Jumlin's Spawn (8 page)

“The Wakinyan is the Lakota thunder and lightning
beings that restore balance, right?” Oliver asked.

Molly smiled and nodded. “That's a lot of Sioux
knowledge for a white boy.”

“Not for a white boy who is head of the Anthropology
Department at Rapid College. What on earth makes you think we're
the Wakinyan?”

“When the artifacts go missing,” Molly said, “the
land is unbalanced and the spawn are released. There have been many
who've taken the antiquities and then restored them when their
lives were threatened or their loves ones died. That's why the
artifacts were kept safe for so long. This Duryea man, who paid the
ultimate price, didn't know enough to stay away after he stole
them. He came back for more.”

“He paid the ultimate price,” Oliver said. “He’s
dead.”

Molly leaned forward toward Yancey. “There have been
many deaths. But they were only people from Shoma. So no one
cared.”

“Not this again, Molly. I've told you before,” Yancey
said, “the law cares about them, there's just not much we can do.
Red-light districts create a perfect shit storm of crime of all
kinds. People who live in those places are going to disappear or
die. It happens all the time.”

“Five years ago, six women vanished in the span of
three months,” Molly said. “Twelve people the year before. People
with the wrong parentage, the wrong color. You have had an
invisible serial crime wave going on under your noses. And it's
being carried out by a perpetrator you don't know how to
fight.”

“Here it comes, the Jumlin stuff again,” Yancey said
with a groan. “Molly, you know me, you know what I believe. Do you
honestly think I'm going to buy this crap?”

“It doesn't matter what you believe they are, I don't
know what they are either,” Molly said. “I think you believe in
those creatures that tried to attack your friend, don't you?”

“Yes,” Yancey said reluctantly.

“That's all the belief you need to fight them. You're
the Wakinyan. That means you will have to fight them, whether you
choose to or not.”

“Not if we drop off the artifacts around here and
book it back to my place,” Yancey said.

Molly shook her head. “They know what you are and
they have you surrounded. If by some wild chance you made it
through their barricade, they would follow you home. If you run,
they'll destroy you. You must fight them to survive.”

“Oh, terrific, can we resign from this Wakinyan
thing?” Oliver asked, shaking his head.

Elfie looked around the garden, as if searching for a
reason to disbelieve. “You're saying we don't have a choice?”

“I'm saying none of us do,” Molly said.

“There's always a choice!” Yancey said, with a laugh
both short and brutal. He looked over at his friends. “You guys
don't really believe this garbage!”

“I wouldn't have before I saw those creatures,” Elfie
shot back, “but right now, I'm inclined to listen.”

Oliver looked up from silently studying his hands.
“Okay, how do we fight them? What can you tell us about them?”

“They look very different, from the young to the
old,” Molly said. “Elfie's seen the young ones. They suckle from
cave milk. The older ones feed on buffalo blood. And human blood,
too, when they attack older people.”

“What do they do to the young people?” Oliver
asked.

“They abduct the young men, to make them into what
they are. Young women are impregnated by them. They give birth to
the creatures Elfie saw. The small ones are less dangerous. The
older ones look like black-feathered angels and are almost
impossible to kill.”

“Almost impossible?” Elfie asked.

“Light kills them all,” Molly said. “Even the mature
ones, the black-feathered angels. They are much harder to kill, but
some form of light can kill them. You three are the thunder beings
who are the bringers of lightning. It clears the darkness and
destroys the wicked.”

“What kind of lightning do we bring?” Yancey asked.
“What’s the source?”

“The prophecy doesn't say.”

“Of course,” Yancey said wryly. “They never do.”

“You'll find the source. As for tonight, you should
stay at the springs,” Molly said, rising. “Stay in the guest house
here. The spawn and the elders can't enter the cottage. You can
bathe, relax, sleep, and rejuvenate yourselves. I'll send Severin
along with your journey. I'm too old to walk the caves now. But, he
knows them just as well.”

“Okay,” Yancey said. “We can do with a cave guide.
And I appreciate the offer of the springs. We can all definitely
use a hot bath.”

