Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged (9 page)

"I'm
afraid you're about to tell me something that would be very interesting over cocktails
in L.A., but in a cabin in the woods might scare the shit out of me."

"For
your own protection I have to tell you."

"I
hate this part." I winced.

"The
wolf could be a shape-shifter or, more aptly put, a shape-shifter has taken the
form of a wolf," Callie said, facing me full front and resting her hands
on my knees, I presumed, to keep me from running to my car and fleeing into the
night. She seemed to weigh my reaction before going further with the
explanation.

"I
was studying the aspects in the chart and thinking about my time here with
Manaba and realizing she once told me about shape-shifters in the tribe. Not
everyone can do it, of course. It's a very special talent."

Running
my hands through my hair, I fretted. I'd had a terrible review on my script and
now this. "When I first met you and you told me about astrology and then
psychics and then ghosts, I didn't believe you. Now I believe everything you
say, so I have to draw the line here. This is way too voodoo for me. I can't go
around looking into the eyes of every animal out there to see if it's
really...Ethel."

"I've
walked into their energy field, Teague. I've entered their space and gotten
involved in someone else's drama. Now he's after me too, as evidenced by the
attack on me in the bedroom."

"He
who?" I was breathing rapidly, despising that anyone would threaten
Callie. "You haven't done anything to show anyone you're involved in
whatever's going on here."

"People
in tune with this know, the energy knows...the wolf knows."

"The
wolf knows? I'm sorry but that's insane."

Callie
didn't chastise me for my negativity, perhaps knowing I'd reached the limit of
my willing suspension of disbelief and, instead, went to the kitchen and brewed
me some coffee and let me settle down.

Watching
her from behind, the small hips, well-formed shoulders, and the way her
gorgeous hair swept back off her features, I sighed. "The one thing I
don't want shifting is my relationship with you, unless it's a good shift,
however you define
shift.
.."

She
approached, coffee cup in hand, and we stared at each other for a moment. Then
I ducked my head and put it against her chest, and she draped her arms around
my neck.

"It's
only energy, Teague, don't be afraid. When an athlete stops putting his energy
out there and retires, he often gets sick because that outwardly directed
energy turns in on him. There's no way to dissipate it. When a woman is
repressed and unable to express herself—put her energy out there and say what
she feels— that energy goes inside her and she can get diseases of the heart,
the mind, the body."

"Do
you really believe that?" I flashed on the myriad of women's illnesses and
was incredulous that Callie thought merely speaking out could cure them.
"I don't think it's fair to say women cause their own diseases by not
speaking up."

"Energy
flows out of you or it goes in on you." Callie was resolute, and the
concept she raised seemed so bizarre I really didn't know where to begin the
debate.

"So
what does energy have to do with the wolf eyes that were so human?"

"The
human used personal energy to travel out of body, taking on another form, and
that form was the wolf."

"You
mean like a werewolf that's not a wolf but a person." I spoke carefully,
as if my words might crack the thin ice of reality and drown me in the dark
waters of another realm.

"Many
powerful tribal people of both sexes can shape-shift."

"And
why would anyone want to do that—leave a perfectly good body having a nice
meat-loaf dinner to stalk around in the woods and gnaw on a raw rabbit?"

"To
see something, or experience something they might not be able to see in human
form."

Elmo
suddenly let out a huge sob and crawled under the coffee table, no doubt
receiving mental images of people turning into wolves.

"So
how do they.. .shift?" I said, patting Elmo to comfort him.

"A
part of the soul leaves the body and goes elsewhere, sometimes with the help of
a rhythmic drumbeat. The partial soul can take many forms."

"Is
this wolf-person.. .is that who attacked you energetically in the
bedroom?" I said, thinking I sounded like psychic John Edwards and should
be locked up.

"I'm
almost certain it wasn't. I don't sense real danger from the person who
appeared outside our cabin. The other energy had a different vibration."

"So
Manaba...is she a shape-shifter?"

"Perhaps.
Her grandmother whom I visited once while I was with Manaba—"

"Having
an affair." I completed the sentence.

"A
cerebral affair," she quickly corrected.

"Which
Biblically falls under thinking-it-isdoing-it-so-you're-guilty."

"I
don't believe in guilt. I believe in.. .possibilities."

"It's
possible
you had a cerebral affair with...a wolf, basically."

She
paused to weigh that thought and finally shrugged. "Perhaps." True to
herself, she refused to view her past as anything but the natural course of events
her life was supposed to take, and I had to admit I admired her positive
attitude.

"Don't
let Jacowitz know or I'll get a call telling me to change the characters to a
hooker and a wolf."

"Is
a cerebral affair with a beautiful creature like a wolf more or less strange to
you than having sex with a woman who has sushi in her slits?"

Callie's
remark was quick and struck me unexpectedly, like an animal who, viewed as
tame, irritated and hiding the feeling, chose one day to take its revenge with
one deadly swipe of its paw. I could have retaliated, but a piece of me knew I
deserved it. She was so good, so kind, so ethereal, and I was flippant on my
best day, sarcastic on my worst.

But
Callie had struck out at me—slapped me as harshly as if she'd physically hit
me—and while I could take far worse from anyone else and battle back without
missing a beat, I was suddenly devastated by her attack—hurt. My throat grew
tight and I teared up. Had I been silly enough to believe that Callie would
never say a harsh word to me?
Yes, I believed she never would. And why does
this ridiculous remark make me so upset?

