by Jamel Cato
He winced. Isabella, despite her youthful appearance, was like a mother to him. And she had at times been romantically involved with his father.
“It’s not just that,” he said. “My tattoos will protect my mind from the octo lights. I won’t forget whatever I see.”
“Say no more,” she said, nodding to her left.
A handsome young Asian man stepped out from behind one of the guards. He bowed at Xavier before heading into the suite.
“Is he my replacement?”
“I gave my sisters my word that I would make every effort to convince you. But to answer your question, yes, he is the seventh now.”
“Who is he?”
“His name is Wi Jin. He’s Dao Ming’s new apprentice.”
“Really? He seems kind of low-key for that job.”
“Hardly. Like Ronnie and Adam, he has been given very strict instructions on how to conduct himself this evening.”
“I just wanted to make sure they treated you and this ceremony with the proper respect. They’re good men.”
“I have no doubt about that. It is ironic that asking men I trust to find other men to participate in this ceremony results in better partners than when we choose the men ourselves.”
“It’s the least I can do after all you’ve done for me.”
“That is the same thing your father used to tell me.”
Xavier was shocked. “My Dad passed this up?”
She laughed. “The whole Spartan Navy could not keep your father from a room with twenty-one naked women. It’s what he would say when he brought me gifts to thank me for healing his wounds.”
“That sounds more like him.”
She clasped Xavier’s hand. “Will you at least stay in the hotel so I do not have to see to your friends getting home? They will not be able to drive for a few hours after we use the lights on them and I have enough people to worry about.”
“I’ll be right out here.”
Remaining right outside the door turned out to be harder than he expected. After only a few minutes of listening to shouts of ecstasy from voices he recognized, he decided to go check out the hotel’s bar.
A quarter hour later he was nursing an expensive bottle of beer when a statuesque beauty about his same skin complexion slid into the empty stool next to him.
“I can count on one hand the number of American men I know who are traveled enough to drink Saison Dupont,” she said.
Xavier didn’t even look over. “I saw a movie once where a pretty woman approached a guy at a hotel bar. When it was all over, the guy was disappointed to find out he had to pay the woman for her time. Like BBD, he thought it was him.”
She leaned in closer. “I would throw your drink in your face for saying that, but then I’d probably have to kill those two DSO agents in the corner. I generally try to avoid doing that when I’m wearing heels. And don’t talk about us in that kind of way. It’s gross.”
He turned to her. “Do I know you?”
“My throat is parched,” she said.
He got her a drink and they found a booth.
A smartly dressed couple in the corner left their table and moved to a spot at the bar that offered a direct line of sight to their booth.
Xavier and the woman chatted about European beer, neo-soul music, and curiously, how pleased she was to be speaking modern English again. The longer she talked, the more certain he became he knew her from somewhere.
When the spying couple lost interest in their conversation and left the bar, he said, “Are you going to sing in my ear and take my wallet now?”
She laughed. “Is that what sirens do these days?”
“Actually, the really good ones just show up at a hotel bar looking like the Centerfold of the Century from King Magazine so you end up handing it over voluntarily.”
“If you saw my wallet, you would know how hilarious that is. But thanks for the compliment.”
“Did Isabella send you down here?”
“No one sends me anywhere.”
“Where did you get those tattoos?”
“The same place you got yours.”
“From the tattoo parlor on Germantown Avenue?”
“Cute,” she said, extending her forearm. “This one is for healing. This one is for strength. This one is to defend against seduction magic, so mine is different than yours. This one—”
“Seriously,” he said, interrupting her. “Who the hell are you? And please don’t say you swore an oath not to tell me.”
She leaned back in her seat. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“You can’t be.”
“I am.”
“I don’t have any siblings.”
“How would you know?”
“Where have you been my whole life?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
“Actually, you don’t. The porn shoot upstairs is just about over and even if it wasn’t, it’s a very bad idea for us to be together like this.”
“Why is that?”
“Also a long story.”
“You just roll up on me at a bar, tell me you’re my sister and then roll out?”
“Look, you’re right. This is way out of order. I shouldn’t have done it like this and I shouldn’t be here. I just didn’t want you sitting here like a sad puppy thinking about what you could be doing upstairs.”
“I’ll be thinking about it for the next eight years.”
“You made the right decision.”
“I did?”
“Trust me, you did. It wouldn’t be good for you to witness your effect on a renewal ceremony.”
“When can we finish this conversation?”
She stood. “I don’t know. Like I said, it’s a bad idea for us to be in such close proximity.”
“Why?”
“Look at the clocks.”
He looked at his watch, then at the wall clock behind the bar. The hands on both devices were turning much too fast.
“I have to go.”
“At least tell me your name.”
“My name is Yefet.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Xavier and Ronnie were walking through the hotel’s underground parking garage toward Xavier’s car.
