Page 19 of The Mating Fire
Get into a car with these two men? Harper balked. “Maybe I should wait until tomorrow when there’s more people…”
Xavier and Gideon exchanged glances. Gideon seemed amused.
Suddenly a petite and lovely blonde woman in blue jeans and a white blouse seemed to appear out of nowhere, though she must have drifted through the hotel door without Harper seeing her.
“Oh good, I’m not too late. I thought I’d join you. I’m Ciara, Xavier’s wife. He said conditions tonight are perfect for seeing the blue fire.” The woman extended her hand and Harper shook it.
She glanced at her husband. “Tristan and Nikki are baby-sitting Sonia.”
Having another woman on this trip made her relax. The woman didn’t seem as otherworldly as the men, who seemed to radiate a crackling power.
As they reached the vehicle, a sleek and contemporary four-wheel SUV, the two men began to argue.
“I’m driving,” Gideon announced. “You drive like a bat out of hell.”
“You only got your license and considering the volcano does seem out of hell, my driving would suffice,” Xavier countered.
Ciara sighed and motioned to Harper. “Let’s sit in the back and talk. Men. Good thing I know the way there because they’d never ask for directions.”
Shortly after, they were on the road, with Xavier driving after Ciara gave him directions. They passed rice paddies, and tall palm trees. A lemon wedge of moon against the backdrop of craggy mountains made for a picturesque scene, but she barely noticed.
Only the volcano itself mattered. Harper couldn’t understand her frantic obsession.
“The hike itself is less than five miles round trip, but you need to be careful when reaching the crater. It’s a steep and dangerous path. Keep up and always follow me,” Xavier said, peering into the rear-view mirror.
When they reached the parking lot of Ijen and climbed out of the vehicle, Harper felt an urgent need to abandon the group and hike ahead. She could have hired a man with a wheelbarrow to carry her, as she’d heard some liked to do, but the less people around, the better.
Yet no other cars were in the parking lot. The men with wheelbarrows were gone as well.
Xavier handed out hardhats with headlamps. She wondered about the gas masks. Perhaps Xavier would pass those out along the hike.
None of them were wearing gas masks. Harper breathed in the gaseous air. For some reason, it appealed to her instead of making her cough and strain for oxygen.
As they hiked up to the crater, he made jokes about “hot stuff” and how his daughter Sonia would love coming here to play with the blue fire. His wife kept shaking her head and telling him to stop encouraging their daughter.
“You’re the reason she likes to play with fire,” Ciara told him.
“At least she stopped playing with poisonous spiders,” Gideon remarked.
She ignored their inside jokes and finally, they reached the crater’s rim. Harper glanced down.
Disappointment filled her. Curling smoke wafted upward from the crater, obscuring the view of the lake and the lava.
Xavier cleared his throat. “Perhaps conditions will change.”
“The fumaroles around the volcano emit high concentrations of the sulphur crystal,” she mused. “It’s what causes the blue flames because sulphur has a low melting point and the heat the volcano produces melt the sulphur and produces the gases and the blue lava.”
“Come on baby, light my fire,” Xavier murmured.
Ciara glanced at her husband with a small smile.
“Ijen was formed about 300,000 years ago,” Harper added.
“Caderyn was not around at that time. Or perhaps he was,” Gideon remarked.
“Hard to tell. Though he acts that old,” Xavier said.
She couldn’t tell if they were joking. Caderyn was the name of the mysterious so-called “wizard” who’d given her the letter, but it didn’t matter. The volcano beckoned to her like a siren song, eradicating all logical thought and questions.
