Scented Dreams
Copyright © May 2010, Jacqueline Turner Banks
Cover art by Sugar and Spice Press © May 2010
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
ReGeJe Press
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Sacramento, CA 95828
http://www.dogon-hunter.com/About_Us.php
Chapter One
The one-hour drive from Midway International Airport was pleasant enough. Most of the traffic seemed to be going in the opposite direction. It was still early, but the light stream was the first wave of city-bound work traffic flowing into Chicago. He figured in another hour or two the direction wouldn’t make much difference—traffic would be everywhere.
Ian Carama smiled as he thought about the name Midway International Airport. It always tickled him when one of the smaller airports used the word “international” in its name. It reminded him of his daily soap opera.
His soap was set in Small Town, no state ever mentioned, U.S.A., but the characters were forever taking direct flights to Paris, Rome, and other distant points from Salem International.
He wondered what his brethren would think if they knew his DVR was set to record a daily soap opera.
Thinking about them brought back his ire.
Who cares what they think?
Like him, they worked nights and slept in mornings; they probably watched the soaps too.
A hot wave of anger flowed through his six foot four frame. They’d tricked him. It was as if the Pale Fox, his boss, asked for volunteers for this assignment and they all took a step back, leaving him front and center. It wasn’t quite that blatant, but everybody present had something important to do that required them to stay in town, as if they knew in advance what Fox was going to ask. I’ll know next time, he told himself.
Chill, what’s the worst that can happen? I’ll spend a weekend with some hot Midwestern coeds?
Speaking of which, he again tried to get a better look at his driver. No good. I’ll just have to wait until we stop.
He wasn’t sure how close they were to Lake Michigan, but Ian could feel the pull of the water on his body. It wasn’t as strong as the pull of the Pacific when he was near the coast, but much more of a tug than a mere lake should warrant. Then again, Lake Michigan wasn’t a mere lake.
He remembered a time when he changed airplanes at O’Hara for the hour and a half flight to Detroit. Most of the first hour was used crossing Lake Michigan.
He often wondered why a man born in a land-locked area would suffer such a pull. Of course it wasn’t just water that so affected him; mountains tended to make his body feel squeezed, and deep valleys gave him a hollow feeling—not unlike hunger.
“How far to the lake?” he asked the driver.
“I would say less than a mile. Did you want to see it?”
“Maybe later.”
The other side of the Dan Ryan Expressway had stopped moving.
Ian was glad he was on the side that was still creeping along—his luck didn’t usually run that way.
He hated traffic. He felt the horrible California traffic should be included in the same negative descriptions as the fires and earthquakes.
He examined the landscape. So many signs. The Illinois landscape they passed had much more open space than what lay between California cities, but he figured double the advertising signs—giving it a cluttered effect.
He looked back at the casino signs they’d passed. That’s something to look forward to, he told himself. A personal reward for such a crappy assignment. He smiled, remembering that a couple of goddesses he knew hung out at the Chicago area casinos. There was an Ashanti goddess who worked at one of them and a Celtic goddess who kept an apartment near one. Or was it the other way around? It didn’t matter; they were both delightful ways to pass an evening or two.
That was something the gods and goddesses from all the different pantheons had in common: they loved to party. Ian liked partying with the gods and goddesses; they had no limits, they spent a lot of money and
they tended to be kinky in the sack. The only drawback came in gambling with them. More than once he’d seen a god zap an opponent into oblivion over a lost bet.
He leaned back against the soft gray leather seat and sighed. His driver was female, and from what he could tell she was a very attractive young woman. How did that happen?
His attendant at home, Rico, had made the arrangements. He’d probably requested a female driver. Everybody in the Service, the Dogon-Hunters and the helpers, knew Ian had an eye for the ladies.
Human women weren’t his first or even second choice, but there was much about them he appreciated—–most of all that which all women had in common.
Next time ask for one who doesn’t have a big-ass engagement ring on her finger, he said to himself. He was more or less rehearsing his call home. He looked at his watch. It was five a.m. in Sacramento.
I should wake him and give him a day’s worth of meaningless crap to do. Ian sighed again; it wasn’t Rico’s fault he was on his way to Valparaiso, Indiana.
He glanced at the driver’s rear view mirror and was surprised to see she was looking at him.
He smiled. “Is it usually this warm this time of year?” he asked.
“No, sir, we call this an Indian summer.”
