Drowning in Fire (26 page)

“That’s what that was about,” she was finally able to say. “When the premier ordered that Primary scholar’s mind scrambled and you got upset. Because that’s what you had to do once.”

His expression hardened. “I had to kill. What they’ve been doing is worse.”

“But that’s what put you on edge. What might have made you mistake Makaha—” She cut herself off when his glare turned to blades, because she was more than aware that part of the blame belonged to her. “I mean, I understand now why you were so angry. You’d been poked hard in a wound, and then rubbed raw. It didn’t make sense to me before. Now it does.”

He didn’t like her knowing this, she could tell. He wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed by having her witness the nightmare, but he was pissed off he’d had to reveal it at all. He’d been trying to bury it for all these years, keeping himself behind a desk and surrounding himself with politics so he wouldn’t have to go out into the field and risk resurrecting old ghosts.

“I’ve killed, too.” When he looked at her in a silent way that said he was listening, she added, “More than twelve.”

“When. Who.”

“About five years ago the Chimeran clan from Molokai came over. They invaded our valley, wanted to take down our
ali’i
. Wanted to raise themselves up and make us all their lesser.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “We destroyed them. They had small numbers. Their clan was dwindling and that was their last effort to make a name for themselves.”

“Did they kill a lot of your clan?”

“Yes. My parents among them. They were excellent fighters but they were older. A lot of our younger, untried warriors died, too.”

He took a deep breath she recognized as one meant to calm himself. The mark of a leader trying to keep his head. “The difference is, Keko, you were protecting your people against a clear threat. Someone tries to kill you or your family, take your home, you fight back. I get that. But that secretary in Toronto who walked in on her boss as he was using
Mendacia
, just as the illusionary magic was kicking in? That completely innocent woman who opened the door at the one wrong second out of the entire day? She deserved to die because of that?”

Keko sat there, transfixed, listening to this from an entirely new perspective, one she hadn’t ever considered because her training had never allowed her to think that way.

“The Chairman sent me after her,” Griffin went on bitterly, his face nearly unrecognizable, “and I went because I fucking had to. I had a clean kill planned out, but I must have made a noise she didn’t recognize because she turned and saw me. Saw a strange man coming after her in her own house. I saw her fear. I saw her awful confusion. She had absolutely no idea who I was or why I was there. Only that I was there to kill her.”

He popped to his feet and she had to tilt her head back to look at him. The muscle in his jaw did that clenching thing again, the thing that made him look mean even as his eyes softened. “When the Son of Earth came after you and I knew you were having trouble accessing your fire, that you were probably seconds away from dying, I went after him. I attacked and went for the kill even though I knew it would trigger the nightmare. I just have to deal with what I’ve done.” He bent down, snatched his vest from the ground, stuffed the knife into the back holder, and zipped the thing over his chest.

She got the signal. He was done talking and they were moving out. She rose, a little unsteady from the shock.

“You know what?”

It was his tender tone, completely flipped around from what she’d just heard, that stopped her, made her look up. “What?”

“Fuck the nightmare. If the Son of Earth comes after you, I’ll do it all over again.”

 • • • 

Another couple hours’ hiking to get out of the green tangle and across the main highway, and then they turned down a long, winding road high above the ocean. It was right at the line when day started to curve toward dusk, and the light had a golden quality to it.

A row of modest one-story homes with overflowing garages and rusting cars in their driveways stretched up ahead, their front doors opening to one hell of a view of sparkling blue water. A hand-painted sign out on Route 19 pointed to a B and B and Griffin steered them toward it. Keko had tried to protest—she’d refused to hitch a ride, too—but they both needed food and a good rest. And he needed a phone.

Even in their dirty states, they didn’t stand out. The island was crawling with people walking along the roadsides, thumbs jutting out, their whole lives contained in their backpacks. He didn’t worry about being noticed as they trudged down the road—not from Primaries who puttered around their front yards and not from the Children of Earth. If their theory was correct, they’d left the Children’s territory the moment they’d left the wild.

