Sins of the Flesh (Half-Breed Series Book 2) (9 page)

“Bless you.” I drained the rest of my cup, shaking the drops out onto the damp pavement before uncapping the thermos. Kai waited for me to pour and seal it back up, since the stiff suspension in the Jeep would have resulted in more coffee on my clothes than in my cup if she’d driven on.

“Good?”

I took a sip. Holy shit, this was some amazing coffee — thick and rich with a complexity the hotel crap lacked. “More than good.”

She grinned, pulling the Jeep around into the street. “We’re the only state in the U.S. that has the proper temperature and soil to grow coffee. Great quality, fresh roasted and ground makes all the difference.”

It did. I was in heaven. Even Irix, who was usually more of a tea kind of guy, had a cup. We motored along quiet in the dark of early morning, the only sound the rumble of the Jeep, and the occasional slurping of beverage. Beyond the areas lit by streetlight, nothing looked the same. Silent houses, fields of unidentifiable shadowy bushes and trees, mountains a deeper black against the dark sky — everything was shadowed and silent.

“Is your brother working today?” I asked, realizing this would be a long day for him after helping with last night’s beach fire.

“Yep. He works thirty-six-hour shifts, and they sleep in the station when they can.” Kai laughed. “Usually there’s a lot of sleeping and not much firefighting. That’s a good thing.”

It was. “Makani and Enakai. So you’re native Hawaiian?”

Kai shot me a mischievous glance. “Our mother is Japanese but considers herself Hawaiian in her soul. All four of her kids have traditional names.”

I laughed. “Good for her. Home is where your heart is.”

“Well, my mother’s heart is clearly in Maui, along with my father’s.”

I took another sip of the heavenly coffee. “Is your father native Hawaiian?”

Kai negotiated a tight turn. “Mostly. He denies it, but there’s clearly some European blood in our veins. Either way, I don’t make the fifty percent cut for special benefits.” She shrugged. “I’ll admit the free land would be sweet, but it’s no biggie.”

I looked over the door’s edge, down the steep rocky cliff to the surf below, imagining Kai’s childhood full of love and freedom.

“What about you?”

I shook my head. “Huh?”

“You. What are your parents like?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Should I tell her of my human mother who loved me but was always perplexed by my odd influence over others? Of my human father that I’d killed when I was only five years old with a bolt of lightning? Or should I tell her of the elven mother I’d never met that was executed for protecting me, and the succubus sire that seemed to be my protector from afar?

I went with the humans, feeling oddly guilty over my split-second decision. “My dad died when I was pretty young. My mom is awesome, although she doesn’t really understand me.”

Kai’s laughter rang out over the noise of the open-air Jeep. “Oh, tell me about it. Mom thinks she’s Hawaiian, but she’s got this traditional Japanese streak that makes me want to throw a bento box at her head. And, let’s face it, I might be a proud Hawaiian, but I’m listening to Drake and Lil Wayne and wearing blue jeans.”

We weren’t so different. I shared a warm smile with Kai.

“What about you, Irix?”

I glanced back at my demon. He’d had a rather sappy expression as Kai and I chatted but stiffened at her question. I knew how demons raised their children — they didn’t. There was a sire that contributed genetic material, and another that compiled the appropriate mixture with their own. After that, the barely formed demon was shipped off to a Dwarven establishment that acted as pseudo parents to hundreds of demon infants at a time. In a good year, thirty percent survived infancy. Yes, they were that violent.

“I grew up in a sort of foster care facility,” Irix said hesitantly. “My... foster parents were well suited for raising the sort of individuals they received.”

Kai’s eyes widened, and she looked at the rearview mirror to see Irix. I could feel her sympathy, and it mirrored my own. I twisted around to reach back and grab Irix’s hand. He’d survived, but at what cost? How brutal had his childhood been? My heart went out to him, and I swore our children wouldn’t ever go through that.

Wait. Our children? Oh, for fuck sake, what put that into my head?

“You turned out okay.” My heart, all my love was in the look I sent Irix. “They did alright, or you did alright in spite of them. Either way, you’re perfect.”

