Trifecta (91 page)

Nakamura was frantic.  There was no heart beat.  He had
only four minutes until brain damage would start.  He didn't know he was muttering,
"Beat, damn it, beat.  Please start again," over and over.  He did break
a rib.  He knew when it happened, groaned, and kept up the heart massage.  He listened
again and heard what he though was an erratic double beat.  Then he was too busy
to listen and he had Michelle checking Heather's carotid artery.

"It's started.  Oh, thank God.  Her heart's beating,"
Michelle said after what seemed like an eternity.

Heather was taking some deep gasping breaths.  She remained
unconscious.  She started thrashing and groaning.

"Run to Henry's.  Hurry.  Call an ambulance.  I have
to stay with her." 

Michelle took off at breakneck speed down the beach.

Peripherally he had been aware of running feet around him. 
Some of the witches and onlookers had panicked and were rushing away.  But some
were very calmly throwing sand over the hissing boulders around the black cauldron. 
The tent was fastidiously being taken down. 

"Don't take away my light," Nakamura yelled at
the giant who was putting out the torches, but he just kept dousing them with a
little tin tent-like object which fit over the flames.

"You fucker.  I need the light," Nakamura screamed
at the enormous man, but he didn't hear, or wouldn't do what Nakamura asked.

Nakamura looked around for help.  Omar was directing some
people around the chubby man who had been sitting outside the circle.  The man seemed
to be unconscious.  As Nakamura watched, the red haired witch forcefully rolled
the man on his back and pried his mouth open.  Another woman was pouring liquid
down his throat.  The pudgy guy sputtered and choked, swallowing spasmodically. 
The remaining liquid they poured all over him.  Nakamura heard the man coughing
as he held Heather, trying to sooth the thrashing, whispering in her ear, over and
over, that she would be fine. 

When Nakamura looked up again, the short chubby man who
had liquid poured down his throat was quiet, lying where they had left him.  The
beach had been deserted in minutes.

Michelle was running in the rain faster than she
had ever gone in her life.  She was running for Heather, and she was running away
from the sudden memory that had overtaken her when she saw Omar and the giant, Samson
Stoker, together in the magic circle. 

She didn't feel her breath gasping or her heart beating
frantically as she pelted the mile through the rain to Henry's.  She was crying. 
This was all her fault.  Tears streaked her face.  She should never have brought
Heather.  It was stupid and dangerous.  She shouldn't have revealed their position. 
It was all her fault and Heather might die because of her stupidity.  She had seen
the horrible burned skin from the lightening bolt as Nakamura had worked on Heather. 
The flesh was blackened around the outside, in a big circle.  Inside it looked like
the skin was peeled off.  Michelle bit her lip and flew down the beach.

W
hat a fucking fiasco, Omar thought tiredly as
he entered his condominium, mentally going over the events of the night.  It was
almost 3:00 a.m. and he was exhausted.  He went directly to the kitchen with a package
that Samson had given him and put it in the refrigerator.  He whistled for Lucifer,
but the cat did not respond.  Omar cursed, he would have to crawl under the bed
and get him.  Damned cat.  He hadn't been able to feed Lucifer this evening, after
all.  Lucifer had refused the frozen food and Omar had not had time for fiddling
around, what with setting up the ceremony in the new location and dealing with the
cops who had confiscated Lucifer's food.  Now Omar was thinking that to top of it
all, he might have made an annoying error concerning Ginger.

 It was just lucky that they all had been able to escape
before the police and ambulances had arrived on the beach. 

Samson was driving the van back to the storage facilities
near the Honolulu Airport where Omar hid all the large paraphernalia necessary for
the rituals on the beach; the tent and the items that went inside, the gas burning
stakes.  It looked like they might lose the black cauldron.  It was too hot to remove
from the beach and so heavy that even Samson usually rolled it to the site.  But
that kettle had been with him for years and Omar felt a gut-wrenching melancholy
at the thought of losing it.  Samson would return to the beach later and haul it
away if it was safe.  The police might still be there, late into the night.  He
had told Samson to stay up all night, if necessary, to try to retrieve it.

He had to admit he was a little depressed about the new
development.  Michelle remembered him.  It was almost inexplicable.  It made his
future plans for her much more complicated. 

Omar stripped off his clothing, donned a silk nightshirt
and robe, lighting candles in the bedroom and padded barefoot into the kitchen. 

He removed the package from the refrigerator and put the
contents in a bowl.  He left the organs intact because he knew Lucifer liked to
work for his food; to tear, rend, and rip with teeth and claws before eating it.

