Cafe Noctem

  A mask, imbued with Sint Holo's mischief and

  magic, brings to life the past–which could destroy the future.

  Café Noctem

  © 2007 Willa Okati

  Part of the Hearts from the Ashes collection

  Sint Holo, the Snake Man of Cherokee legend, is up to his mischievous games again. He lives to cause trouble, and there's no better time than Valentine's Day to toy with a few hearts.

  Nicholas and Grey have been lovers for almost a year now, but all is not well in paradise. They have more than a few issues to work out around this time of year, and in their turmoil the Trickster sees his opportunity. Sint Holo has a game in mind for the two of them to play—whether they want to or not.

  Caught up in the magic of Celebration de la Vie, the two lover must outwit the trickster so they can celebrate their life… together.

  Warning, this title contains explicit male/male sex

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  2932 Ross Clark Circle, #384

  Dothan, AL 36301

  Café Noctem

  Copyright © 2007 by Willa Okati

  Cover by Anne Cain

  ISBN: 1-59998-310-9

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2007

  Cafe Noctem

  Willa Okati

  Dedication

  For the people of Asheville, and the Cherokee nation.

  Prologue

  Once upon a time Brother Deer came across Sint Holo, who was sitting with his legs crossed, industriously working on a frame of stretched hide resting in his lap.

  “Greetings to you, Sint Holo,” Deer saluted the Snake Man. “What mischief are you making now?”

  “No mischief,” Sint Holo replied, “but a blessing to all mankind.”

  Deer peered at the thing Snake Man was making. It did not appear to him to be anything good or beneficent to the People. Instead, it looked grotesquely like a human face stitched onto a—“Is that a deer skin?” he asked in horror. “Only the People are allowed to take the skins of my kind, and they give up thanks for our offerings. Where did you get this?”

  Sint Holo showed his sharp teeth to Deer. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He picked up a strand of blue thread, stolen from the song of a robin as she flew to her nest, and began to stitch a design into the cheek of the face he was creating.

  Deer hid his eyes from the sight of the evil thing Snake Man was devising. “Whatever this is, I believe you mean it for evil, not good. Put it away at once. Better yet, burn the thing.”

  “Burn it?” Sint Holo hooted. “After I have spent so many hours of work on my art? I would never burn this. Besides, the symbols I have stitched into the skin ensure that it cannot be destroyed, not even by my own hands.”

  “Then this is an object with great medicine,” Deer said, peeking out from behind his hooves. “I still believe it to be evil, though.”

  “Oh, evil, evil.” Sint Holo made another stitch. “Evil is an idea that lives in men’s heads, Brother Deer. You should know that as well as I do. They venerate me as a god, but they also think I am malicious, and so they never keep any totems of my kind, and they kill my little siblings if they so much as crawl through the corn. Why should I not, then, return their charity in kind?”

  “Have pity,” Brother Deer pleaded. “Give the Cherokee, the People, another chance before you visit something terrible upon them.”

  “Now, when did I say what I was making would be terrible? And did I say this would be an evil thing?” Sint Holo checked his work. “Yes, yes,” he murmured, “just a few more colors and a bit of banding around the eye holes, and I shall be done. Brother Deer, would you hand me the orange thread?”

  “Where did you get this?” Deer asked suspiciously, pawing at the small hank of yarn. “It looks like the fruit that the Spaniards brought when they tried to trade with our People.”

  “I stole it from a memory of one of their cast-aside rinds.”

  “Sint Holo, for shame.”

  “What?” Snake Man showed all his sharp teeth. “They took from the Cherokee without asking permission or offering anything besides beads or baubles. So, I stole myself a bit of their rubbish.”

  “And you have kept it by your side all this time?”

  “I am a thrifty creature.” Sint Holo hissed. “Go away, now. You hinder me in my work. I should have been done by now.”

  Deer dragged one of his hooves across the forest floor. “I will not,” he said, raising his antlers. “I believe you are concocting something that will bring harm to the People, and I will not leave until I have stopped you or I am made to believe otherwise.”

  Sint Holo flickered his forked tongue in annoyance. “Oh, very well. I suppose I can’t force you to go away, now can I? And if it’s proof you want, well, as soon as I have finished with these last few stitches, you’ll have all the evidence you need.” His grin was a fearsome thing, especially to such a creature as Deer, who backed up a few steps. “I have guests coming. Invited company, unlike yourself.”

  He threaded his bone needle with a strand of purple, and made quick work of the remainder of his sewing, creating whorls and knots around two cut-out holes that would serve for eyes in the face he was making. Deer watched in anxious indecision, half-wondering if he should try to dash the skin out of Sint Holo’s hands and trample it into the rich red dirt. But to defile one of his little brothers in such a fashion…

  And so he watched, and he waited.

  “There! I am finished,” Snake Man said with pride, whipping the sewn-on face free of its frame. He cast the pine frame aside, as if it were trash, no longer needed. Deer knew better, though. Sint Holo was far too canny to discard anything he might find of use later. This was a bit of show for his benefit.