Adam had booked a room in the hotel. That turned out to be a smart move as the octo lights had made the surgeon woozy like a punch-drunk boxer. Xavier had ended up carrying him to his room.
“I feel good,” Ronnie said for hundredth time. “Am I lit?”
“No.”
“Then why the hell can’t I remember what we just did that has me feeling like Adele on Grammy night? Did we just leave a strip club?”
“No.”
Xavier was starting to get a little concerned. Ronnie was closer to the truth than he should have been after the octo light treatment and he thought he knew why. After he had taken Adam to his room, he arrived back at the penthouse to find Ronnie waiting for his second pass under the octo lights. Over the protests of the technician administering the lights, he had decided that Ronnie would be fine with one treatment and led his friend off to the elevator.
Ronnie stopped. “I know what it is. I signed a book deal, didn’t I?”
“Something like that,” Xavier said, getting them moving toward the car again.
“How much was my advance?”
“Enough that you can produce your own movie based on the book if you want to.”
“Yes!” Ronnie shouted, drawing stares from other guests. “I knew it. Agents kept telling me that nobody would buy a book about a black guy with supernatural powers, but I kept telling them it was really a coming of age story everybody could relate to.”
Now Xavier stopped. “You wrote a novel about a brother with supernatural abilities?”
“Yup.”
“You told me your book was a mystery about a guy who overhears a murder plot in a coffee shop.”
“That was my first book. My agent told me that nobody would
buy that. She said I should try to come up with something featuring a vampire or a werewolf that could tap into the YA demographic.”
“When was this?”
“Ten months ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I knew you would come off like this, so I wanted to finish the book before I told you about it. That way you could read it and see it’s not really based on you. I’m mean, not much at least.”
“What’s it called?”
“Monster Lives Matter,” he said deadpan.
“C’mon Ronnie. You can’t be serious.”
“It got me a book deal, didn’t it?”
“We talked about this. I told you there are laws against profiting from knowledge of the supernatural. You want Denise visiting you at Fort Dix?”
“There is no law against telling my life story.”
“How is a book about someone with supernatural powers your life story?”
“The book is mainly about the best friend of the guy with the powers and everything he endures to maintain a friendship with someone like that.”
“Everything like what?”
Ronnie rattled off a list of challenges he had experienced as Xavier’s best friend, most of which Xavier had never heard or given much thought to.
“Maybe that is a story that should be told. What’s the name of the character with the powers?”
“Xander,” Ronnie said with a touch of reluctance.
Xavier frowned. “And what kind of powers does he have?”
“He can turn into a magic pitbull named Anuthrix.”
Xavier shook his head in exasperation. “Get in the car, Ronnie.”
When they were buckling in, Ronnie said, “I didn’t really get a book deal, did I?”
“You got a deal, but it wasn’t a book deal.”
“Well whatever it was, feel free to volunteer me for it again. This must be what’s it’s like to get high on that Kingston kush.”
“This is better.”
“If you say so. Look X, everything is everything about all that stuff I just said about growing up with you. I wouldn’t change any of it. You know I’ve got your back until the sidewalks crack.”
“True dat,” Xavier said, starting the V-12 engine of his limited-edition Audi.
He had just pulled out of the parking spot and turned toward the exit ramp when he abruptly hit the brakes. What was that scent? He twisted to look in the footwell of the backseat. Three pairs of glowing red eyes stared back at him.
“Get down!” he yelled to Ronnie.
A chupacabra jumped up from the footwell and pulled a rope around Xavier’s throat. A second sprang into his lap and attempted to bind his flailing hands with a different rope.
The third creature launched itself at Ronnie, anchoring its right claw in the flesh of his shoulder so it could slash his face with its free claw.
Ronnie screamed as his blood splattered onto the windshield.
Xavier transformed. His sudden increase in mass caused the chupacabra in his lap to lose its balance and tumble into the front footwell.
Ignoring the choking sensation in his neck, Xavier reached over and grabbed the head of the creature that was mauling Ronnie. The canine yelped. He ripped it away from his friend and rammed it down between the seats with so much force that the shifter knob punctured the creature’s back and emerged out the front of its abdomen. In another blink, he reached behind the headrest and latched onto the foot of the chupacabra that was choking him. He swung its body in a whizzing arc that ended with the small beast fracturing its skull on the steering column.
The last chupacabra, still in the front footwell, sank its fangs deep into Xavier’s calf muscle. Xavier roared. He instinctively used his other foot to spear the creature, pinning it against the gas pedal.
The tires screamed as Xavier’s car accelerated into a row of parked vehicles at nearly sixty miles per hour.
Ronnie barely had time to cover his face before everything went black.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Amazon Rainforest
Yefet handed the photograph of Xavier back to Enieda. “The writing on the back is in a language called Norwegian.”
“What does it say?”