Kai raised an eyebrow at me. “Around the next bend is where we’ll park.”

There was light in the distance, flaring up into a bright red and orange glow.

“Here we go.” Kai pulled over, the headlights illuminating the tall green cane on either side of the road. The fire looked to be about a quarter mile away.

We all got out. The aroma of burned sugar and wax filled my nose, and the faint haze watered my eyes. I blinked to clear them.

“The sugar company burns roughly forty acres each day during the harvest season. According to Makani, they check the fire and weather forecasts the night before as well as haze, pollution and smoke indices, and file a burn plan with the local agencies.”

“How do the locals feel about the cane burnings?” I was fascinated by environmental policy.

Kai smiled, running a hand over the thick stalk of a tall sugarcane at the edge of the field. “We all hate it. Even if you’re five miles away and don’t leave the house until ten, you’ll still be coughing and tearing up. What’s the alternative, though? If they shut down and sell the fields, we’ll have eight hundred people out of jobs and developers throwing huge discount stores and high-rises all over central Maui.”

“The devil you know,” Irix commented.

He was right. Personally, I would far rather see thousands of acres of cane and put up with the inconvenience of the burning fields than see thousands of acres black-topped over. But this was not my home. It was up to the people here to be the stewards of their land.

The delicate balance between human and environmental needs in New Orleans had been the same. My mind detoured abruptly, thinking of my friends there, Jordan’s proposal, and the vineyard internship I’d applied to. Thankfully, that decision was months ahead of me. And it was a huge long shot that I’d get that position at DiMarche.

Kai’s phone beeped, and she looked down at it. Her body stiffened as she read the text. “Oh my God. It’s Makani. There’s an emergency.” She looked at Irix and me, her face pale. “Somehow the fire jumped a break on the south side and is in a residential area —
my
residential area. He wants us to get out of here in case something happens in this direction.”

On cue, the sound of distant sirens filled the air. I caught my breath. “Is everyone okay?”

“I don’t know. My roommate is still home — she works nights. There are lots of retired people in the neighborhood, people with hearing aids and limited mobility. I don’t know how bad it is, how far the fire has spread into the neighborhood. I don’t know.”

Kai twisted her hands together, indecision lining her face.

There was one of those awkward silences, then Irix gestured toward the car. “Let’s go check it out. If there’s an issue, Amber can do an insta-forest, and I’ll blow stuff up.”

Kai gave us an odd look. “Okay.”

She was in the Jeep, the key in the ignition before I’d even put one foot inside. “They might have the area blocked off, but I just want to make sure, to check that everyone’s okay. How could this happen? The field fires have never jumped a break. Ever.”

Kai left the dirt road for a gravel one, the cane only on one side of the road as she headed toward the orange glow. Clusters of small houses dotted the other side, separated by long patches of brush-filled land and small farms. A light covering of ash speckled the road as we drew nearer. Gray lumps of ash dotted cars sitting in driveways, window air conditioners humming away on the filthy houses.

We stopped abruptly in front of a roadblock. Two soot-covered workers had angled their pickup across the road. One came to Kai’s door and leaned in, his face creased in worry.

“Fire’s jumped the break, ma’am. We’re supposed to keep everyone away until the police get here.”

I had to hand it to this company; they sure kept their cool and acted fast in a crisis.

“But I live there,” Kai pleaded. “My roommate’s still asleep. I need to get through.”

“Fire and Rescue is going door to door and clearing the houses. We have to make sure no one goes in there until they say it’s safe.”

Irix leaned between our seats and met the man’s eyes. “I’m sure you could make an exception for us.”

Pheromones curled thick and sweet through the air. I leaned against him and breathed in Irix’s rum, chocolate, male scent, wanting nothing more than to feel his arms around me and hear the murmur of his voice against my hair. Kai and the worker both wore an expression that I’m sure mirrored the one on my face.

“Please?” Kai’s voice was husky, and I suddenly envisioned her saying that word under very different circumstances.

“Yes.” The worker stared intently at Irix, his hand on the door trembling. “You can go in.”

