Sins of the Flesh (Half-Breed Series Book 2)

by Debra Dunbar

  “How do we stop it?” The water seemed to be having minimal effect, and I doubted a bamboo forest would help either. Irix could blow it up, but an explosion of that size would not only take out a square block of houses and kill several firefighters, but it would also most definitely be big enough to bring an angel down upon our heads.

  “I’ve got no idea.”

  And my last hope, the two-thousand-year-old demon, who I’d assumed was a walking Wikipedia of knowledge, had no idea. I held my breath, watching the fire eat through Mr. Lee’s house as though it were a bowl of ice cream, then move across the neatly manicured lawn toward the Malone’s property.

  And stop.

  Consolidating itself, the fire leapt upward along a tall tree, turning the entire thing bright orange. Flaming leaves split apart and glittered as they fell to the blackened ground like the spray of fireworks. And then the fire being was gone, leaving nothing but smoking ground and tiny pockets of burning debris.

  “What the fuck just happened?”

  “Language.” The recrimination from Irix was mild. His attention was elsewhere as he left my side and walked toward the remains of Mr. Lee’s house. I, on the other hand, headed for the tree. Or what had been the tree. It resembled a charred telephone pole, lumps of black in the curlicues of ash surrounding the base.

  “Poor Mr. Lee,” Kai said softly. “I don’t think there’s anything left to salvage at all.”

  No, but heartless as I might seem, I had to put aside contemplating the homeowner’s tragedy to figure out what the heck had just happened.

  “Do you remember what kind of tree this was?”

  Kai looked up. “Pineapple.”

  Did that have some significance? Had something or someone gained control of the fire being, calling it back just as it consumed this tree? Had Mr. Lee been the magic-user who had summoned it, and the being was satisfied once it took revenge on all his worldly possessions? A lowly tree couldn’t have banished the fire being — it had already burned acres of brush and trees before arriving here. Or maybe the fire being was after something that held great emotional significance.

  “Did his kids plant the tree? Did Mr. Lee have a reason to be sentimental about it?”

  Kai gave me an odd glance. “No. It was just a pineapple tree. I think it was here when he bought the place.”

  So much for that theory. Now came the really awkward question.

  “Did Mr. Lee dabble in the occult?”

  Both women were clearly sizing me up for a straight jacket. “No,” Kai’s roommate said slowly, as if I were one card short of a full deck. “He mowed his grass, played golf, went to church on Sundays.”

  “Amber?” I turned at the odd note in Irix’s voice. He was blatantly ignoring the yellow safety tape that workers were putting up around Mr. Lee’s house, but they were equally ignoring his trespass. His hand was flat on the charred section of what remained of Mr. Lee’s deck, oblivious to the fact it still smoked with heat. “Come see this.”

  I cast a nervous glance around, doubting my ability to charm an angry fireman. They were all occupied, and no one seemed particularly interested in us, so I went to where Irix knelt, placing my hand on the deck beside his.

  “Fuck! Ow, that’s hot!” I yanked my hand away, shaking it in an attempt to sooth the burn. Clearly I wasn’t impervious to heat as Irix was, and I knew I lacked his ability to heal myself lickity split. I wasn’t about to touch that deck again until it had cooled off.

  But I didn’t have to. The one brief contact I’d had was enough. The deck wasn’t just burned from fire, it was burned from something very unnatural. “So this confirms your fire-being idea?” I asked.

  Irix nodded. “Whether it was summoned or fell here accidently through a rift, it seems to be gone.”

  Kai approached us, her face grim. “This is nearly a quarter mile from the edge of the burn zone. Even if the fire had jumped the break, it shouldn’t have been able to spread this far, this fast.” She wandered toward the burned ground, tracing the edge of wilted grass with her foot. Greasy black coated the toe of her sneaker. “Two fires — significant fires — one right after the other. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen in Maui.”

  I know she was thinking arson, but my mind was headed in another direction. Had the beach fire been caused by the same fire being? Was there a mage-arsonist, intent on vandalizing, behind these events, or just some random, careless magical events? And the biggest question of all — was this fire-being truly gone for good?

