by Kat Turner
She followed him to his sleeping space and watched him pack. Beyond another bohemian window with a couple of cracked panes, a neon sign, the silhouette of a naked woman shimmying, spread its pussy-pink glow across rain-streaked glass. The erotic light bathed Eve. She could strip for Jonnie, basking in saturated color while she stoked his desire.
But she snapped out of her fantasy once and for all. He was right, they had to act. “I left it in Louisville.” Fortunately, at Meg’s behest, she’d renewed the document. Eve chewed her lip. Did she keep thinking about Meg, her anchor of practicality, because she had doubts as to what she was doing?
“What’s wrong?” Jonnie zipped up his bag, looking at her with a tilted head and concerned expression. He slashed a hand through messy hair, erotic pink glimmers from the sign dancing on his face. “Look, Eve, I hope you don’t feel pressured here. If you aren’t sure, or you don’t want to do this, tell me. I don’t want you to have regrets.”
The pain in his voice steeled her resolve. He thought she’d bail on him, let him down when things got difficult. And if he thought that, he was wrong. Because Eve didn’t fail people who turned to her for help. Not anymore. Never again. It was time to quit being a coward and take another fucking risk.
“No. I don’t feel any of those things. I’m a little overwhelmed, but I want to do this. If a certain undead rodent is any indication, we’re in this together. Meaning we need to pool our resources and collaborate.” Eve congratulated herself for framing her statement in a way that sounded sane and businesslike.
Not like the dictionary definition of a harebrained scheme.
“Good. I’ll have my driver ring a pilot, and we’ll stop off in Louisville to pick up whatever you need. After, we’ll catch a red-eye to South America.” Jonnie swished by her, texting, causing another surge of excitement to swell. He’d switched into important mode, famous man mode. Witnessing it, to her surprise, got her motor running.
A first, but then again, Eve had a feeling that a string of firsts would soon be defining her life. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Tickets are purchased.” He pushed one more button with a definitive poke, shoulders square and head high. A smirk snuck out. The big-shot, rock star persona suited him.
Eve peered over Jonnie’s shoulder as he composed another text: I’ll be AWOL for awhile. I need some rest, but I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.
Instantly, it blooped a reply.
Brian: Alright. Take care of yourself, mate. Sorry I was snappy in the dressing room. Call me any time.
Jonnie texted back a thumbs up and a heart and stuck the phone in his back pocket.
Even given the grim circumstances, she tingled. This shouldn’t be so exciting. Shouldn’t sound so thrilling, like so much fun. “What if we can’t find the community? Or if they tell us to leave or won’t let us stay?”
“Well, then, it looks like we’ll have to find a hotel and keep each other company until I pass my expiration date and go comatose, doesn’t it?”
He threw in a sexy wink, but dull pain kicked into her ribs at his mention of dying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be doubtful. I guess I felt like I should at least perform some nominal attempt to be practical.”
A lopsided smile curved Jonnie’s mouth before he reached for her hand. “I appreciate you taking this risk with me.”
“I’d like to start taking risks again. With life in general. With people.”
His charming smile deepened into a devilish grin. “You’re certainly diving right in.”
“Go big or go home.”
“Size queen, eh?” A second wink made her clit pulse as her mind drifted away from concern and to a sense memory of his long, stiff erection pressing between her legs.
“You have a dirty mind.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
A heat wave licked over her skin. “Tease.”
“You want me to tease you, Eve?”
Before she could answer, a text pinged his phone and killed the flirty vibe. “He’s here. Let’s go.” He led the way, firing off a reply.
As Eve bounded down the musty entryway’s creaky spiral staircase, imagined peeks into tempting unknowns buoyed her steps. She was the fool, skipping off the cliff. No point in denying an incontestable fact. But she wasn’t doing so blithely, far from it. An apartment door on the first floor opened with a slow creak. In the doorway stood an ancient woman in a pink bathrobe, holding a calico cat in her liver-spotted arms.
The old lady smiled at Eve, revealing mossy stumps of teeth. The effect was auspicious, a positive omen, good tidings for a journey.
