Year of the Boar- Tica Read online

  Changeling Sisters Novellas #1.5

  Year of the Boar:

  TICA

  By Heather Heffner

  The right of Heather Heffner to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988.

  YEAR OF THE BOAR: TICA. Text copyright © 2014 Heather Heffner. Smashwords Edition. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

  Find out the latest news on the Changeling Sisters series at: http://heatherheffner.blogspot.com/

  Year of the Boar: Tica (Changeling Sisters #1.5) is a flashback novella about Rafael’s childhood on O’ahu. It is narrated primarily by his sister, Tica, and his enemy, Vampyre Prince Khyber. This novella contains spoilers for Changeling Sisters Book I: Year of the Wolf.

  Seven deadly vampyre princes. Two sisters far from home. And one spirit world in trouble. Let the shifting begin.

  The Changeling Sisters Series

  Year of the Wolf

  Year of the Tiger

  Year of the Dragon

  The Changeling Sisters Novellas

  Year of the Boar: Tica (#1.5)

  ~Available on major online eBook retailers~

  Welcome to Hell. Don’t abandon all hope. That wouldn’t be as much fun.

  Afterlife Chronicles

  The Tribe of Ishmael

  The Staff of Aaron (Forthcoming)

  ~Available on Amazon.com~

  To Greg, who first showed me the islands.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Boy on Fire

  Chapter 2: A New Dream

  Chapter 3: The Luau

  Chapter 4: Kiss

  Chapter 5: The Plague Man

  Chapter 6: The Job Interview

  Chapter 7: Bethany Hamilton

  Chapter 8: The Spirit Sea

  Chapter 9: Night of the Living Dead

  Chapter 10: The Blood Drinker

  Chapter 11: Confrontation

  Chapter 12: ‘Aina Becoming

  Chapter 13: The Bigger Picture

  Chapter 14: Rumors

  Chapter 15: Stop n’ Inspect

  Chapter 16: A Storm Spent

  Chapter 17: A Camping Trip

  Chapter 18: Shifting Shapes

  Chapter 19: Nightmarchers

  Chapter 20: The Ritual

  Chapter 21: Daughter of the Gods

  Chapter 22: The Boar God’s Offer

  Chapter 23: Long Shadows

  Chapter 24: The Ice Maiden

  Chapter 25: The Return

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Prologue

  ~Khyber~

  At first, they watched me with unwelcoming eyes.

  “Do you know why the sun shines so brightly here?” the tallest mo’o asked, his scaly tail the color of red earth. “It is to chase all of the shadows away.”

  Smaller mo‘o—nature spirits of streams and palm trees—laughed, crawling over pebbles and branches until I was surrounded. A long time ago, the supreme mo’o, Mo’oinanea, sent her lizard-shaped children from Kuaihelani, the land of the gods, to cross the spirit bridge into the islands of the living. They became messengers, tricksters, guardians.

  It was my luck to run into the latter sort.

  My enemy they spoke of erupted in the east. The molten eye gravitated closer and closer, hungry to swallow the sky and the islands and the ocean itself. The turquoise bay blazed up in blinding golden light as if set aflame. The palm trees crawled before my eyes and Kīlauea Crater blurred.

  My skin began to flake like ash and was scattered by the Trade Winds. My fangs dislodged, sinking into my lower chin. My black wings, already tattered by the long flight over to the big island of Hawai’i from Korea, rattled like the last leaves in a harsh desert. I could feel my vampyre body begging me to find a dark cave in which to nest. A vampyre could not walk during the day.

  But I was no ordinary vampyre. I was Khyber, eldest Vampyre Prince of the East. And I had come here to die.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I growled through my fully exposed fangs, “I have somewhere to be.”

  The tallest mo’o cocked his head. “You are a Child of Death, but you know nothing of it.”

  “Oh?” I asked sarcastically. “My mother is a soul eater. I have as many lives as people have regrets. For as long as I can remember, I have dealt out death and watched it veil its victims’ eyes. What more would you have me know?”

  “Fear.” The mo’o’s voice thundered around me while he shrank, his terrible lizard face and fearsome jaws shrinking into a harmless brown gecko. As he crawled away into the glistening bromeliads, I thought I heard a whisper on the wind: “There are things out there older than you, vampyre prince.”

  I might have remembered his warning if all rational thought weren’t obliterated from my mind in the next few hours of hell. I staggered up the slope of Kīlauea, step by agonizing step, my wings long since burned to dust by the sun. My skin melted from my bones and dripped into my eyes until I had no eyelids left to hide behind. My mouth was set in a permanent dead man’s grin because my face had long since deteriorated into a skull. My fangs were the only things that persevered, knocking against my chin bone, as I waited for my head to shatter into a million pieces.

  That moment never came. I reached the top of Kīlauea at noon. The full force of the sun pummeled into me time and time again. The winds blew up from Kīlauea’s throat and shrieked and tore at my feeble frame, stoning me with caustic steam and sulfur: You shall not enter here!

  My jaw bone clattered in the wind as I surveyed the round blueness of the globe far below. The world swam before my spiraling vision. Please.

