Author’s Note: Take a hike with Mills! Mills is named Nicholas in my canon. As usual, edits by the wonderful @kyloremus!
“You’re taking advantage of my offer to go hiking and camping with you,” you grumbled at the broad back of Nicholas Mills as he walked ahead of you up the winding trail. The sky was crystal blue, the air was crisp, the scenery was breathtaking. And you hated every goddamn step. “’Hiking’ means a pleasant stroll during which I don’t break a sweat. Something that a rational person could call romantic.”
“It’s not that far.” Nick smiled as he stopped and turned back to you. He was barely sweating and his hair still looked great. It made you want to slap the smile right off his smug lips. “We haven’t even been hiking more than twelve miles or so.”
“Gee, that’s hardly more than a vigorous day at the mall,” you said with narrowed eyes. “Do I actually need to explain to you that there is a directly inverse relationship between every step I take and the likelihood of you ever getting to have your way with me again.”
“Just wait until we get there.” He backed up the trail as you closed the distance between you both, keeping several paces ahead. Out of striking distance. “You’ll be awed by beauty and I’ll turn on the charm. You won’t be able to resist.”
“You’re going to carry me back down from this hellscape tomorrow,” you threatened. “I better not hear any whining about your back or knees while you do it, either. One way or another, you’re going to be as sore from this torture tomorrow as I am.”
Nick winked at you like a jackass then turned and continued walking ahead. He walked slow, utterly lackadaisical in fact, to make it easier for you to keep up with his long stride and fit lungs. The ease with which he carried himself made it even more infuriating to follow behind him with your legs cramping, lungs burning, and feet getting rubbed raw by your boots. Despite the altitude high in the mountains, it was hot. Too hot for comfort after one mile, let alone ten, or twelve, or twenty, or however many remained on this death march.
“Do you know how stupid I feel right about now?” you asked sarcastically. “Back when I wondered how a guy like you could be single? Now I realize every other woman you hounded after was a lot smarter than me to escape.” You paused, breathing hard. “When does the fun start, exactly?”
“I’m having a helluva good time myself,” he laughed at your rancor, making it burn hotter.
The narrow trail wound around the grassy side of a snowcapped mountain until it passed between two peaks and then descended down toward a small bowl surrounded by a stand of towering pine trees. Around you the scenery grew progressively more beautiful as you walked deeper into the forested mountains. Not that pretty scenery mitigated the level of misery imposed by hiking. It was truly unfair how effortlessly Nick outpaced you on his long legs, despite being heavily laden with supplies. His pack alone had to weigh over fifty pounds, and he had added a rolled canvas tent on top of it. An occasional glance over his shoulder preceded a stop so he could turn and look around at the views offered by the wilderness around you – while tactically allowing you to catch up with him, and still staying outside of arm’s reach in case you decided to slug him.
“Are you doing alright back there?” Nick asked, smiling at your exertion. “You haven’t threatened my life in a few minutes, I’m getting worried about you.”
“They make animals for this,” you said, glaring at him. “Aptly named beasts of burden. If you want to do things like this, why don’t we have horses? They can do the trudging.”
“Horses are for next time,” Nick teased. “Once you graduate from hiking on your own, you get horses.”
When he finally came to a stop it was in a shaded, grassy bowl, populated with pines. Sunlight streamed down through patches in the canopy of trees above you dappling the emerald grass with spots of peridot. Nick shrugged out of his heavy pack and propped it against the thick trunk of a pine tree. He stretched his back, looking even taller and broader as he did. Only a few yards ahead of you was a tiny lake nestled in the apex of a valley between the two mountains. Its crystal-clear water shimmered with beads of sunlight. The water was so clear that the light and reflection of the nearby trees were the only barrier preventing you from seeing the bottom of its depths. You had seen pictures of mountain lakes before but nothing truly compared to the real thing, you realized as you took in the beauty before you. Even the smell of the air coming off of the water was fresher and crisper.
Naturally, you couldn’t give him the gratification of knowing that you found it beautiful. And it was debatable to say the least whether a pretty pool of water was worth a fifteen or whatever mile hike.
Looking at you instead of the view himself, Nick smiled broadly, knowing you were pleased with the view, even if perhaps not with him.
“I’m glad you like it,” he told you proudly. “It’s the only spot I could think of that’s even half as pretty as you are.”
“There’s liking something, and then there’s liking something enough to spend all day trudging to it,” you said defiantly.
Ignoring your narrowed eyes and crossed arms, Nick grabbed the waistband of your pants and pulled you roughly to him. When you collided with his powerful chest, Nick leaned down to kiss you sweetly, smoothing his free hand down your back. After a few moments, you relented, parting your lips to deepen the kiss. His arm tightened around your waist, pinning you against his hard body. Bending at the knees, he playfully hoisted you up in a bear hug, easily lifting you off the ground as though you were nothing and smiling against your lips. Nick’s kisses were the best you’d ever experienced. He kissed you like you were the most important thing in his world, like kissing you was the last thing he would ever do. It felt like a loss when he finally returned you to the ground.
“Are there animals out here?” you mused as you looked around the forest.
“‘Course there are,” Nick affirmed, shrugging out of his overstuffed backpack.
“Are there bears?” you asked, thinking of the large cooler of food Nick had carried with him.
“Bears?” He huffed a laugh, smiling warmly at you. “Just me, darlin.’”
“What kinds of animals?” you persisted.
“Oh, the usual,” he teased. “Werewolves, Skinwalkers, Bigfoot.”
While you admired the beauty surrounding you, watching the sunlight dance in patches on the pristine water where it peeked between the trees, Nick knelt and began pulling some things from his pack. He unpacked the canvas tent roll and a paid blanket that was rolled into it. He plopped down onto the blanket and patted the spot beside him. You followed his silent command, but only because your legs were tired.
“Is that the only tent we have?” You eyed the tattered canvas skeptically.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked with a confused frown.
“Not much other than it looks like it will leak, and I’ll be able to smell everything that’s been inflicted upon it over the last decade.” You weren’t joking. “I can’t imagine what all the mystery stains are from. I’m sure each one has its own little lurid story behind it.”
“It doesn’t leak.” He pointedly didn’t address your other concerns. “We can always just sleep out under the stars. Under the stars will be romantic. Tents are for lightweights, anyway.”
Nick fished some packages of food out of his pack that had miraculously remained un-squished. He somehow produced some baggies of fresh fruit and enough small sandwiches to feed at least two Nicks. They looked delicious and even a little artisan, not a redneck bologna and miracle whip special. It was obvious he had taken special care with the meal. You were shocked to find that some sandwiches were actually prosciutto with fig spread and mascarpone, others were bacon with maple spread and brie.
“Honestly, I would have bet against you even knowing what prosciutto is,” you teased.
“I may have googled some fancy fixin’s for today. A sandwich is easy enough to put together no matter what kind of uppity ingredients you use,” he replied with a smirk. His huge chest swelled even larger with pride at having surprised you so pleasantly. “Wait for the final touch.”
He retrieved a large thermos and two red solo cups from inside his pack. Handing you a cup, he poured the contents of the thermos into it, filling your cup with a pleasant Rose.
“You carried a thermos of wine up that horrible mountain?” you asked, laughing.
“You make it sound like my pack was heavy or something.” He winked at you over the rim of his cup as he took a drink.
“It’s not completely terrible,” you told him as you sipped the Rose that was still pleasantly cool and took a bite of one of the exquisite sandwiches. It was the best praise he would get for a while.
Throughout lunch, your eyes kept drifting to the clear, inviting water. Nick was more calculating than he let on. Today had the perfect oppressively hot weather to entice you into ripping all your clothes off and plunging into the cool water. The wine made that idea even more appealing. He was no doubt counting on it. It couldn’t be that easy for him. Thankfully, you had an idea.
“Why don’t you go make a circuit and make sure there are no bigfoot or werewolves in the immediate vicinity?” you challenged around a sip of mimosa.
“Really?” he laughed at you.
“Do you want me relaxed later or wondering what creepy crawlies are watching me?” You raised your eyebrows at him.
Shaking his head, he complied and pushed up to his feet to perform a quick reconnaissance. The trees swallowed him after only a few steps. As soon as he was out of sight, you jumped up and quickly stripped out of your clothes. You bounded naked toward the lake. You gasped when your feet plunged into the cool water, moving rapidly up your body as you waded deeper and deeper into the lake.
By the time Nick returned, you were treading water, only your head and shoulders showing above its surface. He looked around for a moment, confused at your absence. It was your laughter that alerted him to your whereabouts in the lake.
“Getting started without me?” he asked with a lascivious grin.
“Give me a show,” you said as you edged just close enough that your toes touched the sandy bottom.
“I usually only do that for tips.” He smirked.
“No tip after forcing me to toil up a mountain.” You cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m waiting.”
Shaking his head again, Nick squared his body toward you and puffed his chest. He deliberately unbuttoned his cotton shirt and made a show of peeling it away from his powerful torso. He moved slowly, letting you track every ripple of heavy muscle. His chest glistened with a faint sheen of sweat. He kicked off his boots, hooked a thumb in the waistband of his jeans, and smirked at you.
“If you want to see the rest, you’ll have to come take this off yourself,” he challenged.
“Who do you really think will win this little test of wills?” you mused sultrily, wading closer to Nick. You approached the bank until the water settled around your waist. Fixing your eyes on his, you ran your hands up to your breasts and squeezed them, letting out a whimper as you did. You could see his cock swelling in his jeans from several yards away and you laughed. You trailed your hands slowly down your sides until they disappeared beneath the water. “I suppose I can take care of myself if you don’t want to come join me.”
“You’re the fuckin’ devil,” Nick grumbled. He fixed you with a formidable scowl and charged into the water without bothering to remove his jeans. He dove forward when the water was around his hips and came for you with an aggressive breaststroke.
You laughed and parried backward. When Nick reached you, you used all your weight to shove him deep down under the water and push yourself further away at the same time. Erupting from below the surface, sending water splashing wildly, Nick’s laugh carried across the lake as he wiped the water from his face with his right hand and shook his head back and forth like a shaggy dog, his thick mane of dark hair slinging water in all directions.
Leading with his right arm outstretched in the water, he lunged for you again and caught you. Wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you toward him, he crashed his large nose into your cheek in a sloppy, goofy kiss. “You really make a man work for it.”
“It never occurred to me to do anything else,” you laughed as he nuzzled, tickling you with his goatee, and placing a series of smacking kisses across your skin when you turned your body into his. Looping both arms around his neck, you pressed your naked body against his.
A harsh grunt escaped his lips against your cheek, like you’d just punched him in the gut, and every muscle in his body tensed rigidly at the feeling of your tits pressing against his chest. Even though he was expecting it, it still made him react primally. He hooked an arm behind your back, pulling your body even more flush to his, as he brought his lips to yours.
His kiss was searing now, his whole being ravenous for you. Nick was a man of passion and he lavished you with it intensely, both of you turning in a slow circle in the cool water from his right hand keeping you both afloat.
Beneath the water, you felt his cock swollen inside his jeans, nudging insistently against you. Bringing one of your legs up around his ribs, you rubbed your center against his cock, teasing yourself from the friction his jeans gave you. Nick groaned into your mouth at the feeling of you rubbing him, the feeling of your desire for him, the feeling of his effect on you. He felt feverish with desire thrumming through his body as he kissed you and held you tight, a high that he’d chase forever.
Slowly, Nick swam you both back toward the bank, his lips and tongue continuously building your arousal. His feet hit the ground first, your body still fully suspended in the water. Pulling your legs around him to lock around his waist, Nick wrapped one arm under your ass and locked the other around your wait, pinning you to his chest. He walked you both out of the water like that, carrying you back to the picnic blanket without breaking the kiss like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Without setting you down, he dropped to his knees on the blanket, never breaking contact with your lips. Bracing himself with his right hand, he gently lowered you down onto your back below him. Instead of following you down, he broke your kiss, pulling away to sit back on his heels and admire the beautiful view of you spread out before him. He shoved his wet jeans down his thighs, letting his giant cock bob free. His cock stood thick and long and proud, arching upward in anticipation of finally being hugged tightly by your hot silken embrace.
Sinking to his knees between your open thighs, he lifted your left leg and brought your heel to rest on his shoulder, turning to kiss at your ankle while his right hand rubbed and kneaded its way up your thigh. His goatee tickled your skin as his hot mouth trailed its way down the inside of your calf and knee. Moving to your inner thigh, his kisses turned to licks and bites, growing more heated by every inch he descended as he slowly lowered himself to the ground.
When his lips reached your pussy, he kissed you the same way he kissed your lips while he positioned himself resting on his elbows between your legs. Shucking your right leg over his shoulder, pinning his head between your thighs, he pulled your hips closer to his face, eagerly diving in to run his hot tongue through your flesh. Shuddering at the feeling, your hands flew to fist into his dense hair to pull him impossibly closer.
“You’re sweeter than a peach, darlin,’” he growled low into you, the vibrations of his deep voice shooting through you. “I could eat you for hours.”
When he felt you begin to writhe beneath him from your building pleasure, he circled his tongue around your clit. Moving his hand from your hip, he reached down to plunge two thick fingers into you, giving your pussy something to squeeze as he worked you closer and closer to the edge. The light scratch of his beard against the slick of your pussy sent electric shivers through you with every rub as he sucked at your clit while you moaned and squirmed beneath him. Every sigh and whimper he pulled from you was music to Nick’s ears, and every sharp tug on his hair and buck of your hips against his face was his favorite commendation.
It was the pleasured groan vibrating through your core from Nick’s lips as he sucked at you that pushed you over the edge into a blinding pulsing orgasm. Your pussy seized around his fingers as they curled and stroked inside of you in clenching bursts of pleasure in time with the electric pulses that coursed through you. Nick kissed and licked you until your thighs loosened their vice-grip around his head and rested limply on his shoulders. He flashed you a wet gleaming smile before returning his lips to your skin, kissing his way up your body as he crawled over you. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer against you, as he rested his forearms on either side of your body, caging you beneath him.
The thick velvety head of his cock nudged against your entrance, slipping inside of your wet heat easily when you raised your hips to meet his firm thrust. Despite your dripping arousal, the stretch of his enormous cock was always intense. Even a little painful in a way that was bound tightly with pleasure. His lips caressed your cheek as he waited for you to adjust to his size, hips rocking gently against you for several long moments. When you turned your head to capture his lips in a needy kiss, he began thrusting into you, rocking your body with his every powerful motion.
Already sensitive, your entire body on fire for the huge man above you, you felt every slam of his cock push you closer to another gushing wave of pleasure. Nick’s pace grew faster and rougher the closer he brought you both to the peak. Soon, he was propped above you, looking down at you with a feral tooth-baring grin, his hair falling wildly around his shoulders and face, jostling with every hard thrust.
Your head pressed back into the blanket, your back arching into Nick’s chest and hips rolling in time with his rhythm. Nails digging into his muscled shoulders, his name fell from your lips in a lewd moan that echoed through the mountains and across the lake. Nick was huffing now with each rough thrust, panting above you like a wild animal.
“You gonna cum all over my cock, darlin’?” Nick growled huskily and looked down at you with a pleasured grin.
Your second orgasm hit you even more intensely than the first, crashing over you in heady waves of ecstasy, your pussy tensing hard around his cock, trying to pull it in impossibly deeper. Nick’s jaw clenched tightly as he fucked you through your aftershocks, a growl rumbling deep in his chest. Nick pounded his cock hard into you until his hips stilled, burying his cock as deep as possible. A rush of heat spread through you as he pumped you full of hot cum.
With a heavy sigh, he relaxed some of his weight down on top of you, panting as he regained his breath. Stroking your hands along his densely muscled back soothingly, you reveled in the feeling of his massive body resting on your own. After a moment spent catching his breath, he leaned down to meet your lips in a tender kiss. Nick kissed you slowly and deeply, bringing his hand up to stroke your cheekbone sweetly, unable to keep a grin from tugging at the corners of his mouth. You ran your fingers through his damp hair and traced your nails along his neck and shoulders, making him only grin wider.
When Nick pulled back to look down at you, a huge toothy smile beamed across his face. His eyes were full of pure unadulterated adoration as he regarded you. His voice as gravelly when he told you, “I love you, darlin.’”
“I still hate hiking,” you replied and pulled back to your lips again.
Warnings: NSFW. Action. Graphic Violence. Gruesome Horror. Romance. Old Timey Sexism. Hot Toxic Masculinity. Conniving Bitches. Victorian Setting. Vampires. I play a little loose with time and events, but they are all within a couple years if not a couple weeks. But I also play a little loose with vampires and cowboys, so whatever.
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I'm finally catching up on some old requests. This is one from @napiersmirk that I probably bastardized totally, but hopefully there's some fun stuff in here. This is basically a 30k shitshow with Victorian Vampire Jacques and a Cowgirl.
Once upon an autumn dreary. Sir Jacques Le Gris modified the words to one of his favorite poems to suit his surroundings and mood, hearing it as an internal monologue as he strolled down Martin’s Lane toward Trafalgar Square. The nighttime air was cool and humid, the stars hidden behind a stormy veil. Mist crept low, slithering through the streets. It was the kind of weather Jacques loved most, when his breath fogged from his lips like ghosts wrought upon the darkness. In high spirits, he gave his ebony cane a twirl, letting the silver grip in the shape of a wolf’s head turn in palm. The streets were unusually vacant. Those damned Ripper murders were keeping people inside at night. Not only did the Ripper have the nerve to frighten the ladies of London, but he also had the gall and plain bad form to stain Jacques’s name. He went by Jack occasionally, usually when dealing with English and Americans, it seemed simpler for them. Jacques pondered solutions to this nuisance, as he had many evenings before. The best solution to the problem, both society’s and Jacques’s, was likely the simplest – for Jacques to hunt the hunter, victimize the villain. Bleed the butcher dry. He grinned at the thought, his tongue subconsciously tracing the peak of his canine.
But that was a game for another night.
Tonight, Jacques was on a simpler mission. Priding himself a champion of the arts, Jacques took pleasure in seeing the arts and the shows London had to offer. He was a man who enjoyed a spectacle, even if he was not partaking. Although he greatly preferred the latter. It was a wonderful time to be alive, Jacques knew better than most. From P.T. Barnum’s great circuses to group seances and magicians performing grand stage acts, spectacles were all the rage. Queen Victoria was celebrating her fiftieth year on the throne, drawing in crowds from across the empire and motivating every performer to put on his best.
Lithograph posters advertising performances of all varieties were plasters to the sides of buildings, ranging in size from a common portrait to as large as a bedsheet. Smaller letter-size fliers clung to every pole within reach of the urchins who earned a pittance by scattering them about the city. The posters called to Jacques as he strolled past. Thoroughbreds raced across a field of green on a poster for the Epsom Derby. A darkly handsome man stood in front of a gilded portrait advertising for the play The Picture of Dorian Gray. A snarling tiger faced a roaring lion on a poster for P.T. Barnum’s Circus. The infamous magician, Kylo the Malevolent, wore his signature black tailcoat and held a ball of flame in one hand while he conjured dark forces with the other in the poster for his show at the Royal Albert Hall. Even the wanted posters for Jack the Ripper were lost in the collage of lithographs. A Bohemian freakshow was passing through London this week on its way to Paris, the posters advertising its oddities littered across buildings and walls. Jacques saw a poster for the World’s Strongest Man displaying a burly man in a singlet with simian body hair flexing a monstrous arm. Next to him was a poster for a man labeled Ink Well who was tattooed over every inch of his skin.
Jacques stopped in front of a haberdashery he frequented. He had even purchased the tophat he wore at present there. Instead of the usual tophats, canes, and derbys that regularly filled the display window, there were now American style cowboy hats with different shaped crowns, and even two pairs of western chaps, one crafted from thick woolly sheepskin and another from splotchy grey sealskin. On either side of the display windows, the building was plastered with posters, unique from the others, that caught Jacques’s eye. Galloping horses, stampeding buffalo, cowboys with six-shooters, cowgirls with lever-actions, and a lively white-haired man with an impressive Van Dyke made the wall come alive with the spectacle of the American West.
In celebration of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, Buffalo Bill was bringing his Wild West Show across the ocean to perform for her. Buffalo Bill was rumored to travel with well over one-hundred people, including gunslingers, Native Americans, sharpshooters, vaqueros, trick riders, and musicians. A menagerie of animals was also part of his troop: horses, mules, and longhorns, naturally, but also domesticated wildlife including buffalo and elk. Jacques wondered how much of that travelling zoo would accompany Buffalo Bill on his visit to England. Jacques hoped the store owner was getting a commission from Bill for all this free advertising. He decided he would purchase a new hat for the occasion and encourage his friend, Pierre to do the same. The comically large ten-gallon cowboy hat center stage in the display window would call to Pierre as seductively as a Parisian courtesan. Pierre would be an easy sell, always eager to parade new trappings that might impress the ladies. When Jacques had informed Pierre that he had secured the company of a pair of prima ballerinas from the Russian ballet to accompany him to the Wild West Show, Pierre had boasted that he would be attending with a trio of blondes from a theater troupe.
Smiling at his schemes, Jacques tapped his cane on the cobblestone and continued on into the square in the brisk, long strides he favored when he wasn’t ambling slowly in consideration of a female companion. Only a handful of people walked through the square, mostly couples and one raucous group of obviously drunk young men. There wasn’t enough traffic to keep the light fog from settling over the cobblestones, and it draped them in a spectral haze. With the Ripper at large, it was rare to see lone women and even lone men out at night unless it was unavoidable, or in the areas of town where the three-penny-uprights conducted their business. Jacques was surprised to see one lone woman in the square, standing at the base of Nelson’s Column. So surprised that he stopped short and simply stared at her for a long moment. She faced away with her neck craned to look up at the column, and a lovely neck it was. The grey coat she wore hung down past her knees and its black astrakhan collar rose nearly to her ears. The only bit of skin to be seen was a narrow satiny strip above the fur collar and below her hairline; her hair was piled on top of her head in an intricate bun, courteously enough to allow that tantalizing peekaboo of skin. She wore no hat nor fascinator, and was likewise free of a bustle in a rather risqué defiance of custom. Jacques’s eyes were well-seasoned at discerning ladies’ figures, and he could tell this one was shapely and alluring.
Jacques was striding toward her before he knew he had commanded his feet to do so. In the midst of the Ripper murders, he felt compelled to offer his company. That’s what he told himself. He might be every bit as violent and villainous as good ol’ Jack, but he was also a gentleman. Hearing his bootsteps on the cobblestone, the woman turned to face him, fixing him with a level gaze that speared straight into his eyes. There was nothing soft or demure about the way she looked at him, it was almost enough to freeze him in place like Medusa’s stare. Her eyes were luminous, seeming to catch all the scant light and reflect it back like starlight in the foggy night. She cocked an eyebrow at him when he came to stand beside her, silently but icily inquiring as to his purpose.
Most ladies would have looked away from him after so long a glance, or have broken the silence with a giggle or a pleasantry. This woman allowed the silence to spark in the air around them while her eyes appraised him mercilessly. She was terrifyingly beautiful, and her bold countenance beguiled him into smiling.
“I, too, find the sights more pleasing when admired in darkness,” Jacques said, feeling foolish for allowing himself to lose this small battle of brinksmanship.
“The solitude of darkness is what I find most pleasing. The solitude you’re intruding upon, I might add,” she answered. “I cannot abide crowds and mulling herds of humanity.”
“London seems a poor fit for you,” Jaques returned.
“I’m only visiting.” She smirked. “Admiring the sights, as you said.”
“As a visitor, you might not be aware of the dangers,” Jacques said more seriously than he preferred when speaking to an alluring woman. “Have you not heard of Jack the Ripper?”
She made to roll her eyes, but stopped herself and sighed instead, “I hope you’re not going to tell me that a lady shouldn’t be out alone at night. It’s very tiresome advice.”
“Of course not,” he lied. He was absolutely going to offer that exact advice. Instead, he added, “I am never tiresome.”
“Oh dear, you’re not waiting for me to agree?” She smirked again. Jacques liked that smirk, even if it was at his expense.
“No concern for the Ripper, and no concern for your reputation, being out at night without a chaperone. A lady should be more cautious.” Jacques grinned back at her. “Your wit may be rapier, but it won’t save you against such dangers.”
“Between my rapier wit and my derringer, I feel quite safe.” She patted her coat pocket. “My reputation in London doesn’t concern me.”
“Ah, yes, you’re only visiting.” Jacques took a step closer to her. Her scent curled into his nose, something sultry and sweet like roses and cinnamon. “How long is your visit?”
“Perhaps I should be flattered by your attention.” She sounded entirely un-flattered. “But I am intentionally alone. I am not desirous of company. Hence the hour and my relaxed state of dress.”
“If not this evening, perhaps you would grace me with the pleasure of your company another time.” Jacques flashed his handsomest smile. “Only this evening, I was thinking how grand a night at the Wild West Show will be.” He would cancel his rendezvous with the ballerinas in a heartbeat in favor of her. He inclined his head and said simply, “Join me.”
A smile bloomed on her lips, then she laughed lightly. “I already have an invitation, I’m afraid.”
“Decline whatever other invitation you have and accept mine,” he pressed. “You will not be disappointed. You have my word.”
“Mine is an invitation I cannot decline.” She smiled wider. “Besides, no seat is closer to the action than mine.”
“If the Wild West Show doesn’t strike your fancy, I can show you the sights,” Jacques offered. “Dr. Ren’s Cabinet of Curiosities is all the rage. Have you ever seen a satyr skeleton or a book bound in human skin?”
“A book bound in human skin? You know the way to a girl’s heart,” she laughed. “But my Saturday engagement must stand, I’m afraid.”
“Then permit me to walk you to your lodgings,” he countered. “Where are you staying during your visit?”
“I’ll permit you to say good evening right here.” Her demeanor was pleasant now, but she pointedly ignored his question on where he might find her again.
“May I at least know the name of the lady who is so immune to my charms?” Jacques asked as he took off his tophat and shook a persistence cowlick back from his face.
“Georgette,” she answered, offering her hand.
“Jacques Le Gris.” He introduced himself with a flourished bow, then kissed the back of her hand.
“Good evening, Jacques Le Gris.” She gave him one last smile, turned, and walked away.
Jacques followed her with his eyes as she departed. The sway of her hips was almost hypnotizing. He waited for her to look back, but she didn’t. Their small exchange replayed in his mind, her bold and beautiful face already imprinted on his memory. A rare and radiant maiden, indeed. He waited until she turned down a street and then he followed her anyway, gliding almost soundlessly over the cobblestones. He was as at ease in the darkness as any creature of the night, and he knew how to use the foggy gloom to cloak his movements. He would make sure she was safe during her foolishly imperious stroll. And he would know where to find her again.
Trailing the woman at a discreet distance, Jacques could savor her scent as strong and lovely on the air as the smell of a flower shop with fresh blooms. It required a heroic effort of will to restrain himself from chasing her down and snatching her up in his arms. He attempted to keep the thoughts and images of what he wanted to do next out of his mind, but that was a hopeless endeavor. He watched her until she safely entered the Grand Royale Hotel, and contemplated his next move. It was within his ability to compel her to come to her window and see him again in whatever light he wished, even to do after she undressed for the night.
But such parlor tricks would cheapen the hunt.
Big Ben had not yet tolled midnight. The night was young and Jacques was on fire, his senses alighted by the woman and desire burning through him in a rage. Frustrated and ravenous was no way to spend a perfectly dreary evening. He gave the cobblestones a decisive tap with his cane and walked toward a less upscale part of the city. His destination was far enough to warrant a carriage, but Jacques enjoyed a brisk stroll and it would be unwise to create any witnesses who knew of his haunt. A man as illustrious as Jacques had airs to maintain. Not that Pierre ever bothered with discretion. Jacques grinned and shook his head at the thought. How that philandering bastard hadn’t outed them both yet was a miracle.
Heading West, Jacques met few people and no other women. A few men returning late from their jobs passed him, their faces streaked with coal and grime. One rough-looking man in a bowler hat loitered in a doorway, holding the leash of a Bull Terrier. The man watched Jacques, appraising him, no doubt calculating his odds of successfully mugging the much larger man. Jacques hoped the man would try, it would be a fine bit of sport for the evening. The terrier knew better, whimpering and hiding its white face against the man’s leg. Animals always sensed Jacques’s nature more quickly than men. He again cursed the Ripper for bringing increased scrutiny to the streets and the bobbies out in force. This was the sort of hooligan who wouldn’t be missed, easy prey for Jacques to remove from the streets and perform a public service at the same time.
His destination was near Holborn Hill. Jacques paused to admire the shop’s sign, a fine piece of reverse glass depicting a green serpentine dragon with long whiskers and a fanned tail coiled intricately through gold letters that spelled Snap Dragon. The dragon’s clawed hands clutched the D and its head reared above the letter, snarling at incoming patrons. The Snap Dragon was an apothecary that stocked the rarest compounds and elixirs to be found in England. Rumor had it that Prince Albert purchased tonics there known to cure the pox and other maladies.
Now nearing midnight, the apothecary was closed when Jacques strode past its door. He turned down the narrow alley that separated the apothecary from the butcher next door, as black as a crevasse in the foggy darkness. He descended a set of stairs and stopped in front of a recessed iron door that appeared neglected and disused. Jacques rapped his knuckles on the iron in a peculiar rhythm and waited. The door swung in on well-oiled hinges without a squeak, admitting Jacques into the real business of the Snap Dragon. The apothecary, lucrative though it was, was a front for an opium den – a far better business than herbal remedies. Prince Albert also frequented this side of the business, and heartily enjoyed the expensive courtesans who could be enticed to entertain the delirious patrons for a fee.
Gossamer green haze wafted through the darkened parlor. It was a trick of the lighting, achieved with candles hidden inside green silk lanterns, sneakily engineered to give the ever-present smoke an ethereal quality. The effect was eerie, especially when paired with the dozens of barely conscious men reclining on futons and pillows, crooning, laughing, coughing, draped in smoky green gloaming. Most of the movements inside the den were languid and hazy, save for the sober attendants and one topless courtesan who bounced eagerly on the lap of a nearly unconscious man, determined to earn her fee whether or not the man was aware when he crossed the finish line. The first few breaths inside the den were always terrible for Jacques, as his heightened senses acclimated to the pungent scents of opium, unwashed men, and overused women.
A tall, sinewy woman wearing a brocade dress embroidered with dragons and flowers materialized out of the haze and fixed her black eyes on Jaques. Her smile was razor sharp when she greeted him. Jacques had known her a very long time, since she had been a dancer in Bohemia, long before her latest trade helping men chase the dragon. She had been beautiful then, long ago, in her former life. Pierre had been fond of her all those years ago, and she was eternally indebted to him for the gift he had bestowed upon her. Now, she was seen by most as exotic, with her abyssal black eyes, gaunt features, and straight jet hair that contrasted starkly with a completion that was almost translucent in its paleness. She looked to Jacques a bit like a dehydrated corpse. It was enough to unnerve a brave man when she smiled her shark’s smile at Jacques and told him to make himself at home.
Jacques threaded his way through the parlor to a private room hidden away in the back. Before entering, he could hear the familiar laughter of his oldest friend and the giggles of several women. The door was closed, but Jacques didn’t bother knocking. It had been many years since Pierre had managed to shock him.
Tonight was no different. Pierre D’Alencon bolted up from the large futon in the center of the room, ready to chastise the intruder. His blonde hair was disheveled, his pale chest flushed, but he smiled when he recognized Jacques. Wearing only an open kimono-style robe that did nothing to conceal his naked body, nor the tumescent evidence of his antics with the eight naked women flitting around him. He didn’t bother to cover himself when he gestured magnanimously and said, “Come in! Take your pants off!”
“Are any of them still fresh?” Jacques asked as he shrugged out of his overcoat and tossed it over the back of an obliging chair. His cane and tophat followed.
“Yes, you’re in luck. I’ve only just begun to defile them,” Pierre answered and the women laughed. “Where in the blazes have you been? I expected you hours ago. Now, we’ve only a few hours left before dawn approaches in all its intrusive goddamn glory.”
“I met a rather striking woman enroute.” Jacques smiled, picturing her.
“Oh, good. Is she here?” Pierre made to look around Jacques’s body toward the door.
“Certainly not!” Jacques laughed. “I barely got her name. She was most –"
“Did you hear what I said?” Pierre cut him off. “You’re burning darkness yammering on about some strange woman who wouldn’t give you the time of night. I won’t allow it! Get in the proper spirit of the evening or take your doldrums elsewhere.”
Two of the four women approached Jacques, sashaying their hips. They stroked his chest and began untying his ascot then unbuttoning his vest and shirt. Jacques continued talking to Pierre, unbothered by the women caressing his bare chest or Pierre maneuvering his selection of women back toward the futon. “You haven’t seen this one, my friend. Beautiful and strong. The kind of woman who could use some evil inside her.”
“Talking of only one woman while you’re in the company of several fine others is blasphemy,” Pierre said as he fell upon a pair of women on the futon, his kimono fluttering above his comically pasty ass.
Jacques persisted in telling Pierre about the mystery woman, paying the women in his present company little mind until the most ambitious of the two began shoving his trousers down his muscled thighs. When she traced her nails along his rapidly swelling cock, he decided he could continue this conversation later. He led the women toward a larger couch set against the far wall and fell back into the center of the push cushions. Another woman sat at the end of the couch, draped over the armrest, pale and delirious. Blood was smeared across her neck from her jaw to her collarbone, still oozing slowly from a pair of twin puncture wounds.
“You’ve been careless with that one,” Jacques said to Pierre as he gripped the hips of the nearest woman and assisted her in settling over his lap. He thrust up into the woman and added, “Best show some restraint with the others.”
“She’ll be as good as new after a good night’s rest and a good meal,” Peirre replied nonchalantly as several women crawled over him. “I’ll pay her extra. There are no surprises when they service us here.” He looked at one of the women and asked, “Are there, dearie?”
In response, she held her wrist up to Pierre’s lips, inviting him to drink from her.
Jacques found himself distracted from the task at hand. Despite being buried to the hilt in the woman writing in his lap and with another pawing at him from beside, his mind was still filled with thoughts of the woman he had met earlier, his nose still filled with her extraordinarily alluring bouquet. A most unnatural feeling came over him, one he hadn’t felt in ages. He felt a pang of guilt now, which was wholly unwarranted since he was beholden to no one. Certainly not to a woman who didn’t even want him to walk her home like a gentleman and who had given him a rather decisive brush off. In defiance, he thrust up harder into the woman straddling his lap. But if there was any doubt in his mind before that he wouldn’t seek out the beautiful stranger, he was now filled with resolve to find her again.
Trailing his hand up the woman’s back, he gripped the nape of her neck and drew her closer. His canines had descended in razor points, as eager to sink into warm flesh as the rest of his body. He didn’t bother to kiss the woman’s skin or entice her before he bit into her neck. He didn’t have to give, Pierre had paid her well for them to dispassionately take. It was always difficult to restrain himself when the first rush of blood coated his tongue. The primal part of him wanted to rip into her soft flesh like a wild beast; to feel muscle and sinew tear in his mouth; to feel hot blood coat his lips and drench him down to his chest. But he restrained himself, sipping the woman with gentlemanly care and only taking enough to sate himself for a while.
Restraint was the most important skill any vampire who wanted longevity must learn. Many vampires would say that either anonymity or community were of paramount importance. Vampires who prospered outside of cloistered covens or seclusion were the rarest of all their species. None had prospered better nor more infamously than Jacques and Pierre for nearly five-hundred-fifty years. Jacques attributed this to restraint more than anything else, not being glutinous or wanton when it came to prey and hunting. It was one of the few areas in life he exercised restraint at all, and it had taken him more than a century to master.
If one asked Pierre the key to survival, his answer was simple. Joie de vivre! If a man isn’t enjoying life, every moment can be agony. Immortality would be a terrible curse for the poor bastard who doesn’t live life to the fullest. Pierre had lived by this creed for centuries, flaunting his lifestyle to the more conversative of their species. He even made it a personal game of sorts to seduce the hunters who would find them on occasion. Most could be seduced by money or pleasure, and Pierre was generous with both. Jacques had a hotter temper and less patience. He enjoyed tearing apart anyone who threatened him or the small handful of people for whom he had genuine affection.
The grunts and whimpers coming from the futon creaking beneath Pierre and three women indicated that he was indeed living life to fullest at present. Jacques allowed himself to finish quickly, not bothering to hold himself back, and sipped from the woman as much as he dared. The woman’s body was limp and her head lolled sideways when Jacques lifted her off his lap and maneuvered her onto the couch beside him. She slumped against the semi-conscious woman Pierre had used earlier. Jacques watched her for a moment, satisfying himself that she would recover after a few hours. Turning to look at the unused woman on his other side, Jacques grinned and patted his thigh as an invitation. He was more eager to drink from her than fuck her, but those pleasures were best when paired together. Sinking back deeper into the couch, he gripped the base of his cock, positioning it for the woman as she smiled in delight at his impressive size then kicked her leg over his lap.
Vampires needed only seconds to recover between bouts. Jacques could do this all night, until all the women were spent or he became bored with them. The latter had been an increasing problem over the last century. His body was willing, but his interest was waning. Whereas Pierre never grew bored so long as he kept a variety of women parading through his sheets, Jacques had long ago grown weary of much of humanity. The fleeting, meaningless interactions he had with them bored him and left him deeply unsatisfied. Sometimes, he still found humor, even joy, in humanity. Other times, he felt as though they were a plague crawling over the earth like maggots on a carcass. Vampires were even worse, a macabre and morose lot whose tastes tended toward one perversion or another. That was a point on which Jacques and Pierre had always agreed, hedonism is far superior to perversion, and also just simpler.
After finishing with the second woman and using a third, Jacques reclined in a chair as he ruminated on these matters that were never far from his thoughts. He hadn’t troubled himself to redress fully and sat in his trousers and unbuttoned shirt. He swirled a glass of smoky green absinthe, his gaze fixed pensively at an unremarkable patch of floral wallpaper, unbothered by the raucous sounds of Pierre and the last pair of conscious women.
It wasn’t the Green Fairy that danced in his mind, but visions of the mysterious woman and her addictive scent. That she was beautiful didn’t hurt matters at all, but that fact alone would have held little appeal to him beyond wanting to possess her for a few evenings. When a man had centuries to hunt, even beauty grew common. Rarer than beauty was wit, and rarer still was nerve. Jacques had assessed her as having all three attributes. It may have been a hopeful guess, but he was rarely wrong in assessing women. He considered himself something between a connoisseur and a sommelier of fine ladies, and hers was a vintage like nothing he had tasted in ages.
First he had to find her again, and he would. He thought through what he would do to ensnare her, captivate her the way she had so easily captivated him. Jacques didn’t want to get her by crook or by hook. He had no qualms about employing less than savory techniques to lure a woman into his bed for an evening, but he had always maintained a personal ethic when it came to the few substantial women who had piqued his interest more deeply over the many long years of his life. He wanted her, craved her even, but he wanted to win her fairly and by his own merit.
Shortly before dawn, Pierre finally finished his escapades. He let his last woman flop onto the futon and donned his kimono, then joined Jacques in an adjoining chair. Jacques offered to pour him a drink from the decanter filled with green.
“Vile drink, absinthe,” Pierre declined and waved his hand toward one of the naked women strewn across the room like casualties on a battlefield. “How you can chase a perfectly fine vintage with that noxious green ooze is beyond me.” Instead, he lifted an opium pipe to his lips and inhaled deeply. He looked at Jacques fixedly and said, “Oh God, you’ve got that look. Don’t tell me you’re pining after that woman you saw tonight. It’s very tedious of you.”
“Pining?” Jacques frowned. Whatever he was doing, he certainly was not pining.
“Yes, yes. Pining.” Pierre glared and took another puff. “I’ve had to endure your pining over the occasional woman during the last few hundred years. It never ends well. Either the pining leads to sulking when you frighten them away or, far worse, it leads to that terrible sentiment I wish you’d purge from your emotional arsenal.”
“Which terrible sentiment is that?” Jacques smirked over the rim of his glass as he took a drink.
“I try not to sully my tongue with four-letter words,” Pierre said, acting offended.
“I’ve barely spoken to the lady,” Jacques replied dismissively. “I’m merely intrigued by her.”
“Ah, yes, I remember the last time you were intrigued by some strumpet.” Pierre grimaced at the horrible memory. “Dark times. You were the worst possible company during your infatuation. Then when she rejected you – as they all will when you want a taste of them – you had the morbes for years! You were utterly intolerable. If I were a lesser friend, I would have left you to wallow in your misery alone.”
“You hold a grudge as tenaciously as a scorned woman! That was over a century ago,” Jacques scoffed. “I should have known better with her anyway. All the ladies in Versailles laced their corsets so tight for King Louie, it deprived their brains of oxygen. Hardly her fault she was so fickle.”
“And the one before that?” Pierre raised his eyebrows. “She was wickeder than you and, tragically, far crazier to boot.”
“Ah, the Countess,” Jacques said fondly. “She was a marvel.”
“Marvelously batshit crazy. Batshit Bathory.” Pierre shook his head. “Imagine how deranged a mind must be to have a genuine vampire in the palm of her hand, yet believe the true path to immortality was bathing in the blood of servant girls. You’re better off without that raving harlot.”
“It’s been far too long since I’ve indulged in a nice blood bath.” Jacques smiled at the memory.
“Now that can be arranged!” Pierre said excitedly. “We’ll take in that Wild West Show, which cannot be anything but a wondrous spectacle. Then we’ll fuck some women, and soak in blood until your heart’s content. That should take your mind off this absurd infatuation with whatever wayward tart happened to wander in front of you.”
“You assume I want to take my mind off of her?” Jacques cocked an eyebrow and took another drink.
“Can you not think of me for once instead of pursuing this selfish course that invariably leads to misery?” Pierre sighed theatrically. “However it ends for you, it will be dark times for me, my friend.”
“You’re worse than a jealous damned wife,” Jacques laughed.
“Yes, insufferable, aren’t I?” Pierre agreed. “Best steer clear of the real thing.”
“The real thing would have assets that compensate for the times she’s insufferable.” Jacques smirked lewdly.
Pierre sighed exasperatedly. He looked at the window and visibly started when he saw the red drapes glowing pink around their edges with the coming dawn. “We’d best continue this debate in my carriage. Unless you’d prefer to stay here throughout the day. Actually, let’s do! I’ll buy us more women.”
“Put your goddamn pants on and get a move on,” Jacques laughed. “I’d brave a stroll at high noon before I find myself locked in an opium den with you all day.”
It had been Jacques’s nature as a man before he became a vampire that he slept little and found the darkness rousing instead of calming, so his vampiric nature paired well with that natural proclivity. Sleep wasn’t needed for its restorative benefits and Jacques couldn’t remember what actual sleep felt like. He spent the brightest hours of the day languishing like a cat, indulgently laying around as he pleased and lightly napping occasionally. Since his encounter with the captivating woman in the Square, he hadn’t been able to settle his mind or have a reprieve from his thoughts of her.
It was not unusual for Jacques to spend the nighttime hours restless and alert. It was, however, highly unusual for him to spend his nights alone. He was never in want of women to fill his bed, but now a woman of no consequence sounded as appealing as a mouthful of ash when he was salivating over filet mignon.
The halls of his manor were dark and cold, feeling almost unwelcoming as he roamed them restlessly in his dressing gown. He paused by a tall arched window in his library that overlooked a manicured garden. The moon was a perfect cat’s eye crescent, bright as firelight, beckoning him out under its glow. Without a plan or any intention beyond following his feet, Jacques dressed quickly in trousers, a loose white shirt with no vest or cravat, and an overcoat.
Minutes later, Jacques sat in the back of his carriage as the cadence of the trotting hooves of his team of black horses carried him away from his home. Jacques’s driver was always at his beck and call, no matter the hour – a creature who was once a man horribly disfigured by leprosy before Pierre benevolently turned him into a familiar for them both to share. Carroughes never had much of a brain in life and was much happier now in his eternal existence as chattel.
Something between nostalgia and hope directed Jacques back to Trafalgar Square. He didn’t realize he had leaned forward in his seat, nearly pressing his large nose to the window as he looked out to the place he had met her. The carriage hit a thick cobblestone, making Jacques bump his nose on the glass. Falling back in his seat, he rubbed the bridge of his nose, finding nothing there but the usual crooked bump, and cursed himself for being so foolish. Of course she wasn’t there again. It had to be nearly two in the morning. No one with any sense was out prowling the streets at this hour. She was almost certainly in bed asleep. He immediately shut his thoughts down when they began to careen into the terrible territory of imagining that she wasn’t alone in her bed.
Looking at the façade of her hotel would do nothing to satisfy his curiosity nor sate his desire, but he grumbled to his driver to take him there anyway.
Every window above the first floor in the stone face of the Grand Royale Hotel was black, looking down on Jacques like merciless eyes. On one of the higher floors, one lone window flickered dimly, no doubt some restless guest reading by the light of a single candle. Jacques eyed it curiously out of the window of his carriage but paid it no mind. His thoughts were occupied with an image of a beautiful woman with luminous eyes and a teasing smile. Picturing her in his mind, he barely noticed the light moving and growing slightly brighter as the person inside picked up the candlestick and moved toward the window.
Jacques felt a rush of hope that made him feel foolish. Like a fool, he stepped out of his carriage to get a better view of the high window. A cold breeze fluttered his hair around his shoulders and his coat around his knees as he stood alone on the street, craning his neck upward. He felt even more foolish holding his breath as he watched the light move closer to the window. But all his foolishness was burned away when the window opened and the beautiful woman from his thoughts leaned out over the railing. It had been a long time since Jacques had willingly watched a sunrise, but he couldn’t remember one ever warming him the way her smile did now when she looked down at him. Gilded by moonlight, her hair free and dancing on the breeze, she was the picture of an ethereal specter haunting him.
Although he didn’t know what had summoned her to the window at such an hour, her smile told Jacques she recognized him. Forgetting any sly reserve, he waved brashly at her and took several steps away from his carriage until he stood in the center of the empty street.
“’Tis the West, and Georgette is the moon!” Jacques called to her teasingly, uncaring if he woke the entire hotel. “Descend, fair moon, and let the stars envy you while you dance in my arms.”
“I never thought I’d see a wolf howling up at the moon in London,” she teased back. She didn’t need to raise her voice for Jacques to hear her clear as a bell, just as he could clearly see that she wore only a diaphanous gown under a velvet robe. His senses were as keen as the other creatures of the night.
Jacques could get to her easily and within minutes. Hell, he could scale the outer hotel wall if he wanted. But he wouldn’t risk frightening her. It was too soon to reveal the monster to the maiden. He could summon her down to him using his vampiric powers of persuasion, but he wanted her to come to him willingly.
“What will entice you down from your tower?” Jacques placed his hand over his heart in a gesture of sincerity. “I can tell you many wondrous reasons, but they are better shown.”
“Perhaps you’re more devil than wolf, trying to tempt me into risqué scenarios with your silver tongue.” She leaned her forearms on the rail, gazing down at him with moonlight glinting in her eyes.
“Rest assured, howling wolf and silver-tongued devil are both equally within my repertoire.” Jacques grinned devilishly. “Is it teeth or horns that you prefer, ma belle?”