  “So,” a new voice purred from above their heads. Now Deer did rear in fright, for Bobcat was crawling out on a thick branch, crouching on the edge as if ready to pounce. “This is what you have called me here for, Snake Man?”

  “This, and this alone.” Sint Holo displayed his sewn face proudly, as he would a prize. “What do you think of my handiwork?”

  Bobcat yawned, his mouth wide and pink, his teeth sharp and yellow. “It’s well enough,” he allowed. “But it isn’t complete, yet, even though you told Deer otherwise. You need my own help to make the face live.”

  “A little favor between friends,” Sint Holo agreed amiably enough. “Jump down and smell the deerskin. Taste the magic in the stitching.”

  “Do you think to catch me out so easily?” Bobcat demanded. “That would give you my magic, and I will not do so until Owl has arrived and given us the benefit of his wisdom on this matter.”

  “I am here,” yet another voice answered. Deer stared as Owl, huge and snowy white, settled down on a branch opposite Bobcat. Bobcat licked his chops at the sight of the bird, but said nothing—although he did knead his claws in and out of the limb he lay on. “What mischief is this, Sint Holo?”

  “I have created a face for Man to wear,” Sint Holo said with pride, holding up his handiwork. “It needs a touch of foresight from you, Bobcat, and a taste o
f wisdom from you, Owl. It will need to know who it can work for, and who it cannot. See, Deer?” He flashed Deer a mocking smile. “I am not such an evil creature as you would make me out to be.”

  “No?” Deer asked, wary of Sint Holo's tricks.

  “Oh, no. This mask is a gift for the Cherokee people, for their children, and for their grandchildren, and for anyone with a drop of our blood in their veins. Look, here—see?” Sint Holo fit the skin face over his own snaky features, where they molded and hardened into a mask with round holes for eyes and one for a mouth. He chuckled out hissing laughter at Deer’s fright before he took the thing away from his face.

  “What possible good could this do the People?” Deer asked suspiciously, a little angry, to cover his fright.

  “Yes, what good?” Owl echoed. Bobcat merely yawned.

  Sint Holo neatly trimmed away the excess deerskin, much to Deer’s consternation, and held up his prize. “Why with this they will be able to summon one of the Dead. They will be able to bring him back, and he will live among them once again so long as he keeps this fastened to his head.”

  “How is this a good thing?” Owl wanted to know.

  “And you are the one with the wisdom.” Sint Holo tsked. “Think of all the possibility. A medicine man, dead before his time, unable to pass all his secrets along to his student? A chief, whose knowledge of the enemy is needed before a battle. A hunter, whose strong right arm would be needed to keep winter’s hungers at bay.”

  Owl chattered his beak, a sign that he was thinking. “I can see how this would be good,” he allowed. “But how will you convince the People to accept any gift from you, Sint Holo? I am willing enough to help, but they will never take anything from you.”

  Sint Holo turned on Deer, his diamond-shaped eyes glittering. “Why, that is where our friend Deer comes in,” he said prettily, holding out the mask. “Are you convinced now that this is for the good? Will you take this as my gift to the People?”

  Deer hovered, caught in confusion. Surely Sint Holo meant nothing but trouble, and such a powerfully magical object would not be good for the Cherokee. They might fall to fighting over the mask, and then what would become of them?

  But to be able to call back the dead for their knowledge and strength, to have the ability to touch the spirit world at their fingertips during a time when the bridge between one world and another was growing dangerously thin…

  Did he trust Sint Holo, or not?

  Deer hesitated for a long time, but eventually, faced down by the staring of Bobcat, Owl and Snake Man, he made his choice…

  And he forever changed the course of Mankind—albeit in a small, but powerfully significant way…

  Chapter One

  The small black sedan slid into place on the shoulder of the road, coming to a stop with hardly a sound from the engine. The same stillness that hung thickly in the air, like smoke, seemed to blanket the car and muffle any noises it might make.

  “It’s as if even voices wouldn’t carry,” the slender man in the passenger seat murmured to the driver, easily half again his size and weight. “So empty. So quiet.” When the driver made no response, he reached over and gripped one of his hands where it rested on the steering wheel and squeezed. “Are you all right, Grey?”

  The driver, Grey, shook his head once—a short, chopped-off motion. He kept his face forward, not turning to look at the man who’d ridden with him to this place. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice a deep, rich rumble that would normally charm the birds from the trees but was now void of any emotion. “I promised myself—him—that I’d do this. Every year. So I’m here.”

  “It’s causing you pain, though.” The passenger carefully rubbed the hand he held. “Surely he wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer on his account.”

  That earned him an angry stare. “Don’t presume to tell me what he would want and what he wouldn’t want. You didn’t know us, Nicholas.”

  “I did know you. Both of you,” Nicholas replied, stung. “We were all three of us friends until—”

  “Don’t you finish saying those words.” Grey’s hands tightened on the wheel. “We were friends, sure, but you weren’t with us like Jimmy and I were together. He and I shared everything, Nicholas. Hell, we’d use each other’s toothbrushes by mistake.” He shrugged his thick shoulders angrily. “Jimmy knew me like no one else ever did, and no one ever will.”

