Trifecta (101 page)

Michelle had been so concentrated on defending herself,
that she hadn't noticed that Vincent had come back.  He was running toward them,
chubby body bobbing up and down, clutching a large branch, like a club, over his
head.

N
akamura was driving slowly on a faint trail, at a steep
angle of almost forty-five degrees.  The path had started facing away from the ocean
and then after about a mile, turned around and went back toward the coast.  They
all strained their eyes in the bushes on the side of the road, trying to see where
Samson's truck was parked.  Guy sighted it first.  It was abandoned right in the
middle of the road.  Samson had probably figured no one would be going to the secluded
beach in the middle of the night when he left it there.

Nakamura parked off the road, behind some huge and daintily
beautiful ferns with large curling fronds.  He got out and walked down the trail
experimentally, but from twenty feet away he couldn't see the Jeep.  As he walked
back he saw Heather ineffectively trying to take the cap off of one of the truck's
tires to let out the air.  It was a good idea and Nakamura helped her, throwing
the four caps into dense jungle.

They would have known that they were in the right place
even without the evidence of the truck.  Lucifer was screaming somewhere ahead.

Guy was standing by watching, not saying a word, shaking
his head.  He bent down by Nakamura and whispered, "You said you weren't going
to do anything illegal."

"Delaying tactics," Nakamura said, smiling with
satisfaction, rubbing his grimy hands together.

The path looked like it was made for mountain goats, wrong
climate of course, but it was very steep.  Going downhill put incredible pressure
on Nakamura's sprained ankle and he felt like knives were stabbing him with each
step.  He knew Heather was having a hard time too, with her broken ribs that were
merely taped, but he couldn't help her, he could hardly stand the pain he was in
himself. 

Nakamura whispered to Guy to help Heather.  He explained
about the broken ribs.  Guy went immediately into the dense foliage and brought
out a flexible root that she could use as a crutch to help stabilize her balance. 
When Nakamura asked, Guy found a heavy branch for him.

They were quiet, but it was unnecessary.  The two witches
ahead of them were talking and sometimes squealing when the terrain got rough. 
Lucifer never for a moment stopped protesting indignantly, with lots of volume. 

Nakamura could almost believe the cat was some type of
mythical animal that never ran out of spit.

They rounded a sharp curve and suddenly the ocean was right
in front of them, heaving back and forth tumultuously.  They could see a small beach
below, with a fire burning right in the middle.  They stopped suddenly at the sight,
because the witches and Samson had stopped, but also because they saw a strange
tableaux below. 

The beach was lit up by white sand reflected in the
moonlight, and also by a large bonfire, but what held them in stunned and
enthralled were the two figures on the beach.  They seemed to be in mortal
combat, circling each other around the fire.  Nakamura knew immediately it was
Michelle.  He couldn't miss the long black hair, which looked wild and wet, but
he knew her form and even from a distance of about a fifty feet above, he could
see her scar, the one Samson had made with a knife.

She was fighting Omar.  It was unbelievably riveting, almost
surreal to watch, like seeing the film of a primitive fight in a movie theater. 
There was something wrong with Michelle; Nakamura could sense it, but he didn't
know if she was wounded or just absolutely exhausted.

Another man entered the picture.  He was chubby and short,
wearing only boxer briefs.  The man stepped from the path below them onto the sand. 
He was holding a large stick on his shoulder and stalking slowly toward Michelle
and Omar.  When the man got to the fire he put down his club, picked up Omar's clothing
and threw everything, including cape and shoes, into the fire.  There was a sudden
huge snapping of sparks from the bonfire.  Then the short chubby man picked up the
club once again and started running toward the two fighting figures.

Samson, on the path below them, evidently saw the short
fat man also.  He threw down the cat box and ran down the path toward the beach. 
Nakamura, ignoring his ankle, which he thought might actually be broken by now,
took off after him.

Lucifer screamed.