She laughed heartily, a melodious sound to Jacques’s ears. She retrieved a handkerchief from the pocket of her robe. Holding it out over the railing, she let it catch in the breeze before releasing it. As the handkerchief danced lazily through the air on its slow ballet to the ground, she said, “Find me again on Sunday and perhaps I will listen to more of your howling. If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll even have a dance with the devil underneath the crescent moonlight.”
Before Jacques could respond, she flipped her hair and ducked back inside her room, closing her window and leaving her balcony as empty and bleak as all the others. Still, Jacques grinned like a dumbstruck fool as he watched the handkerchief float slowly down to him like an autumn leaf. Either her aim or fate directed the little cotton square true, because it drifted right down to Jacques where he stood in the street. He plucked it from the air above him before it settled neatly on his chest.
Bringing the delicate handkerchief to his nose, Jacques inhaled deeply. The woman’s alluring scent flooded his bloodstream faster than any dragon he had ever chased. From her scent alone, he could picture every nuance of her as clearly as if she stood in front of him, feel every luscious inch of her body as though she were pressed against him. He closed his eyes to better savor her perfume and groaned lewdly on the exhale. He grinned as he tucked the handkerchief away safely inside his pocket.
She was an affliction and Jacques was infected with her. Tonight, he knew he was powerless against succumbing.
Saturday afternoon was blissfully overcast and foggy, shielding Jacques and Pierre from the sun as they strolled toward the exhibition hall at Earl’s Court to watch The Wild West Show. Each man had a pair of women draped on their arms. A pair of redheaded ballerinas laughed at nothing and smiled up at Jacques. He had always been fond of redheads. Pierre, who liked variety, was accompanied by a very pale brunette and a tan blonde. The women chattered as they walked past a colorful carousel playing cheerful music while its painted horses circled round and round. An army of other spectators crowded the streets as they too made their way toward the show. Tickets were sold out and Earl’s Court seated twenty thousand.
“Peasants. Commoners.” Pierre grimaced as he used his walking stick to shove a small man in pinstriped pants aside. “Commoners everywhere. I miss the good ole days when we didn’t have to mingle with the commoners just to go about our day.”
“Ah, but today we don’t have to worry that every third one of them might have the plague,” Jacques said with a laugh. “I don’t ever remember you complaining about common women.”
“The men are certainly more objectionable.” Pierre brandished his walking stick at a teenage boy who waved a newspaper for purchase too close. “Mustaches and damned bowler hats everywhere you look.” He made a sweeping gesture with his cane. “Look around. It’s a veritable, black, blunt sea of bowler hats.” He purposely knocked off the hat of the nearest man with his walking stick, then smiled falsely at the bald, offended man who had been wearing it. “Terribly sorry. My stick has a mind of its own.”
“Frequent problem for you,” Jacques muttered out of a sideways grin. He paused at a food cart and traded a few coins for a bag of roasted chestnuts.
Several women in nice but plain dresses approached them, waving pamphlets. Suffragettes. Three of them smiled invitingly at Jacques and the remaining two thrust their papers at Pierre’s chest.
“Women voting? What a bizarre idea!” Pierre laughed. Then, just to irk the women and help shoo them away, he added, “This is no way at all to go about getting a husband, dears.”
One of the feistier suffragettes handed Pierre’s brunette a pamphlet and told her scathingly, “Don’t let him seduce you. Marriage will make you nothing but his property.”
Pierre looked at Jacques and scoffed, “They think we want to marry them.”
“If you really want to keep the suffragettes away, just tell them about your brilliant investment ideas,” Jacques suggested wryly. “In only seconds, their eyes will glaze over and they will take flight like a covey of doves.”
“Look down that crooked nose of yours at my investments all you want.” Pierre gestured with his cane like a pointing finger. “But mark my words, the Zeppelin is going to make me a mint. I will accept your apology when you come begging me for money after you lose all yours on that ridiculous motorcar investment.”
As they neared the entrance to the exhibit hall, they passed a gallery of lithograph posters for the Wild West Show, each advertising a different act. Pierre paused to study a poster of Chief Sitting Bull, the legendary Sioux warrior, while the women debated whether the tall King of the Cowboys, Buck Taylor, was more handsome or the bright-eyed trick rider, Fearless George. Jacques was most excited to see Annie Oakley, the pint-size lady sharpshooter heralded as one of the finest shots in the world. Jacques stopped counting performers at twenty. The show was enormous. Even some of the animals in the show were famous enough to have their own posters, from Buffalo Bill’s famous horse, Old Charlie, to wild bison and elk who had been shipped across the sea, and a proclaimed flying black horse called Faust.
Pierre accosted at least another dozen people with his walking stick on the way to their seats. A private balcony booth awaited them, offering both privacy and an excellent view of the center of the ring below. One end of the ring was covered by a tent, like a big top, but its canvas was nondescript and sand-colored, covering about ten square yards of the area. Jacques thought it was odd, but he assumed it was for an act and his attention was quickly diverted elsewhere. They were close to the action, close enough to count the buttons on a man’s coat and clearly see his expression when he stood in the center of the arena. Jacques was very interested in watching the show. Unlike an opera he knew by heart or a play he had seen too many times to count, everything in the Wild West Show was new to him. It had been on his mind the last few decades to visit America – to see for himself all the cowboys and mountain men and wild horses that were ripe fodder for the Penny Dreadfuls – but he had yet to make the journey. He figured that tonight would serve to either turn him off the idea of gunslingers and rough riders, or whet his palette and leave him wanting more.
Because Pierre knew this, he refrained from sampling his women as he usually did for his own private preshow. Instead, they discussed the snippets of American West news that made it to them across the sea while Jacques largely ignored the ballerinas pawing at him on either side.
A young, pimply-faced usher came to their booth to see if they wanted any food or drink before the show. Jacques slipped the kid a whole pound, making the youth’s eyes wide and his smile dopey. With an air of secrecy and importance, Jacques told him, “These fine ladies’ husbands might not look kindly on our taking in an innocent show. I can trust you to tell us if you see any suspicious men nosing around near our booth or inquiring about us?”
“Of course, sir,” the usher promised eagerly and bowed awkwardly. “I’ll keep a sharp watch out.”
Jacques thanked him and Pierre spoke when the usher was gone, “Can’t be too careful these days. Is it just me, or are there more and more hunters after us every year?”
“They multiply like rats in a sewer,” Jacques agreed. “I blame all the free time this younger generation has. They don’t have to toil in the fields like they used to, so how do they occupy their time? Hunting vampires down like trophy stags.”
“Between bowler hats, women campaigning to have the vote, and vampire hunters, society is really going to Hell in a handbasket.” Pierre shook his head.
“Well, we do our part to keep the hunters’ numbers down.” Jacques grinned wickedly and tipped his glass toward Pierre.
“And we have such great fun doing so!” Pierre cheered him back just as an announcer’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker that the show was about to begin.
The crowd cheered when Buffalo Bill himself rode into the ring to greet the many Londoners who had come to see his show. The man was dressed as flamboyantly as an American wildman could be, wearing buckskins with draping fringe and thigh-high boots, and his horse wore a bridle and breast collar set with shining silver conchos. His brown horse, Old Charlie, was as famous a character as any of the other performers and rumored to have the intelligence of a man. Buffalo Bill rode into the center of the ring, jumped off Old Charlie, greeted the crowd and gave them a knightly bow. Remounting, he raced Old Charlie around the ring at a dead run, save for the closed off corner, to give the opening signal for the show to begin. As the horse circled round the ring, they were joined by other performers, all following Old Charlie until they were tantamount to a stampede. The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe came out first after Buffalo Bill, a kaleidoscope of color in their feathered headdresses riding painted war horses and shouting whoops and war cries. Vaqueros from Mexico wearing sombreros and huge-roweled spurs followed, then the cowboys, all firing their six-shooters into the air. The cowboy band played the “Star Spangled Banner” as loudly as possible, trying to outdo the shouts and gunshots.
The opening was a wild scene to the Londoners, riling spectators to stand up in their seats and shout encouragement to the performers. The English had their own style of performance horsemanship, focused on control and refined power. Many had never seen this brand of American horsemanship that seemed to focus on wild abandon and unpredictability as they raced and bucked and kicked around the ring.
Jacques watched raptly, enjoying the wild spectacle. He cheered along with the rest of the crowd when Annie Oakley made her entrance and blew apart several dozen glass balls and clay pigeons thrown through the air by cowboys who rode around the ring at a gallop. She then shot playing cards flung in the air and even hit the bullseye while holding a rifle backwards over her shoulder, using a handheld mirror to aim and fire behind her. For her finale, she called her husband into the ring and shot a cigarette from between his lips.
“See the sort of things a husband must endure at the cruel hands of his wife?” Pierre said to Jacques. “Think better of it, my friend.”
“Yet the poor bastard keeps coming back for more,” Jacques said as he clapped for Annie. “Tells you the reward is greater than the punishment, doesn’t it?”
“My methods ensure a man is only on the rewarding end of women and never the punishing,” Pierre argued, stroking the thigh of his blonde. “I’m certain I can find you plenty of amiable distractions until you’re over this infatuation with your mystery woman.”
At Pierre’s suggestion, one ballerina began caressing Jacques’s thigh and the other trailed her nails down inside his collar. Jacques plucked their hands off him, frowning as he tried to watch the next act. “Good things come to those who wait, ladies.”
“Good God,” Pierre said mostly to himself. “It’s worse than I feared.” He elbowed Jacques in the ribs as a covered wagon was pulled into the ring by a team of eight horses, a dozen cowboys with lever action rifles covered it like spines on a hedgehog. “Where do we find this mystery woman of yours? If you must, I’ll help you fuck the taste of her out of your mouth and then we can fuck other women to get over her. Deal?”
“No.” Jacques grinned and added. “And if I knew where to find her, she’d be here with me now.”
Hot on the trail of the covered wagon was a troop of twenty bandits, all firing live rounds into the canvas wagon cover and near the horses’ hooves. The wagon driver whipped the team of horses into a run, making figure eights inside the ring as the bandits choused them. Both sides fired their rifles and pistols until the air was a haze of dust and gunpowder that stung the eyes and smelled of sulfur and horse sweat.
“Spectacular!” Pierre exclaimed, looking at Jacques.
“Makes me miss the days when I was the one riding out on the tournament field, lance in hand,” Jacques reminisced.
“I always envied the way you handled your lance,” Pierre remarked and pinched the brunette’s thigh to make her squeal.
When the covered wagon had triumphed over the bandits and the dust had settled, the announcer introduced the next performer. “Now that your blood is pumpin,’ raise the roof for our trick rider and one of the Wild West Show’s top all ‘round hands when it comes to ridin’ anything with four legs! Fearless George and Faust!”
An enormous jet-black horse shot into the ring at a dead run, mane and tail blowing out behind him like pennants. The horse was so large as to make the rider look tiny. Jacques wondered how the rider kept the cowboy hat on his head while riding at such a pace. The rider waved to the crowd and with apparent ease, hopped up to stand on the animal’s back as the horse continued to run. The rider was dressed in buckskin pants and a blue shirt, wearing a hat and gunbelt. Fearless George waved to those in front then turned and waved behind him, all while standing on Faust’s back as the horse ran. Still facing the horse’s tail, George dropped back into the saddle, riding backwards for another half turn around the ring. As easily as adjusting his seat on a bench, George twisted his body so he sat sideways in the saddle with his legs crossed demurely to wave to another side of the crowd. He flipped his legs over Faust’s rump again to face the opposite, cross his other leg and wave to the other side of the ring.
Faust still ran at a full gallop when Fearless George dropped from the saddle casually but kept hold of the metal pole that was fixed in the pommel in place of a saddle horn. George took a few bounding strides beside the horse, his feet barely touching the ground as he was carried along by Faust. Using the pole and Faust’s momentum, he bounded back up into the saddle with ease. Faust had now made several passes around the large ring, his black coat glossy with sweat. George pulled him into a sliding stop that threw clumps of dirt from the ring twenty feet out in front of his hooves and dug trenches behind as he skidded to a stop. Faust reared high, almost vertically, and pawed the air with his hooves. George waved to the crowd, but unlike Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, he did not remove his hat in a more formal greeting.
While this was happening, a few crewmen pulled a large wooden object into the center of the ring. It looked vaguely like a trebuchet, but Jacques recognized it as a quintain that was used in training for jousting. The large contraption was fitted with a shield painted with a bullseye on one end of a long swinging arm, the other side held a large heavy bag like a punching bag. To practice timing in the joust, a knight would have to strike the center of the shield, causing the arms to spin and the heavy bag to swing around towards the knight’s head from behind. If the knight didn’t have correct timing, the heavy bag would knock them off their horse. The crewman positioned other smaller shields around the ring, propped up on tall wooden posts like road signs.
The announcer told the crowd, “We have a new trick for you as a nod to the culture of our country and to yours.”
A very tall black-haired cowboy in a red shirt entered the ring holding a lance high. Fearless George spun Faust to face the cowboy and kicked him into a gallop. The cowboy threw the lance to George when he was close and George plucked it out of the air easily. Jacques suspected the lance was made of a light metal and was probably hollow. It would have been quite a feat for him to catch a solid wood lance midair with one hand and make it look simple. Fearless George did not have the build of a strong man and sat lightly on Faust while spinning the horse around again and positioning the lance.
The crowd cheered when George charged at the quintain, lance aimed across Faust’s neck. Even Jacques watched avidly, leaning forward in his seat with excitement. It had been ages since he’d seen anyone wield a lance properly. Faust arched his neck and picked his hooves high as he charged the target, looking every bit the destrier. George held the lance with a steady aim with the correct balance of firmness in the shoulder and give in the torso. He struck the target dead center, exploding the wooden shield and causing the quintain to swing around fast with the heavy bag. George dropped the lance and in the same fluid movement, flipped around in the saddle like he had done previously as he drew a pistol from its holster. Before the heavy bag could reach him, he fired a shot into it, bursting the bag also in a geyser of sand. The crowd hollered and Jacques laughed at the mix of weaponry, as George flipped back around in the saddle to face forward.
George put Faust’s reins in his teeth and filled his left hand with his other pistol. With a gun in each hand, he charged around the ring firing at the other shield targets that had been set out by the crewmen. George weaved Faust between the targets, firing left and right and filling the air with gunpowder and wooden splinters. It was a relatively simple feat of marksmanship for a competent shot, but the horsemanship was exceptional for Faust to comply with such a ruckus.
Pierre squinted his eyes to focus better when George passed near them during a turn around the ring and prodded Jacques again with his elbow, “Would you look at the ass on George? It’s enough to make a man forget he has an eager woman on each arm.”
Jacques laughed, but couldn’t help but stare. He didn’t share Pierre’s tastes in this regard, but he had to admit he had never seen an ass that enticing on a man before.
When George’s guns were empty and the targets obliterated, he guided Faust prancing back toward the center of the ring. Faust bowed deeply, going down on one knee and touching his nose to the ground. Fearless George gestured graciously, but again didn’t remove his hat. Faust stood back up from his bow and nodded his head at the crowd, seeming to approve of the deafening applause and shouts that filled the stadium. With a final high rear, George sent Faust prancing away out of the ring, swishing his tail haughtily.
“Now, we have a real treat for all you Brits!” the announcer boomed through the loudspeaker. “Following our fearless knight is our own king. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Make some noise for Buck Taylor, King of the Cowboys!”
The crowd cheered and hollered, boisterously enough to make Jacques’s ears ring. Pierre, too, winced from the sound. He leaned toward Jacques and screamed into his ear to make his joke heard, “What do you wager the American cowboy king has an even bigger gun than the rest of them?”
But instead of a gun, the King of the Cowboys burst into the ring on a grulla paint horse fuming in a full-blown, violent, buck. The horse stormed ahead, kicking and bucking and rearing, snorting steam like a dragon, black mane and tail whipping through the air. The man riding him was very tall with a thick mustache and long black hair that matched his horse’s mane. Both horse and rider had piercing blue eyes. His red shirt and red and white spotted chaps made from Axis deer hide clashed with the black, grey, and white of the horse and the dull dust in the ring. The man sat the horse easily, riding each buck and twist as though his horse was taking him for a leisurely trot in the pasture. He kept his right hand held high, not touching the saddle horn as he waved to the crowd. The horse squealed and bucked, twisting high into the air and flashing his white belly up to the sky. The cowboy hooted cheerily and spurred the horse when he landed, sending him into another angry fit of bucking and carousing. Horse and rider were fused together as wholly as a centaur, and nothing the horse tried no matter how frantic or vicious could unseat the man.
Pierre elbowed Jacques and smirked, “Look at this dandy! Long hair, garish attire, taking up entirely too much space and making himself the center of attention. Hardly the way a gentleman should present himself.”
“Good thing I’m never garish,” Jacques quipped as he watched the man. It was a rare man who was Jacques’s equal in stature and build, but this King of the Cowboys looked very close. He was handsome too. Jacques hated him instantly.
Eight seconds didn’t enter into this act. Buck Taylor rode the horse until the animal was too tired to buck anymore, and only had the energy to crowhop around the ring. The bucking had lasted the length of a full act as long as the others. When the horse slowed to a walk, sides heaving and foam dripping from his belly and mouth, the tall cowboy kicked one leg out of his stirrup and over the horse’s neck to easily step off his mount and land on the ground. Without missing a step, he walked toward the center of the ring, taking off his enormous cowboy hat to take a bow.
“I’ve never seen a horse buck so hard,” Pierre remarked. “The Yanks are going full-bore for us.”
“Clearly you don’t remember the time when my horse’s crupper whipped him in the flank,” Jacques scoffed and rubbed the hump in the bridge of his nose. “He bucked so hard, his crinet came lose and broke my nose.”
“Well then, I haven’t seen a horse buck so hard since the Battle of Poitiers,” Pierre laughed.
As the man straightened from his bow, Faust, the black horse from the previous act burst through the entry gate. This time he was riderless and bridleless, seemingly in command of himself as he galloped toward the cowboy. Buck turned to bow again to the other side of the ring and Faust slowed to a prancing trot. Neck arched and legs stepping high, the horse trotted up to Buck from behind. When Buck straightened from his second bow and raised his hat back toward his head, Faust bit the brim of the hat and yanked it out of the cowboy’s hand. The black horse jumped sideways when the man cursed and made a grab for the hat, and sped away in a long, elegant trot around the ring. Buck gave chase for a few steps before waving off the horse in frustrated resignation.
Faust looked back at the man and appeared to feel guilty for stealing his hat. He slowed to a walk, dropped his head in contrition, and ambled back to the man. Buck walked to meet the horse with his long arm outstretched, the large rowels on his spurs jingling. When the horse was almost within Buck’s reach, Faust yanked his head back, holding the hat up in the air like a prize, out of reach of even the tall man. The horse taunted the man, dipping the hat lower then jerking it back when the man made a grab for it.
A whistle sounded from the opposite side of the arena where a new gate had been opened. Faust wheeled around and galloped toward the whistler, hat still clenched in his teeth. The hat-stealing act had been a distraction, no one had paid attention to the woman entering the ring. A woman stood near the newly opened gate, dressed rather lewdly in only a gold bathing suit and leather booties. Her thighs and arms were bare, her lovely figure on display, and her hair loose, earning various gasps of shock and catcalls from the crowd.
At the other end of the ring, several crewmen pulled the canvas tent away from what it had covered during the show. A huge pool of water was revealed, an extra-deep diving pool. Jacques frowned in confusion, wondering at its purpose.
“Well, Folks, it looks like our trick rider has one more trick up her sleeve,” the announcer said. “George…” he let his voice trail away, then boomed louder, “George…ette. Georgette, the High-Flyer! Best ya’ll sittin’ close make sure you don’t get splashed.”
“By God!” Pierre laughed. “It’s a woman!”
“It’s her,” Jacques said quietly, almost to himself.
Pierre looked at him sideways. “Her her? What wretched luck. Well, there’s a legitimate chance she breaks her pretty neck in the next few moments.”
Only then did Jacques notice that the gate opened to a ramp near the pool. The ramp too had been covered with canvas and Jacques had taken it for nothing more than covered stairs to reach the higher seats. Now the canvas covering had been pulled away to reveal a long metal ramp, like a long livestock loading chute. It ran at a steep angle up for sixty-feet and opened to nothing but thin air high above the pool. Jacques had heard about the wildly dangerous American stunt of horse diving, but he never thought he would see it firsthand. Let alone, watch a woman carry his heart over a sixty-foot precipice with her on the back of a flying black horse.
Faust galloped toward Georgette, who looked very small and fragile compared to the enormous thundering animal. The hat dropped from Faust’s mouth and flew over his back to flutter in the dust behind him. Faust looked as if he would run right over Georgette, passing by her with only inches between their bodies and not slowing a stride. Georgette grabbed the long silver horn of the saddle and swung herself up onto the horse’s back with ease. Faust didn’t slow as he barreled into the shoot. It looked barely wide enough to accommodate the horse and woman’s bare legs on either side of him. Hooves drummed like a gatling gun up the metal ramp as Faust lunged up the steep incline. He charged as he reached the end, vaulting out into space like it was nothing more than clearing a low fence.
Jacques shot forward in his seat, all but leaning out over the rail as he watched the horse and woman dive through the air toward the cold, navy water far below. Faust’s mane and Georgett’s hair blew out behind them as they fell, Faust’s tail flowing behind him like a sail. The horse’s form was as fine as any professional diver, his body stretched long like an arrow with his front hooves tucked under his chest and his ears flattened against his neck. Georgette kept her seat on his back, clutching his mane tight. She tucked her head against his neck before they hit, burying her face in his mane.
They hit the water with a great splash, submerging entirely, and Jacques thought that both horse and woman must have broken their necks. While horses were usually fine during such stunts, it wasn’t uncommon for riders to break bones, including their necks, or blind themselves. To Jacques, it seemed like they took an eternity to surface. He sighed with relief when Faust erupted from the water, blowing water from his nose, and swam to the head of the pool where the bottom was ramped to allow the horse to trot out with Georgette still seated on his back. She whipped her head back, dramatically slinging the hair out of her face like a mermaid breaching the waves. She arched her back and waved to the crowd to a great chorus of cheers, shouts, and applause. Jacques was up on his feet, clapping harder than anyone and watching her every movement in that revealing gold swimsuit.
“All of us cowboys and cowgirls hope you have enjoyed our little Wild West Show!” the announcer called. “If you liked it, tell your friends! If you didn’t like it, tell your friends all the same!”
After her dive, Georgette only took the time to ensure her horse received a good petting and a treat from her hand before she handed him off to a groom and hurried to her dressing room. In those few minutes, she was shivering and her teeth chattering. The cold was biting in London this late in the year, made worse by the humidity, and she felt chilled to her bones. She wouldn’t have performed a dive this late in the season for any regular show, but this was a special occasion.
Thankfully, a tub filled with steaming water awaited her. While the rest of the crew hobnobbed with the Lords and Ladies who wanted to meet the genuine American roughnecks in person, Georgette lounged in the tub. She considered this a score on two fronts. She had a rare moment to relax while also avoiding the obligatory socializing the rest of the crew underwent. Her dressing room was tiny, barely large enough to accommodate the tub and a mirrored vanity. Several bouquets of flowers crowded the vanity with a few overflow bouquets propped in one corner. The steam from the water filled the little room with an opaque haze that smelled of roses and Parisian bath salts. It was Georgette’s most relaxed moment of the day.
The near-scalding water and rosy bubbles were usually enough to relax her muscles and quell her thoughts in a few minutes, but as she lounged in the bath, she felt the odd but unmistakable sensation of being watched. It was absurd inside the little room. There was certainly no place for anyone to hide. She closed her eyes, forcing her mind to more rational pursuits, and breathed deep. Sinking deeper into the water, she glimpsed a figure through her half-lidded eyes. She shot bolt upright in the tub, sloshing water over the side, ready to fight the towering shadow she saw in the corner. But of course, there was nothing there. She saw that now, with her eyes fully open. It was a trick of the haze through her half-closed eyes, perhaps combined with the general strangeness of being so far away from home. Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she relaxed back into the water.
She was interrupted again by a knock on her door, and a voice as smooth and warm as bourbon spoke to her from the other side.
“Begging your pardon, miss,” Jacques crooned, a grin audible on his words. “I wished to congratulate the star of the show, but a rather imperious groom told me that I had to have permission from his owner to give Faust an apple.”
“I’ll relay your adulation.” She smiled.
“I would also very much like to congratulate his rider,” Jacques said through the door.
“Is this how a gentleman approaches a lady?” she replied, glaring at the door. “I was told British men had more decorum.”
“I would be remiss to represent myself as a gentleman,” Jacques said in a huskier tone. “Furthermore, I have seen enough of you to know that you would not be frightened away by a little thing like a lack of decorum.”
“I could forgive your trespass of accosting me in the bath, but I do not look kindly on you attending my show flaunting a woman on each arm.” She settled back in the tub, refusing to look at the door even if he couldn’t see her small act of rejection. “Women I gather you’ve now abandoned to come here and stand insolently outside my door.”
He was silent for a moment and she added, “My spies are everywhere.”
“They are nothing more than aperitifs.” Jacques waved his hand dismissively. “Fleeting company for an evening. Certainly not the sort of women I would pursue across the city, and plead with through a locked door.”
“You’re very open about your actions with them,” she huffed with unveiled disgust.
“I do not wish to embark on a journey with a lie when it holds the promise of something lasting and genuine.” He leaned against the door. Even through the wood, her enticing scent carried to him, heavy on the steam.
“Your words are as fancy as your tailored suit,” she quipped. “I have no doubt you can slip into the role of a Cassanova as easily as you can don a topcoat. One is just as superficial as the other.”
“How would you have me prove otherwise?” Jacques spoke to the door, his prominent nose nearly grazing the wood. “Give me any task, milady. Anything you wish.”
“Were I to give you such a task, it would certainly not be something in which I thought you would excel.” She thought for a moment. “No, it would have to be something at which you are terrible. Something utterly demeaning and embarrassing.”
“Demeaning and embarrassing?” Jacques laughed. “Well, I’ll admit that’s a first. You can’t know what a rarity it is for me to experience something for the first time with anyone.”
“A first for a man like you?” she scoffed. “Oh, I’m sure you’re quite the blushing bride behind closed doors.”
“I could sing for you,” Jacques offered with a grin. “That would demean and embarrass me.”
“It’s obvious you’re very impressed with yourself, and no doubt used to impressing women with ease. I have no interest in any of your tactics you’ve employed on other ladies like so much unsuspecting prey.” She ran a soapy sponge down the side of her neck. “You must do for me something you have never done for any other women.”
“What privilege will that earn me?” he asked in a lower tone.
“The privilege of making me smile.” She smiled to herself. “What else would you possibly expect a lady to promise in return? I wonder at the species of harlot you must be accustomed to.”
“If you’re concerned about setting yourself apart, you already have,” Jacques crooned.
“I’m flattered, but that was not my concern,” she said flatly. “You’ve yet to set yourself apart to me. Aside from your pretty face and your brass, I’m waiting to be impressed.”
“I have a pretty face, do I?” He smirked. “I’ll try my best not to keep you wanting. Give me a proper chance, and I cannot fail to impress you.”
“Admittedly, I’m somewhat impressed you haven’t barged in here,” she laughed. “You seem to go and do as you please with little regard for decorum.”
“Says the woman who rides wild horses wearing nearly nothing. I do indeed go and do as I please. But while I put little stock in decorum, I am not so much a boor as to intrude upon the intimate ablutions of a lady without her permission.” He dropped his voice to his sultriest tone. “Do I have your permission to enter, mon cherie?”
A gruff voice interrupted from behind Jacques, “This man botherin’ you, Georgie?” The tall King of the Cowboys projected his voice loud enough to be easily heard through the door. He was possessive over Georgette in a way that made Jacques think he had a reason to be. It was almost enough to incite him to murder right then and there. Sadly, that would probably not be the best approach to win the woman’s affection.
“You seem rather comfortable entering a lady’s dressing room,” Jacques said instead, keeping his words relatively innocuous while flashing a rude sneer at the man to silently provoke him. It would be beautiful if the ruffian took a swing at Jacques and gave him the opening to respond in kind. Jacques noticed the cowboy wore a gold earring in one ear, giving him a piratical look. It took great restraint for Jacques to refrain from yanking it out.
Buck didn’t bite on the provocation. He grinned and put a hand-rolled cigarette between his lips. “Who says I ain’t got a good reason to be nice ‘n comfortable here?”
“Neither of you are entitled to feel comfortable in my dressing room,” Georgette reprimanded them both through the door. “Or haranguing me from outside my door, for that matter.”
“Where, then, shall I harangue you?” Jacques persisted, casting a side eye at the other man.
“You’re quite good at finding me,” she teased. “I’m sure you’ll connive yet another inconvenient opportunity to bother me.”
“I will, that’s a promise,” Jacques agreed and grinned wickedly at the cowboy. “Until then, darling.”
Jacques straightened and Buck bristled. Jacques was satisfied to see that he stood a fraction taller than the other man when his back was straight. Holding the cowboy’s blue stare, Jacques walked past him so close they almost brushed shoulders. He made his challenge clear and belligerent. What great sport it would be if the beastly American took the bait.
The sights of London were almost overwhelming for someone from Colorado where a paved street was a novelty. Colorado Springs was one of the few towns with a modern brick street down the center of town. Georgette had ample experience with mountain lions and wild horses, miners and mountain men, and gunfights with two men walking out into the street and only one returning. But the sights of London were unlike anything she had experienced, they were fantastical to her. To see gas lamps illuminating shiny cobblestone streets well into the night, and even the occasional building lit with electric light. She was determined to see as much of the spectacular city as she could while she was there.
Georgette preferred to take in the city in the afternoons and into the evenings. The crowds were diminished during those hours and, more importantly, she wanted to minimize the risk of her being recognized. The best part of her act was her change from Fearless George the trick rider to Georgette the horse diver. It never failed to earn a riotous applause from the audience. Likewise, she didn’t ride out in town on Faust, although she would have preferred to, so he could not be recognized as the trick horse from the show who flies off the high dive platform.
The sun was sinking toward the Western horizon as she strolled down a lively street on her first day off after the remarkably successful weekend shows. Steely clouds crept across the sky, making the waning sunlight look like a bloody wound seeping through grey gauze, and the evening air was cool on her skin. She was not in the habit of wearing a bustle – in the American West, high fashion was still something of a novelty outside of the biggest cities. She had come prepared with fine dresses and accoutrements should the occasion call for it, but for her sightseeing outings, it was convenient to dress simply and it eased her movements. She kept a brisk pace with no bustle to hamper her and only a modest front-lacing corset that didn’t constrict her breathing.
Gas lamps lining the street had been freshly lit casting glimmering light on the city slick with foggy dew. Carriages trotted up and down the street filling the air with the cadence of hooves on stone and the vague smell of horse sweat and leather mingled with the damp smell of the city. Clothing stores displayed the most stylish fashion in their windows, but what caught Georgette’s eye was a striking lithograph poster advertising a magician show. She paused in front of the poster of Kylo the Malevolent, looking into the magician’s eyes that were penetrating even on poster stock. She was reminded of a short story she had read ages ago called Vampyre. She thought it would be nice to take in a magic show, or visit one of the famous cabinets of curiosities in the city.
The familiar sounds of the dwindling chatter of the evening carried on behind her, mixed with the clatter of horse’s hooves. One pair of clattering hooves grew louder, the horse coming close to her. The hooves stopped suddenly as she whipped around, startled. Georgette came face to face with the soft muzzle of a large dapple-grey horse, standing so close she could feel the heat of its breath. Seated on the animal was a large handsome man, grinning down at her devilishly with mischief gleaming in his vibrant eyes.
Jacques Le Gris tipped his head back to look up at the gloomy evening sky and held his gloved hand out as if to test for any rain. He returned his eyes to hers, grinned again, and told her, “A perfectly fine evening to harangue a lovely lady, is it not?”
“I already have my evening planned, I’m afraid,” she said coyly and continued walking down the sidewalk on her way.
Jacques kept his horse facing her as she walked, making the horse side-pass perfectly down the street with his front hooves inches from the sidewalk. He sat straight and poised in the saddle in the English style, his commands to the horse almost invisible. “You’re not the only one with tricks, mademoiselle.”
“Men and their tricks are almost always tiresome. If I wanted to see parlor tricks, I would take in the devious looking magician’s show,” she said dismissively as she walked ahead without sparing him a glance. “I believe I told you I would enjoy seeing you perform some embarrassing act for me? I would have been much more impressed if you had appeared riding a donkey with your laughably large feet dragging the ground.”
“You’ve not yet given me the chance to properly embarrass myself,” Jacques countered, still commanding his horse to prance sideways and keep him facing her as at ease as if he sat in his favorite chair. “I thought you might enjoy your conquest more if you were to embarrass me yourself.”
This piqued her interest, and she turned to cock a curious eyebrow at him.
“I took you for a lady who would want to seize victory herself,” Jacques said. “Anything less would be a pyrrhic victory, would it not?” He gestured down at his horse and gave his voice a teasingly haughty air. “You’re quite an impressive rider. For a woman. I wonder how you’d fare in a race against me.”
“Since I am afoot at present, you have me at a disadvantage,” she huffed.
“And if you were astride that black beast of yours?” he asked as his horse danced sideways, snorting impatiently.
“I’d wipe that smug grin off your face in less than a furlong,” she said without batting an eye.
Jacques had timed it perfectly because as Georgette finished her statement, she reached a cross street. Standing at the curb where the cab carriages usually waited for customers was Faust. Georgette stopped short, shocked to see her horse saddled in her western gear, his ears pricked forward to greet her. The foulest looking man she had ever seen held Faust’s reins – if such a deformed monstrosity could be called a man. The wretched creature looked like he had been plagued with leprosy, but that the disease might have improved his features.
“What the hell is this?” she asked angrily as she rushed to her horse and yanked the reins away from the loathsome man who looked at her with hazy black eyes. “Did you steal him? I hope you did, because if not, I’m going to skin that horrible little stable hand alive!”
“I had to bribe him so well, I am the man who is the victim of theft,” Jacques laughed. “Don’t be too hard on the stable hand. I can be more persuasive than most.”
“Persistent does not equate to persuasive,” she quipped, satisfied that her horse appeared fine.
“If you want to reprimand me,” Jacques smirked. “You’ll have to catch me.”
“What are you thinking?” she asked exasperatedly. “That I will just happily climb onto my horse after you stole him, and engage you in an impromptu race? While wearing a dress, I might add.”
“When you put it like that, I can see how it could be too much for you.” He grinned wider.
“Nothing you can throw my way is too much for me,” she scoffed at him and at herself for succumbing so easily to his provocation. Backing down from a challenge was not a form of restraint she had ever mastered, nor ever cared to. She glanced quickly down at her dress. It was not a split skirt designed for riding and she wore heeled boots instead of riding boots, an outfit entirely ill-suited for riding.
“I promise to keep my composure even if you’re risqué enough to hike your skirt up and expose your ankles,” he teased, looking pointedly at the hem of her dress.
“I don’t need to ride astride to best a braggart,” she said as she walked to the left side of her horse, preparing to mount.
“Do you need a hand?” he asked, edging his horse closer.
“Certainly not,” she huffed and swung herself up into the saddle. She kept her left foot in the stirrup and hooked her right over the saddle horn to sit in a makeshift sidesaddle. To ride astride, she would have had to pull her skirts up around her thighs, which was probably exactly what Jacques was hoping for and she would never give him the satisfaction. Glaring at Jaques, she smoothed her skirts primly, ensuring they draped down past her ankles and exposed no skin.
“I wasn’t expecting so much modesty from a woman who bares her legs in front of thousands of spectators to ride bareback and plunge into water,” Jacques teased, bringing his horse close to hers.
“We both know I’m safer exposed in front of a crowd of thousands than one dangerous man,” she returned, holding her horse in place as he pawed his front hoof in anticipation.
“Any danger within me is no threat to you,” Jacques told her seriously. “I would never harm you.”
“Neither my person nor my reputation?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
Jacques grinned and shrugged without answering.
“Just what I thought.” She smiled back. “I’m sure you have more tricks up your sleeve than that Magician on all the posters.”
“I do. He’s an amateur,” Jacques dropped his voice. “But if you wish to be awed, I’m sure I can think of something to accommodate you.” When she only replied with a bored expression, he cleared his throat and told her, “Hyde Park isn’t far. It has a nice dirt track running along its south side called Rotten Row. We can race around as many times as it takes you to win.”
“How boring,” she said dismissively. “I’ll race you to Rotten Row from here instead.” With that, she poked her horse in the shoulder and clicked her tongue in some practiced cue. Faust pinned his ears and struck out at Jacques’s horse like an angry cat, landing a painful bite to the other horse’s rump.
Jacques’s horse squealed indignantly and jumped forward like he had been rudely whipped. Georgette laughed and kicked Faust, sending him into a gallop in two powerful lunges. Jacques cursed his startled horse as he reined him back under control, then laughed deeply as he watched Georgette gallop away from him. Jacques kicked his horse, making him rear then jump into a run after his opponent. The horse slid when his front hooves struck the cobblestone with a riot of sparks, giving Georgette another few strides lead. Georgette cast a look back over her shoulder to see how far ahead she was and laughed heartily at her early lead. Jacques caught her eye and winked. His horse was powerful and used to races and steeplechase, and he gained ground fast.
The horses flew the length of a block in seconds, sending the ghostly evening mist swirling around their legs. In the second block, Jacques’s horse came even with Faust’s haunch as the beasts galloped against each other. Jacques was close enough that could have reached out and grabbed the hem of Georgette’s dress as it billowed behind her leg as she rode sidesaddle. An alley branched off the street on their left. Georgette could see little inside it but shadows in the lateness of the evening. When Faust came to the alley, Georgette reined him, forcing his back hooves to slide on the cobblestone as he sat back his haunches to make the tight turn.
“Do try to keep up!” Georgette shouted over her shoulder.
The alley was narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate a horse and rider. Jacques had to sit back on his reins and bring his horse into a skid to slow enough to make the turn, grinning as he did at having such fine sport. He did not have the masculine weakness of being unable to admit when he met a woman who was his equal or even his superior, albeit this was a rare occurrence. He was pleased and enthused to have met one now, at least when seated on the back of a horse. Georgette tucked her toes against Faust’s side, wary of them striking some protrusion she couldn’t see in the dark. Fortunately, horses have better night vision than humans and Faust avoided any obstacles in his path. Georgette barely saw the pile of crates that had been carelessly discarded in the alley until they were nearly upon them, but Faust gathered himself for the jump and soared over them with ease, landing without breaking the stride of his gallop.
Of course, vampires could see even better in the dark than horses. Jacques’s sight was equal to a wolf or panther or any other nocturnal beast. The pile of crates was as visible to him as white bones in the desert. He saw every detail of the black horse ahead of him and his beautiful rider. Even as his horse took the jump, Jacques’s eyes were fixed on the way Georgette kept a perfect seat and the lovely view he had of that seat devoid of a bustle.
“Bear right if you wish to keep your lead to Hyde Park!” Jacques boomed over the cadence of hoofbeats when Georgette reached the end of the alley.
The alley emptied onto a street through a business district lined with closed shops and nearly devoid of traffic as nightfall approached. One shop owner who was late in closing up glared at them through his window when the pair of horses thundered down the cobblestone in front of his door. Jacques’s horse was shod and the iron shoes sparked on the cobblestone making him look like a silver beast fueled by hellfire, snorting with every stride. A lone cab drawn by a single horse trotted down the street toward them. The horse startled when Jacques and Georgette each flew past him on opposite sides, and the driver cursed them and threw in their mothers for good measure.
Neck and neck, they barreled into Hyde Park. The pair of horses tore down the dirt track called Rotten Row, kicking up clods of dirt under their thundering hooves. Rotten Row was a popular lane for riders, but in the gloaming Jacques and Georgette were alone. Trees grew close on either side of the lane, their branches hanging close enough to grasp at them like witches’ claws. Both horses were large and powerful, not running fleetly like thoroughbreds, but charging ahead like destriers ridden by knights of old. As they neared a bend in the track, Jacques kicked his horse to get a small burst of additional speed. He swept his right hand through Georgette’s skirt and laughed as he passed her, surging into the turn just ahead of her.
Darkness had settled over them while they had raced through town and the stars winked down through the veil of clouds leaving them in shadows and the light spectral mist as they charged down the row.
A violent crack tore the soft belly out of the night, as sharp as the bite of a bullwhip, and the trees at their side thrashed into the lane like an army of living branches. Jacques’s horse buckled when he hit the rope strung across the lane, catapulting forward over his head and neck in a macabre somersault. And rolling over Jacques as he did. A rope attached to a mostly sawn-through tree was run across the lane, acting as a boobytrap to bring a tree down on top of a rider unlucky enough to hit it – if the rope didn’t behead him first.
A ton of tree trunk and barren branches as sharp as spears came crashing down on the crumpled mass of Jacques and his horse as they both thrashed and kicked painfully over the ground. The last sight Georgette had of Jacques was of his magnificent chest being crushed between his horse’s neck and the unforgiving ground as his horse rolled over him, and his flesh being lanced by branches before the tree crushed down upon both horse and rider.
Faust stopped on his own, not needing a command from his rider to dig his hooves into the dirt and slide to a stop before colliding with the fallen tree. It was fortunate Faust took care of himself and Georgette because she was paralyzed with horror, a scream trapped in her throat tight enough to strangle her. She vaguely registered noises in the trees on either side of her, but her mind was at once both reeling and numb. Faust stomped his hooves and shifted nervously as Georgette slid off his back and stumbled awkwardly on wavering legs. She clutched Faust’s reins in a shaking fist and her chest felt tighter than the most unforgiving corset. The tree that had crushed Jacques and his horse thrashed on the ground in front of her, no doubt from the wounded animal pinned beneath it. She didn’t want to get any closer to it or see what horror it had caused. But she had to help Jacques. Even if she knew he could not possibly walk away from such an accident, and likely not survive it.
Suddenly, the trees on either side of the lane erupted with dark snarling bodies bursting from them and charging at Georgette. A pack of large hounds leapt at her from the foliage, their teeth bared, snarling their intent. She recognized the roman noses and bristled fur that belonged to Irish Wolfhounds as they charged her and Faust. She heard the shouts of their master’s still inside the trees. The nearest dog leapt at her, teeth bared, and she whipped the reins she held across its eyes as she ducked sideways. The hound yelped and stumbled, missing his aim for her throat. A second dog caught her sleeve, growling as it tried to yank her to the ground. Faust struck out with his front hoof and hit the dog in the head, knocking its jaw slack. He reared and pawed down onto the hound’s neck, driving it into the ground and killing it instantly.
A pack of several dogs were digging at the fallen tree, braying and snarling like they were hot on the scent of their prey. Two dogs attacked Faust from behind, biting his heels and hocks in an attempt to cripple him. The horse kicked and bucked, inadvertently yanking Georgette off balance from her hold on the reins. One dog he kicked loose switched its attention to Georgette and jumped at her with open, bloody jaws. On instinct, she raised her arm in front of her face and felt the sharp crunching pain of the dog sinking its teeth into her forearm as the weight of the large hound knocked her backward onto the ground. The dog weighed as much as an average man and muscled her to her back on the ground with its weight. Despite the pain in her forearm, she wedged it deeper into the dog’s mouth, using it as a barrier between the ravening beast and her face.
It must only have been seconds since Jacques’s horse fell and the tree crushed them both, but time had dragged on as agonizingly as the pain spearing Georgette’s arm. Something broke out of the fallen tree with explosive force, like a lion breaking free of a wooden cage. Branches and splinters flew through the air like shrapnel and several dogs howled with fear and yelped with pain. Georgette could see nothing but the mottled fur and beady eyes of the dog above her, and then with sudden brute force, the dog was ripped away from her with a pained squeal and thrown across the lane as though it were a stuffed toy.
Jacques stood above her, his shoulders hunched in a fighting stance, wearing a snarl more ferocious than the hounds. His fists weren’t balled, his hands open instead, as if he was hoping to rip living bodies apart with them. There were tears in his jacket, across his back and shoulders, and his undershirt was scarlet with his own blood. Blood streaked his face and ran from his lips, but she didn’t see any obvious injuries. His eyes raced over her body, assessing her injuries quickly without diverting his attention from his attackers. One of the braver hounds lunged at Jacques’s face, but met with his hand as Jacques caught it in the air by its throat with his crushing fist. Another dog took the opening to jump onto his back, snapping down at the back of his neck and trying to paralyze him like a wounded animal. Growling with rage, Jacques shook the hound off his back and threw the hound he held by the throat into the other, sending them both careening over the ground and running away with terrified yelps.
Jacques stepped over Georgette, placing himself between her and whatever other danger still lurked in the trees. Though his movements were not frantic, he moved with unnatural quickness. He appeared to not even be hurried, yet the lines of him were blurred with his swiftness, like a striking viper. His eyes were narrowed and vicious, focused on something in the trees that Georgette couldn’t see. Slowly, he knelt beside her and took her arm. He didn’t spare the time to examine the dog bite as he pulled her up to her feet. Though she was perfectly capable of standing, walking, or anything else that was needed of her, Jacques lifted her into his arms and swung her up onto her horse. He placed her foot in her stirrup and let his hand linger on her calf.
“Run, darling,” he told her as he squeezed her leg. “Run out of the park. I’ll deal with them. They won’t catch you.”
“Who’s they?” she asked as she gathered her reins to control Faust as he danced nervously in place.
“I’ll come to you after I’ve handled this.” He didn’t answer her question.
Jacques turned to face the trees, shoulders bunched and teeth bared wolfishly. A growl rumbled in his thick chest, an inhuman sound that raised the hairs on Georgette’s neck. Faust reared in fright and tried to bolt away from Jacques, but she reined him back. The black horse kept his composure amid gunfire and battle, but he reared and spun in place now, rattled with such fear that his body quivered, his nostrils flared, and his eyes rolled until they showed white as he side-eyed Jacques. It unnerved Georgette to see that it was not the hounds nor the attack that had terrified her horse, but Jacques. Georgette saw it too, the way Jacques looked ravenous and bestial with his wild hair and predatory stance. His eyes were no longer amber, but glinted a lupine yellow, his lateral incisors had grown to points and his canines were long, sharpened fangs. Images flashed through Georgette’s mind, conjured from the tales and legends she had heard growing up in the Wild West – tales of skinwalkers and werewolves.
She didn’t have long to ponder it.
Something shot out of the trees faster than the eye could follow. With great swiftness, Jacques twisted sideways and caught the thing out of the air as it flew past his head. A steel arrow with brutally hooked barbs was trapped in his fist. Attached to the fletching was a steel chain that was drawn taught, leading back to a crossbow designed to hook its prey and drag it back to the hunter like a whaling harpoon. Jacques yanked the arrow and attached chain toward him, snarling with delight.
