“Nelicoda,” Gwen said. She was clutching her throat with one hand, the skin underneath red and blotchy.
“Yes, that’s it. Shoot me up with it, take away what…Heath Colfax’s blood gave me, what makes me part of you. Make me neutral. If they see I’m not technically on your side, but that I believe in peace, do you think they’ll turn their backs on that?”
Gwen touched Cat’s elbow. “But you haven’t even learned what it’s about yet. Are you sure you want to do that?”
Cat gave her a sad smile. “Then I won’t know what I’m missing. And honestly? What you’ve shown me already—the little bit of magic you had Xavier teach me, the Ofarian greetings, that cool thing you and Griffin did with the snow to put out that fire—I don’t know…I don’t think it’s really ever been about magic for me. I mean, I understand now why my mind has been so fogged for half my life. The moment Xavier told me what I was, it became clearer. It was like just knowing about my origins solved so much.
“And then I met you, Gwen, and you, Griffin, and I see how you’re fighting to make things good and right for so many people. How you’re trying so hard to create this huge family. How you’re…one. It’s what I’ve always wanted to be a part of, and maybe for a short time, I was. And I think that it could be enough.” She gave a small, confident nod. “Yeah, it’s enough.”
When no one said anything, just stared at her, she kept going. “If I can save lives, if I can stop something terrible before it starts, I want to do that. I have a better chance than you, Griffin. Admit it.”
“Would this work?” Reed asked, breaking the long silence that followed her speech. “Sending in Cat?”
Griffin and Gwen exchanged a look. Griffin told Cat, “You do have a better chance than I.”
“That’s all I’m asking for,” Cat said.
Reed gave a little cough. Gwen’s expression shifted, her eyebrows drawing together. She pulled Cat so they faced each other. “You need to know,” Gwen said, “that the absence of powers has a stigma attached to it. Nelicoda has been used as punishment since before we immigrated here. Most Ofarians consider using it worse than death. If you took it voluntarily, even to do something as noble as what you are trying to do, some still might not see it in a good light…”
Cat was already shaking her head. “Doesn’t matter. The opinions of people I don’t know won’t bother me. What matters are the people in this room, and the lives I can hopefully save.”
For a brief moment, she thought about painting. How just a short week ago, she’d wanted the favorable opinions of everyone she’d met, and those she hadn’t, even while knowing that was impossible. Would she ever be able to paint again? Maybe. Maybe not. But she wasn’t what was important here, and she couldn’t think about her brushes and canvases right now.
“Cat, that’s so brave of you. Let me give you something else to think about. And please know I’m not trying to make you change your mind, it’s just that a nelicoda overdose is permanent.” Gwen pressed her lips together. “What about your birth mother, Jessica? What if she’s one of those who will judge you for what you’ve given up?”
The Burned Man’s appearance had shot down all Cat’s high-flying notions of a joyful family reunion and sent them careening to the ground in a ball of flame.
“If my mother decides she wants to know me,” she said, “to really, truly know me, she won’t care if I can touch water or not. I’ll still be her blood. And if she’s like Heath and wants to judge me, then I won’t want to know her anyway.”
The truth hurt like spicy food—pain on her tongue, satisfaction deep in her belly, a sick little twinge shortly afterward.
Griffin came around the table, slowly shaking his head. There was so much emotion in his eyes: regret and gratitude, loss and fear. His voice was terribly low. “You’d do this for me, for us, after what I just made you do?”
“You didn’t make me do anything. I could have refused. You probably don’t want to hear that, but I could have walked away from all of you, grabbed Xavier by the hand and just disappeared.” She drew herself up. “But I see where the greater importance lies. It hurts, yeah; I won’t lie about that. So I want to make it worth it. I have to make it worth it. I won’t throw away Xavier only to watch this fail. I can’t live with that, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
She looked to Gwen. “Xavier told me what he did, how he stayed behind on the Earth he hated in order to hide the escape of his people. How he sacrificed his own happily-ever-after to protect the fates of two races. I understand why he did that. And this is worth it. Please, let me make it worth it.”