  I heard the Mother curse me from far away. Then I threw myself down the crater.

  ***

  I awoke with the taste of sand in my mouth and snow in my hair. The palm trees were dark silhouettes hiding the wary eyes of many mo’o, and the sky had blossomed the color of dark berry juices, running down the unknowable figure of Kīlauea in the dark. Turning over, I gazed out upon the sapphire ocean that had spat me out. A silvery orb arose from its depths like a newborn pearl.

  I had lived to see another moon.

  A woman stood nearby, a moonflower tucked behind her left ear. Her ebony hair was sleek like black ice and reflected the stars, while her pā’ū skirt was gold, her shoulder cape white, and her palms blue with frost. I had felt her sisters and her watching me when I attempted to freeze myself to death on Mauna Kea a week before. There were beings out there older than me, indeed.

  I inclined my head, jagged black hair falling in my eyes. “Was it you who rescued me from Kīlauea, O Gre
at Poli’ahu? Pele resides there; I know she would have left me to burn indefinitely.”

  “Each time you attempt to end your unnatural life, it brings the shadows that much closer to our home.” The snow goddess’s deep, haggard voice was disapproving—but curious.

  I gazed into her timeless eyes whispering of icy winds blowing around a lonely white peak trapped in paradise. She could smell the snow on me. She understood that I had to die, or else the shadows would take us all.

  I arose on my newly formed feet. My skin was still scarred and throbbing; the volcano goddess Pele had made sure I wouldn’t forget Kīlauea any time soon. I took a step closer to Poli’ahu.

  “You’re wearing the moonflower I left on Mauna Kea’s slopes.”

  “My sisters and I fought over it.” The snow goddess gave a ghost of a smile. “I won.”

  “Please,” I said. “pity me. My mother’s shadow has not yet touched here. If there is any way I can die, then it will be here, on the sunshine islands of Hawai’i. You are wise and see many things from your mountain. How can I die?”

  “I have consulted with my sisters, and we cannot watch you continue like this,” she agreed. “Here is what you must do. First, you must seek out the son of the shark god, whose name is Nanaue. He was defeated on Moloka’i a long time ago, but now he has returned to this world. Wrestle with him and contain him. You can do this: both of you hunger for the flesh and blood of your own people. This man-eater is of the day, and he will help you walk in sunlight.”

  “And what do you and your sisters get in return?” I demanded.

  “You will rid the world of him for us.” Poli’ahu paused, and the rattling breeze around her face made her features harder still. “For second, you must seek out a young girl of mixed lineage on the island of O’ahu and feed her blood to Nanaue. When you find her, make sure you choose a different name than Khyber, my vampyre prince, or else her protectors will become aware of your presence.”

  “Why should I care to bring death to yet another child?” I asked, weary of such things.

  “She is already dying,” Poli’ahu said dismissively, “but she will not leave this world quietly. No, vampyre prince, seek her out—for Tica Dominguez shall be your death.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I had survived wars, plagues, storms, and the belly of Kīlauea itself. Now a young girl was to be the death of me? Challenge accepted.

  I closed my eyes, and Poli’ahu showed me her face. I almost didn’t want to see it.

  Just one more death. One more family to ruin. One more future to rob.

  Then I would leave this world before I destroyed it.

  Chapter 1: The Boy on Fire

  ~Tica~

  The first word they taught me to say in Hawaiian was the name of the state fish: humuhumunukunukuapua’a.

  “Humu—humu—” My best friend Ryoko stopped and thought, her fishing pole swinging in the wind.

  “—nukunukuapua’a!” I grabbed her pole and scampered up the slippery rocks to Pele’s Chair, turning to grin at Ryoko from the top.

  Ryoko frowned and then tossed her silky black hair over her shoulder. She sat down on the smoothest rock she could find and pulled out her glittery pink phone.

  “Whatever.”

  “It’s not whatever!” I slid the first pole into an old iron anchor and looked for a good spot to position the second one. Pele’s Chair loomed above us, a volcanic pinnacle spearing the blustery blue skies. It was named after Pele, my favorite Hawaiian deity: the goddess of volcanoes. Ancient and majestic, but if you spent too much time looking up, you risked cutting your feet on the broken beer bottles and trash littering the bottom. I scowled and opened up my tackle box, courtesy of my older brother, Rafael. Not that he knew about his generous loan.

  “The reef triggerfish is a symbol of where we live, Ryoko.”

  “So? Knowing a few words in Hawaiian isn’t going to get me a job,” she replied, annoyingly cold and logical as always. “Everyone here speaks English. You’re the only one who remembers the phrases they taught us in elementary school.”

  I was the only one who remembered the humuhumu when it swam up to me a long time ago. I’d been sitting on the dock near old Kaiser Mansion, dipping my toes in the water. Suddenly all of the fish had scattered, and I’d feared that a shark was coming. But then I had seen a lone reef triggerfish: black bandit stripes had shadowed its blue-rimmed eyes and brilliant yellow stripes had cut up its body into triangles.

