Racing the Dark

  Racing the Dark

  Racing the Dark

  Alaya Dawn Johnson

  To Lauren,

  my partner in crime and novel agony aunt. You don't get to pick your sister, but you do get to pick your best friend.

  To Scott,

  who opened up my world so I could write this one.

  Prologue

  N THE SECOND NIGHT, the girl who was not yet an angel fell asleep and dreamed. She dreamed of water, thick and viscous as blood, home to what seemed like a thousand terrifyingly alien creatures. They caressed her adult wings as they pulled her deeper into the water and she cried out in pain. She could hardly see them through the murk-but what she glimpsed seemed inverted, impossible, sickening. A disembodied heart with grasping hands. A monstrous fish whose tail had melted into its head. She shrieked and struggled to swim away, but her wings weighed her down, and she sank deeper. When she opened her mouth, the water came flowing in and now it really was blood-metallic, salty (and slightly sweet?). Was it her own? It seemed to be streaming from her back.

  She used to love water. Even through all the pain and fear, she remembered that. But the old love had been replaced by terror, and she knew her longing for the past was futile. No, she could not turn back now-she could only plummet. As she descended, the pressure drove at her ears relentlessly. First the left, then the right-she felt them pop and rupture. Her screams tore at her vocal chords, but she could not hear a sound.

  And still she sank.

  The strange creatures around her grew more substantial, and subtly less menacing. A silent crowd of them accompanied her on her descent, and in their gazes she saw a wary acceptance and could that be fear? No one had ever told her it was possible for a spirit to fear a human. But then again, she was more than half spirit herself, this far down-a creature of wind and water and earth and death. Yes, perhaps death most of all.

  As they neared the bottom of this ocean of blood and water, she felt a growing anticipation. Something was waiting for her down there. She felt herself sinking into its consciousness as though it were a physical force, at once repelling her and reeling her in. Her limbs jerked and spasmed, while the pain in her back grew more intense. Her wings were the first to touch the mud-soft clay of the sea floor: a sudden, searing pain. When she opened her mouth to scream, she felt the unbearable force emanating from the creature that had been waiting for her. It rushed down her throat, then gripped her heart and her bowels. She would die, she thought. A relief.

  Who are you? she thought, since she couldn't very well speak, or hear herself even if she could.

  To her surprise, the creature eased its bodiless grip and its outline slowly emerged from the sea's red-tinged fog.

  This was entirely different from your average dream phantom. It existed, in far more concrete terms than any of the spirits that had accompanied her here. And yet, sure as she was of its existence, she had a much harder time comprehending its appearance. Massive, with oddly malleable edges that seemed to shrink and expand at whim. Were those wings she saw, or fins? Or hands? But feathers-of those she was certain-coated its body in slick cerulean and a black dark as octopus ink. Two eyes that seemed almost normal until you actually looked into them and noticed how they reflected your face like shards of a broken mirror, shattering the watcher into infinity. She shrank back at the sight-somehow, in those horrifying eyes, infinity felt like nonexistence.

  Is that death, then, or something beyond it?

  "Both," the creature said, its surprisingly gentle voice somehow penetrating her thoughts. She shuddered.

  Who are you? What are you? Panic, desperation, infinitely reflected in those impossible eyes.

  The voice smiled. "You don't realize, even now?"

  A possibility occurred to her. The waterbird? But why?

  "A glimpse of your future. Do you understand yet, Lana?"

  No. No, no, no.

  "You will."

  And when she awoke, alone except for the death among the long-deserted ruins, the dream seeped from her mind, wrung free by blood and pain and fear like water from a rag.

  PART I

  Bloody Sunrise

  1

  HE WET SAND BETWEEN HER LEGS was stained dark red.

  The insides of her thighs were sticky with it, but she resisted the urge to rub the blood away. It was her first, and it must remain there until cleansed by the ocean itself. Lana curled her toes in the sand and shivered as the wind lashed the early-morning drizzle against her naked body. It was a sun shower-half the sky was dark and cloudy while dawn brightened the rest. A good omen, Lana supposed, although to be certain she would have to ask Okilani later.

  It seemed as though everyone on the whole island had turned out for her trial of womanhood, although common sense told her it was only half as many. The elders were there, of course, dressed in sea-green robes and leibo, the traditional diving pants that Lana too would earn this day if she could harvest her own mandagah jewel. At their head stood Okilani. She was more than sixty years old, but her beauty had always dazzled Lana. Her long, bone-white hair blew around her shoulders, brushing against her necklace of the finest mandagah jewels. At their center was a jewel of bright orange-the color of the sunset, and the rarest of all because it could only be taken from a dying fish. Its harvest years ago, at Okilani's own first blood, had marked her for life.