“Feel free to call me Ian.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, Ian.”
He wondered how much she knew about the Service. He hated working with people who didn’t know. In the past, Rico had hired drivers who freelanced for the Service, but this girl was so young Ian doubted if that was her story. Working with the Ketier was hard enough without getting one who didn’t know about his job of eliminating the things that go bump in the night.
He decided to test her.
“Are you Ketier?” he asked.
“Mmm, yes, I guess you could say that.”
That answer didn’t help—a person was either Ketier, meaning human, or they weren’t. Her answer made him think she didn’t know the word, not that he expected her to be anything but human.
“You’ve worked for the Service before?”
“Oh yes, many times.”
That still didn’t answer his question. She could be thinking I mean car service, he figured.
“Who else have you driven for?”
“Various members of GAN.”
Bingo—she understood.
GAN was the Global Association of Nonhumans. If she knew anything about GAN, he wouldn’t have to work so hard to hide his identity. Plus, he considered it a good sign that she hadn’t told him exactly who she’d driven for in the past. Discretion was very important in his business.
His mentor in Sacramento was a member of the GAN regulating council that governs all of the other-worldly types. The council was currently pushing hard for a policing division to force compliance of the rules and decisions. The current practice was for each group to police its own. Ian was campaigning to serve on that new committee.
He figured it was a good way to move up in the world and an opportunity to meet a lot of new beings. But he knew even if a policing division was established, each group would continue to police their own until there was a dispute and GAN had to get involved. The policing division would be in place to guarantee compliance. It was, of course, the gods and other immortals putting up the greatest fuss about a police force, especially the Greeks. There are always those beings who can’t be told anything! Politics were the same in e
very realm.
“What do you know about this city where we’ll be staying?”
“Not much, just a small college town.”
“Not the kind of place to have big problems?”
“No, not at all,” she said, and then she laughed.
“What?”
“They have a popcorn festival every year.”
He tried to think what the word “popcorn” could possibly mean; surely it was a hip-hop euphemism.
Finally he gave up and decided to just admit his degree of uncool. I might look twenty-five, but I’m much older, he thought, but decided to say instead, “I’m afraid I don’t know what that means.”
“What?” she asked.
He thought he saw laughter in her eyes, but since it was the only part of her face he could see, he wasn’t sure.
“Popcorn, what does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything but popcorn. You know, that stuff that looks like dried corn off the cob and it pops up white?”
“Popcorn?”
“Exactly. I believe Valpo is the home of Orville Redenbacher. Do you remember him?”
He nodded, but wondered if she was looking and said, “Yes, I do remember those commercials.” He felt foolish. It was Indiana—of course it was a popcorn festival.
She wondered what drug was called popcorn in California. I’ll look it up online when I get to the motel, she told herself. She was already planning to look up the word “Ketier.” She’d been called that before but never knew what it meant.
He closed his eyes and tried to relax. The car was comfortable, a heavy, smooth ride. She had soft music playing very low, strictly background. He liked that. Just relax, he told himself again. A few days in Indiana, nice weather, college girls; how bad could it be?
What was that god-awful smell?
“Driver, Miss, I don’t know your name?”
“You can call me Nesta.”
“Nesta, what is that smell?”
The driver laughed. “What smell?”
He sat forward. “No, don’t tell me you don’t smell it!”
“Does it smell like your chitlins got caught in the toaster and started an electrical fire?”
He laughed. “That’s close, but worse than that.”
“Of course I smell it. Everybody smells it—it’s Gary, Indiana. You’ll get used to it.”
“No, I won’t, and you can’t make me.”
She started laughing, really laughing. He wondered if it was a good idea to make a person laugh so hard while speeding down the freeway at sixty-five miles an hour.
He repeated what she’d said to himself: like your chitlins got caught in the toaster. His eyes were green, his long hair a light brown with real and artificial blond highlights and his skin tanned, but there was no mistaking it for anything but white. How did she know he would know what chitlins are? He wondered again just how much she knew about the Service. It wasn’t usually so easy to convince a human that he was a black African.
Nesta Avery glanced at the man in the back seat again.
Nobody had told her to expect an Adonis. She’d taken the job because the caller, a guy in California named Rico, told her he was an African and a member of GAN. She’d driven members of GAN before, and they always tipped well. They were strange, but Nesta didn’t mind strange. Actually, it was a word often used to describe her and her family. And she liked Africans. She really enjoyed hearing about life in Africa.
