Fire in the Ocean Page 4

  All was as it should be. But that new man needed watching. Maybe it was time to go to Moloka‘i to inspect the WestWind installation. As he pondered this idea, Houghton had no inkling that his routine visit would galvanize a chain reaction, changing everything.

  • • •

  At six a.m., the Kaunakakai Wharf was brilliantly lit. Several small boats were moored to the sides of the dock. The largest was the Coast Guard cutter, so Clancy headed straight to it. Kevin, dressed in crisp navy trousers and light blue shirt with a peaked cap, welcomed him on board. He gave Clancy a cup of coffee and a bearclaw and asked if he ever got seasick as the engines roared to life and the cutter began to pull away from the dock.

  “Nope.”

  Kevin nodded. He handed Clancy a bright orange life jacket and showed him how to use it. He then introduced him to the crew and told him what the day’s agenda would be.

  “We’re going to go around to the east and north of the island,” he explained. “We expect to be on the water for about five or six hours. If we find nothing by noon, we come back. You can come up to the observation deck or stay out here. I suggest the observation deck—you can see farther.”

  Clancy followed Kevin up to the observation deck. As they chugged out of the small Kaunakakai harbor, Moloka‘i’s shore slid slowly by to port. Before long, Clancy began to see what appeared to be large oval stone walls built out into the water. Only the tops of the walls protruded, making them look like gigantic necklaces floating on the sea. Each wall enclosed large pools. Some of the walls had gaping holes in them, and vegetation grew on top of the stones. After the boat passed the fourth one, Clancy asked Kevin what they were.

  “Ancient fishponds. I’ve heard the fishponds here are the oldest in the islands,” Kevin replied. “These are hundreds and hundreds of years old, but they’re still here. They were beautifully engineered to last so long. Some have legends surrounding them.”

  As Clancy knew all too well, legends were sometimes reality. “What kinds of legends?”

  “One of the fishponds was supposed to have been built overnight by the Menehune. They formed long chains and passed the rocks hand to hand until the pond was completed.”

  “Menehune?”

  “Uh, little green men,” said Kevin, looking distinctly out of his depth. “They’re supposed to be small, incredibly strong, and mischievous.”

  Sounds familiar, Clancy thought. He wondered where Fred was. Had he come along with Sierra and Chaco—or was he comfortably at home, eating chocolate? Clancy hoped for the latter.

  The shore showed scattered houses and other evidence of habitation for many miles, but then the land began to rise, forming steep-sided cliffs, and the houses disappeared. They followed black lava cliffs for many miles. At one point, Kevin pointed out Halawa Bay, a double-lobed sandy bay fronting a valley choked with tropical growth. As they progressed, the high cliffs (pali, as Kevin called them) became still higher and more precipitous. The surf crashed wildly against these stony palisades, sending gouts of seawater high up the rocks, only to cascade in sheets to the ocean again.

  “These pali are the highest sea cliffs in the world,” Kevin informed him. “Almost four thousand feet high in some places. From sea floor to top, I mean.”

  The north coast seemed a forbidding place. The waves were fierce, hurling themselves against the pali and sending white spray several yards into the air. Wild-looking valleys occasionally broke the continuity of the high cliffs. When they reached the Kaluapapa Peninsula, it was a relief to see flat land and eventually, a tiny town—the site of the infamous leper colony. Then, it was more unbroken pali, towering into the sky in their robes of green, until they rounded the western end of the island. At this point, the engines kicked into high gear, and they began moving more quickly.

  Clancy asked Kevin, “Are we heading back to Kaunakakai?”

  Kevin nodded and looked somber. “Yes, Mr. Forrester. I’m sorry. This is it.”

  Clancy sat down heavily. He ran his hands through his dark hair, making it stick up in unruly peaks.

  They’re giving up, he thought. He really had hoped they might find Sierra and Chaco—or at least one of them. He felt emptied out and exhausted. He wished with all his heart he had gone on the Midway trip, and then none of this would have happened. He would gladly, cheerfully count all the albatross chicks in the world if it would bring Sierra back safely.

