An Evil Guest (31 page)

• The high king ruled from Takanga Ha’i. It was the most mountainous island in the group, and could be seen from the top of Mauna Makani to the northeast.

• The high king ruled from the Island of the Dead, under the sea north of Takanga Ha’i.

• The high king’s wife was the high queen. She was very beautiful and mistress of many magics. Her head was on fire. (“I feel the same way sometimes,” Cassie told the tourist who told her that.)

• The people were Christians, belonging to a variety of Protestant sects.

• The people were pagans, worshipping many gods.

• When people became Christians, God came but the old gods did not go away. (This from Ku’ulai.)

• No one knew the names of the gods. They were called the Thunder God, the Blind God, the Shark God, the Volcano God, the Storm King, the Sun God, the Sea Goddess, and so forth.

• The names of the gods were too sacred to be pronounced.

• There was no ferry service to Takanga Ha’i.

She bought sunblock and a bathing suit. It was not as small as Gideon had suggested but was very small indeed. Salamanca House controlled a considerable stretch of beach and furnished its guests with beach umbrellas and beach chairs. The water was warm, hospitable, and very clear. There had
been no shark attacks along that beach for two years Hiapo told her proudly. After that, she continued to swim but swam somewhat less.

On the fifth day, it occurred to her that it might be possible to reach the United States by cell phone. She found hers in a drawer and put it in her beach bag. On the beach a kind woman from Perth informed her that a good many people, herself included, called home often. There was a tower, she said, on a hilltop outside Kololahi. From it, calls were beamed to a satellite in Clarke orbit.

“Calling the States might be a bit costly, though,” the woman from Perth mused. “Dog charges, you know. Rover, or whatever they call him.”

“I don’t care,” Cassie said. “I’m going to call India.”

“Oh, you’ve friends in India?”

Somewhat later, Cassie did.

“Hello! Who is this?” India sounded testy.

“It’s Cassie. How are you?”

“Cassie? Ohmygod! I was just about to phone you. I’m sitting on the john.”

Cassie grinned. “So of course you thought of me.”

“No, no, no! I’ve been calling and calling. You’ve been out of service.”

“I turned it off,” Cassie confessed. “I turned it off and forgot it. What’s up?”

“We’re almost ready to go. Just about, nearly. The thing is, I want rocks for the second dream. Pfeiffer says they’ll get in the way of his dancers. I say dancers ought to be able to dance around a rock. I’d love to have you and Gil dance there for him. I don’t think Gil will have any trouble, even with his saw-log leg. Do you know where he is?”

Cassie decided that explaining “Gil’s” identity would be too complicated. “No idea,” she said. “I haven’t got him. Honest Injun.”

“Okay, do you know where you are?”

“Sure. Only I’ve got a feeling it would be better not to tell you. Wally wouldn’t like it, or I don’t think so. Ask him.”

“You haven’t got him either?”

“Huh uh. I’m waiting for him to ride up on a white horse. I’ve been waiting for a week.”

“In the middle of some swamp, I bet. Poor baby!”

“Not really.” Cassie grinned. “Luxury hotel. Great meals, great beach. Great big hunks. You know.”

“Holy snot, Wanton Woman, you must be suffering the tortures of the damned.”

“You’ve got it. I keep eating and eating and chugging piña coladas. I know darned well I’ll be way too fat to get into my costumes when I get back. Roast pork is the specialty here, and it’s to die for. The roast pork and the fruit. They bring me this whole big tray of fruit, all cut up and arranged to make it look like a sunrise, and the colors are so bright it looks like a tray of jewelry.”

There was only heavy breathing from the other end of the connection.

“The rest of it’s pretty ordinary except for marvelous seafood.” Turning away, Cassie stifled a giggle. “For my first two dinners I had rock lobster in drawn butter—”

A soft click from the other end of the connection told her no one was listening.

She called Gideon Chase, and to her considerable surprise got him. “I’m at Salamanca House, Gid. That’s the big hotel here. They treat me like a queen. Wally hasn’t come for me, so why don’t you come and take me home? You did what he wanted and so did I. He left me high and dry.”

