Shifters Pen

1

NOTE TO THE READER: THERE IS MATURE CONTENT IN THIS BOOK, 18+ ONLY PLEASE. ALSO, THIS IS VERY CLOSE TO DONE, AND I AM PUTTING IT UP INCOMPLETE BECAUSE MY SISTER REALLY, REALLY  WANTS MORE. IF YOU SEE MISSPELLED WORDS OR ERRORS, OR HAVE SUGGESTIONS PLEASE LET ME KNOW. THANKS

What the hell?

  I sat on the old stool behind the counter of my parents closed down convenience store. I had spent hours, years, behind this counter. My parents had moved us to the middle of the Navajo reservation when I was 10 years old. This place had been their dream, and labor of love. My dad would have a cup of coffee with every guy who had a few minutes to spare in the morning on their way to work. My mom was constantly crocheting baby blankets and gifting them to new mothers along with their first pack of newborn diapers. This area knew and loved my parents.
  Me? Not so much. In school I was the only white kid, and I was bullied mercilessly. I vowed never to come back after graduating from high school. I had been doing quite well at that. I made it all the way through college, and through a couple years of using my teaching degree.
  Dad had a major stroke. He died. Mom couldn’t run this place without him. She couldn’t do a lot of things without him. She gave up, and joined him. A hot tear fell on my knee. I still didn’t understand why this would happen. Why had she left me alone?
  The bell that hung above the front door rang. I looked up to see a man with a broad, flat face. His hair was pulled back in a bun, and he wore a ribbon shirt, nice jeans, and the high quality moccasins. His belt buckle was nice. I swabbed at my eyes. He was probably unaware, “I’m sorry sir, the store is closed.”
  He nodded. But he didn’t leave.
  “Are you alright? Is there something I can help you with?”
  His eyes briefly scanned over me. I smelled watermelon. That was odd. The only time I smelled watermelon, aside from when I was eating one, was when a rattlesnake was nearby. I brought my feet up off the floor, eyeing it for a snake. I didn’t hear anything, or see anything. Maybe he just had a weird cologne, or ate some melon at a pow wow somewhere.
  He finally spoke, his words cold, “You need to have this property blessed. Cleanse the spirits of the previous owners, or it will not be successful ever again.”
  I understood a bit more now. He was a shaman, and he made money off of ‘blessings’. Some jerk had done the same thing when my dad opened the store, demanding $600 for him to work witchcraft on his business. Only one problem, my dad was christian, and wouldn’t have anything to do with that Native American Church crap. He asked the local minister to chisten the store. The shaman cursed the store. Lightning hit the building on a clear day, and ruined every piece of machinery. The registers, the coolers, gas pump wiring, everything. Crow feathers with blood had been found. So I knew I wasn’t messing with an idle threat. Most people would have laughed at the man. But most people hadn’t lived on the rez for 8 years and heard the stories. Plenty of shit happened. Shit that never made it to the 6 o’ clock news because it wasn’t reportable, and it happened on the rez. But I knew. This was no idle threat. And it was a threat.
  Still, “Why can’t the next owners do the cleansing?”
  He stared at me in a dangerous way. Shivers ran down my spine. “You are the next owner.”
  I breathed out, “I am broke. How much is it supposed to run for you to blackmail me today?”
  He smiled and it reminded me of a snake. “$2000, for a blessing. But if you want the beauty way discount I might be able to knock some of that off.”
  Gross! The beauty way ceremony was something the pubescent girls went through when they started having their period so they would have healthy children someday. He was implying I could have sex with him to take the price down. “I would rather sleep with a dog.”
  His brow went up in humor, “That could be arranged, you know.”
  I froze. Up until this point I thought I was just dealing with a shaman, but now I was starting to understand something. This person, this thing before me was not just a shaman, he was a skinwalker. A shapeshifter. Evil. It smelled like watermelon in here because he had probably just been a rattlesnake before coming in here. “Two grand is a lot of money.”
  He eyed the vault in the back corner. “Open it.” Checks used to be cashed out of that vault. Money used to be stored in there to load the ATM machine. I had seen millions of dollars, over the years, go into and out of that vault.
  “I don’t know the combination. I have tried everything I can think of. Birthdays. Anniversaries. My mom changed it. She was a bit deranged at the end. None of the cashiers know it either. I have scheduled a visit from the vault company, but they can’t come out here for 3 weeks. Even then, I honestly doubt there’s any money in there.”
  He frowned, “Why would you say that?”
  “Because my mom paid cash for dad’s funeral.”
  He all but hissed. “I do not believe you! You are a lying biligaana! Why would you have the vault serviced then?”
  I pointed to the 5 foot tall metal box, “Because I can sell it for at least one grand, and maybe make my rent this month.” I pointed to the chest cooler, “That I could get $500 to a couple grand for. Do you want a chest cooler?”
