The Traiteur's Ring (35 page)

They headed upstairs where she stretched out naked on the bed (obviously planning on more than just lotion) and Ben knelt between her legs and rubbed a thick amount of cool lotion on his hands. He touched her gently and started to rub, but she tensed up a bit.

“Ooooh,” she winced.

“I’m sorry baby,” he lightened his touch. Then, he looked at the ring on his right hand which pulsed a soft and glowing aquamarine. Ben smiled and stretched his lotion covered hands out over his wife’s back and watched as the blue light spread like an aura from his finger tips to his elbows. The little sparkles, what he had come to call the fireflies, followed a moment later, and he spread his filmy covered hands across her back and shoulders. He could feel the hum like vibration in his fingers.

“Hmmmmmm,” she sighed. “Wow, that is much better. That feels so awesome. What are you doing different?”

“Shhhh,”

He passed over every sun scorched inch of her skin and then rubbed her neck with one hand while the other awkwardly slid his shorts off. He ignored the fleeting, burning pain in his own shoulders and back that flickered and was gone. He tried even harder to ignore how easily he slipped into the role of Traiteur when his wife needed him. What did that mean about his adamant denial of all that had happened?

Ben shook the thought away and spread her legs farther apart with his knees and then kissed the back of her neck as he slid gently inside her already soaked body. She raised her hips up to meet him and moaned.

They lay together afterwards, wrapped around one another, and she kissed his hands.

“Magic hands,” she said. “It might just be my post-orgasm endorphins, but my sunburn feels completely better.”

He looked at her shoulders and saw without surprise that the redness had disappeared. Her skin looked lightly tanned and healthy. He kissed her right shoulder softly.

“I’m glad,” he stole a glance at his hand again – more of a burnt orange color now. He hugged her tight. “What do you want me to make you for dinner?”

She turned over to face him, and her face literally glowed with contentment.

“Do you know how much I love you?”

“I do,” he promised and kissed her mouth.

He spent the rest of the evening happy and fulfilled as they cooked together, sipped wine (only a half glass for her which she nursed all evening on the deck), and held hands. Even during their quiet sunset walk on the beach he managed to keep his mind away from where it tried to sneak. With only a little effort he managed not to think at all about what his ability to heal his wife’s burn might mean.

*   *   *

The rest of the week disappeared, not in a blink, but in whirlwind of building momentum – alternating happy and carefree days of sun, sand, water, and sex and long, pensive, sleepless nights which ended in pounding runs on the beach and swims in the ocean.

Christy marveled on their second day at the miracle lotion that had cured her sunburn, but never brought it up again and wisely slathered on the SPF 30 the rest of the week. They had many times stared at each other and grinned, each wanting to ask the big “I wonder if” – but not wanting to set the other up for disappointment. He did his best to keep his blue light fingers out of her mind, but he knew she hoped almost desperately that they (funny how men had somewhere along the way earned the right to think of it as “we”) were pregnant.

The week had been the happiest days of his life, offset only slightly by the long and exhausting nights spent almost sleepless in their bed or on the beach, images of Jewel, Gammy, and the Indian swirling through his mind but held precariously out of reach by sheer will. The short bursts of sleep had been overflowing with dreams of Africa. Always they held Jewel, usually cowering in fear or crying in the dark as evil men with orange eyes did unspeakable things to what was left of their people. He saw the villagers clearly and in rich detail – perhaps twenty of them now that the little band they had rescued had found their way to the others the Elder had told him of.

Always the peaceful scenes were shattered by the violence and bloodshed brought by the ragged bands of Al Qaeda assholes – always with the orange eyes that he somehow knew meant they were possessed by the dark ones and led by the one with the black blood.

His transformation to acceptance of the dreams as prophecy rather than madness or some sort of advanced post-traumatic stress disorder came slowly but surely. By the time they sat on the deck of the Destin town house for the last time, their bags packed and waiting for them by the door, he knew the images were not fantasy. They were a calling. He didn’t know what he would do about it –  owned as he was by the U.S. Navy – but in the wee hours of the budding dawn of the last day, he had come to accept his new belief in the reality of the calling.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about, baby?” He felt her warm hand on his and realized he had felt her eyes on him, as well, but had ignored them in favor of his thoughts. He looked up at her with a sad smile.

“I had the best week of my life, Christy,” he said simply. She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it.

“Then, why so sad?”

He shrugged.

“I guess I don’t want it to end,” he said, and she nodded.

“Well,” she rubbed the back of his hand on her cheek, “we’re going back to a pretty great life, you know.” She smiled warmly. “The honeymoon can go on indefinitely at home if you want.” She leaned in and kissed his mouth.

“Oh, I do want,” he stroked her cheek.

On the drive to the airport he thought about almost nothing else.

Except of course what he should (or could) do about the calling he felt to Jewel and his people in Africa. He had no idea whether his Gammy, the voices of the Elder, or his meeting with the Attakapa were real. They had felt so real, and he had been so certain of them only days ago, but the insanity of that made it easier to see them as a dream – a last fantasy his mind had created when he had visited his childhood home.

Now, he felt much less sure. A big part of him believed Gammy, the Elder, even the trip down the rabbit hole were, at least, some form of reality. Mostly it just didn’t seem to matter much. No matter what the source, the pull he felt to some undefined destiny in Africa could not be denied.

He had a fair idea what he needed to do, and he would have to do it soon if he held any hope of saving his people from the dark ones.

He also wanted to get things done so he could be home in time for the birth of their baby that the magic part of his brain knew grew inside his wife.

Chapter 31

She drove home from work and felt the familiar anxiety build inside her. In some ways, Ben seemed worse than ever in the ten days since they had gotten home from their honeymoon. But it was so different from before that it seemed hard to compare.