“Two reasons. No, three. First, because Reis may be waiting to see whether that happens. You’re being watched, Cassie. I guarantee that. I don’t know who the watchers are, but there are some.”

“India needs me.”

“She should talk to Reis. Not to you and certainly not to me. Second, because I’m in a ticklish situation. I know how it sounds, but everything could blow up in my face if I took a day—and it would require at least that—to access my car, drive it to a safe spot, hop, pick you up at your hotel, and all the rest of it. Third—”

“Don’t bother. That’s enough.”

“Third, you may be of great value to me where you are now. If you were in Kingsport, I’d have to rely on Aaberg to outmaneuver the people who killed Norma. He’s good, but I’m not sure he’s that good.”

“I love you, Gid. Thanks for letting me drive your car.”

“I love you, too, Cassie.” He hung up.

O
NE
of the great big hunks she had mentioned to India seated himself on the sand next to her beach chair. He was, she decided, at least six foot eight and remarkably good-looking, but strictly local talent. She leaned back,
closing her eyes behind large sunglasses she had been forced to accept by the hotel’s gift shop.

She swam in water that might almost have been blue air, the hunk beside her matching five of her strokes with one of his. A wall of coral rose to the right, coral of a hundred shades of rose and green; the fish that swam before it were yellow and electric blue, each hardly larger than a quarter but so bright they seemed to burn.

The hunk touched her arm, smiling, and pointed behind and below them. She turned to look, and the great white shark that swam there was larger than many fishing boats. She knew she should have been terrified—but knew also that the shark had come to protect them from a horror that stirred in darker waters far below. A horror that waited, that gathered its—

She woke with a start. Everything had changed except the hunk, who was still beside her and still smiling after having touched her arm.

“I—I . . .” She struggled to collect her thoughts. “You were there. You were with me.”

The smile became a grin; his teeth appeared to have been filed to points.

“We didn’t have scuba gear, but we didn’t drown. We didn’t need it.” Cassie paused, struggling now to catch her breath. “Wonderful! It was wonderful!” It sounded terribly inadequate even to her.

“I am Hanga.” He extended his hand, apparently unaware that men are not supposed to initiate handshakes with women.

She accepted it, and they shook. “I’m Cassie Casey, Hanga. Pleased to meet you.”

For a time they sat in silence, side by side, staring out at the sea. At last he said, “Which is more beautiful, Cassie Casey? Is it the sea or the land?”

“They’re both so lovely. . . .”

He nodded.

“Which do you think, Hanga? You’ve seen more of them than I have.”

He chuckled, a deep and echoing chuckle like surf on a rocky shoe. “What I think is not important, Cassie Casey. I say after.”

“But what I think is?”

He nodded solemnly.

“All right. The sea is very, very beautiful. I just had a dream about it, the most beautiful dream I ever had in my whole life.”

He nodded again.

“I adore this sea. It’s the South Pacific, right? It’s like the sky, like the sky had a sister. It’s as beautiful as water can possibly be. But the land is my
home. You’ve got to love your home best, because it’s home. Does that make any sense?”

“You are wise, Cassie Casey.”

“I’m not, but I’m smart enough to know I’m not. We had a puppy once. He wasn’t wise at all, but he knew he was just a puppy and he would beg me sometimes to take that into account. He had chewed my shoe, but he hadn’t known he wasn’t supposed to. Are you smart, Hanga?”

He shrugged. “There are many things few understand that I understand. There are many things many understand that I do not understand.”

“I’ve got it.”

“It does not trouble you that I am on this beach, Cassie Casey?”

“Heck no. Why should it? It’s your beach.”

The chuckle came again. “It is the hotel’s beach. The village people may not use it. The people of Kololahi may not use it. Only guests of the hotel. Only them, Cassie Casey. Not even those who labor for the hotel may use it.”

“Are you a guest?”

“No. They do not see me.” He sounded amused.