The B and B was a Victorian-era house with a wraparound front porch, moist from the humidity. The owners lived in the mid-twentieth-century home set farther back on the slope, and they accepted cash from Griffin, no ID required.

Griffin and Keko were the only guests, but he only booked one room.

Key in hand, he unlocked the heavy wooden door and let it swing inward. The room was clean but basic, done in faux bamboo furniture and draped in tropical prints. He stepped inside, noting the single queen bed, and didn’t hear Keko’s footsteps following. When he turned around, she’d backed up against the porch railing, her face slightly pale as she peered into the room. It had started to rain. Again.

“I’m hungry,” she said. “Are you? I’ll find us some food.”

He didn’t know what she’d brought with her when she’d set out from the valley. “Need money?”

She patted her pack awkwardly. “I’ve got a little.” She backed down the porch, avoiding his eyes. Before bounding down the steps, she added, “I’ll be back.”

Something in her eyes told him she wasn’t even sure that was true. Two things kept him from going after her right then and there: One, she didn’t know how to read the star map; and two, he was finally alone.

Propping open the door with his boot, he snatched the phone sitting on the table by the bed, dialed quickly, and stretched the curling, tangled cord toward the porch. Standing in the open doorway, watching Keko walk barefoot in the rain toward a dense row of connected shops done in the same old Victorian style, he listened impatiently to the ringing on the other end of the line.

A man picked up, sounding skeptical. “Yes?”

“This is Griffin Aames. Get me the premier.” The Air’s hesitation pissed him off. “Don’t even think about giving me the runaround. If he’s there and alive, I need to speak with him.”

“One moment.” There was shuffling, and muffled voices.

Keko disappeared from view, taking the awareness of her signature with it. He tried not to let it worry or bother him, but he found himself mumbling into the receiver, “Come on. Come on.”

Night descended, the steadily falling rain making the evening grayer and drearier. Minutes passed. He paced in the doorway, the phone cord stretched to its maximum as he went out onto the porch, trying to see if Keko had gone through one of the doors in that line of shops, or if she’d just kept walking.

A fumbling of the phone on the other end, then a familiar voice, resigned and tired. “Griffin.”

With the time change, it would be after midnight at the air elemental compound in Canada. Griffin didn’t care.

“What the
fuck
.” To hell with propriety and diplomacy. “We had a deal, Premier. I come after Keko
alone
. The Children agreed to this. Keko is theirs only if she gets to the Source.”

“Whoa, whoa.” The premier sniffed and sounded like he took a drink of something. “Slow down. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Really.” Griffin gripped the slick porch railing, holding back a biting laugh and a shout of rage-induced frustration. “A Son of Earth attacked us and you’re telling me you had no clue.”

“Us?”

Griffin bowed his head, letting the rain hit his neck and run through his hair. “I found Keko. I’m with her. And this fucking earth elemental turns into a tree or possesses one or something, and almost kills us both.”

The premier sucked in a breath. “Is the Source safe?”

“Heard of any natural disasters lately?”

“So our deal is still on.” It wasn’t a question.

Griffin squeezed his eyes shut. “Look, I’m upholding my end. You sure as fuck better honor yours.”

The premier inhaled as though he had a cigarette between his lips. “I sanctioned no attack, authorized no breach of the deal. I gave you my word. Aya gave hers, too. I’ll bring this up with her immediately.”

“Tell her to leave us the hell alone. If you want the Source safe, I need more time.”

“If all I wanted was for the Source to be safe”—another smoke-filled inhale—“I would just let Aya and the Children do their thing. Let them take care of it themselves. This is about giving you your chance.”

A sick feeling twisted Griffin’s gut, like he’d finally gotten a bite after nearly starving and the food had gone rancid. He stalked back into the room. “I’m handling this,” he snarled, and slammed down the receiver. It felt good to do that. You didn’t get to do that with cell phones anymore.

He stared at the phone for a long time, wondering exactly what he’d just done. By warning off the Children of Earth, he’d bought himself much-needed time with Keko—time to find out what secret she was protecting and what she was going to do with the map that was in his head. More time just to be with her.