  Chapter 8

  Use your core and keep the board angled to the waves.”

  My thigh and stomach muscles screamed as the board tossed over yet another swell. All the confidence I’d managed to gain yesterday had been shot to hell the moment I got into open water. So much for my elven balance and grace. It didn’t help that Kai was distant and preoccupied. Not that I blamed her. Having a devastating fire so close to her house, watching neighbors’ houses in flames — I’d be preoccupied too.

  “Did he hit you?”

  I nearly lost my balance at her question, risking it again for a quick, questioning glance her way.

  “Irix. He was pretty scary last night, and I get the feeling he’s not someone I’d want to mess with when he’s angry. I just want to know if he hit you like he threatened.” Kai glided up effortlessly on her board, her hands gripping the paddle like it was a weapon. “Because if he did—”

  “He didn’t,” I cut her off, dropping to my knees so I could concentrate on our conversation without falling. “Yes, he’s intimidating when he’s angry, but he’s never hit me. Ever. And he never will.”

  Kai raised her eyebrows.

  “Where he’s from, how he grew up, violence is the answer to just about everything. Lots of them don’t survive to adulthood, and there aren’t social constraints about beating the crap out of each other — or even killing each other. He’s not that way with me, though. I know what he said last night at the fire, but that was just him being frightened about my safety.”

  Water lapped over the edges of our boards as Kai stared intently at me. “I’m sorry he had that kind of childhood, but that isn’t an excuse. You swear he’s never hit you?”

  I swear on all the souls I Own. It’s what a demon would have said, but I was only half succubus and would never Own a soul, even if I could. “I swear. He’s not that way with me, Kai. I swear it.”

  She shook her head. “This isn’t a fairytale, Amber. You won’t tame the monstrous beast. No matter how much you try, your love won’t ever truly change someone.”

  It was my turn to stare at her. How badly had that last relationship gone? From the bitterness in her voice, I got the feeling Irix wasn’t the only one with a hurtful past.

  “I know,” I told her softly. “But you still have to try. You still have to love, even if there’s a chance it might go up in flames. You still have to risk your heart.”

  She turned to look at the shore, her braid whipping over her shoulder. “Get on your feet. And move the board forward when you do. The faster you go, the more stable the board is.”

  Conversation over. I gave a few long strokes with the paddle, braced my hands on the board, and jumped to a squat, slowly rising with the paddle like a kickstand in front of me. Once up, I angled the board parallel to the shore and moved it forward, bending my knees for balance. I’d taken a swim three times in the last twenty minutes. If the board hadn’t been tethered to my ankle, it would have been halfway to California by now.

  “Turn. Turn, turn!”

  A large swell hit. I jabbed the paddle into the surf and pushed. Too late. One edge of the board lifted. My feet slid, plunging me into the warm, salty water. All the balance in the world wouldn’t have saved me from that one. Heck, even Velcro feet wouldn’t have kept me on that board. If I could just manage to keep the thing pointed in the right direction, it would stop flipping me off the side.

  I came up spitting water, clawing the drenched hair from my face.
r />   “Need a break?”

  I nodded, hating to admit it. Kai paddled toward me, her board like a leaf bobbing gently along the waves. I grabbed mine tight, using it to support my body weight as I rested. Funny how she was the one looking beautiful and exotic in her coral one-piece, where I was a half-drowned succubus-elf with wild blond hair that had escaped the confines of my braid long ago.

  “You’re... improving.”

  She was completely damning me with the faint praise. I raised an eyebrow, and she giggled.

  “Okay, so you really suck. This might take a bit longer than I thought.”

  “This might take a lifetime.” I laughed, sliding awkwardly back onto the board and struggling to keep it balanced as I knelt.

  “So, I think we need to address the other elephant in the room and talk about what’s really going on with you and your hottie swinger boyfriend who has a temper but never hits you.”

  I gripped the sides of the board on my hands and knees and risked a quick glance at Kai. She knelt on her own board, arms crossed as she rose and fell with the gentle waves.