  “I see.” Nicholas withdrew his hand, watching Grey with wary eyes. “Even me, then?”

  Grey started to move forward, then stopped, sliding back, eyes closed. “You know me too, Nicholas,” he responded wearily. “Almost as well as he did.”

  “I’m not him, though. I never have been and I never will be. That’s the unforgivable sin in your book, isn’t it?” Nicholas felt stung by Grey’s words, but he wasn’t surprised. From the moment Grey had announced he’d be taking this journey, he’d known this could end in nothing but a clash and fray.

  It had always been like this, ever since Nicholas had replaced Jimmy in Grey’s life. Not by Grey’s choice, not at first. Nicholas certainly wouldn’t have ousted Jimmy on purpose, but he’d thought—hoped—that as time passed by, he’d been settling in. Things had gone well enough with being a bigger part of Grey's life, the two even reaching the point of moving into the apartment over Grey’s coffee shop. Café Noctem, a perfect place to live. Gently, piece by piece, they'd eased the old out to make way for the new. Nicholas had made a home for his things and his own space in Grey’s life. But still, in some small ways, he’d always felt like an intruder, though, and he suspected he knew why.

  No one would ever replace Jimmy in Grey’s heart.

  Grey turned the car off and pulled the keys from the ignition. He jingled them briefly in one hand before tossing them into the half-empty ashtray. Luckily, he’d already stubbed out one of the cigarettes he kept burning but never smoked, which he’d lit as they drove to where they were now. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. "I really am. I’m taking this out on you. Again. You never asked for any of this, and you don’t deserve it.”

  “Grey…” Nicholas reached for his lover’s hand again and took it in his own. “He was my friend, too. You’re not the only one grieving today. And that is why I understand, why I’ve always understood, and why I’m not upset with you for being in a mood right now. This is hard enough on the both of us.”

  Grey raised Nicholas’ hand to his mouth and kissed the back, full lips to pale-brown skin. “You’re good to me,” he ventured after a moment, still holding on. “You’re too good to me, and I don’t deserve you.”

  “Whoever said we deserved anything good in our lives? We’re only human, and we know what humans are like.” Nicholas gently withdrew his hand. “Come on, love. Let’s take care of what we’ve come to do, and then perhaps you’ll find a little peace.”

  “Maybe.” Grey’s attention had wandered again. He stared out the driver’s side window at the low-hanging mist and fog swirling around their car. “Almost seems like ghosts, doesn’t it?” he asked, as if questioning no one in particular. “Makes me wonder if…”

  “Don’t. He isn’t out there. You shouldn’t torture yourself.” Nicholas leaned his head back against his seat, still gazing at Grey. His heart ached with love for the man, and seeing him in so much pain made his insides twist. His great-grandmother, one of the Cherokee, would have said there was bad medicine in the air, and he half-suspected she would have been right. And while there might not be ghosts in the fog, there was definitely something sinister to the way the curls of mist twined and writhed along the ground.

  Almost snakelike.

  Nicholas shivered. He undid his seatbelt, then reached over to release Grey’s from its clasp. Grey turned to him, seeming vaguely startled. “Come on,” Nicholas prompted. “Let’s move. You can do this. Out of the car, and a short walk.”

  “What? Oh. Yeah. Yes. Let’s go.” Grey shook his head. “Did you feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

&
nbsp; “Nothing, I guess. Just…this strange feeling of cold air. Like the wind outside was blowing right through the car.”

  Nicholas eyed Grey carefully. “I felt nothing,” he said, wondering if his lover were all right. Perhaps this was too much too soon. Should they turn around and go back home instead?

  But no, too late, for Grey was already opening his car door and stepping out. Nicholas followed suit, wanting to be by his partner’s side. As he walked around the car, he couldn’t help but admire the man.

  Anyone, gay or straight, would be proud to have Grey at their side. Tall as a reasonably sized basketball player and bulky through the shoulders from lifting weights, he tapered down into a toned waist and trim hips before bulging out again with rocklike muscles in his thighs and calves. He had a bit more Cherokee in him than Nicholas, and it showed in the hawk-like shape of his features, his beaky nose and the stern cast of his mouth. His hair, too, was definitely of the People—long, the tips brushing his shoulders, and a deeply hued shade of black—although there was far more gray threading through it now than there had recently been.

  He was a man of such size he made Nicholas feel small, and such a brave that next to him Nicholas felt every inch one of the white men, no matter how he had been raised. As a teacher, his great-grandmother had kept him firmly in line and made sure he knew the ways of the People and how to honor the spirits, but as a caregiver she’d loved him with all the heart in her wrinkled old body.

  When he came to the dinner table one night, watching her cook, and he’d told her that he thought he was gay, she had simply smiled and continued to stir the soup she was making. He’d been trembling with fear at her possible reaction, but she’d only shaken her head and said, “Well, make sure to find a good man, strong in the arm and clever in the head, eh? Don’t fall for someone pretty, with no sense. That’s been the downfall of many a hunter.” Then she’d offered him a taste from her pot, and, well, that had been the end of that.