Instead of dreams that brought him upright in their bed screaming – or sometimes just left him crying in his sleep – he now seemed quiet and brooding in the evenings. It usually started a short time after dinner and lasted most of the evening. She didn’t think it had anything to do with them or their fledgling marriage. Whenever she nudged him with a soft touch or softer words he would come back to her, and his eyes filled with the love she had grown accustomed to seeing in them during their time at the beach. He would smile and hold her, tell her how much he adored her, talk to her about babies and names and the future.

He also seemed near exhaustion. She had begun to sleep lightly herself, due entirely to her worry about her husband, and would awaken to see him staring at the ceiling, quiet but awake. He didn’t deny he was having trouble sleeping, but he did minimize it a great deal.

She decided it had to be something at work. She had accepted a long time ago there would always be things with the Teams he couldn’t tell her. The top secret nature of his job that had seemed so bizarre early in their relationship now felt like just a normal part of who they were.

It must be work. What the hell else could it be?

Whatever was going on somewhere in the world that might inevitably involve a visit by the Navy SEALS clearly had him troubled. She wanted so much to ask him what kept him up at night distracted, but instead dropped subtle hints of her worry in the hope he would share with her if he could.

So far it had not happened.

And, so she felt anxious – not because he kept a secret he must surely have to keep, but because she loved him so much and worried about him. She felt so terribly tired herself. She supposed that sleep lost together, as a sharing of problems even if not discussed, was a part of marriage. It certainly seemed to be a part of theirs.

She steered her way home and felt her pulse quicken with concern as she turned onto their street. But she slowed her breathing when she saw his truck wasn’t yet in the driveway. She parked and threw her detail case over her shoulder to free up her hands to grab the grocery bags. She had decided if she couldn’t talk to her husband about whatever troubled him, she could at least be a terrific wife and baby him a little.

She had planned a dinner of her Thai Chicken soup, which she knew he loved, and tuna steak from a recipe she wanted to try. She also had a good bottle of Pinot Noir, since Ben now insisted he liked wine better than beer. She might not have enough security clearance (or any, in fact) to give him someone to talk to about what was on his mind, but she could sure as hell cook up a great meal and give him a back rub (and maybe a little something more) to take his mind off of it.

She got excited about taking care of her man and rushed inside to get their dinner started before he got home. Her mind also wandered to the purple and white box labeled “E.P.T.” that she knew lay buried in the groceries. Another week or so and it would be time to pee on the stick and see if her sixth sense was right. She wanted to believe it with all her heart.

Chapter 32

Ben sat in his truck – his official orders to join the “Joint Special Operations Task Force-Africa” in his lap – and stared out at the Atlantic Ocean. He had no doubts about his decision – he knew, in fact, it was not his decision at all so much as fate or destiny or some such shit – but he had some wicked serious misgivings about having to tell Christy he would be heading back over in only a few days.

He had just returned and should be on a shore cycle for at least three months, and she would know that. She had a pretty good understanding of how things worked, a knowledge all “SEAL Significant Others” developed very quickly. She would also know, of course, that such things were never set in stone, especially since that fall day in 2001 when the deaths in Manhattan, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field had changed all the rules forever. The Global War on Terror had always kept the shore/deployment schedule pretty dynamic, but those few months right after a deployment had stayed relatively sacred. Ben didn’t worry she would be angry – just sad and disappointed. And worried, of course (he could almost see her brow furrow as he told her).

He looked down at his watch – nearly six-thirty. He really needed to get going. She had taken to trying to have dinner ready when he got home lately – to him a definite sign of her concern, considering her work days were every bit as busy as his. He needed to either get on home or give her a call that he was running late. He looked at the papers in his lap and sighed.

Getting the orders had been pretty easy, actually. The JSOTF in Africa stayed undermanned, and his dual training as a medic and a sniper made him pretty valuable. The hardest part had been talking to Chris to get his approval, which was required to release him from Viper team to take additional assignments. Chris had pursed his lips and rubbed his chin.

“Everything okay at home?” he had asked.

Ben had assured him everything was great – perfect, in fact. He just had some things that felt unfinished over there. Chris had nodded but then told him he doubted another forty-five days in Africa would do anything to erase that feeling.

“I know,” he had told him. “I just need to do it.”

To his credit the Officer had said nothing more – just sighed and signed his chit.

And in a few days he would join a team of west coast SEALs who had taken over for them in Africa. Many of them he would know – the SEALs were a small and very close-knit community – but it would still feel very strange being there without the rest of Viper team.

And, just what the hell did he think he would do over there? He had no choice but to admit that he had no friggin’ idea. He did know, however, that the sense of destiny had grown terribly strong. He no longer doubted at all that he had to go back. He hoped it involved Jewel in some way. He feared it involved the dark ones – the ones he saw during his rare snatches of sleep – somehow living inside the Al Qaeda cell that operated over there. It wasn’t just the short dreams. He heard the voices now even when awake.

He didn’t see the old Cajun as he had in New Orleans or the Indian he had sat with atop the ruins in the rabbit hole in the woods. But he did hear them – soft voices he recognized calling to him, urging him forward to his fate. The Elder’s voice had fallen silent, but he had heard his Gammy a time or two, soft and gentle, telling him only to “Lissen to dem boys, now chile. Lissen up.” The voices blended with the thoughts he now heard much more clearly from those around him. Gratefully, he had also shored up his ability to control those intrusions. It seemed almost like a filter at times and at others more like just adjusting the volume on the TV to take a call – you could still hear the TV, but it faded into the background and became easy to ignore.

He thought about the terrorist he had killed – boiled by his anger – and of the poor drunk in New Orleans. He wondered with a shudder of fear what he was really being called to do. He wondered also if he would know how to do it. He felt the power inside him, but worried about his ability to control it.