Ishtar Rising

by Natalie Gibson

  Nanae spoke and they all unconsciously leaned in to the intoxicating sound. “We will ask him if he has anyone there he can ask. He does not speak fondly of that place.” Nanae and Camilla were mated but their union was a trinity. Israel was every bit as much their spouse as either of them. Israel was a Lilitu, a child of the light. Nanae had converted him before Camilla.

  “Tell him thanks. I know revisiting the past isn't always fun.” With that, Maeve dismissed the Healers.

  Nanae stood and brought Camilla up with him, much in the same way Jolie had picked up Juliet. To the human eyes in the room, the two seems to disappear, just 'poof' and they're gone. Nathalia and Eiran were intimately familiar with that mode of travel. They could see as Nanae dissolved his and his Sinnis' forms. Cell by cell he had broken them down to their elements. All Nephilim could tabalu that way, moving through the earth. They knew he would rebuild them where ever he needed.

  Though the women weren't exact on the details of tabalu, they were almost used to it by now. They took no note of the disappearing act. Nathalia thought about Minali's possible connection with a Nephilim. She had been the one to save Minali when the Akhkharu had attacked her coven. She had accompanied Minali and the capacitors on their flight across the Atlantic Ocean. On that plane ride, Minali had told her about the special ability in their family and how she thought she might have brought the attack on.

  She had said, “I think I might have attracted him. Accidentally. A few months ago I found a man in my room. I didn't recognize him and I should have screamed for help, but he said not to be afraid and he was so incredibly attractive that I wasn't. We talked for hours. He wanted to know all about my family and my ability but mostly my sex life. I told him everything, things I'd never told anyone. I even talked about the capacitors. I couldn't help myself.”

  Minali had gone on to tell Nathalia about the sexual experience with what Nathalia had felt sure was a Nephilim. “I wanted him. I mean really wanted him. And I could tell he needed something from me too. It was like he was hungry. His eye lit up like flames where his pupil had been when I asked him to kiss me. He did and it was crazy good. It felt a little like licking a battery but it was so exciting. I'm not usually aggressive at all when it comes to guys but something came over me. I whispered that I wasn't wearing anything under my nightgown and guided the hand that was on my thigh up, to let him feel. I let him finger me. No, I made him do it. I'm not sure he really wanted to, but he had such a weird look on his face. He had hold of the back of my neck and kept me looking at his face the whole time. It was so freaking sexy and when I came, he literally growled at me. He let me lay back on the bed and took his fingers out of me and then tasted them. I wanted him to have sex with me but he wouldn't. It was fine though, I didn't feel rejected or anything because he went down on me for like an hour. After that he just laid on the bed next to me. He wouldn't touch me anymore but he stayed when I ask him to. He seemed sad but wouldn't talk about it. I begged him to let me keep my memory of it, that it was the most amazing sexual experience I'd ever had and, in the morning when I woke up, he was gone. I could remember what happened, even though his face was a little hazy and his name was erased completely. Like a month later I got the craving to move to Austin and started to feel like there was something wrong about what we had done together that night, something gross like having sex with your brother. I'd been trying to call him to me for a while when the attack happened. I wanted to know if I had made him do it and if he was feeling guilty too. I didn't want him to feel that way since I was the one who pressured him, but he wouldn't come back. I've never had anyone be able to refuse my compulsion. I was trying a new kind of calling to any magical creature like him, thinking I could snare him in a group call. My mother and the other capacitors were helping me when the fighting started that night.”

  Nathalia had thought at the time of telling, that the Nephilim was sad because Minali wasn't his Sinnis and he would be alone until he found her. Now she wondered it it was something else. Was Minali a Sinnis to another? Had her Nephilim turned Akhkharu and this wasting away the effect on his Sinnis? Was that connection why her ability had faded first and now her health? It would certainly explain why there was no record of anything like this. There were only a handful of recorded Sinnis claimings and even fewer conversions and they all resided here on the Daughters' compound.