  Then it struck him. The Coast Guard might be giving up, but he didn’t have to. He could hire a boat locally—with a captain, of course—and continue the search on his own.

  By the time they disembarked at Kaunakakai, Clancy had picked Kevin’s brain and was in possession of the names of three or four dive boat owners who might be willing to charter their boats. Within an hour of reaching dry land, he had booked a charter for the next morning.

  “The boat’s called Polupolu,” he reported to Auntie Keikilani that evening as he sat opposite her at the kitchen table. Keikilani broke into giggles. Clancy looked at her quizzically.

  “It means…it means sort of like ‘Fatso,’” she explained. “That’s Sam Skinner’s boat. It is kind of tubby, but Sam’s a good captain. If anyone can find your friends, Sam can.”

  Chapter 5

  Sierra flew backward over the railing and into the water without the slightest idea of what was happening. One minute she was standing high and dry, staring at the waterspout, the next she was plunging into the ocean.

  She hit the water hard, nearly forcing the breath from her lungs. Something soft and heavy was wrapped around her waist, like a wet kidskin bag filled with lead. She held her breath, kicking and thrashing against whatever was dragging her down into the deep water. Black panic obscured her vision. When she began to think instead of merely react, she saw a thick, white thing looped around her midsection. She pushed against it hard, but while the thing was soft, its grip was unyielding. It inexorably propelled her farther and farther down. As she descended, she could see nothing through the roiling, bubbling waters—not the boat, not Chaco, not whatever it was that gripped her. Her thoughts were incoherent with terror as she began to see flashes of light and black spots and knew she was running out of air.

  The downward plunge ceased and the bubbles began to dissipate. In front of her, a vast creature hovered motionlessly in the clear water. It was an enormous white octopus with iridescent blue eyes the size of beach balls. Its mammoth bag of a head floated behind it as it held her up to inspect her, its pupils horizontal and eerily like the eyes of a goat.

  Sierra continued to struggle, desperate for air, vision beginning to darken. She felt compelled to open her mouth and suck in seawater; it promised relief from the terrible yearning to breathe even as she knew it would be her death. But then the pain stopped. The desperate compulsion to breathe ceased. She drooped, exhausted, in the loop of muscle supporting her.

  When Sierra stopped fighting, she was able to take stock of her surroundings. Another massive tentacle held Chaco in its grasp like a baby gripping a tiny doll. His eyes were wide, showing the whites all around, and his dark hair whipped around his face as he struggled, impelled as she had been to reach the life-giving air above. Finally, he too realized that breathing was unnecessary and ceased to writhe in the monster’s grasp.

  Obviously, this was not a natural creature. Sierra desperately ransacked her memory for what Rose had taught her about combating supernatural beings. Sierra envisioned her magic powers—a talent she had not discovered until she had become involved with Chaco and company—as twining, glowing ribbons. Now she gathered these tendrils into a glowing mass, praying that she possessed enough power to resist the creature. As hard as she could, she hurled her accumulated power against the massive white octopus.

  This volley of energy would have dissipated an illusion, as she had learned in the Nevada desert when defending herself against a phantasmagoric serpent. But this creature merely turned from contemplating Chaco to observing her with increased interest. It held her firmly
, but without causing pain or uncomfortable pressure. The great, gleaming eyes examined her without haste as Sierra scrabbled desperately and unsuccessfully to regroup her powers. Then words formed in her mind. They weren’t English words. The language sounded more like the rolling cadence of what little Hawai‘ian she had heard so far, but she understood it.

  “What are you?” The words emerged clearly in her mind. There was no voice, but if there had been a voice, it would have been as deep as the ocean.

  There was no way to verbally respond, so Sierra pictured herself, her friends. Images of her past adventures whipped by, almost unbidden.

  “Not an Avatar. Not a kahuna. A mortal. Merely a mortal?”

  Sierra offered mental agreement.

  “But you have powers of a sort.” It wasn’t a question, yet Sierra sent an affirmative.

  “And the other?”