  “As in?”

  “As in a bamboo grove miraculously appears from the floor of my shack a fraction of a second before we’re crushed by the flaming roof. Two burning trees explode, and, with a great stroke of luck, they fall backwards, away from the shack. The fire goes out with another convenient explosion. Irix says a handful of words and gets by the blockade — those same innocuous words practically cause me to orgasm. And then the second fire goes out in a puff before it consumes the Mallone’s house.”

  “That last one wasn’t me. Or Irix.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded. “But the rest was. I’ve seen some weird stuff before, but never like this, and never all at once. What is going on?”

  My question exactly. “I don’t know if the fire last night was related or not, but there was something supernatural about the fire today. There was something sentient driving it — a fire-being of some sort. I don’t know how it got here, why it left, or if it will come back.”

  There. That was it in a nutshell. Hopefully she’d forget about the rest, because I didn’t want to get into the whole ‘Irix is a demon and I’m half-demon” conversation.

  “A fire-being?” Kai shook her head slowly. “So what do we do, just hang out and see if it returns? We’ve never had two fires back-to-back like this. What makes you think it’s going to stop at two?”

  “I don’t.” I gripped the board tight as a larger swell hit, struggling to balance and stay on. “I left a message for a friend who might know something, but it’s two o’clock there and she’s at work.”

  Kai looked at the horizon. “And your Super Botanist routine? The explosions? Irix’s ecstasy-on-two-legs trick?”

  Great. Here comes the end of my friendship. Here comes the screaming and running away, or paddling away, as the case may be. No doubt tomorrow morning I’d come down to find Aaron was now teaching me to paddleboard. “The explosions were from Irix, trying to put out the fire before it consumed the shack, or killed us. He’s a demon, an incubus — which is a sex demon. So, like you said, he’s ecstasy-on-two-legs. He has other skills, though.” Like blowing shit up, changing form, and stealing things without getting caught.

  “And you?” She was purposely not meeting my eyes. Heck, she was clearly refusing to look anywhere near my face.

  “I’m only half demon — succubus, a sex demon, like Irix. The other half is elf, which is what gives me the Super Botanist abilities.”

  Silence. The waves made a smacking sound against the side of our boards. A bird cried in the distance.

  “So, the little prank you played on me yesterday where you dumped me into the water, was that part of your elf/demon thing? Super Botanist and Water Wizard?”

  I tried to cut off the laugh before it escaped, and I wound up sounding like a goat. “I wish I was Water Wizard, maybe then I could stay on this fucking paddleboard more than two seconds.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence, and then Kai burst into laughter. I joined her, and just like that, everything was back to normal.

  “Well, you can work on your water-magic later. We only have another hour to get you proficient on that board. So get your cute butt up there and start paddling.”

  I wiggled my ‘cute butt’ at her as I slid onto the board, scooting my knees under to carefully rise and stand. She was right; I did need to work on my skills with water. My less-than-successful lessons clearly pointed that out. Dipping my paddle into the water, I moved forward, trying to feel the rhythm of the ocean. The waves came in at odd angles with varying strength, but as I watched, I noticed a pattern. It was as complex as a symphony, but there was still a pattern.

  Kai remained quiet during our lesson other than basic instructions and reminders, but I caught her watching me with an odd smile on her face. Had my revelations changed our relationship somehow? I was this cool chick she was kind of attracted to who had unconventional sexual practices and wasn’t human. Why wasn’t she more freaked out than this? I was used to people either running in terror or thinking I was a delusional whack job. She’d been more upset at the thought that Irix might have hit me than the fact he was a demon and I was a half-breed freak.

  Kai whistled cheerfully as we packed up the paddleboards and stowed them in a temporarily repurposed supply room of the resort. I wasn’t sure how to take her unexpected good mood and frowned, not paying attention as I opened a closet to put the paddles away. The door flew out of my hands, and I shrieked as an avalanche of plastic pineapples came down on my head.