  Nathalia signaled to Eiran that she was ready to go. She filled him in on her concerns as he tabalu'd them away. She was the only one who knew the names of each Nephilim. She was the only one who could track down the one at the beginning of Minali's bloodline. She needed quiet to consider. They dissolved and disappeared.

  After they had gone Ingrid asked, “What about Billy?”, unaware of Nathalia's musings. “He and Tara Kay were always pretty close.”

  “Last I heard from him, he was up in Missouri. He says he wants to be alone. He certainly doesn't want to talk to his Mama more than a couple times a month. I told him I'd give him time but you can call. If he's near there, I'm sure he wouldn't mind looking in on her.”

  If Maeve had a gavel, she'd have struck it. Half the attendees had already dismissed themselves. “Call him. If there's nothing else, I need to get started on my unscheduled for today so I can get to breakfast.”

  ***

  Tara Kay woke up to the sun in her eyes and a warm but empty bed. Oren had slipped out at some point. He had shared her bed again last night in every sense of the phrase. She was sore in all the right places. She could get used to this kind of treatment pretty quickly and, from what Hurrit had said in the wee hours of the morning, she had forever to do it.

  She stretched and considered going back to sleep. She decided against it. She should be exhausted. From the position of the sun, it was only about 7. Papaw was a farmer and ranch man and had built the house accordingly. The bedrooms were on the east side and living on the west. That way you didn't need clocks nor as many lights. Residents woke with the rising of the sun and enjoyed as much of the evening light as possible in the family room. If all the chores were done, that is.

  She got out of bed slowly, feeling every movement and action inside her body. Hurrit had explained what had happened to her as best he could with Oren's help. She was irrevocable changed at the base level. She couldn't even be considered human anymore. A doctor would freak at a sample of her blood. It was the same as Oren's blood. What she remembered from that first night when her tree had come to life and made love to her was all true. He had drained her nearly to the point of death and replaced her human blood with his superior Nephilim blood. It hadn't stopped there. He had done something else. Something magical that even Hurrit couldn't fully explain. Something that Oren couldn't do with anyone but her.

  She picked up her baby tee and thong off the floor where Oren had thrown them. She started to put them on when she noticed the two bizarre plants growing in the corner. One was slightly larger and had what could only be described as a lid on top. It looked kind of like a Venus fly trap with a waste basket sized stem. The 'lid' was flat across the top and had no matching opposing side to make the normal fly trap mouth. It was fringed with hair-like cilia. She had always been fascinated by fly traps, even as a little girl, and she couldn't help herself. She reached out and ran a finger along the silky protrusions.

  The plant opened up. A slender pollen covered stamen came out towards her and she jumped back, dropping her clothes. The room was blanketed with a pleasant smell that could only have come from the pollen. It was a fucking air freshener, Tara Kay thought. Oren had really outdone himself when he remade her home.

  She felt rather than heard the woman's voice tell her it was her hamper as well. The voice, she now knew, was that of the great mother earth. Oren called her Ki. Kay knew her name was really Kiyahwe but hadn't said anything. She didn't really know how she knew and she didn't want to sound stupid.

  Kay retrieved her clothes and tossed them into the waiting mouth. It closed. Crazy. Kay wondered if there was a laundry pl
ant in the house somewhere. As she had nothing else to wear, she touched the hamper again in the way that had caused it to open in the first place. It opened but when she looked inside, there was no way she was putting her arm in there. Her clothes were there, resting on the bottom, but they were already saturated with something. The plant was digesting her clothes.

  Great. Just fucking great. Now she had nothing to put on.

  Kiyahwe told her to try the other plant. This one looked like spineless thistle. Sturdy and thick, it had a seemed bulb but no flower. Shrugging, she ran her finger across it. Swaying, it began to bloom. When it was done moving, she was looking at a rainbow flower the size of a small dinner plate. It only had one continuous pedal. When she touched it, the pedal broke free and landed in her hand. As she lifted it to her face, it fell open. It wasn't a flower at all.

