by Jamel Cato
Yefet walked to the other end of the trailer and retrieved a case from a cabinet. “Do you like box braids or twists?”
Over the course of the next several hours, hair was braided and love lives were laid bare.
“So wait,” Michelle said to Zina. “Did you give him the ring back?”
“I told him he could have it back if he could find it in all the glass I left on the ground after breaking out his car windows.”
There was a round of laughter.
“You really did that?” Yefet asked.
“The windows and the outside mirrors.”
“Did he call the Police?”
“Have you ever read about me getting arrested?”
“No. I just read about the breakup,” Yefet said.
“You read up on me?”
“Only after you started seeing my brother. I wanted to see what kind of history you had.”
“I didn’t even know he had a sister.”
“Neither did he.”
“Why is that?”
“That’s a conversation for another time.”
There was a brief awkward silence that Michelle ended. “Well, I’ve never dated an actor or a pro athlete, but after the stories I’ve heard tonight, I’m starting to think that’s a good thing.”
“Girl, why not?” Zina asked. “You’re a full blood Wati. You can literally have any man you want.”
Michelle shrugged. “From the time I could tie my shoes, my Aunties drilled me to sing to the working man and not the fantasy man.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Yefet said, “with the fantasy man you spend your life questioning if he’s only with you because of your magic. And dating famous people draws attention that no super needs.”
“Everything she said,” Michelle confirmed.
“I guess I can see that,” Zina said. “Mom Dukes basically told me the same thing.”
“But that didn’t stop you from getting with X,” Michelle noted.
“It didn’t stop you from getting with him either,” Zina shot back.
“Tell us about this Love Jones game,” Yefet interjected.
“Yes,” Michelle said. “What’s up with that? I know he likes spoken word, but I didn’t realize there was a whole other level to it.”
“I don’t know if I should,” Zina said, showing the evening’s first sign of reluctance.
Yefet pulled a little too hard on the Havana twist she was finishing in Zina’s hair.
“Ouch!”
Michelle said, “It’s way too late to play shy, Jazmin Sullivan. I’ll never be able to watch an NBA game again without looking twice at everybody’s shoe size.”
Zina smiled. “Me and you both. Except I won’t be looking at their shoes.”
“Is the game like Strip Poker?” Yefet asked.
Zina sighed dramatically. “Y’all about to get me in trouble.”
“Trouble’s been looking for you in the daytime with a flashlight,” Michelle said.
They laughed.
“So this is how it works,” Zina said before proceeding to explain every intimate detail.
About thirty minutes later, Michelle asked, ”He writes something new every time you play?”
“Yes. Sometimes his verses are so on point, I don’t even let him finish before giving him his three wishes.”
“That’s so hot,” Yefet said. “I’m tempted to make Baynin play that with me right now.”
“I thought you said it was strictly business with him?”
“I said we have an understanding. But if I showed up half naked asking to play a game, our understanding would go out the window like loud music in the hood.”
“I know that’s right,” Michelle said.
“At least you have the option,” Zina said bitterly. “All I can do is sit here on my thumbs hoping that my mom and X are okay and Pax left me enough money to rent a one-bedroom apartment.”
Yefet and Michelle shared a glance.
“What?” Zina asked.
“X is okay,” Yefet said.
“Meaning my mom is not?”
Yefet looked to Michelle for a response.
“Somebody better tell me what’s up with my mother before I start singing at the top of my lungs.”
“Your mother is being held in a DSO facility in Florida,” Michelle said.
Zina stood up. “Since when?”
“May.”
“That can’t be right. I just talked to her four days ago.”
“You talked to an AI programmed to sound like her. It gets smarter every time you call.”
Zina hesitated. For months, her mother had seemed distant on the phone. She had been on her way to Miami to check on her before her stopover at Xavier’s place changed everything. “When were you going to tell me about this, Sistren?”
“I was waiting for the right time.”
“Like when I was out the picture and you could have X all to yourself?”
“Like when you were less stressed,” Michelle answered.
Zina took a step forward. “Did you have something to do with this?”
Yefet uncrossed her legs.
“No,” Michelle said. “I only know about it because I have a friend on the task force that’s responsible for you.”
“There’s a whole task force responsible for me?”
“Thirteen people.”
“And they do what? I’ve sold more than forty million records and I haven’t heard a peep from the DSO.”
“Paxton Briggs put a lot of money in the right hands for a long time. But when Elaine Waldren took over the Senate Oversight Committee, things changed. They were planning to take you down right after your show in Seattle.”
“Take me down?”
Michelle responded with a sharp stare.
“Why am I still here?”
“Officially it’s because the DSO put the task force on hiatus to divert resources to dealing with Baynin.”
“And unofficially?”
“The DSO Director had a date with a Victoria’s Secrets model.”
“It wasn’t a date,” Yefet said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Washington, DC
A round of cheers went up in the DSO Tactical Operations Center.