  I’d thrown the humuhumu bread crumbs and it had devoured them, circling ever closer. Its rainbow scales had glistened so brightly that I remember taking off my sunglasses and rubbing my eyes. When I’d looked back, the reef triggerfish was gone. In its place was a tall dark-skinned man floating beneath the waves. He’d given me a brief, proud nod, and a single word had rolled through my mind like thunder:

  Daughter.

  Then the waves had swept him away.

  I still dreamed of seeing that humuhumu again.

  But having otherworldly communions with fish wasn’t a reason to get your best friend pumped about going fishing—more like one to make her doubt your sanity. And with my poor health these days, I couldn’t afford that.

  So I rolled my eyes instead. “Tell that to Obaa-san the next time she teaches you Japanese. I bet that’ll go over well.” Ryoko’s stern grandmother was the first of her family to immigrate to O’ahu. Her hardness was always softened by the mochi ice cream, fish-shaped crepes, and pancakes stuffed with red bean paste she gave me whenever I came over. I liked her.

  Ryoko smiled and actually looked up from her phone. “You remember that word, Tica? Good lord, you really are a sponge. No wonder your brother is jealous of you.”

  “It’s good for him.” I selected a big red lure.

  “Does Rafael even know we’re here with all of his fishing equipment?”

  “I emailed him. Figure he’ll find out in a week or so. Why?” I grinned wickedly. “Are you hoping he’ll show up and drag our asses back to Kaimukī? I bet you wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Rafael! Please don’t pick me up! Oh! But you’re soooo strong!”

  That was enough to make her to climb up to the top of the outcrop with me. She punched my shoulder, blushing furiously. “Shut up, Tica! Why? Has he said anything about me?”

  “Mmmm… You’ll have to catch a fish before I tell you.”

  “What about my sun bathing time?” she protested.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that. We’re not fishing on the inside, Ryoko. The big fish are out there.” I nodded away from the rocky spit protecting the calm teal bay of the inlet and out toward the frothing ocean. “It’ll take a while to catch ’em.”

  Ryoko grumbled but accepted a pole.

  “This is so boring, Tica,” she complained half an hour later. “Let’s just go get sushi at Genki’s—OH! Did you see that?”

  The tip of her pole had begun to bend. I grinned and watched her wrestle with it for a bit.

  “There’s something on the line!” she cried excitedly. “I can feel a heavy weight! You bring it in, Tica! I don’t want to risk it getting away!”

  What was on the other end was a rock. A big one, too. The line had definitely gotten stuck. I hesitated, looking at Ryoko’s glowing face. She was the only friend who bothered to go fishing with me anymore. Everyone else always hung out at Ala Moana Mall or drove out to Sherwoods Beach to get drunk.

  But then the line tensed and my brother’s expensive red bobber dipped below the waves. I knew how pissed he would be if I lost it.

  “It’s stuck, Ryoko,” I muttered. “I’m going to have to cut the line.”

  “Oh.” Her shoulders deflated. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s hard to fish on the outside.” I hesitated, glancing at the building waves. “I’m going to dive in and grab the bobber.”

  “What? Tica! No!” Ryoko watched a sudden surge of water roar through the channel and reached for my shoulder. “It’s too dangerous!”
r />   I scampered over the slippery rocks toward the churning eddies, my excitement building. “Too late!”

  Then I raised my arms and dove into the torrential sea.

  I shot up to the surface, brown hair sticking to my face and nostrils stinging with salt. The dark blue waves circled around me like shark fins. I took a deep breath and then dove, opening my eyes underwater. A school of silver ‘ō’io swayed tauntingly around my line, the red bobber glistening like a shiny apple amidst them. I propelled myself forward and unclipped it. Waves shuddered over my head in a storm of foam, and I dove deep again.

  I broke surface further out near the tip of the spit, gasping for breath and gazing out upon the full breadth of the sapphire sea. It was a dark blanket seamlessly blue until the island of Moloka’i, lost in the haze. I turned back to the sun-bleached cliffs, preparing to swim in, when to my surprise, there was a young man out farther than I was.

  His black hair fluttered like a tattered wave, nearly invisible in the dark tide. He had no spit to shelter him; he was out in open ocean. And he was struggling.

  I blinked. A hand covered in thick brown shark skin shot out from the waves and grabbed his head, trying to push him under. The boy grunted, snapping the thing’s arm back. The thing’s head tried to rise, slimy and dripping with seaweed, but at the touch of the setting sun, it screeched and dragged the young man down into the deep with it. Ten seconds—twenty— Then sudden movement caught my eye to the left. There, cutting through the water, was none other than the young man, propelling his body toward land in a way I’d never seen a human move before—like a sea snake.

  Shadows seemed to unfurl from his back, and then he shot himself up onto the cliffs and stood to survey the blood-red sunset, grinning.

  I sucked in my breath. His skin blistered and sizzled under the sun as if on fire. The only piece of him that didn’t melt were his eyes, twin shards of crystal blue ice out of place in the sunshine isles. They bore into mine, and my mind was suddenly filled with blizzards, starving ghosts, and a cold, loathsome hunger. Then a wave pulled me under.