My
own ritualistic, threadbare jealousy was too ever-present with its dark strands
from which I could not extricate myself. Every new thought, every action led back
to a memory that triggered my need to attack Callie for perceived
unfaithfulness in the past, the present, or the future. But now she was caught
up in the jealous energy swirling around us both, the air full of it.

"We
have to stop," I said tearfully.

"Do
you see what combined negative energies can do? We're powerful together but we
must stay positive," Callie replied softly and put her arms around my
neck. Over her shoulder through the window, I spotted a woman striding across
the lawn on the backside of the cabin.

I
dashed to the door in time to see a heavyset woman with a big flat face in a
gray skirt and white blouse, a black sweater too tight to close in front, and
wearing clunky black shoes stride up to the cabin. When Callie and I popped out
onto the porch, she seemed happy to see us.

"No
idea the cabin was full up—sorry, cutting across to the road. Fern
Flanagan." She extended one short, flabby arm and gave me a pump-handle
handshake as I introduced Callie and myself. "I maintenance the roadside facilities
across the way." She nodded toward the two-lane.

"So
you clean up the camp areas?" Callie asked in friendly conversational
fashion.

"That's
me. You can't even think up stuff I've seen. People are dirtier than dirt. Them
bathrooms? Looks like cows have been let loose in 'em—pee up every wall!"

Maybe
I needed relief but a strange, Shrek-like woman in my front yard talking about
peeing up a wall gave me the giggles, which seemed to spur Fern on.

"Honey,
I've done it so many years I've put these women into categories. There's
sitters, hikers, half squatters, and sprayers. Hikers are one leg up, half
squatters hang in the air so they don't touch the seat, and sprayers just let
'er rip from any position. What are you two doin' up here—havin' family for Thanksgiving?"

"A
romantic weekend.. .we're here on a vacation," Callie said, toying
unnecessarily with Fern's tolerance level.

What
in hell has gotten into Callie? She's outing us to people who haven't even
asked, and Fern of the forest is now staring at me.

"Now
that's really nice. I had a girlfriend once in school." For a moment
Fern's eyes misted up as she stared off into the woods, then promptly snapped
back as if to give herself a slap. "But then I ended up marryin' Frankie.
He's a little bitty ole fella 'bout the size of you."

She
poked Callie in the arm and my mind went to a terrible place—little ole
Frankie's pistil in Fern's stamen and how they could ever
physically...pollinate. I shook my head to knock that thought out.

"I
guess I like their little ole hangy-down parts. Funny how we like one thing or
another. Well, you girls have a great weekend." She headed back toward the
road and then spun 180 degrees to face us. "Oh, forgot about the bear
report. They're on the roam because of the fires up in the hills, so don't
leave no food outside your cabin—attracts bears. No food in your car—bear'll
rip open yer trunk. And for God's sake don't leave the cabin if you're havin'
yer time of the month. Bears can smell blood and it gets 'em excited." She
spun again and this time lumbered off into the woods as I suppressed laughter.

Callie
suddenly yanked me up against her chest as if we were performing a Latin dance
routine and kissed me passionately. Heat surged through my entire body as she
dragged me up the porch steps and into the bedroom and pushed me down onto the
bed, flinging herself on top of me as if I were her personal trampoline and
knocking all the breath out of me.

"You
are so cute and sexy when you get the giggles."

"Easy."
I giggled as she began tearing my clothes off and kissing me so fervently I
felt like this might do it for me and any further arousal might be wasted
energy on her part. The heat from inside my body reached inferno levels and ran
a race to connect with the heat outside my body, and I broke into an intense
sweat and thought if I didn't get packed in ice in the next fifteen seconds, I
might blow out through the top of my own head.

"Ahhhh!"
I screamed, ripping myself from her grasp, leaping off the bed, and waving my
arms around while I tried to pull off my remaining clothes.

Callie's
high-pitched laughter continued as she watched me pant and huff and sweat.
"You're having a major hot flash."

"No,
it's just really hot in here and then you're so hot."

"You
didn't tell me you were going through the change."

"I'm
not. I'm in my early forties, for God's sake!" I looked at her oddly,
wondering where that thought came from.

"I
know how old you are, darling." Her voice cuddled me as I crawled back
into bed with her, wrapping my entire body around her and kissing her breasts.
She slid her hands down my buttocks, and my skin, all of it from head to toe,
became damp, clammy, ridiculously hot, like my personal thermostat had been
struck by lightning and suffered a meltdown. "You are definitely going
through the change, but the good news is you soon won't have to worry about
bears," Callie said impishly.

"My
God!" I rolled away from her and she picked up a pillow and made an
elaborate mock gesture of fanning me, telling me I needed to take something for
the hot flashes.

"I'm
not taking estrogen—which is made from horse urine—in order to stop sweating
like a horse."

"You
are inordinately stubborn," she said, no condemnation in her voice.
"I'll get you something homeopathic. It's either that or we'll be making
love only in our minds.. .a cerebral affair after all."

I
moaned in despair, then asked if she would mind turning on the overhead fan.
The cool air whipped across the vast Sahara once known as my body as I refuted
the fact that I might be going through the change and Callie educated me on why
my symptoms were changelike.

"If
you're right," I said despondently, "then God has played a cruel
trick on women, making them bleed for decades, then sweat for years, and
finally allowing them to go dry. Proving, of course, that God is a man."

"With
a warped sense of humor. And the change could make you a little cranky."

"How
will we know? I'm cranky by nature. Menopausal could make me postal."

Rocked
in her arms, I felt the moisture between our bodies evaporate into one another
until our colognes smelled like neither of us and both of us in a mixture of
exotic oils and sensual hormones that kept my heart beating fast, even though I
had been pulled from the race.