Scorched_Earth_B_N Page 15

  She scanned her room hoping for inspiration and spied a brochure labeled, “Hawaiian Volcanoes.” Of course! A volcano had plenty of fire. Once fed, her mind could focus on the next step: how to undo whatever they did to her. She couldn’t go on like this. She had to track those pyro bitches down and make them undo it. There had to be a way to fix her.

  The volcano was problematic. According to the brochure, it was on the Big Island, and she was on Maui. She’d have to buy a ticket to get there. She debated, eyeing her scattered stuff. Well, it wasn’t like she had a higher priority, and Maui was suddenly useless. She could transfer her tickets and go to the Big Island…or she could fly home to Alaska.

  She pictured that, a whole day of travel with nothing to eat and precious little rest, because she couldn’t sleep in budget airline seats. She’d fly in, drive home and build a big bonfire to feed her. Then she’d go to work and try to explain to her boss why she couldn’t remove her nose ring. She winced.

  If she went to the Big Island, she’d lose time looking for those women. She needed to find them, and time was short. She couldn’t stay here forever.

  She bit her lip, frustrated. It was almost as if she were drawn to the Big Island, the volcano. It had assumed an importance logic said it shouldn’t have. She struggled, but it was a lost cause. She picked up the phone and called the airlines.

  The road from Hilo to the Kilauea Visitor Center was long and winding. While nice enough, Kira thought Maui was prettier. Black lava rock had been dozed away to build foundations for new homes, leaving black charred patches in the rampant vegetation. For sale signs littered the landscape, but she wouldn’t pay $60,000 an acre to live in such a smoggy environment.

  The smog came from the volcano, of course. As she climbed in elevation, the radio announcer warned to watch out for the toxic effects of the sulfur dioxide gas present at the summit. She was urged to keep her windows up and watch for trouble breathing.

  If she’d been elderly or asthmatic, she’d have been concerned, but the sulfur didn’t bother her at all. It made her hungry, like she was wandering through the world’s biggest barbeque. She felt ravenous. Strangely enough, she looked it, too. Her shorts were loose, and she’d looked gaunt in the restroom mirror, like some horrible anorexic Twiggy. She tried to force down a hamburger before she left Hilo, but it tasted awful and settled in her stomach like concrete. She couldn’t finish more than a couple of bites.

  She’d kill for a good bonfire!

  She eyed the roadside, wondering if anyone would notice if she started a fire, but she knew better. The island was too populated, and someone would notice.

  She thought about lighting candles again, but it wasn’t worth the effort. She needed some serious energy, and candles weren’t going to cut it.

  She counted down the miles to the visitor center. At last, she reached the entrance gate and eagerly handed over her money. God willing, she’d see lava any minute now.

  If only. The visitor center was a disappointment. Oh, they had a grand view of the crater; a vast, smoking pit, but no lava. She stared at the smoke through wide glass windows, desperate. Even if she could hike down, the terrain was rough. She’d be lucky if she didn’t fall in a crack and die.

  Desperate to relieve the fog of hunger, she studied the bulletin board. Her eyes lit on a scene of flowing lava and scanned the words quickly. Ah! Chain of Craters Road. The road was closed at the end, thanks to lava flowing into the ocean. That’s where she needed to go.

  It was seriously smoggy as she descended the steep, twisting road. Nausea assaulted her, made worse by her empty stomach, and she was forced to get out at the scenic points and walk to clear her head.

  Uncomfortable as she was, she still found the old lava flows fascinating. Broken pools where bubbles of lava burst were scattered around the landscape. An old flow formed a sunken, dried pond. The ground resembled rough asphalt surrounding dry riverbeds with smooth bottoms. Dead trees and brown scrub foliage dotted the viewing area.

  The flowing lava constructed whimsical architecture, small towers and bridges of stone, as if a fire child played at building a city. One structure formed a square arch with a hole inside. Tubes went into the rock, as if someone poured concrete and removed pipes once it cooled. She wondered if the lava flowed around trees. She found the place uniquely beautiful, and imagined it flowing with lava. She couldn’t wait to find the real thing.

