Mike, as usual, took Scott’s advice.
He’d been asking around town and everywhere they went, where were the priests of Pele? Or priestesses? Or shamans? Anything, anyone. Nobody was talking.
At least in New Orleans, they talked loudly about who practiced voudoun and who could talk to the loa. Here, everyone clammed up. Kindly, but silent.
Scott suggested he go out himself and try to talk to Pele directly. This explained why he had snuck onto the public park lava flats and stood in the path of a lava flow.
It came toward him, achingly slow. He smelled the ground burning beneath it, saw the lava cracking red through the cool obsidian of its cooling top. It came to his feet. He did not move, but whispered a spell.
He heard “tsking” from behind him. He turned to see a dark haired long woman, but with eyes like fire. “You sacrifice yourself for what?”
The lava hit his foot and the heat was unbearable. He tried to move, to jump back, but the lava was like quicksand suddenly, sucking on his shoe, burning through his sneaker. He screamed, and fell backwards as the lava flowed ever so slowly to cover the toes of his foot.
He screamed again, reached back for the woman, but she stood impassive. He dug his other heel into the dirt and pushed himself up and backwards like a crab, and his caught foot finally came free, dripping cooling black lava from his ruined right foot.
He stumbled back, walking on his right heel. He wanted to cry because of the pain, but he wouldn’t – he’d already screamed like a girl. Pele wouldn’t want a priest who screamed like a girl.
She shook her head, her black hair flowing. “Don’t come back here.” She stepped into the lava, and it welcomed her, like sea waves wrapping around her feet.
“Help me,” he said.
“You don’t need my help. You don’t need anyone’s help.” She turned to glare at him. “Go home.”
“Why?” he asked, though it sounded almost like he was begging. He needed a patron, like Scott had a patron; he could do such amazing things if he had a patron.
“Go. Home.” She strode up the side of the volcano. Mike’s spell wouldn’t carry him, and it was taking all his concentration to deal with the pain of his foot.
He hung his head down. “Dammit,” he spat, full of rejection and pain, as he hobbled back to the car.
~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile…
“How did that night go?”
Damon had picked up the phone without even looking at the caller ID. At hearing Johanssen’s voice, and registering the question, he blushed and stammered, “Uh…fine.”
“Better than fine?”
“It was…fine. I talked to him.” He got Kid Cupid’s phone number, but he hadn’t had the nerve to call him yet.
“Good. I’ll have you know I spoke with Kenny last night. He wanted me to say hello.”
“Kenny? Really?” He didn’t think Kenny cared.
“Indeed. It seems that you touched many people in Teen Guardians. I believe that once they see how well you have it, they will be more than happy to work with me.”
“Grim – I don’t think Grim would like that.”
“I said with, not for. Kenny, it seemed, wanted to know the whys and wherefores, which was something I was not expecting from someone that young.”
“He’s been through a lot, I heard.”
“You’ll have to tell me.” Damon heard a beep on his computer, and saw that he had new mail. It was from Johanssen. It was a meeting set up for Friday at noon. “I hope you will join me for lunch on Friday and we can discuss things.”
“Uh, sure, sure, I can move things around and do lunch.” Damon pressed accept. It conflicted with a project meeting, but he would fix that. He was the project manager, after all.
“Excellent. I’ve blocked off two hours. We have much to discuss, you and I.” Then the phone disconnected.
“Oh, wow,” Damon said. “Oh…wow.” He grinned.