Nightworld

  And then his eyes snapped to the wound below his navel. Something moved there. Something wriggled within it. This morning’s scream built again in his unresponsive throat as two slim black pincers, each no more than an inch long, poked into the air. A multi-eyed head, deep brown and gleaming, followed. It paused, glanced around, fixed Hank with its cold black gaze, then dragged its long, many-legged length from the wound with a crinkling slurp. Another identical creature quickly followed. Then another.

  Hank’s once quiescent and unresponsive body was moving now with a will of its own, writhing, bucking, convulsing, rocking up and down, back and forth in its webbed hammock as his veins and arteries bulged past the limits of their tensile strength and ruptured, freeing more wriggling, pincered, millipedic forms.

  Something snapped within Hank’s mind then. He could almost hear the foundations of his sanity crack and give way. And that was good. He welcomed the collapse.

  For it brought a whole new perspective. Everyone aboveground was dying. Dying and decomposing. Not Hank. No way. Hank was alive and would stay alive through these, his children.

  Parenthood.

  If only I could cry!

  He’d never wanted children, but now it had happened. His children. He’d considered the Kickers his children—after all, hadn’t he fathered the movement? But these were true offspring. They’d grown within him. Fed off him. Made him part of them. He’d go on living through them while everybody else—including the Kicker cop captain and his two renegade underlings—died.

  If only I could laugh!

  He watched with pride as dozens more of his children broke from the cramped confines of his body to swarm and crawl with wild abandon over his skin. So good to see them free and moving about, stretching their slender, foot-long bodies, gaining strength before heading to the surface and joining the great hunt.

  If only I could cheer!

  Some of them tangled and began to rake and spear each other with their pincers.

  No fighting, children. Save it for topside.

  Just then two more broke from the sides of his throat, glistening with blood from the vessels through which they’d been traveling. They reared up and faced him, swaying back and forth like cobras before a snake charmer.

  Yes, my children, he wanted to tell them, I am your daddy and I’m terribly proud of you. I want you to—

  They darted forward without warning, each burying a pincered head hungrily into his eyes.

  No! he wanted to say. I’m your daddy! Don’t blind Daddy! How can he watch you grow if you eat his eyes?

  But they were naughty children and didn’t listen. They kept burrowing inward, deeper and deeper.

  If only I could scream!

  Maui

  Night was falling.

  Jack stood in the great room and stared again at Moki’s giant sculpture. The closer darkness came, the more repellent he found it. The stench of rotting fish from outside made it worse. Its foulness urged him to smash it back into its component fragments.

  He’d driven down to the airfield earlier. Frank and his plane had survived the night. Jack had called Gia on the shortwave. She’d said everything was okay but he’d sensed a new tension in her voice. She denied any problems but during the grisly ride back he couldn’t get it out of his head that she was worried about something.

  He turned now at a sound behind him and saw Kolabati emerging from the bedroom. Alone. Finally. Her dark eyes flashed with excitement as she strolled toward Jack. And as she passed she pressed something into his hand—warm, heavy, metallic. He glanced down.

  The necklace.

  “Moki?” he said.

  She motioned him to follow her to the lanai.

  “He’s wearing your fake,” she whispered when they’d stopped at the railing.

  “And he’s still…?”

  Bitter anguish dulled the animation in her eyes as she nodded. “Still the same.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Put it on,” she whispered, touching the hand that held the necklace.

  Jack thrust it into his pocket. “Better not. He’ll notice.”

  “Put it on. You’ll need it. Trust me.”

  Jack shook his head. “I’ll be okay.”

  He looked out over the darkening valley. In the ocean beyond it he saw the white water of the whirlpool fading to gray. The maelstrom was slowing. Soon the geyser would begin and the air once again would fill with dying fish and hungry bugs.

  But he still had time to make it to Kahului and take to the air.

  He turned back to Kolabati. “What about the rest of it? What about you? Are you coming back to New York with me?”

  “Do you trust me, Jack?” she said. Her gaze drilled into him. The answer seemed very important to her.