  Sierra knew the huge creature meant Chaco. She pictured Chaco in her mind. As a man. As a coyote. Chaco’s friendship, his bravery, his kindness. She skipped over Chaco’s more lecherous nature, as that was none of the creature’s business, even if a cephalopod could understand such things.

  “So. An Avatar? But he has no powers.”

  Sierra shrugged mentally, sending as best she could an explanation of Chaco’s sudden disempowerment.

  There was a long pause. The octopus turned Sierra and Chaco gently back and forth in the current. This time, Sierra asked, “What are you?”

  The pale, opalescent eyes stared at her. The absence of lids made the eyes seem fixed and expressionless, but there was never any doubt when the creature was looking directly at her.

  “Kanaloa,” came the answer. Sierra’s brain began to fill with images, most of which she did not understand. A Hawai‘ian man, tall, straight, and handsome, finding a spring of sweet water and showing it to thirsty people. Images of things under the sea, some beautiful, some hideous. Another Hawai‘ian man, as beautiful as the first, walking with the first man and talking. Volcano fire and slow-oozing lava, burning its way to the sea.

  “Are you an Avatar?” The unblinking eyes never changed expression, but Sierra knew the answer was yes.

  “Why did you take us from the boat?”

  “I sensed you. And the other one. I was curious. But there was a third? I sensed a third thing, not like you. But it reminded me of something. Something…”

  Sierra’s heart nearly leaped from her chest. Fred! In the confusion of being yanked from the boat and submerged in water, then the terror of the creature confronting her, she had forgotten all about Fred. She began to writhe and twist in the tentacle’s grasp, turning to see if she could spot the mannegishi, or at least the duffle bag he had occupied when she last saw him. There was no one else but Chaco. Chaco was staring at her wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He appeared to be shouting, but of course, she could hear nothing.

  “Where’s Fred?” she sent, heart pounding. “Did you see Fred?” She transmitted a mental picture of her blobby green friend.

  “No. I don’t know what a Fred is. You are the only ones I saw.”

  Sierra hung limply in Kanaloa’s grasp for a moment, letting the water rock her. Poor Fred. Did he even know how to swim? She didn’t know. Had the duffle bag been zipped? She couldn’t remember. If Fred went overboard with them, he was likely drowned—if mannegishis could drown. She also wasn’t sure if Fred qualified as mortal or not. He was thousands of years old, but that didn’t necessarily mean immortal—or did it? She wondered if it were possible to cry underwater. How would she know if she did? Finally, she returned her gaze to the twin blue galaxies of Kanaloa’s eyes.

  “Can you take us back to land?” Even as she asked the question, her terror returned. Having a pleasant chat with this gigantic octopus was no assurance that she and Chaco weren’t on the menu.

  As if in answer, the thing turned in the water and propelled itself forward, dragging her and Chaco along like hapless underwater skiers in its wake. As it turned, it exposed an immense, cruel, black beak, like a parrot’s beak magnified a thousand times, centered in the radiating star of eight tentacles. Its vast siphon, a tube in the crook formed between the eye and the head, pulsed as it expelled seawater in a powerful jet.

  This underwater version of a Nantucket sleigh ride went on for perhaps a half an hour at a stunning speed. The bubbles from their passage roiled the water and made it impossible to see anything. It didn’t matter; she had to shut her eyes and mouth against the force of the water for most of the journey, pinching her nose to prevent water being forced into her sinuses. Her hat, shoes, hair clip, dark glasses, and pocket change flew away into the deeps—and she almost lost her shorts as well.

  Finally, Kanaloa slowed and stopped. He held Chaco and Sierra before his eyes again and reached two other tentacles out, gently touching the tips to their throats. Sierra could feel the soft stickiness of the suckers against her skin. Her body bucked with a sudden influx of power. Her throat burned fiercely, making her think she couldn’t possibly survive the contact. What could Kanaloa be doing to them? It felt like an attack, but the sensation quickly subsided to a warm glow. She saw Chaco jerk and squirm as well. As the tip of the tentacle receded, Chaco held a hand to his brown throat as though he had been burned there.

