Mauna Loa
Wearing solid black, the new inhabitant had materialized in town. The locals were leery of him. The black curly hair was slicked back, the dark eyes were cold, the attitude was - difficult. It wasn't that he went out of his way to make trouble. He just seemed to attract it like a magnet. This was not a hippy left over, living out on the land, bothering no one. No, this one was trouble, pure and simple.
The third night of his first visit, someone finally called his bluff - and discovered it wasn't a bluff. Sam behind the bar was not a stranger to the sound of breaking bones, but this was so casually indifferent. The three young studs who had challenged the newcomer were nursing broken wrists and arms within seconds of their attack. There was a satisfaction in the man's demeanor; his smile a chiseled V in his handsome face. He wasn't even breathing hard as he returned to his solitary drink, which he finished and then left.
As he vanished into the dark, Sam realized that the man had not spoken or made any sound the entire time, letting breaking bones and bodies hitting the floor speak for him. Sam shook his head. When the deputies came to inquire, he told them what he knew, nothing.
"They said he started it."
"The only thing he started was his drink. They laid hands on him, he reacted, he finished his drink and left."
"Where'd he go?"
Sam shrugged his massive shoulders. "I don't know. He walked in here a few days ago for a drink. Walked out. I figger he'll be back when he wants to be."
"We'll keep an eye out."
Two nights later Lola made her move on the new top dog. She knew she looked good in the tight black dress with its low cut décolleté and its short skirt. She was surprised when he didn't even give her a look as he walked silently past her. She let him sit for a moment, drinking his cold beer, then she changed stools to sit next to him.
"Hi. You're new around here." Her voice was low, breathy, the sort of voice to find a man's hormones and turn the tap with a rush.
He looked around at her. She felt like he'd looked into her soul with those opaque black eyes and didn't particularly care one way or the other about what he found there. Lazily, he reached over and clamped one hand on the back of her neck, pulling her toward him, irresistibly. Their mouths met, his hard and demanding, hers soft, frightened of what she'd seen in his eyes. Then he let her go and turned back to his drink. She sat and stared at him for a long moment, not quite believing that that brutal kiss was all there was of this encounter. She slid off the stool and walked back to the ladies room. If anyone heard her crying in the stall inside, no one said anything when she came out, paid for her drink and left.
The days passed, the weeks passed, and the nameless black clad stranger became a fixture. The tales started in whispers in the dark of night. He was thought to be some haole spirit come to make life difficult. He was accounted some retired covert agent who just wanted a quiet life but didn't know how to fit in, yet. He was a sinister still active agent who would soon murder all of them in their beds.
He returned Lelani's dog when it wandered off. He helped Scott and Mei get their stupid Siamese out of the tree it had decided it was trapped in. (It was universally held that Scott and Mei's parents had deliberately gotten the dumbest Siamese they could find just to have something to talk about besides their kids.) He stopped the robbery at the convenience store. Well, maybe it was just his presence, but the girl who worked the late shift thought it was more than that. He'd put the evil eye on the two men. They'd fallen all over themselves getting out of the store; she could hear it from her hiding place behind the counter.
After three months, the only thing out of place was his silence. He never spoke. Once in a while someone would surprise that hard glittering look and the manic smile on his face. But that was all. Maybe he was mute. Maybe he just had nothing to say. Not even the deputy could figure out where the man came from, or where he was living. He walked everywhere, but he disappeared with incredible ease when the young man tried to follow him. The deputy blamed the dense tropical growth in the area. His friends blamed the deputy's considerable girth. Both were partly right.
The man who had been Jonathan Raven was living a strange, spare life. He avoided people as much as possible. Yet the small town drew him. He wandered the untamed land on which his home was centered. He walked everywhere. English words made sense to him, but his tongue had no desire to speak them. He let his hair grow, but kept it slicked back. He practiced his skills, becoming more silent, more efficient, more deadly by the day. Soon, he would be ready.
Back in Honolulu, Ski was briefing his red headed friend.
"He's been missing how long?"
"Almost four months now. Not a word."
"He left the island?"
Ski shook his head. "No. I checked the airports, the heli services, the boats. Hell, if he thought I was dead and wanted to leave, why didn't he just take the boat?"
