Enchantress Read online

  Boy has that changed.

  I walked out of the alley, into the bright Hawaiian sunshine, and held a hand up to shield my eyes. Well where did you expect the gods to live? Okay, so they don’t all technically live in Hawaii. They have tracing points here but I have located some of their Hawaiian residences as well. The land is still filled with old magic, practically spilling with it since there isn’t much land to begin with. So it’s a convenient place to ferry in and out of god terrain. Whatever, it’s my home and I have to say I’m getting a little tired of sharing it with them. They have their own realm to live in, they need to go there. Or they can go to Hell for all I care...which also happens to be in the God Realm. In fact, from what I understand, there's a few of them. They can take their pick.

  About five years ago, I truly started developing a relationship with the gods and I’m not talking in the Do you have a relationship with God? Jimmy Swaggart sense. I’m talking about a deep understanding of how truly evil they are. Read your history books kiddies, most gods were revered mainly because they were so damn scary.

  For me it all started with sex. At least it would have if my chosen partner for the evening hadn’t been planning on killing me as a sacrifice to the Hawaiian God, Ku. You think you’ve got some bad date stories.

  My young, Hawaiian escort for the evening was everything every female tourist (and some males too, I’m sure) fantasized about on the plane ride over. He was tall, dark, handsome, and built like a brick… well you get the picture. He also had green eyes, owed to some white ancestor who got lucky. Those eyes were my downfall.

  He took me out on a romantic date ending with us drinking an entire bottle of champagne at a Heiau, a Hawaiian temple. This particular Heiau was dedicated to, you guessed it, Ku. Now I know that doesn’t sound too romantic but take into account that the Heiau was situated on a mountaintop overlooking Waimea Bay and the sun was setting. Orange sky drowning in a cerulean sea that crept into a verdant valley spotted with the flight of tropical birds. Can you see the sexy factor now?

  I may have been tipsy when we started. I’d just turned twenty-one so give me a break on the alcohol consumption, but when I looked up and saw a large local man watching us from the tree line, I sobered up quick. I shot him a nasty look but he was focused on my date so he didn't see it. Something in his gaze set off warning sirens (definitely sirens, not bells) and I turned back sharply to find a large Crocodile Dundee knife plunging towards me.

  I had seconds to roll to the side before the blade ended up embedded in the ground, merely nicking my upper arm instead of going through my chest. I rolled back towards the knife, effectively removing it from my date's possession and my bleeding arm, as I kicked upwards. I don’t know if I hit him there or not but he howled in serious pain.

  “Ku,” he managed to choke out, “Na waimaka o ka lani.” He launched himself at me and in those few moments I saw more than you’d think was possible.

  I saw the local voyeur come striding to us, hand extended, face rapturous. I saw my hand gripping the blade and turning it. I saw the look of shock on my date’s face as the knife slipped into his neck. Internally I shouted “That’s not a knife, this is a knife,” Australian accent and all, and I almost started to giggle hysterically. It’s amazing what the mind will do to protect itself and, like I warned you, I think in movie quotes a lot.

  My mind had definitely needed some protection. I used to think those horror movies with blood spraying from neck wounds were ridiculous and inaccurate. I don’t think that anymore. You hit a guy in the neck with a big blade and he bleeds. A lot. All over you if you just so happen to be beneath him at the time. It was extremely messy, to say the least.

  I think the only reason I didn’t start screaming was, someone else beat me to it. The scream I heard was a terrifying mix of rage, frustration, and pain. It yanked my attention to the left, where I found the local man on his knees. He was right next to me. Way too close for my comfort. He reached for me and I didn’t think. I just reacted. I didn’t aim either. I just shot the knife out straight and followed through with my body. I was suddenly grateful for all the self-defense classes Mom had insisted I take. The biggest advantage training can give you is faster action… automatic reaction. Your body moves before your mind has a chance to process things and it saves you precious, life granting seconds.

  The man was suddenly beneath me gasping, the blade buried in his chest. He started to murmur some words in a language unfamiliar to me. No, surprisingly it was not Hawaiian. I panicked and stabbed him again. I knew magic when I heard it and I also knew any magic he performed would not be beneficial to my well-being. He kept going and I kept stabbing, shutting my eyes to block out the carnage. I felt like I had a starring role in Psycho, the original not that stupid Vince Vaughn remake. All that was missing was the shower curtain and that ridiculously horrifying music. The sound he made was even more horrific though. I didn't open my eyes until he was silent.