  “My gift,” said Kanaloa. The vast tentacles whipped up, and Sierra jetted above the surface, rising perhaps six feet into the air. Plunging down into the water, she realized that breathing had once again become a necessary chore, so she struggled to the surface with a gasp. She wiped her hair away from her eyes and looked around. There was Chaco, furiously dog-paddling toward her. And beyond him—land!

  They were off the coast of an island. Precipitous cliffs (They’re called pali, she thought in wonder. Now how did I know that?) rose in high, vertical folds above the sea; sheer, black lava rock furred with a thick coat of green vegetation. She couldn’t see a beach, she realized, heart sinking. There were no boats in sight. Only the forbidding cliffs, rising straight from the turbulent sea.

  Chaco dog-paddled up to her, panting.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Sort of. Don’t you know how to swim?”

  “I am swimming.”

  “You’re dog-paddling. I don’t know if that’s going to be good enough to get us into shore.”

  “I’m coyote-paddling,” returned Chaco, spitting seawater. “That’s got to be good enough, because it’s all I’ve got.”

  “Well, let’s get going. The sooner we get there, the better,” she said. For the first time since hitting the water, Sierra thought of sharks. She cringed, hoping this didn’t occur to Chaco, who had enough problems.

  They began to swim, each in his or her fashion, toward the black cliffs. The pali towered above the ocean like an uninterrupted ribbon of skyscrapers. Higher than skyscrapers, she thought. After ten minutes, Chaco’s dogged rhythm began to slow and become ragged. The cliffs looked no closer.

  “Take a rest, Chaco,” said Sierra, whose slow crawl had not much tired her. Chaco paused in his efforts, but began to sink, so Sierra taught him how to tread water. After several minutes, Chaco’s breathing slowed and evened, and they struck out for shore again.

  They made slow progress in this way as the high cliffs gradually neared. She saw that her hands had turned white under her tan, and felt chilled to her bones. This didn’t seem fair—Hawai‘ian water was supposed to be bathtub-warm. But she was cold in a way she had never felt before, not even while snow camping, the chill creeping into the very center of her body. She called for another rest, and saw that Chaco was pale as well, his eyes taking on the desperation of someone at the end of his endurance. Then she heard it.

  “Chaco, I hear waves! We must be close to land!”

  Chaco’s tired eyes brightened, but he was too exhausted to speak.

  They swam onward. Chaco’s labored strokes echoed her own. Her arms and legs felt like tree limbs, heavy, inert. It was all she could do to take one leaden stroke after another. She t
hought Chaco, with his inefficient paddling, must be in even greater distress. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. She inadvertently sucked in a mouthful of salt water and began to cough, each spasm scraping her lungs and throat raw. This at least served to distract her from the grinding ache of her chilled and weary muscles.

  Then she was lifted up on a wave. For a second as the wave hovered, she saw a wall of unbroken black stone before her. They were going to be dashed against the cliffs. There was nowhere to take refuge, no way to escape the angry waves crashing against the stones.

  Then the wave broke, rolling Sierra in its grasp like a bread maker kneading dough, slamming her down on the lava rocks scattered throughout the shallow water. Shallow water. Sand. A beach, where a second previously, she had seen nothing but the end of her life as she was hurled against the unbroken rock of the cliffs.

  Pain! Raw, branching pain sizzled across her abused body. She lay unable to move in the receding water. She thought muzzily that she must pull herself up and away from the dragging, sucking waves. She heard another wave roar up behind her, the inexorable power of the water forcing her back across the grating rocks and sand. She simply didn’t have the strength to resist. The treacherous sand gave way beneath her body, allowing the greedy waves to grip her again. Sierra clawed her hands, desperately attempting to gain some purchase in the sand to prevent being dragged back into the ocean, but it was no use—she was fatigued and weak. As the waves scraped her over the rocks again, her fingers scrabbling uselessly, muscular brown arms seized her and began to pull her up the beach.

  With the last of her strength, Sierra croaked, “Please—get Chaco too. Please save him. Please…”

  Chapter 6

  Roberts worked late the night after Gary Chisholm questioned the records for WestWind. He had Shelby bring in all reports, documents, and financials for the project. He dismissed her and pored over them for several hours.