Gwen took Cat’s hands. “You would still be one of us, to me and to many others.”
Griffin nodded vehemently. “Granted full access to all of our Rites, given our protection. Absolutely.” His eyes turned glassy. If she wasn’t successful, there would be no more Rites—whatever those were—and no protection to give.
“Thank you,” she said. But this wasn’t about loyalty or fealty. It was humanity. And in Cat’s eyes, there was no difference between Primary and Secondary.
At length, Griffin asked softly, “Are you thinking that if you’re not Ofarian, you can get him back?”
Griffin didn’t have to say who him was.
She met his sympathetic eyes and knew what he was thinking: maybe, if he weren’t Ofarian, he could get his Keko back, too.
For her, it was a big enough reason to take nelicoda. “I can only hope so.”
Cat had a window seat. Commercial air. Griffin had said it would negate the whole purpose if Cat showed up on the Chimerans’ doorstep having come by Ofarian transport. Private plane was out. So was any Ofarian guard. She was on her own.
And on her way to Hawaii.
Twenty-five years ago, that’s where Heath Colfax had stumbled upon the Chimerans. His only love, Jessica, had finally returned home to San Francisco and married someone neither of them knew. Shortly thereafter, she’d told Colfax about their daughter she’d birthed and then abandoned. Colfax had thrown himself from the Golden Gate Bridge. The Primary press had eaten up the story about the unidentified man who’d tried to commit suicide but whose body had never been found. The Ofarians knew better. He’d disappeared into the water, and even they hadn’t known if they’d ever see him again.
Colfax had swum all the way to Hawaii.
No, swimming wasn’t a good word for it. The way Gwen described it, Ofarians just…became one with the water. They could slide through it faster than humans could swim or some boats could race. They moved like lightning, easier than oil, encased in something they loved and something that loved them back.
Not that Cat would ever know.
For the millionth time, she spread her fingers over her knees and stared down at them. They wielded no magic. Not anymore.
Gwen had offered to give her the nelicoda shots, but Griffin had insisted on doing it himself. When Cat and Griffin had been alone with three syringes, she’d asked why he wanted to do it.
“I want to be part of this,” he’d answered. “I want to feel your sacrifice.”
Losing her magic didn’t feel like a sacrifice. Not compared to losing someone else.
One dose of nelicoda only temporarily took away the powers. But three needlefuls stole the magic and hid it away in a place where it could never be touched again. By the time the third needle punctured the skin on her arm, Cat hadn’t even winced. The nelicoda had felt cold, sluicing through her veins, but otherwise there’d been no pain. Maybe a slight tingling just beneath her skin, a little lightheadedness, then…nothing.
And there was still nothing. She kept waiting for the regret to blindside her, but it never did. The memories of her days before she’d stepped foot in White Clover Creek burned incredibly strong. She remembered what it had been like, to stand every day with her toes in the turquoise water of the Florida Keys and be on the verge of tears, not knowing why her body reacted so strongly to the ocean. And lakes and rivers and
ponds. It hadn’t been a good feeling.
Only when she painted had she found some measure of peace, but even that had never given her answers.
Now she had them.
She remembered her great exhale when Xavier had revealed her heritage. The relief in finally knowing. All those days of frustration. The persistent, annoying niggling at the back of her brain…gone.
She remembered that one moment when she’d spoken those unknown Ofarian words and the water had wrapped around her arm. For a second or two, it had been heaven. Pure heaven. She’d felt the ancient language in her heart and soul, and the element of water had been hers.
She’d owned it.
She’d once read that the reason addicts became addicts was because they were forever chasing the feel of that very first high. It would never come back, of course, but they chased it anyway. She imagined that many Ofarians—many other Secondaries, too—might spend their entire lives trying to get back that feeling of using magic for the first time.
But Cat would always have it. That first feeling was her only feeling, and even though it had quickly descended into panic, those first few seconds had been wondrous. That memory would never be diluted, never fade.
