Howli or Hawaiian, anyone who lived in Hawi more than a month knew one thing: Boars kill people. They’ll gore you to death. Slice open the arteries in your legs with six-inch tusks sharper than machetes, and your blood will drop out of you in seconds. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll just trample you right up.
Demons kill to eat you. Boar just kill because you’re a threat, in their territory. I don’t know which is better, but either way, you’re dead.
“I was stunned, frozen,” Grant told me, stretching out his bad leg, rubbing the part where the bone had never healed right. “And then all I felt was cold fear.”
“Well, you survived the encounter,” I said to him.
“I had power. I sang the boar away. Took me a long time to get the strength in my legs to walk back home. But on the way out of the bush, I ran into this kid from my class. The one who was always asking me when I was going to leave, and you know what he had on him? A machete. He saw my fear, and he just laughed. Don’t worry, white boy, he said. This is for a real pig.”
“And then he asked me the one thing I’d been wanting someone to ask me the whole time I’d been in Hawaii. He asked me if I wanted to join him. You want to help? he said. I didn’t say anything. I just kept walking.”
Grant shook his head. “He was a nothing kid, skinny, but there he was with a little knife actually looking for a boar.”
“You admired him.”
“No, I hated him. But he had the courage. He had a need and determination, and nothing else. I had power inside me, but he was the one who went in. Me, I ran.”
“Grant,” I said.
“I’ll never run again,” he told me.
THEY were all gone—Grant, Jack. Even the Shurik. Mary alone slept on the couch, and seeing her was such a relief I could have wept. I almost woke her, but I couldn’t imagine she’d let Grant out of her sight without putting up a fight.
It was hard to walk. I had to bend over from the pain, and even the air against my skin was agony. The boys were pulling, pulling, struggling to wake, and if I didn’t fly apart into a million pieces, it would be a miracle.
I searched the house. I called Grant’s cell phone. Calm, I told myself. It’s nothing. He’s close and safe. If there had been a struggle, you would have woken up.
But I had a bad feeling. From the moment I’d opened my eyes.
The house was so quiet, and in that silence it no longer felt like a home. I felt like a stranger trespassing on emptiness, invading all the hollow spaces that should have comforted me, but now only looked alien and strange.
When I finally passed through the open front door, back out to the porch, I found life: the Messenger, and at her side, Lord Ha’an. He looked thinner, and his silver braids lacked some of their usual luster. His eyes held the story, though: grim and tired, and full of barely contained grief, and rage. Looking at him, looking into his eyes, frightened me almost as much as my missing husband.
“Where is he?” I asked, noting with dread that the crystal skull was gone as well.
“He left,” she said. “With the Wolf.”
“He left,” I echoed, voice breaking from pain—and fear.
But as soon as I said those words, I knew. I could see it all, the crazy obscene logic. I wanted to kill my grandfather. And kick my husband in the nuts.
The Messenger hesitated. Lord Ha’an glanced at her. “It is my understanding that your consort forced the Aetar to lead him to what will cure our people.”
I stared at them. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“He took the Yorana and Shurik with him,” added Lord Ha’an, with an edge to his voice. “The bonds were heavy upon them all.”
“He took down the wall,” I said.
“He is their true lord now.” But he sounded uneasy. I should have been relieved that Grant had finally accepted their strength, but all I felt was a sick foreboding.
I looked at the Messenger. “You didn’t wake me.”
“The beast cannot be freed,” she said, without a hint of remorse. “And though he is no god, I believe in the visions and power of the Divine Lords. If the Wolf saw that you would release the beast, then you cannot be allowed to venture near his cage. The Lightbringer is the more prudent alternative.”
“He’s dying,” I almost pleaded.
“And so he will fight before he dies,” replied the Messenger. “As should we all.”
I forced myself to take a breath, then another, slow and careful. It was hard to think, hard to feel anything but desperately overwhelmed and lost. But I closed my eyes and let my mind go blank.
You have two options, I told myself. Wait here.