A shout came from the trees followed by the thrashing of foliage as Jacques dragged a man out of the brush like a salmon on a fishing line. The man still held his crossbow, trying futility to gain the upper hand with Jacques. Two other men charged out of the trees holding weapons unlike any Georgette had ever seen, something like snub-barreled shotguns with multiple, large-bore barrels. She didn’t hesitate. Georgette pulled her tiny pepperbox derringer from the garter on her thigh and fired two of its six barrels into the closest man, blowing his head apart like a ripe pumpkin. As the first man collapsed, blood spurting from the blown-open side of his face and empty, gaping eye socket, Georgette fired another round into the second man. The bullet flew straight into his open mouth and blew out the back of his head in chunky pink mist.
Both men were on the ground twitching in the second it took Jacques to reel in his attacker. Jacques whipped his hand across the man’s face, hooking his thumb under the man’s jawbone like hooking a fish, and violently ripped the poor bastard’s jaw completely off with one swipe. The man’s eyes bulged almost comically and his tongue twitched from side to side in a gaping bloody hole, free and confused without its seat in the jaw.
Still clutching the man’s detached jaw, Jacques held it at eye level and addressed it like Hamlet’s skull, “What else should I rip off your owner for attacking a lady and casting a pall over a rather promising evening?”
The man’s eyes widened impossibly further and a wet gargling screech hissed from the hole in his face when he guessed Jacques’s intent. Jacques flipped the jaw in his hand so the lower teeth faced outward and rammed it with all his brute strength into what remained of the man’s face. The man’s own lower teeth cut into the bridge of his nose and ruptured one of his eyes. As the man staggered backward, Jacques grabbed his lapels and yanked the man toward him. Jacques bent forward and attacked the man’s neck, tearing into it like a rabid beast and ripping the flesh of his throat apart.
Georgette had never seen such gruesome violence. She was unable to look away, her eyes still locked on Jacques when he turned to face her, his beard and chest coated in viscous, dripping blood. Faust trembled beneath her and the remaining wolfhounds brayed mournfully over their dead owners. The gun in her hand moved with a mind of its own as it drifted toward Jacques’s chest.
Jacques raised his bloody hands and grinned, flashing sharp canines shining scarlet. He approached her slowly, the way he would a frightened animal, and held out his right hand. “May I?” He gestured for her derringer.
Wordlessly, she handed him the little pistol. Whatever he was, Jacques had protected her, so she rationalized that she needn’t fear him. Jacques took the gun and walked back to the opposite side of the fallen tree. He knelt and stroked the dapple-grey neck of his horse, still trapped beneath the tree and breathing with difficulty. “Au revoir, mon ami,” he said with hoarse regret as he soothingly petted the horse’s neck with his left hand and fired a shot into its head to end its misery. He straightened and looked down at his horse for a long moment until he was sure no tears would breach his eyes before he walked back to Georgette.
Four wolfhounds still circled them, heads lowered, watching them warily. Jacques rolled his shoulders and growled at them more vicious and rumbling than any canine, so guttural his hair seemed to rise like the hair on the hounds’ backs. The hounds whimpered and dropped their heads in submission before backing away slowly and deferentially.
“I told you to run,” Jacques said with gravel in his voice when he again stood beside Faust.
“I don’t run scared. And I damn sure don’t follow orders,” she said firmly. “I’m sorry about your horse.”
“So am I.” He handed her the derringer and rested his hand on her thigh to comfort himself.
“Are you a werewolf?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Christ, no!” Jacques spat, almost hissing as his hackled rose like a cat sprayed with water. “I will tell you on the ride home.”
“Home?” She frowned.
“I keep a home in town,” Jacques gestured at his blood-soaked clothing. “Imagine how the rumors will run rampant if I am seen looking like Jack the Ripper.”
Without waiting for an invitation, Jacques swung up onto Faust behind Georgette and looped his arms lightly around her waist. His breath was hot on her ear and smelled of coppery blood. Wet heat seeped through her clothing on her back from Jacques’s blood-soaked chest pressed against her.
“Is the blood yours or theirs?” she asked as she turned Faust away from the chaos.
“Mine, mostly. Felling a tree was a nice touch. New to me.” Jacques grinned mirthlessly. “It’s nothing to trouble yourself over.”
“I’ll find a doctor,” she said with concern.
“That won’t be necessary.” He tightened his hold around her waist. “My home is on Park Lane.”
“Tell me what exactly I just lived through tonight,” she said and kicked Faust into a canter.
The home Jacques kept on Park Lane, dubbed Brook House, was grand and elegant, standing five stories above the carriages that trotted by on the cobblestone street. A footman in a sharp uniform rushed out to meet them as Georgette brought Faust to a stop at the front door. The footman looked up at Jacques with the same black haze in his eyes that the obscene valet possessed, and took Faust’s reins. Jacques dismounted with the flair Georgette had come to expect from him, his movement devoid of pain or injury. He offered her his hand to step down from her horse, then moved his hand to her waist possessively when she stood beside him. Jacques stopped her when Georgette made for the door to his home.
“If you come inside, I may never let you leave,” he said and tightened his hold on her waist. “I’ll have my carriage drive you home.”
“Don’t be absurd! You’re badly injured,” she protested. She was still digesting what Jacques had revealed to her about his nature during their ride to Brook House.
“Am I?” He grinned devilishly. “I would love nothing more than to feel your healing touch, but I will not have it under false pretenses.”
“Have you lost so much blood you’re delirious?” she scoffed, eyeing how his shirt was plastered to his chest with drying blood.
“See for yourself,” he purred as he leaned in closer and pulled the lapel of his jacket aside.
Tentatively, she reached to the top button of his white shirt and began unbuttoning it. The way he smirked at her uncertainty eliminated it, and she looked brazenly into his eyes as she deftly unbuttoned his shirt down to where it was tucked into his trousers. His pale skin shone red with blood, but she saw no injuries. She ran a hand over his chest to convince herself by touch what her eyes told her, feeling the thick ridges of warm muscle. It was as though he had just emerged unharmed from a bath of blood.
“I’ve done that too, in another life,” he teased. He brought his fingertips to her cheek and caressed her skin. “Your thoughts are loud when you worry. I hope this has put your mind at ease.”
“At ease is the wrong term,” she couldn’t help but laugh.
“It occurs to me I should have suggested a kiss from you would heal me a few moments ago,” he said huskily, leaning in slightly closer until only inches separated them.
Georgette tilted her chin up and smirked at him, challenging him to not only kiss her but to impress her. Jacques trailed his hand from her cheek down to her throat, letting it rest there and using his thumb to angle her chin as he wanted when he brought his lips to hers.
His plush lips were so much softer than she had imagined. He kissed her gently, his lips caressing hers with indulgent passion, making her body melt against his. It was she who parted her lips first, an invitation to deepen his kiss that Jacques hungrily took. The heat of his tongue seared through her entire body, and the heady masculine taste of him made her shudder pleasantly. His chest rumbled with his approval as his lips moved against hers. It was clear that he was a very skilled lover, so easily raising a rash of goosebumps down Georgette’s spine. When she finally pulled back from his kiss for breath, her eyelids were slow to flutter open and return her to reality.
“Your lips could raise a man from the dead.” He smiled down at her, swaying softly as he held her in his arms.
“Be more cautious in the future so they never have to.” She pulled him back down by his lapels to kiss him again.
“Ah, but you already have, ma belle dangereuse,” Jacques crooned, his voice rumbling thickly in his chest. “You’ve made my deadened heart beat so frantically I could dance to the rhythm.”
“And yet you want to send me away tonight?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Unless you wish to stay forever,” he told her without a hint of teasing.
“I’ll think on it.” She did tease because he was too serious not to.
“While you do, join me for an intimate soiree at my dear friend’s home.” His nose was still so close to hers that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin.
“Will I have to fight a harem of women for a place on your arm?” She pulled back to watch his expression when he answered.
“Never,” Jacques assured her. “No one compares to you.”
“Surely, you must have as many lusting women hunting you as you do vampire hunters,” she said. “No doubt plenty of them would have my head on a spit as readily as a vampire hunter would yours.”
‘The number of those hunting me doesn’t matter.” He trailed a finger down her cheek. “There is only one I will let catch me.”
“What if I dispatched with any trespassing women with the same finality you did the hunters?” She smiled, looking up at him through thick eyelashes. “What if that’s how I expect you to deal with them so long as I keep your company?”
“If it piques your fancy.” Jacques grinned wickedly, flashing his pointed canines. “I do love a bloodthirsty woman.”
Logistics regarding the soiree Georgette had agreed to attend with Jacques had not been discussed. It was a bit disheartening when she didn’t hear from the persistent man for days. She felt she should be worried, given the injuries she saw him sustain, but she also saw them heal. When a man had all the time in the world – and seemingly all the women – perhaps, he felt less urgency. She was not prone to pining and she felt her thoughts were unnaturally occupied with Jacques. Moreso, it was almost as though she could feel his presence in her mind when it was quiet; when she was in her bath or lying in bed. It felt like he was peering into the window of her mind like a voyeur trying to catch a glimpse of her skin.
She would have to ask him about that.
She had expected Jacques to initiate another run-in with her or an ostensible chance meeting that was obviously premeditated. Instead of surprising her in person, Jacques arranged for a package to be delivered to her room, surprising her by its presence on her bed when she returned one evening. A large box with a crimson ribbon beckoned her, quashing all the irritation she felt at someone breaking into her room. She tried to purge the image from her mind of that horrible creature, Carroughes, tromping around her things.
Sitting on the bed, Georgette ran her hand over the box, untied the ribbon, and lifted the lid. Gasping excitedly at the sight of its contents, she sprang back up from the bed and pulled her gift from the box. The finest scarlet fabric she had ever felt cascaded down from her fingertips, as she held aloft the most elegantly decadent gown she had ever seen. She couldn’t resist hugging the gown to her body and twirling. A small white card fell to the floor from its hiding place within the folds of the gown. Folding the dress carefully and returning it to the box, she bent to retrieve the card. Written upon it in graceful black calligraphy was a simple message.
My Belle Dangereuse,
Have this dress on by 7:00 tomorrow evening. Or have no dress on at all. The curtains in my carriage are impenetrable.
From her window Georgette saw a carriage drawn by a pair of prancing black horses arrive outside the hotel at 6:45pm. The carriage must belong to Jacques, with a coach in funerary black and black harnesses on the black team of horses. Silver accents on the carriage door, harnesses, and bridles glinted in the gas lamps that lined the street, and the curtains were black and silver brocade. Although she was fully dressed and coiffed, and had been for fifteen minutes, she wouldn’t let Jacques know that.
At five ‘til seven, Jacques stepped out of his carriage. The evening breeze ruffled his hair and made his tailcoat flutter around his long legs as he leaned his back against the coach, tapping his walking stick on the cobblestone. Georgette watched him through a slit in her curtains. He was dressed all in black, save for an ascot the same color as her dress, and looked particularly towering with his slim pants, long coat, and top hat. She decided to make him wait longer.
She walked outside at five after wearing the dress Jacques had gifted her, but barely any of the scarlet silk was visible beneath the long astrakhan-trimmed coat she wore. Jacques smiled broadly at the sight of her as he took off his hat and gave her a regal bow with a flourish of his coat. He opened the coach door and tossed his hat and walking stick inside while Georgette walked to him.
“Have you ever been to Switzerland?” Jacques asked, taking her hand and raising it to his lips.
“Is that where your coach is taking us?” she teased.
“I’ll take you there, or anywhere else, on your whim.” Jacques kissed her hand. “The air there is so clear that at night the starlight shimmers on the glaciers like diamonds and the moonlight makes everything glow. You’re beautiful in the same way, shimmering and glowing. A dancing light in the darkness.”
“Says the man who has never seen me dance.” She smirked. “Thank you for the dress.”
“It is thanks enough seeing you in it.” He kept hold of her hand, stroking his thumb over her skin.
“It fits suspiciously well,” she mused. “How did you get my measurements?”
“Would you rather hear that I have an eye for certain qualities, or that my spies are everywhere?” He grinned and guided her into the carriage.
The plush leather seats were rich oxblood and the interior was dark red velvet. The coach dipped when Jacques climbed inside and took his seat across from her. Sitting so close to her, Jacques could feel the heat from her body radiating inside the coach, hear every beat of her heart, savor the sweet scent of her. It was an exquisite form of torture, a sensory overload influencing his body to respond against his will. He crossed his legs, his movements slightly awkward inside the cabin that was made for a smaller man.
Grinning wolfishly, he flashed his vampiric canines at Georgette. The cadence of her heartbeat quickened at the sight and her pupils widened – signs imperceptible to a human, as was the way her scent changed subtly, tinged with a hint more invitation. Jacques’s grin bloomed into a full broad smile when he saw this confirmation that he had read her correctly. She liked the danger about him. Rather than being frightened, she was aroused by that part of him.
“Refreshments?” Jacques asked, reaching below the middle of the seat to pull out a concealed drawer filled with decanters, chocolates, and fruits. “I have scotch, wine, coffee, and tea, and a range of delicacies that pair well with each.”
“I’d best start with coffee and keep my wits about me as long as possible,” she teased. “It surprises me you have it here in the land of tea-drinkers.”
“I have not just any coffee.” He retrieved a pair of teacups and a decanter with contents as black and thick as molasses. “Turkish coffee.” He handed her a cup and poured the strong-smelling sludge into it. “My favorite.”
“It’s a bit presumptive for you to be scheming to keep me up all night so early in the evening.” She raised the cup to her nose. She had never smelled coffee so strong.
“My sinister schemes have no bounds.” Jacques grinned as he filled his own cup and returned the decanter to the drawer.
“Tell me about these plans,” she succeeded at sounding coy until she took a drink of the Turkish coffee and coughed as though she had downed a shot of whiskey. “My god!” she said as she wiped a tear from her eye. “This might keep me awake for the entire weekend.”
“Even better.” Jacques’s eyes crinkled at the edges with delight as he sipped from his cup. “At the risk of shocking you, I’ll warn you my schemes involve conversation and camaraderie. I’d like to learn more about you and reveal anything of me you wish to know.” He took another drink and winked at her. “No matter how sundry and salacious your request may be.”
“Spoken like a man who has all the time in the world.” Georgette’s next drink was invigorating now that she expected the strong bite of caffeine on her tongue.
“That I do, and I don’t want to waste a second of it.” Jacques fixed his unnerving eyes on hers, and Georgette thought their gleam was more citrine tonight, more firelight in them than amber. It was likely a trick of the gas lamps the carriage trotted past. His eyes danced when he added, “I aim to capture your heart before the sun rises.”
“Is that all?” she laughed and sipped her coffee, finding she now enjoyed it very much. “I admire a bold man.”
“I, too, admire boldness, which makes me defenseless against you.” His eyes shimmered, almost hypnotically, making her wonder if this was another vampiric talent. He pointedly looked away out of the carriage window before he began to lose hold on the bestial part of himself. When he returned his eyes to hers, they had mellowed to the color of whiskey. “Tell me what makes a beautiful woman want to live so dangerously? What compels you to travel the world in the company of rough men for these shows?”
“Your question presumes I don’t need to do any of those things to live a perfectly satisfying life.” She held out her cup for him to refill it. “I disagree. Most women I know want nothing more than to marry and start amassing a litter of children, which frankly, sounds like a prison sentence to me. I would like to marry one day, because I feel life is better when shared with someone, but there are limits to how tethered I will ever allow myself to be. There is much I want to do first, like this,” she gestured at the carriage window and the buildings passing by outside. “I want to see the world, and I can do that this way, by travelling for shows, and with relative safety and only a little scandal. Otherwise, to travel so, I would be at the mercy of a husband.”
“Fair enough,” Jacques agreed. “But what in all infernal hell compels you to ride that horse off a diving platform?”
“I enjoy it. There is no more to it than that, and there doesn’t have to be. One day, I’ll be too old to have adventures and danger, and all I’ll have is my story. I’m trying to live a good one.” She smiled sincerely and added, “One of my favorite writers said it best, ‘Ride, boldly ride.”
“’The Shade replied,’” Jacques added the next line for her, playing the role of the Shade. “I too am always searching for cities of gold, in a manner.”
“I’ve all but told you that what I fear most is a cage and infirmity,” she said somberly. “What thoughts trouble a man who never need fear such things?”
“Loneliness,” Jacques answered quickly and sincerely. “Facing the ages alone is a daunting prospect.”
“That doesn’t strike me as an insurmountable problem for you,” she laughed.
“More so than you think, cherie.” Jacques again opened the drawer and returned their empty cups inside. He uncovered a dish of fruits and chocolates, and plucked a pitted black cherry by its stem. “You’ll love the taste after coffee,” he crooned and held it to Georgette’s lips.
Although he sat across from her, Jacques was so large there was little space remaining between them when he offered her the cherry. Leaning tentatively forward, she took the cherry between her teeth, allowing her lips to brush his fingertip when she closed them around it. She closed her eyes in satisfaction at the burst of flavor that complimented the lingering taste of coffee. Jacques watched hungrily at the way her lovely throat moved when she swallowed and the way the cherry had left its stain on her lips. He couldn’t resist tasting them and captured her lips in a soft, savoring kiss. Georgette brought her hand to the back of his neck, her nails sending sparks down his spine. He almost lost control of himself when she wove her fingers into the hair at his collar and pulled him closer.
The world outside could have burned around them, the ground quaked beneath them, and Jacques couldn’t have been bothered to care. There was no world to him now but the intoxicating woman in his arms. Her scent and taste surrounded him, flowed over him and into him until he felt like he could drown in her. Moving his lips to the silken skin of her neck, Jacques moaned headily as he lavished her with kisses.
A rude jolt of the carriage sent Jacques lurching against Georgette, shoving her back against the seat with unintentional roughness. Fortunately, she laughed as the carriage rocked again and Jacques pushed himself off of her and back into his seat.
“Stupid bastard,” he snarled about his disfigured driver. Jacques reached for the window to shout at the man when he realized they had arrived and were parked near a portico framed by fat columns. He hadn’t noticed when the carriage had passed the imposing wrought iron gates and turned onto the long oak-lined driveway leading to the Georgian monstrosity that was Pierre’s London home.
Sitting back in his seat Jacques grinned a little sheepishly at Georgette. “I must tell my driver to slow the horses to a walk on our return. The drive passed too quickly.”
“Do you have enough cherries for a longer drive?” she teased as she smoothed her dress and hair.
“Plenty. I can spend hours eating a cherry,” he thrummed huskily and grinned.
Thousands of flickering lights inside the mansion made its myriad of windows shine like a burst of sunlight in the dark grounds. From its columns and ornate cornices to the statutes watching from stone corners and among lush hedges, manicured to precision, the estate was awash in opulence. The celebration inside gave its masonry glowing life.
Georgette looked out of the carriage window in awe. She had never been to such a grand estate, nor what promised to be an elegant ball. Excitement mingled with nervousness and an unusual shyness. This was not an experience many American westerners were prepared for. Her nerves would be calm and her hands steady if she were rousting a bear out of her grandfather’s cabin in Montana or inside a saloon with men drawing guns on each other or riding a horse at breakneck speed under a full moon. But dresses and dancing and dining under the strict code of English etiquette? It was enough to make a strong man quail in his boots.
“You’ll find no one here stands on formality. No one who matters anyway,” Jacques said soothingly, watching her with the lupine yellow again glinting in his eyes.
“We’re going to have to come to terms over you prodding my thoughts like this,” she said with mild embarrassment.
Jacques grinned and opened the carriage door. Georgette hadn’t noticed the footman patiently waiting outside. The man was apparently trained to wait for the carriage door to be opened from the inside so he did not disturb whatever might be happening in private. Jacques stepped down and whipped his long coat to the side as he donned his top hat, giving him the appearance of a magician on stage performing his act with flourish. He offered Georgette his hand as she exited the carriage then placed her hand in the crook of his arm as he led her to the grand entrance.
“There’s no need to be nervous.” Jacques leaned toward her and she felt his arm flex beneath her hand. “A lady on my arm is the guest of honor. Nothing else matters, nor does any other opinion.”
His comment had the effect of settling her nerves, but not for the reasons he hoped. Georgette felt a flush of anger and a tinge of jealousy at the thought of how many other young women must have made this walk before, treading on the swirled marble floor of the entrance hall on the arm of a handsome man – perhaps even this very same, centuries-old man – full of excitement and hope at what the evening may bring. Where were those women now? They had been as fleeting as a firefly lighting the night with its beauty for one instant only to be forgotten in the next.
“None of them were you,” Jacques said in his most alluring timbre, again holding a conversation with her inner thoughts.
“How many of them have you told that same thing?” she asked cynically.
“I cannot tell you none, but I assure you there have been very few.” He placed his free hand over hers, comforting and warm. “I do not believe there has been more than one woman a century who has truly captivated me as you have done.”
“What became of them?” She looked up at his angular profile, gauging his response. She was surprised to see a passing hint of pain.
“They made a choice, and it was not the one I’d hoped,” he answered cryptically.
“What choice is that?” she pressed.
“One that may soon be presented to you.” Jacques met her eyes and smiled warmly as he led her into the ballroom.
The ballroom glimmered in white and gold. The high ceiling was beautifully decorated with Georgian plasterwork, like sugary icing on a decadent cake, gilt accents glinting across it like stars in a frosted sky. Two pendulous crystal chandeliers sparkled with the light of hundreds of candles. Notes from a string orchestra carried through the room giving elegant couples a rhythm as they danced, men in mostly black paired with women dressed in a kaleidoscope of color.
Georgette took Jacques’s offered hand and smiled when she saw in his eyes a shared anticipation. His hand at her waist felt like a hot iron burning through her dress, making her skin tingle. When Jacques began twirling her to the Danse Macabre her corset felt too tight and her breath came short. She could feel the restrained power of him in every movement. His body seemed particularly large as he deftly led her in a dance across the ballroom, his skill and power making up for her lack of both. Their dance was not just a series of steps but a conversation between their bodies, an intimate exchange and a promise of what could pass between them. Each twirl and dip brought them closer, their bodies pressed together and their faces inches apart, their breaths mingling in the charged air.
At a quick appraisal, the ball was lavish, filled with beauty and romance. The longer Georgette watched the dancers, the more details she noticed. Details that made her skin prickle with something between excitement and a primal sort of fright. Pointed canines nipped at jawlines and dragged along the throats of dance partners. A few couples were actively engaged in biting each other in lewd displays that morbidly mirrored heated kissing. Claws traced lines over exposed skin, and some innocuous movements were too fast for Georgette’s eye to see. Most unsettling were the eyes. There were eyes colored blood red, bone white, and coal black. Retinas colored in tones usually only found in cadavers, eyed their partners hungrily. Some, like Jacques, had eyes that nearly glowed with vibrant color. Those were both the most striking and the most unnerving. A redheaded man watched her with eyes as orange as a sunset and a startlingly beautiful woman with rich violet eyes looked at Jacques from across the room. Georgette saw no other eyes with the enticing, predatory gold that glinted in Jacques’s.
Vampires. They mingled with the crowd, their numbers few compared to the humans, like a pack of wolves weaving through a herd of cattle.
Vignettes came to Georgette in a flash as bodies moved across the dance floor, hiding one couple engaged in an act of depravity as another was revealed.
A vampire, his glacial eyes as piercing as they were cold, held a young woman close, his lips trailing kisses along her neck before his fangs sank into her flesh. The woman’s gasp was one of bliss, her body arching into his as if seeking more of the exquisite pain. Nearby, another vampire, a striking figure with sterling silver hair, pressed his lips fervently to his partner's wrist, the crimson trickle of blood staining his mouth as he drank deeply. The vampiress with violet eyes dragged a pointed fingernail across her clavicle, releasing a drop of ruby blood. Keeping her eyes fixed seductively on Jacques, she collected the blood on her fingertip and licked it away. Jacques held Georgette tighter and bowed his head to trail his lips affectionately and possessively along her cheek.
“You’re safe here,” Jacques told her to put any distress at ease. “Pierre’s parties are friendly to all. Even if they were not, a vampire would squander the long years of his life by crossing me.”
“That’s a bold statement,” she laughed, but relaxed a little inside his arms.
“You happened to mention you fancy a bold man.” He winked at her.
“Only if his boldness is not misplaced.” She laughed.
“How do you judge me?” Jacques raised his eyebrows.
“I’m reserving judgment.” She ran his hand from his shoulder down over his chest.
Vampires and humans swirled together in a seductive waltz, their movements fluid, with an intoxicating, ethereal quality. Their partners, the humans, seemed entranced, their faces a mix of ecstasy and drunkenness as they succumbed to the allure of their immortal companions. The air seemed to shimmer with the quality often confined to dreams, and it was only because of her exposure to Jacques and the mental effects he could induce that Georgette realized it was a product of the combined hypnosis of the vampires there, creating a dreamlike state among the humans. She wondered then if Jacques was keeping her lucid, or if she had a tolerance simply by being aware of the phenomenon’s existence.
A boisterous laugh sounded through the throng of dancers. Georgette saw a flash of red among the crowd and Jacques scoffed with irritation. She recognized Buck Taylor easily, the second tallest man in the room wearing a bold red shirt. He danced with a diminutive woman, all but slinging her around the floor in his arms. Now that she watched the other dancers more closely Georgette recognized other men from the Wild West Show, most of them part of Buck’s Rough Riders.
“Pierre finds great amusement in your American cowboys,” Jacques explained with distaste.
“They can always be trusted to liven up an event.” Georgette saw that several men wore their gunbelts and revolvers peeking out from beneath their rented tailcoats. One of the bumbling cowboys bumped into an elegant vampiress. The pale vampire hissed at the tan cowboy, but he was too focused on his dance partner to notice. Georgette remarked, “I’ll bet your friends can liven things up too.”
“Pierre enjoys spectacle.” Jacques kept his attention on Georgette, unconcerned with the sights around them.
“Did you bring me here because I fit in with the spectacle?” she was only partially teasing.
Jacques shook his head subtly, rustling his long hair. “If this is a circus, you are the ringmaster and I am merely your dancing bear.” He grinned and twirled her unexpectedly, holding her tighter when he brought her back into his arms. As they moved across the floor, their bodies communicated in a language all their own. A subtle shift of Jacques's hand on her waist, the gentle pressure of Georgette's palm against his shoulder, the synchronized glide of their feet. Jacques brushed his lips against Georgette's skin, his breath warm and tantalizing as he savored her exquisite scent. The sound of blood coursing excitedly through her veins was as clear in Jacques’s ears as the orchestra, beating a rhythm to which he would never tire of dancing.
The haunting melody curled around Jacques and Georgette like mist rolling in with the evening breeze. The world seemed to fall away as Jacques's grip on Georgette tightened, pulling her closer. He lowered his head to capture her lips in a kiss that was both tender and consuming. Georgette felt the world around them blur into insignificance, her senses overwhelmed by the softness of his lips and the heady taste of him. Her fingers curled into his hair, pulling him closer as the kiss deepened, their movements growing more synchronized and passionate. Jacques's hands roamed her back, sending shivers down her spine, while her own hands explored the breadth of his strong shoulders.
Jacques’s chest swelled with pride when he pulled back from their kiss with a smile on his lips. He gave her another ebullient twirl. Georgette should have been equally buoyed, the emotion was certainly there. But there was something in the way so many unnatural eyes watched her; the way their fangs glinted when they grinned. The small hairs on the back of her neck prickled with unease. She had never felt herself weak or any semblance of a victim, but now she felt like a doe who had wandered into a den of wolves. Where there had been excitement minutes before, it was now tinged with trepidation. Jacques seemed wholly unaware and entirely absorbed in her alone. She wondered for a dark moment if it was an elaborate ruse to bring her here so he could have her at a disadvantage, but she couldn’t think that of him when he had been nothing but kind to her. He also had no need of placing her at a disadvantage to do anything he wanted to her, if he wanted to act brutish. She couldn’t pinpoint precisely what was amiss, unable to consciously articulate what piqued the primal part of her mind.
“Is it too much trouble to ask for some fresh air and a drink?” she asked instead, using thirst to explain why her mouth had gone dry.
“As you wish,” Jacques assured her.
Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips, keeping his gleaming eyes on hers as he placed a kiss on her skin. Many eyes watched them as they weaved through the crowded ballroom, giving Georgette another prickle of concern like panicky ants crawling up her spine. Buck Taylor watched too, watched her, his eyes narrowed. Buck could be jealous of her, although never enough for him to lay any official claims on her, but he had never been aggressive or mean spirited before. The sight of him unsettled her further so that she clutched Jacques’s hand.
Jacques led her to a grand staircase at the far end of the ballroom and up to the third story. A short walk down a hallway lined with oil paintings found them at a pair of doors opened to a large balcony. They walked to the stone balustrade, taking in the view of the gardens dappled with moonlight. Jacques rested his hand on the small of her back.
“I’m not accustomed to crowds so large.” Georgette inhaled the fresh night air then turned into Jacques, placing her hand on his chest. “Perhaps the drink would taste better someplace else. Take me away from this ruckus and let us enjoy a more private evening.”
A sound rumbled in Jacques’s chest, as if he had forced a groan back down into his gut before it escaped his throat, and his fingers dug into the fabric of her dress. “I didn’t bring you here tonight with that intention, but my god, darling, there’s nothing I want more.” He did groan now, remembering the obligation to his friend. “But first, I’d very much like for you to meet my friend and our host, Pierre. He must be, ah, occupied for a short time. Let me fetch you that drink and then we’ll reassess. One should never attempt anything amorous on a dry throat.”
He stole a lingering kiss then walked from the balcony in a brisk, long stride. Georgette leaned over the balustrade, breathing deep to try to steady her nerves. Cheery sounds of the ball carried to her and the night was beautifully serene. It didn’t help. Men she had known and traveled with for years were acting strangely and this mansion with its elegant veneer and sinister undertone had to be playing on her nerves. It would be irrational for such a set of circumstances not to. She realized too that the man she felt safest with and trusted most was the man she barely knew. She smiled when she heard footsteps approaching her across the balcony.
Her smile faded when she turned and faced a stranger.
An extraordinarily handsome man walked toward her, tall and muscular with dark hair and viper green eyes that gleamed like radium. Four sharp fangs flashed inside his dashing smile. He had the look of a lion stalking his prey when he approached her, gracile but powerful, the chilling, malicious smile only a façade to keep her from taking flight. There was nowhere for her to flee even if she wished it, unless she wanted to charge past him to the only door or fling herself over the balcony. And she didn’t run from fright.
“I had to see for myself what all the fuss was about,” the man said in a rich seductive voice. Meeting her at the railing, he leaned his hip against it and drummed short but pointed nails upon it, as he let his eyes openly travel her figure. “You’ve caused quite a stir in our little cloister.”
“It’s the dress, isn’t it?” she asked to make light, but she didn’t return his false smile.
“Le Gris hasn’t flaunted a human in a very long time,” the man said, a hint of menace dripping from his words. “He has his dalliances, as do we all, but such things are to be kept discreet. It’s frowned upon, you know. Humans are our hounds and cattle. You can see how taboo that makes it for us to entangle ourselves with a human. Let alone to openly cavort with one.”
“Does my standing alone on a balcony constitute cavorting?” she asked brusquely.
“I can smell him on you.” The man leaned too close, bringing his nose near her throat and inhaled lewdly. “As well as the perfume you’re wearing. Tuberose and jasmine. It pairs well with the scent of arousal you cannot hide from us, but clashes with the vanilla fragrance sprayed upon your dress by its maker. The scent left on the fabric by her aged fingers taints the ripeness of your skin.”
“You make my skin crawl.” She looked at him defiantly, a hair’s breadth away from pulling her derringer and firing a bullet into one of his venom green eyes.
“That is not all I could do to your skin.” He snatched her arm, yanking her to him as he brought her arm to his mouth. Georgette couldn’t twist her arm free from his iron grip, forced to watch with revulsion as the man licked the inside of her wrist.
“I, for one, have never had to capture a struggling woman to taste her,” Jacques’s voice boomed across the balcony from where he stood in the doorway. He held a glass of champagne in each hand and walked nonchalantly toward them. Only his aurous eyes, glinting murderously, betrayed the ferocity boiling inside him. “Do you not have a lady of your own to charm this evening, Slyvester?”
Slyvester kept his eyes on Jacques but spoke to Georgette, “Do you know that whomever of us bites you first will have claim to you forever? No matter where you go or how many years pass, or how many other lovers you take, you will carry our mark forever. Much like branding a horse is to you cowboys.”
“Just like branding a horse, it’s a good way for you to get kicked in the teeth,” Georgette spat.
Still holding Georgette’s arm brutally tight, Slyvester dragged it out until her arm was stretched out over the balustrade in a clear threat as he looked at Jacques. “You haven’t bestowed your curse upon her yet. Humans are so fragile, their lives so fleeting.”
Jacques’s lips curled in a snarl matching the menace in his voice, “Whereas it takes a great deal of violence to kill us.” His exposed fangs looked longer to Georgette than before, or perhaps it was the viciousness about him that enhanced his frightening appearance. “If you want to find out firsthand, I’ll accommodate you.”
“You’re past your prime, old man,” Slyvester said venomously. “You peaked during the Enlightenment.” His eyes drifted up toward a window another story above them. “Just like Pierre, you’ve grown content and weak.”
Without warning, Jacques lunged at Slyvester. His movement was almost too fast for Georgette to see – a blur of bared teeth, wicked eyes, and wild hair, shoulders bunched and black coat flapping around his huge body. Growling bestially, Jacques tackled the other vampire with jarring force, sending both men plunging over the balcony to the garden three stories below. Georgette gasped, helplessly watching them plummet. Horror slowed the moment for her, and it appeared to her that they fell in slow motion, clawing at each other and twisting in the air like angry cats.
The men hit the ground far below with bone-shattering force. Georgette leaned far over the balustrade, as if the few extra inches she gained would help her see better. On the ground, the men rolled over one another, a mass of frenzied punching and biting. Their growls and hisses and curses carried to Georgette, along with the sounds of flesh tearing under sharp nails and fists pummeling into meat.
Tearing herself from the rail, Georgette ran as fast as she could to the nearest staircase that would take her down to the garden where the men fought viciously.
Jacques fisted Sylvester’s lapels as he tackled him over the balustrade, holding the bastard beneath him as they fell. He ensured that Slyvester hit the ground on his back with Jacques landing on top of him, driving his fists down into the vampire’s flesh with all the force of his heavy body and gravity. Jacques felt Sylvester’s collarbones shatter and his shoulder blades beneath splinter – a minor injury for a rapidly-healing vampire. Sylvester squealed with rage and pain, thrashing beneath Jacques to unseat him.
Sharpened fingernails slashed across Jacques’s face, temporarily blinding him, and giving the other man a moment’s advantage. Bucking his hips and twisting his body, Slyvester knocked Jacques off and rolled up to his feet. Jacques immediately sprang up into a fighting stance, perfectly balanced, with his fists clenched tight. The ragged claw marks across Jacques’s face healed in seconds, leaving blood streaking down his cheek.
“Can you blame me?” Slyvester asked flippantly as he spat blood from his mouth. “She is enticing. For an appetizer.” He swiped a clawed hand at Jacques the way a boxer used a jab, to gauge distance and create space. “What does Pierre think of her? How is Pierre this evening?”
For the first time that evening, it concerned Jacques that he hadn’t yet seen Pierre. That Sylvester was remarking on it now meant something sinister was afoot. Slyvester shot out a low kick at Jacques’s knee. Jacques jerked his leg up enough for the kick to miss, then stomped his boot down on the front of Slyvester’s knee, digging the tread of his boot into flesh and peeling skin away from the vampire’s skin. Slyvester shrieked with pain as the bone crunched, but even this was little more than a nuisance to a vampire. Slyvester shook his injured leg once and when he returned it to the ground it was healed.
Jacques circled his opponent in another semblance to boxing. Slyvester held his hands high to guard his face. Jacques kept his fists lower but ready, inviting a strike at his face. He even leaned in, making his invitation sweeter. Slyvester took the bait, swiping viciously at Jacques’s face with all his force, putting his body into the blow. Jacques bobbed his head and shoulders to dodge the strike, his timing perfect, and caught the arm Slyvester was foolish enough to give him. Anchoring Slyvester’s wrist in his fist, Jacques slammed his opposite forearm into his enemy’s elbow, shattering the bone. In the same savage motion and with the same arm, Jacques whipped his hand to Slyvester’s face. His thumb caught under his enemy’s nose and his fingers dug into his far eye socket. With a cruel wrench of his hand, Jacques broke the man’s nose, ripped the flesh from his cheek, and popped his eye from its socket. Slyvester howled and fought against Jacques’s hold on his arm like a pheasant flapping in the jaws of a hound. The crippling blow had been executed in less than a second.
Slyvester’s eye dangled from its stringy optic nerve, looking like a bloody yellow string of snot connecting the bobbing eye to the empty bloody socket. Grinning evilly, Jacques snatched the eyeball, yanked it off its string with a pop and crushed it in his fist like a grape. “That won’t grow back.”
Mercilessly, Jacques planted his bloody hand on Slyvester’s shoulder as the crippled man howled in pain and outrage, scratching ineffectively at Jacques with his free hand. Using the arm he held as leverage, Jacques spun his opponent until he faced away and Jacques was able to bring his arm up behind his back, bent unnaturally like a chicken wing. With a brutal yank, Jacques forced the man’s arm far past the range of motion for the joint, wrenching the shoulder out of its socket with a sickeningly wet gurgle of tissue and bone scraping against bone. It was hardly more difficult for Jacques than pulling a drumstick from a roast turkey. Slyvester’s arm dangled limp and useless inside its sack of skin. It would heal quickly once the joint was realigned, but this was not easily and quickly done by a man inexperienced in such matters of field medics, and it would dangle like a tassel until then.
Now, one-eyed and effectively one-armed, Slyvester swayed on his feet and whimpered feebly. Blood, snot, and drool mingling in a dripping mess from his face. Jacques shoved him away, sending Sylvester stumbling. Jacques straightened and smoothed his lapels. He cast a glance at the huge bay windows that looked into the candlelit interior of the mansion. The sounds of the ball had grown louder and more raucous.
“You forget, mon ami,” Jacques snarled ruthlessly as he ran a hand through his wild hair. “I spent centuries at war. Hundred Year’s War, Byzantine Wars, Muscovite Wars, Hessian Wars, Napoleon’s War. I returned from the Transvaal less than a decade ago. War and women are all that have held my interest throughout the centuries.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Slyvester sputtered. “It made you arrogant.” He grinned, showing a broken-off canine.
Jacques narrowed his eyes at this misplaced reaction.
A crash inside the mansion drew his attention. He jerked his head to the sound, but saw nothing inside the shimmering ball other than a flash of the expected horde of moving bodies. Something rustled on Jacques’s opposite side in the garden. A white streak shot out of the dark with great speed from among the hedges and flowers, aiming for his head. Jacques ducked and snatched the thing out of the air, realizing it was a rope when he clenched his fist around it. The rigid sort of latigo rope used by cowboys. Jacques’s hand instantly burned as if he had grabbed a red hot poker out of a fire, and his skin began to sizzle, filling the night air with the scent of burning skin and something metallic.
“Silver?” Jacques frowned as he sniffed the smoke rising from his palm to confirm his suspicion. Silver wouldn’t kill Jacques as it would a weaker vampire, but it burned like hell and it rendered many of his vampiric abilities impotent. Silver interwoven into a rope could render him as useless as a mortal. He didn’t release the rope despite the pain in his hand, and instead wrapped his fist around it multiple times to get a better grip and yanked the rope toward him, reeling in the man holding it. The flesh on Jacques’s hand burned and sizzled like steak on a grill, but the pain didn’t stop him. Another rope flew at him from his other side. He saw it just in time to catch it with his left hand, instantly scalding that palm too.
Just as Jacques realized Sylvester had been a ruse to lure him out into the garden alone, the bay windows exploded. Glass and iron framing shot out into the garden, stinging Jacques’s skin like angry wasps. A dozen vampires and humans burst out of the broken window in a frightened stampede, the humans screaming and vampires hissing. Hot on their heels was one of the cowboys, a man with a handlebar mustache and drawn pistol in hand. The cowboy aimed and fired at a male vampire Jacques recognized as one of Pierre’s acquaintances. The vampire seized when he was struck in the back, his mouth open in a rictus of pain. Other party goers ran around the injured vampire, too scared to care about him. The bullet didn’t exit the front of his chest and must have settled inside his ribcage, because his chest began to burn from the inside out. Charred flesh crept up from his collar up his throat to his jaw and over his face, until his features resembled a sizzling mummy.
Jacques watched, confused. Bullets didn’t have that effect on vampires. He’d been shot dozens of times to little more effect than a bee sting. In the few seconds he watched the bewildering scene unfold, he felt his great strength seeping away. The ropes in his hands felt like they were attached to Clydesdales instead of the men holding them, and he felt his arms being slowly drawn apart as his muscles quivered with fatigue. One of the men who had stepped out from his hiding place, approached Jacques with his gun drawn as he tried to get his rope back and take another shot at catching him in a more effective hold.
Handlebar Mustache stood just inside the broken window, one boot planted on the window frame. He trained his pistol on Jacques.
Jacques summoned a burst of strength from his faltering muscles and yanked the rope held by the closest cowboy. The cowboy stumbled toward Jacques, who dropped both ropes and grabbed the cowboy by the throat with lightning speed. Jacques spun the cowboy in front of him as a shield just as Handlebar Mustache fired at his chest. His strength was already returning as the bullet struck the cowboy in the chin, level with Jacques’s heart, and tore off his face. Jacques grabbed the man’s pistol and shoved his body away.
A woman staggered away from the melee inside the mansion, clutching a wound on her thigh that spurted blood in time with her pulse. She weaved in between Jacques and Handlebar Mustache, blocking his shot. In that same second another lasso shot at Jacques from behind, catching him around the neck and instantly cinching tight. Jacques choked as he was yanked backward off his feet and dragged across the ground, the gun in his hand bouncing wildly with no target in sight. He forced the fingers of his free hand in between his flesh and the rope that was choking him, burning through his throat, and leaching his strength all at once, as his back scraped over the ground. Twisting his head, he saw another cowboy mounted on a horse with the rope dallied around the saddle horn. The cowboy was trying to aim his pistol at Jacques’s head while his horse backed quickly away to keep tension on the rope as he was trained.
With a shaking hand, Jacques tried to aim his pistol at the man before his opponent could get a shot off. Jacques flinched when a shot crashed in his ears. But it was the mounted man’s head that burst open, sending a spray of pink chunks out from the side of his temple. The man slumped in the saddle and another shot rang across the garden, catching Handlebar Mustache in his open mouth as he shouted something that would never be heard.
Jacques’s eyes were blurry when he tried to aim his gun toward the gunfire. He could only see the hazy blood red outline of a woman walking swiftly toward him out of the shadows of the mansion. Georgette aimed over Jacques’s prostrate body and fired again, killing the other man who had roped him. His vision was clear enough to see the deadly focus in her eyes when she trained her tiny derringer dangerously close to his head. Her fourth shot burst in Jacques’s ears and the rope around his neck went slack with a twang.
Coughing violently, Jacques rolled over and pushed up to his hands and knees. He shoved the rope off over his head and breathed deep, feeling his strength return quickly. He got to his feet unsteadily and tucked the pistol into his waistband as Georgette ran to him. Grinning painfully at her he said hoarsely, “A woman of many talents.”
“That’s nothing,” she replied breathily. “I’m just glad I didn’t have to shoot another admirer down from the gallows before his neck snapped. That’s pressure, I tell you.”
She didn’t run to Jacques but to the horse who now stood nearby, riderless and panicky. Grabbing the reins, she paused to pet the animal, letting him know she meant him no harm. She called to Jacques over her shoulder, “You might hurry! I only had four shots, and you’re lucky I didn’t miss any of them.”
Georgette swung up into the saddle, keeping a tight hand on the reins so Jacques could clamber onto the horse as it shied from the mayhem surrounding them. Jacques had barely locked his arms around her waist when she kicked the horse into a gallop. He had to shout in her ear to be heard above the rattling gunfire and screams inside the mansion, and the horse’s drumming hoofbeats, “Here you were worried the vampires would cause trouble.”
“I recognized some of those cowboys,” she said as she brought the horse in a tight whirl around a circular fountain, using it for cover before charging down a lane between hedges. “They’re hired guns. Gunslingers.”
“Not amateurs either,” Jacques agreed. “Their weapons are rigged to target our weaknesses.”
“So then, it was a vampire causing problems. One of yours gave the gunslingers some inside information.” She cocked her head to the side to look at him. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to spend much time around me to learn I’m always right.”
“Sylvester must have made a deal with them,” Jacques gritted, his arm tightening around her waist. “Pigeon-livered bastard.”
“Lucky for you, the man isn’t alive who can catch me when I’m riding a horse.” She kicked the horse into a run down the hedgerow. For Georgette, the hedges were very dark, aside from the faint light that reached out from the mansion, casting strange angular shadows among the hedges. The fighting was centralized in the mansion, quickly fading behind them. With the start they had and a fast horse, they could easily ride to safety.
Jacques squeezed her and put his hand over hers on the reins. “I can’t ride away from a battle. And I have to find that damned harlot, Pierre, and keep him alive.” He pulled back on the reins from behind, slowing the horse. “I’ll get off here and go back. Keep riding until you’re safe. I promise I’ll find you before the sun rises.”
“Says the man who was just hogtied and bleeding into the grass,” she snapped angrily. “Just hold on.”
Sitting back in the stirrups and leaning back against Jacques’s chest, she pulled the horse into a sliding stop in the dewy grass. At the press of her heels, the horse wheeled around with catlike agility. Instead of dashing back down the hedgerow, Georgette aimed the horse straight at the hedge that separated them from the mansion. The horse sailed over the hedge with ease. Jacques grunted when the horse landed. Having no stirrups to support his weight, the seat of the saddle hammered him rudely in the crotch.
“If we vampires didn’t heal quickly, you might have just ruined one of my finer talents,” Jacques grumbled in her ear, trying to adjust his painful seat on the horse’s running hindquarters.
The lights of the mansion blasted her eyes like an explosion in the darkness, matching the chaos inside. Many windows were shot out or broken, and straggling guests, human and vampire alike, ran terrified from the broken windows and torn-off doors. Gunshots and screams had both dwindled, but as with any battle, the silence following was more grim.
“Tell me where to find your friend.” Georgette set her jaw, aiming the horse at the large, shattered bay window.
Jacques fumbled with the pistol in his waistband, clumsily checking the number of rounds in the cylinder. “Five shots.”
“Do you know how to use that Colt?” she asked as she tried to spy the part of the windows least covered with toothy shards of glass.
“I’ve never had much use for a revolver,” Jacques answered as he closed the cylinder and returned the gun to his belt.
“Wonderful.” Georgette kicked the horse when it balked at the window.
The animal had more sense than its rider – entering a broken window into a room that echoed with gunfire and smelled of blood, gunpowder, and fear seemed like a bad idea to any rational horse. Georgette yanked the reins when the horse tried to turn away from the window and kicked it again. Squealing in frustration, the horse reared in protest at the window then launched himself inside with enough gusto to clear a five-rail fence. Polished hardwood floors were slick as ice under a horse’s hooves, and the horse landed in a barely controlled skid. An unlucky cowboy running toward the window with his gun drawn was caught between the horse and the wall. The horse careened sideways into the man, crushing him against the wall and shattering his ribcage. Jacques gave him the coup de grace by kicking his heel harshly into the man’s temple. His body slid down the wall leaving a bloody smear. Jacques had to duck low to avoid the doorframe when they charged through the double doors of the ballroom.