Eve smiled back as Jonnie pushed open heavy white double doors, introducing a warm, wet, and spicy blast of air. The surrounding energy elevated and encouraging, she walked on feet lightened with purpose and confidence. She wasn’t skipping over the cliff blithely, not at all. She marched with direction, resolve. The calculated steps of commitment, of someone taking action to solve her problems.
The rain had tempered into residual drips. Humidity plastered her face like a stuffy mask. Jonnie slunk into the backseat of the white Lexus that he’d summoned. As he slid into the plush leather interior, his eyes lit up with a playful glimmer of youthful innocence that she hadn’t seen on him.
She hadn’t seen it that first night in the rain, when he’d shivered on her doorstep like a lost puppy. Not when they’d pored over research, not even when they’d kissed and touched.
But that gleam gave her strength. It shored up her surety. Her mission was to heal souls, to nurture the grandest light inside of people. And maybe not only after their deaths. Perhaps she could tend to that light like an attentive gardener while also caring for the warm, vital person it inhabited.
Perhaps she’d find her true self on this strange and terrifying journey, the way normal people found themselves on post-college backpacking trips through Europe.
But she and Jonnie weren’t normal. She talked to the dead, and he was undead. They chased vaccines for vampirism and solutions for hauntings, not Eurorail trains.
Silent understanding passed between them, a current of communication. Jonnie extended a hand. Eve accepted his offer and settled into the luxury car’s squishy seat, focused yet nervous as she courted the abyss.
Eight
The speed boat’s grinding motor churned up froth while Amazon waters stretched to foliage-lined banks, yawning black beyond Jonnie’s gaze.
“How did you figure out the exact location?” Eve raised her voice over the mechanical noise, leaning in close. Her leg brushed his, distracting him with the velvet feel of her skin. She wore short khaki shorts, showing off lean, toned calves and thighs. His pulse accelerated as he glanced down to their twin pairs of legs. His were beige and hers light brown, though in the dark their colors merged into one.
Hot air, muggy even in the dead of night, lashed their hair about. Droplets illuminated by the boat’s headlights sparkled on her arms. Frogs and cicadas performed their serenade, a din punctuated now and then by more exotic animal sounds.
Curtains of lush rainforest framing the twisting river led his mind to wonder about other lush, damp places. Namely the one between her legs.
She waved a hand across his face. “Should I be worried about you? Have you lapsed into some kind of vampire death trance?”
Jonnie broke the sex spell he’d put himself under, forcing his focus onto something other than her edible, delicate scent. “I gathered enough details from the research to scare up a few names. From there, it’s unsurprising how far money gets you.” He gestured to the front of the boat, where the driver navigated the twisty body of water with a firm grip on the wheel.
It hadn’t been all that challenging, really. Everyone knew a guy who knew a guy, and a few hundred dollars’ worth of PayPal transactions made through an anonymous account later, he’d linked up with Carlos, the boatman. Originally from New Mexico, Carlos knew two American expatriates in the shifter clan who’d agreed to meet Jonni
e and Eve.
A quick but careful vetting process assured Jonnie that Carlos wasn’t a conman or kidnapper who would deliver them into the hands of drug cartel hostage takers, and here they were.
Besides, one false move against him or Eve, and the boatman would lose his life force to a quick, fanged strike. Jonnie’s newfound speed astonished him, an enhancement he’d discovered when leaving Eve’s house. He could probably take out an entire gang of armed men, which he would do in a second to protect Eve from any shenanigans he might inadvertently drag her into. And as awareness of his powers grew, so did his confidence. His bravery.
At times like these, he forgot his original request was for her to kill him. The old plea seemed outrageous now. A goal he’d outgrown. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to thrive, to live his best vampire life. With the help of the jungle antidote he sought, perhaps he could subdue the wretched symptoms and enjoy himself for the first time in ages. Enjoy Eve’s company and show her, in all sorts of ways, the extent of his gratitude. The extent to which he cherished her presence in his life, her generosity in offering to help him.