Nakamura yelled, "Hey, shitface."

Samson didn't even flinch at the yell coming from somewhere
behind him, seeing his master threatened by a small fat man with a big stick, now
silently stalking around the fire toward the two fighting figures.

Nakamura put on speed, ignoring his ankle, wondering who
the fat man was, but mostly intent on catching the monster who had hurt Michelle. 
He lurched quickly ahead, stumbling over rocks, crashing down on the damaged ankle,
yelling obscenities at the pain and the giant in front of him.

Michelle and Omar were oblivious to onlookers and noises
from above because the crashing sounds of the surf muffled everything else.  They
kept fighting.

Nakamura never could have caught the giant if the man hadn't
stumbled and fallen on the path zigzagging down to the ocean.  He passed one of
the witches, who seemed so surprised she didn't even try to stop him.  The other
one had gone unto the undergrowth to retrieve the cat box.  Now Lucifer was screaming
like a banshee.

Samson in the middle of the path, was clumsily trying to
get up.  It was so steep that he had to be careful.  One mistake would send him
crashing down to the beach.  Even the plight of his master could not cause him to
act rashly in his precarious position, with a twenty foot drop to the beach in front
of him, and loose volcanic rock and sand underfoot.

Nakamura had no such qualms.  He cursed himself for letting
go of the tree branch.  He would have to use his fists against the Goliath.  He
thought better of it and just ran directly into Samson, who was struggling to a
standing position.  It felt like he hit a solid wall of stinking flesh. 

Samson tottered on the edge, grabbing at Nakamura to keep
himself from falling.  Nakamura jumped out of range, then gave him one more push
on an immense, monster arm.  He sent the giant over the edge of the path to crash
to the beach below.  Nakamura looked down grimly.  The man was not dead, he was
moving, but he had landed briefly on both legs, which might be broken.  Nakamura
thought it was too bad that the sand was relatively soft.  Samson might have been
dead if he had fallen on a hard surface.

As he gazed down at Samson, the witch behind him screamed
with anger.  She ran at him, her hands hooked into claws.

Nakamura had no intention of fighting a women.  He took
off toward the beach, routed by a witch on his tail. 

M
ichelle spotted Vincent when Omar ducked under
a strike she was throwing.  Vincent was stalking toward them, club raised high over
his head. 

Her shift in attention and surprised expression caused
Omar to turn slightly, to see the reason for her sudden lack of concentration. 
Michelle had almost walked right into his kick, which might have damaged the valuable
mother of his child.  Omar was off balance when he restrained the kick and was turning
to look at the same time.  He couldn't react fast enough. 

Vincent bashed Omar in the side of his head with the heavy
club.  He swung it two-handed, like a baseball bat.  Just before consciousness left
Omar, as he was falling, he managed to kick out with one long leg, quick as a snake,
connecting with Vincent's stout paunch.  Both men collapsed into the sand at almost
the same moment.

Michelle dropped to her knees, hands to her face, between
them.

"I'm okay," Vincent said after a few moments,
sucking breath carefully, as Michelle crawled over to him.  He was doubled up and
breathing hard, both hands over his burning belly.  He coughed, took a few deep
breaths and staggered to his feet.  "Got the breath knocked out of me."

Michelle turned and put her hand on Omar's head, checking
his wound.  Her hand came away bloody. 

"Get away from him," Vincent yelled.

Michelle looked at him, confused.

"Get away, get away.  Hurry.  Walk over to the fire. 
Just get the hell away from him," Vincent was saying, harshly.

Michelle stood up slowly, not understanding his urgent
exhortations, shocked he would yell at her like that.  Vincent went over to her
and pulled her roughly away from Omar.

"He needs help," Michelle said.  "He's bleeding."

"Let him bleed.  He'll probably recover.  We need
to tie him up."

"But he's hurt.  He can't do anything..."

