Betwixt (20 page)

She only had to whisper.

“I said, don’t touch me.”

The freak was breathing hard now, whimpering. Morgan pushed her to the ground, scrambled with her backpack, and headed for
the dimming trees. There was music in there. She could hear it. She turned back and saw the girl watching her leave, still
holding her cheek. Morgan looked down at her nails, which she could swear were an inch longer than they had been in the morning,
and coated with a red-violet shimmery substance she figured was blood mixed with the freakazoid’s makeup.
Man! What is going on today with the slime?
She wiped her hands on a passing weed. Heading down the rocky trail, she concentrated on the sound of her heart pumping.
Loud and quick and even. She didn’t much feel like thinking.

“E
XCUSE ME
.”

After twenty minutes of walking, Ondine stopped in front of the first person who met her eyes: a handsome, dark-haired boy
who sat with his arms around his knees, surrounded by a few other hollow-eyed kids on a blanket under a tarp. The boy did
not return her smile but nodded to show that he was listening, and Ondine, motioning to Nix, who had found a nearby tree and
was now unpacking the blue tarp, continued.

“My friend and I, we’d like to set up our camp. Do you have some twine?”

A few words passed between the boy and the group behind him in what sounded like Spanish. He dug into a nearby bag and handed
her a roll of brown twine. He smiled this time, and nodded, but still didn’t speak. Even weirder, he kept his eyes on the
ground as he passed her the rope, as if he didn’t want to see her.

“
Habla inglés
?” She tried again, pissed that her scientist father had encouraged her to take Latin. “Do you know when the band starts?
Mi amigo and I —” She gestured to Nix again. “We want to see the band.
La música.
” Ondine did a little desperate dance and snapped her fingers. “
La música?
La Flama?”

Nothing. The boy continued to look at the ground.

“
Gracias,
” she said, frustrated, and trudged back to Nix.

“They could only speak Spanish.” She shrugged. “Weird. I didn’t know the Flame was popular with Mexicans.”

“They might not be Mexican,” Nix corrected her peevishly, taking the twine that Ondine passed him but continuing to look at
the small group, who were now in conversation with each other, their backs turned.

“Oh sorry. Maybe they were from
Béleeth.
Or
Guatémala.
Jesus. What is your problem?”

“Nothing.”

Ondine sighed and shook her head. She didn’t feel like fighting. “Anyway, they were kind of shy,” she added, trying to bridge
the gap that had opened between them, but Nix stayed silent, concentrating on their temporary arrangements. She watched him
go through the motions of hanging the tarp. Lightning struck again, closer this time, and she ducked under. When Nix had finished,
he too crawled under the low ceiling, his face a pallid blue, his eyes squinting in the dimming light. Despite his proximity,
she felt desperately alone.

“I’m going to return the twine,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Whatever.” She watched him walk down the path. She lay on her back and looked above her. Rain pooled in the center of the
blue square, forming a circle. She aimed one of the flashlights toward it and it illuminated a watery nimbus, shaking with
every splash. She flicked her flashlight on and off, thinking.

She
was
disappointed. Though she was sure there were a few
more kids somewhere among the rocks and trees, the much-whispered-about Ring of Fire, by her reckoning, was a party of no
more than a hundred kids. No alcohol, no dancing, and a storm. What was everyone waiting for? For it was clear, from the hush
that had fallen in the forest — only somewhat enlivened by rolls of thunder and the cracks of approaching lightning — that
everyone was waiting for something. The Flame? There was no way the band was going to play. Not with an electrical storm close
by. So this soggy affair on a Wednesday in June: this was the rave that everyone was talking about? The momentous occasion
she and Nix had dreamed about side by side for the past three weeks?

Whatever.
The whole thing was a bust. That she had expected something different, something shocking, was pathetic. What she got was
yet another confirmation of her father’s advice to never trust what you can’t observe.
Things are as they seem, Ondine.
Yes, things were as they seemed: wet and gray and dull. Nothing to do now but wait for it to be over. She would have asked
Nix what he was feeling, what he thought, but he was returning the twine, and, she noted, taking his sweet time. She sat up,
cupping the flashlight in her palm.

One by one, lights were being extinguished in the scattered tents. Despite the storm, Ondine thought she saw fireflies twinkling
in the moist air. Her jeans were soaked so she took them off and rolled them neatly into her backpack, leaving just her
hoodie mini on. She leaned back against a tree and closed her eyes. Just for a second, she thought, but when Nix’s face appeared
in the dim blue of their lean-to, she realized she must have dozed off, for his flashlight was on and behind him the sky had
darkened to a smoky black. The rain had stopped but the thunder had not, and every so often the sky was lit up by viscous
yellow.

“The Flame,” he said. “They’re playing.”

She scrambled up, her heart beating.

“They told you?” Remembering the way the boy with the twine had remained so silent.

“No, no. I just heard it. I checked it out. There’s a clearing by the crater. That’s where they are. Everyone’s going over
there. Come on.”

She was watching Nix so intently she didn’t realize she, too, heard the music playing. A faraway seasick sound, like a carnival
heard from down a country road.

“Come on, Ondine. It’s time.”

It was … time? Nix barely allowed her to think before he turned and started walking down the sloping crunchy path, following
the skipping flashlights ahead of them. Maybe there
were
more than a hundred people. Ondine could see at least that many lights in front of her, moving down a hill and then up another,
heading toward where she imagined the lake was, at the top of the crater. There were quiet murmurs of song and then
the ever-louder beat of a single, deep bass drum. The Flame. She and Nix came to an opening, and below them a sort of crater,
rudely lit by a few bonfires, opened up. The lake, she figured, must have been just above them.