Eve toed her mid-sized hiking pack, a relic stuffed with a week’s worth of clothes and capped by a tightly rolled blue sleeping bag. The expats had offered cabins but warned that arrangements would be rough, nonetheless. “I feel like I should be more scared than I actually am.”
Before he could think, he wrapped an arm around her. She clicked into his hold in one natural motion, relaxing as she nestled into the crook under his arm. “I’ve got you. What, you don’t like camping?”
“Nope. Glamping all the way for me. Hot tubs and electricity.” She rested a hand just above his knee, stroking him with the intimate touches he’d forgotten he craved. “And I’ve got you, too.”
Jonnie savored the impact of their statements, the increase in their comfort zone. Around them, monkeys whooped and foliage rustled. The speedboat motor groaned out its lone, clanking metal tune. The sickly sweet, shamefully enjoyable odor of gasoline wafted up from the bottom of the boat, the craft’s sides framed by foamy black waters that glinted under the moon.
His heart swelled as he cherished the feel of Eve’s warm figure. Lost in himself, in them, part of him longed to speak words of endearment to her. But of course it was too soon, or perhaps too late.
Carlos steered to the shoreline, killing the motor with a series of marble-in-a-barrel clatters. He docked into mud and sand, rocking the boat with a jolt that knocked Eve and Jonnie’s bodies closer together. The driver jumped out. Water splashed, and a few feet away, something large and unidentifiable slithered into murky depths. As Carlos used thick nylon rope to secure the vessel to a tall wooden post, Jonnie held Eve tighter. For his assurance as well as hers.
The adventure began now—their journey into the unknown and, with it, their shared effort to cure a mutual psychic woe.
Carlos affixed his headlight lamp to his forehead and helped Eve out by the hand, stealing a peek at her breasts as he did. Not like Jonnie could blame the man. Eve had a great set, round and full and perky beneath her fitted tee shirt.
Jonnie jumped out on his own and swiped her fingers from the driver’s hold, a needling pang of jealousy pinching near his breastbone.
Securing her own wearable light behind her head, she smiled knowingly at him. He quirked a brow at her while he clicked the elastic strap of his lamp, pretending not to understand that she had registered his flash of envy. The woman could read him so easily.
“Ready?” Carlos asked, pushing a button on his gear and sparking a bluish halogen cone of light into existence. It gave the jungle an eerie look, a cave of a forest cast in a punishing spotlight fit for exposing the secrets that the darkness masked.
Jonnie looked to Eve for confirmation, and she nodded and turned on her own light. He followed suit and took her hand.
Carlos led the way, marching the trio down a well-trodden path. Sticks crackled under their boots, underbrush crunched, and bugs chirped all around.
As he traipsed behind the guide, Eve’s silken, strong grip linked with his, an alien sensation stole over Jonnie. Part of his consciousness left his body and flew through the trees. He’d split, he still saw the path ahead of him, but at the same time he picked up more around the edges. Leaping monkeys, the canopy’s huge rubbery leaves, and coils of vines snaking up fat tree trunks rushed through his visual field.
A sprinting jaguar with night-vision eyes like golden balls ran in his direction. As the passing big cat saw him, whatever aspect of him was visible, it nodded. The feline morphed into a woman with dark hair and kept on sprinting through the jungle.
Beside him, Eve gasped. Jonnie clicked back into himself, rejoining wholly with the part of his consciousness inside his body, the physical aspect hiking the trail. “You alright, love?”
She touched her neck. “Yeah, it was weird. I lost myself for a minute. I spaced out and felt like I was floating above myself. I saw the top of my head. Like an out-of-body experience.”
First the dream, now this. Did their shared esoteric experiences mean they were psychically connected?
“Sounds rather fun,” Jonnie said. Though he didn’t distrust Carlos, had no reason to, he also didn’t see a reason to go blathering about mystical powers and psychic connections and the like with a virtual stranger in their presence. The man knew Jonnie sought the shifters for what he’d called research purposes, and he figured the expat didn’t need anymore information beyond what Jonnie’d already proffered.
Eve laughed, the sound clear and mirthful like wind chimes. He squeezed her fingers. Perhaps they could build in a diversion or two on this trip, visit a waterfall or some such thing. Good heavens, they both needed a holiday.