Omar pulled Lucifer out from under the bed by the scruff
of his neck.  Michelle had spoiled the cat, coddling him, petting him and making
him tame.  It was obvious by the way the little animal tried to lick his chin and
patted his face.  Women.  You really couldn't trust them.  Not ever.  She had no
idea the discipline a cat like this required.  He was the smartest of a line Omar
had been breeding for years.  Now look at him.  His hair had obviously been combed
and he wanted to, Omar searched with revulsion for the right word.  Cuddle, he thought
with distaste.

Omar put the bowl on the floor.  He placed Lucifer next
to it.  The cat sniffed with disinterest, twitched the end of his tail in repugnance
and backed away, spitting and growling. 

"This is special, Lucifer.  You must eat it."

The cat looked up at him and meowed sadly.  Lucifer was
asking for something else in his own feline way.

"I don't believe it," Omar muttered under his
breath.  He spoke louder for the cat.  "Exceptional food, Lucifer.  Just for
you.  A great sacrifice was made."

The cat kneaded his paws, blue eyes staring.

"Go ahead, eat it.  It's Ginger."

"Y
ou can't go home," Nakamura said.

It was almost six in the morning.  They were standing in
the hospital corridor outside Heather's room.  The distinctive smell of rubbing
alcohol and pine disinfectant seeped down the hallway.  Michelle had been holding
back tears for so long she was exhausted. 

She just nodded and followed him outside.  The sun surprised
her, already warming the day.  She didn't want to see the light.  It shouldn't be
shining on this horrible day.  It hurt her reddened eyes.  She felt like she was
sleepwalking to her car. 

Nakamura looked exhausted himself as he took the keys from
her hand and unlocked the door to the passenger side.  He could drive.  She didn't
care.  She felt such a heavy burden of guilt she didn't think she would ever straighten
her shoulders again.

Nakamura took off at a sedate pace for him, through the
Honolulu General Hospital guest parking area and out of the hospital grounds.  He
continued on into Waikiki.  Neither spoke, each caught up in thoughts of the sight
of Heather in a large hospital bed, comatose.

"I'll get you a room."

Michelle looked around and noticed he had parked at the
Sheraton Hotel, where he was staying.

She shook her head, "I want to go home."

"You can't."

"But I want to."

"I know.  We'll both go.  Later.  You need some rest." 
He got out of the car.

Michelle was not moving.  She felt too tired to make her
rubbery legs work.  Nakamura was on her side of the car and he took her hand and
pulled her out.

"I want the room next to yours," Michelle said. 
She knew she sounded childlike and demanding but didn't care.

She sat in a soft green club chair in the lobby while Nakamura
made arrangements at the front desk. 

Heather would be fine.  She kept telling herself that. 
But Heather was still unconscious.  This was not unusual in a case of electrocution,
when it didn't result in death.  A brain scan had shown unusual activity, though,
whatever that meant.  Thousands of volts of electricity had gone right through Heather's
body, practically burning a hole through her.  Heather had been seen by burn specialists,
neurologists and internists.  Specialists of every sort.  All they could say for
sure was that they didn't know how serious the damage she sustained was, at this
point.  The physicians had nodded sagely and pronounced Heather lucky to be alive.

Nakamura led Michelle to the lobby elevators and produced
a key for a room on the twentieth floor.  He opened the door and let her in.  Wide
windows facing south overlooked Waikiki Beach.  Michelle walked over and gazed outside
blindly, not really seeing the sparkling ocean and the beach, clean and almost devoid
of tourists at this early hour.  Diamond Head was to the left.  It looked huge,
like in the photographs, but Michelle had hiked to the top many times for the view
and the mammoth appearing mountain really wasn't very tall or even very steep. 
She could see all two and one-half miles of Waikiki, from Diamond Head to the Ali
Wai Yacht Harbor.  Sail boats were already dotting the ocean and she wished she
was on one of them.  Anywhere her mind would be absent.

Nakamura had gone into the room next door, through an adjoining
door.  He left it open and she wandered over and looked inside.  He was letting
bellhops into the room with suitcases.  She was confused, then realized he had moved
his own room so he could be next to her.

As he was opening a suitcase she wandered into his room. 

"I ordered breakfast and some coffee.  You really
ought to get some sleep," Nakamura said.

He was closing his suitcases and hanging up some things. 
She sat on the edge of his bed.

"I don't have anything to wear."  Michelle looked
down with distaste at the wilted sundress.  She didn't want to sleep in it.  It
was filthy.