"Michelle, if you touch him, you'll start healing
him.  He may not kill you, but he will kill me, and I don't want you to start healing
until he's safely restrained."

"Vincent," Michelle said smiling.  "I really
can't heal."

They both jumped when they heard Omar's moan.  He sounded
like a wounded lion, more growl than groan.

"What will we use?" Michelle asked, gazing around
the beach.  She started looking for Omar's clothes.  "Maybe his pants and shirt?"

"I burned them," Vincent said.

Michelle laughed aloud.

"I thought it would be harder for him to leave the
beach, without clothes."

They looked at each other in consternation.  Both were
clad in the most minimal attire.  Michelle was the first to start laughing.  Then
Vincent joined her.  They had nothing to tie Omar up with and the situation seemed
so silly that neither was able to stop.

"I won't take off my bra," Michelle said, doubling
up.

"Well," Vincent said, trying for a humorous shred
of dignity, "you can just forget it if you think I'm taking off one single
item of my clothing."

"You only have a single item, Vincent," Michelle
gasped.

They howled.  They kept laughing hysterically, from sheer
exhaustion and from relief that Omar was incapable of hurting either one of them
for at least a few minutes.

Omar growled again and they both sobered up.  Michelle
was hiccuping.  She was not laughing any more but she couldn't control the hiccups.

"We'll have to roll him up in the beach blanket,"
Vincent finally decided.

Michelle felt like the laughter had taken almost as much
from her as the fight or even the swim to shore.  She was weak as a kitten when
she pulled the blanket over to Vincent.

"I thought you were going to find a road.  Get help,
Vincent," Michelle said.

"I saw you two fighting.  I couldn't just leave."

Michelle smiled at the little man, who had straightened
Omar's limbs and was quickly rolling him up like a cocoon.  She tried to help but
he shook his head, not wanting her to even touch Omar.  He was seriously overreacting
to her dubious healing powers.  "He could have killed me within seconds, if
he had wanted to."

"Well, he had all the advantages.  You were already
exhausted.  He had been hypnotizing you from the moment you arrived on the beach. 
Then those lights..."

"You saw them?"

"As I was coming in."

"He said they were dead spirits."

"Right," Vincent said cynically, staring down
at Omar now wrapped up in the blanket, sighing at his inadequate handiwork.  "I
think this will hold him, if we're lucky, for about five seconds.  After he wakes
up.  I don't want to hit him again." 

"No, don't," Michelle said, shuddering and shaking
her head.  The urge to at least wipe the blood off of Omar was almost overwhelming. 
It was running from his scalp down over one side of his face.

"I said I would kill him," Vincent began, "but
I just can't..."

"I was planning to do it myself," Michelle said,
sighing.  "I couldn't either."

"Maybe there are some tough vines, to tie him up with,
if we go up the path.  Or we could make a run for it, right now," Vincent said. 
"Hope he won't catch us."

They both stood still, studying Omar.

"Vincent, I know what to do," Michelle said,
smiling suddenly in relief.  "Let's dig a hole!"

"Brilliant!"

They started scooping out a large depression in the sand. 
It went pretty fast, even though they were both tired.  They had to dig one which
would be deep enough to tip him into and that would hold his arms pinned to his
sides.  With the blanket to restrain his movement it would be almost impossible
for Omar to get free.

A
fter watching the chubby man hit Omar over the head, and
having discerned that Michelle would be all right for a while, Nakamura plopped
down at the back of the beach near the path.  He was incapable of moving on that
ankle even one inch further.  He wasn't crying, he told himself harshly, but the
water just kept dripping.  He squinted his eyes and willed the flow to stop, for
Christ's sake.

The witch who had been running after him was evidently
in a hurry.  She stopped momentarily, delivering some obscene and colorful language
and deliberately spat at him, hitting him squarely in the face.  Then she hurried
off to help Samson, who appeared unconscious now and was about forty yards from
Nakamura.  Nakamura could just imagine what the witch would do when she saw Omar,
lying wounded on the other side of the fire, as he scrubbed the disgusting glob
away with some sand.  He had to get moving.