The bank of video monitors was broadcasting a live feed from an Autonomous Combat Unit that had just shot a Sasquatch female in the back eight times.
The fleeing creature, the last surviving member of a tribe in a far northern part of Canada uninhabited by humans, had fallen forward and crushed the cub cradled in her arms.
The assault was a joint operation with the Canadian Supernatural Service, which had agreed to the mission in exchange for intelligence from the DSO about the method they were using to identify so many previously unidentified infestations.
Not everyone was in a celebratory mood.
Some of the Canadians were more unsettled by the ACU’s than the beasts they had so efficiently terminated. The CSS and the DSO were close allies, but the DSO’s unilateral deployment of virtually indestructible AIs had security and ethical implications beyond monster control. Who knew how the Russians and Chinese would react to such a strike capability.
* * *
Nicholas Petraeus sat at the back of the room trying to mask his discomfort with the slaughter he had just witnessed. Most of the snowflakes Carlos had brought into the agency had been forced out or given demeaning clerical work. But Rahn had developed a grudging appreciation for Nick’s prodigious research skills and allowed him to remain involved. That had begun to feel like a curse as the agency conducted ever more assaults on peaceful species and children—and he still called them children despite Rahn’s memo directing staff to refer to them as juvenile hostiles. He had found today’s mission particularly hard to stomach given the phone friendships he had developed with several Sasquatch through one of Carlos’s pilot programs that helped rescue workers locate victims in remote areas by having the Sasquatch translate l
ocal dialects over radios.
* * *
Director Rahn felt great. Since he had taken over, lycanthrope maulings had fallen by seventy-seven percent and emergency blood supplies for hospitals and The Red Cross were at an all-time high due to the reduction of the Nosferatu populations that disrupted the supply chain. The benefits of the DSO’s long overdue offensive went on and on. Best of all, Carlos had been reduced to living on a houseboat at the Maryland Eastern Shore because he couldn’t keep up the payments on his condo after Bob Landon let him go.
The only fly in the ointment was Wall Street. The DSO had grossly underestimated the extent of supernatural participation in the economy, especially entertainment and professional sports. His own daughter was obsessed with the social media firestorm over the disappearance of the pop singer Zina. The stock market was down two thousand points as businesses around the country reeled from the sudden and unexplained departure of key employees. New York and Connecticut were asking for federal bailouts after half the hedge funds in America collapsed when the luck sprites who were running them fled for their Mercedes-driving lives. The DSO public relations team had been strategically planting media stories blaming all of this on a new strain of the Ebola virus, but even the conservative cable news channels were starting to devote primetime segments to cover-up theories. His staff and all the outside think tanks the DSO funded were telling him that these events were just a temporary economic restructuring that would eventually result in more job opportunities for real humans. Until then, he would fly the flag high and keep up the heat.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Xavier sat in the darkened hospital room listening to the beeping of the machines that were keeping Ronnie alive.
“Do you remember that time in high school we went to the Tru Beatz concert and those dudes rolled up on us after the show and took our Jordans? I know, you can’t forget it because of that scar over your eyebrow. I’ve been thinking about that situation a lot lately. I let them beat on us like that knowing I would heal right away and you wouldn’t. All these years I’ve been telling myself that was the right decision. I mean, I didn’t have control over my other side back then the way I do now so if I had let it out there would have been six murders on my hands. Right? My Dad and Isabella told me I did the right thing, but I don’t know. Those dudes didn’t even have a gun. Did you know I could smell guns? Maybe I could have knocked them out without killing them. Maybe I could’ve snatched you and ran back to the subway before they caught up. I don’t know.
The DSO burned downed my whole block. When I was going through the ashes, I found a piece of an old picture of me and you doing our B-Boy poses with our new Jordans. That’s what got me thinking. I asked myself if you would be in this hospital if Neph had been in that picture with you instead of me. The only answer I could come up with is hell no. Leclerc would have kept his ass in Norway to stop Neph from coming there and murking half of Europe. But nobody’s afraid to hurt the people I care about. You’re in the hospital. My Dad was abducted. Maya is dead. All those kids are dead. Isabella is homeless and Zina is hiding out in a damn jungle. I’m the common denominator in all that. What’s the point of being strong if you can’t protect anybody? I can’t call it. All I know is it’s going to stop.
I ran into your mom when I came here to visit you a couple weeks ago. She told me she knew I was there that time you snuck me in the window and let me sleep on the floor of your room when the DSO first came looking for me. She thought you were hiding me from the cops. She said she warned you that hanging out with me was going to get you in trouble one day, but you told her that you had to protect me. She said she laughed and asked you what your little ass could possibly do to protect me. You told her that without you, I would be Frankenstein instead of Martin Luther King.”
Tears welled in Xavier’s eyes. He put his hand on Ronnie’s forearm. “But she was right. Look at you, Bro: In a coma. Because of me. She told me the doctors said that if you don’t show any signs of consciousness by tomorrow, they’re going to move you to a long-term facility for people in a vegetative state.”