  Lana bit her lip as a particularly harsh gust splashed the cold water against her body. Her stomach was churning so badly that she was afraid she might vomit if they didn't let her into the water soon. The elders looked as though they were waiting for something, but she couldn't imagine what. Lana squinted in the rain and looked out at the horizon. The wisps of clouds that surrounded the dawn sun looked as though they had been streaked with blood. The color surprised Lana-it was unusual for a sunrise on her island to be so unrelentingly red. And stranger still that she would have her first blood during such a dawn. She had awakened two hours earlier with a terrible stomachache and a strange wet sensation between her legs. For all she had been expecting it, she had taken nearly ten minutes to realize what had happened. She had rolled off of her pallet and onto the cold wooden floor and stared at the worn ceiling beams. It crossed her mind to keep her first blood secret until the next month-she didn't feel at all ready for her first solo dive. She could barely hold her breath for a minute and a half, let alone the four and even five minutes her mother and Okilani could accomplish. How could she possibly complete her dive? And coming up without a mandagah jewel would be a terrible shame for both her and her family. Now that she was thirteen, Lana was too old for her age to be an excuse. She had lain on the floor in a state of terrible indecision until her mother entered the room and solved the problem for her. She knew her mother would not consider even the idea of spurning tradition and hiding her daughter's first blood until the next month. So Lana had stood up and tried to pretend that she was ready for her rite of passage.

  As she waited on the sand, she was still attempting to convince herself.

  "Iolana bei'Leilani."

  The sound of Okilani's powerful voice booming above the surf made Lana's head snap up as though it had been tied to a puppet string. Okilani was using her formal name. The trial was starting. Lana hadn't thought it possible, but her heart started beating faster, and her stomach gave another lurch.

  "Today it will be decided whether you will attain womanhood or remain a child. You have your first blood-what remains to be seen is whether you can pass the test that all who wish to harvest the sacred mandagah jewels must face. Are you ready, Iolana?"

  Lana swallowed. She wanted to shake her head and run straight back home, but she felt her mother's eyes on her back and knew that was not an option. She took a deep breath, raised her he
ad, and stared straight into Okilani's wide brown eyes.

  "I'm ready," she said.

  The elders stood behind her as she walked alone towards the surf. Lana wished that she could have been initiated at sunset instead-the tide always made diving at dawn more difficult than in the evening. She bit her lip. No time for regrets now. She had never entered the water for a dive alone before-her mother or one of the other experienced divers had always accompanied her, to show her how to breathe properly on the surface and how to maintain her air supply under the waves, how to find the mandagah fish and then carefully harvest the jewels hidden in the tiny pouches inside their mouths. It was a delicate process, and one that could only be accomplished in early morning and late evening, which is when the mandagah schools would move from one shoal to another. Lana stared at the blood-red sunrise and balled her hands into fists. She couldn't fail. Despite the steady rain, she was startled to see the silhouette of one of the sacred outer islands-the death shrine. She shivered. It was rarely visible from the shore, even on clear days.

  Feeling the anticipation of the crowd waiting behind her, she stepped far enough into the surf that the waves came up to her waist. With a holler that was as much a cry for strength as it was the traditional diver's prayer to the water spirit, she bent her knees and sucked in air until it hurt. Before fear could force it from her lungs, she dove.

  She pushed herself against the undercurrent with powerful strokes, plunging as deep as she could. The water around all of these small islands was fresh, not salty. This allowed the mandagah fish to flourish, which in turn made it possible for Lana's people to harvest the jewels and trade them on the main islands. The mandagah, and the fish trade in general, sustained the islanders in these remote regions. Lana felt her ears beginning to hurt and used a small amount of her air to ease their pressure. She opened her eyes.

  She had reached perhaps thirty feet below the surface. All around her was the beautiful living coral that she had become so familiar with, growing up here and diving with her mother. She began to relax-this wouldn't be so difficult. At first, she simply swam around the reef, hoping to find something that caught her eye. The mandagah could be tricky to see because their colors blended so well with the ocean floor. She paused. Had something moved below her? As slowly as she dared, she swam closer to the sandy bottom and peered underneath a sharply jutting piece of coral.

  She almost exhaled in relief, but caught herself. She had found one. But why was it alone? She hadn't seen any others near it moving together to another shoal. The large fish stared at her with its oddly human-like face, while she contemplated how to harvest its jewel. Usually she had to grasp and hold them to prevent them from getting away, but something was strange about this fish-its sunken eyes made her think it didn't have the energy to move at all. Unsure of what else to do, she gently moved her fingers towards its thick lips. She had barely touched it, let alone started the process of prying out the jewel, when its mouth sprang open of its own accord. Her mind went numb. Mandagah fish never willingly surrendered their jewels. Before she could even recover from that surprise, the fish moved its head slightly, and not one but two jewels fell from its mouth into her palm. Her heart pounded, and the churning in her stomach changed into some strange mixture of excitement and dread.

  She had found a dying mandagah fish. Only the dying mandagah produced two jewels-and only on the rarest occasions were they of two different colors. This mandagah, still staring at her passively, had first produced a striking jewel of common blue. The other, however, was orange-red, like the color of the dawn above the surface of the water. The only other person Lana had ever heard of who'd recovered a jewel liked this was Okilani; it had been her discovery of that orange jewel that had marked Okilani for training as an elder. Lana's mind whirled. Even though she knew how proud her mother would be if Lana was marked with the distinction of becoming an elder, Lana herself didn't want that responsibility-she wanted the freedom to travel to other islands when she got older, and to marry, and make love to a man. For an instant Lana wanted nothing more than to toss the strange red jewel into the sand and pretend that she had never found it. But she had received a willing gift from a dying mandagah and she could not throw it away. She couldn't even leave it here and come back for it later, because by then the sea would have claimed it. Mandagah jewels, once yielded by the fish that had formed them, had to be cured right away-otherwise they dissolved within a day.