  “Yes,” he said, not completely sure of the truth here, but saying it anyway.

  He sensed the new, improved Kolabati could be trusted further than the old, but how much further he couldn’t say. He wasn’t quite ready to stake his life on it.

  “Good. Then I’ll return to New York.”

  Jack couldn’t resist hugging her. She truly had changed.

  “Thank you, Bati. You don’t know what this means to me, to everyone.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea, Jack,” she said levelly. “It’s good to have your arms around me again, but I’m not giving up my necklace. I have no intention of doing that. I’m going back to New York just to talk to this ancient man you’ve told me about. That and nothing more.”

  “That’s fine. That’s all I ask. I’ll leave the rest up to Glaeken. I know he can work something out with you. But let’s get moving. We haven’t got much time.”

  “Not so fast. There’s still tonight’s ceremony.”

  Jack pushed her to arm’s length but Kolabati clutched his forearms, refusing to let him go.

  “Ceremony? You’re going to let him kill another—?”

  And then Jack remembered how last night Moki had let the Niihauan stab him first. Was that what she wanted? To see Moki die? Did she hate him that much for going crazy on her? He looked into her eyes and couldn’t read them.

  He would never understand this woman. Fine. But could he trust her? Her allegiances seemed as mercurial as her moods.

  “That’s my condition. After the ceremony, I’ll return to New York. You have my word.”

  “Bati?” a voice called from inside.

  And then Moki stepped out onto the lanai. His eyes flared when he saw the two of them touching. He took Kolabati by the arm and pulled her away.

  “Come. We’ll start the ceremony early tonight.” He glared at Jack. “I’m especially looking forward to this one.”

  As Kolabati followed him into the house, she looked back at Jack and mouthed three words: Wear … the … necklace.

  When they debarked from the Isuzu, Moki turned to Jack and jabbed his index finger at his chest.

  “We came early because it will be you who faces Maui tonight.”

  Jack smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “If you can defeat me in the ceremony, you may have her. Otherwise she stays with me and you return to America.”

  Jack noticed how Moki had said “America” instead of “the mainland.” Apparently his island had seceded from the union, at least in Moki’s mind.

  Jack looked at Kolabati. She returned his stare coolly.

  “So … this is what you meant by ‘after the ceremony.’ Swell.”

  She nodded.

  Moki gestured to the crater’s edge. “Come. It’s time.”

  Jack hesitated. This was happening too fast, and none of it in his plan. He didn’t like surprises, and this was a particularly ugly one. Kolabati had known about it before when they were whispering on the lanai. Had she cooked it up with Moki, or was this all his idea?

  At least Jack had one of the necklaces …

  Or did he?

  What was that around Moki’s neck? Jack’s fake, or the real thing? He cursed himself for not c
hecking the one Kolabati had given him more closely. It didn’t feel any different, and if he remembered correctly from years ago, the necklace had caused an unpleasant tingle the first time he’d touched it. But that sensation had dissipated after he’d worn it for a while. Was that why he felt nothing when he touched it now? Or was there nothing to feel because it was the fake?

  “What’s the matter?” Moki said, his grin broadening. “Afraid like your Asian friend?”

  “Your ceremony sickened him last night.”

  “Perhaps you should have stayed behind with him—or better yet, left the island.”

  “I promised someone to get him back safely.”

  “Take off your shirt and follow me,” Moki said, then turned and started up to the crater’s edge.

  Jack followed, removing his shirt as he went. The cold air raised and then flattened gooseflesh on his skin. He tossed his shirt to Kolabati as he passed. Her dark, almond eyes widened when she saw no necklace around his neck.

  What had she wanted to do? Rattle Moki by letting him see that Jack wore a necklace exactly like his? Uh-uh. He wasn’t playing her games.

  She frowned at the three wide scars running diagonally across his chest. “Are those from—?”

  “Yeah. Mementos from one of your pets.”