****

The spring garden felt small but roomy, with a dirt
area dotted with native plants. Beyond the springs lay a guest
cottage with three rooms. The small bedroom was filled with a
king-size daybed and two smaller beds. The other rooms included a
bathroom and a galley. As with everything on the res, the springs
belonged to the tribe. It was apart from the grasslands and the
middle part of the unit, but it was still Sioux territory. As such,
the items there had been well-cared for and undisturbed.

Elfie stood at the front wall, thinking warily of all
the samples to card and all the cards to catalog, to say nothing of
a thorough laser cleaning of the tools, as she looked upon the
tools Yancey had just toted in for her use. He set the cases on the
big dining table.

“You're working, right? You mind if I borrow your
e-reader?”

Elfie uncapped the hooding from the carousel portion
of the sterilizer. She grinned over in his direction. “You're
really into reading that novel, aren't you?

“I’d like a peek into your fantasy life, yeah.
Anyway, I'm crawling out of my skin about tomorrow. You're working.
Oliver is soaking in the spring. I'm bored out of my mind.”

Elfie cast him a knowing glance. “I thought you said
nothing is going to happen.”

“Nothing is going to happen,” he said firmly, “but
until something doesn't happen, I'm going to be stressed out, so
can I?”

She shook her head and laughed a little. She reached
for her bag and pulled out gym clothes. She handed him the rest of
the bag. “I'm taking a shower after I compile all this stuff. You
have custody of my bag till I'm done.”

Yancey looked into the bag. “Where is the
e-reader?”

“In one of the side compartments,” she said. “I hope
you have fun with the
Captive Bride
.”

Elfie commenced the exacting feat of cataloging her
samples and slides. After she finished the cataloging, she slid
each instrument used into the carousel within the argon laser
portable sterilizer.

While she worked, she had the weird, crawly feeling
that she had made a mistake. A big one. She kept trying to
backtrack through her notes and procedures, to see what it might be
but found nothing.

It took her an hour but, finally, she slid in the
last of the tools she had used. She shut the housing on the
carousel and fired off the argon laser inside it. A warbling sound
preceded the bright flash that told her sterilization was in
process. The light flashed off, which meant it had finished.

The thought clung to her, like a fine spider web on
her face she couldn't completely sweep away.

The simple shower, tiled in natural stone, felt cool
against her skin. It was a soft and calming cool. She leaned into
the rock so that the overhead spray could burst water in every
direction over her. She tilted back to let the water rush across
her face and hair.

Her mind moved in multiple directions. She thought
about the shampoo in her hand, the soap across her skin, the scent
of artificial essence over natural rock. She thought back across
the lines of cataloged samples until, finally, she remembered what
else was in the pocket of her personal bags…other than the
e-reader.

My beloved boys
, the letter had started.

I realized, suddenly, I cared for both of you. You
know the words that I can't say. The words I can't write. Well, I
wanted what I wanted, but you wanted each other. I could never
intrude on that or you.

She realized now, leaving had been the act of a
coward. Yancey had been right.

And now, he would know.

Fear's coldness shot through her arms to counter the
hot spray. Shaking, she reached up and shut off the spray.

Maybe Yancey wouldn't read it, she thought.

This is Yancey, she replied to herself. He kicks in
doors, he doesn't know white world boundaries, so of course he'll
read it.

The shower room door opened, then very slowly
closed.

“You think,” Yancey's voice started, “that oral sex
is intrusive?”

She shut her eyes. So much for the hope he hadn't
read the letter. “You weren't supposed to read that.”

“It was addressed to us.”

“But I hadn't given it to you yet. It was private
until I did.”

“Is the letter true?” he asked sharply.

She stayed quiet a moment, but the shaking in her
voice echoed with her words as she said, “Yeah.”

“Then I was right about why you left,” he said.

“Yes, yes. You were right, okay? The victory is
yours. It doesn't give me the right to intrude upon you.”

“It's not an intrusion if we let you in,” he said,
his voice very near her now.

“It's still not right.”

A hand touched her shoulder. She tried to move away
but the hand held her in place. Her whole body seemed to be growing
sunburn from the flush across her skin.