  It was a dress.

  She slipped it over her head and wasn't surprised when it fit perfectly. She went down the hall.

  Hurrit was sitting in her kitchen with his back to the door. “Morning,” she said as she went to the sink across from him. Like everything else in this house, it was activated by touch. Cool clear fresh water came out with the first touch and after she'd filled a glass, the second touch stopped the flow. Oren had put a step in that ran along the cabinets when he worked on the house. It made her hit the counter top at a more reasonable level. She made a mental note to thank him. He noticed how short she was and recognized what difficulties that might make for her in everyday life. She turned, rested her elbows back on the counter top, and studied Hurrit over the top of her glass.

  His head was down so that she couldn't see his face, only the top of his head. His board-straight black locks fell to either side, creating a curtain of darkness around him. She couldn't suppress a shiver. “Hurrit. Are you okay?”

  Without raising his eyes, he nodded his head yes and then must have changed his mind because he changed the movement to shaking it no.

  “Why won't you look at me? Or speak?”

  His voice, as caramel smooth as ever, had an odd lisp. “I do not want to frighten you.”

  “Well, fuck-all lot of good you're doing at it. Stop acting weird and tell me what's wrong.” He had said she was his queen and she wondered if she should pull rank on him.

  “Such colorful language the Sinnis Sarrum uses.” She knew he thought her constant use of the f-bomb was amusing. She could hear the smile in his voice. “Sarrum Arakiel is communing with Ud and Ki and asked me to wait here until you awoke. I can take you to him when you are ready.” He still had the lisp, like something was in the way of his tongue making the right sounds. Something like extra long incisors.

  “Holy Fuck, Hurrit. You've got your vamp face on, don't you?” She sat in the chair closest to her, across the table from him. He had told her that she was faster and stronger than him or any other creature on earth but she still felt more comfortable with something between them. He was a vampire. Fears so heavily ingrained in a person by culture were not so easy to shrug off. “Look at me. Let me see.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Just show me. I knew a face as gorgeous as yours couldn't have spawned all those tales of scary monsters.” Throughout history the vampire was portrayed as the undead. Not the rotten visage of the zombie but a living corpse just the same. She wondered briefly if zombies were real and then the world dropped out from around her.

  All she could see were his eyes. They were black from lid to lid and corner to corner, like the darkness of his pupil had leaked out and coated the iris and sclera. She felt attracted to them. The black wasn't just a color. It had depth. They pulled her in and she found herself leaning toward him. Her progress stopped when he smiled.

  If his eyes had their own magnetic pull on her, his mouth flipped her around so that her poles were reversed. She was repelled by that mouth. It was filled with razor sharp incisors. Every tooth was for piercing flesh, like on a shark. She could see that there was a second row of teeth behind the frightening first, but they were blunt. His vampire teeth came down out of his gums in front of his human teeth.

  “You think my face is gorgeous?”

  She sat transfixed on his mouth. She couldn't tear her eyes away from those teeth. They worked up and down as he talked, fitting together so tightly, with one slipping between the two below it. She imagined how easily he could separate a chunk of meat from it's owner. This time she suppressed her shiver. She didn't want him to know she was scared.

  She nodded at his question, “Yes, I did”.

  He closed his mouth, pressing his lips tight. “But no longer?”

  With his teeth hidden, she was once again focussed on his eyes. Her poles reversed again and his magnetism pulled on her but this time the shock was gone and she kept her head. She still wanted him, wanted to be near him. She was drawn to him but it was more like how a woman should be attracted a fine man, and not like a mosquito was attracted to a bug zapper. “Yes, still. Very much. Why the change? Why now?”

  Kay hadn't known that native Americans could blush, but apparently they could. “This is the face of my hunger. I have not fed in twenty years but I have gone much longer without feeding. Your nearness has awakened it, Sarrum Sinnis.”

  “Call me Kay or Tara Kay.” She added, “But never just Tara. I hate being called 'dirt'.”