The ballroom that shimmered with elegance and anticipation earlier was now mayhem, filled with the dead, the injured, and those who were still fighting, while bullets shot across the room. Gunsmoke hung in the air, mixing with the smell of blood and viscera. Broken shards of crystal littered the floor, twinkling especially bright where they sat in the scattered pools of blood. Bodies of vampires lay partially charred, still smoldering, contorted in agony, and humans lay broken and bleeding. A toppled candelabra had caught the dress of a dead woman on fire, leaving her body ablaze on the ballroom floor.
A cowboy trained his pistol on a vampire dashing toward the nearest doorway and fired. The vampire seized when the bullet caught him between the shoulder blades before his flesh began to sizzle then burst into flames across his back. A lady vampire with blazing blue eyes hissed like an angry cat at the cowboy as he fired a round that just missed her head. He fired again, the hammer falling on an empty chamber with a snap. Terror flashed across the cowboy’s face when he realized he was out of bullets, and he fumbled to quickly reload. The vampire launched herself at the cowboy, sinking her claws into his chest. He screamed until it was cut off abruptly as she tore his throat out with her teeth in a geyser of blood.
“What the hell is in those bullets?” Georgette asked, kicking the horse into a gallop across the ballroom. The horse vaulted over a pair of dead dancers, splintering the wood floor with his hooves when he landed.
“I’ll be damned if I know,” Jacques said in her ear. “More than silver. Silver was woven into that rope, and you saw what that will do. This is something else.”
“You better not get shot,” she told him. “If it doesn’t kill you, I’ll do it myself.”
“Indeed.” Jacques grinned and raised his hand in front of her, pointing at the large staircase. “If Pierre is anywhere inside, he’ll be in his favorite bedroom on the second floor.”
A cowboy standing near a wall fired a shot at them, just missing Georgette’s face. It passed so close she felt the air sizzle as it flew by her ear. Jacques aimed his pistol over Georgette’s shoulder and fired. The wood next to the cowboy’s head exploded, sending splinters stabbing into the side of the man’s face. Jacques had missed the man’s head by a foot, but his shot was lucky. Howling with pain, the cowboy clasped his ruined face. Georgette aimed her horse at the man and kicked hard, making the horse charge into the cowboy at a run. The horse plowed over the man, crushing him beneath pounding hooves.
“Save your bullets if you can’t shoot straight,” Georgette snapped at him.
Georgette made for the staircase, passing near the toppled candelabra where it lay across a woman’s burning corpse. As they ran past, Jacques shoved the pistol back in his belt and leaned far to the side, holding Georgette’s waist for balance as he reached toward the floor. Jacques grabbed the candelabra, twirling the long metal pole in his huge right hand as he righted himself behind Georgette.
“This suits me better,” he said with a laugh as he held the three-pronged end upright like a lance at the ready.
The horse took the stairs gamely, lunging up them like a hillside, taking four and five at a time as splinters flew up from the battered wood beneath his hooves. A cowboy rushed toward them at the top of the stairs. It took him an extra few seconds to decide where to aim at the strange spectacle of man and woman riding double on a horse bounding up the stairs. Jacques drew back his right arm and threw the candelabra like a javelin, flinging it ahead of the running horse and straight into the cowboy’s chest. The iron rod impaled the cowboy with its trident head with such force that it sent him stumbling backward, dead on his feet. As Jacques and Georgette rode past the man’s twitching body, Jacques plucked the candelabra from the man’s body where it stood upright like a pin in an entomology specimen.
The horse galloped toward the closed pair of doors at the far end of the hallway. Georgette wanted to charge straight through them, but the horse balked, sliding to a stop at the last second and whirling to the side. Cursing the animal, Georgette brought him alongside the door. Jacques kicked the door but it held fast, locked from the inside or even barricaded. Raucous voices could be heard inside the room beyond. Georgette spun the horse around until his rear faced the door. Jacques understood and smacked the horse hard on the rump. With an indignant squeal, the horse kicked back in response to the rude smack, kicking through the wooden doors as effectively as a battering ram.
Georgette kicked the horse to burst through the broken doors, scattering the people inside in every direction like a covey of quail bursting haphazardly from cover beneath the nose of a hunting hound. Women’s screams and men’s shouts filled the room along with the clamor of glasses dropped to the floor. Jacques aimed his candelabra lance as the horse ran inside, choosing a cluster of three men who loomed over a pair of frightened women. It angered him more to see all parties were mostly naked, thinking of what violent acts against the women he had interrupted. The trident tip hit the nearest man high in the chest and simultaneously the man beside him in the shoulder, finally thrusting through to the man behind, catching him in the guts. The charging horse forced the three skewered men backward, as they futilely screamed and flailed, until their backs collided with the latticed windows. With a final heave on the lance, Jacques shoved the three men out of the window to meet their death two stories below, impaled together. They made for a garden decoration that would have been the envy of Vlad Tepes.
Pierre was shouting something from a far corner of the room where he huddled with three women, naked and waving his arms wildly. Jacques paid him no mind beyond reassuring himself that his friend was still alive, albeit in some state of nude disarray. But that was not an uncommon state for Pierre.
Georgette brought the horse around to face the room, leaning low against his neck to shield her from any gunfire. Jacques jumped down from the horse, landing fully in balance and descending into a crouch in a fluid movement with feline agility. He assessed the room faster than a heartbeat. Two men stood in the corner near Pierre and his women, also mostly nude. One mostly dressed, very tall man stood alone by a large fireplace, fumbling to draw his gun from his gunbelt that was undone along with his trousers and flapping around his hips beneath the hem of his red shirt. Jacques sprang at the pair of men by Pierre, covering the room like a panther, his fangs likewise bared in a bestial snarl, eyes gleaming aurous and merciless. He caught the men before their sluggish human reflexes could avail them. Jacques’s right fist slammed into the nearest man’s teeth with inhuman strength and all the forgiveness of iron, nearly bursting through the back of the man’s skull and killing him as quickly as a bullet to the brain. With his left hand, Jacques caught the other man’s throat, digging his nails into the feeble flesh and ripping his throat out, severing arteries and tendons and windpipe all in one vicious motion.
Using his body to block Pierre and the shrieking women near him, Jacques straightened to face the one remaining cowboy. The tall man in the red shirt. Buck Taylor, the King of the Cowboys and, Jacques suspected, a rival for Georgette’s affection. The snarl on Jacques’s lips turned upward into a malicious sideways smirk. With Jacques’s heightened senses and hyper-fast reflexes, events inside the room seemed to move in slow motion. Georgette had aimed the horse at Buck, trying to run him down. Pierre was shouting something undoubtedly not worth listening to. Buck had retrieved his pistol from his gunbelt, drawing it on Jacques with the famous lightning-quick speed of an American gunfighter. Jacques drew his own pistol, fanning the hammer with his left hand to circulate a fresh round into the chamber as he simultaneously raised the gun with his right hand. Jacques fired when the front sight moved across Buck’s heart, a fraction of a second faster than Buck could finalize his aim.
The bullet caught Buck under his collarbone on his left side, an inch too high for a killing shot, but enough to send him reeling backward. He stumbled toward the broken window as Jacques fanned another round into his revolver and fired again, faster this time and more errant. The second bullet embedded itself in Buck’s hipbone, knocking him nearer the window. Following his momentum, Buck dove out of the broken window, taking his chances with the drop to the ground below instead of Jacques and his gun.
Jacques’s narrowed eyes followed Buck out of the window, the grin still on his lips at the prospect of the hunt. He stumbled when Pierre struck him hard in the back from behind and shouted angrily, “What in the hell are you doing, you raving madman!?”
“Huh?” Jacques sputtered dumbly, taken completely off guard. Confusion knotted his brows when he turned his head toward Pierre.
“Can you not be invited to any decent occasion without wreaking utter fucking mayhem?” Pierre seethed, spittle flying from his mouth, his chest blotchy red with waning arousal and mounting anger, his vampiric eyes gleaming deep mahogany. “This was the most promising evening I have arranged in years, and here you burst in like a goddamn lunatic? What are you thinking? And shooting? Why in the Nine Circles of Hell are you shooting inside my mansion!?”
Still holding the pistol, Jacques gestured from the broken window to Georgette to Pierre, his mouth gaping – a very rare event in which he was lost for words. Blinking through the confusion, he asked, “What exactly were you doing in here with those cowboys?”
“What was I doing?” Pierre laughed bitterly. “What does your towering intellect tell you?” He gestured at his nudity and his now unimpressive flaccidity. When Jacques still looked dumbfounded, Pierre continued with the same inflection he would use to speak to a very stupid child, “I had four cowboys in here – the biggest of the bunch of them, I might add – and not enough women to go around. The big one, Buck, is a fairly tolerable stand in for you. Since you have never agreed to have a properly fun and debauched evening with me, I have been forced to finagle it in other ways.” He stomped his foot petulantly, making his limp dick flop humorously against his thigh. “This is the nearest I’ve been to enjoying just such an evening, and this – this – is the pallor you cast over it!”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Jacques shook his head, his brow furrowed. Then he started to laugh. “You had the cowboys in here for a goddamn orgy?”
“It sounds so cheap and vulgar when you say it like that,” Pierre huffed. “Just because they’re beastly Americans, that’s no reason for you to be rude. It was going to be a marvelous evening. One for the books, I tell you!”
Georgette’s expression was a mixture of aghast and amused when she looked at Pierre, as if her features were unsure of which emotion to settle on. She kicked her leg over the horse’s neck and dropped to the floor. She looked at Jacques for guidance, but he was of no use at present, still dumbfounded himself.
“Did those men accompany you here to your bedroom?” Jacques wiped the back of his hand over his sweaty brow. “Have they been here all evening?”
“They came here in a raucous sort of hurry a short while ago.” Pierre was still so irritated, he hadn’t yet bothered finding his pants, as if he was still hopeful for the brand of action he wanted. “But then I convinced them – without much difficulty, I might add – that I could give them an evening far superior to any other they had planned.” He tapped his temple in a knowing gesture.
Jacques couldn’t stop the laughter that bellowed from his throat. “You seduced the fucking cowboys? Men come to kill you, and you seduce them. I bow to your superior skills of self-preservation.” Jacques did bow, low and mockingly, with a flippant flourish of his tailcoat.
“You’re stark raving mad.” Pierre planted his hands on his hips and looked accusatorily at Georgette. “Have you poisoned him?”
Jacques looked at Georgette too, his eyes luminous with laughing tears. “All vampires have unique gifts. Whereas I can be persuasive and intuitive, as you have seen, Pierre can seduce anything that walks, crawls, or brays.” Looking around the destroyed room he laughed again. “Or shoots six-guns and throws lariat ropes.”
“Hear the jealousy in his voice?” Pierre asked Georgette sardonically.
“Have you any notion of the destruction wrought upon your guests and your mansion?” Jacques asked, wiping a tear from his eye. “It’s utter havoc downstairs. Did you not hear the screams and the gunfire?”
“Still raving, I see.” Pierre threw his hands up, finally capitulating. He located a pair of pants and awkwardly pulled them on while still berating Jacques, “Since when have you become such a namby pamby about a little havoc? It was only two centuries ago that my castle was under siege, and you couldn’t be bothered to stop fucking that infernal redhead while the entire West wing and tower were blown to smithereens!”
“The cowboys you invited here tonight were hired guns, sent to dispose of us.” Jacques tried to purge the laughter from his voice. “Hired by that jealous little bastard, Slyvester, and no doubt led by another jealous bastard, Buck Taylor.”
“Ludicrous,” Pierre said adamantly as he searched for a shirt. He retrieved a white frilly one and pulled it halfway over his head before realizing it belonged to one of the women and was much too small.
Jacques flipped open the cylinder of the pistol he had used. There were still two rounds remaining and he pulled one out. Using his thumbnail, he dug into the soft lead tip of the bullet. A silky silver substance oozed out, glimmering in the candlelight. It was like piercing a cherry cordial housing sticky liquid inside a chocolate shell. Jacques wrinkled his nose at the scent of it and the tip of his thumb sizzled until he wiped it off on his trousers.
“Mercury,” he said with extreme distaste. “That does a number on us, let me tell you. You can see for yourself when you venture downstairs. Do you think your average American cowboy has mercury filled bullets?”
Pierre studied the silvery oozing bullet, frowning. “Well, if they were indeed mercenaries, they weren’t very good ones.”
“They were pretty damn good, actually,” Jacques said, laughing again. “But the murderous bastards weren’t prepared for being bamboozled by the biggest harlot on the continent.”
“It will take more than flattery to redeem you from this travesty,” Pierre crossed his arms over his chest. “Even if what you say is true, you could have had the decency to allow me to have my fun first before causing such destruction.” He looked at Georgette with something that might have been jealousy. “Especially since you get to have your fun with your American.”
“Are you not going to appraise the destruction downstairs?” Jacques asked incredulously.
“I have maids and butlers who are paid to deal with such nonsense.” Pierre waved his hand dismissively. He looked at Georgette and grinned. “For a cowgirl, she’s hardly bovine at all. Perhaps we can still salvage the evening.”
“I intend to salvage our evening.” Jacques winked at Georgette. “Preferably someplace less overflowing with mercury and orgies.”
“What a boring way to live.” Pierre shook his head.
The second time Jacques took Georgette to Brook House, his home on Park Lane, he didn’t waste a breath inviting her in. When his carriage rocked to a stop, Jacques swept her out of the coach, down his foyer, up a marvelous staircase and along hallways lined with artifacts gathered from the far reaches of the world. It was an impressive feat that she could spare a portion of her awareness for the magnificent artifacts filling Jacques’s home, even while anticipation and arousal coursed through her body and the hot weight of his hand pressed insistently on the small of her back, guiding her toward a night of excitement, perhaps filled with even more intensity than the vampire ball was fraught with death. She resolved to study these in detail and hear the story behind each tomorrow, or whenever it may be that she desired to leave Jacques’s bed. Upon further consideration, that might not be for days.
She smiled at the thought. Jacques must have intercepted her mental process because he laughed heartily, his voice booming down the long hallway. His hand at Georgette’s back snaked around her waist and he hoisted her off the ground with ease and slung her over his shoulder like a barbarian claiming his spoils of war. When he reached the doors at the end of the hallway, he shouldered into them then kicked them shut behind him, twirling with Georgette as he crossed the room toward the inviting canopy bed. Instead of dropping her onto it, Jacques returned her to the floor in front of a grand fireplace set into the wall adjacent to the bed. Dancing flames gave the room a sultry glow and made Jacques’s eyes gleam like honey.
Taking her hand, Jacques raised it to his lips in a softer overture than Georgette had expected. He fixed his eyes on hers as he slowly drew his lips higher, pressing them next against her inner wrist. She had never been kissed in that sensitive place nor with such delicacy. It was a simple action but it sent a flutter through her. The tip of Jacques’s nose rested on her skin and he inhaled her scent. The sheen in his eyes deepened until they shimmered with the same otherworldly aurous quality Georgette had only seen in them when he was looking at her desirously or ripping into living flesh.
“You want to bite me.” It was a statement because she could see the answer plainly.
“More than I’ve ever wanted any worldly pleasure,” Jacques purred. “But I won’t until you ask me.”
“Not tonight. Not yet,” she said but her voice wavered. “Worldly pleasures first, if you please.”
Jacques trailed his plush lips and coarse beard from her wrist up her inner arm, holding her eyes while his mouth caressed her skin. His next kiss was to the inside of her elbow as he raised her arm to rest her wrist on his shoulder. Georgette twined her fingers in the thick hair hanging down the back of his neck, pulling him closer. His lips relished their way up the length of her arm, pausing next on her shoulder with lips slightly parted so she felt the hot tease of his tongue. A shiver passed through her when his mouth reached her collarbone, and she laughed at her own sensitivity to his touch. Jacques grinned against her skin and lingered there for several kisses.
When he reached the base of her neck, his tongue met her skin before his lips and his hands dug harshly into her flesh. A guttural rumble rolled through his chest, a dark ravening brand of arousal. He felt impossibly large with his body pressed against her, looming over her to kiss her. The laces of her corset felt as if they had been tightened by an invisible hand and the luxurious silk of her dress felt as itchy as burlap on her skin. The thought of ripping the fine scarlet dress apart just to be free of it flashed through her mind.
Jacques ran his hands up from her hips, over her nipped waist, to the top of her bodice. He pulled back enough to give her a devilish grin. “I could rip this off as easily as tissue paper.” His forefinger teased her bosom above the bodice. “But you’ll think me a villain when your head clears. Women and clothes, you know.”
Instead, he turned her so her back faced him and ran his long fingers over her bare shoulders down the laced back of her dress. Jacques grabbed the top of the dress on either side of the laces and ripped it open as if it were nothing more than frail gauze, but causing no damage aside from the torn laces and a few warped hooks and eyes, several of which skittered away across the polished wood floor.
The small act of aggression loosened the tether on the wilder part of his nature that Jacques wanted to restrain during their first encounter. His hands turned more demanding, his mouth hungrier. He locked a strong arm around her waist from behind and kissed her nape as he hoisted her fully off the floor to extricate her from the thick pile of dress she stood inside. In the same fluid motion, he crossed to the bed and laid her on the thick duvet.
He was less considerate of her undergarments. Leaning over her, he ripped her corset open to the tune of tearing silk and snapping whalebone, making her laugh excitedly. He was gentler with her chemise in an effort to savor the moment, unwrapping a gift he’d earned with his blood. There was a simple bow at the top of her chemise, securing a decorative stitch along the neckline. Jacques bowed his head until the tip of his prominent nose pressed her skin and hooked his canine in a loop of the bow to pull it undone. Georgette smiled and arched into him, encouraging him. Jacques took the dip in the neckline between his teeth and, paired with his left hand, ripped the chemise open down the center. He nuzzled into her exposed breasts, kissing and licking the flesh that pillowed around his lips and nose.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Georgette purred, pushing back lightly on Jacques shoulders. When he raised his head and looked at her with lusting but uncomprehending golden eyes, she tugged his scarlet cravat loose and pulled the silk out of his collar. “You’re overdressed for the occasion. It seems unfair that your clothing should meet with a more civilized fate than my poor corset.”
Jacques pulled back from her and stood from the bed. He shrugged out of his tailcoat and appraised his torn and very bloody shirt. Flashing his teeth in a grin, Jacques gave her the show she wanted and ripped his own shirt open with exaggerated flair, puffing out his enormous chest and shaking back his wild hair. His pants were brusquely discarded as his eyes roamed her body, devouring the sight of her before his hands and mouth would devour the feel and taste of her. He crawled over her slowly, kissing his way up her body starting on her thigh. He met her eyes when he reached her sex. Pushing her thighs apart, he licked a fat stripe up her center and kissed her pussy as indulgently as he had kissed her lips. Bringing a hand to her breast, Jacques rubbed his calloused palm over her nipple as he squeezed her supple flesh. The sensation made her back arch, offering him more. Jacques lavished her with his tongue until her thighs were quivering and she was writhing beneath him, dripping into the sheets. He continued up her body, kissing over her navel and breasts on his way to her throat.
Jacques allowed some of his heavy weight to settle on her, pinning her beneath him. He caressed her thigh as he lifted her leg back to hook over his hip. His thick cock teased her entrance when Jacques brought his lips to hers. He kissed her ravenously, swallowing her moan, as he thrust inside in one swift motion. With her arms wrapped around him, she could feel the powerful muscles in his back and shoulders flex and tense in time with the rhythm he set. She dragged a hand through his hair and fisted it at the back of his neck, using her grip to direct his head down to her neck. The feeling of his lips and tongue on her skin and pulse point combined with the dangerous knowledge of what he could do to her there was exhilarating.
Georgette held him tighter as she trembled with pleasure and his breath became hoarse, puffing on her neck like a locomotive. The orgasm that wracked through her left her almost delirious with pleasure. Jacques dutifully pounded her through it, thrusting hard, wringing all the pleasure he could out of her body. He came with a rumbling groan, his massive body shuddering. Breathing heavily, he relaxed over her, pleasantly crushing her into the duvet while he spent several minutes kissing her indulgently.
Rolling onto his back, Jacques pulled her to drape over him. That massive chest of his made for a wonderful pillow. His voice was rich and husky, “I warned you once that if you came inside my home, I would never let you leave.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” she purred.
“What do you want it to be?” he teased, running his large hand over her hip and the dip in her waist.
“An invitation.” She pressed closer to him, relishing the feeling of the length of his hard body.
“Stay with me,” he dropped his voice to a smoky octave just above a whisper. “Stay forever.”
“Forever would require me to be a vampire.” She looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.
He lifted head to kiss her cheek and rumble in her ear, “Shall I make you one tonight? Say yes, ma belle.”
“What other vampiric weaknesses do I need to be aware of?” she asked, lazily trailing her fingers over the faint lines on his shoulders and chest left by the silver-woven rope. They were mostly healed now and look like they were weeks old instead of only hours. “Do you burst into flames at the sight of the cross?”
“Why would a cross have any effect on us?” he scoffed. “I’ve no doubt vampires existed long before crosses were considered holy.”
“Prior to meeting you, all I knew about vampires I learned from Penny Dreadfuls.” She shrugged.
“What else did you learn from those ridiculous tabloids?” HIs hand continued soothing and caressing her.
“That vampires have no reflection in a mirror,” she answered.
“Do I look like a man who cannot see himself in a mirror?” Jacques grinned.
“I’m bored with talk of vampires, and it feeds into your preening too much.” She propped herself up with her arms on his chest. “Far more interesting than vampires are werewolves.”
“Werewolves?” Jacques raised his eyebrows.
“The Penny Dreadfuls have a story about a pack of werewolves far up north in the Yukon.” She toyed with a tendril of his hair. “They like the cold.”
“Naturally.” He smirked. “It would be prudent for me to make you a vampire before you go werewolf hunting.”
“Perhaps if we were going werewolf hunting, I’d let you,” she returned then added wistfully, “I’ve always wanted to travel there.”
“For the werewolves?” he teased.
“The northern lights are said to be beautiful.” She ignored his flippant remarks. “My father believes there is gold there too, up in the Klondike. A few miners have struck gold in the Yukon.”
“Werewolves, northern lights, and gold?” Jacques raised his eyebrows. “You’ve sold me, mon amor. When shall we leave?”
Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Violence. Monster Action. Cryptids. Creepy things that happen in the woods. Backcountry flavor. Just a nice getaway with Flip. Those never go according to plan. I’m willing to continue this and write more if people like it!
Note: Going forward, I'm going to write characters from now on instead of Readers just because it's really annoying trying to switch back and forth for the non-fic writing I do. However, the female characters will be totally physically vague aside from having a name, so they can still easily be read as an insert by anyone who chooses to insert themselves.
Based on two requests I combined then butchered from @rynwritesstuff and @lumberjack00fantasies
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One of Flip’s favorite things was spending a secluded weekend out at his cabin, nestled in the forested mountains, away from the noise and mayhem of town. And away from people. Nothing cured a man’s love of humanity better than working with them. He enjoyed having a beer and a burger with his friends after work and he enjoyed taking his girl out to dinner. But he liked it a helluva lot more to take her with him into the mountains and not see or hear from another person for a couple days. Actually, it had become his favorite thing.
Knowing this, his girl, Kate, had booked him a nice getaway right up his alley. A solid week squirreled away in a truly remote cabin about as far away from humanity as he could get. It had taken a little online spelunking for her to land on the small town of Kitwanga, British Columbia, but its selling points of having a population of less than five-hundred, being a prime location for hunting and fishing, and being a true gateway to the wilderness with scarcely an outpost North between the little town and the Yukon, had sealed the deal. Besides, for the shrewd outdoorsman who wanted a less touristy experience with a friendlier populace for about a third of the money, British Columbia was a superior option to Alaska with all the same appeal.
Over-the-counter hunting licenses were available for all sorts of game that required a lottery draw or exorbitant fee in the States. Flip laughed when he read in the game regulations that it was strictly prohibited to shoot Bigfoot and that, should a sportsman encounter him, he was to be considered a protected species.
“How many big, hairy Canadians do you reckon had to get shot in the ass before they added that regulation?” He grinned at Kate, sitting with her legs curled under her on the seat of his rented truck as they bounced down the terrible excuse for a dirt road, sloshing in the mud and hitting potholes by the hundreds. Flip had twice hit his head on the bolt of the rifle secured in the headache rack above his head on the ceiling of the truck’s cab. He would have left the rifle inside their cabin, but they had been stringently warned not to take a step outside without it. Bears were a real threat and the animals here had little experience with humans, which meant little fear of them.
“Sounds like you better watch your own ass if you’re out wandering around in low light,” she teased back. “You’re big and lumbering enough to be mistaken for Bigfoot.”
“Yeah, but I’m a lot better lookin,’” he winked at her as he pulled into the only gas station in the tiny town. He filled up every day on their return in case the owner decided to take a day off. Electric pumps were a novelty that hadn’t reached this far north, it seemed. He was in a teasing mood, returning from a day of hiking and, as he put it, takin’ pictures of every goddamn thing in Canada.
“Depends on who you ask,” Kate laughed warmly. “I’ve waged a losing battle for quite a while trying to convince my friends you’re handsome. They tell me I’m blind or brainwashed.”
Five businesses in the tiny town were booming, frequented by most if not all of its citizens on a regular basis: the grocery store, post office, church, bar, and the gas station. Actually, Kitwanga boasted two bars. Flip figured this was a good insight as to the favorite pastime of the locals, especially since it doubled the churchgoers. There were no restaurants, but the bars had all the haute cuisine a man could want, so long as what he wanted was a cheeseburger or a sandwich or some chicken fried steak. However, one bar generously offered to cook anything a person brought in, provided the thing was somewhere between alive and kicking and starting to turn, and provided that gastronome paid in cash. Flip had already taken the owner and bartender up on this offer and handed over several trout he had caught that day to the owner’s wife and cook to fry for dinner. He had to admit it was some of the best fried fish he had ever had, and it paired wonderfully with the potent Moose Knuckle stout beer on tap.
The sign at the gas station read, Headed north? Need gas? It’s now or never. Two lonely gas pumps sat on a rectangle of cement on the otherwise muddy ground – the kind of pumps a person usually only saw on postcards from the fifties, with the rounded tops and numbers for cost and gallons that ticked by on a dial like an old one-armed-bandit style slot machine. A hand-scrawled sign in the window listed the hours vaguely as open from dawn ‘til dusk. An uninformed observer could easily mistake the business for being abandoned, or even condemned, a relic lingering in a ghost town. But for the metropolis of Kitwanga, it was a thriving business. There was even another vehicle at the pumps, a ’79 Ford truck with a lift and a winch on its bumper and a fat man in overalls leaning against the bed, pumping gas.
Flip stepped out of his truck and lifted the nozzle of the gas pump with a rusty squeal. He admired the view of his girl as she trotted into the gas station to forage for supplies. A brisk wind rustled his hair, tinged with chilled moisture. Above, low clouds in a grayscale palette churned in the sky. The snowy tops of the mountains were hidden inside the clouds and rain slashed across their facades in a grey haze. The rain hadn’t yet reached the foothills where the town and Flip’s rented cabin were nestled, but fog was creeping in from the base of the mountains and off a nearby river. Between the thunderclouds and the fog, it was as if the world was slowly closing in, like the vignette on a Bogart movie narrowing in on the dramatic eyes of a starlet.
Tilting his face up into the chilly air, Flip smiled. He loved rain and thunderstorms, and found peace in their chaos. Mainly, he loved holding his girl while a storm raged outside, or having a drink with her while they sat on the porch and felt the electricity in the air, and making love to her and feeling her shudder thunderously beneath him. His smile widened as he anticipated the evening ahead.
“Storm’s comin,’” the man at the pump said to Flip as he spat a string of brown tobacco into the mud. “You here for huntin’ or fishin?’”
“I’m mostly just here to take a break from everyday bullshit,” Flip replied in a friendly tone. “But I have tags for fishing and tags for bear and moose in case one happens to wander in front of me.”
“Storms are bad for fishin,’” the man said, nodding knowingly. “But they can be good for huntin.’ Storms bring the animals down from the big mountains. Moose especially like the mist and bears like to hunt in the rain when their prey can’t hear and see ‘em as good.”
“Good to know.” Flip smiled as he replaced the nozzle and turned to go inside and pay his tab.
“That your girl?” the man asked with a suggestive nod toward the gas station.
“That she is.” Flip turned to face the man, wondering if he’d end up getting in a fist fight while on vacation.
Not taking the hint, the man whistled appreciatively.
Flip decided the rube meant it as a compliment, so he simply agreed with a “Yup,” and went into the gas station. Kate had been suspiciously long inside anyway, something that nagged at the part of his mind that was always an officer on duty.
Inside the dingy little gas station, Flip saw his girl leaning against the counter engaged in an affable conversation with the attendant behind the counter, a squat older man with a heavily lined face and long silver hair in a braid hanging over his shoulder down to his gut. Flip wandered through the store, grabbing a few items that struck his fancy, some beef jerky, chips, candy bars, and other assorted junk food. At the back of the store, a menagerie of terrible taxidermy watched him with glassy eyes. Above the beverage coolers that lined the wall hung several deer and caribou and two enormous moose. A life-size grizzly bear stood on its hind feet in a corner, frozen mid-snarl, its head a solid three feet above Flip’s. He looked at its paws that were larger than his head and vicious curling claws, longer and thicker than his fingers. Facing such a beast, the gun he had in his truck now seemed very feeble. He grabbed a six-pack of stout beer bottles and an over-sized bottle of cheap wine and took his loot to the counter to pile it alongside Kate’s items.
“Have you heard about the wendigo?” Kate asked Flip when he joined her at the counter. The lilt in her voice told him she was highly amused. “My new friend was just telling me about it.”
“Yeah, wasn’t that the name of that stripper I arrested last year for blackmailing the mayor?” Flip smirked. “Wendy-Go?”
“He’s an idiot, I’m sorry,” Kate apologized to the man behind the counter, simultaneously elbowing Flip in the ribs. “Please ignore him and continue.”
The attendant gave Flip a sideways look and continued talking to Kate in a slow, backcountry drawl, “It is said the wendigo were people once, but now they are cursed. A wendigo is born during times of famine or in the harshest winter. When men are starving to death in the cold. When a man is weak, and he chooses the black path of cannibalism over death, butchering his fellows to save himself. When a man eats the flesh of another, he takes a curse upon himself. The wendigo lives in constant starvation, its body emaciated and rotting, only growing hungrier the more it eats. Its hunger can never be sated and it becomes a crazed beast with an insatiable bloodlust.”
“Is this insatiable bloodlust specific to tourists?” Flip asked sarcastically.
“Sometimes,” the man shrugged, unbothered. “It looks to punish those with greed in their hearts. Or, depending on which stories you believe, it seeks people who are like-minded to itself to build its own tribe.” He eyed Flip narrowly. “So, if a tourist is out greedily mining or wantonly slaughtering game, then yes, the wendigo will come for him.”
“Slaughtering is one of the few things I never do wantonly,” Flip deadpanned and slapped some cash down on the counter.
“You should be careful, son,” the old man told Flip seriously. “There are many ways a man can be greedy. He can be greedy for his woman and covetous of her.” Then he shrugged again. “But these are nothing more than old tales.”
“So, you don’t believe in the wendigo?” Kate asked.
“Oh, there’s no doubt in my mind he’s real. I’ve seen a wendigo twice. He has antlers taller than a caribou and wider than a moose, teeth like a wolf, and only skull sockets for eyes. But they glow. It’s the glow I remember most,” the man said genuinely as he counted out change. “I just don’t know if he was once a man, or something that was never human at all. Maybe the people who first came here created a myth to explain the monster rather than created a mythical monster themselves.”
“Maybe it’s a convenient way to scare pretty, gullible girls.” Flip smirked at Kate. Then he returned his attention to the cashier. “Let me guess, there’s something that wards off the wendigo? A silver crucifix or whatever? I bet we can buy it right here.”
“Nothing wards off the wendigo,” the man scoffed. “And he is far older than your crucifix. Why would a forest god bow to a stranger on a cross? Fire can stall him, maybe even frighten him, but it can only buy you time.” He looked outside the window at the building storm. “Not good weather for making a fire if you need it.”
“Damn shame.” Flip shook his head and began collecting their provisions in his arms. There were no courtesy bags.
“We do have flares,” the man suggested innocently. “They burn in any kind of weather, even underwater. All the bush pilots carry them.”
“Probably inside their emergency monster-hunting kit alongside the stakes for vampires and silver bullets for werewolves,” Flip laughed. “Go ahead. Load us up with some flares. Consider it a tip for a good campfire story.”
“It’s always smart to be prepared,” the man agreed as he placed two bundles of six red flares apiece on the counter and rang them up. They looked like bundles of dynamite.
Kate took the flares because Flip’s arms were already overfilled. She thanked the attendant and turned to leave.
The old man grabbed her by the elbow, stopping her and causing Flip’s hackles to rise. He spoke seriously, “Don’t whistle when you’re out in the woods. Whistling will summon the wendigo. Sometimes people hear whistling too, before it comes for them.”
“And these people who hear the whistling before it gets them,” Flip said as he edged his body between Kate and the counter and nudged her toward the exit. “They walk out of the woods to tell their story, huh?”
Their log cabin for the week was almost an hour’s drive from the gas station. It wasn’t that far as the crow flies, but the road was serpentine with switchbacks as it climbed the foot of the mountains and made even slower by soupy mud. It was set deep in the forest, surrounded by old-growth trees with trunks as thick as the truck’s bed. The sun set on their drive back. As it dipped below the mountainous horizon, the landscape glowed a shade of hazy purple only seen in the alpine. The clouds were the color of gunpowder and the rainy vapor was periwinkle. The spruce turned into an army of nearly black silhouettes with a light mist writhing among them as moisture rose from the damp ground as well as drizzled gently from the sky. The drifting mist made everything look as though it were moving. It gave the illusion of eldritch shapes in the trees creeping along the edges of vision and tree limbs grasping like clawed fingers as they swayed in the breeze.
Flip hit the brakes suddenly, slamming Kate forward in her seat and knocking her out of the reverie the gloaming forest had cast over her. A black shape froze in the muddy road a few yards ahead of them. Its eyes sparked cold white in the headlights and the fur on its back was raised aggressively.
“A wolf!” Flip said excitedly. “I’ve never seen one this close.”
The huge animal was coal black, its amber eyes reflecting white in the headlights in the way wolves eyes do. It stood frozen, staring down the vehicle, acting like the truck was a new creature intruding into the wolf’s territory. Something was wrong with its silhouette. Something with its mouth. It took several seconds for Kate to realize what it was. The wolf turned its head uncertainly, deciding whether it should continue on its way across the road or turn around from the metal beast with offense headlights. A dead rabbit dangled from its jaws, its legs swinging lifelessly and ears flopping limply. Its lifeless eyes glinted a dull red.
The simple reminder of nature’s brutality unnerved Kate unexpectedly and her hands felt suddenly cold. She gripped Flip’s hand, digging her nails into his palm with irrational harshness.
“Nature, red in tooth and claw,” he teased and grinned at her, but he laced his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Some redneck at the gas station told me that predators liked to hunt in the rain. Guess he was right.”
Night had veiled the forest with its velvety black cloak by the time they parked next to the porch of their cabin. It was silent enough to hear all the noises of the forest, from the chattering birds to the subtle rustling of deer browsing in the brush to moisture pattering lightly on the ground. A great horned owl as large as a man’s torso sat perched in a tree branch hanging near the roof of the cabin, its yellow eyes glittering like moonlight as it hooted an eerie cadence. It followed them with its yellow eyes as they unloaded the truck and carried their loot inside, its head turned almost fully backward like a creature possessed.
There was no light pollution and on a clear night, the moon and stars lit the forest bright enough to see easily. On a rainy night, moisture in the air brought out all the smells of the forest, the crisp spruce, the earthy soil, the embers in the fireplace. The cabin had no electric lines and was powered by a temperamental generator and a wood stove. A woodpile was stacked against the back of the cabin, complete with a large timber axe embedded in a nearby stump. Cell service was laughable. Flip loved everything about all of that. He was pleased it had running water, however, mainly because it would have greatly impacted his sex life if it didn’t.
Flip grilled steaks outside that night before the rain hit and they had dinner on the porch, counting lightning bolts. Then they tangled around each other in front of the fireplace, making love as the flames crackled and danced and the thunder rolled. Between dinner and fooling around several times, they finished the bottle of wine and opened another. Night fell early this far north in the autumn and the nights were long. The cabin was equipped with a tv, but it was one of those terrible old boxy things with a tiny screen and antennas. The antennas were only for show since there was no service. Instead, there was a vcr and a selection of campy nineties movies and some even campier porn. It seemed to defeat the purpose of being there to even bother with the tv. They hadn’t turned it on once.
“I’m wide awake,” Kate mused, propped up on Flip’s bare chest, looking down at him. “Let’s do something.”
“I have plenty of ideas,” Flip said huskily. “They’re all sure to wear you out.”
“We’ve tried your ideas. Several times. And I’m still far from worn out.” She smiled. “We’re here in a cabin, basically having a sleepover. Let’s play some sleepover games, the kind you play as idiot teenagers or in sororities in college.”
“I think girls have a lot wilder sleepovers than boys. And my experience with sororities is limited to sneaking in and out of them, so you’ll have to be more specific.” He ran his fingertips along her spine and kissed her throat, doing his best to interest her in another round.
“Later, you animal,” she laughed and shoved his face away while pushing herself up and off him. “You know what I mean. Sleepover games. Like Bloody Mary, or playing a Ouija Board, or the Midnight Game.”
“Packed a Ouija Board, did you?” he teased. “That would explain why your suitcase weighs fifty fuckin’ pounds.”
“I don’t think ghosts care whether or not you use a name brand.” She pinched his chest, making him flinch.
“What ghosts are you gonna find out here?” He squinted as he rubbed his chest. “The Donner Party?”
“Don’t you think they’d be fun to talk to? We can try Bloody Mary. I don’t think she has a centralized location,” she teased and pulled on her discarded pair of pajama pants and a hoodie. She threw Flip’s grey sweatpants at him. “Put that thing away or it might scare off the ghosts.”
Flip grumbled more protests under his breath, but he dressed in his sweats and a thermal henley. “How about we each stand in front of the bathroom mirror with the lights off. I’ll ask for Candyman. You ask for Bloody Mary. And we’ll have a Celebrity Death Match between vengeful ghosts?”
“You know the ghosts always get the cynics and the cocky shitheads first, right?” She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest in a faux reprimand.
“Is that a rule?” Flip grinned. “I think the ghosts go for the morally corrupt woman who can’t keep her legs closed first. You’re in trouble, sugar.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” she said with finality.
“How about we play a fun game, like spin the bottle or truth or dare?” He winked at her. “I always pick dare. Do your worst.”
“I can’t imagine where a game of truth or dare with you would lead.” She rolled her eyes sarcastically.
Flip puffed his chest and stepped closer to her until their bodies were almost touching. “I have a better idea. You have some pretty big balls for a pretty little girl. Let’s see how big they really are.”
“Oh my god, Flip, if this is another ploy to explore that region further…” she laughed.
“Everything I do is some kinda means to that end.” He smirked. “But we’ll get to that later. Now, let’s go outside and whistle at the wendigo. There should be some of those sonsabitches around these parts.”
Flip went to the door and stepped into his muddy boots. He leaned against the doorframe, casually cocky, and raised an eyebrow at her in a challenge. “How ‘bout it, hot stuff?”
“I think we’d be better off trying to summon Bloody Mary than a wendigo,” Kate said hesitantly. “Plus, it will be cold out there.”
“I’ll keep you warm,” he teased. “How do you figure that trying to summon a ghost through our bathroom mirror would be safer than trying to call in a wendigo? At least a wendigo will stay outside. Besides, I know how psycho you’d get if I let another woman into our bedroom. Dead or alive. Don’t try to set me up, sweetheart.”
Rolling her eyes again, Kate pulled her coat on and slipped her phone into its pocket, feeling the bundle of flares she had absently pocketed at the gas station. There was no service, but its flashlight might come in handy outside. Grinning, Flip picked up the rifle that was leaning against the doorframe and slung it over his shoulder. Cocky though he was, he took the advice serious about the threat of bears and always having a gun on him out here in the wilderness. He held the door open for Kate and ushered her outside.
The air was thick with humidity but the rain had stopped for the moment, leaving the moisture on the air to chill their skin and turn their breath into ghostly thick fog. The porch was covered in slushy frost as bright as diamonds. Their boot prints left skeletal black outlines on the otherwise pristine frosty canvas as they descended the steps and walked into the forest that awaited them only yards away.
Flip offered Kate his arm and led her into the trees. The old growth forest felt like being inside a fairytale, surrounded by enormous tree trunks and relatively open ground at their bases. The roots of those great trees were so thirsty, they leeched most of the nutrients and left little for brush and scrub to encroach. After the rain, the ground was muddy and slick, with frost growing denser by the minute as the temperature dropped through the night.
Filling his lungs, Flip began whistling a terribly off-key tune as he walked through the woods. His casual swagger was the same as if he were taking his girl out for a stroll in the park. Kate winced when he struck a particularly loathsome note, and squinted her eyes at him, “What in the hell are you whistling?”
“Season of the Witch,” he replied, acting offended. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“I like the song, I don’t appreciate what you’re doing to it,” she laughed. “We’re not going to find any wendigo if you scare them all off with that horrendous noise.”
“I don’t hear you doing any better,” he scoffed.
Mainly in an attempt to save her ears from his screeching, Kate started whistling. She teased Flip first with her best wolf whistle. Smells were heightened in the damp air but sounds were muffled. In the silence of the forest, the whistle sounded unnaturally loud. Now that Flip wasn’t making noise himself, he found himself focusing more on his surroundings. He didn’t feel right, something he couldn’t put his finger on tugged at the back of his mind. It wasn’t just that noises were muffled by the dampness in the air, but something else that he found indefinable in that moment. He told himself it was just the product of being in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar vegetation that he found unsettling. The size of trees still seemed monstrous to him, and the smell of spruce instead of the familiar smell of pine must have been unsettling to his subconscious. And it probably didn’t help that he had cultivated a little buzz drinking wine for the past few hours.
A light gust of wind blew into his face and all of his senses sparked with alarm. He froze in place, seizing Kate’s arm to silence her whistling. The unmistakable scent of a wet animal hit his nose with the force of a slap in the face. Quickly evaluating his surroundings, he unslung the rifle from his shoulder and held it across his chest in high port. It would take him less than a second to aim and fire. But the forest was close around them, visibility limited to fifteen feet or so in any direction. If the animal was a predator, a bear or a mountain lion, it could cover that distance in less than a heartbeat if it wanted. He could still see the faint glow of the cabin’s lights. They hadn’t gone far, but there was no chance of outrunning an animal back to safety.
A heavy footfall sounded inside the trees ahead of them, muffled on the wet ground but distinctive. Straining his ears, Flip thought he heard a branch being brushed aside by something passing by it. Whatever it was, it was very close ahead of them. Flip’s thoughts raced, less cohesive and more a rush of images of nightmare scenarios that he weighed in an instant. He could hide himself and Kate behind one of the huge tree trunks and hope the animal passed them by. But whatever it was had to already know of their presence. If his feeble senses could hear and smell the animal, it had no doubt smelled and heard him much sooner. In that case, he decided it was best to hold his ground and meet whatever it was head on, straight down the barrel of his rifle. That would give them the best chance. Flip would have to make his shot count, and he’d probably only get one, but it was a decent chance.
Stepping in front of Kate, Flip raised his rifle to his shoulder. He kept both eyes open, not limiting his focus to only what was past the end of his barrel, but trying to expand his senses to the full spectrum of forest in front of him. He heard a heavy breath, something panting. Closer now. Flip clicked off the safety and tightened his finger on the trigger. The hardest skill for a hunter to learn, especially when hunting game that hunted him back, is to wait long enough for a good shot but not so long as to let it get him. He wouldn’t waste his shot until he saw his target clearly and could be sure of putting the bullet where it would matter most. His hold on the gun was rock steady, his breath stalled, his eyes unblinking.
The panting grew in volume until it seemed to drum in his ears. Odd for a stalking predator. Before Flip could reconcile that, a bear burst from the trees only feet in front of him. A huge grizzly bear lumbering toward him on all fours, the top of its humped shoulders taller than Flip’s head. His finger tensed, less than a millimeter of movement was required to fire. But something was off with the bear. It was panting heavily, saliva dripping from its open mouth and fog snorting in bursts from its wet nose. The bear stopped short at the sight of the man with a gun right in front of it, clearly surprised, very unlike a predator who had been stalking the man. Flip hesitated. If he didn’t kill the bear immediately with one shot – drop it right in its tracks – it would maul them both before it died. If the bear wasn’t hunting him, it was a foolish risk to take. Grizzlies were not commonly hunting predators; they were scavengers and fishers. Most people who were mauled by grizzlies had either gotten between a mother and her cubs or a bear and its food, or they had startled it like waking a grumpy old man.
Sniffing the air, the bear looked at Flip. He was so close he could see the small particles of moisture the bear blew out of its nose along with steam when it snorted. The bear’s little round ears flicked, one turning backward to listen behind it. The bear’s eyes were wide, showing white, in a nervous gesture that was common to both man and beast. The bear looked back over its shoulder and then broke into a gallop. Flip’s rational mind told him to shoot, but his instinct prevented him. The bear altered course enough to avoid running straight into Flip. It paid him no further mind at all, instead running right by him. Flip followed it with the barrel of his rifle as it passed by him so close that a string of white saliva landed on the rifle’s blue-black barrel.
Turning around about face, Flip followed the bear with his sights until it was well past them and showed no signs of turning back around. He looked back toward the place the bear had come from, still holding the rifle to his shoulder. He didn’t look at Kate when he told her, “Walk back to the cabin. Don’t run, but go now.”
“You want me to follow the bear?” she hissed. “He ran toward the cabin. I don’t want to get near him again.”
“Follow the bear,” Flip gritted. “If a bear’s runnin’ from something, we’d best do the same. He didn’t care about us anyway. Now, move.”
Uncertainly, Kate turned and retreated toward the cabin. They hadn’t gone that far, after all. Flip backed after her, keeping his rifle aimed into the black forest from which the bear had run. A shrill scream splintered the silence, starker than a bolt of lightning. Kate shuddered and Flip ducked, hunching his shoulders like he had taken a punch. The scream shrilled for several seconds, wavering on a blood-curdling note before trailing away. It echoed around them, seeming to float on the mist.
“That’s just an elk bugling,” Flip said, trying to calm Kate. Maybe it was in fact an elk, a sickly, ravenous elk. “Keep moving, slowly.”
“I’ve never heard an elk that sounded like that.” Kate shivered against more than the chilled air. “This is starting to scare the hell out of me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take your mind off of it when we get back,” Flip tried to joke but he couldn’t muster the required lewdness, his mouth was too dry.
The howling scream burst again through the forest. It was something like an elk bugle, but more howling and rasping, with a sort of growling mingled in at the end as it trailed away. It was closer now. Flip felt as much as heard it reverberate inside his skull.