“Before we have this talk, at least let me get
dressed,” she said.

“That would be counterproductive,” Yancey whispered
into her ear, his lips brushing softly against her throat. “I need
you to tell me, why do you think oral sex is brutally
intrusive?”

She shook her head hard. Her skin's burning sensation
invaded her blood, seeping through her veins. “I meant the vision
of it was…the energy of it was. Not the act itself.”

“In other words, it made you fucking hot,” he
said.

She whirled around to face him, swung her body to
move around him. He put out an arm to block her path, but she
jumped the other way. She grabbed up her clothes and stormed back
into the cottage's bedroom, but then jumped under the king-sized
daybed's blankets.

“Well, that hurried things along,” Oliver said,
walking up to climb into the bed from the left side.

“And here we thought we'd have to talk you into
getting into bed with us,” Yancey said as he crawled across the
king-sized bed from the right side. “No more excuses.”

“We need to take this slowly,” she said.

“Not anymore,” he replied. “I say waiting just makes
more room for your fear.”

“We tossed a coin to see who got you first,” Oliver
whispered.

“I won,” Yancey said as grabbed the blanket over her
and flung it to the floor.

Yancey and Oliver pounced at once. The sensations,
the sharp unforgiving waves of pleasure, caused by two men sucking
hungrily at two different nipples, instantly dragged the breath
from her. Her fingers clawed at the bedclothes beneath her. She
could barely inhale at the onslaught.

Yancey broke away to smile. Then, he lapped at her
nipple to make it hard again. “What were we saying about oral sex?
About it being intrusive? Invasive? Something like that?” Yancey
murmured. His tongue slid between her breasts, sliding up and down
the cleavage. “Remember?”

“Yes,” she managed to choke out.

Oliver wrapped a leg around her left one to pull them
her legs apart. Yancey crawled up the bed between her legs. Her
trembling worsened the closer he came and shook the bed like an
earthquake as he slipped in his tongue. He licked up and down
across her sensitive slit, which grew more sensitive with each
probing pass of his tongue. The twitching, the trembling, the
growing wetness responding to the toying intrusion of his tongue,
became worse as Oliver's mouth returned to sucking her nipples.

The moaning was feverish and shapeless; the words
almost seemed to be gushing out of someone else's mouth. Yancey's
lips closed over her clit and started sucking it harder. His
fingers thrust into her faster.

“See what's so great about having two lovers?” Oliver
groaned softly into her ear.

She couldn't begin to formulate an answer.

“What else do you want, Elf?” Yancey asked, between
laps of his tongue and thrusts of his fingers.

Elfie's hips rose up so she could reach him
completely. “What the hell do you think?” she cried out.

“I don't know,” he said, teasing her clit with his
tongue, “I just know my cock wants to make you come. Do you want
it?”

Elfie nodded feverishly as Oliver tenderly pulled at
her nipples.

“Then tell me to fuck you,” Yancey said with a
naughty, raspy laugh. “It only goes where it's invited, baby. So
tell me what you want.”

“Please,” she begged, as Yancey returned to sucking
at her clit.

“Tell him,” Oliver said.

“Fuck me,” she finally gasped out.

“That's more like it,” Yancey said.

Yancey withdrew his fingers and tongue. Oliver
pitched the other man the towel he'd pulled off his shoulders.
Yancey dried off his face and hands.

Grinning knowingly at Elfie, as if he understood the
depth of her need, Yancey unzipped his jeans and pulled them off.
He tossed them aside. He grasped his cock as it throbbed
feverishly.

“As you can tell,” Oliver whispered, “Yancey is about
to fuck the shit out of you for both of us.”

Yancey grinned bigger, crawling up between her legs.
“And I'm gonna make you come like a thirty-year-old virgin,” he
said, and then thrust his cock deep inside her. 

Elfie cried out in shock at the pleasure. 
Oliver reached down to rub at her clit. 

“Oliver!” she cried out as his clit massage began
while Yancey thrust in his cock.

Oliver replied with a hot laugh. “Thought you'd like
this.”