Authors: Multiple
Love Charms (135 page)
I shook my head and looked up at him. “So
what happened?”
“We got lucky. The FIB stole back the crown
and then they struck against Athena while you were fighting the necromancer. It
was a miracle of good timing.”
“The revolution fell apart then.”
“Yes, and then the dragons couldn’t agree
to my terms fast enough.”
“Which were?”
He laughed and grinned at me. “I’d rather
show you than tell you. Think of it as an incentive to get better, because you
won’t be able to see it from a hospital bed.”
I gave him a look of mock irritation
followed by a coy smile. “I can think of other ways to motivate me.”
“Whoa, third wheel in the room,” Vera
said raising her hand. “Keep it clean.”
I laughed. It hurt, but it felt good,
too. “Sorry.”
Jacob leaned down and kissed me,
murmuring against my lips, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you have as much
incentive as you need.”
I kissed him back suddenly feeling better
than I had in over a year.
Chapter
Nineteen
I hummed as I made my way through the
apartment collecting all the things I would need for a night out; a black
velour shawl lined with satin to keep me warm in the cool October night, my
purse, and a picnic basket filled with cheese, fruit and water. Normally I
would have packed wine, but I’d been cutting back on the alcohol lately. I just
didn’t seem to need it anymore.
One last check in the mirror, a tug on
my off-the-shoulder sweater, and a quick fluff of my hair with my free hand,
and I was ready to go.
Outside, Jacob pulled into a parking spot
just as I reached the sidewalk that ran along the parking lot. He honked the
horn and waved. I smiled and waved back.
It was October now. Two months had passed
since I woke up in the hospital. Eight weeks filled with police inquiries, a
media frenzy that alternately exalted me as a saint or accused me of being a
renegade looking to escape criminal charges. There had been such a hullabaloo,
I’d closed my shop indefinitely. It got to be too much with the police stopping
by on a regular basis, the photographers zeroing in on me with zoom lenses
while reporters shoved microphones in my face, and customers gawked (but never
bought anything).
Fortunately, the dragons had paid me my
weight in human gold eliminating any immediate financial concerns. The book
deals and movie offers pouring in meant it was quite possible I would never
have to work again, which was good considering the media showed no sign of
leaving me in peace any time soon. Even now, I heard the whir and click of a
camera.
At first I didn’t understand the
attention, but once I got out of the hospital and caught up on the news I began
to see the attraction. The zombie detective that had first chased Jacob and I,
forcing us into Fairy, hadn’t been the only person in a position of power who
was dead. Kristoff had been systematically killing and resurrecting key
bureaucrats and other influential people as part of the renegades’ plan for a
New World Order. And not just in Salem, but in several different states.
Kristoff had been criss-crossing the country on a regular basis to install
zombies sure to follow his orders in key positions.
Court decisions, local legislation, and
even some national senate campaigns were called into question when key people
proved to have been zombies under Kristoff’s control. Laws had to be repealed,
criminals retried, and a full investigation into campaign finance had been
launched.
Between Kristoff’s infiltration of the
power structure, the renegade’s logistical resources, and the sheer magnitude
of the dragons, the United States had been in very real danger of a coup
d’etat. And human intelligence didn’t even have a clue or an effective defense
against such a threat. There was a lot of angry rhetoric about the government
leaving us open to supernatural or Sidhe control and why didn’t we allocate
resources to guarding against these kinds of situations.
Bureaucrats, for their part, tap danced
as best they could and threw money at the problem. They passed a budget
providing funds for the CIA and FBI to hire more psychics and develop an
interspecies crime unit. The Sunday morning news shows were filled with earnest
middle-aged politicians making vigorous promises for lasting change.
A few of the shows had asked me to come
on and weigh in with my opinion, but I declined. For one, I wasn’t worried.
Kristoff had been an unnaturally strong necromancer, one of a kind based on all
the research I’d done in the last few weeks. His daughter, Grace was in Fairy
under the care of a FIB psychologist. I visited her every so often and she
seemed to be adjusting well. Because she hadn’t raised humans yet, she could
stay in Fairy and at least there, she couldn’t raise the dead even if she
wanted to. There wouldn’t be another necromancer as strong as Kristoff any
time soon.
Besides, the compromise Jacob had worked
out with the dragons effectively eliminated their interest in taking over earth
and as for the renegades, well, there would always be magic trafficking. It
was, after all, human nature to want what we can’t have, but it would take them
a while to rebuild their black market. And anyway, I had a life to live and I
was pretty sure I didn’t want to become a psychic pundit.
Not when men as handsome as Jacob were
waiting for me.
The only loose thread was Mark’s family.
Celia hadn’t been happy to learn her son had moved on and Mark had asked me to
watch over his half sister. For the time being, though, I gave them some space.
I’d sent over a lovely layette set and a bunch of baby books. Celia hadn’t even
said thank you, but rude was her default setting so I didn’t worry about it too
much.
With a shake of my shoulders, I focused
on the present and made my way over to where Jacob had parked.
“You look lovely,” he said, stepping out
of his car and locking it as he joined me on the sidewalk.
“Thank you.” I twirled, showing off my
black peasant skirt and then laughed when the basket along with my heels threw
me off balance.
“Very nice.” He caught me and pulled me
in for a long, lingering kiss. I tried not to think too much about whether or
not someone was taking our picture at that very moment. Hopefully the newspaper
editors of the world had more class than to publish pictures of me making out
with Jacob.
“Thanks.” I smiled up at him, giddy with
happiness. The worst was behind us and now we could finally enjoy each other.
“You’re welcome. Here, let me get that
for you.” Jacob took the picnic basket from me and I let him as it was heavy
and we had a bit of a walk ahead of us.