We drove on, and I took a deep, cleansing breath as Irix dialed the seduction back considerably. I could have done that too, only it would have taken me longer, and my chances of failure would have been higher. He was good, really good. If Irix wanted something, he got it. When that demon turned on the charm, nobody denied him anything. This little demonstration made it clear to me how outclassed I really was compared to him — heck, compared to just about every other demon. He’d given me a considerable bump in energy last night to replace what I’d used creating the bamboo grove, but he was right; I needed to take better care of myself. I needed to make sure I was always at one-hundred percent, because without that, my chances of surviving any kind of confrontation would be nil. Compared to everyone else in the supernatural world, I just wasn’t that good — yet.

Sneaking a quick glance toward the rear seat, I snaked my hand back and grabbed Irix’s. He could be doing anything right now—sleeping in, having wake-up sex, eating eggs and bacon. Yeah, he loved me, but even with that, I had no idea why he was humoring me in all this. Maybe our argument last night had changed his mind. Maybe I needed to make sure I was holding up my end of the bargain instead of just paying lip service to the compromises that were the only thing that would make this relationship between us work.

“Thank you for coming with us this morning,” I told him as softly as I could while still speaking loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the Jeep.

He flashed me a quick grin. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Trouble seems to follow you around, elf-girl. And I do love trouble.”

Demons. “Just trouble?” I teased.

“No, I also love making sure you aren’t getting into trouble without me.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back around, hiding my smile. My demon. How I’d missed him.

We pulled up to a line of trucks and cars blurred in dark smoke. The blaze behind them was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It marched forward, consuming everything in its path, leaving small residual flames behind to lick at the ground for scraps. The sugar company’s tanker trucks frantically sprayed nearby houses while an official fire truck battled the blaze.

“Kai!” A tall blond woman ran up, practically tackling Kai as she climbed from the Jeep. “They got the Malones out, and Mr. Lee is already at work, but... their houses.”

The two houses being sprayed showed signs of more than ash. In spite of the worker’s efforts, the roof shingles were beginning to curl, the formerly white paint dark and blistered on the sides facing the flames. On the closest one, the wet deck still smoked, portions beginning to blacken.

Kai gasped. I looked over and stared.

The fire. It was like Malakani had described last night. A tall column of flame that moved en masse through the brush, instantly consuming everything it touched. The smaller fires moved aside, reverentially clearing a path for the huge blaze. The fire fighters turned their hoses on the base to no avail. My skin tingled. The hair on my arms rose, and a chill ran through me as I felt a touch of energy unlike what I had ever felt before.

“Holy shit.” I hopped from the Jeep. “Is that... could that be a
demon
?” I asked Irix.

The incubus jumped out and edged slightly in front of me. “No. It’s some kind of fire being.”

Well, that was enlightening. “As in sentient living fire?” What else was walking around that I was unaware of? “Are these fire beings commonplace?”

Irix kept a close eye on the tall flame, nudging me over with his shoulder. “Not here. Like demons, they live in another realm.”

“And come through the gates?” I was flabbergasted at the thought of a living inferno suddenly appearing in the middle of Columbia Mall through the angel-gate.

“No, although I guess one might fall through a wild, naturally occurring rift. The only time I’ve seen one before was when it was summoned, and then it was contained within the magic-user’s circle. It was pissed, but under at least a moderate amount of control.”

Irix’s shoulder shoved me backward as he stepped in front of me. I just had enough time to see the flame dart across the wide driveway and attach itself to the side of Mr. Lee’s wet house. The firefighters yelled, everyone redoubling efforts to save the home. Another siren started in the distance, and I backed up.

This fire being was most definitely
not
under control. Had it found a flaw in the containment circle, killed the one who summoned it, and gone on a rampage? The only person I knew who had experience and knowledge of ceremonial magic was Kristin, and she was in New Orleans — four-thousand miles and a six-hour time difference away.

“How do we stop it?” The water seemed to be having minimal effect, and I doubted a bamboo forest would help either. Irix could blow it up, but an explosion of that size would not only take out a square block of houses and kill several firefighters, but it would also most definitely be big enough to bring an angel down upon our heads.