As he stood up on his one good leg, he could hear Lucifer
screaming.  Then there was Heather's voice from somewhere near, asking if he was
all right.  Everything went grey for a minute, and when things cleared up, Nakamura
found himself sitting in the sand again.

"I'm fine," Nakamura said, willing the stupid
water away from his eyes.  He was trying to stand up but it was almost impossible
in the lumpy sand, which seemed to continuously shift under his good leg.  He almost
screamed when his bad foot hit the ground, trying to balance himself.

Guy stood next to him and took his arm.  Heather propped
the root she was using under his other arm and he managed to start hopping between
them slowly to the fire. 

Lucifer was still screaming, but the sound seemed uncannily
loud.  Then he noticed through a sickening haze of pain that Heather was carrying
the cat box.  She told him the witch had left the cat-box in the middle of the path,
before she had run away into the undergrowth.

Nakamura was wondering if the witch meant to cause them
some trouble, but the thought was suddenly and completely gone.  Michelle had looked
up and saw them trudging toward her.  Even the pain in his ankle was worth that
one expression on Michelle's face.

Michelle knew she was having delusions and wondered
if Omar really was unconscious.  He might be giving her visions or weird  hallucinations. 
She thought she saw Nakamura and Heather over the flames on the other side of the
fire.  Michelle stooped and lowered her own face directly into Omar's, at sand level. 
His eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply, like he was asleep.  One side
of his face was a bloody mask.  Vincent was still piling sand into the hole around
the limp body.  She had been packing it into place.

Michelle blinked hard and looked up again.  She let out
a  shriek and stood up.  It was still impossible to believe her own eyes.  Michelle
ran around the fire and hugged Heather, murmuring that she should be in the hospital. 
Was she really all right?  What was she doing here? 

Michelle gave Nakamura a quick smile, their recent intimacy
making her feel uncomfortable.  This wasn't the way she wanted him to see her, wearing
almost nothing, abraded from the sand in her wild ride to the beach and with hair
hanging in wet strings around her face.  Her discomfort was momentary.  Hell with
it.  She was so glad to see him.  She broke into a grin and hugged him too.

"How did you get here?  Oh, you're hurt," Michelle
cried.

Michelle had knocked Nakamura down with her enthusiastic
hug, but he was grinning up at her.  His face looked like it had been skinned over
the cheekbone, and his clothes were all torn up.  There was something wrong with
his leg.  He took off his shirt and handed it to her.

"She'll eventually end up with all my favorite shirts,"
Nakamura murmured to Heather.

"Slightly damaged goods," Heather said, not really
understanding. 

The shirt was torn in several places but Michelle felt
more comfortable as soon as she put it on.  If she really had any healing ability,
Nakamura was gifted with an almost uncanny empathic knowledge about how to make
her feel better in any situation.  It wasn't mere politeness.  He seemed to have
a peculiar knowledge of her that went way beyond the length time they had known
each other. 

Nakamura and Heather had a stranger with them who was grinning
like he was enjoying the reunion.  To top it all, Lucifer was screaming his head
off.

Vincent had paused in his chore, noticing the newcomers
on the beach and brushed the sand off his knees.  He studied Omar and decided it
would be impossible for him to get free.  Vincent walked over to the group rather
diffidently.  Michelle introduced him to Heather and Nakamura.  Nakamura introduced
the pilot, Guy Thorner.

Lucifer was making so much noise that explanations were
almost impossible.  Michelle started opening up the cat-box.

"He's pretty wild right now," Nakamura warned. 
"Maybe you better wait..."  He was remembering the ferocious attack he
had received from the cat.

"Poor kitty.  He's just scared," Michelle said,
scooping Lucifer into her arms.  She whispered to the cat, kissing it's nose, quieting
him down until he merely let out soft little meows that mingled with her hiccups.