  The Heiau was gone, replaced by an elegant room in what must have been a multimillion dollar home. I realized he’d been chanting a spell to open a tracing point, a doorway to the Aether. The Aether, or the Astral as some call it, is a place of pure consciousness. It's also the link between our world and the realm of the gods. Think of reality as a spiritual sandwich. The Aether would be all the tasty filling packed between the bread of our worlds. If you wanted to go from one slice to the other, you had to get through the tuna salad first. Okay, now I'm hungry.

  The Aether is also where magic happens. As a witch, I use it for crafting spells. I can tap into it with my mind and create new realities there. Of course it's not so simple as it sounds. There's a lot of work and usually a few ingredients necessary for creation but once something is created in the Aether, it manifests on the physical plane.

  When I was little, my mom had told me stories of people who could travel the Aether, a practice called tracing, but the ability was lost to the past. The spells had become scarce and unreliable, the destinations vague, the potential risks high. To take your physical body, make it pure consciousness, and send it shooting through the Aether to another location was a mind boggling concept to me. Yet there, beneath me, was proof it could be done. This man could trace, had in fact taken me along for the ride... and I just killed him. Great.

  The man was a bloody mess. I'd nearly decapitated him in my blind attack. I didn’t know it at the time but it’s one of the few ways you can kill a god. Don’t laugh, there are monsters out there who can put their head back on and keep going without missing a beat. Or just sprout two more. Can you say Hydra? Beheading doesn't always work. I repeat, beheading doesn't always work. Remember to take the heart too. Oh and burning is usually quite effective as well but with gods, the head is the most important part to take. I digress.

  After I stopped screaming, (I was actually thankful I’d been able to delay the screaming portion of the experience for that long) I tried to wipe away the blood in a very Lady Macbeth fashion. Out damn spot, out. It was useless. I found the bathroom, not even caring that there could be someone else in the house, and went into the shower fully clothed. I can’t even remember what the bathroom looked like. All I recall is the way the water ran bright red and how I stared at it, mesmerized as it swirled down the drain. It was the first time I'd ever killed, as in anything. Well, except cockroaches but in Hawaii they don't count.

  I stood under the spray and my body began to shake so I added more hot water. It never occurred to me to take my clothes off. I just sluiced the water off them when I was done and patted myself dry with towels. I remember leaving the towels on the floor like I was an obnoxious hotel guest. What did it matter? I think any attempt at manners had been lost when I'd left a corpse in the living room.

  I came out of the bathroom to complete silence. I don’t know what I was expecting. Shouting, screams, policemen waiting to gun me down. There was no one. I was totally alone… in the home of a god. It all sank in. The man praying to Ku. The Hawaiian in the trees.
The Aetheric Plane. I had killed Ku. One of the main gods of the Hawaiian pantheon was lying on a white tile floor with his head barely attached because of me. What the hell kind of karma had I just racked up? Would it matter that it was clearly self defense? I decided it did. Then I decided to snoop around.

  I mean I didn’t even know where I was. Like I said, I knew about portals but had been warned at a very early age to never attempt to open one. So I had no idea if I was still in Hawaii or even on the same plane of existence. I had just traced! I could’ve been anywhere. Tartarus, Niflheim, Minnesota. Oh please, don't let me be in Minnesota. Well, then again, there is that big mall there.

  I crept through the god’s house and hoped he was a bachelor. The last thing I needed was the Mrs. walking in. What does one say in that position? “Hello Mrs. Ku, lovely home you have, sorry about the corpse of your husband. Oh and for making your husband into that corpse.” That was one conversation I didn't want to have.

  The place was deserted though. I walked past room after room filled only with modern Hawaiian furniture, go figure. The golden gleam of Koa wood merged with Hawaiian textiles. High ceilings were crossed with wood beams. Creamy white walls were a stark contrast to dark, hand carved tikis scattered everywhere. The Hawaiian statues looked like they were museum quality and they were all of the same god. Guess who… yep, him.

