Love Charms (149 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The morning dawned and I discovered it was Saturday. It was a huge
relief not to have to slop hogs. I was enjoying a cup of coffee and waved
goodbye to my mom driving off with two other tribal council members to a forest
resources meeting in Portland. Even Scorpio seemed to be keeping a distance and
I decided I would just sit back and enjoy the peace and quiet. A dark green
Volvo I didn’t recognize turned the corner and pulled into the driveway. Nathan
got out. He was carrying a single sunflower. He smiled nervously at me. Jeez, I
wondered exactly what he remembered. I popped his spiritual cherry which meant
he might have some spillover from all this. I just didn’t think holding a
sunflower in front of me would be his first response.

Maybe a cross or a necklace of garlic bulbs. Maybe a silver
bullet.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I answered. His eyes looked more alive than when I had last
seen him, which seemed to be my new theme. His pale skin was flushed and I
wondered if it was from embarrassment or arousal.

“I brought this for you,” he said, pushing the sunflower into my
hand. “Anybody could bring you a bouquet of flowers, but I thought you’d always
remember someone who brought you a single sunflower.”

I laughed. It felt good to be surprised when it didn’t involve
anything scarier than a big flower. He hesitated and then kissed me on the
mouth. “I missed you.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment and he rushed on to fill the
silence. “I’m a little fuzzy about everything that happened. But I remember how
exciting it was being with you. You opened up something inside of me that I had
been hiding. You helped me be at peace with who I am. Thank you.” He grinned
and it was obvious the flush was from arousal. The tenting of his blue jeans
when he kissed me gave it away.

“Want some coffee?” I got up and headed for the front door knowing
he’d follow me. Again. When we went inside he asked me to the Prom. I put the
sunflower into a 42 ounce plastic cup because we’re Indians and don’t have
vases. I thought about Nathan’s request. It would be a relief to do something
ordinary for a change. Just as long as I didn’t get voted Prom Queen.

<< >>

I am a Native American Storyteller. Some of our Stories are best
told by day. Others are best told by Night. Please visit me at my website where
you can also sign up for my newsletter:

http://ty-nolan.blogspot.com/

If you enjoyed
Memoir of a Reluctant Shaman
it would mean a
lot to me if you were to leave a review on the site where you bought it or on
Goodreads. You might also be interested in my

Coyote Still Going: Native American Legends and Contemporary
Stories

Here are some Stories (Traditional Native
Legends) and some stories (personal history.) 
I am a professional storyteller and a
therapist.
Coyote Still Going
retells the mostly Sahaptin and Twana
traditional legends I was taught by my relatives. It's also a memoir of how I
have told these stories, from celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr.
Rogers to using the Sahaptin legend of the Butterfly at an International AIDS
Conference in discussing grief and loss. Traditional Native American legends
are powerful teaching tools.
The book also contains recipes. Food,
spirituality, and community are always woven together--you can't understand one
without the others. I was raised with the importance of the sacredness of food
and the legends that explain why we celebrate the First Salmon Ceremony, or why
we understand taking a sip of water before a meal is a type of prayer. 
Many Native Nations begin a Coyote legend
with some variation of "Coyote Was Going There." Trust me--Coyote?
Still Going. It's about time Ebooks caught up with that crazy Trickster.
Excerpt:
Long and long ago, when the world was
still new, the Creator watched children playing. He watched their sheer joy,
and enjoyed their laughter. In the four directions he looked, he saw
beauty--before him, behind, him, above him, and below him. He smelled the
sweetness of flowers, heard the song of birds, saw the bright blue of the sky,
and tasted the first touch of the coming cold on his tongue. This reminded him
that time was passing--that winter would come again--that these children would
all grow old and pass away as he had watched human children do over and over
again. The leaves would turn brown and fall from the trees, and the flowers
would fade to replenish the Earth.
He decided to create something to memorize
this moment, something that would be a part of all this beauty. And so he
gathered the blackness from the hair of the children's parents. He took the
orange and reds of the falling leaves. He grabbed bits of sunlight, and the
colors of the flowers. He took the evergreen needles of the pines. He took the
soft whiteness of the clouds, and added all these things into a bag of
buckskin. He smiled and after a moment, added the songs of the birds to his
bag.
When he finished, he held the bag close to
his heart, and called the children to him. He handed them his bag and told them
to see what was inside. When they opened the bag, a cloud of butterflies
emerged. They were like winged jewels. They were all the colors of the rainbow.
It was as if flowers were flying. The spirits of the children and the adults
soared like hawks, for they had never seen anything like this before. The
butterflies, light as a lizard's lick, touched on the heads and shoulders of
their grateful audience. The butterflies swirled around and began to sing.
But then a bird flew to the Creator's
shoulder and began to complain. "Why have you given our precious songs to
these small and pretty beings? You have already made their wings more beautiful
than ours--why give them our songs as well? You promised us that each bird
would have his or her own song. It is not right to do what you have done."
The Creator looked at the small bird and
nodded. "You are right. I promised one song for each bird, and it is not
fair to give them away to others." So the Creator made the butterflies
silent, and thus they remain today. But their beauty touches all people and
opens up the songs in our own hearts.
It is said the world is a reflection of
itself--the world of dreams and the world of work. It is taught these two
worlds are like the wings of the butterfly. The dream world is one wing, and
the working world is the other. The wings must connect at the heart for the
butterfly to fly and live. Real life - true life--happens because of the
movement of the wings. And this is what marriage is like. It mirrors the
butterfly's heart, kept alive by the love of the spouses moving together.