He pulled out the fruit Baynin had given him on the train. “I can’t let that happen. You never had a chance to publish your book or have kids or do any of the stuff we talked about doing with our lives. This is going to make you better, but I’m about to go be Frankenstein, so you probably won’t see me again after tonight. I left a lot of doe with your Mom. Buy a house. Write your books. He gently peeled open Ronnie’s mouth. “Don’t name your kids after me.”
Then his nostrils filled with a new scent.
A man dressed like a hospital orderly pushed open the door.
“Re'hotpe Nehi Mernuterseteni,” the stranger said, addressing Xavier by his birth name. “Peace be unto you, Son of the Nile.”
It had spoken softly, but its voice was like a hundred majestic choirs. All the lighting and electronics in the room briefly faltered. Ronnie stirred in bed.
The messenger angel approached Xavier, who found that he could no longer move. It touched the tips of its fingers to his eyes and said, “I have come to deliver a message unto Thee.”
* * *
When Xavier opened his eyes, he found himself in a different room. Neph and Yefet, who both looked a few years younger, were seated on a sofa in front of him.
Yefet rubbed Neph’s back. “What is it?”
“Lamar.”
“The one who was stealing from you?”
“Yeah.”
“He knew what would happen when you found out.”
“When I was done with him,” Neph said, “me and D-Block went to Lamar’s apartment to get my doe back and use his family to teach his projects what happens when you get sticky fingers around me. L’s loud ass mom was following us from room to room screaming while we tore everything up. I found a door in the back that was locked. Right before I kicked it in, L’s mom yelled out, ‘Rhonda hide Imani!’”
Yefet’s hand rose to her mouth.
“Rhonda was hiding in the room with a baby,” Neph said.
“I don’t need to hear the rest,” Yefet said.
“I just turned and bounced. D-Block was like, ‘Neph, what’s up? You want me to handle this?’ But I just kept walking. When I got to the hallway, which was totally empty because cats know the deal when I come through, I decided to go back. I asked Rhonda what L did with my doe. She pointed to a crib in the corner. I asked her why he didn’t just ask me for it when he still had the chance. She hugged the baby tighter and started crying. I said, ‘Answer me when I talk to you!’ and she said, ‘Because you’re like this!’”
“Give me their address,” Yefet said.
“I already left all the doe I had in my truck with them.”
“You did the right thing,” Yefet said. “The baby didn’t steal from you.”
“I don’t know,” Neph said. “Now cats in L’s hood will think I’m soft. And D-Block might run his mouth.”
“You already know neither of those things will happen. That’s why the hallway was empty.”
“What if I acted more like X?” Neph asked.
“Then you would be less like you.”
“Yeah, but would I be better? What if people ran to me instead of away from me?”
“Baby it’s getting late,” Yefet said.
* * *
When Xavier came to, he was back in Ronnie’s hospital room. The Angel and the fruit were gone.
“X,” Ronnie said weakly.
Xavier’s mother stood in an unlit corner of the hospital room watching the two young men. She had come here to stop Xavier from giving Ronnie the fruit, but after what she had heard, she realized that Xavier was not the one who needed to be stopped.
CHAPTER SIXTY
The Amazon Rainforest
Yefet, Zina and Michelle walked into a trailer where they found Baynin hunched over a drafting table reviewing schematics.
He stood up and gave each of them
an appreciating stare. “What brings these lovely flowers to my abode?”
“Not what you’re hoping,” Yefet said.
“Forgive me if you find my disfigurements repulsive,” he said, chastening her in a way only she would understand.
She strode forward until they were only inches apart. “They are not repulsive. They are badges of your strength and loyalty.”
Michelle and Zina looked at each other.
After studying Yefet’s face, Baynin asked, “How may I be of assistance?”
“Can you get my mother out of that prison?” Zina asked.
“I cannot,” he said. Then he nodded at Michelle. “But she can.”
“Me?” Michelle asked. “What can I do?”
Baynin explained his plan.
When he was done, Michelle said, “That’s a lot. I have to give it some more thought.”
“Of course,” Baynin said.
“I’m in if Xavier is in,” Zina said without any sign of hesitation. “When do we leave?”
“When do we leave for what?” Xavier said from the doorway.
Zina darted over and embraced him.
Yefet also approached him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Michelle remained in place, unsure what to do.
Baynin came over and stood beside her. He quietly said, “I wish I could tell you that the sting lessens in time.”
Michelle sighed.
* * *
Later that night, Baynin was reviewing a map of Ajirastan when Yefet came into his trailer.
“I brought you something to eat,” she said, setting down a tray of steaming bowls.
She came around the desk to hover over his chair.
“Thank you,” he said before returning his attention to the map.
“Your oath does not require you to avoid looking at me at all.”
He lifted his head. “Have you come to taunt me with what I may not have?”
“Why have you stopped summoning your lovers?”
“It is a matter of no importance.”