Ninovan (Hypernaturals 10)

Urban Legend

Our days progressed with this cadence for a while. Morgan reading the 'Book of Angel', researching on the Internet and LexisNexis and making copious notes. Angel read along with her and pointed out interesting things that might be clues.

The binder is massive, and it is a fairly complete accounting of Angel's formative years, but the research and following the trails it alluded to is what took the time. We bopped off to the library twice, bringing various newspapers and history books to our table. We sorted and copied things. Being a PI is a lot of work, and working with someone like Morgan, who is exhaustive in her research and background checks means we are leaving no stone unturned.

I have been on these research missions before. Like when we were trying to figure out what a secret society of men who loved little girls was. Or how to find Tommy.

When we were researching the LCPF, we had that acronym and nothing else. It was a dead end. This time around we have a lot more detail, and we have a symbol. Like the perverts in Galveston had been (even if they have a different reason), we are after a people that value their privacy and their isolation. We went to the office store to buy binders of our own, to hold the copious copies of things we are getting and notes we are making.

At night, we ate, drank, talked, showered, and made love. It is not clear cut as to groups. It is not always the three of us and the two of them. One evening, Angel came to me in front of everyone and asked "I am way past being fertile now. Would you mind making love with me? I am not only Vera's lover you know but your girlfriend too. You have been ignoring me."

That led to a weird threesome with Angel and Vera. I could not touch Vera, but she could touch Angel, and she kept getting in the way of me. I would want to kiss 'there' (wherever that might be), but so would she. It was not on purpose, I am sure. Vera wanted to be involved. In the two of them's new relationship thing, Vera has some ability to feel what Angel wants. That led to collisions.

When Angel passed out because Vampire me was involved in her orgasm, Vera went "Well, damn! What the fuck?"

Afterward, Morgan and Jessica were waiting for me patiently in the big bed.

"I wonder if she'll ever get past that passing out thing." Jessica said "You have to go slow and build it up, so she can have the pleasure before she comes because she gets no basking in the afterglow. That sucks. It is a good thing you like to go slow."

The next day, Vera said to me at lunch: "That was really something last night. Watching you with her. I knew what Angel wanted. You seemed to know too. We kept colliding."

"Colliding over my pleasure." Angel noted. "When you have to butt heads... good reason to do it."

Morgan told Vera "Adrian and I do not have the Angel empathy gift, but we are both so sensitive, in the literal meaning of our senses, that we can tell what a lover wants differently than Angel can. You seem to be on Angel's wavelength, so to speak. Adrian can tell exactly what Angel wants by what she responds to and follow it to its conclusion. Better: He knows she will pass out so he front-loads her pleasure. Backs off when she is getting close so it can last for her. It would be so much better for her is she would not go lights out when she is with a Vampire, but with Adrian or Jessica, that does not seem to be an option for Angel. At least she gets post-coital pleasure with you."

Vera snorted. "He always loves that afterglow stuff. I never did. I was like 'OK. We are done.'. It is only now, here, with her, that I like it, and it's because I can tell SHE likes it."

I said nothing to that. It was always an unsatisfying part of Vera and my relationship. I would want to lay there and kiss and caress, and she would want to hop up and go watch a movie or go home, or whatever.

After dinner that same day, I looked for what felt like the thousandth time through the notes from the day. I am starting to feel like we either have no leads or too many. I reread an old newspaper article from the 1950s about local legends. It is painful to read in so many ways, using terms that to the modern eye are now considered derogatory. Articles written by a typical white southerner who prided themselves on open-mindedness, but that is a different thing back then. I can't even bring myself to repeat some of it. One thing that stuck out is about "Indians that fade off into the woods whenever they are seen." Another is: "Like the talk up north of a hairy wild man that lives in the woods, these Indian's are shy and rarely seen." Many similar legends. 

At least they called them Indians and not something worse, like 'Red Man'. A great deal of the article concerned itself with topics such as Voodoo and Hoodoo. Southern Lousiana things. What comes through is that the urban legend of the hidden Native Americans is a northern Lousiana story.

The NOLA is fun. The local beer is good. The food spicy. Watching Vera and Angel grow ever closer is fun and heart-warming. That is not why we are here. I felt it is time to move north. When I said that, holding the article and waving it for emphasis I expected to be fought on the idea but both Angel and Morgan agreed.

"I think we should check out in the morning and drive up to Alexandria. Fairly big city. We need to be more local to the Kisatchie National Forest." Morgan said. "That is where all these stories and legends center upon."