How to Tame Your Tikbalang Ch. 04

"So let me begin that tale, because you are her descendant and are destined to tame a Tikbalang of your own—a debt I owe to Beatriz, for my husband had defeated her lover for the Tikbalang King's throne," Bulan said.

"Your great-great-great grandmother was half Spanish, born of a Basque trader who sought his fortunes away from Catalonia in Spain," Bulan continued. "Her mother was a comely woman, the by-blow of a priest from Madrid and a local woman, a Baylan in secret, for it was forbidden to worship the 'heathen' religions then. Beatriz's mother had come from one of the highland tribes that still knew my story well, still invoked me when there was need for healing or peace among their head-hunting communities."

"Beatriz had been seeking power, a way out of the daily beatings her husband used to deliver when she would protest at his gambling or philandering," Bulan said. "She remembered the old prayers her mother had taught her and used one of them to summon me. She invoked the sympathy I have for women whose men abuse and batter them and I answered."

"Much like you, she did not know she was a Baylan until she began to dream that she was riding astride a war horse, a chestnut stallion that was a mix of destrier warhorse and Arabian thoroughbred," Bulan said. "I helped her as much as I could, took her to places where she could learn one aspect or another of the herb lore the Spaniards had attempted to wipe out over the centuries of their colonization of the Philippines."

"I knew those dreams Beatriz spoke of, Tala," Bulan said, her voice falling into a whisper, as if she were haunted by remembered pain. "I'd had them myself when I came into my own power, once my SkyFather's power had begun to ebb and my divinity faded. I could no longer dwell in Langit, and I was a stranger to Lupa. I needed my own place in this world of many dimensions where we dwell and Beatriz, in her way, did too when we'd met."

"They call it 'girl power' now, I believe, when one female helps another," Bulan mused, her face lightening up and beginning to take on the strange glow that had shone with increasing intensity off the pages of the Bestiario Tala now possessed.

"Beatriz needed her power and I shared what I knew of conquering a Tikbalang so she could have it. Unfortunately, your lelang had mated to a Tikbalang who was not sane, whose only sanity came when she was with him," Bulan said sadly. "She had made her choice way too late, as she was already married to your lelong, so she could not grant her Tikbalang immortality, not gain it herself, for a part of her would always belong to the husband she could not deny."

"Bulalakaw was always a headstrong creature," Bulan continued. "He was created alongside my husband and mate, Ulap. They and three other Tikbalang were raised as brothers, though they shared no family relations, and were meant to establish strong bloodlines for their kind, with Ulap as their king. They were supposed to work to keep the Other World safe, prosperous and united, to share their blessings with the Tao who were created last for the realm of Lupa."

"I could not turn Bulan away, though I read in the ritual of Tawas that I'd done that she would become an enemy," Bulan said. "I wove a spell of moonlight and starlight, called on what divinity I had left to make the kontra to that prophecy. I liked Beatriz and I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to prepare the ground to make amends to her family for what my husband was duty bound to do," Bulan released a sigh and took a deep breath before continuing.

"I released my last divine seed into Beatriz, read the candlewax and salt of the Tawas ritual for her," Bulan added softly. "I created you in my mind and planted that seed in her. You would be the one good gift Beatriz's husband would give her."

"I told Beatriz what your name would be: Tala, star, more powerful even than the moon's magnetism, the fire that lights the darkest skies when even my eye is covered. In a sense, I created you to be the woman to hold all the blessings that should have belonged to Beatriz," Bulan's voice had taken on a dreamy cast before growing stronger, more grounded in the present. "She, too, believed I was but a dream. But you know better."

"The long and short of it is that Ulap was immortal, thanks to his binding to me, and he slew Bulalakaw," Bulan continued her story, her eyes holding Tala's in a direct and disconcerting gaze. "Beatriz went insane when her beloved Ulap was no more. She wrote and enspelled the Bestiario to recognize only a Baylan of greater power than her. A month after, she poisoned her husband, for she could no longer take the beatings he dished out. She'd just delivered a son she named Alejandro Santiago, who had a son named Pedro Jose, who sired your father, Sixto Juan, who is your father's father."

Tala was fascinated and horrified by the story Bulan told her. It is a little much to get my head around, but, hey the last week has been an exercise in the abnormal and strange, so maybe this little peek into my family history is not so bad at all, Tala thought to herself.

"My family, as I said, is crap," Tala said firmly, her tone reassuring though it carried no small resentment for her kin. "I've no great love for them except for my mother and my Abuela Selo and Abuelo Toto. My father, Maximo, was always cheating on Mama, or losing money in the casino. His brother Mariano was no better and the two men fought over the family property after teaming up to cheat their siblings of it. Don't feel so bad about what you and Ulap had to do. I don't."

"But that is exactly the point, dearest," Bulan said as she reached for Tala's hands across the table, "It was the death of Bulalakaw that signaled the decline in your family fortunes, caused there to be such pain in it for generations. It is what brought malas, misfortune, into your clan. I would have spared all of you that, if I could, but the SkyFather would not have it so, nor would the EarthMother."

"Now you are owning your power as a Baylan, with Beatriz's power manifesting a hundred-fold in you," Bulan said on a happy note, her seemingly dainty hands radiating white heat into Tala's fingers—heat that rose from the pads of each digit and spread through Tala's body until she glowed like a full harvest moon.