But African men could be quite aggressive, even more than the little men from GAN who claimed to be leprechauns. The last thing Nesta did before leaving her home with her overnight bag was to slip on the fake engagement ring she bought for just such occasions.
I can’t believe I said something about chitlins to him. Now he’s going to think all black people run around eating chitlins all the time. Even people who like them only have them once or twice a year. Usually around the winter holidays. And why would anybody put some in a toaster? She wanted to explain, “My family doesn’t even eat them.” But why should I be ashamed of a food that came about because slaves had to eat the leftovers after the good parts of the pig went to the big house?
She glanced in the mirror again. God, what color are those eyes? Nesta looked at her birthstone on her right hand. It was the lightest peridot she’d been able to find, and his eyes were lighter. She wondered if she switched her rings, would he notice? If he noticed, would he think she was a whorish skank? Forget about it, she told herself. Next time wait until you see the guy before you put on the damn ring!
Chapter Two
“Take me past the university first, please,” Ian said soon after they passed the sign indicating they’d reached Valparaiso.
“Yes, sir.”
He wondered why it bothered him so much that she kept calling him “sir.”
Maybe because it makes me feel even older. I don't look that much older than her, he told himself. He tried to see his reflection in the face of his cell phone. This is silly—I know how I look. Maybe it’s because I’m embarrassed about hiring a driver?
Ian hadn’t told any of the Hunters his real explanation for not driving. The Pale Fox was the only one who knew the reason. Ian’s vision was so keen and his perception was so acute, he found it difficult to limit his attention to one thing—the road. Often he had to close his eyes to turn it off. How do you tell your coworkers you’re too strong to drive? Ian smiled. That group would laugh him out of California.
“Sir, Ian, the university is coming up on the left.”
Sir Ian? Now she’s given me a title too? “So, Nesta, are your parents big fans of Bob Marley?”
She yelped loudly.
Bracing himself, Ian sat forward and tried to see what she’d hit or was about to hit.
“Excuse me. Sir, I mean, Ian. It’s just that you’re the first person to ever ask me that. Usually after I’m asked about my name and I tell people I was named after Bob Marley, I still get a doubting look.”
He found her eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled. “I’m a Marley fan too.” He sat back again, trying to relax.
What a cutie. He wondered what her boyfriend did for a living.
Way to go—now he must really think I’m an idiot, she admonished herself. But she didn’t have time to beat herself up long before her cell phone rang.
“Hello. . .yes. . .no. I told you I had a job. I’ll be staying in Valparaiso for a few days. . . A man. . . You got me the job as a driver, and now you’re doubting what I do? Okay, me too, bye.”
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Ian said. “But if it’s easier for you to drive back and forth, there’s no reason why you have to sleep in Valparaiso.”
“No, Ian, it’s not easier for me to drive back and forth.”
“I mean easier for your relationship with your fiancé.”
She laughed. “I could see why you would think that, but that was my mother. And believe me, a few days in Indiana is going to feel like a vacation. I’m an only child, and my parents can be a bit clingy.”
She saw him smile.
She hadn’t been to the university in years, but she figured they were close by the number of students walking in front of the town car like they had bumpers on their behinds. Not a good time to keep looking at the hottie in back, she told herself.
The thing she remembered most about the campus was the lovely chapel. Her family had attended a wedding there. She vaguely remembered that it couldn’t be seen from the approach they were making, but the chapel with its uniquely beautiful stained-glass steeple was worth the ride to the other side.
Then it hit her. Damn, that would have been a good time to tell him about the ring being a fake. Oh well, she said to herself, always a day late and a dollar short.
“Was there anything in particular you wanted to see?” she asked him.
“No, I just wanted to get a feel for the size of the campus. And an idea about the demographics of the students.”
“I believe this school is k
nown for their beautiful chapel. You can’t see it from this way, but I can take you around to the other side.”
Nesta had parked the car, and students were peering into the dark windows trying, without success, to see into the limo. He was starting to feel like a caged animal.
“No, let’s check into the motel and get something to eat. I’ll walk around the campus later.”
“Yes, sir, I mean Ian.”
“Are you in school somewhere?” he asked, thinking if he made conversation she might become more comfortable with calling him by his name.
Scented Dreams ((A Dogon-Hunters Series Novel)) Page 1