“ Ho'ino wale, damn! Kuamuamu. r' he curses.
He instantly sits upright, staring at questioner and questioned. The FBI man wears expensive Costa Del Mar dark glasses and has handsome haole features, is tall and ruddy-complexioned. He quickly denies knowledge of any body parts dredged from the Blow Hole.
“ It's impossible,” Lopaka tells himself.
The TV voice continues. “Seems some boys were playing a prank, a practical joke, with some mannequin parts,” says the FBI man named on the screen as Parry. “Scared a few tourists using broken parts of mannequin. That's all.”
They got part of her out. They found part of Kelia… He cringes, stares about at the evidence of multiple murder all around him. He wonders what he must do. Wonders what his gods want him to do. He can't possibly go on as if nothing has happened, as if all is right with his world, as if they don't know anything about him anymore, and aren't actively searching for him this fucking moment. Before now authorities knew only what the gods wanted them to know, only that a shadowy “maybe-man” called the Trade Winds Killer whom they hadn't a clue about was abducting whores. But now? Now they know something about him, and they know something about Kelia; they have a part of her, something that belongs to Ku… and they'll have the Blow Hole staked out.
The thought terrifies him.
He imagines they know his name, his place of work, where he lives. That they have the living Kelia in custody and under questioning, grilling her. He imagines they have the dead Kelia's head, and the damned thing is speaking to them from its parched lips.
He envisions them crashing through his door with huge animal nets and a cage to put him into; imagines them dragging him before the TV cameras now focused on a second FBI man named Gagliano. He imagines being dragged into a court of law, being sentenced to a life behind bars unless he is executed by some angry cop or relative.
“ Hell,” he tries to convince himself, “such a quick end mightn't be so bad, really.”
It'd mean an end to all his unrest, to the fevered state of his soul; maybe in the next life he'll be a god, a real god… not some make-believe god, or at least somebody. In this life, what chance did he have with his father always standing over him? His bloody father was the reason he chose to leave home to seek out a place of his own, and perhaps why he hears the voices in the trade winds, and perhaps why he helps the evil ones to feed upon the Kelias of the world. His father was one of the sharks, and so was he…
In this life, if he'd never heard the voices telling him what to do, what would he be? Nothing, less than the sand on the beach, dirt. Besides, now on the rare occasion when he dares disobey his gods, they torch his brain with a searing red poker that scorches with a great fever of disquiet. It is the worst kind of torture imaginable, like super-heated, jagged knives being slowly placed into his eyes and ears, and the only release comes with slaughtering sacrifices in the manner of his own torture, as if Ku is showing him the way it is done.
He remembers heating the sword the night before, thrusting it, searing flesh.
The gods warn constantly of tortures far in excess of anything mankind might do to him, that these god-directed tortures wait for him should he fail to do what he is told. If he were locked up and unable to provide for his gods, what then might they do to him? He shudders at the thought. Now a moment of calm washes over his brain. What does he have to worry about? he asks himself. No one has the first idea that he's guilty of anything, that he's the Trade Winds Killer, and they never will. He closes his eyes and sleeps his fitful, drug-induced sleep until a calm peace descends like an unexpected gift…
He dreams of a lush forested backyard and a hiding place where once he felt safe, a place where Father can't find him. The dream lulls him into deeper and more peaceful sleep at first, but then the forested area is stripped away, the soft, billowy dream colors turning crimson and black, the dream itself replaced in a sudden eclipse of images…
Another dream or another's dream? A dream out of the mind of a god? A vision? his subconscious is asking. It's an unfamiliar landscape; it's not his dream… coming from someplace else, someone else…
… deceptively simple and pleasing, a pair of enormous hazel eyes looking squarely into his brain, as if…
He gasps on realizing the woman's soft eyes are looking into his brain, slicing with a laser, his removed scalp pulled over his eyes. The eyes are those of a giant Kelia, larger than Diamond Head, larger than the island itself, boring into him and lifting everything from his mind and knowing. She always knew.
He must find Kelia… must destroy her.
5
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces kings of.
Paul Zanek at Quantico told her in no uncertain terms to remain in Oahu and cooperate completely with Parry, and to keep him and the Psychological Profile Team in Virginia informed and abreast of developments, and that they would do all in their power at long distance to help profile and track the supposed killer.
“ I was supposed to be taking it easy here, having a vacation, you know, how do they spell it, r-e-s-t?”
“ Sorry, Jess, but Parry's in straits there, what with his main guy out. Trust me, nobody planned this.”
“ Sure, Chief. I'm just feeling tired and a little sorry for myself.”
“ Remember, anything you need, Jess.”
“ Don't you get on a plane and start out just yet. So far I've seen nothing to indicate we've even got a serial killer here.”
“ Parry's an experienced bureau chief, Jess, and I'd-”
“ He could be blowing smoke this time tomorrow, Chief. I'll let you know. My regards to J.T. and the team.”
“ Thorpe's in Detroit.”
“ Oh?”
“ Something nasty cooking there; series of slum killings, mostly homeless.”
“ Well, if you hear from him, tell him I send my regards.”
After she hung up, she gave a few moments' thought to John Thorpe, her next-in-command at the criminology lab at Quantico in Sector IV. He'd recently undergone a difficult bit of surgery, and this on top of a tough divorce that had separated him from his kids. It sounded like J.T. was a man of his word, burying himself in his work. She had a choice now of showering, calling room service for dinner or going through the nine files staring at her from the table across the room. She'd just as soon go to sleep, but her mind wandered back to New York City and Alan Rychman, whom she'd still not forgiven for forsaking her here. He had promised her for months that he'd get away with her to Hawaii and that everything was set, but now that he was angling for commissioner, he had very little say-so about his own schedule or life, it seemed. So they'd argued again. As it looked now, she supposed it was perhaps best that Alan had missed his flight after all, since things were shaping up here as they were. She imagined his rage had he been here, seeing her sucked into the island case. If he were in her company when all this occurred, he'd be as upset with her as she presently was with him.
She toyed with the idea of calling Alan, as he'd have no idea where she was by now. If he did call, he'd be trying to find her in Maui. Maybe he'd left word at the hotel there. She made a quick connection and learned that there'd been no word from Alan after all. Maybe she'd just let him stew. She decided to shower, and was soon under the relaxing spray. Fresh now, she put on a robe and stepped out onto the balcony to watch the brilliant orange, lavender and purple spray of sun and cloud out over the ocean on this gorgeous Hawaiian night settling lazily over the city. It was beautiful and exotic, this place so many thousands upon thousands of miles from Quantico, Virginia, which she'd called home since her days in the FBI academy.