Hand in hand, they walked to the quay and down an abandoned dock to where they found Pele sitting dangling her feet, her toes not quite reaching the harbor water. Though dusk had come and gone, early evening offered no cooling from the heat, even in October, but it was to be expected.

“I have come to say goodbye,” the goddess said.

“Hey,” said Tommi, “you have a new accent? It sounds like…what?...French?

“A school teacher drowned on vacation, in Martinique. I needed a more worldly view.”

Both Tommi and Hunter looked at the young woman dumbstruck, while she continued.

“I am leaving, for a time.”

“But aren’t you…of the earth?” Tommi’s reluctance to accept her departure was sincere even if begrudging. She had enjoyed the bantering strangeness of this ‘person’.

“I have put in motion the major events I was asked to.”

“What about Danny? How’s he going to take it?” Hunter was curious.

“Oh, we split after a month. I broke his heart, for a week. But gave him a thrilling rodeo ride; character building, boy to man; he will be better for it, a better rider for sure.”

“That’s nice to hear,” deadpanned Tommi; even in a French accent, the girl’s flippancy so annoyed her. “Will you send him a love note from the other side?”

“No, of course not, but that’s why I wanted to see you both. Revelation time for everyone.”

“What are you talking about?” Hunter’s queried, wary.

“Hunter, I am pregnant,” said Pele, the goddess of Mother Earth.

When shock hit disbelief, she added, “And the child’s yours,

Hunter. Not Danny’s. Girls know these things. Usually. And before your jaw drops off or Tommi bursts a blood vessel, here’s what’s going to happen, just to get the rules straight.”

She had them trapped to hear her next proclamation, a dire command as it seemed. “I will be gone until March of next year. Seems like there’s going to be an inventory taken in the spirit world. More atomic bombs are being dropped. They’re talking about hydrogen bombs, whatever those are. You know, your friends the Russians got hold of some Baker Test bomb photos, and had some spies in place in the U.S. Government, and they’re working on starting their own atomic arsenal. I’ll be back with a list of what’s coming and what’s here already roaming around. It’ll be your shopping list of what to take care of and send back, or better yet, destroy. On my return I will place a child in your arms for you to raise as a proud father. I’m not into changing diapers.” She looked to Tommi and back to Hunter. “You have some months to figure it all out.

“Meanwhile, to keep your mind occupied. I have brought you a client.”

A voice behind them said a pleasant, “Hi.” Hunter and Tommi jumped at this appearance from nowhere.

A beautiful young girl, dressed in a long, gloss green trench coat, sat on the dock behind them, her feet trailing in the water. No, not her feet, her tentacles.

“I can’t wait to join the party tonight,” she said.

Hunter now in apoplectic alarm, still not having digestedthe first part of Pele’s surprise on him, exclaimed in a confusedspurt, “You are coming to the Red Tiki this evening?”

“It is a costume party, isn’t it?” Her lovely face bore an innocent expression. “I should fit in, maybe even win a prize for ‘Most Original’, don’t you think?”

“My sister and her wit,” said Pele. “She tried to kill me once, but enough of us. Nā-maka, why don’t you and Mr. Hopewell talk about his new case? Miss Tommi and I are going to go over there and have a little girl-to-girl chat.”

The two women wandered off the dock and sat on a bench under, appropriately, a tentacle-dangling banyan tree; they could see Nā-maka waving her appendages for emphasis in her story telling to Hunter, quite an animated project, whatever it might turn out to be.

Pele looked intently at Tommi, provoking a shy uncomfortable blush.

“Have you told Hunter you are pregnant?” queried the goddess.

“How did you know?”

Pele gave a shrug to suggest female deity all-partial knowing.

“Have you?”

“No,” admitted Tommi. “Compared to what you just sprung on him, my problems are insignificant.”

“No, they are not. Will you be truthful and tell him the child is not his?”

“Now, that is a dilemma, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps not, but such things are not so pleasant. The point is, what sort of man is Hunter? Will he think of you with concern or see his male pride off ended and be repulsed?”

Tommi did not respond.