“Whatever that is, it’s not an elk.” Kate had her arms wrapped around her body, trying to prevent herself from being overtaken by tremors.
“Sure, it is,” Flip lied. “They probably just grow ‘em bigger up here.”
Kate blew out a shuddering breath, fighting to keep her steps slow and steady.
“Pick up the pace a little, darlin,’” Flip rasped.
“You said not to run,” Kate hissed.
“I didn’t say to crawl either!” Flip gritted. “This is one hell of a time for you to start listening to me.”
Instead of moving faster, Kate stopped short. So suddenly, Flip bumped into her as he walked backward. A branch snapped somewhere inside the forest. It was strangely loud. Flip realized then that the snap only sounded harsh because the forest had gone utterly silent. The hundreds of small noises from birds and insects were gone. Even the drops of water falling from tree branches seemed to have stopped. The forest felt like a living thing around them, possessed of a presence all its own. Now that presence was altered into something darker and ominous.
“What the hell are you doing?” Flip’s voice had dropped to a whisper without his conscious approval. “I said keep moving. We’re not far from the cabin.”
“Turn around.” Kate’s voice trembled.
Dropping the rifle for a moment, Flip looked back over his shoulder. His nerves must be playing tricks on his eyes. He turned fully around, holding the rifle at high port across his chest. The view of the forest that met him was foreign. It wasn’t the same forest they had walked through only minutes before. The trees were more skeletal, their grasping branches more cloying. Moss hung from the branches like the lank hair of a corpse, and the ground was spongy underfoot, as if the forest was rotting around them. Even the air smelled stale and moldy. Thunder boomed overhead and lightning illuminated the forest in patches like a stop-motion movie. Most unsettling of all, the comforting glow of the cabin lights that could be seen through the trees had vanished or been snuffed out.
“What the fuck…” Flip’s voice trailed away as he took in the strangeness of their surroundings. A burst of lightning brought the forest into focus for a gleaming second. Bizarre shapes hung in the trees like a macabre abomination of Christmas tree ornaments, figures made from twigs lashed together with sinew to form pentagrams and humanoid shapes and horned beings. Flip swallowed thickly and ignored them. “We couldn’t have gotten turned around so fast.”
“We didn’t.” Kate looked around frantically. “I could see the cabin lights, then I heard that horrible bugle and looked around for it. And then the lights were gone. They couldn’t have all gone out, not all at once.”
“Lightning must have struck the cabin,” Flip lied again. Nothing about the forest looked familiar to him now and everything about it felt wrong. “Must have shorted out the lights.” There was no reason to scare Kate more than she already was. “It’s alright, we don’t need lights for what I have in mind when we get back.”
The scent of wet dog hit Flip again on a gust of wind, yanking his attention in the direction of the odor. He saw a heap of dark fur, glistening from the spotty rain and aimed his rifle at the creature. It didn’t move. Steam rose from the furry mass. Flip noted another smell on the air, something with a coppery aftertaste that coated the roof of his mouth. He edged forward, looking at the steaming animal down the barrel of his rifle, his finger resting on the trigger, ready to fire. He recognized the beast when another bolt of lightning revealed the horror to him.
“Don’t look,” he said to Kate, but it was too late. She clasped a hand over her mouth to keep her scream from escaping.
The huge grizzly bear they had encountered minutes before lay on its side in a broken heap of matted fur. Steam spiraled into the air from its torn-open belly, its entrails protruding from the mangled tissue like uncooked sausage. The gaping wound was only minutes old. The bear’s body temperature would plummet rapidly in the frigid air and it was still warm now. Even as they stared, the steam began to abate. Hanging in the branches of the tree nearest the bear carcass were several more bizarre figures crafted from twigs.
The screeching growling bugle erupted again, very close this time. Flip nudged Kate ahead, keeping his rifle at the ready, but not knowing where to aim it.
“Which way do we go?” Her breath came in shuddering puffs of fog.
“I don’t know,” Flip admitted. “Away from here.”
Amid a stand of spruce to his side, bare tree branches swayed in the wind, their spiky fingers waving ominously. Flip hadn’t noticed the wind pick up. Looking at the oddly swaying branches, he realized there was no wind. The air had gone as still as the inside of a crypt. The strange branches were bare, glistening wet and pointed upward, still swaying.
A flash of lightning illuminated the creature and Flip flinched so hard he almost fired accidentally.
What he had taken for bare branches was a set of enormous antlers, shaped somewhere between a moose and a caribou and as large as an Irish elk, with wide paddles and long spiked tines spurting out non-typically like broken fingers. It had a dark mane like an elk with a tawny, painfully emaciated body. Flat tines of several spinal processes protruded through the hide at the top of its high withers and one hip bone showed through the skin. But its head was the most terrible of all. Its face was in an advanced stage of rot, dregs of sagging flesh barely clinging to the skull. White skull bone gleamed in exposed patches, and its sharp, lupine teeth were long in the exposed jawbone and ragged. Its nasal cavity was bare, the fleshy nose rotten away, leaving only the pointed bones and a black hollow. It had no eyes that Flip could see, but there was an evil gleam inside its sockets, like embers inside a pile of ash. The monster shook its head, slinging water from its great spiked antlers. Then it leveled its head like a bull about to charge and fixed its glowing eyes on Flip.
“Shoot it,” Kate whispered, her eyes wide with terror.
“I don’t think it’ll do any good.” Flip looked down the barrel at the rotting flesh covering the walking skeleton and white bone peeking from beneath. The monster’s glowing eyes were not something found among the living. Without lowering his rifle, he looked at Kate and met her eyes. “It’ll come for me first. I’ll make sure of that, and I’ll stall it as much as I can. Get to the truck, darlin.’ The keys are in it. Run like hell.”
“I’m not leaving you!” she said vehemently, her voice losing some fervor when the creature took an ominous step closer, its enormous antlers swaying with its gait.
She felt for her phone, hoping there might be service. Not that another human could even reach them in less than an hour, making any idea of help hopeless. Her hand closed around the lumpy bundle of flares. With an excited breath, she freed a flare from the bundle and fumbled with lighting it.
The monster bugled angrily, a sound so shrill it felt like it grated along their spines. It rushed toward them through the trees, its teeth bared and eyes aflame. Flip fired, sending a bullet right between those glowing eyes. He even saw the bullet strike and tear away more rotting flesh, leaving a pearly white hole in the skull. It didn’t slow the monster or even make it flinch. He bolted another round into the chamber on instinct, staring down the barrel at the demonic eyes that were fixed upon him.
Kate popped the cap off the flare. The cap had an abrasive tip like a matchhead and she struck it to the end of the flare, holding it high as it burst to life. With their eyes accustomed to the darkness, the flare seemed as bright as sunlight, searing black pulsing spots into their vision. The monster squealed again, shaking its head with pain or irritation. Its antlers caught in the tree branches, stalling its advance. The flare burned and popped, hot on Kate’s face even at arm’s length and blindingly bright.
The landscape around them crackled and wavered, like a tv signal trying to come in through static. The trees looked less skeletal and more normal, like they had been before, and the strange twig figures vanished. The cabin lights glowed through the trees, yellow and warm, not far from them.
“It’s in our heads!” Kate shouted. “It’s making us hallucinate, but I can see the cabin and the truck now.”
“The light bothers it,” Flip said as he reached into her coat pocket, grabbing three flares and leaving her the remaining two. The monster wrenched its antlers free of the branches where it was tangled and lurched toward them in a shambling gait.
Shouldering his rifle that was of no more use than a club against the monster, Flip bit the cap off a flare with his teeth and struck the head. He rammed the end into the muddy ground at his feet, leaving the tip burning. The beast reared, shrieking with rage and clawing the air with its cloven hooves as Flip backed away. He could see the glow of the cabin lights now too. It was hard to resist the urge to run to the light.
Flip lit the next flare. Kate was a few yards ahead of him, gaining ground toward the truck. It would take whoever reached it first a minute to start it. Flip had a good throwing arm and even better aim. The monster lunged at him, rage overriding whatever else had been driving it to pursue them so far. Flip drew back his arm, took a second to aim at the gaping black jaws, and threw the lit flare as hard as he could. The flaming tip cartwheeled through the air like a throwing knife before the fiery head struck the monster right where its nose should have been. But it had no nose, its nasal cavity was exposed in its partially skeletal head. Robin Hood could not have struck a finer bullseye. The flaming tip sank deep into the nasal cavity, embedding itself there.
Screaming terribly, the wendigo shook its head and stomped its hooves, rearing and bucking like a horse that had stepped on a hornet’s nest. It couldn’t shake the flare free from its skull. The flames spread, shooting out through holes in the rancid flesh of its cheeks and jaws. It looked as though it breathed fire when it screeched, belching flare fumes and flames out of its hacking mouth.
“We’re not gonna get a better chance than this!” Flip roared at Kate as he burst into a run toward her. She had a few paces head start on him and sprinted ahead toward the truck.
Kate reached the truck first, yanking the driver’s door open and jumping inside. Flip could bitch about her driving all he wanted, but she dared not spare the extra second or two for him to take the wheel. Not with the eldritch monster galloping toward them, bugling terribly, flames bellowing from its mouth and nose. Flip had his one remaining flare in hand when he reached the truck. The engine roared to life.
Instead of joining Kate inside the cab, Flip vaulted into the truck bed and shouted for her to drive. Kate slammed the truck into gear, throwing Flip against the side of the bed. Regaining his balance, he dropped to his knees and planted his back against the rear window, making himself as steady as he could. Kate was speeding as fast as she dared down the muddy, winding road, and it wasn’t fast enough. The wendigo pursued them, galloping after the truck and gaining ground. Striking the tip of his flare, Flip held the flaming tip aloft, casting the entire truck in a halo of searing red fire. The wendigo allowed more distance between them, smart enough to keep outside of throwing range of another flare.
Kate took a slippery curve too fast, the truck fishtailing as she recovered control, slinging Flip from one side of the bed to the other. The flare was nearly whipped from his hand, but he clenched his fist tight to keep his hold. Gritting his teeth, he composed himself, using all his strength to keep his balance and keep his arm held high. He couldn’t afford to lose a flare. They only had three flares left, and it was going to take every last burning second of each one to reach town.
Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Lots of Violence. Gore. Chasing. Monster Action. This is heavily inspired by one of my favorite novels, Relic. If you like any of this, I highly encourage you to read it!
I’m willing to continue this and write more if people like it!
Note: Going forward, I'm going to write characters from now on instead of Readers just because it's really annoying trying to switch back and forth for the non-fic writing I do. However, the female characters will be totally physically vague aside from having a name, so they can still easily be read as an insert by anyone who chooses to insert themselves.
Based on two requests I combined then butchered from @iamburdened and @queeniebee
AO3 Link
Two of the world’s tallest free-standing dinosaurs were frozen mid-battle in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda on the second floor of the New York Museum of Natural History. In dramatic repose, a Barosaurus reared to protect its young from an attacking Allosaurus. The skeletal titans made the browsing museum patrons look like ants milling at their feet. Alice was never unable to walk past the dinosaurs without craning her neck upward to admire their towering presence. The great saurians were much more interesting to focus on than the throng of chattering primates that inhabited the museum during business hours. Walking through the past with her heels echoing on tile hallways that stretched the length of city blocks, she allowed herself to be distracted by the jungle of extinct species giving life to their dioramas. From the tiny, feathered dinosaur skeleton displayed in a dramatically lit shadow box to the gigantic open jaws of a megalodon framing the entrance to an adjoining hallway, there was always something interesting that caught her eye.
If she walked briskly it was a decent cardio session to make her way to the North American section of the museum. A special exhibit had just opened, an exhibition on the American Old West. It had all the good stuff. Cowboys, gunslingers, train robbers, mountain men, and miners. The exhibit was livelier curated than most, or maybe the subject simply lent itself to action and movement. Standing guard on either side of the entrance were the wax likenesses of Buffalo Bill, wearing his original buckskin outfit, bedazzled with fringe and conchos, and Sitting Bull, dressed in a magnificent headdress boasting a rainbow of colors in its plumage. In one corner was a round table of wax men dressed in full regalia, engaged in a heated poker game. A man with luxurious curly hair sat with his back facing the audience, displaying his hand of aces and eights, the famous Dead Man’s Hand, held by ‘Wild’ Bill Hickock when he was gunned down. The mural painted in the corner Hickock faced even showed the characteristic swinging doors of a saloon, being pushed open by a man with a gun in his hand and murder in his eyes. In another corner ‘Hanging’ Judge Parker sat at his desk, writing in his ledger, backlit by a mural of a man swinging from the gallows outside his office window.
Alice was delighted to see some of the famous men of the old west depicted in less obvious settings than gunfights. These exploits were detailed in paintings that supplemented the exhibits and dozens of informative plaques, but many characters were shown in niche exposes that spoke to the true enthusiasts among the visitors.
The most famous lawman of all, Wyatt Earp, was depicted indulging in his guilty pleasure of gambling with his notoriously beautiful actress wife playing right alongside him as she smoked a cigar. Instead of being shown in his best-known role as Wyatt Earp’s right hand in the infamous Tombstone events, Doc Holliday was portrayed as a suave gentleman, dressed in a fancy brocade vest and cravat, focused on the smiling attentions of his consort, Big-Nosed Kate. The deadliest outlaw of all and likely psychopath John Wesley Hardin was shown lounging on a dirty bunk inside a jail cell. He was intently focused on a large law book. After serving his time, he turned from gunfighting to the practice of law. The plaque detailing his exploits explained tongue-in-cheek that he had traded the illegal form of lawlessness for the legal alternative.
Ample attention was also given to women of note. From saloon owners to cut-throat madams, women’s stories were interspersed with the male narrative. There was of course a display devoted to Calamity Jane, dressed as a man and just as dangerous. Prominently featured was the lesser known but equally successful outlaw Belle Starr, shown wearing a pretty red dress while brandishing a six-gun astride her huge, coal-black horse, Venus. The most famous woman of all, and arguably one of the most iconic figures of the Old West, Annie Oakley, was given a full diorama of her own. A wax figure depicted the pint-sized sharpshooter holding a rifle as she aimed for the cigarette held between her husband’s lips.
An armory worth of firearms from the period were on display. From iconic Colt .45 revolvers and Winchester 30-30 lever action rifles to unique pieces like tiny six-barreled pepper-box derringers and huge Sharps rifles, there were enough firearms to lay siege to a small country. It was befitting for the period, when a man’s gun and his horse were the best friends he could ever have. Without either, a man’s lifespan would likely be reduced to weeks or even days.
The exhibition hall was spacious, even with a veritable herd of visitors milling through it like buffalo on the plains. School children raced through the halls and between dioramas as unchecked as packs of coyotes, while their teachers and handlers tried in vain to wrangle them under control. It was afternoon and most groups were on their final turn around the exhibits before leaving. A few pairs of surly teenagers lingered on the sidelines, looking like they were trying to find a place to whip out a cigarette to enhance their cool, and probably having escaped their own class trip from some other section of the vast museum. Despite the chaos the minors instigated, snippets of intelligent conversation also fluttered around the room.
In an attempt to avoid the class field trips, Alice moved to an adjacent room inside the sprawling exhibit. This spacious room was devoted to art of and from the period, Native American weavings and pottery, animated bronze sculptures, and vibrant oil paintings. The more sedate nature of the art exhibits appealed to a more sedate crowd, unable to hold the interest of children and teenagers. The only other people in the art room were an elderly couple, a group of three college-age people who looked like modern beatniks, and one impressively built man standing off to one side, studying the plaque of a detailed mural-size painting.
Alice couldn’t help but appraise the man discreetly as he stood quartering away from her. He was tall and broad, his robust physique apparent through his flannel shirt and jeans. Even from her angle, she could tell his features were strong and masculine. Dark hair curled around his collar and his strong stubble-covered jaw flexed as he read, his bright eyes darting quickly over the text. She wondered briefly about approaching him – men that attractive were rare to find out in the wild – but it struck her as ridiculous to approach the man like she was in a bar and ask him if he came here often. Rolling her eyes inwardly at herself, she turned her attention toward the opposite wall and a painting of a painfully skinny man riding an equally emaciated white horse on a moonlight night.
It was rewarding when out of the corner of her eye she saw the man turn and pause just to look at her. The man glanced toward the doorway leading back into the main exhibit then back at her, seeming to decide whether or not he too wanted to risk making an ass of himself with a clumsy come-on in an art exhibit. Alice fought to hide her smile when he made his decision in her favor.
The handsome man sidled up to her, his approach practiced and laissez-faire. His shoulders were squared and his stride confident, but he angled across the exhibit hall from the side, his eyes fixed on the oil paintings instead of his prize, like a lion casually strolling by a gazelle to gauge distance before an attack. There was an impulse to turn to him with an accusatorily arched eyebrow to show she was onto him. But he was attractive enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Being pursued added a certain spice to the air, after all. With his large hands in his pockets and his posture confident but relaxed, he dripped with top notes of James Dean and undertones of Clint Eastwood.
“Frederick Remington,” the man read the artist’s name when he stopped beside her. He was a full head taller and his voice was deep and a little gravely, barely tinged with a Western drawl. “I think my dad has one of his 30.06 rifles.”
Alice hoped he was teasing, that there were a few active brain cells sparking inside that pretty head. The hint of a smirk twisting the man’s lips confirmed it. Keeping her face deadpan, she played along. “Yeah? These artists must have been starving during their lifetimes, being forced to branch out like that. I hear the guy behind Winchester Arms was really into weird avant garde architecture, too.”
The man grinned and turned to face her, fixing her with a pair of bright eyes the color of whiskey. “I think that was his wife. Leave it to a woman to spend a man’s hard-earned gun money on a house in the California hills, complete with staircases leading to ceilings and dead ends. Think she had a Remington on the walls?”
“I don’t know if Sarah Winchester was a fan of Frederick Remington, but I bet there were a few works by Eliphalet Remington somewhere inside,” Alice teased.
“I’m impressed,” the man laughed. “I couldn’t have pulled that name out of thin air.”
“I bet now you’re wondering if I’m a gun nut or just a history buff. A woman should keep an air of mystery about her.” She smiled and looked at him squarely. She decided he looked at home in the Old West exhibit, exuding a ruggedly masculine quality that was all too rare in modern society. He had a face that belonged on the streets of Dodge City, those crisp hooded eyes staring down the barrel of a Colt .45. She realized she had been staring into those eyes for a rudely long moment, and continued talking to smooth over that faux pas, “I never cared much for Remington’s paintings. They’re drab and all the subjects are in painfully sorry condition – horses and men alike.” She pointed to an incredible scene of two cowboys roping a grizzly bear, their movements frozen on canvas mid-stride, mid-lasso, and mid-snarl, painted with confident strokes in a vibrant palette. “Charlie Russell is my favorite. You can’t beat the color and the action in his paintings.”
“I wonder if that’s worse than having a tiger by the tail,” he pondered, pointing at the lassoed grizzly, snarling and swiping at the horse and rider. “What would your boyfriend say?”
“That position is currently vacant. What a brash way to inquire.” She smiled and nodded back at the snarling grizzly. “I’m sure three out of four ex-boyfriends would say they’d take their chances with the bear.”
“It’d take more than a bear or a tiger to scare me away from such a pretty face,” he teased, using those impressive eyes as tactically as a gun. “I never did have much instinct for self-preservation. Plenty of brash though, and other things synonymous.”
She laughed genuinely. “You’ve covered art, guns, tigers, and balls in three minutes flat. That’s quite an icebreaker without even introducing yourself. What else should I know?”
“Nicholas Mills.” He grinned handsomely and extended his hand, it was callused and powerful and large, easily swallowing hers in his warm grip. “I’m here consulting on this exhibition, on loan from the Old West Museum in Cheyanne.”
“Alice,” she returned, giving his hand a firm shake. “You’re a historian?” Her tone was skeptical as she pointedly eyed his flannel shirt and jeans. “Is tweed out of vogue for you types these days?”
“In the west it’s all denim and cotton.” He popped the collar of his shirt. “Linen if you want to be pretentious. Dust sticks to tweed like hell, not to mention burs.”
“What about your ten-gallon hat and dinnerplate-sized belt buckle?” The question gave her a convenient excuse to gauge the way he filled out his jeans. He wasn’t a man who skipped leg day.
“Those are only fashion accessories in Texas. Maybe Santa Fe. Where I’m from, if you’re wearing a cowboy hat, it better have a sweat ring around the headband, and if you’re wearing a belt buckle, it better be tarnished. Those are work accessories for working ranch hands, not fashion statements.” He let his eyes travel the curves of her figure under the guise of admiring her outfit of jeans and a blazer. “I suppose those duds work equally well for business or pleasure in most fields.” He smirked, but moved on before she could wonder at the double entendre. “Do I get a last name or just Alice?”
Smiling coyly, Alice replied, “I’ll give you a hint and see how well you know your stuff. It’s the name of one of my favorite songs and of a color that looks terrible on me, and I share it with a gunfighter who I’m sad to see isn’t featured in your exhibit. He had one of the best names in the business. That’s three hints, actually. So, are you posing as a historian to hit on unsuspecting women, or the real deal?”
“I’m not up on music and I can’t imagine there’s a color that could make you look terrible,” Nick frowned and pursed his lips. “I know of a couple of noteworthy Browns and even a Dunn, but their names don’t have any special ring to them. If I was a betting man, I’d put my dollar on ‘Texas’ Jack Vermillion. Alice Vermillion?”
“If you were betting, you’d have hit the jackpot,” Alice said with a genuine smile. “A man who knows Texas Jack and Charlie Russell. I’m not yet impressed, but I am intrigued.”
“If this goes the direction I’m hoping, I may yet hit that jackpot and you’ll be very impressed.” He didn’t give her the chance to address that sentiment before changing the subject. He cocked his head toward another painting depicting a man and woman seated side by side beneath an upside down canoe propped above them, taking shelter from a torrent of rain in a thick forest. Despite the weather, the couple was engaged in smiling conversation. “I’m a Goodwin man, myself. But I’m biased. Every time I look at his paintings of cowboys packing up in Alaska or canoeing in the Great North, adventurous couples fishing and hunting together, I get nostalgia for a place I’ve never been.” He smiled to himself. “Someday.”
“Isn’t New York about as far away as a man can get from canoeing up in the Great North and fighting grizzlies over your catch of the day?” she teased. “Not much chance of facing down a maneater on the mean streets of NYC. Although, I hear these days you’re more likely to get bitten by a New Yorker than a shark.”
“You must not know about the Museum Beast.” He flashed a grin that was lopsided and full of mischief.
Alice cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a little early in the day for ghost stories. Shouldn’t you invite me someplace nicer before you start trying to rattle the delicate woman into wanting to cling to your big, strong arm?”
“I’m appalled you think I’m that easy, miss.” He flexed one of those big, strong arms in question in the sluttiest possible way. “It’s no campfire ghost story. The folks who work here believe it. They say there’s a huge beast living in the basement, roaming the halls at night.” Holding up his hands, he hummed the Twilight Zone theme. “They say it preys on researchers who embezzle grant money and curators who hit on their secretaries.”
Alice laughed, maybe snorted a little, decidedly unladylike. “So, you’re saying I’m safe then?”
“I’ll keep you safe,” he teased with faux gravity. “Just stick close to me.”
“That sounds like a pretty firm offer to help with some research to me.” She put her hands on her hips in a playful challenge.
“Would it be smart of you to trust the research skills of a man who’s not wearing a tweed jacket?” He grinned. “What kind of research? Are you a student?”
“God no!” she laughed. “I haven’t been a student in over a decade. I’m something much worse.”
Nick raised his eyebrows, inquiring.
“I’m a defense lawyer, trying desperately to find an angle to show my very guilty client has a mitigating defense.” She mirrored his expression, raising her eyebrows. “You want the facts? They’re not for the squeamish. You don’t have a full stomach, do you?”
“A pretty face with a shady job and an iron stomach to boot?” he laughed again. “You have my attention.”
“Have you ever gotten carried away and gone down some weird rabbit holes?” she asked with a self-deprecating grin.
‘Sure.” He nodded. “I’m not surprised you’re one to go chasing rabbits, Alice.”
“My client is a murder, a serial killer. A cannibal, to be precise.” She watched him for any of the silent tells she was used to seeing when a listener wanted her to stop, or to chew their arm off and escape her work stories. Seeing none, she continued. “He grew up in Centralia, Pennsylvania before the town was evacuated, then worked in mines all of his adult life. He tells me this affected him. Sadly, conventional psych evals don’t back up his claim. So, before I lay out the big bucks on an expert to say whatever I want, I wanted to do some research on the effects of heavy metal poisoning on miners and a correlation with cannibalism. I figured looking at the Old West miners before there were regulations might be a good place to start.”
“Cannibalism, huh? Romantic topic. Did you see the Donner Party exhibit?” He smirked and jerked his thumb in the direction of a diorama of several wax figures huddled around a dying campfire, clutching furs around them to fight the bitter blizzarding cold while suggestively roasting skewers of meat.
“It’s very nice.” She looked back at the macabre display. “But not what I’m looking for. They had a different defense to cannibalism. Duress, definitely. If I were representing one of them, I’d also argue self-defense, in an eat or be eaten sense. I’d win.”
Nick grinned then pursed his lips, nodding as he considered her problem. “You won’t find anything useful up here but if you want to go deeper down this rabbit hole, you’d want to have a look in the museum’s archives. This museum has the largest collection of natural history artifacts in the world. That’s one reason I’m here, frankly, is a chance to explore their collection of Old West relics. It’s better than being a kid in a candy store. It’s almost as good as an occultist getting a backstage pass to the Vatican Archives.” He fixed his intense eyes on hers. “I bet we could find some good stuff in there.”
“Are you offering to sneak me into the museum’s archives with you?” She added a seductive edge to her voice and added, “You’re going to lift up the museum’s skirt for me and show me her goods?”
“I’ll have you know skirt-lifting is a great talent of mine.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully. “Yeah, I’m offering, so long as you let me take you out afterwards. We can discuss our findings over dinner.”
“You won’t get in trouble?” she asked sincerely.
“They can’t fire me.” He shrugged. “The worst they could do is chew me out and deport me back to Cheyanne. What do you say? Dinner in exchange for a private curated tour and me risking getting a big ole ass-chewing?”
“Deal.” Alice smiled, offering her hand again and they shook on it.
It was creeping toward five when Nick led Alice out of an employee service elevator on one of the lower levels of the museum. They had met an exodus of employees heading the opposite direction on their way home for the day.
“Is it too late for this adventure?” Alice asked as they walked down a hallway so long she could barely see the end of it. The lights were dim and there were no windows on this lower level. They passed dozens of closed doors and multiple other hallways branching off. She thought the minotaur could get lost in this place.
“I have my all hours, all access pass.” He tapped his jeans pocket where a laminated card was stowed. It served as both an ID card and a key to most of the locked doors in the museum and the employee-only areas.
“How do you not get lost in here?” Alice asked, looking around the endless halls. Especially with no natural light or signage, it seemed impossible.
“Nah, I get lost all the time. I consider it part of the adventure,” he laughed, then saw her askance look and added sheepishly, “Sorry, I forgot I was supposed to be your intrepid guide. I won’t let on if I get lost. Just consider it exploring.”
“That’s comforting,” she laughed too. Secretly, she thought it might not be the most terrible thing to be lost for a few hours or even the night in a place with so much to explore with a handsome man.
Alice was convinced they had covered the distance of several city blocks before they arrived at a pair of heavy oak doors with a plain brass plate announcing they had reached the B Archives.
“Does that mean there’s an entire alphabet of archive rooms and collections?” she asked as Nick held the door open for her.
“Probably.” He shrugged. “I’ve only poked around in Archives A, B, and C. Those collections date from the recent past until the eighteenth century or so.”
Inside the B Archives, Alice was reminded of an enormous library that had seen better days. Or the basement of an ultra-rich hoarder. Rows of metal shelves streaked away as far as she could see in the dim lighting, seven-feet high and with another foot or two of boxes piled on top. Between rows there was enough space for two people to walk abreast if they wanted to get a little cozy with one another. At various intervals in the rows there were alcoves fitted with small tables where one could examine their find without taking it up to the front. The light added to the aged feel, the bulbs candlelight-yellow, a few of which were weak and flickering. The front of the room had a kind of sitting area with chairs and a spattering of small tables. There was a small office inside too, a door with a smoked glass window open ajar.
A hunched old man with white hair and coke bottle glasses poked his head out from the office door, squinting at Nick for several seconds before addressing him. “You’ve been bothering me a lot lately.”
“This time I brought a pretty girl who wants to bother you,” Nick said, placing his hand on the small of Alice’s back as he led her toward the old man. “She’s curious what you have on mines in the old west. Particularly mines with gruesome histories. Murders, deaths, breakouts of illness or insanity. All that good stuff. Cannibalism in particular, if you have any of that on the menu.”
“Cannibalism? On a perfectly decent Friday afternoon?” The old man scoffed, but proceeded to ponder the matter, his bushy white eyebrows drawing together in thought. After a moment, he held up a triumphant finger. “You know, there is a rather curious box of effects that might interest you. It’s some remnants of an old Colorado sheriff’s things. He led quite an illustrious life, it seems. His heirs donated most of his effects to the museum. I took a quick peek through it years ago when it came in, but I haven’t thought of it since.” He pointed a bony finger down the row of aisles. “Aisle S, box 5425, if memory serves, and it always does.”
“How in the hell do you do that?” Nick asked, shaking his head.
“Photographic memory.” The man tapped his temple. “Which also means I’ll remember you precisely if you mess up my boxes.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Nick assured him then led the way toward aisle S.
It took them some time to locate box 5425, partially because many of the labels were faded beyond readability. When they found it, Nick had to stand on his tiptoes and stretch his arms to their full reach to nudge it off its perch on top of another box on the top shelf. He nearly dropped the box when it came free, catching it with one hand and fumbling for balance for a harrowing second. Once he held it securely in his arms, he smiled cockily at Alice and headed toward the nearest alcove in their row.
The alcove was centered in the row and seated directly under a flickering yellow light. Nick set the box down on the small table, barely large enough for a coffee date. The lights were sparsely spaced, leaving shadowy stretches between pools of yellow light. There were still several towering rows of shelving between them and the entrance, but sound carried well in the sepulcher-like room. He was spreading the contents of the box out on the table when he heard then entrance door creak open and a voice bounced down the aisle toward them.
“I’m clocking out for the day.” The old man called. “Put that box back where you found it and don’t tell anyone I left you unattended in here, and we’ll still be friends tomorrow.”
“You got it,” Nick replied, projecting his deep voice so it boomed through the archives. Then he turned to Alice with a wolfish expression, “I hope you didn’t want a chaperone.”
“All a chaperone does is keep an honest man honest,” she replied, appreciating just how close they stood at the small table. “I think you’re a man who will break as many rules as I let you, chaperone or not.”
“Maybe so.” He grinned sideways and chewed his lip as he opened the box.
It may have been a mistake, she realized, allowing herself to be shut away privately and in such close confines with this man. Her profession was dominated by men, she was used to working closely with men and attractiveness or lack thereof never entered into it. Rarely, at least. It was a foreign feeling to be dominated by hormones the way she was now. Her senses felt assaulted, a gate failing before a battering ram. The way he looked and the rich gravel in his voice were bad enough, but now in the close space, Alice couldn’t ignore the masculine scent that subtly infiltrated her nose. She didn’t know if the scent of pine and leather mingled with musk was cologne or if it belonged to him. The small table necessitated him being close to her, their bodies almost touching. He didn’t crowd her, but still the size of him was tantalizingly imposing with the minimal space between them. She felt the heat from his body on her skin when he leaned over to study the papers spread across the table next to her. It made her think of being overpowered, manhandled, taken, even – the things that modern empowered women were supposed to have evolved beyond but that the base part of them craved when they sensed a man masculine enough to give it.
Nick pulled a letter from the box, the paper brittle and yellowed with age. Protocol dictated he should be wearing gloves to handle it, but he didn’t want to leave Alice alone long enough to fetch a pair. Despite his bravado, he had always found these dark and mostly abandoned places inside the museum creepy. He never let it get to him or get in the way of anything he needed to do, of course. But it was still an unsettling sort of environment, surrounded by the dead and their effects, in a place where voices echoed and shadows creeped. It was easy to imagine wakeful spirits watching him from the corner of his eye, just at the edges of the feeble light.
Not unlike being inside a deep, dark mine, he thought as he looked at the letter. He read aloud to Alice, thinking he might have actually struck gold, at least in terms of finding something to keep their afternoon interesting.
October 13, 1882
Darlin Belle,
I’m sure missin you tonight. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this but I hope it will find its way to you. I’m gonna write you like you was here with me and I was just talkin to you over dinner. It makes me miss you less. Every time I think about bein home, all that is to me is bein with you. The men in the posse kid me for bein whipped by you but I can’t find a damn to give over it. Miserable lonely bastards, the lot of em. But I guess they didn’t leave no one behind to miss em when they died. I hope you’ll miss me and remember the things that were good about me. There aren’t many, so it shouldn’t be hard.
“That sounds romantic,” Alice said with a wistful lilt. “I’m not sure it’s useful for my purposes, but I like it.”
Nick grinned and nodded. He read ahead to himself, but decided not to share it with the woman who was now looking at him with a pretty, hopeful smile. Best not to spoil the mood. He read the next few paragraphs to himself, feeling a prickly chill drag along the length of his spine like ghostly fingernails.
It’s been snowin up here in these mountains for days and it’s up over my knees now. Sure makes me miss the warmth of your touch. There’s nothin finer than holdin you in my arms, smellin your hair like flowers and cinnamon, feelin you soft n warm. I think you might be the only thing that can thaw me out ever again. Here I gone and got myself all hot and bothered just thinkin about you. But the snow’s been a blessin for me. It made the blood trail of the one I wounded easy to follow. I found him holed up under a ledge and finished him off with my knife so as not to fire off a shot. Sound carries in these mountains. The snow got thicker after dark. Thick enough to hide my tracks from the rest who are huntin me.
They haven’t found my hideout yet, but they will. I have to beat em to the punch.
I ain’t got much time cause they know the mountains better than me. It makes hidin hard and ambushin harder.
Sorry my writins goin from bad to worse fast. My fingers are numb as hell.
Curious, Alice leaned in to look at the letter and read it along with him. Spender folded it back together with a snap, too rough for the old paper and cleared his throat. He hastily put it back in the box – in the bottom of the box, under some other more innocuous looking items. “I don’t think the rest is worth reading today.”
Instead, he reached for a pocket watch with a gold hunting case, beautifully engraved with an elk hunting scene. Holding it delicately in his hands, he popped open the cover and read the engraving aloud, “To my handsome sheriff. You carry my love for you wherever you go. Belle.”
“That’s beautiful.” Turning toward him, Alice looked into his eyes as she spoke. Though his composure remained steady on the surface, she saw the way his chest expanded, his jaw clenched, his throat bobbed. It gave her a feeling of power knowing Nick was just as affected by their proximity as she was, maybe even more. She told herself she wouldn’t completely give into hormones. But she could give a little. How long had it been since she’d made out with a man like a horny teenager during a study session? Probably not since she had been a horny teenager. She could live a little now. Resting her ass against the tale, she leaned back against it and looked up at him, intentionally giving him the image of her laying sprawled beneath him. It would be a perfectly innocuous posture if the air wasn’t so charged between them, the attraction so tangible. The way he swallowed thickly told her that it wasn’t innocuous to him either.
The next move was his, Nick realized. Smirking to mask the way his pulse thundered, he stepped closer to her, using the excuse of setting the watch down on the table near her hip resting against the table’s edge. He left his hand there on the table, and when Alice kept looking up at him rather than anywhere else, Nick knew he had her tacit approval to act bolder. With his next step, he positioned himself in front of her. His right hand still rested near the pocket watch that held less interest to Alice than the man. He flattened his right hand on the table beside her then planted his left hand on her opposite side. There was still space between their bodies, if only inches, but he now caged her against the table and loomed over her.
“Find anything that interests you down here yet, darlin?’” he asked, letting the huskiness in his voice reflect his mounting arousal.
Alice heard something that sounded like a faint scratch from somewhere inside the archives. It was hardly enough to pull her attention away from the stupidly attractive man who was doing his best to make her forget all the dating rules and run every base right here in this dusty archive.
“I don’t have enough information to know if I’m interested in anything yet,” she teased. Angling her chin up, she presented her jaw and neck in a favorable angle for kissing.
“What do I need to clear up for you?” he played along as he lowered his head, trailing his nose over her cheek and his lips over her jaw, kissing lightly and teasing her with the scratch of his beard.
A box shifted on a shelf deeper in the archive, as though something had bumped it or rubbed against it. Alice heard that too, but she didn’t care. Not when Nick’s lips had moved to her neck and were giving her goosebumps, making her breath come short and her spine tingle. Encouraged by the way her body arched toward his and the way her hands had flown to his shoulders, Nick hooked his hands behind her thighs and hoisted her up onto the table. Pushing her legs apart, he stepped between them, bringing their bodies together then letting his hands caress her thighs and back as he continued kissing her neck. Every part of his body was hard beneath her roving hands, each plane and ridge of muscle a new excitement to discover. She could feel how hard he was inside his jeans too, but she would save exploring all of him for another time. She had talked herself into a nice makeout session with a handsome stranger, but she hadn’t yet abandoned all of her morals.
Bringing his hand to the back of her neck, he cradled her head while he exerted that subtle masculine control that could make a woman want to submit to him. Nick teased the side of her neck with his teeth, also teasing her restraint. He grinned against her skin when he pulled a soft moan from her throat, beginning to lose himself in the feel of her body against his, her soft skin under his callused hands.
When she moaned, Alice heard a strange response from somewhere in the dimly lit room. Something like a wet huffed breath, or a sloppy inhale. It sounded like a large dog snuffling. It was unmistakably not something she could attribute to the old room or hear ears playing tricks on her.
“Nick,” she whispered, not from arousal but trepidation. “Did you hear that?”
“’Course, darlin,’” he muttered dismissively as he nosed and kissed along her collarbone, his fingers digging into her thigh.
“What is it?” She was starting to pull back, making him tighten his hold on her.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” he spoke against her skin, trying to placate her. He hadn’t heard anything, but if there was something, it was probably a fucking rat the size of a wiener dog. They had those fuckin’ things in New York. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. Giant rats wouldn’t do a damn thing to keep her revved up for him. Forcing the thought from his own mind, he resumed kissing her, rubbing his words in with his lips. “It’s an old place. There’s bound to be some weird noises.”
“Listen!” she whisper-yelled, grabbing a fistful of his thick hair and yanking far too harshly to be mistaken for anything sexy.
He winced and frowned at her through one eye, the other was squeezed shut from the pain in his scalp. “You could just tell me to fuckin’ stop, you know?”
“Listen,” she said again, this time her whisper was barely audible. She heard another scrape and maybe another sniffing breath. But everything was quieter now, more subtle. As if whatever was making those faint noises was trying to be stealthier.
“That could be anything,” Nick said at full volume with a laugh on his voice. His voice seemed to boom throughout the archives, sparking off Alice’s inflamed nerve endings.
She clapped a hand over his mouth, hard enough to make him flinch. Her body was bolt upright, incidentally pressing her body flush to his, her every muscle taught. She knew her system had shot into a fight or flight response, but she didn’t know why. Her consciousness hadn’t registered anything that warranted such a reaction, a few odd sounds in an old museum was hardly noteworthy. But something about what she heard struck a chord in her core, deep in her subconscious where instinct reigned. Every sense she had sparked like live electric wires, screaming at her to run away as fast as she could, but she didn’t know what she was running from or even which direction to bolt. Her eyes were wide and terrified when they met Nick’s and she whispered, “Something’s in here with us. Listen. We have to get out.”
His eyes crinkled with amusement and he kissed her palm still held over his mouth. Taking her wrist, he plucked her hand away and kissed her there on her pulse point. He did it teasingly, but he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, “I spooked you good with that story about the Museum Beast.” He smirked and teased further, “I thought you were a big girl who could handle some campfire tales.”
“Can you not hear anything over the sound of your hard on?” she hissed, placing a restraining hand on his chest. “Listen, and try to think with the right head for a minute.”
Nick laughed, he always had a weakness for the feisty ones. He was about to tell her as much and steal another kiss when he heard it. A kind of snuffling, like someone with a runny nose, but also different and unmistakable. Growing up in Wyoming, he had spent plenty of time outdoors around wildlife, hunting, fishing, and hiking. He’d heard that sound once before when he’d come face to face with a grizzly around a bend in a trail. Given their poor eyesight, grizzlies tended to grunt and sniff their way along, their way of assessing their environment. He didn’t believe what his mind registered. There couldn’t be a fucking bear in a New York museum. But he also couldn’t rationally attribute the sound to some wheezy curator or a congested janitor, especially not when paired with a stealthy padded footfall.
“We need to run.” Alice fisted his lapel. Her voice had dropped below a whisper to an urgent breath.
“No, darlin,’ don’t run.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her off the table, returning her feet to the floor. Taking her arm, he pulled her behind him, placing himself closest toward the strange noises and whatever creature made them. He began to back slowly away down the aisle, pushing her behind him, trying to keep his steps silent. His mind raced frantically, but he forced his body to remain in control, repeating, “Don’t run.”
“Can we fight it?” she asked, touching his back from behind, trying to calm herself by keeping contact with him
“We may have to,” Nick gritted, unsure what to do since he had no idea what was creeping toward them from a few rows away. “Just don’t run. If there’s some kind of animal in here with us, the worst thing you can do is run.”
That little bitch, Warren thought petulantly as he walked down the dim hallway. The hallway that stretched on for the length of a city block. It was such bullshit. He hadn’t walked this much since he got kicked off his co-ed flag football team in junior high. Fuck her, he thought again as he kicked at a piece of crumpled paper on the tile floor, missed, and stumbled sideways. At least no one was around to see him. His uppity date was nowhere to be found. She had the gall to shove him away when he tried to fondle her boobs before running away from him. The ungrateful bitch. Warren had used his lunch hour to help her sneak out of high school, had paid her admission into the museum, and wasted his afternoon leading her around the exhibits and thrilling her with his acumen. She owed him a feel. He would just tell all her friends she sucked his dick in his car and have the last laugh.
Sullenly picking at the chipped black paint on his stubby fingers, he turned down yet another pointlessly long hallway. Despite being as blonde as a California It Girl and having a dumpy potatoesque physique, he thought that his crooked guyliner and black skinny jeans that revealed a tantalizing glimpse of a sweaty plumber’s crack gave him the hot goth look the girls liked. Not so much the girls in his peerage at college – they were stuck up bitches anyway, already hounding after the guys who were studying law at Harvard – but the girls who were just about to graduate from high school, just turned eighteen, maybe a little homely and desperate for a date to prom. Those were his preferred prey. He usually had some meager success with them, before their fathers found out about him and heartlessly separated them. It enhanced his view of himself as a tragic, long-suffering Shakespearean love interest who had turned to goth rock to bemoan his existence.
Since Warren had somehow managed to get turned around inside the maze of hallways until after it closed for the day, the museum was also devoid of employees. He thought it was only a matter of time before he ran into a security guard. He had a story lined up for why he was inside after hours, a grand tale that emphasized his victimhood. Maybe he could even end up with his name in the paper over it. That would really impress the girls.
Now, Warren lumbered along a random hallway, trying to find his way to an exit. He needed to find an elevator first. He had sneaked into some kind of service elevator with the girl and gone down several floors in his search for privacy. He thought he was in some kind of storage area or basement now, every room he passed was vacant save for troves of weird antiques. He had found the door to a stairwell a few turns back down the hallway, but he wasn’t about to walk up several flights of stairs. His day had been shit enough so far without climbing stairs.
After what seemed like an eternity, he came to a pair of double doors marked B Archives. He couldn’t remember the last time he had walked so far. He must have put in over two miles inside this stupid museum already. Like, a month’s worth of walking. Maybe there was a desk inside with a chair he could rest in even if he couldn’t find an employee to lead him out of this suckhole.
Success! Inside the B Archives were rows of forgotten looking shelves that Warren couldn’t give a shit less about, but there was also an office with an open door and the promise of a desk and cushy chair. The lights were on inside, giving him the additional hope that some diligent employee still remained there after hours.
“Hey?” he called out to anyone who might answer. His voice echoed eerily down the rows and off the tile like tumbleweeds rolling down the streets of a ghost town. “Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out.”
Something sounded in response from far back in the archives, down one of the dim rows. It sounded like a startled step, like he had caught someone off guard and they had turned around fast.
“If you could call a guard or even just tell me how to find the exit, that would be great,” Warren shouted. He walked toward the sound, down toward the back of the archives past the ends of the phalanx of aisles. A strange feeling began to creep into his senses, like the uneasy feeling he got when he watched horror movies alone. The feeling that had made him instigate a rule that he didn’t watch scary movies after nine. He even thought he heard the sound of something breathing heavily. Maybe he needed to ration his porn intake too, now he was blending porn sound effects with horror reactions. He mumbled to himself, “Who wouldn’t be creeped out by all this stupid old shit?”
Warren hadn’t paid attention to the way his walk had slowed without him meaning to or the way his mouth had gone dry. He jumped like he had bumped into an electric fence when one of the lightbulbs overhead surged then dimmed. He was glad the girl had run off now, so she couldn’t see him sweat and his hands shake. He heard something down the aisle to his left, something like a single impatient rap of nails on a desk.
The flickering of a waning yellow bulb drew his attention down the aisle. In the flickering light, it looked like something was moving in the aisle, just beyond the reach of the light on the far side. Something crouched and hulking in the shadows. It must be a trick of the dim light. That and being a little freaked out from being stuck down here all alone for what felt like hours. Still, Warren wished he had worn his smudged glasses. He didn’t wear them when he was trying to impress a girl because they weren’t cool.
He was focusing too hard on the shadows. Focus too hard on something and it can seem like the thing is moving. It was a common optical illusion, and the flickering light didn’t help. It made the weird shape in the shadows look like an animal with its head lowered, stealthily sneaking toward him down the aisle.
“Fuck this,” Warren exclaimed, throwing his hands up like an overwrought woman. He didn’t need to be in the creepy old room in the creepy old museum basement. At least the never-ending hallways weren’t filled to the brim with weird antiques.
Down the aisle something sniffed, like someone with a runny nose. Something definitely moved just beyond the light.
“Shit’s probably haunted,” he decided. That made it easier. He was a staunch Ghost Hunters fan and he’d learned a thing or two from them. Forcing a laugh, he added, “Suck my balls, ghosts!”
Turning on his heel in a flippant insult to the ghosts, he walked briskly back the way he had come. He heard something else, seemingly misplaced inside the haunted archives. He very distinctly heard the sound of a footfall and what sounded like a muffled voice, maybe two if one was whispering, coming from deeper down one of the aisles. But it was immediately overshadowed by the sound of a heavy body rushing down the aisle with the flickering light, and nails scraping on tile. Or claws.
Looking back over his shoulder, Warren saw a huge dark body moving fast down the aisle toward him in a kind of lope. An animal, grunting and running toward him. His mind couldn’t process all the details, or it didn’t want to. What his mind hitched on were the teeth. When the creature ran through the scant pool of light, vicious exposed teeth glinted inside its snarling jaws.
