Trifecta (104 page)

"And the lights around the fire tonight?" Michelle
asked.  "I thought I was having hallucinations, but you saw them too.  He said
they were dead spirits." 

"I don't know what they were," Vincent said. 
"I've never believed in necromancy; communicating with dead spirits, or bringing
them back to spiritual life."

As he was speaking, Michelle got up and began walking around
the fire.  She picked up a long stick and began sifting through the sand, poking
objects around.

"Feeding human organs to his cat.  A really sick kind
of religion," Heather commented with a little shudder.

"Many people believe that blood has magical properties,"
Vincent said.  "The superstitions go back to the old legends of the Vampires..."

As Vincent told grisly vampire stories, Michelle reached
down between two smoldering logs and picked up a bright shiny faceted object.  It
was hot and she juggled it from one hand to the other.  She looked at it and held
it up to the light.  It could just be glass, from the master of illusion.  She slipped
it into the pocket of her shirt. 

When the helicopter came for them, the crew told
them that Omar was being detained by the police on Kauai because of the charges
that Michelle and Vincent had made against him.  His two witches had elected loyally
to remain with him. 

Samson Stoker's ugly countenance had been recognized by
the Kauai police and he was being held pending removal to a jail in Honolulu, as
he was wanted in connection with masterminding a spectacular bank robbery.

The big helicopter wobbled, making a tremendous amount
of noise.  Michelle could feel it quivering and vibrating, and then it lifted them
straight up off the beach into the stormy night sky.

They were taken directly to a hospital in Princeville. 
When Vincent was given a physical examination, he seemed to have recovered amazingly
from his ordeal in the ocean and what the doctors termed 'exhaustion and exposure,'
but it was mostly relief which precipitated his spectacular recovery.  The knowledge
that he could take Suzanne safely home.  He knew he would never sufficiently recover
from his guilt to take another student on his paranormal quests in the future.

The doctors pronounced that Michelle was suffering
from exposure, dehydration, hypothermia and multiple scrapes and abrasions, but
she was fine and pronounced fit to go.  Heather was examined and released with
the promise that she would check back into the hospital in Honolulu.  Heather
nodded at the doctor, with big innocent eyes, agreeing to all he said, with no
intention of following his orders.  She would not spend another minute in a
hospital unless she was comatose. 

Nakamura was fit with a hard plaster walking cast.

Guy Thorner had waited for them at the Princeville Airport
in Kauai.  He flew them back to his private airfield in Honolulu.  Michelle, Nakamura
and Heather, each individually exhausted from the past few hours slept on the plane. 
From there, Nakamura roused himself sufficiently to drive them all back into Waikiki. 

Nakamura dropped Vincent off at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel
with the promise that they would all meet the next day and talk to Suzanne.  Michelle
gave him a good-by kiss on the cheek as Vincent left the car, thanking him for all
his help.  Vincent countered that she had saved him, but Michelle thought that without
Vincent there in the ocean with her, insisting she take rests and talking almost
nonstop to keep her spirits up, she might not have made it.  They had really saved
each other.

Michelle didn't want to see the sad shambles in her own
apartment, so Nakamura dropped Heather off and took Michelle to the Sheraton.

"Tom is going to be furious with me,"
Michelle said, yawning as she and Nakamura walked into his suite at the Sheraton. 
"But I'm going to be very, very late to work tomorrow.  I'm so exhausted."

She walked over to the picture window overlooking Waikiki
beach.  It was deserted in the early morning hours and truly looked like paradise,
complete with a waking sunrise, palm trees and blue-green water shimmering in the
new dawn.

"Let him fume.  I stole his car.  He can be mad at
both of us.  And you're going to be more than just a little late to work."

Michelle turned around, "Really?"

"Days late," he added.

"I've never missed a day of work in my life."

He was grinning like he had a wonderful secret.  "Vincent
had a good idea.  And Tom Mitsuto needs some hands-on experience at property management."