She realized, soaring at thirty thousand feet, that just that tiny taste of power would be enough to sustain her for the rest of her life, but the wound Xavier’s exit had caused would never heal.
God. Xavier.
Before takeoff, at the airport in Reno, she’d called his house in White Clover Creek. No answer and, of course, no voice mail.
She pressed her forehead to the chilly airplane window and stared down at the never-ending expanse of blue. So beautiful. No more confusion in her mind, no more mystery.
Hello, old friend. I know your name now. I know who you belong to and who belongs to you, and the reality is far lovelier than I ever thought.
Just then, a million new paintings came to her. Canvases full of knowledge and confidence. Solemnity. Love. Power. Colors she’d never before used. The fingers that had been curled around her knees for several hours now itched to hold a brush, and she almost cried in relief.
Out of anything, that had been her biggest fear in taking the nelicoda: that it would take her art along with her magic. Painting had started as an outlet, but when she’d been given the chance to make a career out of it, she knew instantly that that was where she wanted to take her life. Her art would be different now, yes, but she was also a different person.
The plane touched down on Oahu, and then she transferred to a smaller plane over to the Big Island.
At the tiny Kona airport, the giant, unmarked plane parked on the far end of the tarmac gave her a very bad feeling. It was big enough to cart a sizable force of Chimerans to wherever they planned on attacking the Ofarians. But it was empty and unmoving, which meant she still had time.
She rented a Jeep that looked like it had been plucked straight from an off-roading commercial and headed south on Route 11. She didn’t need the GPS; she was going off Colfax’s recollections, and they had been surprisingly distinct.
She drove through trapezoids of green coffee fields covering the rolling land all the way from the inland mountains to the wild shore. She blazed by Punaluu Black Sand Beach, where Colfax had said he’d met a local who’d offered to bring him inland to see a part of Hawaii most tourists did not. And Colfax, perpetually drunk and despondent and having nothing better to do, had gone.
They’d ended up in a small town along the western edge of Volcanoes National Park, where Colfax had gotten wasted at the only local bar several nights in a row. He’d slept outside, in the cool mountain air. One night, after passing out in the bushes and then awakening with little memory of where he was, he’d set off wandering, trying to find his way back into town. Instead he found a road that wasn’t anything more than two parallel gouges in the dirt. A road, he’d thought, always went somewhere, right? So he’d stumbled along it, thinking he’d be back in the familiar bar before noon. He hadn’t found the town he knew, but instead a really small enclave of tightly packed buildings. The last bit of civilization, he recalled, before the land gave way to Volcanoes National Park.
Cat found the two-lane road off Route 11 easily enough, and made it to the town Colfax had described, even spotted the building in which he’d done all his drinking—now a beauty salon. She went inside the salon and asked about a rough, hidden road that skirted the edge of the park, maybe one that led to a little village higher up? The lone hairdresser eyed Cat’s rugged vehicle outside and assumed she was a hiker. She directed Cat around the cafe, where she found the first tire tracks.
Then the hairdresser gave her a funny look. “If you go up there, get whatever water and food you need here. And don’t be freaked out by the locals.”
Though there were no Secondaries around, Cat’s skin tingled. “Why?”
The hairdresser shrugged. “They’re just weird. They come down here every now and then to get supplies and food and stuff, but the way they keep to themselves is, well, like I said, weird. No one knows how many of them there are.”
Cat nodded, thanked her, and left. Throwing the car into four-wheel drive, she headed around the cafe and found the start of the narrow tracks, draped with foliage. Her eyes felt sandy and her body weary. Local time said it was early morning; her mind told her it was late afternoon. Nerves bounced around in her stomach.
Driving up to Colfax’s party town had been a bumpy, swerving haul from the main route, but the tire ruts rising up to Chimeran territory were downright treacherous. Rocky and curving, the drive made her teeth rattle in her gums. She lost her way a few times and had to backtrack to find the fading path. Hours dragged on.