Nakamura reopened a suitcase, rummaged around and then
handed her a large silk button down shirt with garish red parrots on a green jungle
background.  "Don't get too attached.  It's one of my favorites."

Michelle almost smiled.  She took the shirt into her room
and closed the door.  She took a fast shower and combed her hair.  She really liked
the silly shirt.

When she went back into Nakamura's room he was ladling
scrambled eggs on two plates.  He added bacon and toast.  She watched him perform
the duties.  Pouring coffee and orange juice.  He finally looked up.

"God dammit," Nakamura said angrily.

"What's wrong?"

"You'll have to keep the damned shirt.  You look much
better in it than I do.  It was my favorite, too."  He sounded upset.

Michelle caught herself smiling and stopped.  "You're
too smart for your own good.  And you just lost your shirt."

"Knew it was a mistake, the moment I gave it to you,"
he muttered shaking his head, loud enough for her to hear, thinking he had lost
much more than a shirt.  "Hell.  Lets eat."

He saw Michelle looking down at her plate with distaste
as she sat down.  "Maybe a little coffee."

"Try to eat.  It'll turn your mind off.  Make you
sleepy."

Michelle sipped her coffee. 

Nakamura was quickly eating his breakfast, not looking
at her.

"Styrofoam," Michelle said, after a while, slowly
chewing the scrambled eggs. "Cardboard."  She took a sip of coffee and
said, "Battery acid."  She held up a piece of toast, bit off a huge corner. 
"Wood shingles."

"Watch out for splinters," Nakamura answered,
nodding unhappily.  She sounded so sad.

Michelle took a bite of bacon.  "Crispy critters." 

Then she was crying, large tears dropping out of her eyes. 
"I didn't mean that," she whispered.  She got up and ran into her own
room.

Nakamura sighed deeply.  Heather had been placed in a burn
ward where the macabre name for the patients, among the doctors and nurses, was
'Crispy Critters.'  He walked to the adjoining door, waited for a minute and then
knocked.

"Come in."  She was sitting on the couch, legs
folded under her, holding a Kleenex and dabbing her eyes.  "I'm really sorry. 
You're being so nice.  I have to apologize."

"No, you don't.  But you do have to stop feeling responsible. 
You didn't do anything wrong.  And I want to talk to you about that.  Because I
saw something last night I really don't understand."

"The way he pointed the sword," Michelle said,
blinking tears out of her eyes.

"Exactly."  Nakamura went across the room and
sat down on the couch beside her.

Michelle turned sideways to face him.  "Omar's supposed
to be a warlock.  The male equivalent of a witch.  But they don't have real supernatural
powers.  And that's what it looked like to me.  Suzanne called him a Necromancer."

"One who converses with the dead," Nakamura said.

Michelle nodded.  "I had to look it up in a dictionary."

"Maybe he conjures up dead spirits or something. 
I have trouble believing in that sort of thing.  There are all kinds of legends
about sorcerers.  But the way he used that sword gives me chills."

"I know."

"You really surprised me.  Running toward the circle. 
You seemed angry at Omar."  He paused for a moment.  "Do you mind telling
me why?"

"Pure stupidity."

"You had a reason," Nakamura persisted.

"I remembered something I must have repressed for
years when I saw the big man, Samson Stoker, raping the girl in the circle."

"You have to put that out of your mind.  It was...
repulsive."

"No.  I kept dreaming about it.  I repressed it for
too long."

Nakamura shook his head.  "You've lost me."

"He was in the hotel room in Las Vegas."

"You mean Omar's the one who raped you?  Or the giant?" 
Nakamura was staring at her, his eyes concerned.

"No.  Not Omar.  It was Samson Stoker.  I knew it,
finally, when I saw them together.  The thing I didn't remember was that Omar was
there too, in the room while it was happening."

"You're sure?"

"I know it sounds fantastic.  It all clicked into
place while I was watching them in the magic circle."

"But why harm Heather?"

"I don't know."  She didn't want to tell him
she thought it was to hurt her personally.  It sounded paranoid and egocentric. 
But it's exactly what she thought.

"We have no proof, damn it," Nakamura said. 
"I can just imagine what the police would say if we told them Omar pointed
a sword, causing a lightening bolt to come directly out of the sky and strike Heather. 
Or that he had his giant rape you in Las Vegas.  Can't get them for performing their
religion, it's unconstitutional."

"Can get them for nakedness on the beach," Michelle
said tartly.  "There are laws against that.  And public drunkenness.  Public
fornication."