“And you’re afraid I’m going to tell them. I won’t. Honest Injun.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Good! You shouldn’t be. These are your islands. I’m here as a guest, Hanga. If you and your people don’t want us here, you have a perfect right to tell us to go home.”

The voice of the woman from Perth reached her, faintly but distinctly. “
She keeps talking and talking
.”

“I guess I do talk too much,” Cassie said. “You talk, Hanga.”

“Would you wish the hotel guests gone, Cassie Casey? All save you?”

“So I said, no, of course not,” Cassie told Zelda Youmans thanks to the miracle of cellular-telephone technology. “And he said I was the high queen, and if I asked the hotel they’d do it.”

“You’re high queen?” Zelda sounded incredulous still.

“Of these little islands, that’s all. Wally did it somehow, and I’m pretty darned sure he’s high king. Only this hunk—”

“Hanga.”

“Yes, Hanga. He never called me queen. All the others do. Can I say natives or is that insulting?”

“You can say it to me.”

“Fine. They’re my people and I don’t want to insult them, besides they’re awfully nice and scary big. You’ve seen Tiny.”

“Sure.”

“He’d be an average guy here. There’s plenty bigger than him—than he
is. Only it seemed like I’m not Hanga’s queen, he just knew I was. Then he told me a whole lot of spooky stuff about the Storm King and how this darned Squid God—that’s what he is—has it in for Wally and me. For the high king’s what he said. He told me the Storm King’s real name, but I’ve forgotten it and couldn’t pronounce it anyway.”

“You said this was scary.”

“It is. I just haven’t gotten to the scary part yet. When you sit on the beach here, a waiter comes about once an hour and asks if you’d like a drink or something to eat. You can order and he’ll bring it. Hiapo—that’s my waiter—came and I thought it would be nice for me to order Cokes for Hanga and me and charge it, because I was pretty sure Hanga wasn’t staying at the hotel and wouldn’t have much money. I don’t think the people here—they’re Takangese, that’s the word. I don’t think these people care a lot about money.”

“They probably don’t need much,” Zelda said.

“Right. So I ordered a Diet Coke and started to ask Hanga what he wanted. Only he was gone. He was nowhere in sight. . . .”

“He just left quietly, Cassie. That’s not scary.”

“He was a great big man, like a linebacker. He’d been sitting on the white sand right beside me, only there were no marks in it there. They rake it at night, Zelda. To get all the footprints out and rake up the junk the guests have left. Cigarette butts and swizzle sticks. All that stuff.”

“I’ve got it.”

“And there were no marks where Hanga’d been sitting. None at all. I could still see the rake lines.”

“You fell asleep, Cassie, and had a dream. He was something you dreamed. You just thought you were awake. It was really the waiter who woke you up.”

“When he was gone,” Cassie said slowly, “this woman I’d met the other day came. I’d forgotten her name, but I remembered she was from Perth. It’s in Australia.”

“I know.”

“So that was how I thought of her then, the lady from Perth. Only I learned her name afterward. It was Florence McNair. She said I’d been chattering away, and at first she thought I was on the phone. Then she saw I wasn’t, I was just sitting there with my head turned to the left, talking and talking.”

Zelda said, “You were talking in your sleep. A lot of people do that.”

“I explained that there’d been a Takangese there with me, and I’d been talking to him. But she just looked at me funny and went down into the water.
I watched her swim—she was a really good swimmer—and then she went under and d-didn’t . . .”

“You’re getting ready to cry, aren’t you?”

“Not me, Zelda. I’m tough.”

“Right.”

“So I jumped up and started yelling and ran out into the water, only t-two guys grabbed me and carried me back. There was a siren, like for a t-t-tornado or something.”

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Cassie.”

“You mean I’m M-M-Mariah. I guess I am, only older and maybe a little sm-smarter. And n-not as l-l-lucky.”

“You don’t have to tell me this.”

“I want to. I kept yelling that a woman was drowning out there, and they showed me the lifeguard’s boat. It was like a canoe with a m-motor and a thing out to one side to k-keep it from t-turning over, and he was going a m-mile a minute.”