The rest of the first game was a lot more pleasant to watch, with Clara spending most of it resting her head on Shamira’s lap getting fed snack food. Periodically, other people would walk in and chat, and Henry actually stuck around to watch the second game (after convincing the girls to turn it to the Cowboys). Even with Henry present, the “making out on the couch” went forward as scheduled. They spent the fourth quarter looking out of the corner of their eyes, locked at the lips. Shamira was enjoying caressing Clara’s bare back and mostly bare backside, whereas Clara was caressing her friend’s defined arms and abs.
“Would you two get a room?!” Henry said at last.
“We had one, then you showed up,” Clara said, then kissed Shamira on the neck.
“It’s her day off,” he muttered. “Can’t you two calm your hormones for the next game? Normally I’d be all over watching the two of you play footsies –”
“I don’t think we’ve used our feet . . . yet,” Clara purred. Shamira’s brain wasn’t working well enough to participate in banter. She just wanted Clara’s hands to move a little further up to her chest and —
“Okay, I like watching the Cowboys play. I want to watch it here,” Henry said. “And if you don’t tone it down, I’ll make sure that you so aren’t in the mood –”
“Henry!”
“– that you won’t even be able to think about sex –”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Washington Redskins.”
Just like that, Clara’s face twisted into an unflattering scowl. “You jackass!”
“I just think that you’re too damn sensitive –”
Henry had riled a sleeping dragon. Clara was all business, feet on the floor espousing the evils of racial stereotyping in the sports and entertainment industries and how Native Americans were the last targets of openly derogatory cultural slams, as was made perfectly obvious by the insulting “mascot” of the Washington D. C. football franchise. Henry responded with some kind of platitudes about them being overly politically correct, mentioned something about the complacency of certain portions of the Native American population in selling their images for profit and maintaining their own stereotypes, and that Clara should “get the hell over” herself.
Shamira was sitting on the far end of the couch now, amused at an argument that these two had obviously had before while simultaneously being highly annoyed that she wasn’t having the fun she had enjoyed earlier. She might still be having issues about some things, but she’d been damn sure that she liked kissing Clara . . . and making out with Clara. Even as the tan-skinned hottie was yelling at the cowboy vampire about political repression, Shamira kept staring at those long gorgeous legs and the flat tummy exposed just below that half shirt. She didn’t feel weird or guilty about being with Clara, which surprised her a bit. She was a girl after all, and Shamira was under nobody’s thumb at the moment.
“See,” Henry was saying, “this is why you weren’t allowed to watch football for an entire year! You’ve got no sense of humor.”
“I’ll show you my sense of humor! I’ll be laughing like hell when I shove my foot up your –”
“Uhm, what do you mean?” Shamira asked. She looked at Clara, who looked . . . pouting? “What happened?”
“Miss high-principles here followed the Redskins all over the country in 1961, using her shaman magic to cause them to lose most of their games and have their worse season in their entire history. That kind of interference was hard to keep off of the Tribunal’s radar, even with Shane doing spin control. He got so mad at her that he banned her from watching football for a year, and now she still can’t go to any live game where Washington is playing. Hell, she can’t knowingly go within a hundred yards of the team or cast any magic at them.”
Shamira looked again at her friend, who still looked like an eighteen-year old girl. “An entire football team has a mystical restraining order against you?”
“If they had simply conceded to my demands, that never would have happened,” Clara sulked.
Henry rolled his eyes. “Yes, she actually issued demands. Know those shows and movies where the psycho sends the police messages made from cut-up magazines? She did that. ‘Change your team’s name or face the consequences, imperialist scum.'”
“They should’ve taken me seriously,” Clara said, grinning a little. “I actually made the turf of the field rebel against them. Lost footing, every ball bounce when their opponents’ way, radical shifts in wind direction while the ball was in the air –”
Henry turned up the television. “That kind of exposure could’ve been bad mojo. You’re just lucky that Shane had so much stroke with the Tribunal, even back then.”
Shamira poured herself another soda, and one for Clara. She grabbed a beer out of the mini-fridge and handed it to Henry. “Okay, if we promise to behave ourselves . . . for the most part . . . during this next game, assuming it doesn’t turn into a blowout, will you kindly shut up after that?”
“Hey, I was –”
“Don’t tell me shit,” Shamira said, “I’m on her side. Or we could talk about what a bunch of fuck-sticks that the Cowboys are.”
Henry shot her an evil glare. There were two kinds of fans in football: those that loved the Cowboys with a flaming passion and those that hated them just as fervently. She’d guessed correctly about Henry. Shamira was a Packers fan anyway.
“Okay. One game of peace.”
Clara was grumbling, but stood up to heat up more pizza rolls. “Don’t know why you can’t go watch (grumble) fucking Cowboys (grumble) another room.” She grinned a bit though when Shamira ran her hand up one leg and softly squeezed ass flesh.
‘She’s just so damn . . . incredible,’ Shamira thought. The next game came on, and Clara settled down against Shamira’s hard body on the couch, nestled in the crook of her arm and acting like any other young woman . . . except that she was mostly naked and was actually eighty years old. Both women were vocal in their opposition to the Cowboys, which was making the hair on the back of Henry’s neck stand up on end. And there was some fondling and groping to be had, regardless of Henry’s half-hearted glares. The Cowboys wound up winning, so Henry got the last word on that battle line.
“Well, I’ll leave you two ladies to whatever you’re going to do,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I’d stay and join you, but –”
“But you weren’t invited,” Clara said sweetly. Actually, she normally wouldn’t mind a three-way with the cowboy. Hell, they’d tag-teamed that young male sub at Prometheus, but she wanted Shamira to herself for the night. She’d only been able to go so far in expanding her friend’s girl-on-girl education, and wanted to give her more of a taste . . . something in a more normal atmosphere, or as normal as can be for a brand new vampire. Then, Shane’s voice blurted over the intercom.
“Reaper, Banshee, Henry, Bjorne, Lillian, and Shamira . . . Report immediately to the armory. We’ve got a hell cluster forming in Canton. Clara, start looking for whatever dumbass sorcerer started this damn thing.”
‘Crap!’ Clara thought. ‘Not now!’
“What’s a hell cluster?” Shamira said, getting to her feet but unwilling to let go of Clara’s warm body before she absolutely had to.
“Could be a bunch of things,” Henry said, grabbing Shamira by the arm and dragging her toward the hallway. ‘Damn, she’s strong!’ he thought, as making her move was more difficult than he thought it should.
Clara followed them. “Usually someone or something causes a dimensional rift too near to a node –” She stopped when she saw that Shamira was looking both confused and alarmed. “I’ll give you Magic 101 another time. Abbreviated version is that there are multiple alternate dimensions. Some magic taps into the energy fields that surround each dimension. If the magic isn’t well controlled and happens near a node, which is a place where multiple dimensional fields criss-cross, then it can cause a small and temporary tear. But before it closes, things can slip through, usually in random numbers. It could wind up that we face nothing more than a couple of confused six-legged monkeys . . . yes, it’s happened. But it could be a lot worse.”
“How did we know about it?”
“There’s a global weather coven of witches within the Tribunal. They monitor for crap like this. And as one of Shane’s enforcers, you have to keep it from getting out of hand.”
They got to the armory about the same time as Bjorne, who had red welts all over his body. Apparently someone had been enjoying his services. Banshee and Reaper were already geared up in some fancy looking outfits.