  As she drove, the vegetation changed. Trees gave way to orange-yellow grass and green scrub, like tundra. A spider web of sickly hanging moss draped the withered, leafless bushes. Below 1000 feet, a devastated black plain emerged, with patches of yellow scrub and morning glories here and there. As she descended, she saw a huge cloud of steam where lava flowed into the ocean. Her pulse increased in anticipation. She was nearly there.

  The smog thickened as she neared sea level. She passed a couple in a silver rental car, the woman sucking heavily on an inhaler. The man looked worried as he glanced at her in the passenger seat, speaking words Kira couldn’t hear. Otherwise, the road was empty.

  In minutes she reached the yellow and black striped sawhorse that marked the end of the road. A few cars were there, and she noticed a group walking back. She parked and locked her car, nodding as she passed the others. She focused on plume of steam and estimated it was a half-mile walk. Easy money. She was starving!

  In some places the ground was gritty and rippled like a crackled brownie, shiny in others. Black shards littered the ground like broken pottery. Signs cautioned the stupid to watch their step. She sneered and walked on, then tripped over a small rim of earth and picked herself up, muttering.

  She was more cautious as she navigated the ropes and snakes of old flow that alternated with lighter rivers of gray. By the time she finally saw the red glow of fire she was deeply exhausted, as if she’d hiked miles. She checked, but no one observed her as she edged closer. Food, she thought with dizzy relief. Miles of it.

  It was nearing sunset as she reached the flow. Pink spilled into the western sky as the sun crashed into the ocean. Ravenous, she surged toward the lava to draw in the delicious heat.

  He was suddenly there, a brighter source of heat and light, a silent shadow in the night. A sudden flare of fire threw his form into black relief. She couldn’t see the stranger’s face, but shivered in primal fear. Whoever he was, the man radiated danger.

  She opened her mouth…and her world dissolved in a shower of sparks. Dizzy, frightened, she shot into the air at a terrific clip, pulled by an unseen force. The ground rushed by as she skimmed the broken rocks, so close she should have been losing skin. But she had no body. Impossibly, she was sparks, and hot rushing wind; she was convinced she was about to die.

  Her sparks rocketed up a blackened hill and into an old lava tube. On a floor of soft white sand, her sparks finally coalesced. She regained her body and it was not a blessing. She lay on her belly, too nauseous and dizzy to do anything else. She was afraid to sit up, lest she be sick. The sand rocked under her, and she was briefly afraid the floor would tilt.

  Feet appeared in front of her and there was a brief silence. “That must have been your first time. You’ve never traveled as spark, I’d wager.” The voice was deep, amused. It also provoked her to her knees, though the effort nearly flattened her. She sat with care, eyes closed as she took deep breaths. “Who are you?” Her brisk demand came out as a whisper.

  “I am Fire,” he said as he sat in a tall black chair. Ornate, nearly a throne, it seemed formed of black glass. He studied her coldly. “And you are the Trouble the Fates sent.”

  “I’m in trouble,” she said with more strength. He had to understand. She raised her head to meet his gaze and gasped. “What are you?”

  The one called Fire flickered with metallic, iridescent light. His skin glowed, flowing from pumpkin to burnt-orange like the coals in the heart of a bonfire. His short, white-yellow hair rippled in the cavern’s hot breeze. His eyes were blue, like the hottest of flames. A blue c
loth with gold edging tied around his hips, sarong style. A wide gold band wrapped around his waist and high on his ribs like a prizefighter’s title belt. A gold medallion with an enormous, square cut ruby hung from his neck on a thick chain. It looked more official than ornamental.

  “As I said, you may call me Fire. I am that element, as are you now…or as close as a mortal can be.”

  She was burning with questions, but the smell of fresh lava grabbed her attention. Suddenly crazy with hunger, she searched for the source of the scent. There! To the left of his throne, only ten feet away, glowed a vein of molten rock. Curiously, it didn’t harden and flow as lava normally would, but swirled in a gentle current, trapped in a little pool.

