Wildefire Series: Wildefire Part 27

In a moment like this Ash knew there were two options: She could feign ignorance, play like she didn't know what the woman was talking about; or, since the former wasn't likely to work, she could play the dangerous you-don't-want-to-mess-with-me role.

She chose the latter.

"I'll give you five seconds to explain yourself." She spread her fingers. "Before I send you running for a fire extinguisher. Five, four-"

"Whoa, slow down there, Smoky-"

Ash lifted her eyes to the ceiling. "Three. I'd be surprised if this sprinkler system even functions. Two . . ."

"I sent the mercenaries after you," the woman blurted out.

"Aren't you supposed to be making a case for why I shouldn't burn you alive?"

"I promise I'm not here to hurt you. I'll tell you what."

She gestured to the street. "I'm going to go stand out on the curb. I'll let you pay for your dress-it really is quite beautiful-and if you want to talk, I'll be outside. At this point I wouldn't blame you if you decided to sneak out the back."

Ash nodded. "I guess that's fair. But if there's a horde of guerillas out on the street waiting to tranquilize me . . ."

"As if you and your friends left me with any guerillas," she said. "I'll see you in five."

Ash changed back into her jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt, and 329 she approached the cash register with the little red dress.

As she reached into her handbag for her credit card, the young cas.h.i.+er waved her hand. "No need, miss. That dress is already paid for."

"Who . . . ?" Ash started to say, but her answer was standing outside next to a fire hydrant.

"Thank you?" Ash said as the bell hanging over the door jingled, announcing her exit.

"The least I could do," the woman said. "And I certainly can't let you go to a masquerade ball in that lovely orange jumpsuit you were wearing on Sunday. I'm Lesley Vanderbilt." She offered her hand.

Ash took it hesitantly, and they started walking in the direction of the water.

"You'll forgive me if I'm a little disturbed that, over the course of four days, you've gone from attempting to capture me and my friends for some sort of science experiment, to buying me a dress and walking with me to the beach."

"Science experiment? Capture you?" Lesley made an amused sound. "I knew those mercenaries would never make it out of that canyon."

"Why the h.e.l.l would you pay a group of ex-soldiers to . . ." But the answer dawned on Ashline even as she asked the question. "You just wanted to see what we could do."

"Your people are very shy about your abilities, and with good reason. The only way to get you to show what you're really made of is to back you into a corner, 330 so to speak. The caged and cornered animal will eventually bear its claws. So I staged a kidnapping of a girl that my team has identified as a siren, and when that didn't coax you out of your sh.e.l.ls, I had to bring in the firepower."

"You did this so you could spectate from the trees?"

She regarded the woman's blazer with no small touch of derision. "I guess the Roman aristocrats who had season tickets to the gladiator fights were always the well-dressed ones."

"I instigated that firefight in the canyon because for the last eight months I've thought that you were the person I was looking for. I needed to be sure, and I was hoping you would reveal yourself. But it's recently come to my attention that the one I'm looking for is actually somebody else."

"Who, then?"

They had finally reached the ocean, where the road culminated in a small parking lot that overlooked the jagged rocks and, beyond that, the Pacific. In the distance the sun was going down behind Battery Point lighthouse and the small island it sat upon. With the orange sunset as its backdrop, it looked as though the lighthouse were burning.

"The woman I'm looking for," Lesley said at last, "is Evelyn Wilde."

Out on the sh.o.r.eline the waves crashed onto the rocks, sending a plume of water high into the air.

331.

"Why are you looking for my sister?"

Lesley clasped her hands behind her back. "I've been keeping tabs on news stories about lightning strikes, electrocutions, and other weather phenomena for some time now. About eight months ago I hit the treasure chest I'd been looking for-a soph.o.m.ore at Scarsdale High School, Elizabeth Jacobs, struck by lightning in an accident on the roof of somebody's house-your house-and you were the only witness. Further digging revealed reports of strange weather patterns that same day. Snow in September?

Unlikely."

"I can suggest a few less morbid and more productive hobbies than researching weather anomalies and freak accidents," Ash suggested.

"Accidents?" Lesley barked. Her calm facade evaporated violently. "Let me spell it out for you. In 1929 my grandfather was murdered by a Polynesian storm G.o.ddess."

Ash opened her mouth to argue, but Lesley plowed on. "I inherited all of his journals and captain's logs, so I know all about you people and your rebirth. During the prohibition of the 1920s, my grandfather was a rumrunner. To make his living he smuggled liquor between the Bahamas and Miami. With the coast guard on watch, it was a nearly impossible task . . . until he met your sister. She teamed up with him in exchange for a sizable take of the profits. Every time my grandfather's boat would come to port with a new s.h.i.+pment, 332 a fog would conveniently roll over Biscayne Bay, and fierce waves would batter away any curious boats. They partnered like this for three years.