“The way I see it, you tell him the truth, and have him forever angry at you, if he is that kind of man. Or you don’t tell him, let him believe it is his, and let him do the honorable thing and marry you. And you become the mother of ‘twins’. When twins look different, the truth surfaces, and as they say, you are in hot lava.”

Motherhood being a foreign word to her, Tommi reeled at all the overpowering implications yet to calculate. There was one choice. “I could lose the child, for it is not a child yet. There are many trained women in Chinatown.”

Pele frowned and Tommi felt an aura of heat come over them both, making her shift uncomfortably.

“That will not happen. I have my hero and he is cured. I will not let anyone hurt him, physically or mentally. He has a destiny. If you interfere, Hunter will be shown a Tiki Shark drawing before your abortion; it will show you hemorrhaged and dying from such practice. Would your death placate Hunter’s conscience, or would he see himself as the cause of your destruction? Would you be willing to destroy him with grief, drive him back to his downward spiral drinking?”

Tommi recoiled from such a vision; that she could be so selfish just to solve her own problems and that with her absence by death, Hunter would presumably go on, find other happiness. No, she believed, she could never hurt him. He had become so happy, until now. What should she do?

“You forget one minor aspect.”

“Oh, Pele, come on, hit me with your wisdom. It can’t send me over the edge any faster.”

“Sarcasm?”

“Yes, loads of it.” Tommi felt the burden of a great decision to be made.

“Your children are to be of the gods; they will be raised to have extraordinary powers. While mankind tries to imagine the future with all these silly comic books of fantasy and outer space paioles, or the superstitious religions of ancient peoples, you all still can’t comprehend what this tearing of the heavens is to mean for your world and ours.”

Tommi slumped; the future of two worlds bore down on her, like Mauna Kea pressing down on her shoulders.

 

 

At the appointed hour, the Lounge closed for the planned forty minutes of outside ceremony, the audience standing in one large gathering of camaraderie, boisterous, attentive through short speeches, including one from the Mayor of Honolulu.

“We need to talk,” said Hunter, still numb.

Later,” came her only response. She feared to face the discussion, the outcome: will he stay, propose marriage, or leave, and never return to her? She was losing the courage to what made the right decision. And a new truth had been revealed when she had her girl talk with Pele: the Atomic two-headed snake, as Hunter had surmised, was after her, to kill not her, but the embryo inside, a future threatening god child. Tommi saw the tragedy that lay ahead: she must cling to Hunter as much for protection as love.

Hunter, nodded to her silence, and accepted her postponement for that talk, a prospect he also did not relish.

At the end of another speech, the Honolulu Chamber of

Commerce gave Lyle a ‘Better Business’ award.

They whispered over the oration.

“Tell me what Nā-maka wanted? Something for us to be involved in?” She left the ‘us’ hanging, a temptation, a riddle to her thoughts.

“A posse of black devil banshees is headed this way. From the other side, not mutated like Gojira or the snake. They seem to be homing in on me or you or the both of us.”

“Speaking of Gojira, what’s Nā-maka know? She’s of the ocean. Where’s Gojria?”

“Growing, in the deep. Someday, I—we—will have to face him—it.”

At least they were talking, Tommi considered. Maybe we could talk things out, not let emotions overwhelm us. She might as well get out her hypothesis. “I think we need to consider other monsters still unaccounted for.”

“The ones from the other atomic bomb blasts?”

A youth choir from the Kamehameha School were singing standard Hawaiian songs, “Aloha ‘Oe” and “Malama Ia Me Oe’ led by a young soloist, a Chinese-Portugeuse boy by the name of Donnie Tai Loy Ho. In this land of mixed bloods, Sheftel never had been prejudiced against any race or their money.

Tommi leaned in, her voice at Hunter’s ear, her head resting on his shoulder, liking the feeling. Wanting it to continue, forever, but… “More like Kū on the loose.”

“Aren’t we doing the Kū dedication at this moment?” He looked at the cloth covering.

“Are we sure? Try me on this. First, Kū controlled the sailors.