  Hurrit tilted his head slightly. “But you are an earth witch. And the earth is great mother to us all. Being called terra is fitting and honorable.”

  She had never thought of it that way and felt slightly embarrassed. She'd always thought of its use to signify dirt, or garbage. It was trashy and country and she'd never liked it. Now she wondered why it was always such a big deal. She was too good to be called by a word that meant earth?! She wished she hadn't said it. She changed the subject. “You haven't eaten in twenty years? You need...blood? And I make you hungry?”

  He dipped his chin once. “Yes, but I need it less than others of my kind. Sarrum Arakiel's blood is very strong, though over the years mine has weakened and I must feed more regularly than I had to at first.”

  “Every twenty years is more regularly than usual? I go crazy if I don't get three square meals a day.” She had a suspicion that it was like runt syndrome with the tiniest puppy in a litter. She had gone so long without a regular source of food that she over compensated by making sure she was never hungry.

  Now that she was thinking of it, she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. Surely it wasn't the peach yesterday morning. She was hungry but nothing really sounded that good. Hurrit's voice jolted her out of her thoughts.

  “I only feed when I am going to make another like myself. I drain them before giving them my blood. In the beginning there was only me. Then Sarrum Arakiel had me make four more, one assigned to each of the elements with me as their overseer. Over time you witches grew in number and I had to make more and more children to keep up with overseeing their safety. My last child is only 20 years old. Before that it was two hundred years between feedings.” He took a deep breath. “Your blood smells so like his, only better. It's somehow more. Last night I kept my hunger at bay because of the nearness of Sarrum Arakiel but today he is not here to mask your scent. May I ask you something?”

  She worried about what he might ask her for, but she nodded.

  “How do I smell to you?”

  His face, still the mask of hunger, was so serious and insecure that Kay had to laugh. “Well, you don't stink. I can't really smell you from way over there.”

  She wasn't sure that she could have seen him move, it was so fast, if she hadn't been enhanced by Oren. As it was she saw it and reacted before his movement had time to register. He rose and crossed the room. She also rose but was more clumsy and knocked over her chair. She backed over it and stepped up onto the riser Oren had built. Hurrit pressed his body into her personal space, pinning her against the cabinets. He didn't touch her but there were places where the space was only a hairs breadth. She froze, not wanti
ng to trigger his predatory response any more than she already had. She did not want to be seen as the rabbit to his fox.

  Thanks to the riser, they were almost eye to eye. More like eye to mouth, but thankfully he had that nightmare inducer clamped shut. He dropped his head to the side, pulling his hair aside, exposing his neck. The move was more like a dog to his alpha than a fox to his dinner. “You cannot smell if you do not breathe.” He whispered.

  She hadn't realized she was holding her breath. She let it out and leaned in to get a good whiff of his skin. The faster she told him he didn't stink, the faster she got out of this situation. As soon as she inhaled, she didn't want to get out of the situation quickly anymore.

  Hurrit smelled good. Damn good. Like Oren but different. It made her hungry and horny at the same time. Unbeknownst to herself, Kay grabbed a fist full of his shirt on either side of his waist. She pulled him into her, putting her nose and mouth against his dark skin. When open mouthed smelling was no longer enough, she put her teeth and tongue on his caramel covering.

  His gasp wasn't his only reaction. She felt his erection grow inside his pants and press against her thigh. He gripped the counter top on either side of her but she felt sure he was retraining himself, not pinning her in. He pushed away from her only enough to keep from crushing her as she wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled him tighter. Her other hand slid up his side, in over his chest, shoulder and up to his face. She kissed and nipped up his neck to his ear.

  “You smell amazing. And you taste even better.” She whispered in a way she knew would tickle and tease the sensitive skin right below and behind the ear. Her voice was more throaty than she would have liked. She wondered what his blood would taste like and wasn't repulsed by the thought at all. She found herself considering what it would feel like if he bit her and not in the fearful way she had just a few minutes ago.