<<
>>

You can find the rest of the Story in
Coyote
Still Going: Native American Legends and Contemporary Stories

By
Shirl Anders

Chapter One

Fog choked the
London night air with damp and cloying tendrils as Trinity crouched on the
wings of a stone angel parapet on the east corner of Blacknall mansion. His
nostrils flared, inhaling stale night air like a lethargic limb barely able to
lift and move. He'd not get much distance through the clinging fog to pick up
scents further than the half-fouled Thames. Yet something gnawed at him as he
flung back his chunky damp hair and his heavy coat settled around him. It was
an awareness he couldn't name, and with his senses attuned, his gaze was sharp.
He'd trained the last half-century to sharpen his instincts and perceptions
just as he'd exercised his body to hone his uncanny strength.

"Still, I
do not trust my intuition without proof of actually seeing it," he
admonished himself, balancing on the cold marble of the angel’s upturned wings.

 He knew it was
the humanity remaining inside him.

There were many
who didn't believe vampires carried any humanity after they'd been turned. Yet
he and his three brothers believed. They lived their entire existence bound by
that comforting fact.

They were
born from humans.

Four brothers.
Lords of Blacknall. This century. Trinity chuckled, turning his sharp gaze to
the west. Holding the title of Duke of Blacknall had irritated his eldest
brother Church for the last fifty years. Church would rather be a scientist
like Baptiste or even a rector like their youngest brother, Christian.

Trinity hardly
believed that. Church could no more be a clergy than he could stop being the
eldest. One of them had to pretend, in this decade, to be an English lord, for
their family's best placement. English dukes and their families, seen as
eccentric, were not questioned as much as common men. Therefore, they could
employ more privacy. Trinity carried the courtesy title Marquis Montrose, while
Baptiste was Earl of Sterling, and Christian, Viscount Ash.

Trinity
stretched his tall body to stand balanced on the stone angel's wings as though
he were an evil apparition come to devour the pure angel. A small, unexpected
gust of wind blew the edges of his coat outward as he felt Church beckoning
him. It was unusual, the connection he and his three brothers had. They'd not
turned each other into vampires, but they were all born from the same evil
Sire. Perhaps that was why he could forever feel his brothers' call.

They knew other
vampires turned by one Sire, yet none of them connected the way he and his
brothers did. But there was nothing common about the Blacknall men, as either
humans or vampires, and there never had been.

Minutes later,
Trinity slid with unearthly quiet into the rosewood study on the second floor
of Blacknall mansion. Because it was night, both Baptiste and Christian were
there, having left their normal vocations for the daylight hours. None of them
appreciated daylight; however, after a century of walking the earth as
vampires, they'd discovered arcane ways to move about in sunlight.

"I still
hear you, Trinity," Baptiste called, without turning his head of light
blond hair as he sat on a settee facing the fireplace, which was burning with a
glowing fire.

"I do
too," Christian announced. He didn't turn his even blonder head, so that
Trinity looked at the back of both their heads after gliding so close behind
them as they sat on the settee. He didn't believe they knew that.

"Sorry,"
Christian added, ever the soulful brother.

"Don't
be," Church said. "He has to keep challenging his skill level, as we
all do."