  The sight drove her mad. The elemental was no longer important. She rushed to the pool and dropped to its bank, reaching for the heat with greedy senses. She drew in its essence, consumed with vicious hunger. She hadn’t realized the strength of her need, how overwhelming her desire. This went beyond physical, deep into the center of her being. She couldn’t live without this.

  He’d meant to intimidate her, frighten her off, but Raze felt a stab of pity as the girl choked. She was pitifully gaunt, obviously unable to govern her hunger.

  He remembered hunger and a time when he was little more than a bag of bones for want of fire. Eight hundred years he sat on a rock barely large enough to lie on, imprisoned in a water bubble, while his friend Water languished in a dry cell a stone’s throw away. Earth suffered his own hell, suspended in air, unable to feed on the precious earth energy only feet away.

  The Fates helped humans capture and imprison them; the Fates had a lot to answer for.

  He blinked away the past and focused on the girl, desperately drawing in nourishment. This girl used to be human, but they would stone her now. She was his kind and she belonged to him.

  A powerful surge of possession made him silently snarl. She was his, and he took care of his own.

  He walked to her side, but she was so intent she didn’t react. She kept drawing in the essence, though she choked again in her haste. She reminded him of an infant or a young child who hadn’t been fed in days. “Slowly. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  She shuddered, but barely slowed. He grasped her shoulder and reduced the flow of energy. “Stop! Enough.” He gently squeezed, and she stopped with a little moan.

  She’d had too much, but it was so good! She moved away and sat panting on the sandy floor.

  “I’m sorry. The candles…they weren’t enough,” she explained, closing her eyes. Her belly felt distended. She wanted to rest now.

  “You tried to feed off candles?” He sounded surprised. “Didn’t they give you any instruction?”

  She opened her eyes and stared. “Instruction? You mean those bitches that burned me?” She laughed bitterly. “They dumped me in my room, on the floor. I don’t remember it.”

  He considered. “You’re very thin,” he said slowly, as if adding up the evidence. “Did you try to light a fire?”

  “Where?” The nausea from traveling as spark warred with her full belly, and she groaned in quiet misery. “There was no good place to do it.”

  He tapped his finger against his thigh in a show of displeasure. Even if she had the opportunity, ordinary fire was scarcely food for her. She’d grown weak.

  He toyed with the idea of tossing her out, letting her fend for herself. She’d probably survive...or he could take her in. He grimaced as his primitive side roared an emphatic yes. The Fates had probably counted on that outcome, but what else could he do? She was his kind now and vulnerable. He wasn’t completely without conscience…and she was his.

  His eyes fell on his gems, the bracelet and the jewel in her nose. If he knew what trouble he forged when he’d made them, he would have tossed them in the sea.

  “I will give you my bed for this night. Tomorrow we will see what is to be done,” he said firmly. He waited, but when she didn’t move, he pulled her to her feet. She drew a sharp breath and wove dizzily.

  “I don’t…” she stumbled into him and made no more protest as he wrapped his arm around her and half-carried her to the bed. He let go as soon as she was close enough to land on the linen. “Don’t burn my sheets,” he warned. “I dislike shopping.”

  “You shop?” she mumbled in disbelief.

  “Weaving cloth is boring and domestic; women’s work.” He frowned at her smoldering clothes with distaste and gestured, extinguishing the tiny flames.

  She would have commented on his arrogance, but she was already asleep.

  Kira woke, feeling uncommonly surly. She loathed mornings, and this one came with a growling belly. She felt like an angry grizzly, fresh from hibernation. She wanted food!

  The lava scent drew her with uncommon haste. Better than coffee, more appealing than grilled steak and eggs with a side of buttery fried potatoes, she knew it would fill and satisfy her as no ordinary food could. She knelt at the pool, prepared to gobble and gulp, when Fire chided her.

  “Slowly this time.”

  She sent him a resentful glare, but attempted to feed slowly. It was more difficult than she would've believed. He had to intervene again, to stop her gorging. He took over the flow of fire, feeding it to her in a trickle. It was intimate, like being spoon-fed. She didn't like it.