  He welcomed the heat from Haleakala’s fires when they reached the ridge. Moki stopped and faced him. In the orange light he looked like a grinning demon as he produced two knives with slim, six-inch blades. The flames from below glinted off their polished surfaces. He handed one to Jack, wooden handle first. As Jack gripped it, a chorus of shouting erupted from below. He turned and saw the Niihauans approaching, angrily waving their arms.

  “I was afraid of this,” Moki said, sighing like an indulgent father watching his unruly children. “That’s why I brought you up here early tonight. They want one of their own to defeat me, not some malihini. I’ll have to tell them not to worry. They’ll get their turn.”

  Moki stepped between the Niihauans and the crater rim. He spread his arms wide and spoke to them. Jack couldn’t hear what he said over the roar of the inferno below, but finally they stepped back and waited.

  “Now!” Moki said, returning. “Let’s get on with it.” He put his hands on his hips and puffed up his chest. “You strike first.”

  “First take off the necklace.”

  “Stop stalling. Is this the brave Repairman Jack Bati told me about?”

  “Just ‘Jack,’ okay?”

  “I think you’re a coward.”

  “You won’t take it off?”

  “My necklace is not a subject for discussion. It is part of me. It will remain with me until I die. Which shall be never.”

  “Okay,” Jack said slowly, “since we’re on the subject of courage, let’s give ourselves a real test: Each of us will pierce his own heart.”

  Moki stared at him with wide eyes. “You mean … I will plunge my knife into my chest and you will do the same into yours?”

  “You got it. Simultaneously. It’s one thing to stab somebody else, but it takes a god to stab himself.”

  Moki’s grin widened. “I believe you are right. You are a worthy rival, Repairman Jack. I’ll be sorry to see you die.”

  Not as sorry as I’ll be if Kolabati has suckered me.

  Moki positioned his knife over his chest, the point indenting the scarred area just to the left of the breastbone. Jack did the same. His sweaty palms slipped on the handle. The touch of the point sent a chill straight through to the organ beating barely an inch beneath it. It picked up its tempo in response.

  This had to work.

  “Ready?” Jack said. “On three. One … two…” He shouted the last number. “Three!”

  Jack watched as Moki rammed the blade deep into his chest, saw his torso hunch, his grin vanish, his features constrict with sudden agony, watched his eyes fill with shock, horror, rage, betrayal as the sick realization of what had just happened to him filtered through the haze of pain.

  He looked down at the knife protruding from his chest. Blood welled up against the hilt and ran down his skin. Then he looked at Jack’s blade, still poised over his chest. His lips worked.

  “You … didn’t…”

  “You’re the crazy one, pal. Not me.”

  Moki glanced over to where Kolabati stood in the flame-flickered darkness. The hurt in his eyes was unsoundable. Jack almost felt sorry for him, until he remembered the brave Niihauan who hadn’t had a chance against him last night. Jack followed his gaze and saw Kolabati’s dismayed expression.

  Sudden pain seared his chest. He staggered back and saw Moki go down on his knees, blood pumping from the slit in his chest, his bloody knife free in his hand. And across Jack’s chest—a deep gash, bisecting the rakoshi scars. Moki had pulled his own knife from his wound and slashed Jack.

  Jack pressed his hand against the gash but it had already stopped bleeding. The pain, too, was gone. And as he watched in amazement, the wound edges closed and began to knit.

  He looked up and saw Moki watching too. Moki reached a bloody hand up to the metal encircling his neck. Ashen-faced now, he looked at Jack’s unadorned throat, his eyes pleading for an explanation. He couldn’t speak, but he could move his lips.

  They said: How?

  Jack pulled up the left cuff of his jeans to show where he’d wound the true necklace around his ankle.

  “Just because they call it a necklace doesn’t mean you have to wear it around your neck.”

  Moki pitched forward on his face, twitched, shuddered, then lay still.

  Jack looked at the blade in his hand and tossed it onto the hardened lava beside Moki. Another victory for Rasalom, another talented human gone mad, and now dead.