"I don't know. So, where do you want me to start?"
"He's got a place up on Mauna Loa. I've been there once. He took Lucas out there."
"Who's Lucas?"
"Kid we thought might be his son."
"Ski, could we try this in long hand?"
Ski grinned. "Jonathan's got a son he's never seen. Didn't know the woman was pregnant, ran into some trouble and had to leave Japan in haste. She died in childbirth. The kid was placed with someone to keep him safe. Eventually the letter telling him he had a kid caught up to him, but the girl was dead and the kid was missing. Been chasing leads all around the world for years. The last good ones landed us here."
"And Lucas might have been, but wasn't."
"Yeah. He's got a good home now, but he's not the right one."
"Ok, so not a lot of people know about the place."
"Right. If he needed a place to hide out, or thought he did - Dori went up right after the fire, but his jeep wasn't there. And it's not like she was dressed for checking things out."
Cal grinned at that. "City girl, huh?"
"Definitely. But sweet. Real sweet. Kinda sweet on Jonathan, too."
"OK. So, I need a map and I'll go take a look."
She checked the towns in the area. Someone should have seen him if he was there to see. He had to get supplies. Maybe someone would mention a tall, dark haired, good-looking haole in her hearing. Unfortunately, haole red heads did not seem to bring out a tendency to confide in the locals. Finally, she decided walking in from the backside was a better idea than going in by the gate. Well, maybe not the backside that seemed to consist of beach and cliff overlooking water. Still, walking in wasn't such a stretch of the imagination. She took her time and checked out the area for signs of life while looking like an innocent hiker. She was almost convinced there was no one there, when one of life's little annoyances caught her by surprise.
Sensible hiking boots are normally good for keeping ankles from suffering much damage if you find something to step on wrong. She didn't realize the shoestrings had come untied and the ankle support had loosened until she found a root where she wasn't expecting one. The snapping sound and the pain as she went to her knees and skidded about 20 feet were enough to tell her she'd done something really horrible to her right ankle. She cussed. She cussed in three different languages until the pain subsided enough to investigate the damage.
She eased the heavy sock down slightly to take a look at her ankle. It was already beginning to discolor from blood pooling in the tissues. "Oh, great, you great dunderheaded looby," she told herself. "Now how are you gonna get back to civilization?"
"How indeed?"
The silk smooth voice sent chills down her spine and tried to make her hair stand on end, at least the part on her neck. She took a breath, let it go and looked around. She didn't see an origin for the voice. It hadn't sounded like it was above her, so she didn't look up into the trees. "OK. I know pain can do funny things, but I didn't think silky, sinister voices were a part of the repertoire until much later - like when the delirium set in."
Silent, swift, scary. Good words. She found herself gazing into a pair of wide, opaque, dark eyes under winging black brows. He looked a bit thinner than his photograph. He looked more remote, much more remote. He looked down at her ankle, regarding it curiously.
"You're trespassing."
"I'm sorry. I must have missed the signs - I presume you've posted signs?" Innocent and scared.
The eyes flickered to look into her face, then back down to the ankle. Gently, he checked the damage. "You've broken a bone."
"I was wondering if I had. It - uh - hurt like hell for a minute there. Hey!" She grabbed for support as he scooped her up off the ground, backpack and all, and started waking. "Uh, wouldn't this be easier without the back pack?"
Unblinking stare for a moment. "No."
"Oh. OK." She held on and let him make the calls. Damn, Ski hadn't said anything about inhuman, had he?
Twenty minutes passed, they walked along the shore of a small lake fed by a waterfall. The place was breathtaking. A platform on stilts stood about fifty feet back from the edge of the lake in a small clearing. She noted the remains of what looked like a shattered roof. Vines trailed in tangled masses from a tree, concealing most of the structure. He set her on the edge of the platform, and then cut the hiking boot from her foot. He removed the sock without causing her too much pain, although the ankle was beginning to get a bone deep ache. He applied pressure to a nerve point and the ache backed off.
"This should hurt," he told her curtly just before he straightened out the bone for her.
