I swear that every time Kalí answers a question it just makes things more confusing. Still, it’s nice to see these two settle in to married life so quickly. And what scared the coyotes off?

I bet the other guys on the team are in for a surprise in the morning. Also: who is the Easter Egg in this scene?

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer! 

dave… Dave?  “David!” Tell shouted across the campfire, waking him up.  “Dude!  Why are you zoning out like that?”

“Sorry, what, Tell?” David asked, blinking his eyes at that bizarre dream.

“You stumble back late from checking that sensor, put some soup in your tin, then have just been staring at the fire for fifteen minutes,” Tell accused.  “You chewing peyote or sumthin’?”

“No…” he reached up to touch his lips.  I swear… “How late was I?”

“’Bout a half hour,” Logan said while Tell finished his dinner.  “For fucks sake, it was just right over there.  I thought you was just takin’ a dump.”

Next to him, their fourth, young Pedro strummed at his guitar, humming something known only to him.  Raised in an orphanage in Waxahachie, he was trying to make money to open a recording studio and school in Austin or San Antonio.

“Behind the sky, beyond the black, she’s coming our way, coming our way…” he played with some lyrics.  David shuddered.

“I dunno,” he admitted.  “I… sorry guys.  I’m making a night of it.”

“Peyote,” Tell laughed at him.

David flicked his soup into the fire and stood.  Their four tents were close to their vehicles:  an ancient Jeep and an SUV from before the Breakup to hold their equipment.  David pissed against the Jeep’s tire before going to his tent and firing up a little propane lantern.  From an inner jacket pocket, he pulled out his journal to make notes.

I may need to see a doc when back in civ, he wrote.  Never zoned out, as T said, like that before.  That’s bad business and a threat to my friends here.  You see, there was this freaky dream –

There was a sound from inside his tent.  Opossum?  Armadillo?  Rattler?  David drew his knife from the sheath on his lower right leg while standing with the lantern and stepping in.  His orange sleeping bag was where he had put it, on the foam mat on the tent’s floor.  But I didn’t open it…

The top of the sleeping bag was pushed down.  That girl, topless, raised herself to her left elbow, one eye reflecting light and the other devouring it.

“Are you coming to bed, Husband?” she asked.

David took a step back.

“N… no.  That was all a dream…” he tried.

“Stop being stupid.  I’ve watched sex before.  I want to try.” She patted the bag next to her.  “Come to bed, Husband.”

He looked over his shoulder at the three about the campfire.  What will I tell…?

“The truth.  Always everywhere and forever.  Come to bed.”

“I,” he tried, closing the tent flap behind him, “I don’t even know your name.”

“Kalí.”

Thin, she turned out to be amazingly agile.  And curious, touching me pretty much everywhere, David thought, awakened in the dark by a pack of coyotes nearby.  He sat up to make sure the tent flap was still sealed.  His right hand came down on nothing.

“What!” David was instantly wide awake.  “Where is she?”

Answering the coyotes came a wolf’s howl.  Also too close.  Yipping, he heard the smaller predators flee.

“I’ve got to…”

“Lay back down, Husband,” the girl – my wife, really? – said from next to him, where she had not been a moment before.  “I scared them off.  Lie down and hold me.”

“Not going to argue with that idea,” he grinned in the dark at her.  “So how did…”

Kalí kissed him to hush.  “We have time enough and worlds without end.  Love me more, Husband.”

“You can,” he said, after returning her kisses, “call me David, you know.”

“I’m aware.  A deeply flawed man yet beloved of God.” Her shrug had her small chest pressed closer to his.  “I judge; I act.  I’m sore after my first two times.  May we hold one another for now?”

“You,” he froze a little, “you were a virgin?”

“Of course.”

“Kalí?”

“Yes, Hus – er, David?”

“I realize this is all a little late but do you mind telling me how old you are?” And whether or not I’m going to jail.

“I am an ageless, timeless soul.”

That’s not going to make it past a judge.

“How many years ago were you born?” he tried again.

“Ah.  I understand.  One score,” said while beginning to do something interesting with her right hand.

That’s… an old way of saying twenty.  Safe!

“You are not remotely safe with me,” Kalí countered, “in fact, your life is going to become… different.”

“I’ve seen videos of the Hartmann family, the imperials, from east of Texas,” he said, using his strong left to kneed the muscles of her back.  I swear she’s purring.  “Some of them, the different ones, can read minds.  You like that?”

“Firstly, no they are not,” having got the result she wanted, she quickened the pace of her hand.  “Secondly, no, I am not.”

While he still could think, David asked one more question.

“So, what are you?” he gasped, close.

“I am a prophet of God,” she said curling up onto him.  “Oooo-er!”