Jumlin's Spawn Read online

  To the left, a path sloped to a walled rock garden. Great floating jewels of blown glass had been dangled from unseen wires hung on trees. The house beyond it was a standard middle-aged double-wide mobile home.

  A blast of flame jetted through the gape of the gate around the spring pools. Carrying the flame was a woman who quickly shutdown the blow torch. She also toted through the gate two big, misshapen glass objects.

  The old woman’s brownish face wore an incongruous map of freckles, her stark gray eyes lit up by the sun. She could have been anywhere from an old 50 to a young 70. Her black hair had been brushed into two pigtails. Elfie remembered Yancey saying to her many times that there were only enough living full-blood Indians to fill a 747, and he was one of them. Everyone else had mixed ethnicity. Apparently, even medicine women.

  “Ho, Yancey,” Molly said.

  “Hi, Molly,” he replied. “Severin tells me you wanted to see us about something. This is Oliver, and Elfie. I think you may remember them.”

  “Yeah, I do, heya,” she said, limping toward a huge, thick metal barrel. She placed the glass pieces she carried into the barrel. “I knew I had that damn glass flame too high. I lost a lot of chances.” She aimed her blowtorch at the barrel of glass and fired it inside it. “Gotta send these back to their source. This will soften them. I can kiln them later.”

  Elfie gazed at the many glass objects of art she now recognized, artfully placed throughout the springs area. Concrete furniture inhabited the area. The concrete wore the same subtle harmony of color palate. A blown-glass golden orb sat in the middle of the table.

  “Did you make all of this glass work?” Elfie asked. “They're beautiful.”

  “Yeah, all of them,” Molly said, laying the blowtorch beside the burning glass barrel. “I guess it started as an art, and then it was a business, now it's just a habit. Can I get you kids some hot tea? Or coffee?”

  All three of them shook their heads.

  “We’ve come a long way,” Yancey said, “I think we’d just like to hear what you wanted to see us about.”

  Molly nodded. “Well, you'd best be seated because it's a long story.”

  When they were seated, Molly grew quiet and, after a moment, finally spoke in what sounded like carefully-calibrated words. “I hear you are going to the Angel Caves. Do you know why?”

  An odd way to phrase the question, Elfie thought to herself. But she answered. “I have the Angel Caves antiquities that were stolen by the late Professor Duryea. I need to return them.”

  “You have them?” Molly asked, her mouth opening wide.

  “Yes, I worked with Duryea. I've brought them back with me. They're in the jeep.”

  “To think I had no hope,” she said softly. “I believed we were resigned to fighting this alone. But providence prevailed. And you’ve come here after all.”

  “Excuse me?” Elfie asked. “I don’t follow you.”

  Molly laughed to herself a little. “It means I was right. It means you…the three of you…are the Wakinyan.”

  Elfie looked over at Yancey. “What is that?”

  “Well, the word means thunder and lightning and stuff in Lakota,” Yancey explained to his friends. “I don’t know what it means in this instance.”

  “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 be
droom 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 Ya
ncey 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.”

  “Like we said, two are better than one,” Yancey coughed out, as he kept thrusting faster and faster. Elfie nodded helplessly, groaning with every thrust from Yancey’s cock and Oliver’s hands. Yancey thrust relentlessly. “Rub her clit faster, baby,” Yancey gasped out to Oliver. “She’s almost there.”

  “Not quite,” Elfie moaned, and then pulled away from Oliver's weakened grasp. She swung a leg around to move Yancey's back to the bed. She mounted him.

  There was an explosion of passion in Yancey's eyes. “Oh, yeah,” was all he managed to say.

  She leaned down into his face. “Make me come like a thirty year old virgin?” she asked, with a laugh. She shook back her sweat-moistened hair. “I'll show you a captive bride.”

  She shifted her weight to drive his cock farther into her, and then seized the shaft from inside her with a muscular clench. The effects of the internal grip on his cock surfaced quickly on his face. He surrendered, helpless, against the bed.