  A set of sliding glass doors opened to a wide expanse of yard. That in itself screams money when you live in Hawaii, which I was relieved to find myself still in. Coconut trees crowded the edges of the well manicured lawn like gossiping socialites at a cocktail party, snubbing the shorter kukui nut trees around them. A restaining wall penned them all in, preventing any suicidal snubbed kukuis from leaping over the cliff beyond. The house overlooked Waimea valley. I couldn’t see it but I knew the Heiau was below and to the right.

  You'd think a god would have an ocean view.

  Relieved that I wasn’t stranded somewhere impossible to return from, I headed back inside. My brain had started to function again and it was reeling from the reality of my situation. I began to search in earnest, not with thoughts of thievery but simply out of plain curiosity. It wasn’t long before I found the one room that seemed special. The big KAPU (Hawaiian for sacred – don’t touch) written across the door might have given me a clue.

  For lack of a better word, I’ll call the room a study. It was full of books and gadgets I’d never seen before. There were weapons everywhere, not just hanging decoratively on the walls but scattered on the floor, as if they'd been tossed there after a long day at the office, if you catch my drift.

  As if that wasn’t disturbing enough, a wave of magic washed over me, prickling up my arms. When I turned in its direction, all I saw was a massive book. It sat enthroned on a lectern, watching me with the curiosity of a bored tyrant. Covered in dark brown leather instead of luxurious silk, this book wasn't a bejeweled Emperor but a barbarian King. Completely unadorned by gilt or lettering, he needed no crown to proclaim his dominance. Power was decoration enough and this literary monarch wore it like a battle-honed sword, sheathed but still obviously dangerous. I approached it respectfully and it chose to be benevolent, granting me access to spells I never knew existed and information on a race of people who had come from Atlantis. No, not the resort, the actual lost continent.

  With new knowledge came renewed fear. It would be wiser to appease my curiosity somewhere else. Somewhere safer than the home of a god I'd just decapitated. So I ran through the house, grabbing up a large bag (a piece of Ferragamo luggage to be exact, Ku had excellent taste) and hurried back to the study. The book went into the bag and then a couple of the more interesting gadgets on top. I told myself I was not a thief, I took them in the interest of knowledge and besides, the god did try to kill me. To the winner go the spoils right?

  By the front door I found a set of keys sitting in a koa bowl. I grabbed them up and continued my panicked flight right out the door, hoping the spoils included a getaway vehicle. I paused for a moment in a huge, circular, covered drive to get my bearings and located the garage set back to the left. A sleek, black Jaguar with an “Eddie Would Go” bumper sticker peered out of it indolently.

  Eddie being Eddie Aikau, surfer and local hero who was last seen paddling away from the stranded Hokule'a canoe in an effort to fetch help. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that little bit of homage to local culture but I was. I mean damn, I’d just found out gods were real; picturing them purchasing motivating bumper stickers was just a little too much for me. Then I noticed the vanity plate. KuKuK'chu stood out against the rainbow background of the Hawaii license plate. Hmph, Ku was a Beatles fan and, evidently, he was also the walrus.

  I spared one second to giggle, nearly on the verge of hysterics, and then jumped in behind the wheel. In no time, I was zipping down a private drive and breaking with a squeal when I came to an imposing iron gate. I looked around frantically and finally found the remote clipped to the passenger side visor. With shaking hands, I hit the button and hit the road.

  I haven’t dated a local boy since.

  About the Author

  Amy Sumida lives on an island in the Pacific Ocean where gods go to play. She sleeps in a fairy bed, high in the air, with two gravity-defying felines and upon waking, enjoys stabbing people with little needles, over and over, under the guise of making pretty pictures on their skin. She bellydances and paints pictures on her walls but is happiest with her nose stuck in a book, her mind in a different world than this one, filled with fantastical men who unfortunately don't exist in our mundane reality. Thank the gods for fantasy.

  On a serious note, she is the author of several books, including the Godhunter series, Feeding the Lwas, The Vampire-Werewolf Complex, and The Magic of Fabric. She's been writing since she was a little girl but first decided to pursue writing as a career when she gave her high school English teacher one of her books to look over and unbeknownst to her, that teacher passed her book around to all her friends. A month later she was accosted in the halls by a teacher she didn't know, begging her to write a sequel. She's been writing novels ever since.