He makes his selection of weapons, the ceremonial sword once belonging to his father, the same one that had struck down his brother that night so far from the sight of others, save for Lopaka's curious young eyes, so many years before when he'd followed his embittered and drunken father into the forbidden forest. Later, the body was “discovered” by his father, the very assassin who had the power to cover his every step, and he did so with royal aplomb, taking the small, disfigured lump of flesh to the burning place. The bones were thrown into the sea. Lopaka pleaded for the body to be taken to the burial site. After all, Lopeko was of royal heritage, but his pleas went unheard. The body was diseased, contagious, or so the lie went.
The entire episode was cloaked in secrecy, and only the years had brought back the memories in flashes of insight long denied him by a child's abhorrence of a dread reality. Still, his memories were shrouded over, confused and disjointed. Sometimes his father used a sword, sometimes a club, sometimes a coiled rope. It mattered little, since the result was the same. Nowadays Lopaka's dead brother came to him while he slept, his bruised and torn body pleading for vengeance, telling him that his plan to gain immortality and to wreak vengeance on their father was not only well conceived, but that it would reunite them in a way they had never been united on this plane, for Ku had found Lopeko and embraced his so-called cursed soul.
His father had told the village that the boy had contracted the disease, had wandered into the forests and had died when the demons of the dark had attacked him.
All Lopaka knew for certain was that his father would one day answer to Ku, and thereby answer to him, Lopaka. That his brother would be avenged.
His mother's ghost also came into his brain and blew words of encouragement and praise for his pact with Ku. She had known the truth about his father, too, and she'd been poisoned by the devil man to protect his dirty secret.
All his life, Lopaka had lived with these truths, and the silence he'd had to maintain for so long erupted in violence even at a young age. He saw his enemies all around him, for many in the village where he grew up distrusted him to keep silent and his father watched him like a bird of prey considering its next meal.
He steps now toward Kelia. Her eyes give away her soul-felt fear; moist and gleaming with fright, the eyes widen even as the sword is raised above her. The sword tip eases down gently, and it snaps away button and blouse and bra, and now the tip of the cutting edge plays over her brown, firm, responsive skin, and she begins to squirm, her mouthings like an animal plea, like all the dogs he'd ever killed, and so like the girl in the village he'd killed, and so like Lina Kahala and the others before her. Each replay in his mind heightens his need to cany through with it again. Hiilani is no longer a person, she is a sacrificial offering; she is Kelia reborn, placed in his care for the sole purpose of his and Ku's delight.
“ Only a few more like you,” he hoarsely whispers to her, a giddy, leering smile coming to his pouting lips. “Only a few more like you, and I go to Ku.” He plays out the rhyme, repeating it like a mantra. “Don't be afraid. I will anoint you, Kelia, and give your essence to Him, and you will go before me like my brother, my mother… to prepare my way… and together we will have no enemies greater than ourselves…”
She begins to flail like all those before her, afraid to go over. The drug is wearing down, and her scream escapes in short staccato bursts, further exciting him. His glassy eyes are alight now with a mad pleasure, his Ku taking control of him now, speaking in a voice not his: “There is no need of fear. Accept me… love me… accept your fate, Kelia.”
Just as the god speaks through him, using his tongue and vocal cords, Ku also uses his hands, working quickly now to take Kelia's hair in large, long tufts. She continues to flail and kick out at him as he completes her disrobing and stares at her shivering body.
Now, Ku tells him, we do some serious cutting. Each cut has a purpose, a meaning, signifying the order and power over chaos Ku represents, and each cut fascinates Lopaka as blood rivulets begin to paint the child sacrifice.
Kelia's endless screams are heard only by Ku now as they mingle with the acidic screech of Suicidal Tendencies on the stereo, which Lopaka does not recall having turned on.
Ivers, unable to see and in great pain, was not a good patient. He suddenly pulled out his IV and snatched away at the bandage over his eyes while blindly shouting, “Will some goddamned somebody listen to me!”
The medics couldn't restrain him.
“ God damnit, I said call FBI headquarters! Parry! Get Chief Jim Parry down here now. I know who the fucking Cane Cutter is! Lopaka's the name, and I got a piece of his plate number, and he's going to kill her if you don't let me the hell to a phone for Chrissake!”
Another set of orderlies came in and sat on Ivers while the doctor in charge hit him with another and stronger sedative. Not three miles away, in the heart of the Waikiki district, information about the incident outside Fort DeRussy reached James Parry and scattered details were being discussed over the police band. The news had Parry instantly alert. Jessica, seeing his excitement, now listened intently as well.
“ This cop, Ivers… I know him,” Parry said. “He's a good man, but lately he's been a pain in the ass, calling every day, wanting to know the dispensation on the Kaniola case as he calls it. I keep telling the guy Kaniola's case is an HPD investigation, but he never bought it. He's shrewd.”
“ Sounds like he's badly injured.”
“ He's a moose of a man, but yeah… sounds bad. I'm going to get over to the hospital. You want to come?”
“ Sure, let's go see how your friend is.”
After informing the others in the stakeout party. Parry pulled away from the curb. Tony was walking the Ala Moana Boulevard route, working the street, and in close proximity to Terri Reno, checking in every hour on the hour, for what it was worth. Tern's partner, Kalvin Haley, was eyeballing them both from a nearby surveillance van, using a remote camera this time, hoping to find Terri's favorite street beau in his viewfinder, to get the creep on film.
Jessica held firmly now to the dash as Parry sped for the hospital, his strobe light flashing. Once they arrived, they found Ivers under sedation and in no condition to talk about his unfortunate experience; so Jessica went for his doctors, flashing her credentials and wanting to know the skinny on the patient in 211, while Parry held back to talk to the detectives assigned the case.
Jessica quickly located the doctor in charge of Ivers's case, a man named Flores who bitched about Ivers's behavior, saying he'd given the big cop enough sedatives to settle a horse.
“ So what's the prognosis. Doctor?”
“ Vital signs are remarkably stable,” Flores began, taking off his wire-rims to reveal black, Hispanic eyes beneath the hospital glare. “The man's like a bull, believe me. His chances for recovery are good…”
“ But?”
“ Too early to tell about the eyes.”
“ His eyesight is at peril?” Flores replaced his glasses and bit his lower lip. “We're calling in a specialist tomorrow. Can't do any more than we've already done for the moment.”
“ Will he be blinded for life?”
“ It's my considered opinion that he will come through it in time, but who can say. There's been serious damage to the soft tissue of the comea. If he does regain his sight, it will never be a hundred percent, no.”
“ Damn,” she muttered.
“ As for the rest of him, second- and third-degree burns up and down the left side of the body, throat, and head, but it hasn't sapped him of his strength. That much is in evidence.”
“ Meaning?”
“ Meaning it took me and four orderlies to restrain him.”
Jessica next located Jim Parry and huddled with him, informing him of his friend's condition in as positive a tone as she could muster. Parry swallowed hard at the “good” prognosis, and then he turned back to the waiting pair of detectives on the case who'd taken the brief respite from Parry's probing questions to flip back and forth through their notes, stopping now and then to sip coffee from paper cups.
“ They sedated the hell outta Ivers before we could get a word outta him,” said the taller of the two.
“ Hell, when we got here, they were sitting on him. He was trying to bust out, I guess,” said the shorter detective with some mirth.
“ He's like an ox.”