  “Paybacks,” Kai called, turning to put her paddles in a different cabinet. “Pineapple shower in the storeroom.”

  My mouth fell open. Had she just made a sex joke? About giving a blow job after your partner has eaten a ton of pineapple?

  “I’ll admit it’s the least sticky pineapple shower I’ve ever had. And I didn’t even have to swallow.” I scooted the little plastic toys aside with my foot and shut the paddles in the locker.

  Kai chuckled. “Any day I don’t have to swallow is a good day. With or without pineapple.”

  I tossed one at her, feeling light and happy at our friendship. It sucked that our lesson was over and I wouldn’t see her again until tomorrow. I knew I needed to find a partner or two and get in some sex before Irix returned, but I’d rather hang out with Kai.

  “So, you want to grab a coffee?”

  Her question jolted me from my thoughts of sex. “I... yes, I do. Coffee. Lovely.” Kai. Sex. Damn, I wish those two could go together. Maybe, if things were different, it could have happened. Maybe.

  We walked to the resort’s artificial waterfall, grabbing a couple of lattes and watching the giant koi swim about and the flamingos wade by. A Banyan tree hung over the naturalized pool, Spanish moss dripping from its branches.

  “Not very Hawaiian,” I commented. From this vantage point, I could have been at a resort in the Caribbean Islands, or in Florida. At least they could have stuck a few orchids on the tables.

  Kai waved at the Spanish moss. “Actually it is. Pele’s hair, we call it.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Girlfriend seriously needs some conditioner. And a trim. That hair is a mess.”

  Kai smiled, ignoring my comment. “I grew up with one parent who had a little shrine in the pantry to the spirits of her ancestors, and another who told bedtime stories of Pele, Haumea, and Kamapua’a. My grandmother would be the first to say what happened the last few days was an angry god, or unappeased spirit. I’m Hawaiian in the sense that I cherish that part of my cultural heritage. I know the stories; I know hula, and I speak enough of the language to get by, but fire-beings and demon elves? I’m struggling to wrap my head around this, Amber. The only reason I’m not dismissing you as a nutcase is because I saw that bamboo. I saw it rise from nowhere out of the floor, growing thick and huge, as big as I’ve seen in Haleakala Park.”

  I eyed my new friend, thinking about my revelations to
Darci last summer, to her friends, who admittedly were more open than most to the existence of supernatural beings.

  “I was raised as a human, with human parents. Even though I always knew I was different, it still was hard for me to believe what I truly was. I don’t like to tell people the truth, because I’m afraid it will freak them out and I’ll be all alone. Irix isn’t always around, and I get so lonely sometimes. I just wish I could be honest with everyone about who I am. I wish I didn’t have to lie in order to have friends in this world.”

  My words were raw, honest. My breath burned in my chest from the confession. These were things Irix could never understand. It was so hard, walking around, hiding who I was from everyone. It was so hard having other women accuse me of being a slut because they’d seen me picking up a guy in a bar. I’d taken to limiting my sexual conquests as much as possible, hunting for partners in a different town each time. I just wanted for once to meet someone, like them, and not have to worry that they’d hate me if they got a glimpse of who I truly was.

  Kai caught her breath. “I never thought about it that way.”

  We sat, and I watched the flamingos, admiring their colors and graceful forms. Then I drained my coffee and stood to leave. This was stupid. I’d done the best I could. It wasn’t Kai’s fault if she didn’t believe me, but I couldn’t sit around and worry over whether I was about to lose her as a friend or not. It was what it was.

  “Well, see you tomorrow morning— ”

  “Do it again.”

  Her urgent tone threw me as much as the words. “Huh?”

  “Do it.” Brown eyes met mine, tentative sparks of trust in their depths. “Just so I know what happened last night wasn’t a figment of my imagination.”

  It was a fair request, and thanks to Irix, I had enough energy to do something small and not be terribly depleted. I looked around for a plant I could work my mojo on, but the resort staff had been diligent about keeping their foliage healthy and pristine. There was nothing I could do that wouldn’t involve more energy than I felt comfortable expending.