my panic had abated enough for me to remember that I had something, something that could redeem me at least a little. “I was invited to hang out with both the Hales at six thirty today.”
“At their home?” He asked.
“No,” I said, disappointed.
“That is still good,” My grandfather said with a smile, “You can finally use your abilities to uncoil and manipulate their emotions. I would suggest you work on the boy, he seems to be the more susceptible of the two.”
The car stopped, as did my mind, the gears just halting.
My grandfather must have read something in my expression because he said. “I know you usually refuse to use your aspect on humans and I understand why you have this reservation, however, this time you will have to overcome them. You will take off your dampener when you are alone with the boy and change his feelings so that he is in love with you.”
“Grandfather,” I said, clearing my throat, “Planting emotions is a lot harder than pulling them. I know it worked when we practiced, but you have so much more soul than Keanu. I don’t know if that’s even possible with a human.”
“It’s very possible. You will have to use finesse. Every other time you’ve uncoiled a soul will only count as practice for what you will have to do, it is within your ability. All you need to do is delve into his deeper emotions and pull emotions from some areas, say his love for wave-riding and plant it instead as an emotion in his memories of you. It is not so different from steering obedience or fear; it will just take more subtlety and artistry. He will seek you out afterward and you can fine-tune it when you are more comfortable and do it in small increments.” It wasn’t a request, it was an order. My grandfather’s stern face showed he would accept nothing but acquiescence.
I nodded.
What could I say to him? ‘No grandfather, I might damage your enemy’s son and I kind-of want him to fall in love with me all on his own.’ Somehow, I did not think it would go over well. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure that was what I really wanted; I just knew whatever I wanted from Keanu, I wanted it to be authentically from him and real.
“Soon the vengeance we have waited so long for will be realized,” My grandfather said.
I inhaled deeply and then nodded again, this time meaning it.
The image of me, eleven years old, drenched in blood, begging my grandfather to make me a soldier arose in my mind. I had trained these past five years for this mission; it was what I’ve lived for. Maybe my grandfather was right to put me aside; I did not deserve to be a soldier.
My grandfather pulled out a gleaming gold paint-ball rifle and said, “I have mine, where is yours?”
In the front pocket of my backpack, I opened an unzipped compartment and found my little coin purse. When the purse was closed, it let off absolutely no magic. That is how the little eastern-print purse had made it possible for me to slip my guns through every type of security. Closed, I could even carry the purse through water-wards; however, I could not use it to get my guns, as its magic would not work past t
he water-ward line.
“You use this portal into the Dragon Kingdoms too lightly,” my grandfather said, scolding me as he took it from me. “Portals are hungry magic, if you put your hand into it for more than thirty seconds, it will pull you through. I prefer you open it only if your life is at risk.”
Portal-making was my grandfather’s most lucrative aspect. Mostly he opened small portals for dracons looking to communicate with the dragon kingdoms. It was a very, very rare aspect for a dracon and none of his children inherited it.
Honestly, I am glad I did not inherit that aspect even if it would make me rich. My grandfather could only make portals through fire and could only connect to places of fire; as there was fire in his blood, in all dracons’ blood, that was what he usually used. That was why the inside of my little purse was red, which was just all kinds of gross.
If I did pass entirely through one of his portals, as I am a creature with fire in my blood, I could survive, whereas a human who only has water in their blood would die instantly. However, if I did pass through I would be stuck in the dragon kingdoms, no thank you.
My grandfather’s hand opened and yanked out Incident, my handgun Contingency’s little brother, without my seeing him move. He released the round in the chamber and replaced the clip before handing back over my little paint-ball gun.
The driver parked us in front at the shooting range that my grandfather had built for me in a field that had previously been on a sugar cane plantation. He had bought it as soon as I had inherited my second, smaller aspect, my sniper’s aim. He had left most of the property as a productive and functional cane field, only clearing out the central area to put in a maze of small buildings that my grandfather loved to have switched around on me.
Leaning over to open my door, he told me, “One minute until I shoot. I’ll make twenty doppelgangers this time.”
“I’ll shoot you in half that! Loser buys pizza!” I said, jumping out of the car into a full sprint.
Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) Page 5