Artest fingered her thick hair, made full by twice as many thin, fine strands as usual. It was too much—he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer. He ran his hands through her hair and gently lifted her face. “Get up here,” he said.
She let him drop from her mouth and mounted him without another moment’s hesitation. They hit their rhythm like they’d been together forever. The thought that he would one day have to let her go crossed his mind again, and he plunged deeper.
“Yes, yes,” she moaned.
Again, her voice ignited him.
Artest spoke out in what he believed was French or Arabic, but he didn’t know what he said.
The beginning of a scream escaped before she bit his shoulder to stop herself. He exploded the moment he felt her teeth clamp down.
Chapter Twenty
Had somebody asked, Jordan would’ve predicted a sleepless night. Since she grew up in environments that required sleeping with one eye open, she wasn’t a good sleeper, and seeing a person die is likely to have an adverse effect on the best sleeper’s nod time. But she slept so soundly in Artest’s arms she awoke startled and confused.
Her eyes popped open like an alarm had sounded. She didn’t recognize anything she saw in the shadowy room. Where am I? He had her spooned in a bear hug. Who is he? That lavender smell made her think about a funeral. She couldn’t move. It must be my funeral.
It was at that point that she screamed. There was inhumanly fast movement, and she felt his cheek against hers as he held her in a forward bear hug. That was when she really opened her eyes and realized the first awakening was a dream.
“Jordan, Jordan, it’s all right.”
She pulled back and looked into his eyes, and, at that moment, she too believed it was all right. “Artest?”
“It better be. Good morning.”
“What time is it?”
He looked at the closed drapes. “I would say about eight thirty-six.”
“That’s not an about number,” she told him. She picked up his watch from the night stand. It was eight thirty-six.
When she looked at him, his eyes were closed, but he was smiling. He knew the time by looking at a closed curtain. Another one of your superpowers, old man? She said it mentally, but he didn’t answer.
“I’m talking to you,” she said aloud.
“I did hear you saying something, but then I heard you say old man, and you said I looked younger than you. I just knew you couldn’t be talking to me.”
She jabbed him in the ribs.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? Not a morning person, dear?”
Jordan was feeling a bit feisty, but until he asked, she hadn’t come to that conclusion. She was feeling like a caged animal, but she wasn’t sure what to do about that feeling.
“If you need to burn off some energy, I’m your man.”
Were that only true, she thought, but then realized he might have heard her. She looked at him. His eyes were closed again, and he was giving the impression of a man who wanted to go back to sleep.
“Artest, what time do you usually get up?”
“It depends on how long I’ve worked the night before. If it’s been a quiet night, around ten or eleven. Why?”
“My first class is at eight twelve—my body clock is set, even on weekends. I’ve got to get up early.”
He opened his eyes and rolled toward her. “Darling, I can be up for you right now. Let me help you to relax.” He reached for her, but she wiggled away.
“No, I need to go find a cup of coffee.”
He sat all the way up. “I’ll go down and get it for you.”
She could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “No, stay where you are. I’m going to wash up and go downstairs.”
“You won’t leave the house?”
“Not if there’s coffee here.”
“Jordan, no matter what, come back up here before you leave, or think of me and call my name! It might not be safe outside.”
“I hear you. Do you want me to bring you something?”
“Yes, I want you to bring your beautiful body back to me as soon as possible.”
She looked at him, and he was looking at her like she was something special. She didn’t get it, but she sure liked it.
“Okay, go back to sleep.”
* * * *
The house downstairs was quiet. People were sleeping on sofas, chairs, and floors in every room she passed en route to the kitchen.
She smelled the coffee before she entered the kitchen and found Jahia sitting at her kitchen table.
“Good morning, my dear.”
“Good morning, Jahia. Were you able to get any sleep?”
“Sleep is a luxury I don’t get to enjoy often; last night was no exception. Sit; let me pour you a cup of coffee.” She looked at Jordan with a serious expression and then said, “One artificial sweetener, no cream.”
“I won’t ask how you did that,” Jordan said.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked. I’m so used to being around other Hunters these days. I know humans hate to be scanned like that, but I meant no harm.”
“It’s okay, really.”
She prepared the coffee in silence. Jordan could tell she was bothered by something, but she suspected it wasn’t anything she could help or advise her about.
