“No one even knows yet. It’ll be ages before anyone figures out what just happened.”
Both Alex and Paul shot me looks and shook their heads. “She’s so young still,” Paul said.
“It’s part of her charm,” Alex agreed.
“Oh, bite me,” I said.
“With pleasure,” they said in unison.
We were almost at the porch. The thing rose, large and hump-backed. I inhaled deeply, trying to recognize the scent, but the night air was too full of us. I was surrounded by a miasma of our own pheromones, sexual and fear based, and of our own blood and sweat and tears.
“Messenger,” the thing said, and I finally recognized the voice. “Where the hell’s my flute?”
Alex turned to look at me as if I’d lost my mind. “What in blazes are you doing with Kokopelli’s flute?”
“Returning it.” I held up my hands in protest. “An imp stole it. Meredith helped me get it back.”
Understanding dawned on Alex’s face.
Ted and Norah came up behind us. “Everything okay here?” Ted asked in his cop voice, which almost made me want to giggle.
“Fine,” Alex said. “But if I were you, I’d double-glove tonight.”
I smacked him and hurt my hand. “Shut up.”
Kokopelli looked back and forth between all of us. “No wonder you were confused when I said you were in love, little one. You’re not in love with just one, are you? You’re in love with them all.”
Ben started chanting something about me sitting in a tree.
I stomped up the staircase and opened the door. “Come get your stupid flute and leave me alone.”
25
I STOOD IN THE EARLY MORNING SUNLIGHT AND RUBBED MY arms against the chill of the breaking dawn. Ted put his arm around me and pulled me close. I tucked my head against his chest, partly for warmth and partly to hide the tears that had started to stream down my face.
I had wanted to do this today. I had wanted to get it over with. I wanted to put as much of what had happened behind me as I could.
Yesterday we had held a memorial service for Mae. There wouldn’t be a funeral or a burial. Mae had left very specific instructions, so she’d been cremated and her remains were off to Florida to help create a new coral reef. We’d opened the dojo and invited in the community for a celebration of Mae’s life. I’d expected our students and their parents and other teachers in the community.
I’d underestimated the number of lives that Mae had touched. Business owners from the rest of the strip mall had come. People from a homeless shelter where she volunteered stopped in. My own parents came to pay their respects.
The hardest of all, though, was Frank Liu, still bandaged and hobbling. My first instinct when I’d seen him come in the door was to run out the back. How could I face him? I’d actually turned to look for an escape route, but Ted had been standing behind me.
“Do you want me to go with you to talk to him?” he had asked.
Feeling like a transparent fool, I’d shaken my head and walked over to Liu.
“Mr. Liu, I am so terribly sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. It was terribly inadequate, but it was all I had.
“Child, why are you sorry? You saved us all.”
My gaze had dropped to the bandaged stump where his hand used to be. “Not soon enough and at a rather high cost to other people.”
He put his good hand on my shoulder. “You did not put the evil in those men’s souls. Now let’s go remember Mae. Did you know she never mastered the Snake Creeps Down position?”
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to remember his kindness without crying.
Yesterday had truly been about life, about Mae’s life and about all she’d done and made with it.
Today, however, was about death. Today, Ted and I were disposing of the
kiang shi.
We’d taken them out into the Sierras and hacked their bodies into tiny pieces, and now we were burning them.
I figured I could say that it was the smoke from the fire making my eyes water if Ted asked. He wouldn’t ask, though. He knew better. We’d known each other for less than two weeks, yet he already knew better.
Instead, he kissed the top of my head. “It’s the right thing to do,” he murmured against my hair.
I lifted my head to look at where the remains of the
kiang shi
were turning to dust in the fire and sunshine. “I know. It’s not fair, though. They didn’t have a choice. Someone else’s evil made them into what they were, and someone else’s evil made them into a threat now.”
“I know. My dad didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t his fault either. That didn’t change anything. He still destroyed everything in his path.”
I kissed his chin. “I’m sorry.”
He smoothed my hair back from my forehead. “Don’t be. I am what I am because of him in some ways. I do have a choice. So do you. We’re lucky.”
I had thought of myself as many things over the years, lucky wasn’t ever one of them until now. “You’re right. I am lucky. I do get to choose. And you know what? I choose you.”
He pulled me around so we were facing each other, our bodies touching. His warmth soaked into me as I held him tight. “Back atcha, sweetheart. Back atcha.”
Then he lowered his head and kissed me.