Then…there. The land flattened out a bit. The trees thinned. A slanted pasture with a few grazing horses lined one side of a dirt road. Three buildings, each no bigger than a small house, sat on the other side. One claimed to be a school, which might have been true if the year was 1890. Another had no signage, but the third was a little convenience store. No homes. No people.
This was the mighty Chimeran stronghold? Home of the people who threatened to wipe the Ofarians from Earth?
Cat crookedly parked the Jeep in front of the convenience store door. She sat, staring at the door for a moment, then realized she had no moments to spare. She went inside. Dusty, peeling floors. Three lonely rows of goods, most looking out of date. A cooler along the back wall that didn’t look plugged in. An ancient cash register that was clearly just for show.
A girl in her late teens wearing a tank top and jeans stood behind the counter, reading InStyle magazine. She had a shade of dusky skin and shiny black hair like Kekona—native Hawaiian mixed with all sorts of other handsome and strong bloodlines.
And her Secondary signature was making Cat’s head spin. Nelicoda hadn’t taken away that ability.
“Can I help you?” said the girl all casual, like this place was used to customers and she was the Best Salesgirl Ever.
“Yes.” Cat went right up to the counter. “You can help me find Kekona Kalani.” The Chimeran shopgirl blinked and made a startled, feeble attempt to deny knowledge, but Cat held up a hand. “That’s really not necessary. I know she’s somewhere around here. I know she’s Chimeran. I’d like to speak with her. And your chief.”
The shopgirl slowly spread her hands across the counter, leaned over it, and Cat could see the outlines of pretty much every muscle in her chest and arms. “And you would be?”
“Cat Heddig. Kekona knows me.”
The girl’s eyes briefly shifted to a spot over and above Cat’s shoulder. A camera, no doubt. Sure enough, not three seconds later, as the two women stood staring at each other, a radio buzzed and crackled. The Chimeran slid her hand below the counter and pulled out a clunky hunk of metal. She put it to her ear and listened. Still watching Cat, she returned it to its place below the counter.
“They’ll be here soon. Sit over there.” The Chimeran pointed to a single chair in the far back
corner, near the Doritos and Fruit Roll-Ups—things with a scary long shelf life.
Cat nodded and did as she was told. They’d get no physical fight from her; that’s not why she’d come.
The Chimeran moved to the front door and started to take deep, deep breaths, the curve of her waist sucking in, her lungs expanding. Preparing her weapons, so to speak.
Thirty minutes later, a battered four-wheel drive vehicle careened into the dusty lot next to Cat’s rented Jeep. Kekona hopped out of the driver’s seat, wearing clothes, thank God, but not much: an orange tank top and a tiny pair of white shorts that made her legs look impossibly strong and sleekly dark. She was still barefoot, though, and looked perfectly warm even though Cat had huddled further into her zip-up sweatshirt in the cool mountain climate.
An enormous Chimeran male burst out of the passenger side of the vehicle and pushed past Kekona to storm inside. Same dark hair and skin as the others. Shirtless, worn jeans slung low on his hips, his feet also bare, he surged across the store. He stomped down the yellowing-postcard-and-expired-battery aisle, right for Cat. By the time she’d risen to her feet, he was right in front of her. No, he was over her, nearly pushing her backward over the chair.
“What are you doing here?” His incredible baritone voice shook the walls. “Talk.”
“Are you the chief?” She prayed her voice wouldn’t reveal her nerves.
His eyes narrowed, a spurt of flame crossing their darkness. “No.”
Cat peered around the big Chimeran’s shoulder, which was wrapped in a flame tattoo. Subtle.
“Kekona…” she began.
The Chimeran woman stood just behind the man to whom she had a striking resemblance. She coolly regarded Cat with her legs apart, muscular arms across her chest. “How’d you find us?”
Absolutely no sense in beating around the bush. Minutes meant everything in this game. “Have you heard the story about the Ofarian man who found this place twenty-five years ago and came out burned to within an inch of his life?”
A Taste of Ice (The Elementals) Page 34