Jahia sat the steaming mug in front of her guest and sat back down to her tea. “For many centuries I worked the nights just like the rest of them. Humans would be so surprised to know who and what walks the streets of our cities at night...”
“Like Demons?” Jordan asked, interrupting.
Jahia threw back her head when she laughed. “Yes, like Demons. Most of them are the nicest beings you ever want to meet, but when they go bad, it’s very serious. But like all of us out there, they have their own to rectify their problems. Dogon-Hunters aren’t the only Hunters, and we aren’t even the only ones hunting vampire-like animals. We all share a lot of information with each other.”
“How? I wouldn’t think you would have a common language.”
“Oh yes, we do. It’s called the internet. Have you heard of it?” she teased.
“I might have heard a little something about it.” Jordan answered, grinning.
“Seriously, we speak the languages associated with the countries in which we live. Some of us have been around long enough to speak some of the ancient languages as well.”
“Wow.”
“I know a few Ancients who can still speak Latin, which sounds very little like what you learned in school.”
“I just barely learned English.”
“Whatever language you’re speaking, Jordan, my friend is hearing it loud and clear. You like him, don’t you?”
“I do, but I know it can’t last or develop into anything permanent.”
“And how did you come by that information?”
“He told me and my friend the night we met.”
“He’s old, Jordan, but not so old that he knows everything! God is not finished with him.”
Jordan wouldn’t allow herself to ask any more about it. She’d been disappointed in love matters, and she wasn’t ready to think about the disappointment that would come when they had to say goodbye to each other. How has he managed to squeeze into such a tight spot in my heart so soon?
“All right, my dear, I can understand you wanting to keep your own counsel. Just remember he’s a very honest person. If you don’t want to hear the truth, don’t ask him.”
Jordan nodded.
“But, little by little grow the bananas.”
She thought about it, but she wasn’t quite sure what Jahia meant by that. “I don’t understand.”
Jahia stood and started walking away from her. The telephone rang, and Jordan realized Jahia had been on her way to answer it before it rang.
Jahia laughed. “I just say them—you’ll have to get somebody else to interpret them.”Jordan left while Jahia spoke to someone in a language she didn’t recognize.
> Artest was still asleep when she returned to the bedroom. She thought she was being quiet, but she saw him turn his head in her direction even though he didn’t open his eyes.
“ How was your coffee?” he mumbled.
“How do you know I didn’t have tea?”
He opened his eyes. “Did you have tea?”
“No, my coffee was fine.”
“Come here,” he said softly.
He was smiling at her again, as if he could see through her clothes.
“No, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid, little girl, come here. I’ll take care of you.”
“I don’t want to be in bed, Artest. I was raised around old people, and old people believe you’re trifling if you don’t get up and get out of bed at the crack of dawn.”
He sat up, revealing that taut, muscular chest. “I guarantee you I am older than any of those people you were raised around. And I say, come to bed, little girl.”
She didn’t want to appear too easy, but she really wanted to be with him again. And yet a part of her really didn’t feel good about joining him in a bed that hadn’t been made since the night before. She wasn’t lying about Mama May’s opinion of laziness in folks who spent leisure time in bed. She used to say, “get up, girl, I’m not running no flop house!”
Jordan the child had no idea what a flop house was or is, but she knew it wasn’t a good place to sleep or run. She used to have to lie about having the cramps or a headache just to take a nap should the mood hit. All of this would be going on while Mama May sat up in her overstuffed, comfortable chair, sleeping away half the day and through most television shows.
She saw Artest get that look he got when communicating with one of the other Hunters.
“Damn,” he said as he threw back the covers and stood.
His body was so pretty she wished she could paint. Jordan knew pretty was an odd word to describe a man’s body, but it was the best one for Artest. From what she could see in their clothes, it was a good word for every one of the Hunters—male and female.
“What?” she asked when she could finally catch her breath after seeing him like that.
“Tyler is calling a meeting.”
“For when?”
“Now—I barely have time to shower.”
“I saw a computer in one of the rooms. Do you think it’ll be all right if I check my email?”
“The house has wireless. I’ll bring you a laptop before I go down. I would prefer for you to stay in here, with the door locked, until I come back.”
She thought that was a bit much, but she agreed.
She heard the shower, and then, less than ten minutes later, he emerged looking like he’d stepped off the pages of GQ. She hadn’t seen him take any clothes in there with him.