"Then," she continued, "one night shortly after my grandmother gave birth to her only child-my father- my grandfather didn't come home. They found him tied to the hull of his s.h.i.+p, fully frostbitten at his extremities and his body still cooling from where the lightning had struck him."

Ashline's stomach ached. She could still remember the smell of Lizzie Jacob's burned flesh under the falling rain as she lay beside her in the gra.s.s. "Why would Eve do that?"

"I don't know." Lesley sneered. "He was too dead to write another journal entry about it."

"Listen." Ash took Lesley by the elbow. "Even if my sister did do that to your grandfather, if his journals were as thorough as you say they are, you'd know that Eve has no recollection of her former lives. Why bother? All for a grandfather you never met?"

"Especially because I never met my grandfather."

Lesley jerked her arm free from Ashline's hold. "My grandmother made Dad promise not to hunt your sister down. He vowed to anyway, for the father he never knew, but Evelyn died before he could get to her. Now my father is in a nursing home and doesn't even remember who he is. So it's my responsibility to find your sister.

I don't give a d.a.m.n if she doesn't remember murdering 333 my grandfather. Judging from what happened to your friend Lizzie, your sister is programmed to kill."

Eve's words from yesterday echoed in Ashline's ears.

Do you think it happens this way every time?

Do you think, maybe in the other times, I wasn't the bad girl?

"So you sent a squad of mercenaries to their death just in the hopes that I would shoot lightning bolts from my hands, or make it snow?"

"It didn't occur to me until after watching your tennis match yesterday that I had the wrong sister all along."

"And what will you do if you capture her?"

"I'm hoping to find a way to dig into that brain of hers. Unlock her past memories. Find out what really happened with my grandfather." Lesley looked to the horizon; two tall rocks offsh.o.r.e framed the sun between them like fingers holding a burning marble. "And then I'm going to take a gun and find out if she's bulletproof."

"Don't expect me to help you with that." Ash started to walk away. "I've heard enough."

It was Lesley's turn to catch her by the elbow. "You have an obligation-to my grandfather, to Elizabeth Jacobs, to every family your sister has yet to ruin in this lifetime-to bring her to me. I've seen the way she is with you; whatever violence moves the soul of Evelyn Wilde, there's something magnetic that binds the two of you.

You know that you will never lead a normal life as long as she's alive to haunt you." Ash slapped her hand away, 334 and headed up the street. "You must bring her to me!"

Lesley screamed.

Ash turned and jabbed a warning finger back at Lesley. "You keep playing with a kite in a thunderstorm, and sooner or later you're going to get struck by lightning too. From now on stay the h.e.l.l away from me, my sister, and my friends." As an afterthought she held up her bag.

"Oh, yeah-and thanks for the dress, b.i.t.c.h."

She'd made it only as far as the intersection when Lesley called after her, "Don't you want to know how she died last time?" A pause. "Your sister?"

Ash remained still. A car drove by, and the breeze sent her hair billowing out. Her fist tightened around the twine handle of her bag.

"They found her in a field in Spain, chained to a post." Another pause. "She'd been burned alive."

Ashline crossed the street.

Blackwood's Student Government a.s.sociation was a farce.

Yes, they held elections every fall. Yes, they convened for biweekly meetings in the dining hall.

But everyone knew that their SGA co-chairs, along with all of the cla.s.s presidents, senators, secretaries, historians, and other imaginary positions that they concocted for the annual ballot, had only one real job every year.

To plan Spring Week.

Spring Week was a series of nightly events the first 335 week of May. It kicked off with a mandatory full-school attendance at an athletic event-this year, the Blackwood-Southbound tennis match-and culminated on Friday with the masquerade ball. A pancake breakfast generally followed on Sat.u.r.day morning, but the few ragam.u.f.fins that made it out of bed in time for brunch usually looked like they'd been sleeping on a train for days or, in some cases, possibly been hit by one.

The purpose of Spring Week was allegedly to reward the students for an accomplished year of studious academics at one of California's premier prep schools, and to give them one last romp before they geared up for study week and final exams.

Ashline knew better than that; Spring Week was the faculty's only bargaining chip to keep the students from burning the school to the ground. At the semester's opening ceremonies back in January, the threat was clear: You misbehave, no Spring Week.

The Thursday night event changed each year. It had been a fas.h.i.+on show one year, and capture the flag the next. This year the SGA had settled on a "midnight movie." After negotiations with the headmistress, the movie's start time had been pushed back to ten o'clock.

Unfortunately, "Ten p.m. Movie" just didn't have the same ring to it.

And so it was that at five minutes to showtime, cl.u.s.tered on an enormous blanket that was still too small for the five of them, Rolfe, Raja, Ade, and Jackie sat with 336 Ashline, waiting for the movie to begin. Top to bottom, the gradual hill behind the faculty lodge was covered with Blackwood students. From a bird's-eye view it would have looked like a patchwork quilt of quilts.