  Suddenly Jack felt exhausted, empty. Must it have ended like this? Couldn’t he have found another way? Was the mad darkness in the air seeping into him as well? Or had he always carried a piece of it within? Was that what he felt twisting and thrashing against the walls of the cage he’d built for it?

  Shouts made him turn. The Niihauans were charging up the slope. Jack backed away, unsure of their intent. But they ignored him, rushing directly to Moki’s body. They prayed by it, then lifted him by his hands and feet and tossed his remains into Haleakala’s fires.

  As the others began to pray, the chief turned to Jack.

  “Haleakala,” he said, beaming. “The House of the Sun. Now that the false Maui is dead, the sun will return to the path that the true Maui taught it.”

  “When?” Jack said.

  “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, you will see.”

  “I hope so,” Jack said. He turned toward Kolabati. “All we’ve got to do is get back to the house and pick up Ba and—”

  Kolabati was gone.

  Jack spun this way and that, searching the darkness. Not a sign of her. The Isuzu was still parked down the slope but no trace of her. He searched the area but all he found was his shirt, lying on the lava where she’d been standing. He pulled it on and hopped into the car.

  Shit. She must have taken off on foot while he was listening to the old chief. Same old Kolabati. She’d lied to him. Should he have expected any less?

  Me, of all people.

  He’d spent most of his life lying. He mentally kicked himself for believing she’d changed. But she’d been so convincing. Had she ever had any intention of coming back to New York with him?

  That’s what you get for playing by the rules.

  Maybe he and Ba simply should have tied up Moki and taken his necklace, then ripped Kolabati’s from her throat and left her to die of old age in a few hours. Not that it hadn’t occurred to him, yet everything within him balked at the plan. But maybe this hadn’t been the time for niceties. Too much at stake.

  He picked his way downhill, driving as quickly as he dared, while scanning the road ahead in the headlights and as far to each side as he could see in the dark. Nothing. Nothing moving but the wind. As he wound down from the crest, the wind abated and the f
ish and seawater began to rain from the sky, narrowing vision even further. An occasional bug began to harass the Isuzu.

  Finally he came to the house. The lights were on and the generator was running, just as they’d been an hour ago. Jack leapt out and ran inside, stepping over a thrashing tuna along the way. Not many bugs around at the moment, and those seemed to be ignoring him. The necklace?

  Once inside he ran through the halls, shouting Kolabati’s name, and Ba’s too.

  Had to find her. Uncertainty gnawed at him. What if she hadn’t returned to the house? What if she was hiding somewhere out on the hillside? He’d never find her.

  And where was Ba?

  He took the stairs to the upper floor, to the great room, but lurched to a stop when he heard the sound. Ahead, bleeding down the hall from the great room, a buzz, the unmistakable sound of oversize diaphanous wings, hundreds of them, beating madly.

  He wanted to turn and run but forced himself to stand fast. Something about the buzzing … not wild and frenzied … calmer, smoother, almost … placid.

  He stepped forward. He had to see what was going on. From back here he could see only the front end of the room. The lone lamp that still functioned gave off enough light for him to make out the details. What he saw sent his skin crawling.

  Bugs … the great room was full of them, mobbed with them. They obscured the walls, perched on the furniture, floated in the air. All kinds of bugs, from hovering chew wasps to drifting men-of-war, and all facing the same direction, away from the smashed windows, toward the interior of the room. Jack’s legs urged him to get the hell out of here, but he had to see what held them so spellbound.

  He dropped to his knees and inched forward. The bugs remained oblivious to him. He stretched out on the bare floor and craned his neck around the edge of the entryway to bring the rest of the room into view.

  More bugs. So tightly packed he could barely see through the crush. Then a gust of wind sluiced through the windows, undulating the hovering mass enough for Jack to catch a look at the center of the great room.

  They all faced the sculpture, Moki’s final work—the only object in the room on which the bugs had not perched. Its long, arching wooden spokes lay bare for their entire length, from where they sprang from the walls to the jagged, unwieldy aggregate of black and red lava fragments at their center. The bugs hovered about it, every one of them faced toward the center like rapt churchgoers in silent benediction.