"It is the power that should have belonged to Beatriz, with over a century's worth of interest," Bulan smiled as she watched Tala glow like a goddess. "With it, you will tame your own Tikbalang, gain your fortune and make right what has been awaiting restitution all this time."

"So you are saying I was born as payback, that I have no choice in the matter?" Tala's incredulity was stained with the temper rising to paint her high cheekbones. "Whatever happened to free will?"

Bulan shook her head on a small peal of laughter, as if Tala was merely a cute, confused child stamping her foot in a tantrum, not a dangerously powerful witch she'd just infused with divine power.

"No, dear, I am not saying that at all," Bulan said, patting Tala's shoulder as she moved to sit beside her. "You have never lost your free will. In fact, you've used it to own your power as a Baylan, as the bridge between all three worlds we live in."

Inhaling long and hard, Tala fixed Bulan with a demanding look. "So, tell me, am I to know who this Tikbalang is that I must conquer for all to be made right, and why should I even choose to do this?"

"You must tame your Tikbalang so that he may ascend as King to the molave throne," Bulan said, her tone reasonable, as if all she asked of Tala was a normal thing, like straightening a throw pillow on the long sofa where they sat.

"You must tame the Tikbalang crown prince so his brother will not be able to slay him and begin a series of disasters once he takes that throne, for the only the true heir to the throne can grow it into peace and prosperity," Bulan said in all seriousness.

"To choose not to is to see your world crumble even more into the corruption that reigns it now that the Diwata have no queen, the Nuno have no rulers and the malignos remain divided and locked in their own battles for supremacy in their fiefdoms."

"Ooooo-kay, so you want me to choose world peace, I take it?" Tala cocked an incredulous eyebrow at Bulan. "And you still haven't told me who on earth this Tikbalang is that I must tame. A name would be a good start, my lady Bulan."

Bulan nodded, a broad smile on her face and all her teeth gleaming whiter than those shown in toothpase commercials and her curving, full lips red as ripe Benguet strawberries in the summer.

"The Tikbalang prince is my son, my firstborn and his name is Buhawi."

Tala began framing another question, but no sound issued from her mouth. She felt herself fading from this warm living room, felt Bulan become as distant as her eye, the moon that was illuminating a patch of hardwood-plank floor just inside the French windows facing a garden full of flowers and fruit trees.

***

Buhawi returned to the realm of Lupa even more frustrated than he had been when he'd left with his mane on fire. So he chose to ride through the jungle in a sweaty lather, fully the war-horse he was, whickering and whinnying his displeasure to warn away the Other World denizens along his path.

Once outside the garden of his Forbes Park house, Buhawi willed himself back to his human form, allowing the magic to shroud his body in the darkness of the wee hours.

I am not giving my parents what they want without a fight, he told himself as he unlocked his back door to stalk angrily from his kitchen to the master bedroom. I am going to find a way to defeat Kidlat and remain free of this shitty binding.

With that, he yanked his antique Chinese armoire open and took out his bag of spells, an old World War II army duffel in olive green that had been gifted to him by a USAFFE soldier his father had guided out of the Batangas jungle so Manila could be retaken as that war wound to its bitter end.

His father had converted that dun canvas sack into a vessel for summoning what a Tikbalang needed from the Other World. All he needed to do was make a clear mental picture of whatever it was he wanted as he opened his hand in the bag and there it was.

Candles of red beeswax, seven of them, tall, like pillars, Buhawi commanded the bag, channeling his innate power with extreme focus. When he had them, he continued ticking off his mental list until he'd assembled all his spell implements.

Buhawi made a circle of black salt from the northernmost beaches of the Philippines over a tapestry woven from a unknotted threads on the looms of Maranao tribe of the southern island of Mindanao. He laid down nine conch shells from the Central Visayas, where the Philippine sea was deepest.

He began his chant in a deep, truly non-human voice, seducing Tala into masturbating by sending her erotic visions, summoning the Baylan into his arms because he could not enter her home anymore.

That done, he pierced his left thumb with a black dagger and dripped his blood onto the red candles to extinguish the flames before laying on his bed and stroking his aching tarugo and tight-drawn bayag.

Oh, you witch, my bayag are heavy with Tikbalang seed. All just for you. Tonight we will see who gets to stay on top.

"Oh, yes, Baylan, I am so going to eat you. Naked. Writhing. Screaming pleasure through the pain. You will be mine. It is not going to be the other way around."

His penis was still hard as the Tala materialized straddling his lap as he lay on his bed, stroking his masculine tumescence. Her eyes were shut tight and she was naked and glistening with sweat. Her hips were writhing as she rubbed her right nipple with one hand and delved into the sucking wetness of her pussy with the other.

Buhawi smiled as he cupped her buttocks and licked a light, hot line of lightning from her collarbone to her left ear. "Hello, Baylan."

"Ohmygod, Big Person, don't eat me," Tala shrieked as she threw her shaking palms over her chest and genitals. This is not a drill. This is not a dream, she realized. I think I am fucked because I am naked and small and that is a Tikbalang under me.

"But I must, Baylan," Buhawi said dryly as he humped his monster member's hard length against the sweet wetness of her puki, drawing a groan that was half protest and half capitulation from the woman he'd summoned to his bed. "I did say you'd make a delicious snack."