Church was a
tall figure beside the fireplace as he gazed at the flames. He did not turn his
head either, as he added, "Be a useful skill if one of us could master
it."

"It
would," Trinity admitted loudly, startling both Christian and Baptiste,
who jerked their dark blue-eyed gazes around toward him.

Trinity
suspected he'd startled Church a bit too, but Church held his reaction well,
only turning his head slowly after long moments. The flames from the fire
slashed red glints through Church's snow-white hair, while his black eyebrows
arched with an elder brother's look of congratulations. Church's icy-colored
hair was part of the toll it cost him to gain liberation from their damnable
stepfather, who was also their depraved Sire.

"That was
good." Baptiste's gaze captured Trinity's, and his unnaturally handsome
face, framed by wavy blond hair that clipped his square jaw, showed approval.

They were all
like that … beautiful vampires. Church's face appeared the most natural because
he had some maturity to his features, except for his blond hair gone white,
which they endlessly needed to explain away as the tragedy that occurred when
he'd seen their parents die. When told, it was a grievous tale about a
harrowing carriage accident that only Church survived.

All a lie.

They were all
master liars. Trinity wondered if they even knew the truth anymore. But
Baptiste tried to hide his youthful Adonis looks with a moustache. Christian
tried with a goatee. But Trinity never tried to hide his appearance with
anything but a glaring sneer.

"There's
been another woman killed in the Blood Cull's territory," Church reported
with a grim slant to his features. He turned to face them before pinning them
with a grave stare.

"Eleven in
as many weeks." Trinity stilled his fingers on the edges of his long coat,
his mood shifted … darkened. He'd been set to remove his coat, but he lifted
his fingers away. "Cull." The distaste was evident in his snarl and
the thickening of his tensed muscles. None of them appreciated Cull's ways.

However, in
their world, there weren't many vampires that lived by rules. They had been
able to enforce a rule not to kill humans for quite a few years and another
rule, not to turn humans, for half that time. The Blacknalls lived by five
unbreakable rules.

Because they
chose to.

Because they
came from humans.

And because they
had to live among them.

These rules
defined their existence. They did not kill humans and they did not turn humans
into vampires. They did not use human slaves for feeders, did not let humans
know they were vampires, or take any blood not freely given.

"My Bow
Street Runner source states the woman was ripped apart like the others and left
as though half fed upon by animals." Church glared at them all with the
inner disgust of blood wasted. Christian and Baptiste rose and all four men
growled their disgust. "Her dress suggested she was a young woman of some
means this time. Unlikely one of Cull's, but considering the area …"

"If she'd
been one of Cull's, it would be because she was forced into prostitution
against her will." Christian's mouth pursed with anger as his gaze shifted
between them.

"That is an
issue for another time." Church grasped Christian's shoulder for an
empathetic squeeze he'd used numerous times on all them. There was a time,
Trinity thought, when they never touched. He knew Church continually worked to
overcome the abuse of their youth.

Church
continued, "We must discover who or what is killing women on London's
eastside before someone or the constables run across a vampire as the
culprit." Church's fierce gaze glinted; they all knew what that meant.

"And
because it is wrong for any vampire to rip apart and murder innocent
people," Christian added, with his stubbornness born of devout faith. His
sermons could bring people to tears or propel them into shouting God's name.
Ever the scientist, Baptiste said it was some quality in Christian's voice or
vocal cords that entranced people. Trinity thought that it was his littlest
brother's heart.

They were all
parts of the whole. Church was the soul, Baptiste was the logic, and Christian
was the heart. Trinity thought he, on the other hand, was the dark side of
every man.

"I will go
and convince Cull to tell us what he knows," Trinity muttered foully as he
turned to leave.

***

Cull had been
nothing but a squalid wharf rat before he'd been turned into a vampire. There
was still much of it inside him a century later. He tried to appear tough, but
with his slender and wiry build, along with thinning black hair slicked back
into a tight ponytail, he never pulled it off. Normally he wore sleeveless
leather vests in an attempt to show off his pale, muscular arms. What Cull
lacked in girth he made up for in continuously conniving talk. There was always
a new deal to make money, and Cull was convincing enough to have gathered a
fairly large brood of vampires around him. Of course, there were more vampires
made in the lower eastside slums of London than any other place in all of
England.