She gasped at the sharp stab of pain shooting up her leg. She dug her fingers into the edge of the platform to hold on, and shook in reaction as he tightly bound her ankle to keep the bone from shifting again. She gasped for air a couple of times and managed to shove back down the rising tide of nausea.
He looked up at the waning light as he finished. "You can stay here for the night. I'll take you into town tomorrow."
"Thanks." Her voice sounded a little watery.
He helped her off with her pack, then went through it methodically, handing her the long sleeved shirt she carried.
"Not to sound ungrateful, but that is my pack you're riffling there."
Again that look to send shivers up and down the spine. "Who are you?"
"Calliope Jones. And you are?" He stared at her until she laughed. "OK, I'll admit, it's a hell of a name to be saddled with. The whole thing is Calliope Artemis Jones. Mom thought that since Jones was pretty common, the rest of the name should be uncommon. At least she'd slowed down by the time I was born. My eldest brother is saddled with Zachariah Endymion."
He blinked. The beginning of a frown started, the line of his mouth softened slightly. "Others?"
"Four. Two brothers and two sisters. You don't want to know," she ended with a laugh. "Well, if you'll hand me my pack, I'll dig out my extremely unhealthy dinner."
He looked at the pack in his hands. He'd found spare clothes, a hairbrush, the sleeping bag and an assortment of junk food. "It's not good for you."
She laughed. "I *did* say unhealthy, didn't I?"
"I'll provide." He set her pack out of reach unless she moved to get it, and walked off, disappearing into the greenery, which seemed spooky considering he was wearing nothing but black.
An hour later, dusk was falling swiftly and she going through all the breathing exercises she could remember to set up a barrier against the pain of her ankle, when he returned with a freshly cleaned fish and seaweed. He went under the platform and pulled out some other items and went to work making dinner.
Cal lay back on the smooth wood of the platform, continued setting barriers against the pain in her ankle and ignored the tears collecting in her eyes and running down the sides of her face. She needed to prop that ankle up. She suspected part of the problem was the throb of her own pulse in the damaged tissue. But moving it brought the hazard of banging it against something.
She felt his hand on her leg again. The pain diminished considerably. She sniffed. "Thanks. I forgot painkillers."
"You should have said something."
"You're busy."
Gently, he lifted her leg and propped it on a wooden block padded with grass and leaves. "Better?"
"Much. I was afraid to move. I didn't want to bump it and make it hurt more." This was half true. / Ski, the things I do to repay debts. /
"Calliope."
"Yes?"
"Where are you from?"
"Maine. Well, that's where I live now."
"Why are you here?"
She looked over at him and grinned suddenly. "I've pondered that deeply off and on over the years but I suspect you mean in Hawaii cluttering up your living space rather than the deeper question we all ask ourselves from time to time. Working vacation."
"You were working?"
She could see the suspicion in his eyes just before they went that flat opaque sharky look. "No, I was vacationing. I came to see a man about a job. I got the job. I have some time before the final product is due in. I was taking a break, if you'll pardon the expression. That will teach me to take breaks in the middle of jobs."
"Here." He handed her a broad banana leaf with something on it.
She stared at the rounds for a moment, then recognized what he'd made. "Sushi!" She looked up with a genuine smile. "I love sushi! Wasabe? Please say you have wasabe."
His unreadable look softened at her enthusiasm. He brought his own dinner over; along with some of the traditional green Japanese horseradish mustard she wanted. He handed her a pair of hand made chopsticks. She latched onto them and began eating. Her enjoyment of the food was evident.
"Wow! *That* is the best sushi I've had in ages. Tell me you own your own restaurant and just moonlight as the rescue knight of the tropics."
"I don't own a restaurant."
"Awwww - well, maybe just as well. I can think of at least two Japanese chefs who'd probably want to shoot me if I told them there was a better place to eat."
When they finished eating, he cleared up, stored what he had not used and carefully assisted her over to the water so she could wash her face, her hands and relieve herself without worrying about hurting her ankle again. If he found her stoic acceptance of his help surprising, it didn't show in his face. He carried her back to the platform, rolled out her sleeping bag and helped her into it. He did whatever it was he did to the nerve bundle in her leg that short-circuited the pain signals and bid her a good night.
Cal figured she might as well sleep.