"Too paltry.  They'd just move their activities inside
and keep on hurting people.  I hate to say it, but there's a good possibility he
killed the woman living in your building."

"Yes."  Michelle nodded seriously.  "Probably
did.  I have the awful feeling it was her organs that he gave me to feed Lucifer."

"Oh, no."  Nakamura looked repelled.

"Where does he get them?"

Nakamura just shook his head and got up.  He closed the
drapes to dim room.  Then he went into his room and came back with a glass of orange
juice and a bottle of pills.

He handed Michelle the glass and poured two yellow pills
into his hand.  "Valium.  Not very strong.  You're too tired to sleep, too
hyped."

He swallowed one pill with a gulp of orange juice and gave
the glass and the other pill to her.  She took it.  She wasn't supposed to take
sedatives.  It was one of the rules when you were an alcoholic.  One little guilt
on top of a gigantic one seemed like nothing.

Nakamura stood up.  "I'm going to bed for a few hours."

Michelle didn't move.

"You should too."

"I'm not sleepy yet."  She turned to stare out
the window.

He sat back down.  "Want to talk?"

Michelle nodded.  She didn't say anything for a long time. 
"There was always something so awful that I remembered in the corner of that
hotel room in Las Vegas.  The corner near the door, in the darkness.  It was so
frightening, I couldn't look.  But I did in my dreams, and then I would wake up
screaming or crying.  I had repressed the fact that Omar was there."

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Yes.  I remembered something else, too.  He was hidden
behind the door when the bellhop came in, after the rape.  But when the bellhop
left he came over and talked to me."

"You remember that?"

Michelle nodded.

"Can you tell me?"

She didn't say anything.

"If you can't, it's all right."

"You'll think I'm stupid.  Or hysterical.  This sudden,
amazing recall."

"I've been reading your reports for years in Tokyo. 
I know you aren't stupid."

"Just a little hysterical."

Nakamura smiled and shook his head.

"Omar knelt beside me, leaning down and whispering
in my ear.  He said I wouldn't remember him.  But that he would come back for me
one day.  He said I had been cleansed by the sword.  Then there would be tests by
fire and water, to make me ultimate Priestess.  I think he hypnotized me.  So I
would forget.  So I couldn't anticipate what was to happen later.  And I really
didn't remember Omar until last night.  But it was like a strobe light flashing
pictures tonight.  I looked at him and Samson Stoker, both in the witch's circle,
and I could see that hotel room.  It was like I was suddenly transported there physically. 
I could feel his breath on my face as he leaned down.  Then I looked again and saw
them in the circle.  Then it was the room in Las Vegas.  It became so clear, suddenly,
what had happened."

Michelle looked at Nakamura to see if he believed her. 
He was looking with intent, exhausted concentration in her face.

Michelle sighed and slipped into the corner of the couch. 
The drug was taking effect and she was rapidly becoming sleepy. Nakamura turned
her around so that her back was leaning against him, his arm draped in front, around
her neck and shoulders.  It was okay.  In fact she felt calmed and it was easier
to recall when she felt protected, being held like this.

"I always believed the rapist would come back.  I
was so scared, I moved to Hawaii."

Nakamura was nodding, she could feel it against her hair.
"Harming Heather was his way of making you more vulnerable," he said. 
"But I wonder what he meant when he said that after the sword there would be
tests by fire and water."

"The sword almost killed me.  I don't want to find
out about tests with fire and water."

"Sounds like a threat."

"I think he does have strange powers,"
Michelle said sleepily.  "Every time he touched me, I would get electrical
shocks.  Small lightening bolts down my arms."

She felt herself almost going to sleep.  "I thought
he was nice.  I tried to let him seduce me.  It was time.  But I couldn't, in the
end.  Something stopped me...his eyes."

Nakamura could feel Michelle relax when she went to sleep
as he sat there.  He knew Michelle was afraid of men.  It had been obvious from
the very first day he met her.  So she had thought it was time, finally, for a physical
relationship and had picked the worse man possible.  Omar.  He held on a little
tighter, feeling protective.  It was nice.

He felt himself drifting and shook himself.  He had almost
fallen asleep.  Here he was with a new employee.  In a hotel room.  Hugging her. 
He wondered if he could slip off the couch without waking her up and decided it
would be impossible.  She was a big girl and he didn't think he could carry her
to the bed very easily.  And she would definitely wake up if he did that.  He looked
down at the head resting on his shoulder.  Her cheek was tan and soft and looked
inviting.  He felt a compulsion to kiss the skin.