"What are you talking about?  I hope you haven't decided
to change your mind.  You don't want me to stay here?"

"Not now."

Michelle sighed and turned, looking down at the beach again. 
"I spent the whole day wondering why you didn't want me in Tokyo with you. 
Now you don't want me here either."

"For a few weeks.  And you know exactly what I'm talking
about."

Michelle took Lucifer out of the cat carrier.  She had
told Lucifer to be very quiet.  He hadn't made a sound when they snuck him through
the lobby and up the hotel elevator.  No one had been around in the wee hours to
hear him anyway, if he had begun to scream.  She hugged the cat.

"Do you think I could pet him?" Nakamura asked.

Michelle nodded, "Sure."

"I bet we could take him with us.  He does anything
you say.  I hate the idea of baggage compartments on airplanes.  They really aren't
safe for pets."

Nakamura walked over and petted Lucifer very gently on
the head.  Lucifer allowed the gesture, staring at him with big owlish eyes, so
he repeated the gentle caress a few times.

"What are you talking about?" Michelle asked.

"You don't even have to ask that question, because
you already know."

"Tell me anyway," Michelle said smiling.

"First, I'm going take you to Maui for a few days
of real relaxation.  I'll have to be in a few meetings, but it shouldn't take long. 
Then we can go to California, to my father's place.  I don't know why I'm telling
you all this.  You know it already."

"Go on.  I like to hear it, anyway."

"I'm the one who should be petrified with fear.  You
got completely through my defenses.  You can read my mind.  And on top of that,
you squashed Omar."

"How long?" Michelle asked.

"Long enough."

"Really.  I want to know."

"He was unconscious, or stricken down, for about ten
seconds, after you ran into the ocean."

"That's all?"  She was indignant.

Nakamura started laughing.

"That's nothing," Michelle said, faking extreme
disappointment.

"Don't knock it.  It was long enough.  And I think
Heather was right.  From what I've seen, you are a Black Magic woman, no matter
that Vincent said you were a good witch.  You have beautiful yellow witchy eyes."

"Good.  It'll keep you on your toes.  Now finish up
with the plans.  I want to hear it all."

Nakamura limped over on his walking cast and put an arm
around her, looking down on the beach spread out below them.  "Of course, we'll
make a stop in San Francisco, to see your parents and your brother, Bobby.  Then
maybe take a few days off to be alone in Carmel."

"That's about what I thought," Michelle said. 

"No surprises?"

"I found I have a small gift for reading the future."

"It might even be called prophecy," Nakamura
said.  He was remembering a feeling of having wonderful memories that he couldn't
quite access, like a marvelous dream that disappears upon awakening, when she had
run into the ocean.  If that was a presentment of their life together, he could
hardly wait.

"I really can't see my own future," Michelle
said slowly.  "When I try, all I see is a huge crystal ball.  It has ugly red
and black colors inside, which turn a beautiful clean white, like there's a pure
light glowing inside."

"That's odd," Nakamura murmured, hugging her
tighter.

"I don't know what it means," Michelle said. 
"But I think the danger is gone.  All I feel, for sure, about our future, is
that it will be better than anything I could even imagine."

Michelle knew there were glorious mysteries in the universe
that were unfolding.  The Necromancer had revealed a few possibilities to her last
night.  One had already happened inside her.  She was free to love the wonderful
man standing beside her.

Michelle touched the hard faceted object in her shirt pocket. 
It was a diamond.  Glass would have melted in the fire.  As for a spirit inside,
well, she would just have to wait and see.

––––––––

T
he End

T
hank You for reading Trifecta.  I hope that you 
enjoyed each one of my novels.

Pam Richter 

P
amela M. Richter, lives in West Hollywood, California.

She has a degree in
Psychology, from Northridge State University, has worked as a property manager
for Nansay, Corp., a multi-national corporation, and was a dance teacher for
the Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire Dance Studios.

Questions and comments are welcome:

[email protected]