“Are you ready?” he asked, offering me
his elbow.
I nodded. “We should get going. They’re
going to start soon.”
I slipped my arm in his, leaning against
him and enjoying the scent of his aftershave. In companionable silence, we
headed for the quay. It wasn’t far, but the traffic and crowds of people
heading the same way slowed us down. What should’ve been a ten minute walk took
a half hour. A lot of people wanted to see the first dragon mating in modern
history.
Finally, we made it to the open grass by
the water. Picnic blankets and patio chairs dotted the lawn while hundreds of
boats bobbed out in the ocean, their lights blinking on as the last rays of the
sun sank into the water. Around us, I noticed people pointing and staring as
they recognized who we were.
Nervous, I fingered the gold charm
hanging around my neck for reassurance. Vera had made three, one for her, one
for me and one for Jacob. She’d finished them just this week and they were
supposed to let people gawk, but prevent them from descending on us like
locusts. Reporters would get a lot of pictures, but wouldn’t be able to bring
themselves to talk to us.
Even with the charms though, we probably
should’ve stayed home and cuddled on the couch, but neither Jacob nor I wanted
to miss tonight’s festivities. We’d both fought too hard and suffered too much
not to be there. Aware of everyone’s eyes on us, we spread our picnic blanket
on the ground and kicked off our shoes.
Sitting side-by-side, we toasted each
other with our water bottles. “To new beginnings,” Jacob said.
I smiled. “Hear, hear.”
Just then, with an audible popping sound,
two dragons burst into the sky. I leaned against Jacob and watched them soar,
the first spark of something completely new. We’d both started out in a dark
place and now we were surrounded by brilliant light that obliterated all the
shadows.
The crowd quickly forgot about us,
oohing
and
ahing
as the dragons spiraled high in the air, creating large rings
of bright flame that illuminated the night sky like a second dawn. I reached
for Jacob’s hand and he leaned in to kiss me as the sky exploded above us.
History was past and the future held the
promise of a new life.
-Fin-
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Chapter One
My grandmother's song would make her wooden dolls dance without
strings, something I have sought to do in my own relationships without much
success. Perhaps my song is not strong enough, or perhaps I would be better off
with stiffer relationships than the blood and bone-based lovers I've chosen--or
that have chosen me.
Living in cities that are so bright they blot out the stars at
night, my lovers have had skin washed pale as fish bellies back home, and I
have never quite figured out how to explain to them what happens on our
reservation, where stars look new and are strong enough to burn our bodies
brown. How do I explain to my vegetarian significant other that he can buy a
t-shirt in the tribal store that reads, "Vegetarian is an Indian word for
poor hunter." How do those for whom meat is something wrapped in plastic
you use plastic to buy, make sense of my siblings hacking meat off a still-warm
carcass? Do they really understand that the smooth hardness of the drums of
mine they touch and admire is the flesh of the animal scraped clean?
Like the hide, I think I have been scrapped smooth--but it
wasn't with the obsidian knives of my grandmother, their glassy blackness
glittering against the brown fur--no, I've been scraped by the sharper knives
of indifference and indulgence.
I was born in the Month of the Singing Frogs, when the wreckage
of winter is overgrown by the timid leaves of spring--when the falling snow
melts to soft rain and mist that leaves you wet without realization. My mother
was in labor for longer than she would care to be--but that, I'm sure, is the
attitude of all mothers, no matter how easily children pop out. I was the
oldest boy, Pisces of twelve children, with my Aries sister preceding me--alas,
she also preceded me in death, (alas? Given the choice I am sure I wouldn't
have liked to have been the first of the family through that dark
doorway—alas is not the right word). Three of our family have marched
through that doorway, two lubed through with alcohol and one who fell in a
manner considerably heavier and more permanently than the rains of my birth
month. Scorpio, Virgo, and Aries were removed from the calendar, in a way Pope
Julian would have admired.
I grew up on our reservation, three hours away from anything one
would recognize as a city, and a five hours drive from an airport where
anything bigger than a crop-duster would take off. At night, the smell of
juniper pervades the air. Perhaps the geographic isolation has allowed us to
keep our old ways more pristine, but I suspect our attitude is a far better
barrier than the simplicity of miles.
Jokiyah would be the one to take Aries, Pisces, and Taurus out
to bathe in the river and the first rays of dawn, the scent of cedar strong and
sharp--we would obediently file into the water, often having to break the ice
on its surface to dip our heads under, turning in the four directions.
Sometimes ice would form on my braids as I would walk back to the rocky shore.
I have such vivid memories of how the water would turn to steam from our body
heat in the bitter cold, and bathe us a second time in the whitest of vapors
that would lift up to join the clouds. Jokiyah was never permitted to offer us
towels to dry off--it was all a ritual (as all is a ritual) to toughen us with
skin of stone and to prevent our getting sick. Today I don't get sick, but I
suspect it is my heart that has petrified, while my skin, according to my
lovers, is frighteningly soft and smooth as stone...
My hair is touched with blue highlights, like the rest of my
family, except for Libra, whose hair is an odd brown, rather than a true black,
and whose eyes are coyote like, rather than the dark discs of midnight, torn
from a starless sky that the rest of us have--pupils impossible to see.
My hair brushes against the top of my belt, and I use it as a
whip against the bone white skin of my lovers, tracing its inkiness slowly,
outlining their bumps and curves and traces of bone underneath, until I begin
to excite them and my hair begins to strike at them.
When I brought the first of my white lovers home, Jokiyah was by
then an old man. He looked at the blond man behind me and began to cry. I had
never seen him weep before, even at the inevitable funerals.
"What?" I hissed.
He whispered, "When the axe came to the woods, the trees
said, 'Look, the handle is one of us.'"