An SGA representative swooped by with a crazed grin on her face and delivered a basket-no, a cowboy hat- full of treats. Popcorn, chocolate-covered raisins, a cornu-copia of sodas. She flitted off to deliver the next gift package as Rolfe savagely ripped open the plastic packaging.

Soon the exterior floodlights dimmed. The outdoor projector, which rested on a roll cart just a few yards from their blanket, purred to life. As the tripod-mounted speakers crackled on, the projectionist fiddled with the projector until the image focused on the white screen hanging from the faculty lodge.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

They all laughed; the cowboy hat filled with goodies suddenly made sense.

The movie barely made it past the opening scene before two pale blurs came streaking wildly through the maze of student-covered blankets. Bobby Jones raced over the hill wearing a cowboy hat and nothing else, while another naked soccer player joined him, using his fingers to fire imaginary bullets at Bobby's back. They hooted and hollered, and the entirety of the hillside exploded with laughter. Monsieur Chevalier, one of the faculty chaperones, stood up from his lawn chair and clambered up the gra.s.sy hill, but Bobby merely took his hat, used it 337 like a fig leaf to cover the little Jones, and raced off into the forest.

The laughter subsided and the audience mellowed, including the other occupants of Ashline's blanket. Raja and Rolfe hadn't wasted any time getting cozy. Having her head pressed against his collarbone was enough to make him stop shoveling popcorn into his mouth.

Ashline, however, was more interested in the other pair. Jackie was jabbering at Ade without pause. She must have touched on every topic from what it was like to grow up in Canada, to his culinary interests, to questions like: did he eat only Haitian food at home? And what was his workout regimen? It must be pretty intense, because (squeeze, squeeze) wow those biceps were defined.

All the while Jackie was slowly edging her way across the blanket, an inch at a time until her thigh touched his. Apparently confidence had come as a bonus with her contact lens purchase.

Even more intriguing, Ade couldn't stop smiling. Ash spied his arm sliding stealthily behind Jackie, until he found the courage to hug her waist. All in all, it was far more entertaining than the spaghetti western on-screen.

She eventually stopped eavesdropping for privacy's sake, but she couldn't help but look sullenly at the empty s.p.a.ce on the blanket next to her. She was sandwiched between two couples and quickly forgotten in the realm of the fifth wheel.

Perhaps sensing this, Rolfe leaned over Raja, who had 338 fallen asleep in his arms. He checked to make sure that Jackie was engrossed in conversation before he whispered, "Any progress on figuring out who you are?"

Ash fished around in the cowboy hat until she found one of the bags of chocolate-covered raisins. "All I've got so far is a name . . . Pele. Apparently a volcano G.o.ddess."

Rolfe stiffened. If Ashline didn't know any better, the expression that had come over his face was . . . deja vu? No-recognition. Whatever it was soon pa.s.sed, and Rolfe snickered. "Pele? Sounds more like a hula dancer."

"Or a type of quail," Ash added. "I honestly haven't done any research beyond that. Guess I should take an interest in my future, or past, or . . . whatever. But for the next month I just want to focus on pa.s.sing spring semester."

"Honestly, the less you know, the better." He moved a tress of hair out of Raja's closed eyes. "I looked into Norse mythology to get some background on Baldur, and maybe get a glimpse into my future as the G.o.d of light."

"And what did you see in the crystal ball?" She offered him the candy bag.

"Well, on the downside," he said, "I apparently got stabbed through the heart with a mistletoe dart. But on the bright side, I apparently had really, really nice hair, as white as snow." He popped a raisin into his mouth and tugged at his bangs. "Apparently the Norse didn't have a word for 'dirty blond.'"

Raja stirred and opened her somnolent eyes halfway.

339.

"Only chicks can have dirty blond hair, idiot. On guys it's called 'sandy.' And did you say something about mistletoe?"

Rolfe plucked a bouquet of gra.s.s and held it over the s.p.a.ce between them. "Here you go."

She closed her eyes expectantly and tilted her chin upward.

Rolfe let the gra.s.s go. It sprinkled all over her hair and face.

"a.s.shole!" She tussled her hair, trying to get the lawn tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs out. Before she could put up a fight, Rolfe wrapped his hands around her waist and drew her to him in a pa.s.sionate kiss.

Ashline awkwardly turned her attention back to the movie. When the kiss had ended, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Raja inhale a slow and shaky breath.

"That was nice," Rolfe whispered. "And now I have to take a leak."

Raja swatted at him and missed as he popped up to his feet. "Way to kill the mood, jerk."

He shrugged unapologetically and pointed at himself. "Sorry, darling. I'm the G.o.d of light, not the G.o.d of love." A few of the surrounding movie-watchers gave him strange looks, but he ignored them and staggered off toward the woods.

Raja shook her head, but she couldn't hide from Ashline the smile etched into her face.

However, ten minutes clicked by and Rolfe still didn't 340 return. Raja's smile waned to impatience, then concern.

"Christ, how much soda did he drink?" she asked.