But in the end it was Baran who fled with the soldiers guarding him, not Kū, who was still fighting you. Second, no blood on the snow. Baran was not bleeding; a man shot leaves a crimson trail, even if only droplets. None. Finally, when Baran came to kill me, he shouted,

‘Die you—.’ And then he was shot, his last word hanging. I’m thinking he was not going to say ‘bitch’ or something like that. I think his formed words were ‘Die, you…mm…mortal.”

Hunter’s eyes widened as he put past pieces of a puzzle into place. “When I was tossing Kū, his last words were very well spoken...”Who are you?” Kū knew what I was, but Baran thought I was a soldier with an unusual look and a few muscles, nothing more.”

“Whatever happened, happened on Mauna Kea?”

Hunter mulled.

“What Pele did with Chrissy--“

“Who?”

“Later, part of our ‘later’ talk. I think the word is something like ‘transference’ or ‘transformation’, ‘trans’ something. Kū got a hold of Baran’s body and took over his knowledge, but still has the soul of Kū.”

“Then, what are we dedicating tonight?”

“The husk of Kū, with the leftovers of Baran, what Kū did not think important.”

“Then out there somewhere is Kū looking like Baran. Kū is now educated to the modern ways, far more dangerous, wars with devil gods, war between men. Kū -Baran fomenting them.”

“Yes, I’m am afraid you could be right.”

“I had my suspicions. Here’s the clincher. Lyle handed this to me off the message board. Addressed to me.” She had not meant to show him the postcard of a pagoda-styled temple among pine trees. The other side was inscribed: “Having a wonderful time. Hope you drop in and see me soon. Bring your friend… and family. –B”

“Where’s this card from?”

“Korea.”

Hunter froze. Too many coincidences were foretelling action he was fated to take. He tried to comfort himself, believing it was not to be, yet he did say, “But nothing is happening in Korea.”

“Unless Baran- Kū will start it.”

“Is this why you wanted me learning this Taekwon-Do? That’s Korean martial art.” He gave her a comforting smile of it doesn’t matter, suggesting a future.

Tommi took in the ceremony around them.

“I wonder if Pele knows Kū is on the loose and not that tiki statue at the front door?”

“She fooled Kū the first time and captured him. Perhaps

Kū now has tricked her. These gods are powerful but not all knowing; they have flaws, they can make mistakes.”

“Yes, Kū did not know about firearms; Pele came first as an innocent native girl and later as a high school cheerleader type. Not the brightest light bulbs.” Tommi bit her tongue at this put down, realizing she still smoldered with jealousy, of how easy Pele manipulated the role of temptress.

“Well,” Hunter saw beyond the personalities, understood the greater fall-out and sighed with reluctance. “When she finds out, she will be one pissed off goddess, and will expect me to fight Kū and save the day, if not the universe.”

She was going to answer, pleading him not to go for her sake, when she heard Lyle Sheftel call their names to join him up front. “Two of my best friends, who unselfishly helped to put the tiki back into the Red Tiki.”

The three of them simultaneously pulled on the drawstring ropes and the cloth curtain fell from the statue-- the applause resounded, as the doors of the bar were flung open, greeter Mister Manaa stepped aside, and tiki mugs clinking halfprice maitais drew in the monster-vampire-witch costumed and thirsty patrons to one of the most renowned drinking establishments, west of San Francisco, east of Hong Kong. The

Red Tiki Lounge and Bar.

Hunter Hopewell and Tomoe Jingu, left alone, stared up at the massive tiki overseeing all who might enter, both with mixed thoughts, their dreams unfulfilled, uncertain futures dangerous and as powerful as an atomic bomb, out there somewhere, on a countdown. Still, they held hands and stood close to each other, seeking comfort and happiness.

Tiki Shark came running out, breathless. “Come in, you gotta

see her. Just gorgeous. Great costume. That tentacle thing.” He giggled. “My Mona Lisa octopus. I want to paint her. And she wants to dance with me. Can you believe that!? Wowie!”

All three, each with their own private wish for luck and good fortune, patted the tiki and, arm in arm, walked in to join the celebration.

 

 

THE END…not quite