“It says that human is a person of great interest to certain authorities in Norway.”
“Norway is a nation on the continent of Europe, correct?”
“Correct.”
“But Cezar says that this Xavier Hill lives in America.”
“What else did Cezar tell you about this person?”
“He said that when Xavier Hill speaks to the Earth, the Earth speaks back. He has power over that which grows from the ground. And he can change his body into something like a large chupacabra whenever he wishes.”
“And you believe these claims?”
“I had great doubt until I saw the reaction you attempted to suppress upon seeing this photograph. The muscles of your shoulders tensed, and you have avoided eye contact with me. Also, you and this human share some of the same markings on your skin and the bones of your faces are in the same positions. You have much in common with this Xavier Hill. Is he of your people?”
Yefet sighed. “Yes and no.”
“I do not understand.”
“You do not need to understand.”
Enieda considered a moment. “Can you speak to the Earth?”
“I cannot. I am sorry.”
“But this Xavier Hill can?”
“There is some truth to Cezar’s claims.”
“Can he command the ground to produce the Fruit of Awakening?”
“Perhaps. I cannot say for certain.”
“But there is a possibility he can?”
Yefet looked down at her friend. “Why did Cezar bring this photograph to you?”
“He was desperate, as usual. He only turns to me for assistance after he realizes the problem he faces cannot be solved with violence.”
“And this photograph represents such a problem?”
“Cezar wants to capture this human and force him to grow the fruit our pups need to awaken their minds. Then our people can be free of Soul Bringer. Cezar has already attempted this and failed.”
Yefet perked up. “When?”
“Three sunrises ago. Cezar left the Village with two of our largest males. He was the only one to return. He was injured, and his fur carried the scent of humans and other things that cannot be found in our homeland. He claimed the mates of the fallen males for his own watasi, even though it is just as likely that Cezar dispatched them himself, to prevent them from speaking of his defeat.”
“So, win or lose, he gets the spoils. How large is his watasi now?”
“Sixteen, but one is not of age to bear pups. Cezar claimed her as an act of honor.”
“Honor? One male enjoying the pleasures of fifteen females is honorable?”
“Strong males sire strong pups. And strong pups are the ones most likely to survive the constant danger of the jungle. There is logic in this arrangement from a biological view. That is why many species adopt some form of it. I am told that the Sasquatch people of Canada have a similar practice called Neroku.”
“Who told you this?”
“Soul Bringer. He often indulges my curiosity about the world beyond these trees.”
“What about the wound on your snout? Do you have a biological explanation for that as well?”
Enieda reflexively touched her paw to the spot.
“Forgive me,” Yefet said. “It is not my place to judge the ways of your people.”
“You do not require forgiveness for having an opinion. It is no coincidence I chose a gentle mate who believes the practice should be forbidden.”
“Cezar has obtained a weapon that he believes can harm Soul Bringer,” Yefet said.
“Yes,” Enieda confirmed. “He stores it in a hole beneath the hut of Kwa, his fourth and favorite mate. I have had Elpidio examine it. He said all he could tell is that it is not a p
rojectile weapon like the others Cezar collects.”
“Tell Cezar that the time has come for him to rise up against Soul Bringer.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Glen Mills, Pennsylvania
Xavier slowly opened his eyes to find six people standing around his hospital bed. He recognized the decor of the posh private rehabilitation facility from the many times he had been there to visit other patients from the supernatural community.
“I’m going to need a little more room,” Adam said as he squeezed between Isabella and the young woman holding Xavier’s hand.
“Okay folks,” a nurse said. “It’s time to clear out. He’ll still be here when the Doctor is done. I’ll have Dietary bring up fresh K-cups for the Keurig.”
That got a round of cheers as the group made its way out of the room.
“Welcome back,” Adam said as he started checking Xavier’s vitals. “I’m pretty sure this is the biggest crowd I’ve seen at this place since you guys got me medical privileges.”
“Four people is a crowd?”
“The people up here are the few Isabella authorized to come up. The crowd is in the lobby. And those are the ones who look human enough to walk around during the day. I’m told the really colorful characters come to visit you after dark.”
Thanks to a large endowment funded by a group of mostly anonymous donors, the tiny twenty-bed facility nestled in secluded woodlands outside Philadelphia was able to offer both the highest level of care and privacy for its unusual clientele.
Xavier gave a weak smile.
Adam examined the readout of the cutting edge digital vital signs scanner. “Surprise, surprise. You’re perfectly healthy. There is no evidence whatsoever of any type of traumatic injury, not even scar tissue. Same for all your X-rays and radiological scans. You guys don’t allow blood work, but I’m sure that would be fine too. Sometimes I wonder why this place even has doctors.”
It was a myth that most supernatural beings possessed supernatural healing abilities, but Xavier had more pressing things on his mind. “How is Ronnie?”
“You mean is he alive?”