“It was random alright. Not bad though.” She glanced up at him, headlamp illuminating her pretty face and kind eyes.
The path opened to a clearing, and Carlos stopped the trio. Brilliant starlight that put their lamps to shame spilled over flat grass and the greenery that flanked it. Above them stretched a starry network of overhead lights, bright enough to read by, like those that bathed the stages he played upon.
“It’s a node,” Carlos announced in a thoughtful manner as he walked to a landmark in the middle of the clearing. A circular wooden disc the size of a gong hung suspended from a post. Without explanation, Carlos picked up a baseball bat off of the ground and banged the circle.
Sure enough, the disc was some kind of homemade gong, and its low, foreboding booms vibrated through the air, echoing off of the trees. “What do you mean, a node?” Jonnie asked.
Carlos dropped the bat and held his arms high. “This place. It’s sacred, a doorway. That’s why the star children and otherkin, both born and made, flock to it. To thrive, to travel, to soar through the cosmos.”
A shooting star zipped across the sparkling obsidian blanket, raining down a trail of glittery dust like magic powder. Jonnie had to concede that magical happenings were in play. More to the point, Carlos’s comments about a special place for people who were different struck him with a case of the warm fuzzies. Followed by an ache of disappointment. He wished he could have brought his bandmates. Perhaps he’d take pictures, clue them in on what he was up to.
“And did you ring the star children and otherkin’s doorbell just now?” Eve asked.
Carlos chortled, tapping his temple. “Smart woman. I’ll wait with you two until your host arrives.”
Damn straight she was a smart woman. Eve took off her backpack and set it on the ground, moaning slightly as she rubbed her shoulder.
Jonnie stepped behind her and massaged her shoulders until she sighed in contentment and melted into his touch. He looped his arms around her front, inhaling her fragrant hair. Jonnie admired the constellations domed above his head, trying to remember names and placements from science class. Brian had always been the brainy one. If he were here, he’d give them a rundown.
But Jonnie couldn’t concentrate on the sky because suddenly Eve’s hear
tbeat filled his ears. So loud. So strong and vital. And her tempting neck was inches from his lips.
He caught the unique sent of her blood, a rich and earthy animal fragrance complemented by notes of cherry, currant, and barrel-aged whisky. A delicacy far grander than the expensive wines they’d drunk at Brian and Helen’s wedding at the Sonoma Valley vineyard. The beat pulsed in Eve’s neck. Desire pulsed below his belt. His cock rose to half mast, pressing into his fly.
“Big Dipper,” he said as he managed to stop thinking about his dick and finally identified Ursa Major, pointing upward.
“Yeah, it definitely feels big alright.” The slightest wiggle of her bottom against his ever-stiffening knob let him know she wasn’t thinking about stars either.
Carlos cleared his throat, and Jonnie released Eve and stepped back a couple of inches. Thank heaven they lacked privacy, or he might just throw her down on the ground and ravish her in the open air. She made a cute huffing noise and slung her pack over her shoulders. He couldn’t help but smirk. She wanted him as well.
But acting on lust didn’t suit their needs right now. They’d better stay on task and find a way to reduce carnal distractions.
A fourth headlamp beam glimmered in the trees. Clomping feet and a whinny caught his ears. Leaves parted, and a figure emerged from the jungle’s black cauldron of a belly. A horse came into view. White as ivory and topped by a short-haired woman in cutoffs and cowboy boots, the well-behaved steed trotted over.
The rider pulled on reins, halting her mount a couple of feet away from Jonnie. Equestrian smells of hay, leather, and beast washed over Jonnie’s senses while he wondered who this new person was. As Carlos helped the stranger dismount, the horse stomped a foot and snorted.
Jonnie’s eyes widened when he saw that the woman was hugely pregnant. A baggy men’s flannel engulfed her petite, swallowed-a-bowling-ball frame. She approached, her expression difficult to read, even in the harsh, bluish glare of the light strapped to her forehead. Neutral tending towards skeptical, perhaps, her wholesome and pretty face was unsmiling though not frowning either.