  “We wouldn't have to do this if you learned control,” he observed, somehow managing to remain remote.

  “I don’t need your help,” she grouched, though it was probably a lie. “I should have burned your sheets…if I knew how,” she muttered. She didn't feel like she'd ever be full, but she sensed she'd had enough. Even so, she couldn't have stopped without his help.

  She sat on the sand with one arm draped across her knee, letting things settle. The energy swirled inside her body, feeding hungry cells. It felt like it might be days until she was fully recharged, though she was no expert. She considered her bracelet. She knew whose it was. “Why did you let them do this?” she asked, unhappy.

  He had been kneeling at her side, but he stood at her words, looking irritable. “It wasn’t done on my orders.” If he’d planned to say more, he thought better of it. “You should rest.”

  That made her angry. “I need answers! How do I undo this? How do I get these off?” she demanded, tugging at the bracelet. It might as well have been welded to her flesh. She held it out to him, but he turned away.

  “It doesn’t come off.”

  She blew out an impatient breath. “I know that! I can’t get it off, but you must know how. It’s yours, isn’t it? That’s what they said.”

  “Your wedding jewelry,” Destiny had said. “He made it himself.” She felt a chill.

  He slanted a glance at her as he returned to his throne. He said nothing.

  “I’m not married to you,” she said forcefully. “I want you to take these back.”

  He didn’t like that. His mouth tipped into a cruel smile. “They were forged long ago, with metals you’ve never encountered. They protect you from the flame that feeds you. If they could come off, you would crumble to black char as you fed. The lava you crave would devour you.”

  She glanced at the lava pool and swallowed. “Can’t I…isn’t there a way to return to what I was?” she pleaded.

  He mellowed. “Can a fledgling grown into an eagle become an egg? There is no going back.”

  She swallowed that bitter pill in silence. No going back. No normal life for her. What did that mean for her future? She drew an unsteady breath. “I have a job. All my stuff is in Alaska.”

  He regarded her without interest. “Send for it. Unless you wish to find an active volcano there, you’ll waste away. As for the arctic winter…you can survive it, but you will find the cold more bitter than ever.”

  She laughed without humor, knowing he was right. The thought of snow chilled her, but…. “I can’t live in a lava tube my whole life.” She cast him a dark look. “I can’t live with you.”

  He tapped his index finger on the armrest as
he stared into space. At length he said, “I could let you go. It might be the death of you, though. It would grieve me to see an elemental’s life wasted, even if she were once human.

  “But what to do with you? You can’t even eat on your own.” He considered her broodingly.

  She didn’t like his train of thought. “I can build fires in Alaska, but even if I did find it uncomfortable, I have a commitment to my job and my boss. I have to explain why I’m leaving, if I’m leaving. I haven’t decided yet, but I can’t just relocate here. I’d have to find another job, get an apartment, all kinds of stuff. It’s a lot to consider.”

  He smiled knowingly. “Don’t think you can easily return to your former life. The Fates would certainly interfere, if they haven’t already. They did not go to such lengths to see you walk away from me.” His smile grew wide with malicious delight. “Though you may try, of course. I won’t stop you.”

  “Why?” Kira demanded. “What can I do for them? If you didn’t order this, then what do they want?”

  He rose to his full height, a terrible light in his eyes. “They want me to love you. They want me to spare your worthless kind. They want me to forgive.”

  She held very still. Instinct made her lower her eyes. He looked ready to strike, and his words were hammer blows.

  His power washed over her, burning with its intensity. “I will never love you. I will not forgive. I will stand aside and watch as the world burns.”

  There was a moment of awful silence, then hot sparks struck her cheek as he rose in a cloud of sparks and shot from the cave.

  Kira drew a careful breath. She felt cold and a little sick. She couldn’t stay here, not with him. The man was dangerous.

  She sighed regretfully, but she couldn’t take the lava pool with her. She’d have to figure something else out.

  It was a hard climb down, and she earned plenty of scrapes and bruises. She wouldn’t risk traveling as spark, though. Not only did it make her ill, but she was afraid to tamper with her current form. What if she couldn’t turn back?