Warren ran.
The beast lunged after its prey with the instinct of a predator to chase after a fleeing animal. Warren felt it when the beast gave chase, like the stale air had chilled and all the ghosts inside the archives were watching him. Claws scrambling on tile and heavy galloping echoed behind him, punctuated by grunts.
Warren could see the exit door. It wasn’t far. He could make it. Trying to make his legs pump faster, he looked back over his shoulder. The creature had rounded the end of the aisle and was charging straight at him in large bounding strides. It was bigger than a lion with terrible yellow eyes and teeth like ivory daggers. And it was close.
With a sob, Warren tried to eke out more speed from his already failing legs, but his steps were clumsy and his breathing labored. All that walking all day had done him in. Something slammed into his back, heavy and sharp at the same time, sending him careening forward face down onto the tile. His back felt like it was on fire, stinging and melting at the same time with hot fluid slicking his shirt to his skin.
Crying, Warren looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the creature’s mouth open as it came in for the killing bite. But the beast sat on its haunches, poised like a giant cat, flicking a broad reptilian tail from side to side and drumming the claws of its forepaw on the tile. It watched him with evil yellow eyes, and it waited. With another blubbering sob, Warren staggered up to his feet and tried to run again. He didn’t get as far this time, only a few steps. The beast bounded after him, swiping one of its razor-clawed paws at Warren’s legs. Warren felt his flesh tear as his feet gave out from under him and he collapsed again. He had played enough gory video games to guess the beast had clawed through his calf on one leg and severed his Achilles tendon on the other.
The creature paused again, watching its crippled prey with a curiously cocked head as the pitiful human crawled away, one foot turned the wrong direction and flopping lifelessly on the floor, leaving a wide swatch of delicious smelling blood in its wake.
Warren couldn’t stand back up this time, and he barely had enough gumption left to crawl. After a few desperate flailing attempts, he turned over and flopped onto his back. He stared at the horrendous beast, his watery eyes meeting those of fearsome yellow. With a sickening horror that churned in his bowels he realized what the beast was doing. It was playing with him. The fucking monster was toying with him like a cat with a mouse. The beast cocked its head to the other side as it gave an impatient flick of its tail. Just like a cat with a mouse, the fun was over when the mouse stopped running.
Warren swore he saw an excited gleam flash inside those eyes as the monster lunged at him one final time. He looked into its ravenous eyes, as a heavy weight landed on his chest, pinning him in place. He felt his body being ripped open from throat to crotch with a sound like tearing burlap. The pain was extraordinary, but he couldn’t close his eyes against it.
Gruesome wet smacking noises filled the archive and Warren’s body jerked, tugged from someplace deep inside. He tried to scream but couldn’t with his diaphragm slashed open. Warren was still very much alive when the monster started eating him.
Nick could hear it clearly now, a heavy body moving with great stealth and wet breathing. Closing in on them from a couple aisles away. There could be no doubt, no mistaking it for the noises of an old room or for scuttling vermin. He had placed his body between the approaching animal and the woman. It was a protective male instinct and gallant, but not an act that would be overly helpful if the thing attacked them. A human’s top speed was equivalent to a chicken. If an Olympic sprinter would have a hard time outrunning a rooster, Nick had no delusions that he could outrun an apex predator. All running would do would trigger it into attacking. He also didn’t think he could fight it off, not if it really wanted to attack. He didn’t have a weapon and humans were really quite feeble animals without their tools. He knew the ways a man could try to survive a predator attack – play dead with a grizzly, fight a black bear, shout at a lion to try to scare it off. None of them would work if the animal really wanted to get him. Then, a man could only hope the animal lost interest before it killed him. Balling his fists, he decided that if it came to a fight, he’d fight until his last breath. Or until he was torn apart.
“Hey! Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out,” an unfamiliar voice sounded through the archives.
Nick froze, every sense piqued. He reached behind him and grabbed Alice’s hand, squeezing tightly, silently willing her to stay calm and quiet. He didn’t know the woman and he hoped to hell she had enough sense to stay still and silent, not to yell back toward the stranger or to run in his direction. A mistake like that would be their death sentence. Alice squeezed his hand back, reassuring him, and placed her other hand on his back. The monstrous beast had stilled, its attention captured by the noisome intruder instead of the quieter, more boring quarry. It sniffed the air, assessing the stranger.
Each heartbeat pounded in Nick’s ears like war drums, each second an agony as they waited for the monster to decide which prey it wanted to hunt. With frightening quickness, the beast turned and vanished into the shadowy depths of the aisle.
Keeping hold of Alice’s hand, Nick turned to her and met her eyes. Very deliberately, he brought his forefinger to his lips in the universal gesture for utter silence. He tugged her with him down the aisle in the opposite direction the creature had gone. They heard the stranger’s voice asking the room if someone could tell him how to find the exit. Nick led Alice away from the stranger and away from the beast.
The unknown man was toast. There was nothing Nick could do, and he wasn’t going to waste the life of a woman trying to save a man he didn’t know. He was also smart enough or shellfish enough to value his own life over that of a foolhardy stranger. He hoped the fool would distract the monster enough for them to sneak around it and make the exit themselves. His mind raced ahead of his feet, thinking past the exit to the museum. If they made it out of the archives, they would find themselves back in a long, straight hallway with nowhere to hide and no chance of outrunning whatever the hell this animal was.
To reassure himself, he felt his pocket for the museum key card. He didn’t know if it would help them, but without it they had no chance.
The stranger’s footsteps echoed through the archives as the man started walking down along the ends of the forest of aisles. Nick gambled that the beast’s attention was fixed on that sound and that victim. Pulling Alice along beside him, he trotted down the aisle as swiftly as he could while keeping his footsteps light. For such a large man, he could move stealthily, a skill ingrained by a youth spent hunting with his father and refined by a stint in the military. He was pleased that Alice matched him in both pace and silence. He ran to the far end of the aisle, listening to the intermittent mutterings from the idiot bumbling around at the front of the vast room. The beast could no longer be heard, which worried him, but he had gambled on this hand and now he had to let it ride.
The back of the archives was notably darker than the front and even in between the aisles with the temperamental lightbulbs. An animal stink hung in the air along the back wall, as if the animal used this shady area as a trail of sorts. They moved quickly past the ends of the aisles in the direction of the exit. Nick was a step ahead, still holding Alice’s hand. Looking down each aisle they passed, the archives flashed in time with their steps, giving a visual picture of the room pieced together in morse code.
Nick stopped suddenly, causing Alice to collide with his back. He was so solid, she didn’t even knock him off balance, like running into a warm sculpture. He didn’t so much as look down at her, his wide eyes fixed down the aisle. Thirty feet away from them down the aisle, a hulking silhouette crouched in the center. It looked black in the feeble light and had no discernable features, but they could tell it faced away from them by a broad crocodilian tail flicking back and forth as it watched and waited. Nick didn’t dare move again, not even to step back behind the end of the aisle. It was blind luck the beast had been so focused on the stranger that it hadn’t seen or heard them creeping up at its back. His heart thundered so loudly in his own ears that he thought the beast must surely hear it too.
“Suck my balls, ghosts!” the fool shouted from the end of the aisle, then he started marching away back toward the exit. The beast’s tail stilled, as it watched its prey retreat.
Nick squeezed Alice’s hand, a signal to make ready. The stranger hadn’t taken three steps when the beast launched itself forward down the aisle, entirely focused on its prey. Nick whispered urgently, his voice little more than a growled breath, “Now, we run!”
Nick charged ahead, sprinting full tilt down the back of the archives, pulling Alice along with him. She gripped his hand tight, letting herself be all but dragged along, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground. There was no other way she could keep pace with his long surging stride. Their running footsteps were overshadowed by the sharp sound of claws scrambling on tile and a heavy pounding gallop, then by the sobbing screams of the stranger when the beast caught him. There was no mistaking the anguished cries that filled the archive like a whirring saw in a butcher shop.
At the end of the room, Nick careened around the last aisle, his boots slipping on the tile, and pushed himself even harder down the last straight stretch along the wall toward the door. The screaming continued, now imbued with a gurgling wet quality and sickening chewing and crunching. Alice had heard sounds like that before on National Geographic shows featuring lions over a kill. A meaty abattoir smell engulfed them as they raced down the aisle, bringing them closer to both the beast and the exit.
There was open space at the front of the room, where the beast presently feasted on its dying prey. About fifteen feet worth of open floor between the ends of the aisles and the exit door. There was no option of hiding or stealth when they crossed it. Nick made a mad dash when he reached the end of the aisle, bursting out onto the open floor like a pheasant breaking cover in front of a hound.
The beast reared up from its kill, startled by the two humans erupting from the aisle. It took a second to assimilate these new targets, enough time for them to cover half the open floor. Gnashing its bloody jaws, the beast lunged after the two new fleeing morsels. It landed on forepaws slick with blood, its front legs slipping and splaying out on the tile. Its wet claws found no purchase on tile, and the beast fishtailed before getting its balance.
Nick turned loose of Alice’s hand a step before the double doors and barreled into them with his shoulder at full speed. The doors exploded open, shooting splinters of wood out into the hallway, with Nick falling through off-balance. Alice jumped through on his heels and he pushed her ahead of him as he recovered his footing and ran. Reaching into his pocket for the museum badge, he heard the beast grunting and scrambling through the broken wooden doors, very close behind them.
The nearest door down the hallway was marked obscurely Lab 754, a single door with no windows and a scanner beside it. He didn’t know what was inside, but he knew they couldn’t outrun the monster down a straight hallway. Grabbing Alice by the waistband of her jeans, Nick skidded them both to a stop at the door. His fingers felt clumsy when he articulated the badge over the scanner. A militant light flashed red and an insolent tone told him the card was declined.
“Fuck, fuck fuck,” Nick growled as Alice’s nails dug painfully into his arm. Turning the badge over so his gawky picture faced outward and the barcode on the back faced the scanner, he pressed it against the scanner again and gripped the doorknob in a blanched white fist. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hulking creature charging down the hallway at them, eyes gleaming yellow, teeth glinting white.
A green light flashed, taking too long to approve their entry with a pleasant tone. The beast was another stride closer, close enough to see individual drops of blood slinging from its jaws. The lock slid open with a metallic click. Nick wrenched the doorknob and yanked the door open toward him. Alice rushed inside, but he shoved her ahead of him anyway as he slipped in behind her. The beast crashed into the open door, slamming it shut right behind Nick’s back with violent force. He had thrown himself inside and barreled into Alice, all but tackling her to the floor as he fell and sprawled over her. He cringed involuntarily at the sound of the beast colliding with the wooden door, hunching over Alice beneath him.
All doors opened outward in public buildings like the museum, pursuant to fire code regulations. And most of the doors in this older basement area of the museum were thick, sturdy wood. The door shuddered ominously, but it held.
Nick looked down at Alice from the position of a lover with his hands planted on either side of her head, his hips pinning her down, their chests touching and their noses nearly so. “Are you alright? We have to keep moving. That door won’t hold for long.”
“Waiting on you,” she said breathlessly, shoving on his broad chest to push him back.
The beast roared and hit the door again. This time splinters shot into the room from the dying doorframe like tiny javelins.
Nick pulled her up with him as he pushed up to his feet. They each looked around the room, trying to quickly assess their surroundings. Fluorescent light lined the ceiling instead of weak yellow bulbs. A long central table ran the length of the room piled with what looked like various artifacts and fossils, including the impressive skull of a sabretooth tiger. Chairs were pulled up to the table at intervals, demarcating different workstations. The air inside was cool and crisp and a subtle whirring indicated a local air system. A shop broom leaned in the far corner, its bristles chalky white with bone dust.
“A restoration lab, damn it to hell.” Nick slammed his hand angrily on the tabletop. “We won’t find anything useful in here.” But he began looking anyway as he made his way through the room.
Alice lingered behind him, turning on several bright lamps placed over the table and pointing them at the rapidly weakening door. She turned on one of the drills on the table, leaving it to buzz and bounce across the tabletop. Nick looked at her with a frown and she shrugged and told him, “It might buy us a few more seconds.”
The back of the room ended depressingly in a simple wall. Nick glared at it as if he could burn a hole through the plaster with his anger. He grinned sardonically at Alice, “The hallway makes a U bend. The service elevator we came down in is probably less than twenty away on the other side of this wall. You don’t happen to have a battering ram hidden in your brassier, do you?”
“That would be my other bra,” she said, looking back at the door as it took another thunderous hit, this time accompanied by the squeal of the metal hinges bending inward.
Nick leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling in frustration. His body jerked like he’d been startled and he ran to the broom standing in the corner. Grabbing it, he sprinted back to the far wall, holding it like a spear. Using the wide, bristled head, he rammed it straight up above his head and into the square air vent in the ceiling. Another hard thrust and the vent crumpled and fell out of the ventilation shaft, leaving a gaping square hole in the ceiling ten feet above their heads.
“Here!” he told Alice urgently, clapping his hands together before linking his fingers to form a stirrup with his hands. The beast struck the door again, tearing a hole through the wood. It pawed through the hole with its claws, scraping and tearing at the wood as it snarled in frustration.
“Can you get up there too?” Alice asked as she placed her foot in his hands.
“Don’t think about it,” Nick grunted as he hefted her up into the square vent like she was nothing but a doll. She hoisted her high enough to bring her chest level with the inside of the vent. Planting her elbows on the flat metal and kicking her legs, she struggled inside. Laying on her stomach, she looked back down through the square hole at Nick below.
Bending his knees, he jumped straight up into the vent opening. It was at the far reach of his vertical jump, but his fingers caught the metal lip. But there was no purchase on the slick metal and his hands slipped off almost instantly. Alice leaned down into the opening, reaching a hand down to him.
“Get out of the way!” he waved her hand away. She began to protest, but he shouted, “Can you curl two-thirty-five? Then I’ll only pull you back out with me.”
The beast crashed into the door a final time, bursting into the lab in an explosion of splinters. It halted immediately when the brilliantly bright spotlight hit its eyes, sitting back on its haunches and shaking its head.
“Give me the broom!” Alice said.
Grinning with understanding despite it all, Nick shoved the head of the broom up into her hands. The beast snarled and swiped the light out of its eyes, then turned its attention to the jumping drill and its grating, high-pitched whine. Alice maneuvered the broom so its handle spanned the square opening, wedged as tightly against the sides as she could get it. The beast crushed the drill with its teeth, shaking its head with the drill in its mouth like a dog with a squeaky toy, then throwing it aside. Fixing its ferocious yellow eyes on Nick at the far end of the room, it charged.
Nick bent his knees, looking up at the broom handle inside the vent. He would only get one shot. Swinging his arms, he jumped up with everything he had. The beast swiped at Nick’s legs as he caught the broom handle, but he jerked them up just in time. Using the broom handle like a pull-up bar, he hoisted himself up into the ventilation shaft. Alice shoved herself backward to make room for him as he lunged forward into the small space, making sure his long legs were clear of the opening.
The beast jumped up after him, slamming its head into the metal of the shaft, denting it upwards. Roaring in frustration, it jumped again, making another dent. Then it reared on its hind legs and clawed at the metal. The sound was a terrible, deafening squeal inside the shaft, ringing in their ears. There was enough space for them to crawl on their hands and knees, and Alice crawled frantically away.
“Can’t beat the view,” Nick quipped, following right behind her.
The beast tried jumping at the vent once more before apparently realizing it was futile. The silence when it stopped was much more unnerving than the banging and scratching and snarling had been.
It didn’t take long for them to come to another vent. Looking through the metal slats, Nick quickly assessed they were now over the section of hallway that housed the service elevator. He easily yanked it open and dropped down through it to the floor. Alice lowered herself down feet first until she felt him catch her legs in a reassuring bearhug and let her slide the rest of the way down his body. Holding her against him, he grinned at her and jerked his chin to the side, “Look what we found.”
The service elevator was no more than fifteen feet away. As she sighed with relief, collapsing into Nick’s arms, Alice heard the now familiar sound of clawed feet scrambling on the tile. “It guessed where we were heading!”
They sprinted to the elevator and Nick punched the Up button over and over. The arrow above the doors illuminated green and the bell dinged. But the doors were old and slow to open. The beast rounded the corner of the hallway in a fury of claws and teeth and lather, charging at them with its horrible teeth bared in a snarl. But claws for all their ferocity did not keep traction on smooth tile. When the beast rounded the tight corner, it did so in an uncontrolled skid. The beast scrambled to keep its balance, but it had charged into the corner too fast. Its shoulder slammed into the opposite side of the hallway as it slid, paws flailing haphazardly beneath it, buying its prey an extra second to live. Nick shoved Alice inside when the opening between the doors was still too narrow for him to fit. Even as the doors still opened, she was pushing the button for the upper floor. Nick slipped inside as the beast ran him down, only one good lunge away.
Nick and Alice pressed themselves to the back of the elevator, watching helplessly as death charged at them and the doors closed too slowly. Their view between the doors narrowed with terrible sluggishness until all they could see were those slitted yellow eyes and bloody frothing jaws. The beast lunged at the gap in the doors, striking the metal with a horrendous crash. Saliva and blood spewed through the opening, splattering Alice and Nick, just as the doors closed and the elevator lurched upward.
The doors opened to a main hallway on one of the upper floors, home to the biggest and most popular museum exhibits. Large windows lined this hallway admitting the moonlight and there was enough light in the individual exhibits to allow the security cameras to identify a thief if needed. Many smaller hallways branched off this main one, each leading to an exhibit. They were near the entrance to an exhibit that glowed green in the dim light, labeled Rainforest. A metal stairwell door was beside the elevator.
“Now at least I know where we are,” Nick could have laughed with relief. He ducked into Alice and stole a quick kiss from her lips.
“Freeze!” A militant voice sliced through the silence in the hall. “Put your hands up!”
They turned to see a short and corpulent museum security guard standing behind them, holding a revolver trained on Nick. He had just rounded a corner of the hallway and shuffled toward them as quickly as his pendulous gut would allow, his utility belt jingling with every labored step. Using his gun, the guard gestured from Nick to the far wall, and ordered, “Turn and face that wall right now. And I better see your hands while you’re sniffing plaster. Move!”
“There’s something in here with us,” Alice said, trying to calm the guard. “You need to take us all out before it finds us.”
“I’m sure there is, honey,” the guard sniggered and took a belligerent step toward Nick. “I gave you a command, hoss.”
The security guard held his gun on Nick, the barrel shaking in his uncertain grip. He was the most dangerous sort of person to hold a man at gunpoint – nervous and unfamiliar with a weapon or with apprehending a suspect. Those were the men likely to shoot first and ask questions later, or even shoot accidentally when they shook hard enough to spasm their trigger finger.
“Turn around now!” the guard shouted again, spittle flying from his lips, his jowls quaking.
The guard was too far away from Nick to make a grab for the gun or knock it away. So, he turned, faced the wall, and planted his hands flat on its smooth surface. He made a great effort to keep his voice calm when he spoke over this shoulder, “Look, buddy, there’s something after us. Something chasing us. Something monstrous. None of us are safe here, including you. You have to get us all out right now. Arrest me and charge me with whatever the hell you want, just get us out.”
The guard spoke into the radio clipped to his belt, “I caught someone sneaking around inside the rainforest exhibit. Looks like a pair of lovebirds who broke in to get it on. I need backup. The guy’s giving me hell. He’s a big bastard too. Threatened my safety already.”
“Ten-Four,” a voice crackled through the radio static. “Sending backup. Just cuff ‘em and keep ‘em where you have ‘em until backup gets there.”
Risking a bullet, Nick growled, “Look, you stupid bastard. You can get all the backup you want and you can arrest me. So long as you get us the fuck outta here, and you do it now! We need to move, goddamnit!”
“The big guy is making more threats,” the guard radioed.
The sound of a door being shoved open inside the stairwell echoed behind the door. It sounded like it came from a flight or two below. Alice heard claws scrambling up the stairs. She met Nick’s cool eyes and she winked.
“Excuse me, sir,” Alice said to the guard in a demure tone. “Our friend’s in the stairwell. Go see for yourself. He’s the one you want to arrest.”
“What the Christ are you all doing in here?” the guard scoffed. “Bunch of assholes ruining my night to have a goddamn orgy!”
The scrambling reached the nearest steps, the sound of a heavy body closing in on the door. The guard heard it too. Keeping his gun pointed at Nick’s back, he stepped to the stairwell door. Grabbing the doorhandle, he yelled with gusto, “Hey asshole, this is museum security. I hear you in there. I’m gonna open the door and I better see your hands!”
He didn’t need to open the door. The door exploded open with a metal screech and a monstrous creature burst from the darkness of the stairwell, aiming for the blustering guard. The guard yanked the trigger when the beast struck him with the force of a wrecking ball, sending a bullet into the wall as man and beast went careening together twenty feet across the floor. Its body had passed Alice by inches, close enough for her to smell the fresh blood and older rancid death on its scaly hide.
Nick shoved away from the wall, grabbing Alice’s arm and running with her in the opposite direction from the carnage. The guard was screaming, but it lasted only as long as a few of their running strides before it was cut off with a wet gurgle and replaced by a sound like an overfull trash bag bursting.
They ran into the thick of the rainforest exhibit, where they were surrounded by vibrant dioramas and luscious vegetation. The windows on this floor admitted silver moonlight, allowing them to see it very clearly. Birds of every color of the spectrum were frozen mid-flight, golden jaguars prowled, and ancient Amazonian architecture formed a visual feast. The highlight of the rainforest exhibit was also the centerpiece of the exhibit hall. A huge glass terrarium filled with tropical vegetation housed an army of living butterflies. Thousands of beautiful butterflies of kaleidoscopic colors flitted through the plants inside in a living whirlwind of colorful wings.
They ran past the butterflies to the far end of the exhibit where another hallway branched off. Nick pointed down it and whispered, “The old west exhibit is just down that way. The guns in there are all functional, and a few of the gunbelts still have live rounds. Maybe…”
“Will the bullets still fire after sitting for more than a century?” Alice asked skeptically.
“As long as the primers haven’t gone bad. Or gotten wet. And the cartridges have remained sealed, and the gunpowder hasn’t leaked out.” He grinned sardonically.
“So, probably not,” Alice surmised.
“Probably not,” Nick agreed. “But do you have a better idea?”
The beast entered the rainforest exhibit with its nose held high, sniffing the air. Nick pulled Alice to him and backed against the wall, hiding them as best he could behind an Amazonian monolith decorated with carvings of ancient deities. The beast froze, its eyes fixed ahead, its posture rigid. It looked as if it stared right at them through the length of the butterfly terrarium. With an excited grunt, the beast swiped at the end of the glass cage, breaking it open, and jumped inside. Thousands of butterflies came to life like confetti, fluttering around the beast that had disturbed them. The beast was captivated, cocking its head curiously at the butterflies, flicking its tail as it swiped its paws at them and tried to chomp them between its jaws. It jumped and twisted and twirled inside the terrarium like a cat confronted with a thousand laser dots. It grunted happily as it pounced on a large Monarch then snorted when another flew at its nose.
Slowly, Nick pulled Alice with him toward the hall leading to the old west exhibit. They edged along the wall at a crawling pace so as not to draw the beast’s attention while it chomped and swiped at the whirlwind of butterflies. The old west exhibit came into view at the end of the hallway, horses and cowboys and bison materializing in the dim light. Nick brought his lips to Alice’s ear and told her, “You go grab all the guns you can find. I’ll start looking through the gunbelts for live rounds. .45’s and 30-30’s are going to be our best bets for a match.”
She nodded her understanding as another sound boomed through the hall. The sound of several running footsteps and the clink of metal. Narrow beams of light bounced around inside the old west exhibit from flashlights held by running men.
Nick stopped short, his hold on her arm keeping Alice beside him. He pulled her down with him when he dropped to his knees, raising his hands above his head in a clear posture of supplication, just as several armed security guards ran into the hallway from the old west exhibit. The light hit Nick’s face, momentarily blinding him, as the men rushed them, guns drawn. Alice looked behind them and saw a huge shadow looming in the entrance to the rainforest exhibit, watching them with gleaming eyes. The guard’s light didn’t reach it and they were too focused on Nick to notice the real threat. The shadow seemed to disintegrate back into the darkness like a receding nightmare. The beast must be intelligent enough to avoid confronting so many drawn firearms. Or it was simply biding its time for the right moment.
“You’re under arrest!” the lead guard shouted as he rushed Nick. Turning him bodily around, he shoved him to his stomach with his face pressed into the tile and yanked his arms behind his back.
“We didn’t do anything, you idiot!” Alice said futility. “There’s something in here with us.”
“Save it, lady,” the guard said gruffly. “You both have the right to remain silent and I suggest you fucking use it.” He prodded his gun rudely into Nick’s back and cuffed his hands. “I heard all about you on the radio. Some big bastard resisting arrest after breaking in. And I saw some of your handiwork already.”
“You have to listen, it wasn’t me,” Nick gritted. “There’s some kind of animal in here with us.”
“Yeah, get started on that insanity defense right off the bat, you murdering sonofabitch,” the guard hissed. “Just keep talking so I can testify to all your bullshit.”
Two guards came and hefted Nick up by his arms, yanking them painfully back and straining his shoulders. Alice looked at him when he stood, giving him her steadiest and most reassuring gaze. “Don’t tell them anything. It won’t do you any good. Let your lawyer do the talking for you.” She winked at him for the second time that night. “I promise you have a good one.”
Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Angst, maybe? Lots of Violence. Violence Against Women. Violence Against Men. Rage. Revenge. Drowning. This isn't dark by my personal standards, but it's fairly dark by fic standards, so be warned.
This is from Flip's POV, so there's no X Reader language. However, I left the Siren pretty vague and I think she can be read as a reader insert. At least by readers with enough imagination to assume they have a tail etc xD. Also, I don't consider this as 'Dark' Flip, but some people probably will, so consider that an additional warning.
Inspired by Lighthouse by Halsey Based on a request I butchered from @cas-backwards-tie
AO3 Link
Eastport, Maine, perched on the Northeastern most tip of the state like a mole on the end of a witch’s nose, was about as far away from the rest of the country as a man could get. Alaska might be further, but the strange daylight and dark hours that changed with the seasons wouldn’t do a damn bit of good for the mental state of a man already on the brink. On the brink of what exactly, Flip couldn’t really say and he wouldn’t hazard a guess. Things like that should be left to professionals high above his pay grade. Professionals Flip wouldn’t denigrate himself to consult.
Talkin’ about a man’s problems is for pussies and whiners, Flip would say. To his own reflection in his bathroom mirror, leaning over the sink, wiping the sweat from his brow after waking from another recurring nightmare. A shrink is a poor substitute for a cold beer and beatin’ the hell out of a punching bag.
That was back in Colorado Springs, back during the aftermath of the Pigman killings. Sure, Flip had solved the case, shot dead the bastard dubbed Pigman for his penchant for frying strips of his victims up like bacon. Flip resented it in ways deeper than he could ever express to a shrink, how that sorry bastard had ruined the taste of bacon for him. One of his favorite guilty pleasures was his heart attack special – a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and waffles, all slathered in genuine Vermont maple syrup. Flip hoped that pleasure would return to him. After he was able to purge his memory of the smell of human ‘bacon,’ harvested from plump victims, sizzling in a cast iron frying pan, human fat popping up from the pan and burning his hand as he crept past with his gun held at the ready. Firing a bullet into the Pigman’s head was a relief, something he deserved for ruining the taste of bacon for Flip, in addition to his other gruesome atrocities.
Focusing on bacon as the greatest tragedy helped Flip mitigate in his mind what had happened to his partner. Flip had taken that memory, crumpled it into the smallest ball of pain he could, and shoved it down inside his mind, into the darkest, deepest recess. He understood now the meaning of that shrink term ‘unpacking.’ Well, he had no fuckin’ intention of ever unpacking that memory again, or those emotions. There was nothing equal to finding a partner dead and half butchered like a prize hog. Nothing in a shrink’s handbook to undo the damage caused by the smell of bacon frying in a cast iron pan. Thick cut bacon, freshly cut from his partner’s flanks.
These days, that memory was left buried in Flip’s subconscious, coming to him in sweaty, pulse-thundering dreams. Flip was a mentally tough man, highly disciplined. He could keep that terrible beast caged. But everything about the Colorado Springs police station reminded him of his partner, a constant kick in the guts that made it impossible to truly repress. Even his favorite restaurants and bars, his own house for fucks’ sake. All of it was now full to bursting with painful associations. This pain came out as anger, which was really the best and healthiest reaction in Flip’s arsenal. It beat taking up drugs, drinking even more, or putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
Before he lost it on some poor bastard who cut him off in traffic or an asshole who pinched a waitress’s ass in front of him, Flip decided a change of scenery was just what the doctor ordered. He wanted to get as far from anything familiar to him as possible. When he came into work one morning and saw a newspaper clipping advertising a small town in Maine was looking for a new sheriff, Flip didn’t think twice about where it may have come from. He didn’t give a damn.
After a long weekend trip to Eastport, Maine that served as reconnaissance, Flip found a nice cabin that suited him, far away from people, and even a friendly little mousy-haired schoolteacher who suited him too. Well enough for some entertainment, anyway. She had great tits and a face that gave Flip the impression she was the kind of girl who’d let a man do damn near whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, because she wasn’t overly burdened with beauty or brains and had the good sense to compensate in more tangible ways. He took her out for coffee and a stroll around the small, quaint town, having her show him what passed for the sights. Afterwards, she was very friendly and rewarded him handsomely and enthusiastically for her mocha latte in the backseat of her car.
Come Monday, Flip accepted the sheriff gig for a surprisingly good salary and made a deal on the cabin for a steal. Both for the same reason – the market was thin pickin’s for successful men with Flip’s level of skill, who were willing to move to a town of fifteen hundred people with a higher population of sasquatch than eligible singles. Eastport was a nice little town, what there was of it. Picturesque in that quaint, rural way that looked great on a postcard but didn’t hold one’s interest for long.
Three months in, and Flip loved it. The work was easy. He hadn’t had to use his brain on a crime since he left Colorado Springs, and the most stress he had was searching for a dumb kid who had gotten lost in the woods and escorting the little shit back to his mom. He’d only had to fire his piece once to scare off a bear that was rummaging through the sheriff department trash. Most of the ‘crime’ he’d been prepped for consisted of vandalism, DWI’s, animal attacks, domestic violence, and bar fights. Flip had already dealt with a few bar fights, about one a weekend. He loved that part of the job. It gave him an excuse to take out some aggression on some wannabe tough guys who could handle it, and who wouldn’t be the wiser when they sobered up as to whether their fat lip or black eye came from the sheriff or the other guy. And the floozy schoolteacher named Cristy gave great head and made few demands, aside from dragging him to church a few times to keep airs that she wasn’t a loose woman. That was a royal pain in the ass, but he could endure it.
He loved the pace and the seclusion. He was damned sick of cities bustling like ants, air that smelled like grime. Colorado Springs had that big city grime along with big city crime, and the punks and gangbangers that came with it. It was nice to have the freedom of driving less than thirty minutes from town and being out in the middle of nowhere. Forest or coast, he could take his pick. He could go whale watching or moose hunting; hiking or fishing; watch the golden sunrise at a local coffee shop and watch it set fiery orange over the ocean while having a juicy ribeye, a fat lobster tail, and a cold beer. Eastport even had a barber shop with the red and white striped pole out front, where a man could get a haircut and a shave with a straight razor and not listen to women chatter about the latest Cosmopolitan article on how to please a man or what celebrity got which body parts inflated.
Six months in, and Flip was beginning to hate it. The easy work had grown dull. There wasn’t a goddamn thing that got his heart rate up anymore – fucking aside, anyway – and he hadn’t had a good adrenaline rush since he’d been woken up in the middle of the night by a bobcat in heat screeching on his back porch, sounding like some banshee straight outta hell. Even that little excitement had been weeks ago. The schoolteacher had grown as dull and uninteresting as a blowup doll, with a comparable IQ and conversational skills. It gave him more reason to keep her mouth occupied with other activities or her face shoved into the mattress, but that brand of enjoyment was only good for so long. Then she wanted to talk, always about the most mundane gossip and dumbest shit imaginable. Flip asked her once if she wanted to read a book with him – some adventure thing he’d picked at random in a used bookstore, packed with plenty of action for him and shirtless strapping men he thought she’d enjoy too. She looked at him with a bovine sort of vacancy in her mossy eyes – an association that had become hard for him to ignore – and asked, “Read? You mean like a magazine or a newspaper?”
The seclusion was turning to cabin fever, the endless wilderness closing in on him like a noose. The bad accents of the locals were as grating as a migraine, and the smell of fish and ocean pervaded every fuckin’ piece of his clothing, strong enough that it vied with cigarette smoke for his signature scent. Going to the five restaurants and three bars in town, having the same thing on the menu over and over had gotten old as hell. There wasn’t even a movie theater within an hour’s drive, only an old drive-in that was only open during the four months a year a man wouldn’t get frostbite on his dick trying to enjoy a movie from the bed of his truck with his girl in the old-fashioned way. The seclusion and boredom had been good for one thing. Flip had lifted weights and run himself into the best shape of his life. His arms bulged, his chest strained his shirt buttons, and both his cardio and timing on a speed bag were better than they had been during his tour in the Marines.
The teacher must have gotten bored with Flip too, because he stopped by her house a little early one Friday night to surprise her with a bottle of cheap wine and a chick flick, only to find her banging some pencil-dick science teacher he recognized as a specimen she had made assurances was just a friend. A married man too, aptly named Less, the piece of dogshit. Flip wanted to knock the bastard into next week, but he was truly concerned he might get a murder charge if the limp-wristed yuppie couldn’t take one of his punches. Actually, fuck the man. Flip wanted to knock that cheating slut around. He’d never hit a woman before, but if anyone deserved it, it was a fucking cheat. Dull and plain as she was, and despite ample opportunity, Flip had never cheated on the little skank.
The icing on the cake was when the murders started. Flip had come to this backwoods hellhole to get away from murders. It seems crime missed him and had followed him across the map. The first body washed up on the shore in a bucolic cove. It was a place Flip had found early on and driven to several times to have a beer and watch the sunset. Tall rocky cliffs populated with pine trees surrounded the ocean, and the waves crashed against the rocks with a thunderous susurrus. Those dense pine softened the light at dawn and dusk, bending into luscious pinks and oranges, and the water gleamed a vibrant sapphire. It was a scene straight off a postcard.
The bloated corpse lying on the beach slightly hampered that postcard beauty. Standing over the corpse in the sand, Flip guessed by the clammy pallor of the gelatinous skin and the damp putrid smell the man had been dead a week or so. Flip’s deputy, an older man with greying hair straight out of Mayberry, gave Flip his opinion that the man had fallen from the cliffs and drowned, or had been boating and drowned, or some other kind of accident that led to drowning. An accident that didn’t necessitate police involvement or investigation. The deputy had been there forever, and had turned down the sheriff’s position twice to avoid the added responsibility. The pattern was easy to see. As were the strange marks on the dead man’s neck and shoulders. The marks were faint, a little difficult to make out for an untrained eye, especially on the bloated, damp, decaying skin. They looked like something between hickies and strangulation bruises.
With a shrug, the deputy mentioned to Flip that accidents like this happened a couple times a year. Flip took the initiative to research exactly what that meant and how many similar accidents like this had occurred.
“Fuck me,” Flip muttered profoundly.
Based on his first cursory examination of the half-assed reports the Eastport Sheriff’s Department generated and the even worse records it maintained, he counted around fifty accidental deaths in that cove going back until World War II. He suspected there were many accidents the police didn’t deem worth documenting in their records.
“Accidents my dyin’ ass.” Flip swiped a hand over his face.
The bodies had all been found washed up on the rocky beach of the cloistered cove. There wasn’t much of a beach, just the rocky bottom of cliffs that the waves crashed against. Flip thought it might be public land or even park land because it was pretty enough that some rich recluse should have bought it up years ago if the government hadn’t claimed it. He was surprised to find the entire cove and a couple hundred surrounding acres had been in one family for well over a century. The entire property was dubbed ‘Thundercliffs,” a term he guessed was coined from the sound the waves made crashing against the cliffs. The old house wasn’t abandoned in the technical sense, not in the way the townsfolk believed. A quick search at the County Clerk revealed it was owned by a trust along with the sizable acreage it sat on and a host of other assets. The sole beneficiaries of the trust were a pair of siblings by the names of Hortence Desdemona and Beauregard Mountbatten III.
“This is gonna go well,” Flip grumbled as he wrote the names and address into the small notebook he kept in his pocket.
The address listed in Port Clyde was easy to find, and even offered a nice drive down the coast. It led him to a quaint cottage in town overlooking a harbor abuzz with working fisherman hauling in nets of fish and cages of lobster. He pulled his truck in behind the only car in the driveway, one of those old station wagons with the wood side panels. Several potted plants taller than Flip lounged on the porch and in the windows there were crystals and weird looking wicker crafts shaped like moons and stars. An old German shepherd was curled up by the door, his muzzle more white than black. He lifted his head to appraise Flip, but decided he wasn’t worth getting up over, and settled for watching him warily. The scent of incense or maybe fancy candles seeped onto the porch from inside. As he rapped his knuckles on the door Flip hoped that froufrou smell wouldn’t stick to his clothes and stink up the inside of his truck on his drive home.
A dumpy eccentric woman answered. She inhaled sharply at the sight of the handsome stranger, instantly flustered, and set about smoothing her rumpled outfit and bushy curly hair. She was dressed somewhere between a seventies hippie and a new age wannabe witch. Flip didn’t really understand the difference, but there were lots of colors and flappy material to her getup, stacked jingling bracelets, and multiple rings on every finger.
“Hi, ummm, can I help you?” the woman stammered. It had probably been a while since she’d talked to a man.
“Is Hortence or Beauregard available?” Flip asked in an authoritative tone.
“Why on earth would you want to see them?” She bristled and folded her arms over her chest.
Clearly, he had taken the wrong approach. The woman was of indeterminate age. She could have been a good-looking sixty or a rode-hard forty. He figured either way, she probably wasn’t dried up enough to be immune to masculine attention. Leaning against the doorframe and towering over her, he turned on the charm.
“Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to come off rude.” He flashed his handsomest smile and ran his hand through his thick cowlick. “I’ve been put in the position of looking into some abandoned property that may be part of a trust of which they’re the sole beneficiaries. I just want to make sure all the property they’re rightfully entitled to gets to them.”
“Property where?” the woman stiffened even more, a rare response to Flip’s moves.
“I can only discuss that with the beneficiaries, I’m afraid.” He looked over the woman’s head, starting to suspect something was off. The cluttered inside of the house looked more like a fortune teller’s parlor than the residence of wealthy siblings. “Are you a relative?”
“I’m May,” she snorted in what passed for a laugh. “You could say I’m their stepmother.” She flapped her arms in a kind of shrug. “If you want to meet Hortence and Beauregard, follow me.” She turned and snorted again. “You can ask them anything you want.”
Flip passed overstuffed bookcases and curio cabinets filled with a myriad of trinkets into a sunny kitchen. The windowsill was littered with more witchy hippie looking things and a large plant with striped leaves dominated the center of a small dining table.
“Can I get you something to drink?” May asked as she started tapping a can on the counter.
“Coffee, if you have it. Thank you.” Flip watched her odd tapping with the can. “About the folks I’m here to see…”
“They’ll be along shortly.” She smiled and poured a mug of coffee from an existing brew in her coffee pot. “Give them a minute, they don’t move as fast as they used to.”
Flip still didn’t know what kind of eccentric he was dealing with here, but he decided to be careful not to leave any stray hairs around just in case. The last thing he needed was some broad crafting a voodoo doll of him or some shit and summoning him to her bedroom in the witching hour. He wondered if witches only used hair for those things, or if any kind of DNA would work. That unsettling thought made him eye the coffee mug suspiciously. An old police trick was to offer a suspect water, then keep the glass for DNA testing after the suspect leaves. DNA was discarded material then, free game to search without consent. He decided he didn’t need coffee that badly after all and set the mug on the counter in the same motion that he leaned his hip against it.
A fat black cat waddled into the kitchen, greeting him with a trilled meow, looking up at him expectantly with rich green eyes. The cat jumped up onto one of the chairs at the dining table, then up onto the tabletop, where it sat politely. Another deeper meow heralded the arrival of a second cat, bigger and even fatter, with a bright orange striped coat, a white patch on its chest, a white tipped tail, and bright amber eyes that matched Flip’s.
May smiled at them and said to Flip, “Let me introduce you to Hortence,” she pointed at the black cat, then moved her finger toward the orange tabby. “And Beauregard.” She emptied the can of cat food onto a saucer and used a fork to separate the contents. “Ask away.”
Flip rubbed the scruff on his jaw, watching as the woman placed the saucer on the table. Hortence began eating while Beauregard hefted his bulk up onto the chair then the table beside her.
“Cat got your tongue?” May asked with a snort.
“They’re the beneficiaries of the Thundercliffs Trust?” Flip stroked the black cat.
“They sure are! Brother and sister. Twenty-two years young,” May beamed as if she were indeed talking about her children. “Their real mom died ten years ago, but they get their longevity from her. She lived until she was in shooting distance of one-hundred. She was an old maid like me, no human children. So, she left everything in a trust to her cats. I get a monthly wage as their caretaker, not that I wouldn’t do it for free. I used to help their mom with chores and errands. Part maid, part cook, part caretaker. She was more like my crazy aunt than anything though.”
“I see.” Flip smiled to buy time while his mind ran through any questions that might be useful. “The trust also owns an old house up in Eastport. Does that mean the cats own it?”
“I suppose it does,” May shrugged. “I left my law degree in my other pants, but I’m told we could all live in that big old mansion on the cliffs, the cats, and my dog, and I. But I don’t think I could spend a night in there and catch a wink of sleep. I used to clean it once a month, and I hated every second I spent inside it. Something’s just wrong in there. I couldn’t even get Elwood to go inside with me when he was young and reckless – you met him on the porch.”
“Why is that, do you think?” Flip asked. “I’d like to hear your thoughts on that house if you have time.”
“I have plenty of time, but those aren’t thoughts I like to spend my time on.” She smiled but her tone was firm. “I might look like a silly old woman to you, but I’m not that silly. Or naive. I know there’s nothing I could tell you about that house that you’d believe anyway. And I know it’s not smart to go telling a sheriff lots of outlandish things and making him think you’re crazy.”
“Sheriff?” Flip grinned a little bashfully. He didn’t know his jig was up when he knocked on the door.
“I could tell you I’m a psychic and see if I could get fifty bucks out of you for a tarot reading.” May winked. “Or maybe news just travels fast in small towns. Especially between women. And extra especially about the new hunk of meat with a silver star up north.”
He laughed because it beat acknowledging his status as a slab of meat. “I’d like to take a look inside that house on the cliff. Would you be willing to show me around? The sheriff’s department would compensate you at the same hourly rate you get from the trust.”
“No way in hell, sheriff,” she smiled sweetly. “Not for the money or that handsome smile. I haven’t been up there in years and I don’t intend to go back. Not ever. If Hortence and Beauregard could sign legal documents, I’d advise them to demolish that house and every other structure on the property, bulldoze it clean, and turn it into a landfill.”
“Hell of a thing to do to a place with such a great view,” Flip said.
“I see. You’ve already been out there poking around.” It wasn’t a question and she seemed sad about it. “It’s always the handsomest men around who are drawn to that place.”
“Well, it’s also my job.” Flip didn’t tell her that he had gone to those cliffs many times on his own before anything suspicious had happened or any bodies had washed up on shore. That he thought the cliffs with the tall pine trees overlooking the boisterous cove was the best place in town to have a beer and watch the sunset. He damn sure wouldn’t say he felt drawn there. But even if he did, it was just the view. A man had every right to appreciate a nice view.
May opened a kitchen drawer and rummaged around, finally retrieving a keyring with a single key on it. She tossed the key to Flip and smiled as he snatched it out of the air with ease.
“Here’s the key to that house. Take it. The honor system is still pretty big here in our small towns.” She smiled. “Besides, if you use it to do something stupid to that house or anything inside it, you’ll have bigger problems than me.” She snorted again. “Actually, I doubt I’ll have to deal with you anymore at all after that!”
“What worries you so much about that house?” Flip asked, shoving the key into the front pocket of his jeans.
“Nothing about that house doesn’t worry me.” May shook her head. “You might want to ask me about the property too, not just the house itself.”
“Alright.” Flip nodded. “Consider me asking.”
“Lots of deaths on that land over the years.” She shuddered slightly. “I imagine that’s why you’re here. One of the first deaths the paper covered was in the forties. A strapping man who’d just come back from the war drowned in that cove. Everyone thought it was so strange because he was in great shape, fresh out of the military. They suspected it must have been a suicide. He was the second man to drown in the cove that year. But if you ask me, or most locals, the very first death was actually just labeled a disappearance. The military man’s wife.” She waved at the cats. “Their mom’s great aunt. I guess that’d make her their great great aunt.” Another snort. “Rumor has it she ran off with some man or other she met while her husband was off at war, and her husband committed suicide when he got home and found out.” She paused and looked at Flip. “But there are always rumors about beautiful women, aren’t there? If a woman’s pretty enough, men will call her a slut regardless of how many of them she sleeps with. Or doesn’t. Come to think of it, the more men a woman rejects, the more likely they are to label her a slut because it makes them feel superior. I’ve seen it a dozen times and I’m sure you have too. A small man’s way to destroy a woman who’s out of his league.”
“And that woman lived in the house?” Flip clarified. “The pretty woman?”
“She wasn’t just pretty. Rumor has it she was drop dead gorgeous. Bewitchingly, enchantingly, dangerously beautiful. But yes, Hortence and Beauregard’s great great aunt.” She patted each cat in turn, eliciting happy purrs. They had plopped down on the dining table, listening to the conversation. “All this was told to me by their mother. I wasn’t there, of course. I wasn’t around at all for a few more decades.”
“I appreciate it.” Flip gave her a genuine smile. “The key and the information. Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to anything you got secondhand.”
“There’s one fact that isn’t secondhand and you should give it some real weight, sheriff,” May said in the most serious tone she’d adopted so far. She was still stroking the orange cat. “Their mother owned that house for decades when she inherited it from her mother. It’s closer to a mansion than a house, and has that great view you mentioned. Still, she never lived one day in that house and she never sold it either. She didn’t want any living thing to live inside it. She rarely spoke of her great aunt, and when she did it was only to praise her beauty. I asked her more about her once and this is what she told me: ‘I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead, especially when the dead might still be listening. But I will say that since she was a young girl, my great aunt was blessed with beauty and cursed with rage.’”
Flip stopped at a local bakery before leaving Port Clyde, letting all the new information settle in his mind. He had two slices of spectacular homemade blueberry pie, allowing himself to wander through this new world of information. It was a strange world for him, one with witches and ghosts and curses and haunted beaches. He didn’t believe any of that shit any more than he believed in Santa Claus, but it was an entertaining world to visit. Plus, it had a dangerously beautiful woman in it.