  Lana felt herself growing light-headed, and she realized she would run out of air if she didn't surface soon. How long had she been under? Two minutes? Three? Certainly longer than she'd ever managed before. The red jewel felt like it was burning her hand. She made a decision. Whatever happened, she could not let anyone else know she had found it. She would keep it and cure it herself, but it would be her secret. No one-especially not Okilani-could know that she had been marked.

  Lana looked at the mandagah. Its eyes were fluttering, and she realized it was dying even as she watched. Impulsively, she brushed its mouth with her finger and then touched it to her forehead. She had to leave. Taking one last look at the dying fish, she kicked off and swam with powerful strokes back to the surface.

  Leilani had endured the first two minutes in silence, radiating an outward appearance of calm. Inwardly, she wondered if her daughter was at all prepared for this task. Lana could barely hold her breath for a minute, and only luck would allow her to harvest a mandagah jewel in such a short time. After two minutes had passed, she turned to her husband Kapa, panic in her eyes. He looked worried as well, but pressed her hand in a way that made her keep silent. She kept staring at the choppy water, hoping that any second her daughter would surface triumphantly, holding a mandagah jewel. Another minute passed. Was it possible that her daughter had actually chosen to drown rather than face the shame of surfacing without a jewel? Hot and cold chased each other across her skin. She should have let Lana hide her first blood and wait until she was ready. Had she killed her only child with her stubborn desire to follow tradition? Kapa looked at her again, this time with a similar sort of terror in his eyes. She stared at the waves breaking on the shore. Nothing. It had been nearly four minutes since Lana dove. Damning propriety, Leilani left her husband and strode forward to the line of elders. Okilani broke their ranks and turned to meet her.

  "Could she have drowned herself?" Okilani asked.

  Leilani felt as though she had been punched in the stomach. "I don't know. I can't imagine ... please, let me dive and save her. It's been too long."

  Okilani's face was grim. "Not yet, Leilani. The rite cannot be considered failed yet. She has only been under four minutes. Your normal dive is at least that long and we've both done as long as six. We cannot break the rite until there is no possibility she has succeeded."

  "But she's young! She's never managed for longer than two minutes. Do you want her to die?"

  Leilani's shout echoed across the beach. Everyone was staring at the two of them, but Leilani didn't care how much they talked later.

  "Lei," Okilani said softly. She had opened her mouth to say something else when they both heard Kapa yell. He was pointing to the water.

  Leilani sank to her knees in the sand.

  Lana had surfaced, and in her upraised hand she held a blue mandagah jewel, glinting in the sunlight.

  Her father rushed toward her as she climbed out of the ocean. Lana was exhausted-far more exhausted than she had felt moments before, under the water. He handed her a robe, which she wrapped around herself gratefully. He made as though to carry her, but she pushed him away. She was a woman now, after all. Her left hand was balled in a tight fist, which she made an effort to distract from by holding out the normal jewel in her right hand.

  "How ... long was I under?" Lana asked her father as they walked toward Okilani. Her mother was standing next to the elder, with wet sand stains visible on the knees of her leibo.

  He looked down at her, with a small smile, and she saw the relief in his tense face. "Ne
arly six minutes," he said.

  Six minutes? She pushed the shock from her mind; she had reached Okilani. She allowed her father to step away from her, and then she bowed slightly to the elder.

  "I have passed the test, honorable elders. I return with this jewel, taken from the mouth of a sacred mandagah." She thought of the ancient creature and the way it had stared at her, how it had given her its jewels as a gift. It was probably dead by now, she realized.

  Okilani took the jewel and stared hard at Lana. She cringed inwardly under Okilani's gaze but managed to keep her face calm. The elder glanced at Lana's tightly closed left fist and then at her eyes. Blood was rushing in Lana's ears, but she met Okilani's stare. She could not let Okilani discover the red jewel. The elder could suspect all she wanted, but Lana would not betray that secret. To Lana's relief, Okilani looked away from her and toward the other six elders.

  "She has passed the test. Do any object?"

  There was silence.

  "Very well. Iolana bei'Leilani, you have passed the rite of womanhood. You are now, and for the rest of your life, a diver for the sacred fish and a disciple of the water spirit."

  There was a cheering on the beach, but it seemed like an insignificant buzz in her ears. She had passed the test. She had become a diver-like every woman in her family had been for generations. She should be happy, or at least relieved. But all she could think about was finding some excuse to get away and hide the red jewel in her left hand before it was discovered.

  Her mother came up to her and hugged her tightly. Lana was shocked to feel the sudden wetness of a tear on her forehead. Was her mother crying?

  "I'm ... I'm so proud of you, Lana," she said.

  Lana realized suddenly how long those almost six minutes must have been for her mother. She hugged her back just as tightly.