“I guess we’re in the right place.”

She looked down at the plateau. A stage was surrounded by a hundred or so people, undulating like water rocked by the passage
of a boat, and another hundred hung around the edge or near the fires. The figures on the stage itself were hidden by lights
and smoke — liquid nitrogen? — and Ondine couldn’t tell how many they were, what they were doing, but she could hear their
music now.

Hurry — hurry — hurry! — ring of fire —

Ring of fire! Spin round, ring of fire —

So it was a concert after all. Though a lingering fear tugged at her, a voice whispering,
Don’t go down there,
they had come all this way, and what was she going to do now? Go back to the car? A crack of lightning behind her nudged
her farther.

“Come on. We’ll be safer down there,” Nix said, pointing to the rock formations that poked out of the sides of the bowl-shaped
crater, like gargantuan fingers protecting it from the wind and — she hoped — from the lightning.

This time he smiled. A smile that Ondine remembered.

“You ready?”

All she could manage was a halfhearted shrug.

He turned back to the scene in front of them, his eyes glowing in the light from the bonfires. That’s when she knew she was
scared. Everything had gotten just a little too weird. She looked at Nix, holding the flashlight, smiling as if a party in
an electrical storm in a volcano in the middle of the wilderness were the most normal thing in the world. She had known the
boy for three weeks. Knew
no one else
at the concert, if that’s what it was. She pulled her cell out of her pocket and was relieved to see it still showed a few
bars. She tucked it away before Nix turned back toward her.

“All right.” He tried again. “Tell you what. You wait here. I’ll go find Moth. I’m sure he’s here now. See that fire?” He
pointed to one near the middle of the gathering. “I’ll meet you there. Or if you want, go down there and I’ll find you. Stay
near the front left of the stage.”

Ondine could tell Nix was feeling antsy, and though she didn’t want to be left alone, she didn’t feel like running after James
Motherwell, either.

“Okay,” she said. “Front left of the stage.” She called after him as he started to lope down the hill, a raggedy figure in
black against a ruddy, firelit night. He didn’t answer. Maybe he was going to do dust, she thought, but buried the suspicion.

“Front left,” she called out again, louder.

“Front left!” Nix shouted back.

It was how they said good-bye.

M
OTH SURVEYED THE CROWD.
Things were coming together nicely, he thought, though he stayed hidden under an outcropping of rock, away from the light
rain and roving eyes. They would be looking for him and they would be confused, as they all were, as he had been the first
time. They would have to wait. Preparations still had to be made: the finial had to be raised, liquid nitrogen placed, and
it was crucial to maintain the illusion of normalcy now, before everything started.

They couldn’t have asked for a better storm. The lightning was strong from the recent warm front, yet without the torrential
rain that sometimes accompanied such gatherings.

Two hundred or so had come from around the Pacific. Even a few from South America. A VW bus was one thing, an airplane, quite
another. It was a bigger gathering than Portland had ever seen, and one ring would be initiated. His. Or to put it more precisely
(Viv was always telling him he needed to be more precise): Ondine, Nix, and Morgan.

The three had behaved just as he had wanted them to. Moth had watched Nix search, only to separate from Ondine and weave through
the crowd, as he was now doing, alone. Looking for him. Good. The first time would be easier to witness solo.

Morgan — he’d heard — had fallen asleep in her car and Rei, from San Francisco, had been sent out to pull her in. Done, Rei
reported, shortly before Moth found his rocky perch. He imagined he’d spot Morgan soon, wandering through the crowd, a little
dazed, a little charmed, solitary, just like Ondine.

Just to make sure the daze was permanent, Moth had dispatched Jinn, also from S.F., with some dust. Nix, he knew, would already
have had some. Usually they took it willingly; the Ring of Fire was the perfect opportunity to sample the stuff. They’d be
less suspicious then. With what they were about to find out, this was crucial.

The only one that was missing was Bleek. Moth knew the dealer had been asking around Portland about the location of the gathering,
and there was a good chance of his making his way here, however dangerous. The proximity of so many uninitiated would be enough
to outweigh the risk, but so far there had been no sighting.

If he could eliminate Bleek here, Moth thought, his problems would be solved. He hadn’t been feeling well lately — at twenty-two,
the small window of years past eighteen was closing on him, and he could feel the end coming, like air being squeezed
out of a tire. He had lost weight and shrunk from the small amounts of food he allowed himself. The constant, grinding energy
had made a mess of his teeth. He didn’t like the devilish cast they gave him, but what little he sold in dust wasn’t exactly
enough for cosmetic dentistry. He almost envied Bleek his tidy business, but reminded himself that Bleek was evil and selfish
and dark, and it was his duty to eliminate him — a task he had not yet managed to complete.

He sweat involuntarily in his small hiding place at the mere thought of passing before his time. His fate then — nothing less
than infinite cosmic pain — was enough to keep him to his given tasks.

Moth looked at the stage where the Flame played. They would be leaving soon, too. He had known a few of the members from his
own inititation a few years ago. They worked in Seattle mostly, and he thought their trick of becoming a band ingenious. Rings
sometimes played tricks before their time and this one — an anonymous, unsigned band that had risen to the top of the download
charts — had kept them in the world just long enough to cause problems. One member had died. A pet they had gotten to dance
was starting to become inured to the effects of dust and had to be chained. Some pathetic abandoned human thing.

Where had they kept her, this big, Brunhilde-esque blonde?
The Northwest was Viv’s territory and though she was good at hiding things, Newberry National Volcanic Monument wasn’t exactly
an airport Hilton.