The drive back would take him around four hours. He’d be pulling into town just in time to catch the sunset. Picking up a cheeseburger and fries to go and a six pack on the drive sounded good. What sounded even better was eating his burger while watching the summer sun set over that gorgeous cove from high up on the rocky cliffs.
Flip’s favorite spot was on the highest cliff at the head of the cove. There, a flat rock served as an ideal bench near the edge, offering the best view of the cove from beneath the shade of a tall pine. He sat and just admired the view, the greasy-bottomed bag containing his cheeseburger and fries sitting on the rock beside him. He felt like a gargoyle perched on the top of the tallest building in a city, overlooking his domain below.
The sky was molten gold and fiery orange as the sun dipped below the horizon. The surface of the ocean glittered golden too, like it was a sea of coins instead of water. The light in the pines took on a soft dreamlike haze and a light fog was building along the beach. Lower in elevation and about two-hundred yards away was the lonely old house, its four tall stories keeping watch over the cove. Flip looked at it now from his vantage, conscious of what his senses might tell him. He felt nothing ominous at all. If anything, he felt content, a sense of belonging. A feeling that he could be happy here for a very long time, that he could even stay here forever. With a jolt, he realized he had been leaning nearer to the edge while lost in thought.
Movement on the beach far below caught his eye. Staring intently, he quite literally couldn’t believe his eyes. A woman lay on the beach, stark naked, and writhing in pain. She was also thrashing what appeared to be a shimmering golden tail. He didn’t believe in ghosts or Santa Claus, and he wasn’t about to start believing in fuckin’ mermaids either. But that’s damn sure what she looked like. Flip rubbed his eyes and forced them to focus more clearly. No, that long golden tail was still there, glistening wet and whipping violently on the beach. He could even faintly hear the wet slaps of it on the sand, paired with an ethereal voice calling for help.
Flip launched off the rock and ran back through the trees toward the house. A trail took off from the house, navigating the treacherous cliffs down to the beach. It would be suicide to attempt a descent anywhere else. At the base of the cliff, he charged into a full sprint, pumping his arms and kicking up sand as he ran down the beach toward the woman. Her cries for help were louder now, so loud they seemed to echo inside his head. There was a lewdness to it, too. If Flip hadn’t seen her writhing in pain, he would have taken the sound for loud moans of ecstasy.
He vaulted over a boulder at the head of the cove and found her, only feet ahead of him. The woman was every bit as naked as he had thought, but it wasn’t a tail he had seen thrashing. From the waist down, she was tangled up in a tawny fishing net. Somehow, the sunset must have made it look golden. In his mind’s eye, he could picture a perfect tail, complete with fins and individual scales of gleaming gold, thrashing and slapping the sand. He didn’t know how the hell he had seen that from the tangled mess of rope binding the woman’s legs, but he didn’t need to think about that now.
Falling to his knees beside the woman, he spoke soothingly like he would to a frightened animal. “I’m here to help you. I’m not going to hurt you. Let me help you.” It required a herculean effort to keep his eyes from wandering over her magnificent heaving breasts. He cupped her cheek to stop her from thrashing in the net. The ropes were digging into her, leaving angry red burns across her skin. Her eyes were wild with fear like a fox caught in a snare, but also bright and fierce. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently, keeping his voice soothing, “Look at me. I’m going to help you. Be still.”
The woman’s eyes rolled to meet his, and it felt like they bore straight into his soul. His throat went dry and his hands felt weak. The sun had set now, leaving a lingering purple twilight. Her eyes were luminous in the lavender light, somehow catching the ambient glow and reflecting it back even stronger. A mane of glossy hair was spread across the sand beneath her, and the fading light danced on her skin like diamonds on silk. Her eyes were no longer frightened, but still wild. They drew him in. Without realizing it, Flip’s hand had slipped from her shoulder to skim down her side, coming to rest on her hip on the only free patch of skin between ropes.
Flip flinched at the realization, fumbling a broken, “I’m sorry.”
The woman said nothing, continuing to stare up at him. Her lips curled in a slight smile that may have been satisfaction. Or it may have been relief at finding a savior.
Flip felt a foreign compulsion. Something dark and sick. Something he would have beaten another man up for. He felt the almost irresistible urge to unzip his jeans and cage the woman beneath him. To use the ropes to his advantage, plunge into her and ravage her like an unhinged beast. It was a base impulse, something at home in a feral animal instead of a man. Flip had felt lust, and he had a bad habit of thinking with his cock, but he had never felt the drive to take what wasn’t offered willingly. He had never felt desire so aggressive and consuming.
“How long were you out here on the beach?” he asked to ground himself. He shook his head, berating himself internally, asking himself, What the fuck is wrong with you? He had seen plenty of naked women, beautiful women. Had plenty of them beneath him writhing in much more lascivious ways than this one. He wasn’t a blushin’ virgin and he goddamn sure wasn’t a fuckin’ pervert.
“I’ve always been here,” she said with a laugh on her voice, as harmonious as a sonata.
Looking away from her, he took a breath to purge the perversion from his mind and unbuttoned his shirt. He roughly shrugged out of it and draped it over the woman’s torso, covering the most enticing bits of her. He wanted to rip the ropes off her, but he forced himself to move slowly and untangle her with care.
“Are you hurt?” he asked when she was free of the net, forcing himself to look into her eyes and nowhere else.
“No,” she said in a serene voice with a sound as pleasant as windchimes. “What are you going to do to me?”
That odd, innocuously asked question flooded his mind with another violent rush of terrible, driving, impulses, alarmingly perverse. His jeans felt tight, and he felt disgusted with himself. He decided it was even worse looking into her eyes than it had been looking at her perfect naked figure. He fought the urge to tell her what he wanted to do – ravage her, and even more than that he wanted to take her home and keep her chained to his bed. All to himself. Forever. In a great effort to remain civilized, he gritted hoarsely, “I’m gonna get you off this beach and somewhere safe.”
Flip wrapped her in his shirt, lifted her into his arms, and pushed up to his feet. He cradled her gently in his arms as he carried her back down the beach. It was now nearly dark, but her eyes were still almost unnaturally bright as they watched him serenely. She should have smelled like the ocean, even salty or fishy, but she smelled sweeter than anything he had ever scented. He couldn’t place her scent, but it was like an amalgamation of everything that had ever enticed him, from the hottest woman to the sweetest honey to the most fragrant perfume. All those scents mingled harmoniously where they lived in her skin. She laid her head on his chest and made a sound in her throat like a purr. It shook Flip straight through to his bones.
Flip carried her up the steep trail back up to the top of the cliffs. He carried her to his truck, parked near the trailhead. He wanted to take her to the hospital, have a doctor sign off that she was alright. But the strange woman protested, insisting it was too far and she was too cold. Flip hadn’t noticed her shivering before, but now she trembled in his arms, her body fluttering against his chest.
Instead, she asked him to take her into the old, abandoned house, assuring they could warm themselves inside. Though she had only asked and in the most melodious of tones, Flip found it was a command he couldn’t refuse. Still carrying her in his arms like a doting husband with an eager bride, he strode to the front door of the abandoned house. The door was a shade of purple-brown, like a fresh bruise, with a standoffish doorknocker in the shape of a lion’s head with a heavy ring clenched between its teeth. Glaring at the beast, Flip kicked the door in.
Still holding the woman to his chest, Flip paused at the threshold, looking from one dark corner of the foyer to the other, prepared for anything, like an old west gunfighter entering a saloon. He felt immediately ridiculous. Those ghost stories and tall tales must have gotten to him more than he’d wanted to admit. There was nothing amiss inside, save for some dust and cobwebs. Moonlight filtered through the windows, making the dust he had disturbed look like mist wafting lightly on the air.
“Upstairs,” the woman said. “There’s less dust upstairs.
Flip didn’t care whether she was right and he didn’t ponder her statement. He attacked the stairs, taking them two at a time. The house was Victorian-styled, filled with tall ceilings, ornate details, and airy windows. A pair of double doors stood open at the end of the hallway on the third floor, beckoning him inside. Flip carried his prize through them and into a master suite, noticing at once it was surprisingly clean. Bay windows were ajar, open just enough to allow a crisp breeze tinged with pine and salt blow in from the cove. The light wind must have kept the dust and cobwebs at bay because the room looked and smelled pristine.
Flip tried not to focus on the large bed, almost as plush and inviting as the woman in his arms. He aimed for the bathroom, intending to fight her chill with warm water. She tugged on his collar, pulling her face near his ear and whispered, “You just pulled me out of the water. Don’t put me back in it yet.” Her breath was hot on his neck. “Take me to bed.”
“That’s not what you need,” Flip rasped, trying to deny the way his blood boiled and remain a gentleman while his cock throbbed.
“Isn’t it just like a man to tell me what I need?” she laughed, both husky and harmonious.
“You need warmed up, and a doctor, and probably a hot meal,” Flip told her as he walked to the bed. In one swift motion, he sat her down and peeled his own soaked shirt off her, trying not to look at the perfection that revealed. He pulled the quilt around her in a cocoon, both to warm her and keep her hidden from his view. He turned her brusquely around and laid down beside her, wrapping her cocooned figure inside his arms, hoping the thick quilt barrier between them would keep his arousal his own dirty little secret.
“Can you not think of a more effective approach to warm me up?” the woman lilted.
Inhaling her scent with his nose near the back of her neck, Flip thought he had never been so intoxicated by any substance. He cleared his throat. “I’m not very imaginative. Sorry to disappoint.”
“I have some ideas,” she teased. “Do you care to hear them?”
“Not unless you buy me dinner first, darlin,’” Flip gruffed. “I’m not that easy.”
“You can take whatever you want, you know,” she said in a sultry invitation.
“I don’t want to take anything from you,” his voice rumbled.
“That’s a lie and we both know it. I can feel how much you’re lying.” She wiggled her perfect ass against the ridge in his jeans. He only tightened his hold to still her, making no moves to relieve his own suffering. She stilled, and when she spoke again there was a sprinkling of admiration in her voice, “What a strange man you are.”
“Darlin,’ you have no idea,” Flip laughed, adjusting his large arms around her body. “You should see me cut loose on the weekends. I really live on the edge. I have pizza with pineapple and stay up past midnight to watch Twilight Zone reruns and everything.”
Flip held her tight and forced his eyes shut, trying to ignore the way the moonlight danced on her pristine skin and glossed her hair; the feel of her curves through the quilt, as apparent to him as a pea beneath a princess’s mattress; the way her scent curled into his nose, as decadent as rose petals and as potent as whiskey. He could feel her weaving spells around him, through him, inside him, a kind of intoxication that settled in his blood. Flip knew once he was good and drunk on her, he’d never want to sober.
Flip dozed during the night, falling into a fitful nightmarish kind of sleep. His mind reeled with images of men screaming as they drowned, a beautiful beach corrupted by waterlogged corpses, and an unnaturally gorgeous woman swimming in the cove, watching the mayhem and smiling at it all.
The feeling of his back being forced down into the mattress made his eyes fly open. The sight of the mystery woman straddling his lap, her mane backlit by moonlight, the same moonlight that gleamed in her eyes, made his pulse thunder. Inhaling sharply, he gripped her naked thighs, his fingertips digging bruises into her skin.
Flip wouldn’t take her, but he was damn fine with being taken by her.
Pleasure rumbled through his throat as she raked her nails down his chest, tracing angry red streaks down his body. She had discarded the quilt, brandishing her exquisite and fully naked body like a weapon, her tits languidly jostling to the circular motion of her hips as she worked him into a frenzy through his jeans. She whipped his belt loose and yanked the button open on his jeans. He tried to sit up, to capture her pouting lips, but she pushed him back with a throaty laugh.
It was the first time in his life Flip had been manhandled by a fuckin’ woman. She was stronger than she looked. He looked up at her in a kind of daze, unable to look anywhere else, or to look away from those oddly luminous eyes. He had an unsettling feeling of being a prey animal, caught in the claws of some carnivorous predator. But with a cock as hard as his was now, he didn’t give a damn about that or any other misgiving.
Purring or maybe snarling, she arched her back and shook out her long glossy hair, crooning his name when she sank down onto him. Flip didn’t remember telling her his name, but that hardly mattered now. All around him, the room blurred like a steaming mirage until everything was a shapeless haze except for the glorious woman riding him. His skin simmered and his throat burned with every breath as if he were sitting inside an oven, but he had never felt more alive. Every sensation was heightened, and his pleasure was more intense than anything he had ever known.
Flip was a big, big man, and he was big where it counted. He was used to women being impressed by his body and his size, intimidated even. He wasn’t used to being stared down with unshakeable confidence as a woman took her pleasure from him. It was strange finding he wanted to give her not only pleasure, but everything else he had. He wanted to give it to her as good as he was getting it, bucking his hips beneath her while her hot pussy strangled his cock. Kissing and licking, grabbing and caressing, thrusting and bucking, he used every part of his body to earn her shudders and hear her moan his name.
Feeling her body tense around him like a silky vice, Flip fisted his hand in her hair and yanked her down to capture her lips. Growling into her mouth, he followed her over the edge, drinking her breath as she trembled in his arms while he filled her. He thrummed with something far deeper and stronger than lust, and he kissed her with a passion he had never given any other woman.
Holding her against him, Flip rolled with her, bringing her beneath him and propping himself up on his palms to admire this view of her under him. She locked her arms around his neck, urging him into her again, assuring him they were far from stopping for the evening. Again and again, they enjoyed each other until his back was stiff and his jaw ached, and until he even wondered if he would have some chaffing in some rather embarrassing areas by morning. When he finally fell asleep with her in his arms in the last hour before dawn, he dreamed of her still.
Flip woke with the sunrise, a habit ingrained by his days in the military. Turning over in bed, he reached for the intoxicating woman. How he had released his hold on her in his sleep baffled him, but he resolved to keep her in his arms for the rest of the day to compensate. His hand met only cool sheets and a vacant mattress. As if she had been nothing but a drunken reverie or a fever dream, she was gone from the bed. She had left no note or token, only her luxurious scent lingering in the sheets.
With the sunrise, a realization dawned to Flip. His missing mystery woman was unlike anything he had ever touched or tasted. She was his wildest dream and wickedest fantasy. It was unnerving, frightening even, to realize he was so far gone after one impulsive evening. Flip had tried the most addictive substances in the world at one time or another – it came with the territory for an undercover cop, having to blend in with the worst kinds of men – but he had never sampled anything so addictive, so utterly arresting from the very first taste. The marks she clawed into his back and shoulders would last for days, but the mark she carved into his heart was one he knew would never heal. Flip was tempted to call it love at first sight, but this felt more like enslavement. Love, in his experience, had its limits. His feelings for this woman had no such limitations. Neither did the lengths he would go to have her.
Outside the window, it was a beautiful summer morning with bright sunshine and blue skies. Inside the lonely bedroom, Flip had awakened in his own private hell. A gloom so heavy as the one that settled over him upon seeing her gone should not have been possible after the night he had and the hormones that still flooded his body. There shouldn’t have been a single damn thing that could knock him off cloud nine, but all the happiness and pleasure he had felt throughout the night blackened into loss and sadness as despairing as a moonless winter night. Collapsing back into the mattress, he knew that he would give anything, absolutely anything, to hold her in his arms again.
That’s what love will do to you, he thought wryly.
The woman was the cause of his suffering, and only she could be his relief. He didn’t know where she’d come from or how he hadn’t encountered her before in the claustrophobically small town. As he thought it, despairing at his lack of leads to find her again, he heard her voice quite clearly. She sang a hauntingly beautiful melody in a language he didn’t understand. He didn’t know her words or even if her voice came in through the window or echoed out from the depths of his soul. But he knew her message with stark clarity.
When the moon shines on the ocean, you’ll find me. On that beach, inside this house, I’m yours. Surrender to me, and I’ll show you lovely things.
Flip did as she asked. Or maybe as she commanded. If he could tell the difference, he didn’t care. Night after night, he returned to the mansion on the cliffs. Sometimes, the front door would be ajar, leading him inside and into her waiting embrace. Sometimes, he would find her on the beach, out for a walk in the moonlight, reveling in the way it shimmered on her skin. He would swim with her in the ocean, stroll with her in the sand, hold her in the sheets, and fuck her with an insatiable hunger every way she wanted.
She never came to him when the sun shone or when the moon was black, nor would she leave the acreage. She was always gone from his bed and his arms before dawn, no matter how tightly he held her. The rational part of Flip’s mind told him it was some weird game she was playing. Maybe she was married to some big asshole with a temper. The instinctual part of his mind, the dormant part where dreams and intuition reign, told him something that he couldn’t believe even though it felt true down to his bones. Flip knew he had found the creature who haunted that beautiful cove. Hell, he had probably found the woman responsible for so many deaths over the years that he hadn’t even cataloged them all.
As summer bled into fall and the colors turned vibrant, more accidental deaths occurred in the cove, more torn and bloated corpses washed onto the rocky beach. Flip now agreed with his unconcerned deputy, that these deaths were unfortunate accidents. Just as he knew damned well they were murders, Flip knew he had fallen under the spell of the murderess, that he could never again be free of whatever kind of enslavement this was. But he knew also that as much as she had enchanted him, he had captured her heart just as surely. It was like taming a man-eating tiger to eat from his hand and purr from his touch.
If something had cursed this magnificent woman to wander the cove on moonlit nights, that meant there should also be a way to cure her. That’s what Flip did, he solved problems. He was pretty damn good at operating within rules he thought were arbitrary and chickenshit – that’s how he categorized whatever rules held her prisoner. If he could find loopholes inside the penal code to get what he wanted, he could figure out how to save her.
If Flip couldn’t save the woman he loved, what kind of a man was he?
The nurses at the Eastport Hospital had all grown tiresome to Dr. Jason Monroe. Plowing through them all had taken most of the year, and it had been a nice ego boost – just what the doctor ordered, as he liked to say – but now the flock of nurses had become just as dull as the withered shrew of a wife he begrudgingly went home to most nights. In addition to the way her once mediocre looks had been eroded by age and the toll taken by their offspring, in recent years she had even neglected to remind Dr. Monroe how impressive he was, how lucky she was to have whatever morsel of attention he gave her. This was an unacceptable slight to a doctor whose ego had outstripped his credentials since his first residency rotation. Eastport was a good fit for him. People there were provincial enough to be highly impressed with Dr. Monroe whereas his arrogance had worn thin to his peers back in Boston.
The drive home from the hospital was long enough for Dr. Monroe to resent what he’d find when he got there – the yellowing smile of his middle-aged wife greeting him along with the smell of whatever trendy meal she had attempted – but not long enough for him to think of any suitable excuses to stay out for the evening. The missus believed him a few nights a month when he told her he had to work late but he couldn’t overuse it, and he was already over what he considered his safe allowance for the month. He decided to take the long way home, take a scenic cruise along the coastline.
The full moon glittered on the ocean like diamonds on satin. Without a large city within miles there was nearly no light pollution, and the moon and diamante stars illuminated the forests and beaches like a dreamscape cast in silver. The moon was so bright, he saw a white spume burst from the ocean and telltale black fins peeking above the waves as a small pod of whales swam near the deserted coast. There was no one else on the lonely two-lane road, so Monroe watched them instead of the road, smiling when a calf breached and turned its belly up toward the moon.
When he returned his eyes to the road, an unfamiliar cove came into view ahead. Frowning, he thought he must have taken a wrong bend in the winding road. The road narrowed and there was no shoulder, making it cumbersome to turn around. He quickly oriented himself when he heard the crash of thunder on the cloudless night. Monroe knew all the stories about the beautiful cove surrounded by thundering cliffs and the haunted house perched high above. He had always wanted to see it, but his doe-eyed and doe-hearted wife had always nagged him out of it.
“What about the rumors, Jason?” she would whine. “It’s supposed to be haunted and it gives me the creeps.”
What a fortunate wrong turn, Monroe smirked to himself. Now, he could take a walk along that beautiful, ‘haunted’ beach and see what all the fuss was about. He could even keep a clear conscience and save his evasion for when he really needed it.
The road had taken him to the beach before it doubled back and wound up the nearest hill toward the old, abandoned house on the cliffs. He thought about driving up there to get the bird’s eye view, but movement in the water caught his eye. Squinting, he thought he saw something glimmering in the water near the shore. It looked like a woman swimming, but that couldn’t be right. The leaves were starting to turn crisp and vibrant as autumn approached, and the nighttime air had a cool bite.
Stepping out of his car, Monroe strolled along the beach toward the head of the cove. The cliffs formed a perfect horseshoe around the ocean and towered above him. The beach was littered with fallen boulders and large monoliths that protruded from the sea like the teeth of a great petrified monster. The beach’s dangerous edges added to its beauty, like a woman in a tight red dress and stilettos.
Monroe saw the movement again, something glistening in the water. Closer now, just beyond the nearest protruding fang of rock. He couldn’t explain why his heart kicked up as he trotted around it to get a better look, but his intuition was rewarded. He’d been right at first. It was a woman. A fucking babe, too, so hot she could have walked right off a porn set. Her tits already had his dick twitching. She was treading water a few yards away, close enough for him to see the way her eyes reflected the moonlight. Below the swell of her tits, her body was hidden beneath the gentle waves, but Monroe had seen enough.
“Hey, baby!” he called to her, trying to sound suave. “Are you out here all by yourself? It’s dangerous for a woman. Especially a woman that looks like you.”
Monroe didn’t like operating from the disadvantage of his prey not knowing his professional status. But it did give him the opportunity to enlighten a new woman, watch the admiration bloom in her eyes when he regaled her with stories of all the lives he’d saved. But for the first time in years, he didn’t even feel the desire to regale her. Monroe just wanted to fuck her. He felt like an alcoholic at a bar, his mouth watering and hands shaking. He walked closer, waves lapping over his six-hundred-dollar brogues.
“It is dangerous,” the woman agreed in a voice as harmonious as a symphony. “You should stay away.”
Her angelic lift didn’t fool Monroe. He caught the sultry devil in her tone, too. It was the tone of a woman who wanted it, wanted him. He kicked off his waterlogged shoes and told her as much, “You look like a woman who wants some company.”
“How does your wife look when she wants company?” The woman asked and kicked away, further out into the ocean. “You should go home to her.”
Monroe saw a flash of gold in the water beneath her, something he swore looked like scales. He wondered if she was blonde down south and the thought caused another jump in his pants. He didn’t bother taking them off when he waded deeper. Fuck, the water was cold. It was a testament to how hot the mystery woman was that his hard-on could endure the frigid water as he swam out toward her.
Just as he closed in, the woman glided away. She looked back at him over her shoulder in what may have been fright or evasion, but Monroe knew better. She was playing coy, giving him a chase. Women did that to him from time to time, played those little games. It never meant they didn’t want him to catch them. He thought about what he’d do to this one when he caught her. He wanted to sink his teeth right into her. One thing he was certain of, he hadn’t ruined his shoes and his clothes to play coy. Play time was over once he caught her.
Which, judging by the way his outstretched hand was nearly clawing through her luxurious mane, was right about now.
Monroe caught her hair as she swam away from him, still playing coy, and used a little too much force when he yanked her back to him. Her beautiful features were twisted and her mouth was open when he yanked her head around. Monroe had expected that – a look of pain or surprise. But the woman was smiling. And she wasn’t a woman anymore. The creature was smiling at him. Its features were still beautiful, but its eyes were vicious with narrow, slitted pupils, and its smile was too wide with too many teeth. Dear god, the teeth! Rows of sharp, brutal, shark-like teeth.
The creature laughed, drinking his fear like wine. It laughed as it tore into him with its brimming smile and those terrible teeth, latching onto his neck with vice-tight strength. The pain and surprise belonged to him alone. And what exquisite pain it was, like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt his flesh being serrated by ragged teeth, and even heard the tearing of his tissue like a seam ripping as the creature tore a chunk out of his neck. He felt his blood oozing down over his collarbone, hot on his chilled skin.
Monroe didn’t think it should take so long to die or that a person could endure so much pain before the release of death. He flailed feebly, or possibly it was his muscles twitching spasmodically as the last currents of life tried to save him. He looked up at the full glowing moon and sputtered a prayer, blood frothing from his mouth as he pleaded to God for help. Or at least to let him die quickly.
“God’s not here tonight, doctor,” the creature told him, her voice still as wickedly harmonious as a devil’s serenade. A golden fin breached the water before the creature dove under with him, fanning a magnificent golden tail to drive them deep into the crushing black depths. Somehow, he could still hear her voice or perhaps the words were driven straight into his soul.
“There’s only me.” Her voice seemed to fill the water like light. Terrible, golden, hellish light. “And the lovely things I’ll show you.”
It took a week for Dr. Monroe’s corpse to wash back up onto the beach. Clammy skin had begun sloughing off in patches which, combined with the bloat of decay and waterlogged oozing, gave the body a poached egg sort of look. Flip always had thick skin when it came to murders and crime scenes, it had thickened even more in the last few months. The smell was particularly loathsome with bodies dredged up after marinating in water for days. Soggy, rancid meat was just a little more putrid than dry rot. It should probably worry him that the humid stench coating the back of his throat no longer bothered him, but now he was more concerned with not getting his boots wet from the waves lapping at a vacant eye socket, the surrounding tissue hanging loose like a worn-out buttonhole. In addition to the missing eye, there were other places the fish had eaten. They went for the soft tissue first – eyes, lips, genitals.
I hope you did something in life that warranted your dick bein’ chewed off in death, you poor clammy bastard, Flip thought as he studied the corpse. Fuck, I hope he was dead when that happened. He smirked at his own dark humor.
That humor faded quickly when he had to break the news to the doctor’s hysterical widow; console her while she sobbed, listen while she bemoaned the fate of their litter. He really needed to hire some deputy to do this part of the job, some kind of emotional support golden retriever in human form. Especially with the impressive accidental death toll Eastport boasted.
“I found your latest handiwork on the beach this morning,” Flip said to his golden girl between kisses as his mouth trailed from her throat down toward her navel. Moonlight gilded her skin as she moved beneath him in the bedroom he now considered theirs, hidden away in the seaside mansion. “You gotta quit doin’ that, darlin.’”
She bucked her hips against his face in invitation. “You don’t need to worry. I know what’s really bothering you. None of them touch me. No one has touched me since you. Only you.”
“It ain’t a walk in the park breakin’ the news to all these wailing widows, you know.” Flip nipped her skin, delighting in the way she shuddered in response.
“Tell the wife about the nurses the good doctor was fucking,” she said with no remorse. “That should put a bandaid on her grief.”
“Is that an educated guess?” Flip asked redundantly. He had learned earlier that day the doctor had been making the rounds in the hospital in multiple ways.
“When a man drowns in my cove, there’s a good reason,” she said with a hint of venom.
“A man-hater, huh?” he grinned against her skin, teasing her with the scratch of his beard. “Should I be concerned?”
“You? Never, handsome.” She laughed headily. “A hard man like you is good to find.”
“Is that what’s behind all the killing?” Flip asked more seriously, looking up at her and meeting her eyes. “Some asshole hurt you and have a score to settle?”
“I had a score to settle, alright. I was filled with rage, for years and years. But now, it’s nothing so simple as rage. Not anymore. It’s all part of a bargain I made long ago.” She tangled her fingers into the thick forest of his hair. “You might say, I have quotas to meet.”
“Tell me what happened.” Flip raised himself up, cupping her cheek in his hand and looking steadily into her eyes.
“You talk too much, handsome,” she said and used her surprising strength to roll him onto his back and hoist herself to straddle him. Better than that, she straddled his face. “I can think of a better use for that mouth.”
Some time later, she lay draped across his chest as the sweat cooled on their bodies. Flip marveled at her indefatigability. He felt like he had run a marathon, and she could go all night. They still had a few hours before dawn and Flip didn’t want to waste them sleeping.
“You know if you need a hero, I’m happy to step up,” Flip told her, rubbing his hand along her back.
“A hero can’t save me,” she scoffed with surprising rancor. “A hero would never do what’s necessary to save me. Only a villain would have half a chance. A man who chooses to be my hero alone and a villain to others.”
“Hero or villain, I’ll be whatever the hell you want me to be,” Flip assured her, his voice soft this time as he cradled her head on his chest. “Tell me what happened to you, darlin.’”
“What happened doesn’t matter,” she replied with a hint of melancholy. “Why things are the way they are rarely matters.”
“Anything that affects you matters to me.” His voice rumbled through his chest.
With her head resting on one side of his chest and her sharp fingernails tracing patterns on the other, she began her story. Her sonorous voice played harmony to the spell woven by her words. Flip had never been the best listener, not to the frivolous pillow talk most women tried to engage him in. Yet he found he hung on every word she spoke as if it were the thrilling cliffhanger at the end of a riveting novel chapter.
“It’s been more than eighty years since I’ve let a man have me for more than one night.” She kissed his chest. “But I suppose you figured that out.”
“Not really,” Flip huffed, jostling her on his chest. “I don’t have a damn thing figured out, other than I have you now, but I’m not supposed to be able to keep you. I know I want to keep you.” His brow was set and voice heavy with conviction. “I’ll find a way to keep you.”
“I want you to keep me, too,” she purred. “And you’re the first man I’ve ever said that too.” Her voice grew darker. “But there’s a price you must pay to keep me. You’re also the first man I’ve ever wanted to know exactly what that price is. If the price is too steep for you, I won’t force you to make the purchase.”
“No price is too high, darlin.’” He grinned. “Can I whip out a checkbook?”
She smiled up at him with great sadness and returned her head to his chest to begin her tale.
“I married too young to the first man who had ever made me laugh. I was just coming into my beauty and had never kissed a boy before. My husband promised he would take me far away when he returned from the war. I was young and foolish, and I believed him. While he was at war, men in town hounded me. They were merciless. Truly merciless, like hounds baying after a fox. I wouldn’t have looked twice at any of them even if I was single. I was more vigilant over my reputation than I needed to be, more vigilant than any other woman I knew. I couldn’t have done more to avoid and deter them, unless I started undermining my appearance. I wouldn’t give any man the power of making me lessen myself to make them more comfortable. I wasn’t too much. Those men were inadequate.”
Flip stroked his large hand along her back soothingly and kissed along her hairline, letting her take whatever time she needed.
“It didn’t take long – weeks it seemed – until one of those men, a fat, verminous, troll who could never touch a woman like me, started telling everyone who would listen that he had slept with me. That I had begged for it and moaned like a whore. I don’t know how many people in town believed it at first. I thought surely no one could. But the women who heard the rumor were jealous of me and fostered it – ‘I’ve always known she was a whore. Just look at her!’ And the men who heard it wanted it to be true so they might have a chance with me – ‘Yeah, you know she wants it.’ That foul rumor spread through town like wildfire, until I couldn’t walk down the street without getting poisonous looks and lewd propositions.”
“Let’s take a stroll down mainstreet tomorrow,” Atas suggested with gravel in his voice. “I’ll rearrange some faces and punch the teeth down the throat of any asshole who so much as looks at you sideways.”
“I’d give anything to have you show me off on your arm,” she said in a faraway tone. Her voice hardened when she continued. “All the perverse talk emboldened the perverts, I suppose. It didn’t take long until the looks and comments weren’t enough. Then the pinching started, then the grabbing. I could handle myself. I could even fend them off one at a time. I was never a meek woman and I was raised on a farm. Then they started following me in packs like hyenas.”
Flip’s hand stilled on her hip, his grip tightening.
“I went to the sheriff,” she scoffed. “He asked me what I expected, looking the way I look, dressing the way I dress. He told me I was asking for it, and I shouldn’t be surprised when men wanted it. He also asked what it was worth to me for him to do something about it.”
“Is that sonofabitch still alive?” Flip growled.
“None of them are.” She smiled at the thought. Then her lips thinned and her face hardened. “One night one of those men – I can’t remember his name, but I remember his face and his rancid breath – came to my house, the house on the cliffs. He broke in and knocked me out. I woke up when he was dragging me along the beach by my hair. When I fought back, he beat me more, beat me until he could take what he wanted from me. He was stupid though. He turned his back to me to stuff his little dick back into his pants. I bashed the asshole in the head with the nearest rock I could grab. I bashed him again and again and again until his face was hamburger, then I threw the rock into the ocean and dragged his body out. I waded until I was swimming and then I kept swimming. I was a good swimmer, and it felt good to wash the filth off me. I left his body in the middle of the cove to sink and swam back. When his corpse washed up days later, it looked like an accident.”
“That asshole deserved it,” Flip said genuinely. “He deserved a helluva lot worse.”
“My husband came home from the war a few weeks later,” she continued. “I tried to tell him these things. I needed to tell someone other than my damn pets. But he had heard the rumors in town too, and he had already been poisoned by them. He thought it was all my fault. That I must have been putting something out there to elicit the response I received. He thought I took lovers and flirted. That I acted like a whore in his absence because I couldn’t keep my legs closed until he got home.”
“I see why you wanted to get outta Dodge,” Flip grated, his body rigid beneath hers. He dreaded what he thought was coming, but still had to hear it from her lips.
“He said if he couldn’t have me, no one would. He killed me, beat me mostly to death,” she revealed. “When I was barely conscious, he dragged me to the cliff. I screamed and screamed, but no one heard me. He tied an anchor around me and shoved me off into the deepest part of the cove. You’d think it’s quick to drown, but it takes a long time when it’s happening to you. It felt like I sank for hours in my last few minutes. I screamed, watching my cries for help rise in bubbles toward the surface.”
Flip felt her body grow stiff against him as she continued. “I begged and pleaded. When I thought I would do anything anything to live a little longer, something answered. Something that lurked in the bottom of that cove. Something monstrous. I heard its voice inside my head and it offered me a trade. A trade I was all too happy to accept. Instead of a handshake, I felt thick slimy tentacles wrap around me. I thought they were dragging me deeper, but they dragged me somewhere else. I kicked so violently I broke free and I shot to the surface, kicking and kicking. A part of me realized that I should have drowned, that I couldn’t be alive after so long under water. Then I realized that my feet weren’t there anymore. The creature had stolen them, replaced my legs with a tail. I had become one of whatever that creature was. Something cursed. Something soulless.”
“Jesus,” Flip said dumbly, at a loss. What does a man say to that?
“Jesus wasn’t there that night. He didn’t answer my prayers,” she said vehemently. “I made a deal with the devil that night, or a kind of devil, and I became his pet and his ward. Since that night, I have taken my revenge and sated his hunger at the same time, luring men to their deaths with my beauty and my siren’s song. They find me on the beach, and come to save me, then they try to take me,” she laughed cruelly. “Then they beg God to let them drown. So, I show them all my teeth and then I laugh out loud. I never wanted saving, I just wanted to be found. That will teach them. All of them. They’re never to be seen again, and I’m still wandering my beach, swimming in my cove.”
Flip thought she was finished, so he asked with conviction, “So what’s the price I have to pay?”
“I’m glad I met the devil,” she said and propped herself up on his chest so she was looking down at him. “He showed me I was weak. He removed the weakness from me and replaced it with a part of him. In exchange he took a part of me too. The part of me he barters in.” She smiled grimly. “The price, as you see, is a piece of your soul.”
Flip chewed his cheek, considering this for only a moment. “I can go without a piece of my soul, darlin,’ as long as the rest of it belongs to you. And all of you belongs to me.”
When Flip awoke the next morning, she was gone. He knew she would be; he had grimly resigned himself to that reality months ago. It could have all been a dream, a fantasy or a nightmare. Maybe he could walk away from her and after a few painful years, convince his mind of that. Inconveniently, she was real. The realest and most alive Flip had ever felt and would ever feel was when he was with his siren.
Thunder roared outside and a gusty wind blew the bay window open with a rusty groan of hinges. Flip groaned himself as he rolled out of bed, grabbed his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out with his teeth, lit the tip and dropped his lighter back on the nightstand. Smoke trailed from his nose as he walked to the windows. He was still naked, boasting scratches from her nails across his chest, his hair wild from her fingers. Leaning against the window frame, he blew a stream of smoke outside.
Clouds as dark as gunsmoke hung low overhead and the thunder booming in the sky was louder than the crash of waves against the cliffs below. Waves ripped across the surface of the usually calm cove, cresting white like lipizzans in capriole. Watching the water boil from the storm, feeling the chilly air on his skin, and taking a drag from his cigarette, Flip wondered how in the hell he could pay the price for his siren’s absolution. If it was as simple as handing over a pound of his flesh, he would go down to the kitchen and cut a chunk out his side before breakfast. Ideas turned over in his mind, he rejected each one as fast as it bloomed. He focused so intently on that question, he didn’t realize he was chewing his lip around his cigarette until he tasted blood mingled with tobacco.
A strange movement in the water in the center of the cove caught his eye. The shape of the cresting waves in the center had changed, becoming sinuous. The water looked like insects crawled over its surface. Flip frowned, stepping outside onto the balcony, clamping the cigarette between his teeth. The wind buffeted him, raising goosebumps on his shoulders. Or maybe it was the sight of a long oily black tentacle reaching up from the water, twisting in the air, then vanishing again.
Flip spit his cigarette over the balcony rail, as he planted his hands on it and leaned forward. He strained his eyes, focusing on the sinuous writhing in the center of the cove. Horror prickled his skin like icepicks when he realized the strange movement of the waves were a multitude of black tentacles, wringing and twisting inside and on top of the stormy waves. The very center was calm, about the size of a dinner table. It gleamed like oil. Something inside the round center made a jerky movement. Flip realized it was an eye. A giant black eye. And that eye had just focused its abyssal pupil on him. The tentacles whipped wildly around it now, breaching the water in agitation or excitement.
Whatever this creature was, it was not his siren nor anything possessing of her beauty. He recalled her story and the tentacles that had caught her legs and dragged her under. This was the hellish beast that had lived in the cove long before the siren ever took her first swim. This was the eldritch monster that collected the souls his siren harvested. Flip stared at it, and the monstrous eye stared right back.
An idea flashed into his mind. Whether it was his own, a spark of brilliance born of the terrified adrenaline that coursed through his veins, or whether the tentacled monster had impregnated his thoughts, he didn’t know or even care.
Flip knew what he had to do to save his siren, to have her all to himself. He was too late to avenge her, but he could try his best to save her.
After meeting the shining black eye of that monstrosity in the cove, Flip was rattled. He didn’t like the idea that had been put into his head, but he wasn’t forcing it out either. He was allowing it to percolate, considering his options. His phone dinged from an incoming text as he was pulling on his jeans. It was unusual for him to be bothered by calls or texts out on that acreage; it allowed him to feel like there was only him and his siren alone in the world. Service was spotty and unpredictable at best out on the cliffs. His phone varied between one bar and no service depending on the device’s mood. He fished it out of his jeans pocket and glared at the new text, wrinkling his nose more from the text than he did from the smell of moist corpses.
“I miss you,” said the whoring schoolteacher, Cristy.
“I bet you fuckin’ do,” he gritted to himself and shoved his phone back in his pocket.
The thought that had taken root in his mind that morning blossomed into something thorny and brutal. Maybe even a little evil, the kind of thought that was rare for Flip. And it was brilliant.
Instead of the petty barb he had been poised to text, he typed a new message. “Then let’s do something about it. Pick you up at 7?”
“See you then,” her reply came almost instantly, followed by a string of emojis.
Another check in his siren’s box. She didn’t text him stupid shit with stupid fuckin’ emojis.
“Better get movin,’” he grumbled to himself as he shoved the phone back in his pocket and pulled his shirt on. He had a lot to do between now and seven.
Before picking up Cristy, Flip ran a few other errands. He went into his favorite coffee shop, as he often did in the mornings after leaving his empty bed. This time, he flirted with the barista he knew was married. Loud enough for his voice to carry to the surveillance camera behind the counter, he told the married woman he was thinking of watching the sunset from the local lighthouse and asked if she wanted to join him. She declined as he knew she would. Later in the day, he purchased a ticket for a show at the drive-in theater and made sure a few people spotted the sheriff there, talked to a few others. Once the movie was rolling, he doubted those same people would notice him leaving early, and there was no surveillance in the dated drive-in to be concerned about. He still had time to drive to the lighthouse, at the far end of town from the siren’s cove, and toss out an empty Coke can with his DNA on the rim. With the recent storm and the humidity, it would be impossible to place his tire tracks to a timeframe narrower than twelve hours, which was just what he wanted. His last errand of the day was surprisingly easy, and he even arrived early to pick up the teacher. He ensured there were no witnesses or cameras in the area. And he kept the radio loud in his truck while he drove her out for their date, loud enough to cover any noises coming from the truck bed.
The hardest part of it all was faking a smile at Cristy’s bland wit and keeping his mouth shut on the topic of her liaisons with the science teacher, Less. Even though he had no interest in her and now had the woman of his dreams in bed most nights, being cheated on still irked him. He wondered if that lingering anger would be resolved tonight too.
Flip just hoped her lackluster spirit and dented soul were fungible with those of his magnificent siren. He would never make that trade, but he hoped that was just his mortal sensibility.
Ignoring Cristy’s protests that the cove was haunted, Flip drove them there anyway. He remembered the road with beach access thanks to the late Dr. Monroe. It was convenient that any tracks on the beach were washed away by the tide within minutes. Few people ever came to this place, thanks to the ghost stories and tall tales surrounding the cove and the old house. From the beach, enclosed on three sides by high cliffs and tall, toothy rocks, a man could feel like he was alone in the world. Flip parked between two spires of rock rising out of the surf, near a small dinghy and oars he had dragged there that morning, still patiently awaiting him. They arrived when the sun was setting, the prettiest hour of the day to spend in the haunted cove.
“Get your whorin’ ass in the boat,” Flip ordered the woman in a frightening tone, shedding his pretenses of civility.
“What did you say to me?” Cristy tried to sound offended, but fear shook her voice.
“I’m askin’ nicely.” Flip smiled cruelly. “But I’m not above askin’ another way. I suggest you don’t make me ask twice.”
She was stumbling over her words, backpedaling some kind of excuse or apology. Atla didn’t care and he wasn’t listening. He got out of the truck, made sure to pocket his keys, and walked behind it to open the tailgate. He wasn’t concerned about Cristy getting away. She couldn’t get up the cliffs here, so all she could do was try to run away down the beach and Flip could catch her in seconds. Or she could try swimming away across the cove, which would be just fine by him.
Grabbing the bundle Flip had covered with a tarp in the bed of his truck, he yanked it out, letting it fall to the sand in a heap. He had thought the man, Less, might have given him more trouble, but he lived up to his name. Flip had dealt with stray dogs who put up more of a fight. Less was crying behind his broken glasses, sucking against the duct tape over his mouth as he sobbed. He wasn’t even fighting against the zip ties on his wrists and ankles.
Flip walked to the passenger door and yanked it open, unable to keep himself from grinning at the sight of Cristy’s dull, horrified eyes. Flip leaned on the door and told her, “I doubt you believe me, but I have no intention of hurting either of you. I just want us all to have a little chat.” He jerked his head toward the dinghy. “So, you can either walk your ass over to that boat and sit down in it on your own, or I can drag you to it and throw you in. Your choice.”
Trembling with fear and crying, Cristy complied. As she walked toward the boat, she looked around, calculating her odds of escape and realizing it was hopeless. Flip bent and grabbed hold of the man’s collar, dragging him through the sand and hoisting him into the boat like a duffle bag, landing with a heavy thud.
“I’m sorry,” Cristy sputtered. “I didn’t mean to cheat on you. It was all a mistake.”
“Yeah, it’s a dangerous world out there for a woman,” Flip menaced, letting her know the world she was in now was very dangerous indeed. “A girl never knows when she might trip and fall onto a dick. I don’t know how you navigate it. Me? I’m just thankful I haven’t tripped and fallen on top of any strange women yet.” He bared his teeth in a cold grin. “Get in the boat.”
“You said you weren’t going to hurt me,” she sobbed, climbing into the dinghy.
“I’m not,” he said gruffly. “You have my word.” He jerked his thumb at the quivering man curled in the bottom of the boat. “Believe me, if I was gonna rough you up, it would have been when I caught you with that fuckin’ joke.”
Flip shoved the boat with both teachers inside out into the water and jumped in as a wave caught it. He took the oars and began rowing them out into the cove. The sun had dipped behind the pines on the cliffs above and the light was rapidly fading. By the time they reached the middle of the cove, the shore was hazy and indistinct, shrouded with purples and blues and a light mist.
Flip retrieved a knife from his jeans pocket, smirking at the way Less cowered from it. Catching Less by the ankle, Flip cut the zip ties binding his legs. He jerked his hands back when he realized the pathetic excuse for a male had pissed his pants. He cut through the ties on Less’s wrists and then stood, trying to keep his balance in the small boat. Less staggered up on shaky legs, his puny fists balled at his sides. Flip grinned at the feeble sight, but it gave him an opening he had wanted for some time.
Still grinning, Flip slammed a vicious right punch straight into Less’s nose, feeling the rewarding crunch of cartilage as the skinny dweeb reeled backward. Before Less tipped over backward, Flip grabbed the front of his shirt and the waistband of his pants, and unceremoniously chucked him over the side. Less shrieked like a woman when he hit the water and sputtered in hysterics next to the boat.
Looking at Cristy, Flip gave her his best Dirty Harry glare. “Do you need help gettin’ out of the boat too, or can you manage on your own?”
“What are you going to do? You can’t leave us out here!” she screamed, but she timidly stepped out of the boat into the ocean to tread water beside Less.
“Like I said, I just want to have a conversation,” Flip said dangerously. “And what I want to hear is the two of you begging. I want you to beg for your lives. Beg not to drown. I want to hear what kind of bargain you’re both willing to make not to drown here tonight.”
“I’ll do anything,” the woman cried. “Oh, God help us! What do you want?”
“Keep it up.” Flip grinned at her.
Grabbing a fistful of the man’s thinning hair, Flip shoved his head under again. The man flailed and sputtered, giving Flip about as much trouble as a wet rat. The woman sobbed, treading water in place. It was pathetic how weak the couple was. Not an ounce of fight or flight in them, just sobbing and pleading. They didn’t even try to capsize his dinghy, which wouldn’t have been difficult.
Keeping hold of his hair, Flip let the man splash back to the surface, wheezing for breath.
“Beg, you sorry sonofabitch,” Flip growled in his grittiest tone. “Beg to be saved. Promise you’ll do anything.”
Less instantly amped his sobbing to the level of horror-movie-cheerleader, begging and pleading and promising with everything he had. Cristy followed his lead, stupidly thinking that being pitiable enough would save her. They carried on for minutes, wailing and splashing, pleading and promising.
“Please,” Less pleaded, snot clogging his nose and tears streaming from his eyes. “Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything you want.”
“Don’t let me drown!” Cristy shrieked. “I’ll give you anything you want if you save me.”
The ocean began swirling around the couple. They were too preoccupied by Flip to notice. The eddy was gentle at first, quickly gaining speed. Cristy noticed when it started to tug her under, like filth getting sucked down a drain.
“We begged you,” she sobbed. “We promised to do anything you wanted to spare us.”
“You weren’t beggin’ me for a fuckin’ thing.” Flip laughed cruelly. “And it wasn’t me you made those promises to.”
Punctuating his laughter, a forest of tentacles erupted from the whirlpool, oily black and as thick as Flip’s waist. The tentacles whipped around like cats o’nine tails. The woman screamed and the man cried pitifully. Flip grabbed the sides of the little boat to keep from being thrown out as it bucked on the turbulent water, hoping to hell it wouldn’t capsize.