They all walked over and looked down at Omar.  His head,
neck and only part of his shoulders were visible above the sand.  The gash on his
head had stopped bleeding, but his entire face on the right was rimmed with blood,
which had dried and turned almost black.  In repose his face looked calm and quite
beautiful.  He had been unconscious now for about ten minutes.

"We have to get hold of the authorities, right away,"
Vincent said.  "And we have to keep him here, or else he'll disappear."

"Right, two of his witches are somewhere in the area,"
Nakamura said, looking around.  They weren't with Samson, who still appeared to
be unconscious.

"I have a radio in the plane," Guy said.  "We
can call from there."

"I need to rest for a minute," Michelle said
and the others nodded.

They all headed to the fire and sat down. 

"How did you get here?" Nakamura asked, waving
his arm around the improbably desolate beach and looking at Michelle.

Michelle and Vincent took turns explaining how Omar had
dropped them into the ocean from the helicopter.  Now that the ordeal was past they
interrupted each other, laughing, each telling their own particular view.  It was
obvious for that act alone, pitching them into the sea, Omar could be punished legally. 
It could be interpreted as an act of murder. 

Vincent's part of the tale made Michelle into a heroine
when he explained how she had pulled him to shore with a belt in her teeth.

Michelle was uncomfortable as Vincent described how she
had saved him, so she took off Nakamura's shoe and studied the grotesquely swollen
ankle, touching it lightly.

"What are you doing?" Nakamura asked softly,
not interrupting Vincent's tale.  He looked at her with astonishment.

"Just checking.  You have to go to a doctor.  Am I
hurting you?"

"Not hurting, no.  Whatever you're doing, don't stop,"
Nakamura whispered.

"...she even taught me how to swim..." Vincent
was saying.

Next, Nakamura was urged to tell about how he had found
Michelle on this far removed beach in Kauai.  He had to backtrack to the car explosion,
and then his trip to the hospital.

Heather interrupted and told how Nakamura had saved her
from the witch who tried to smother her with a pillow.  Which led to them both discovering
the chaos in Michelle's apartment and following the giant, Samson.  Then they explained
the plane chase to the island of Kauai. 

Which reminded them of Samson and the witches.

When they glanced toward the back of the beach, Samson
was still lying in the sand where Nakamura had pushed him from the path.  They didn't
think they would have to worry about him for awhile.  The witch who had been tending
him was gone.

None of them noticed when Omar opened up one eye.  The
eye  on the good, unbloodied side of his face.  It roved around darkly, taking in
the whole scene.

The group around the fire had almost finished telling their
tales.  Michelle wanted to know how Vincent's first ride on a giant wave had gone. 
He had them laughing as he described how incredibly fast the wave advanced and how
it had literally thrown him up on the beach.  He had been so surprised that he forgot
to move and got clobbered by the next one, but he managed to escape the sucking
waves, although at one point he had almost despaired of never make it to dry sand.

Omar had both eyes open.  His whole head and neck moved
slowly to one side.  Then he leaned in the other direction.  He moved almost imperceptibly,
keeping his eyes fixed on the group sitting in the light of the fire, only about
twenty feet from him.  Little by little his shoulders were getting loose, and he
worked those muscles individually, rotating them, moving them up and down, pushing
the sand aside.

"We have to get medical help for Rod and the giant. 
Omar too," Vincent was saying.  "Some sort of medi-vac to get us all out
of here.  It's late, but there must be emergency services here in Kauai."

"There are," Guy said.  "Tourists get stranded
on these isolated beaches, sometimes.  I'll drive the Jeep to the plane and call
for help."

He was really the only able bodied man in the group.  Vincent
might have made it, but he was exhausted.  Besides, Guy knew how to use the radio
in the plane and had friends on the island that he could call for help.