  I thought I heard him growl. “I want money. Now.” His eyes went to the ATM, “Use your bank card and pull everything out, and pray to your useless God it is enough to appease me.”
  “There’s no money in the ATM machine, or my bank account. I can show you on my banking app, if you really need proof. I was able to get into the ATM, and used that money to give the crew their due wages.”
  “Show me.”
  I dug in my pocket for the key and opened up the ATM machine. It didn’t have one bill. He made a sound deep in his throat. He wasn’t pleased. “I don’t have any money. I just buried both parents.”
  He glared, “Yes, but you are white. You can afford a funeral. You don’t have family meetings trying to raise money. You don’t sit a jar on the counter of a store, hoping people will drop some change into it.”
  This was something that I hated about the rez. One of the many reasons I vowed never to come back. People always assumed that just because my skin was a peachy color, instead of brown, that I was rich. They assumed I had everything I ever wanted. The truth was that everything I had my family had worked our asses off for. Even one funeral was expensive, no matter where you came from. Two was even harder. And I didn’t have the luxury of a family meeting of brothers, sisters, cousins, and uncles to help pay for anything. No, I currently owed $60,000 to pay for my mother’s funeral. I didn’t even have headstones for them.
  My silence angered him. I heard a rumbling sound. Thunder. “Now what? You gonna fry all the equipment? I will never be able to pay you then.”
  He smiled coldly. Then I heard something. A train? There were no tracks for miles, but it sounded like it was right here. Getting closer. Then it occurred to me what was coming, “SHIT! ARE YOU CRAZY?!” A tornado. I tried to head towards the back where the walk in cooler was, but I was too late. A wall disappeared. Things were flying through the air that shouldn’t be. Then the room went black.
  I woke to the most beautiful man I had ever seen, leaning over me. My head hurt. He asked, “Do you think this one is part of it?”
  I groaned, “Part of what?”
  The man froze, “You can see me?”
  “Oh yeah, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you are gorgeous. Who does your hair?” His hair was long and silky smooth. A lot of guys who had hair that long did not know how to take care of it. I was so tempted to reach out and touch his hair.
  “What happened here?” He asked. “What do you remember?”
  I blinked and looked at the rubble around me. The vault was still cemented in place, but the counter, the wall, and so much was gone. I didn’t think I would ever miss any of that, but now it was gone. “Skinwalker wanted me to pay two thousand to have my parents spirits cleansed of this place. I told him I didn’t have it. He didn’t believe me, and got mad when I showed him. He brought a- it’s going to sound crazy.”
  The beautiful man laughed, “I have heard and seen things. Just say what you know.”
  “The skinwalker brought a tornado through the store, with us in it.” My head was sore. “Am I hurt bad? I can’t afford the copay until next Friday when I get paid.”
  He asked, “How is it that you know what a skinwalker is?”
  “I grew up here. My parents owned this store.”
  “What made you think he was a skinwalker?” The gorgeous man interogated me. One question after another.
  Finally I had a question form in my mind, “Who are you? Are you like Fox Mulder from the X Files?”
  A smile tugged at his lips. His kissable lips. Then he spoke, “More like the smoking man from the X Files, only think bigger.”
  I groaned, “My head is pounding. Do you need me for anything else?”
  “Were you scratched or bitten by the skinwalker?”
  “I don’t think so. Why?”
  He tapped his fingers on his knees thoughtfully. Then made a decision. He summoned a female worker to check me over for anything. Anything. What was that supposed to mean?
  I soon found out as she started at my head, examining everything. I winced when she touched the lump on my head. But she smiled as she moved down from my head to my neck. Then she helped me out of my shirt, and examined my chest closely. “Bruising, but no blood. Turn to your side, let me see your back.” I did what she asked, and she sucked in a breath.
  “What? Is it bad?” Dammit! I couldn’t afford a doctor.
  “Hermes, come check this out! Is this from debris or him?” she asked.
  The gorgeous man came over. I blushed that he was seeing me topless, but his gaze was fixed on my back. His eyes looked around at the debris all around us, as if he was searching for some sort of clue. “It went everywhere. Won’t know until the moon.”
  The female became very quiet. Another male voice spoke on a radio, “Subject acquired. Ready to go. Located two miles North of the water maintenance yard.”
  Hermes took a deep breath and commanded, “Sleep.” And just like that my eyes closed and I dreamed. I dreamed of my parents at first, but then the dream went to the skinwalker, and not having enough money to placate him. Then it got weirder. The skinwalker was afraid, very afraid. There was a man that looked like a bull discussing me with Hermes. We were in a cave, from what I could tell.