“You took another quick trip to your house, didn’t you?”
He smiled. “I did. Was that one of those things I should have mentioned first?”
She waved her hand at him. “If it means you coming from a shower looking like that, carry on.”
“What, this old thing?”
She started looking around to find a pillow to hit him.
He laughed. “You seem like such a nice person, but you’re violent, girl!”
The pillow hit the door just as he closed it.
A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. Before she could respond, the door cracked open, and his hand appeared holding a laptop.
She took the laptop, but before he could snatch his hand back, she grabbed it and kissed and then licked his palm.
He moaned. “You’re killing me, Jordan,” he said as he walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Togu Na was crowded but quiet. Artest still considered it strange to see women in the Togu Na, even a facsimile of one. When he was a young boy living in the village, it was an all-male social center. Some of the male Dogon-Hunters still grumbled about what they called the female intrusion, but Artest figured if they could fight and die together, they could certainly sit together.
Tyler entered the room looking regal in a long, deep blue dashiki.
“Let’s get started,” he said.
It was the oddest thing—where they had been sitting quietly, everybody started talking at once.
“Okay, a lot of you are asking the same question—how? How did they enter this house with the Ark at the door. Am I right?” Tyler asked.
“Damn right!” Ian said.
Tyler grimaced, but he didn’t say anything to Ian about the cursing.
Tyler was tolerant, but in his presence, most of them avoided such words. The Tyler Artest knew as a young man wouldn’t have minded the expletives, but the Hunter before them was studying to perfect his life and his relationship with God.
Compared to Artest, Ian was a young Hunter. He was considered a bit of a hothead. Artest didn’t know him well, but he was impressed with some of the things he’d heard about his fighting abilities. He and Dacia and a few others, whom he’d yet to meet, had been trained by multiple Masters.
Artest himself had had two teachers, Abdula and Jahia. Abdula had joined the ancestors in heaven, but there wasn’t a prayer that passed Artest’s lips that didn’t thank him for his patience.
“Please listen carefully. We all love and respect the Ark, but it is not a religious icon. It is a historical icon. Some would even say a mythological symbol.”
The din increased.
“I didn’t say I believe that—some believe it!”
“If those people aren’t Dogons, they don’t matter,” somebody said, and there was general agreement.
“If you all feel that way, why do we risk our lives for the humans?” Jahia asked.
Artest imagined there were some smart answers to that, but nobody would venture to say them to Jahia. Most of them had had her as a teacher and knew her temper. She was fair but brutal.
“That’s what I thought. We do it because we care, and we will continue to do the job that is our life work. Let’s forget about how they came in and ask ourselves why they were here,” Jahia continued.
“My wife has an interesting theory about that,” Tyler continued. “Do you want to present it?”
Jahia shook her head and offered her hand to him as if saying, ‘be my guest.’
“We’ve all heard that there is an internal war going on. Jahia and a few others have suggested that the two Sangsue who had the misfortune to end up here were sacrificed.”
There was silence.
“To what end?” Roberta asked.
“To their end,” Jahia answered, and most of them laughed.
Artest noticed that Jahia leaned over and squeezed Roberta’s hand. Tyler was Jahia’s best friend, but Roberta was a close second.
“So now they’re using us to execute each other?” Ian asked.
“It does appear that way. We’ve talked to some other Hunters in GAN. It’s not the first time one race used another as their executioners. We’ve filed a complaint with the council. . .”
“Not that that will make a difference,.” Ian interrupted. “The Sangsue aren’t members!”
“That might be true today, Ian, but one day it will make a difference if we keep using it. I’m old enough to remember how things were before GAN. Trust me, my dear, things are better now. At least all of the good guys are talking to each other.”
Ian nodded. How could he not agree? They all remembered what it was like before they started talking to each other.
The next ten or fifteen minutes were spent discussing GAN. Artest was getting restless to get back upstairs. He told himself it was because Jordan was his charge and he took his job seriously, but he couldn’t think about her and not smile. He couldn’t think about her and not imagine making love to her. Only the first time had been about sex. He felt every subsequent touch had been rooted in love. Artest hoped nobody would ask him to explain it, at least not until he could figure it out for himself.
“It’s estimated that we ha
ve two, maybe three times as many Bloodsuckers in the city right now,” Artest heard Tyler say. He hadn’t heard what was said before that—his thoughts had been upstairs.
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