Cull's main
moneymaker was whores. Christian proclaimed there was dispute about whether the
women were willing victims or not. The brothers Blacknall had used enough force
and disrupted enough of Cull's moneymaking schemes to convince Cull not to kill
humans. They'd also persuaded Cull and his brood not to turn humans … for the
most part.

Trinity found
Cull entertained in his favorite pastime: whore fights. Trinity stopped on the
eaves of a decaying rooftop, three stories up, looking down into the dank, back
alley. Except for a few excited chortles coming from the spectators, it would
be too dark for any human eye to see what was going on from his vantage point.
He crouched with his chunky, long blond hair settling over his shoulders. It
was easy with his eyesight to see everything. The women were not vampires, just
soft and frail bodies forced to fight each other, or perhaps they wanted to. He
knew Cull would promise the winner higher status in his slut kingdom. The rules
to winning the catfight were simple: one opponent had to be stripped bare and
pinned to the ground before the other opponent won.

Trinity watched
the women's fat breasts bobbing with their ruddy slits contorting at unusual
angles as the long-haired whores grappled with each other, rolling on the
ground. Most prostitutes were chubby and round. These two were no exception,
with fleshy buttocks that were pale and undulating in such a way he felt thick
interest stirring his shaft; he instantly snarled his dissent.

He had always
preferred voluptuous as opposed to thin. He'd stroked his shaft to imaginings
of it every day until he ejaculated the need. Sex and blood-hunger were too
closely intertwined. It was the one area in which the Blacknall brothers
disagreed. Actually, it was the one area their righteous vampire lust had no
answer for, therefore, they all dubiously ignored it.

Trinity turned
his daunting gaze from the lush interests to Cull and the few who attended the
catfight. "Business must be slacking," he muttered. There were but
three gents he saw as patrons betting on the fight. That left only two of
Cull's brood. That was all he concerned himself with because the patrons were
not likely vampires.

As he climbed
down the side of the crumbling brick tenant building into the alley below, he
didn't make his presence known until he stood between the two vampires from
Cull's brood. The advantage to Cull's brood was they were likely so corrupt on
opium, the stench of whores, and the rot from the lower eastside they'd lost
all ability or inclination to scent another vampire's approach.

Both, one tall,
one short, were gazing intently at the wrestling women, so neither man saw him
as he reached outward. He grabbed them by the back of their collars, and then,
faster than humanly possible, he lifted one upward and he tugged them together,
until their foreheads butted against each other in front of him. The force was
immense as the crack sounded in the alleyway like the strike of an anvil.

It was hard to
kill a vampire, but it wasn't that difficult to knock one, or two for that
matter, out cold. Trinity let the unconscious vampires fall limply to the
ground with varying thuds, dependent upon size, as his piercing gaze lifted to
Cull. Cull's human patrons ran away in the darkness.

Cull snarled,
"Blacknall blood, always have to ruin good business."

Trinity snarled
much louder, lifting his muscular body and height over Cull. Cull relented
quickly, especially with his two cronies unavailable. Trinity had fought Cull
twice and won the last time leaving the chicane Cull with his head
half-severed. It had taken Cull quite some time for that one to regenerate.
Cull knew who the master was, and he submitted with a bowed head. Trinity
relaxed his stance … a bit.

"I pinned
her, Master Cull!" cried out one of the women behind them.

He and Cull
turned their gazes to the tangled mess of fat, pale tits and bare legs.

Cull cussed with
his fist rising. "Bloody balls! I would have won it all. That bitch was
bet as the loser."

Trinity shrugged
wide shoulders and stretched his neck, turning fully to face the women. He
growled with a fierce showing as his fangs distended. The whore on top
screeched, shaking and swaying her melon-sized breasts. The one on bottom
craned her neck and, seeing him, she screamed along. They both scrambled up and
began to run away. It was a vision, even giving rise to the predator controlled
deep inside him. His nostrils flared with the thoughts of tender flesh and hot
pumping blood inside weak and fleeing prey. Then, with effort, he forced his
gaze away, turning back to Cull.

"My best
whore’s dead, now this," Cull hissed.

Suddenly,
Trinity's interest was piqued. With a swift motion, he grabbed Cull, whose
betting coins and pounds went clattering onto the damp cobblestones beneath
their feet. With barely an afterthought, he lifted Cull off his feet. A fierce
growl erupted from his throat as he marched forward and slammed Cull into a
brick wall on the side of a tenant building. Cull's fangs extended, as did his
nails, while Trinity held him up against the wall by his throat.