Nakamura handed Guy the keys to the Jeep.  He was wishing
he hadn't let the air out of the tires in the truck.  They all could have left together. 
He didn't have any qualms about leaving Samson here with his broken legs, or Omar,
buried in the sand.  But truthfully, when he considered it, he didn't think he could
make it up that steep trail on his own power now that the emergency was past.

Vincent and Heather walked with Guy toward the path leading
to the jeep, leaving Nakamura and Michelle alone by the fire.  Heather had smiled
and winked at Michelle when she practically pulled Vincent along with her. 

Omar saw his chance, with three of the people walking away
and the two by the fire in deep conversation.  Suddenly he was moving fast as a
rattlesnake, his whole upper body lunging, whipping back and forth, loosening the
sand even more.  Then he twisted like a dervish, around side to side, making the
hole bigger.  He was digging in the sand with his toes.  His activity was so strenuous,
perspiration sprang from his scalp and ran down his face, mixing with the blood. 
He kept his eyes on the two by the fire so he could stop in an instant if they looked
his way.

Omar signaled to his two witches, nodding with his head
that now was the moment.

"I was completely overwhelmed, seeing you
and Heather." Michelle said smiling and shaking her head.  "But I wanted
to ask you a question.  It's been burning in my mind."

"Yes?"

"Why you don't want me to work with you in Tokyo?"

"Many reasons.  First, like I said, I couldn't be
your boss.  I can't tell you to do anything.  Not now.  But if you really want to
go to Tokyo, work with the executive committee, I will recommend it to the chairman."

"I can see your point, of course," Michelle said
sadly.

"You could end up in my position.  Controller of Heroshi,"
Nakamura said.

"The only reason I wanted to go to Tokyo was to work
with you."

Nakamura suddenly had a small smile on his face, "Really?"

"Otherwise it didn't appeal to me," Michelle
said.  "Oh, it was exciting at first, when you offered the position.  The reason
I said yes was, I was swept off my feet, so to speak.  I really liked you and wanted
to work with an expert.  It was my rationalization at the time.  I surprised myself,
in fact, when I accepted.  I hadn't even thought it out."

"As I said, you could be controller of Heroshi Corporation. 
The whole shebang."

"But you don't want me there..." Michelle said. 
She wondered why he was talking about her taking over his job.

"No.  I don't want you in Tokyo," Nakamura said. 
"Not half a world away.  Commuting between Tokyo and California is too exhausting,
every weekend or so.  It's much easier, California to Hawaii, when you contemplate
logistics.  Even if I am being selfish."

"What?"  She hoped he meant that he wanted to
see her every weekend, but didn't understand the California, Tokyo, Hawaii itinerary
he was talking about. 

"I'm leaving Heroshi.  I would have been your boss
for just a little while, anyway.  So if you want my job, I'll propose you for the
spot and give you my entire backing.  I pull a lot of weight in the corporation,
so whomever I propose will probably get it.  I'll teach you everything I know in
the next three months.  Then the chairman will be your boss."

"You're leaving?"

"Yes.  I've been buying property in California.  Along
the coast.  I'll manage that and my father's property.  Maybe even buy some fee
simple land here in Hawaii.  I'm tired of Tokyo, tired of having nothing of my own."

"I see," Michelle said slowly.  It was a generous
offer.  He would promote her to the Chairman of Heroshi, and give her a crash course
in everything he knew.  It was tempting.

"So it's really up to you," Nakamura said.  "You
can go to Tokyo and become Controller of Heroshi.  Or you can stay here in Hawaii."

Michelle got up and moved closer to the fire.  After all
the frantic activity during the last few hours she hadn't even felt the chill, but
the northern sides of the islands could get surprisingly cold.  She looked up and
saw fat clouds bunching up around the moon, which had a ring around it.  Ring around
the moon meant rain, she remembered, in one of the old tales she had been told as
a child.  She hoped there would be no lightening tonight.