And yet he’d also basically reconfirmed with the premier that he’d trade Keko for a Senatus seat.

But would he?

THIRTEEN

Aya broke through the hard, cold crust of earth and rolled herself onto the windswept prairie of southern Alberta. This spot was a few hours from the U.S. border, though that sort of delineation meant little to her kind. What did matter was that the land here had been worked over so much with plow and seed that there were very few purely natural, untouched areas left for her use as travel and entry/exit points. Except for this one spot where a great tree stood twisted like an old soldier standing sentry by the gravel road.

An icy, blustery night out here, where not much lived besides crops and the few farmers who tended them. And the Airs.

Spring ran cold here, and yellowed late-March grass poked up through the remaining patches of snow around the tree. She pushed her human body into being as quickly as the painful, awkward shift allowed. She magically fashioned clothing from the grass and the nearby dead husks of corn: a soft, woven suit that conformed to her body from neck to ankles. It looked strange, she knew, but she had no human clothing of her own yet.

Someday. Soon.

She started walking west under the blue-black sky made in the hours past midnight, the moon casting shadows and the stars guiding her way. On all sides she sensed the great space of central Canada extending out. She felt the unbroken rush of wind as it crossed the land and whipped across her body, and it made her smile to herself. Made her breathe in deeply the sweet scent of fresh air. Made her revel in what she could not get Within.

She’d been here before. Two months ago the premier had summoned her, wanting her counsel, when the Chimerans had been on the verge of declaring war on the Ofarians. And then one month ago, when she’d been informed that Madeline was no longer the Airs’ mind-wiper, and that her position had been filled by her brother.

A similar summons had arrived barely an hour earlier, its urgency just as potent. She’d been sitting in her cave, human eyes closed, trying not to think about the walls closing in, when the little glowing root had pushed through a crack and unfurled the premier’s message, written on a leaf in the way she’d only told him and the Chimeran chief to contact her.
My compound. As soon as possible.

Her immediate thought? Griffin. Keko.

Now she trudged through the crunchy, barren aisles of dead corn, heading toward the massive white walls that loomed in the distance. When the crops gave way to the grass of the meadows that surrounded the Air compound, she passed several wooden signs staked into the ground.

HAVE YOU REPENTED?

WALK WITH THE LORD AND YOU’LL NEVER NEED TO RUN FROM ANYTHING AGAIN.

JESUS SAVES.

The white walls were two stories tall, impenetrable except for the iron doors big enough to admit a semitruck and stamped with a giant white cross. Razor wire coiled over the top of the wall. Security cameras covered all angles of the enclosure and the surrounding meadow.

As Aya approached, one side of the iron doors opened and a woman in a parka and hat and mittens appeared. She eyed Aya’s body, tightly clad in the woven suit, unable to disguise her shock and wariness. Peering out into the cold, dark night, and then returning her stare back to Aya, she said, “You can only be . . .”

“I am.” Though the female Air was taller than her by a head, Aya proudly lifted her chin and looked the Air directly in the eye. “Aya, Daughter of Earth. The premier is expecting me.”

The Air shuffled back to admit Aya, and Aya felt the Air’s awe pass over her like the wind. Aya could not wait to blend in better, to not draw such stares.

“This way.” The female hurried ahead, snaking through a vaguely familiar set of dark alleyways between narrowly placed buildings. The whole compound was like that, she remembered, a maze packed tightly with boxy, nondescript structures meant to hold and house the largest density of air elementals.

Aya could not keep track of their path. Just when she was sure she’d seen this particular corner or doorway more than once, and that the female was steering her back out the way they came, they popped out into a small square. Ahead rose a giant, ornate church topped with the massive silver cross she’d glimpsed from the other side of the wall. The other woman pulled open the heavy wood doors of the church and the two of them entered.

The inside looked nothing like the few other churches Aya had wandered into, but the interior didn’t matter, as long as anyone flying over or trying to spy inside the compound thought this place was dedicated to a Primary religion and inhabited by isolationist zealots. Each Secondary race had its own way of hiding in plain sight, so it was rather an important thing to have been invited into another elemental world.