The tentacles latched around the pathetic couple flailing in the water, catching Cristy around her legs and waist and Less around the neck in a slimy noose. His mouth opened in a scream that couldn’t escape his strangled throat and his eyes bulged from their sockets, as the woman splashed feebly. Their screams and sputters and splashing sounded deafening to Flip in the otherwise silent cove. Just as fast as they had appeared, the tentacles were sucked back beneath the water, leaving Cristy’s terrified face and Less’s lobster-red strangling head bobbing for another heartbeat before they too were sucked down into the water.
The whirlpool grew smaller, swallowing the couple down into the cursed depths of the cove. Flip’s dinghy settled with a splash, its violent bucking slowly calming until it was rocking gently. The whirlpool had vanished along with all trace of the teachers, and the waves had returned to normal. The starry night was incongruously peaceful, the ocean beautiful and the sky pristine. With a heavy sigh, Flip dropped his hands from the sides of the boat and let his breath return to normal, waiting for the guilt that never came.
Two worthless souls in exchange for one exquisite soul was a fine trade by him. Maybe he’d thrown in a little piece of his own soul as a tip, but he was fine with that too.
A hoarse cry coming from the shore snapped him back to attention. There was enough light from the moon and stars for Flip to see movement on the beach, but he couldn’t make out what it was. There wasn’t any way either of the two teachers could have gotten there that fast, and slimmer odds still they’d survived.
Grabbing the oars, Flip heaved against them, sending the dinghy lurching back to shore. His heart jumped when he recognized the familiar, superb figure of his siren. When he neared the shore, he jumped out of the boat, splashing water up to his thighs, and dragged the rowboat ashore. She was on her hands and knees in the sand, doubled over coughing up water. Flip ran to her, falling to his knees beside her, his hand going instinctively to rub her back.
“Are you alright?” he asked, still rubbing her back as she coughed. He had never seen her cough like this before, as if she had just narrowly avoided drowning. She was naked, as he had found her many times, but this time her skin was cool to his touch and goosebumps rose in a rash over her shoulders. Flip yanked his shirt open, shrugged out of it and wrapped it around her, pulling her onto her knees and into his arms.
She shuddered against him, her entire body heaving. Worried, Flip squeezed her tighter. Then he realized she was laughing, silently laughing so heartily her whole body shook. Pulling back enough to look at her, Flip cupped her face, studying her smiling features.
“I think you did it, handsome,” she crooned, her smile widening further, tears brimming in her eyes. The ethereal lilt was gone from her voice, though it still spoke to his heart. The oddly luminous glow was gone from her eyes, though they were still bright and beautiful and looked right into his soul. Her mane of hair was still luxurious but lacked some of the gloss it usually held, and her skin was soft as velvet but was missing the ethereal golden flush that had always seemed to shimmer just below the surface.
“You’re free?” Flip asked, his voice hoarse in his tightening throat, a toothy smile blooming on his lips.
“I think so,” she laughed, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him so roughly she bruised his lower lip. “Take me to bed. If I’m allowed to stay until dawn, I’m yours.”
For the first time, Flip was able to watch the sunrise holding the woman he loved. He stayed awake all night waiting for it, just to make sure she wouldn’t somehow evaporate in his arms. He wanted to touch her, assure himself she was real, while he watched the morning sun gild her skin and dance in her hair. This morning, he would be able to take the woman he loved with him into the little coffee shop, show her off in town. Thinking of spending his life enjoying such simple pleasures with her made him feverish with love.
A thought played over and over in Flip’s head, making him grin like an idiot. She was still his as the sun rose. She would be his forever.
The sunrise was golden, lighting the reds and oranges in the autumn foliage aflame. The cove was calm, the water a peaceful sapphire. If Flip strained his ears, he thought he might have heard a faint cry, carried up from the water on a light breeze. With some imagination, it might be the screams of the souls trapped beneath the water. The new recruits Flip had engineered as a trade for the release of his siren. But a rational man would chock it up to the wind rustling the pines. The sound was barely audible when the waves thundered against the cliffs. And the waves would always be there. The waves would always come crashing down.
Flip would label the drowning of the two schoolteachers an accident. One might call it following traditional Eastport Sheriff Department protocol. Even if some ambitious cop wanted to investigate, there was no evidence to support anything else. Two lovebirds went skinny dipping in the cove and drowned. Damned shame.
Flip’s siren heard the faint sounds carried across the water, turning in his arms to look out of the windows. She smiled, a wistful sort of look in her bright eyes. Flip kissed her shoulders and neck, feeling her body respond to his touch. When she rolled onto her back and pulled him over her, he saw the familiar wildness in her eyes. Her wildness wasn’t a gift from the being in the lake. It was born into her and it remained a part of her. As Flip kissed her smiling lips, he wondered if her desire to kill, her rage, were gone too. Or if that had been a part of her long before she was taken by whatever dwells in the cove. She still seemed like a wild thing to him, like a fox or a tiger. Then he wondered if he could possibly domesticate a wild tiger. Or if he could only keep her sated. He didn’t know, but he intended to do his part on that front right now.
Warnings: NSFW. Hauntings. Seances. Occultism. Demonology. Witches. Horror Themes. Dark Themes. Graphic Violence. Gruesome Horror. Romance. Old Timey Sexism. Hot Toxic Masculinity. Conniving Bitches. Violence Against Women and Everyone Else. Victorian Setting.
AO3 Link
For Halloween, here’s a little Victorian ghost story. Notes of Crimson Peak, The Haunting of Bly Manor, What Lies Beneath, The Ninth Gate, and Rosemary’s Baby. 🍂🌙🍁🎃🍁🌙🍂
Evil lurks in Wargrave Hall. Enter if you dare...
This completed story is too big to post on this terrible hellsite, so it is exclusively on AO3.
Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Aggressive and Dominant Jacques. Chasing. Implied Age Gap. Student/Professor Dynamics. Professor/Professor Dynamics. Everyone is over 18, as All Readers Must Be.
AO3 Link
Author’s Note: Based on a special request for a sexy Christmas party with Professor Le Gris from my beautiful friend @kyloremus ! She does the absolute best edits around and keeps me absolutely rabid! Edits by her, of course!
More Hogwarts Professor Jacques fics for anyone hooked:
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
Dashing Through The Snow
I Put A Spell On You
A Duel to Remember
Fog hung heavily in the winter air, snaking through the cobblestone streets and the serpentine twists of Diagon Alley. Fat snowflakes danced lazily down from swirling carbon clouds and the cobblestones were icy and slick beneath the fresh powder snow. Shop windows glowed with a kaleidoscope of lights and buttered rum and spiced wine could be scented on the frosted air. Christmas Eve was a glittering evening, the kind filled with beauty and wonder and promise. A gust of wind blew down the alley toward you, twirling a flurry of snow up from the ground. You pulled your coat tighter around your body and trotted toward your destination a few businesses ahead.
Ducking inside the welcoming doors of the Leaky Cauldron, you were instantly enveloped by warmth and the smell of drinks and fried food. The bar was more crowded than you had ever seen it, packed to standing room only with patrons out for Christmas Eve. Festive music, a mix of cherry and clubby, almost made you want to dance as you weaved your way through the crowd. The edges of the bar were obscured in that murky shadow that liked to linger on the sidelines, like wallflower shades watching from the wings. You could see figures of people sitting in the shadows, but couldn’t make out any discerning features. You could almost feel a pair of eyes on you, watching you from the shadows.
A wave from the crowded bar caught your eye. A group of four people pressed together at the bar, two couples, waiting for you. Your friends. It wasn’t uncommon for you to be the third wheel in your group, still single after your closest friends had paired up with men during their school years and shortly thereafter. Zelda was now married and Dina, more protective of her freedom, was with a man she had been dating for years. It was easy to see that the man who was supposed to meet you tonight was absent. You expected to hear whatever excuse he had for that from your friends. It was no bother, really. Blind dates were always something of a disaster.
Zelda waved at you more animatedly, fitting for your bubbly blonde friend. Beside her Dina, a stately brunette, must have told their men to clear some space for you because both men moved to the edge of the bar under the guise of having some conversation amongst themselves.
“I can’t believe Gaston stood you up!” Zelda huffed indignantly when you joined them, referring to your absentee blind date. “What an asshole! I wouldn’t have thought it of him.”
“It’s best for the assholes to weed themselves out early,” you said nonchalantly. It was hardly an upset. You were beginning a new job soon anyway, one that would have you sequestered away from the world for most of the year. Starting a relationship now was impractical.
“I agree,” Dina added. “At least you hadn’t invested any energy in him or wasted any time. Besides, now if we see him out and about, we have every reason to be as nasty as possible to him, which is always fun.”
“To hell with him,” you said and took the beer the bartender slid in front of you. The three of you raised your glasses and clinked them together to a round of, “Merry Christmas!”
“There’s more to celebrate on top of the holidays,” Dina said with a coy smile.
“Yes!” Zelda added excitedly. She clinked your glass again with too much vigor, spilling beer over both your hands. “Cheers to the newest professor at Hogwarts!”
Elation and slight embarrassment rushed through you at her toast. You were proud and excited, and still a bit in disbelief that you had secured such a coveted position. After all, it hadn’t been too long ago that you had graduated from Hogwarts yourself.
“To the new History of Magic Professor!” Dina added and took a drink. “Leave it to you to make that class interesting at last. I must admit I’m shocked the Headmaster liked your pitch.”
“Not nearly as shocked as I am.” A wide grin spread across your lips. “I figured that since I had no real chance of getting the job anyway, I might as well shoot my shot and lay all my aspirations out on the table. In my wildest dreams, I never suspected the Headmaster would actually want a course that teaches both the history of magic and the added practice of the arcane spells we lost to history.”
“Another toast! To no lost limbs or dismembered students in your first term!” Zelda teased.
“At least, to no one I like,” you laughed.
“Just think,” Dina mused with a rosy blush on her cheeks. “Now you’ll be on equal standing with our old professors.”
“Ooo, yes!” Zelda said conspiratorially. “Maybe it’s best you’re going into this job single.”
Nearly every teenage girl at Hogwarts had a crush on one professor or other. You and your friends were no exception. It didn’t help matters that several professors were men in their prime, in their thirties and forties, at the peak of their attractiveness. Zelda had charmed her journal to explode with pink hearts whenever she wrote a certain name in its pages. The hearts smelled like roses and would flutter around her like butterflies. Of course, the name belonged to their charms professor, a dashing man with chic mahogany hair, masculine chest hair that peeked through the buttons in his shirt, and eyes as richly green as the forest after a rain. Dina had been so enamored of their quidditch coach, a tall athlete with golden hair, sky blue eyes and a movie-star smile, that she engineered a few nasty falls from her broom just so he would rush to rescue her and carry her to the hospital wing in his burly arms.
It was undeniable that both professors were attractive, but your interest had never been piqued by nerds or jocks. Bad boys appealed to you, or rather, tall, dark and handsome men. Byronic men with a hint of darkness who would be right at home in a gothic Victorian novel. The sort of man who exuded danger and vigor, the kind who had a predatory presence and a devil-may-care glint in his eye. The kind of man who, when he looked at you, he looked ravenously, leaving you wondering if he was going to steal you away to a dark tower or ravage you against the wall at the ball where you could be discovered at any moment.
As schoolgirls, the three of you spent countless hours in the library and common room discussing your favorite literary men, debating which men were the best. Fortunately, there was never any competition between you for your favorites. Zelda could have gallant Mr. Darcy and Gatsby and Atticus Finch. Dina could claim lively Cpt. Wentworth and Beowulf and Jean Valjean. So long as they left roguish Mr. Rochester and Heathcliff and Edmund Dantes for you. The dark antiheroes and villains who you weren’t really supposed to love. The forbidden kind of man. Prince Charming was so boring compared to the Beast, and what prissy prince could eat you better than the Big Bad Wolf? Naturally, the literary epitome of this was Count Dracula, but until he crossed oceans of time to find you, you were left with a sadly more mortal selection of men.
And if there was ever a man who epitomized tall, dark, handsome, and Byronic, it was Jacques Le Gris. When he stalked down the halls, he looked as if he were roaming his family’s century’s old gothic mansion. When he strolled across the grounds in the evening, it was easy to picture him roaming a Scottish moor. Adding to this imagery was the fact that he often undid the top two buttons of his shirt when taking his evening stroll, revealing the thick cleft of his chest. You thought you were suffering a heart attack one morning when you saw him running shirtless near the lake through the mist before dawn.
In coffee and in men, your tastes ran dark, robust, and strong. It was the Head of Slytherin House and Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor who had captivated you from the moment you first saw him. The year he came to Hogwarts as the new defense against the dark arts professor was your last year in school, and despite the number of candles on your birthday cake, there was nothing childish about you at seventeen. The memory of that first day was still as vivid in your mind as the present moment you were living. Professor Le Gris all but storming down the hall in his long purposeful stride, unruly ebony hair dusting his impossibly broad shoulders, his cape swirling in his wake as though it were a living thing. Heat flooded you at the mere memory. Some girls had their sexual awakening in some bumbling experiment with a pimpled teenage boy under the quidditch stands. For you, it was imagining Professor Le Gris’s huge hands running over your body, gripping you so hard in his passion that the bruises he left lingered for days; his long hair falling around his face in sweaty tendrils as he looked down at you, caged beneath his enormous body, running your hands over his broad back and feeling his muscles flex with every thrust into you.
Memories of your darkest fantasies flooded your mind with an almost dizzying intensity. It was unsettling, you had never experienced such vivid, intrusive visions. The feeling of Professor Le Gris’s hands on your body felt as real as the wooden bar you leaned against. The sound of him growling your name in your ear rang deeper than the cheery music in the bar. The rich masculine scent of him overrode the smells around you, and the taste of beer on your tongue was overshadowed by the taste of his skin and arousal.
“Hello?” Zelda snapped her fingers in front of your nose playfully. “Were you listening at all? I asked if you still have a crush on our old defense against the dark arts professor?”
“Oh, Professor Le Gris?” you feigned ignorance, hoping your friends didn’t see the way your pupils had dilated at the thought of him. “I haven’t thought of him in years.”
“Perhaps you can seduce Professor Le Gris and put in a good word for me with Professor Wren and we can have an awkward double date together,” Zelda laughed. “Best we not tell my husband.”
You rolled your eyes and took a drink in an attempt to open your throat back up, since it had closed at the thought of him.
“You’re not a student anymore,” Dina said suggestively. “And rumor has it Professor Le Gris is newly single again after some tawdry fling with one of those jezebels teaching at Beauxbatons. You’re rather lucky, you know? I was devastated to hear that Coach Baldr had married.” She nodded toward her boyfriend at the end of the bar and snickered. “Poor Albert has no clue how precarious a position he has. I would leave him in a moment if that Norse god wanted to take me to Valhalla.”
“Speaking of rumors,” Zelda said, lowering her voice to the quiet tone they once used to gossip in the library. “I still wonder if Le Gris is a werewolf. He has the look, doesn’t he? Those amber eyes, all that bushy hair, and those teeth. The way he looks at you a little too intensely. Can’t you just picture him howling at the moon?”
“My money is still on him being an animagi,” Dina argued. “I agree that he would be a wolf though, like his patronus is. A big black wolf with yellow eyes.”
Unbidden, the image came to you of a big black wolf chasing after you as you ran through a misty forest. Your heart pounded in your ears, almost as loud as the wolf thundering behind you. You inhaled sharply as the wolf lunged at you, sinking his teeth into your neck, pleasurably painful. Your wide eyes shot up as if the bite was real. And met a pair of amber eyes across the room, watching you from a shadowy corner of the bar.
Shock froze you in place, made your muscles seize as though it was Medusa’s eyes you had looked into and been instantly turned to stone. It was lucky actually. Otherwise, you would surely have dropped your beer and made a much more outward spectacle. As it was, you managed to keep a modicum of decorum and show no obvious displays of surprise. Or arousal, even as old fantasies again played in your mind like a song on repeat. You met those eyes steadily, eyes you hadn’t seen in person since your last day as a student at Hogwarts.
Professor Jacques Le Gris watched you intently. The way a wolf watches a fox frolicking unaware. Even the way he leaned casually back in his chair, one long leg crossed over the other, was lupine. A predator at ease, waiting for the opportune moment to seize his prey. Though he reclined in his chair, he still dwarfed the small round table for two. He was dressed all in black, the way you had most often seen him. Only tonight, his jacket was off and his sleeves rolled up to expose muscular forearms. His cravat was undone, the tails hanging down on either side of his shirt, framing the vee of chest that was exposed by the top two open buttons. He looked every bit the swarthy rake, a bodice-ripping libertine straight out of a Victorian penny dreadful. A half-smoked cigar was pinched between his index and middle fingers, a tendril of smoke spiraling from its glowing end toward the ceiling as he casually circled the rim of his glass with his forefinger. His eyes had a fiery glint to match the cigar.
Instantly, you wondered how long he had been there. How long he had been watching you. If he had heard you. Judging by the level of his drink and the length of his cigar, he had been there some time before you arrived. His plush lips twitched in a lopsided smirk as he raised his glass to them, watching you over the rim as he took a drink. Another image intruded into your thoughts. Professor Le Gris striding down one of the many long, dark hallways of Hogwarts. He was behind you, stalking you. And of course he caught you. Grabbing your shoulder, he roughly turned you around and pushed you back against the nearest wall. He crowded against you, towered over you. His hips pinned you to the wall and his arms caged you in, his huge hands planted on either side of your head. He leaned in, his lips hot on your neck, his teeth grazing your skin. Every part of him was huge and hard; his thick chest under your hands, his iron fingers gripping you, his massive cock digging into you through his pants. The thought was too real, utterly taking command of your mind, and your body responded. A deep throb rocked through your core along with a melting heat, dripping through you slowly and deliberately like candle wax.
“I need some air,” you told your friends. They looked at you concerned, so you added convincingly. “It’s nothing. Really. It’s just stuffy in here with the Christmas party crowd. You know how I hate being packed in with the unwashed masses.”
You pushed through the crowded bar and all but bolted outside, hoping the cool winter air would have a chilling effect on your rampant imagination. Outside, you walked briskly, feeling the icy snowflakes land on your cheeks. And the way they steamed on your hotly flushed skin. Thankfully, there were few people outside on Christmas Eve. They were all either home with family or inside at a party like the Leaky Cauldron. Diagon Alley itself was nearly vacant, the shops darkened. Darker still and more vacant was Knockturn Alley. You were counting on it as you rounded the corner into the literal darker alley and trotted past a few darkened storefronts.
In the privacy of a shadowy doorway you leaned against the locked door and let out a heavy breath. You sounded lewd even to your own ears. The overhand of the doorway blocked the snow from falling on you and your skin felt instantly hot again. Another image flooded your mind, and you began to wonder if this was what madness felt like. This vision was different than any you had ever had before, but just as vivid. In your mind’s eye you saw Professor Le Gris standing shirtless in a gothic bedchamber with tall arched windows and a grand king bed, perhaps his chambers at Hogwarts or his home, wherever that was. In that omniscient way you know the thoughts of every character in dreams, you knew the thoughts that plagued him. How he had been consumed by the desire for a particular woman for years. A forbidden woman. Jacques would never seduce a student, fuck a student. No matter how beautiful and enticing, and blatantly responsible for his wolfish hunger you were. In nearly forty years, he had never been so captivated. So enchanted. So cursed.
Clear as a florid memory, you saw Jacques lean against the wall, pressing his head to the cool stone. Here, in private, he could imagine all the things he could never do in reality. Like fuck his favorite student. He knew how wrong it was even to think such disturbing things. The thought made him grin to himself, an indulgent, devilishly handsome grin. He pictured your luscious body. He wondered how sweet you smell. He imagined how delicious you taste. When he focused hard enough, he could feel the tight hot squeeze of you around his cock when he fucked his fist. Stroking his cock, he imagined thrusting into you, over and over and over, feeling you strain and flutter when he stretched you around him. The way he groaned was absolutely filthy when he came, imagining he was filling you until it was leaking out of you. He all but banged his forehead on the stone wall when he finally rested his head there, his hair falling around his face in a disheveled ebony curtain, his bare chest heaving and glistening with sweat.
There in the snowy alley, you watched it all happen in your mind’s eye as though it were your own memory. No, less like a memory and more like watching it happen through a window, like a voyeur. Your friend’s statement flashed in your mind. An exciting, enticing thought.
I am no longer a student.
As you felt a slick heat ruining your panties, you sobered for a moment. Just long enough for one lucid thought that was both thrilling and frightening. You remembered another rumor about Professor Le Gris. He was rumored to be a master of occlumency and legilimency. A legilimens could access another’s mind, see their thoughts and feel their feelings. No one could keep any secrets from a legilimens. Not only could a man with such a skill read your thoughts, he could influence them. He could plant any thought, any feeling, any image into your head as though it was your own. He could make you fantasize about him and remember your most forbidden desires. He could make you see what he felt for you, what he always had. He could make all those thoughts and feelings boil to the surface of your mind, make your desires simmer. He could even make you drip for him, almost on command.
“I’ve known your secrets for some time,” his voice sounded from the alley corner. Real this time, deep and hoarse with desire of his own. Jacques Le Gris leaned against the brick wall of the shop whose doorway you had hidden in. “The way you wanted me to corner you in the halls, pin you there against the wall where you couldn’t escape. Take whatever I want.” His pose was casual, his shoulder leaning against the wall, his legs crossed at the ankle. But his eyes were the opposite, watching you with a burning intensity that all but crackled through the air. “Now, you know my secret, too.” His voice was a growl when he added, “I’ve always wanted you. To ruin you for any other man. To make you mine and keep you all to myself.” He pushed away from the wall and stalked toward you in that predatory way of his. “And now, there’s not a damn thing stopping me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you lied, a feeble attempt to cling to some dignity. A thought flitted through your mind – he was prostrating himself before you. In his own way, he was making himself just as exposed as you were. He was pursuing you, taking the greater risk.
“Don’t you, now?” he teased in a gravelly voice. “I’ll never believe you didn’t know how you tormented me. Seeing you in those little skirts, thinking about those fumble-fucking schoolboys laying their clumsy hands on you. Knowing how much more a man could give you. What I could give you.”
“And what exactly is it that you could give me?” You tilted your chin up defiantly to add, “Professor?”
“Knowledge.” He walked to you until he stood so close that you could feel the heat radiating off him, grinning wickedly at the way his proximity affected you. “Regardless of what else I may be, I’m a very good professor. There is a loophole in the Hogwarts Code of Conduct that you might find interesting. Relevant.” He placed his hand on the door next to your head and leaned in close, his body only inches from yours. “Would you like to learn it?”
“If it saves me the time reading through the Code myself,” you tried to sound nonchalant, certain you failed. In fact, you did need to read those exact Codes before assuming your role as a new professor, but you had until the start of term to do it.
“Still a procrastinator through and through,” Jacques tisked you and leaned closer, his entire forearm now resting on the door next to your head, his face very close to yours. “You should know that relations between fellow Hogwarts professors are forbidden. A fireable offense.” He dropped his head and brought his prominent nose near your neck, and you thought he was going to kiss you there. Instead, he inhaled deeply through his nose, savoring the scent of you like some exotic perfume he had long been denied. “But forbidden only when the relationship postdates the beginning of a professor’s tenure.”
His words seemed to echo in your thoughts, needing a moment to take root. Looking up, you met his eyes. Eyes that glimmered like gold in the snowy night. “Relationships that predate the beginning of a professor’s term are allowed?”
“Clever girl,” Jacques said, his lips still near your neck, his breath steaming hot on your skin. “You always were a quick study. The very best and brightest. Did you think I only wanted you for that luscious ass?”
You tried to detect a note of sarcasm, but found none. You took a steadying breath and put a tentative hand on his chest. It was hard as granite beneath your hand. Jacques placed his free hand over yours, trapping your hand over his heart. You fixed your eyes on his, watching for a flicker of doubt when you asked, “What is it you want with me, Professor? Exactly?”
“Everything,” he growled the single word. It was more than an affirmation. His eyes told you it was a promise.
“We shouldn’t waste a moment, then,” you told him confidently. Fortune favors the bold, as they say.
“You read my mind.” He smiled genuinely, one of the very few you had ever seen on his lips. His toothy smile could have looked gawky, but right now, he was the most handsome man you had ever seen. His chest rose and fell under your hand as he leaned in to kiss you. Before his lips consummated your first kiss, he whispered, “My name is Jacques, not ‘professor.’”
“I’ll save professor for when I want you to teach me something, then,” you made your voice as seductive as possible now that you had decided on your course of action. It was easy now that you were confident he felt the same, that he desired you as fiercely as you did him. You eased your hips toward him, arching your back away from the door. Your lips were already parted when they met his, eager to finally taste the man you had dreamed of for so long.
The taste of him when he kissed you, the feel of him when his powerful body pressed against you, the strength of his hands on you was so much better than anything your imagination had ever conjured. It must have been the same for Jacques because he groaned into your mouth, his free hand dropped to your waist and he pulled you against him almost brutally. You wanted to feel every inch of your body pressed to his. Lifting a leg, you hooked it over his hip and wrapped your arms around his neck, using your entire body to pull him closer. His hand caressed your thigh from your knee up to your ass then squeezed you there. It would be so easy for him to hoist you up off the ground, for you to wrap your legs around him, for him to fuck you right now against the lonely door in Knockturn Alley, while snowflakes gathered in your hair.
“I know what you want. I’ve seen your fantasies,” Jacques purred, pulling back from your lips just enough to speak. “I know them so well they might as well be my own. Tell me which is your favorite and it will no longer be just a fantasy. I’ll enact it for you right now, down to every last detail.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing already?” you teased. You were on fire from his touch and you ached with desire. Thinking of him as you had been was its own kind of foreplay, and now it was torment to prolong it. He was hard and his cock rubbed against you through both your clothing, teasing you erotically in the perfect place. But then, he knew right where your perfect places were. And dear god, he was huge.
“This is too tame for your fantasies,” he laughed darkly. “Tell me your favorite. Although, I think I know it.” He kissed your neck, teasing your skin with his teeth and a light nip. “You want to run from me, pretend you have a chance of escaping. You want me to chase you down, catch you, rip your clothes off and fuck you like an animal. Or is that what the girls call being ravaged these days?” He pressed more weight against you, almost crushing you against the door, but the feel of his body and his weight was wonderful. “You’d pound your fists on my chest and tell me to stop, but you wouldn’t mean a word of it. You want me to take from you what has always been forbidden to give me.” Pulling back just enough to let you breathe, he brought his hand to your throat. His hand easily circled your neck, making you feel small and vulnerable, trapped in his grip. He squeezed. Gently, just enough for you to feel how easy it would be for him to truly take whatever he wanted. His voice sounded dangerous when he told you, “I can do that.”
“Yes,” you said at once without even taking a moment to think. This is what you had wanted for as long as you could remember wanting anything from a man. And Jacques Le Gris was offering to give it to. “I want our first night together to be like a fantasy. But I have a counteroffer.” He kissed you before you could make it, leaving you breathless when he pulled away. You took a breath and finished, “I say we play out my favorite fantasy first and your favorite second.” You cocked an eyebrow at him in a challenge. “If you’re game.”
“Darling, I was born game and I intend to go out that way.” When Jacques grinned at you now, sideways and wicked, the wolf practically jumped out of him. You knew he was telling the truth, that he shared your desires in full. That he wanted you just as desperately as you did him, and that he possibly had for just as long.
“Wait, I can’t just run off.” You stalled him with your hand on his chest. “What will my friends think?”
“What do you want them to think?” He slyly tapped a finger to his temple, his message clear.
“It’s enough for them to think I went home with a handsome man and not to worry about me,” you said coyly. “And it had better be true.”
“So long as you think me handsome, it’s true.” His grin widened and he pushed your arms back up around his neck. “Hold on tight.”
You knew what he was about to do before he did it and asked, “Where are you taking me?”
“The perfect place to give you what you want,” he laughed, a throaty rumbling laugh, and held you so tight you couldn’t have escaped his arms if you wanted.
Suddenly, the world blurred around you and spun as if you stood at the center of a cyclone. Your stomach swooped with the unnerving feeling of falling and a boom like thunder rang in your ears. When the world stopped spinning, your head took another moment to catch up. You swayed against Jacques in what could rightly be described as a swoon. For a few seconds, his hard body against you felt like the only solid thing in the world. He held you as you regained your balance and composure, his arms comforting and secure.
You were no longer in Knockturn Alley, or the city at all. You were surrounded by thick pine trees with snow drifting lazily down around you and leaving a light blanket on the ground. The light was diffused softly from the light of the bright full moon filtered through a thin layer of cloud. It looked like a dream and you wondered if Jacques could possibly be such a powerful legilimens that he could be crafting this world all inside your head. But you knew this was real, and you knew precisely where he had apparated with you. Although it had been years, you had been here many times before.
You shook your head at him fondly, appreciating his humor in the moment. He had taken you to the Forbidden Forest.
Jacques was game indeed. He fully intended to give you exactly what you had always wanted– a man of action instead of those of lesser fortitude who hid behind pretty words. Now that the onus was on you to accept his offer, you found it difficult to keep from trembling with nerves. He was so big, so powerful, so predatory. It was more than a little intimidating to think of him chasing you, catching you, manhandling you. It was almost frightening. But then, that was the point, wasn’t it? It was always a fine line between fear and excitement, between a fright and a thrill.
“What shall it be, beautiful?” Jacques asked. The devious bastard had probably read your mind again. Or your trepidation was that plainly written on your face. “Do you want me to play naughty or nice with you?”
“You brought me here,” you said with as much conviction as you could, making up your mind. “Carpe nocturne.”
“I’ll seize something alright.” Jacques sucked his teeth and bared his canines in a wolfish grin. Moonlight glinted off his teeth and glazed his black hair with silver, giving him a wild look. A beast, at home in these woods. He lowered his chin and fixed his lupine eyes on you, looking ravenous and dangerous. His voice rumbled through you when you told you, “I’ll give you ten seconds to run before I hunt you down and sink my teeth into that delicious ass of yours.”
“Ten seconds, huh?” you teased as you took a few tentative steps away from him deeper into the woods, exaggerating the sway of your hips seductively.
“One.” He cut off your flouncing, deadly serious, and took an ominous step toward you. He rolled one sleeve back up to his elbow where it had slipped down, somehow making that gesture look aggressive.
Smiling, you began lightly trotting through the dense trees. The forest glittered all around you in white snow, silver moonlight, and deep pine trees. The air was crisply-scented and cool, but your skin was so flushed the chill was welcome.
“Two,” he huffed behind you. “Better run a lot faster than that.”
Deciding on a path through the trees, you quickly picked up speed as adrenaline flooded your bloodstream. The idea of the chase, of running from a looming hunter, was exhilarating. You found a small game trail snaking through the forest, a pristine white laceration between the snowy trees, narrower than a footpath. The trees themselves reached their twisted branches out to you, as if to offer their help to hide you from the beast at your heels. A light mist lingered in the forest, dancing around your knees and swirling in your wake as you ran ahead.
You felt it when Jacques gave chase. You couldn’t see him now through the trees and brush that separated you, you certainly couldn’t hear him, but you felt him somehow like an electric shudder through your body, raising the hairs on the back of your neck. It was as if the forest itself felt him too, the atmosphere changing around you now that you were actively being hunted.
A thick pine tree was close ahead of you, its lush low-hanging branches inviting you near, offering you a place to hide from your pursuer. Ducking under its branches, you pressed your back to the trunk on the opposite side of the trail. Snow dusted down on you from the branches you rustled, pleasantly cool on your skin. The fragrant smell of pine and sap surrounded you as you breathed heavily through your nose, trying to slow the hammering in your chest.
Snap.
The sound of a breaking branch reverberated through the trees, making your entire body jolt. You strained your ears to divulge more sounds, but there were none to be heard. The silence around you was so complete it was oppressive after the sounds of your running. It seemed as though the forest itself had gone quiet, and the snow offered more insulation on top of it. The trees surrounding you had become an audience waiting with bated breath to see if you would make your escape. Or if you would fall victim to the hunter at your heels.
Surely, Jacques could have caught up to you by now. You expected him to charge past your hiding spot behind the pine tree only seconds after you and run ahead down the game trail.
Slowly and as quietly as you could, you turned to look around the trunk of the tree that shielded you, daring to breach the side of the tree with only one eye as you checked your backtrail. Nothing. No big bad man in sight. Even the fog had settled again.
You returned your back to the tree and rested your head back against it, still scanning the trail. As you returned to face front, you caught movement from the corner of your eye. You snapped your head around to meet Jacques’s unnerving eyes and hulking body looming right at your shoulder. You almost jumped out of your skin as a pathetic yelp left your throat. Jacques growled as his arm shot around your waist, pulling you roughly against him. He wasted no time in sinking his teeth into your neck in a biting kiss, ensuring he left a bruise to mark the presence of his lips.
“Jacques!” You jumped away from him, fueled by reflexes alone. Jacques let you. You took a moment to steady yourself, filling your lungs with air too slowly for your spinning head and rubbing the fresh mark on your neck. It stung, but sensually so.
“I’ll only count to five this time.” Jacques told you as he stepped toward you with a hint of menace and a devilish grin curling his lips.
Hungry lust radiated off Jacques in waves, so thick you could feel it on the air like a spectral presence. And it was all for you. He indeed thrilled you and also frightened you just a little, just enough for that rush of adrenaline to make you giddy. He certainly knew what he was doing, playing this little game of yours, or he had read your desires as clearly as a script and played his role to perfection. Sweat shone on his chest through the open vee in his shirt, a blush tinting his chest and neck. He looked voracious, driven mad by his desire. Jacques awakened the animal part of your brain that civilized society had tried for millennia to tame away, the part of you that wanted to be captured, taken, and utterly ravaged. Jacques was enjoying this even more, his huge chest heaving from the thrill of the hunt. You could see how it sparked a primal urge deep inside of him, probably even more poignant that it did in you. You could also see the evidence of his aching arousal tenting his pants. You were no better off. You had been melting inside all night, it seemed.
Backing away from him, you took a few deep breaths as you prepared to run again, unable to rein your pulse back down from a gallop. He registered your excitement and winked at you, enjoying your game. Laughing, you bounded away then skipped into a run that carried you further along the trail and deeper into the welcoming mystery of the woods.
The trail narrowed and became overgrown as the forest closed in around you. Deeper inside the forest, the woods grew wilder, much as the man chasing you was growing wilder with every pursuing step. You knew he was closing in on you swiftly. You slowed enough to look behind you. You were just in time to see Jacques lowering his massive body as he lunged at you with a growl. His shoulder connected with your waist as his strong arms gripped you, tackling you to the ground beneath him. He was careful with you. He’d never actually tackle you with his full force or risk hurting you. His arm hit the ground hard beneath you, cushioning your body when you met the cold wet snow. His heavy body covered you with enough weight to pin you but not quite enough to crush you.
Laying on your back beneath his sweaty body, your arms flew around him. One hand fisted harshly into his damp hair and one hand dug sharp nails into his muscular shoulder, earning a groan in response. Jacques crashed his lips down against yours in a hard, desperate kiss, his hot tongue twining with yours, stealing the breath from your lungs. He kissed you hungrily, licking into your mouth and catching your lips between his teeth. He brought an enormous hand to your neck, again wrapping around your throat easily, squeezing just enough to make your pulse quicken and pound against his palm, adding to the effect of being captured.
“Do you like making me chase after you?” he asked into your mouth. “You must, since you’ve teased me for years. The torment was almost more than I could stand. Do you know how hard it was for me to resist taking what I know you wanted to give me?”
“I like being chased,” you whispered back. Feeling his weight press down upon you as you kissed, your legs fell open to invite him to settle between them. “But I like being caught by you even more.”
A low moan rumbled in his chest and he grinned against your mouth. The hand at your neck smoothed down to your breast, kneading you and making you gasp.
Moving his hand lower, Jacques’s fingers dipped inside your pants, inside your panties, discovering how hot and wet you were already. You were powerless to resist succumbing to him, your body not allowing you to maintain any coy pretenses. Jacques’s mouth moved down to your neck as he plunged two thick fingers into you, curling them firmly against that spot he knew could make you scream. His fingers worked you into a frenzy as his teeth and lips attended to your neck and throat. He began rutting against you, his cock digging into the back of his own hand, which was still making you writhe on his fingers. Even that light movement caused your body to shift on the ground. The snow beneath you had melted, the ground now soupy under your back.
“This is about to get messy if you want me to take you here, fuck you on the ground like an animal,” he said huskily, pulling back from your lips. “Do you want that? The beast from your fantasy? Or I can show you what I’ve always fantasized about doing to you instead. It’s much simpler, I’m afraid.” He kissed you again. “But you’ll like it.”
“You’ve already proven better than my fantasies,” you said, running your hands over the breadth of his back. “I trust your judgment.”
“Hold on,” he told you as he pulled his fingers from you. He collapsed on you and gripped you in a strong bear hug, but you barely had time to feel the heavy weight of him.
The ground fell away beneath you and you squeezed your eyes shut as your stomach swooped in that familiar way. Thunder boomed around you and the whole world seemed to shake from it. The cool air whisked away from you, replaced by a welcoming warmth. The snow and ice of the forest was replaced by the golden glow of a fire dancing inside a marble fireplace. The sky above you was replaced by an arched cathedral ceiling, and the ground beneath you exchanged for crisp sheets on a king bed. The only things that remained from the forest were the silver moonlight peeking in through the tall, arched windows, and Jacques above you, grinning down at you, the feeling of his powerful body covering you. He traced hot kisses down your throat and chest as he rose back off the bed to roughly shrug off his shirt and work his belt free.
The sight of him shirtless was breathtaking, you felt yourself growing wetter just from that sight alone. His chest was glorious. You had never seen a chest so thick and expansive. His shoulders were absurdly broad and made even more impressive by his fit abdomen. The taper of his waist, the lines of muscle along his hips, even the trail of hair descending from his navel, all worked in conjunction to practically drag your eyes down toward his cock. After pulling your shirt off, you centered yourself on the bed and arched your back seductively. Jacques reached for your pants and yanked them the rest of the way off, tossing them aside as he stood over you at the side of the bed. His eyes glistened like whiskey on ice as his gaze caressed your body.
“As many times as I’ve imagined you like this, you’re better,” he said reverently in a voice that was all smoke and gravel.
You watched the muscles in his arms flex as he undid his belt and pants. Without taking his eyes from you, he unceremoniously shoved his pants down, stepping out of them quickly. Towering above you, standing totally naked, he palmed his enormous erection and let you admire the sight of him, the cocky bastard, watching you with his molten gaze. You expected Jacques to have a nice cock, as big as he was everywhere else. You had imagined it embarrassingly often, but the sight of him still made your breath hitch. It was practically monstrous, and deliciously thick. He would have injured you as a schoolgirl, and you couldn’t be entirely certain he wouldn’t now. Another bit of danger he offered. There would be a limit to how rough he could be with you, and you were thankful that he was seasoned enough to know it.
“If you can’t handle me, tell me now.” Of course, he couldn’t resist teasing you.
In response, you held his eyes firmly as you reached to undo your bra, slinging it across the room to be lost with your other discarded clothing. You raised one eyebrow at him, meeting his challenge. Jacques walked to the edge of the bed, pausing briefly to absorb the sight of you as you lay spread before him, the best Christmas gift he had ever received, before he lowered himself to the mattress and crawled over your body.
Eagerly, your legs spread for him again and he settled between them. Jacques caged you in with his impressive arms on either side of your body as he bent over you, a predator over his prey, and kissed at your navel. His kisses were open mouthed and he lavished you with his tongue. He trailed his mouth down until he placed a wet kiss at the top of your pussy, still covered by the lace of your thong. Bringing a hand down to the thin line of fabric at your hip, he yanked it roughly, ripping your thong away from you and tearing it apart with one motion. His aggressive lust had you aching with the need to be filled. Jacques paused and just admired you, the way you glistened with desire. He lowered himself, wanting to kiss you there, taste you, make you cum on his tongue. But you stopped him.
“The first time you make me cum, I want it to be with your cock,” you told him huskily. “I want to feel you inside of me when I cum.”
Jacques grinned up at you before trailing his nose and lips slowly back up the center of your body as he crawled up into position above you. He paused to inhale deeply at your throat, taking in the scent of you and exhaling in a low heady groan. He kissed you passionately and deep. His taste was smokey and lush, making you shiver. His weight was resting on you now, pushing you down into the mattress. You could feel the muscles in his back and shoulders tense and flex under your hands as he moved, and his heavy chest pressed against yours, a sharp contrast to his soft lips. The unduly thick head of his cock nudged into you, teasing at your entrance. When you bucked your hips against him, he plunged into you in one fluid stroke. He rolled his hips against you gently, giving you time to adjust to his size. Your nails raked his back as a pornographic moan escaped your lips at the pleasure of being so completely full of him. Jacques’s mouth returned to diligently kiss you as the rolling of his hips became shallow thrusts. When your hips started moving to meet his own in time with his thrusts, he began thrusting into you more passionately.
Jacques propped himself up with his hands on either side of your head. Groaning again at an unabashed volume, he pulled back and slammed his entire length into you. It skirted the line of painful pleasure, but he felt so good. He saw your features rendered beautifully distraught by pleasure and kept that angle and rhythm that he knew was driving you in exactly the direction you wanted. You fluttered and tightened around him, your orgasm imminent. Jacques could feel it. Losing control himself, he fucked you harder, pistoning into you roughly. His whole body tensed when he felt the pulsing orgasm surge through you, shooting through him like a current of pleasure connected the two of you. Jacques’s thrusts grew erratic, his shoulders and arms quivered, and he came moments after you on a deep thrust. You reached to his thick, damp hair, tangling your fingers in it and pulling him down to settle over you. He looked down at you adoringly then kissed you lovingly. Though it was unspoken, the emotion was unmistakable.
After lavishing you slowly and indulgently, he rolled onto his back and pulled you down against his enormous chest. Wrapping the arm beneath you around your waist tightly, he held you in something between a cuddle and a bear hug and caressed you with his free hand. His huge body was hot beneath you, his arms radiating warmth around you, and his lips searing as they gently kissed along your hairline. The man was an absolute fever dream. He could keep you in an erotic stupor for hours if he wanted.
“Where are we?” you asked lazily, drunk on the rush he had given you.
“Normandy,” he purred, his hands gentle and warm on your skin. “My home, precisely speaking.”
“This looks like the inside of a castle,” you said of the bedroom with its stone walls and arched windows.
“You could call it that.” He smirked. “Regardless of the descriptor, it will accommodate us well until the start of term.” He brought his fingers under your chin, tipping your face up to look at him. “Provided you’ll accept my invitation to stay with me until then.”
“I’ll need a change of clothes,” you laughed.
“Not for what I have planned,” he laughed too, and rolled back over you again.
Briefly you wondered at the stir you would cause when the pair of you returned to Hogwarts in January. Together. Gossip spread through those enchanted halls like wildfire and you knew a professorial couple would be a source of it for a long time to come. You had no time to dwell on the thought now. Jacques demanded all of your attention elsewhere.
Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Angst, maybe? Comedy. Abuse of process. Hazing Flip for his birthday, as one should. Birthday pranks. Bitchy Reader. If you want a sweet, submissive, shy reader, my fics are never for you xD
AO3 Link
A little birthday celebration for Scorpio season! I had this written timely on November 19, but just forgot to post it. Whoops!
Turning forty wasn’t something Flip Zimmerman was overly excited about. It had nothing to do with the usual dramatics and neuroses that plagued most people. He didn’t have any deep regrets in life; he hadn’t taken any stupid turns or failed to seize any major opportunities; he didn’t have a ‘one that got away’ – the things in life that can add up to a mid-life crisis or make a man dread the passage of years. He had the woman he wanted, the job he wanted, and for the most part, the life he wanted. Flip didn’t give a damn about the number of candles on his cake. What annoyed the hell out of him was the production everyone else in his life had to make over it. That might rank as one of his bigger regrets in life, telling people close to him when his damn birthday was. His birthday would be a perfectly fine day, if no one else knew about it.
To Flip, his birthday was just another day on the calendar. But could everyone else in his life ever treat it that simply? Fuck no.
Flip never took the day off for his birthday. He immediately lost respect for any man who did that. Women got a pass with such frivolous and indulgent things, but men had no business pampering themselves like candy asses. This year was poised to be a little extra good for Flip since his birthday fell over a weekend. He could guiltlessly spend it exactly how he wanted, which was also how he’d spend every other day of his life if he was free from all financial, vocational, and social obligations. Flip wanted to spend his birthday weekend hidden away in his cabin, sleeping, eating, and fucking just as much as he wanted, and not doing a damned thing else or talking to a damned person other than his girl.
So far, Flip’s birthday weekend had been precisely what he wanted. Starting Friday night, he had gotten his birthday wish in quantities sufficient to appease all his ravenous hungers. Saturday had been the same, and it had been glorious. He had put on a damn fine show for his girl, if he did say so himself. He figured it was the best way to demonstrate he was a vigorous man in his prime, not a doddering old bastard. Flip had allowed his lady to finagle him into sharing a steaming hot bath with her after dinner to break up the pattern. He didn’t want to admit how good it felt on his aching muscles. Even though it was only due to all the extra use over the past two days, or rather, due to the gross lack of use during the other days of the year, Flip knew his sore muscles would be used against him on his fortieth birthday. All the running and weightlifting in the world wasn’t really the same as the workout a man gets from a marathon between the sheets. He knew he was in for a generous ration of shit for his birthday, not least of all from his girl. He’d wonder what was wrong if she wasn’t giving him hell. Still, it was best not to load the guns for her.
Flip defined ‘sleeping in’ differently than most. He had been conditioned by his days in the military to be up before sunrise and ready to meet every battle with the dawn. He felt extremely lazy and indulgent when he let the sunrise wake him as it first peaked over the mountains and into his bedroom window. This attitude was in stark contrast to his wife, who considered mornings in general to be a vile institution and often bitched about how morning people were given entirely too much power in society.
Dawn on Flip’s birthday was one of those crystalline winter mornings where the light was tinted a soft pink-blue-white and frost coated everything in sight like icing on a diamante cake. It had snowed several inches during the night and outside the window, the mountains were gleaming spires, the ground was covered with fresh powder, and the pines wore a layer of snow like fancy ladies swaddled in white mink. Snowy mornings like this were Flip’s favorite kind of morning, when everything was still pristine and sparkling with promise. Before any bullshit settled in.
Groaning contentedly, Flip stretched as the sunlight danced across his face. He was still a little sore in all the places he wanted to be, and he was rock hard and ready for a proper good morning.
So far, forty felt great.
Half asleep, he turned and nuzzled his nose into the soft warm body lying curled next to him. A soft, warm, furry body. Grumbling and pulling his face away, Flip opened his bleary eyes and glared through his disheveled hair at the fat, black cat he had inherited when he had begun living with his girl. Some men have worse step kids to deal with, he reasoned now as the adorable black asshole looked back at him through slitted green eyes, as if she was just as entitled to sleep in his bed as he was. Narrowing his own eyes back at the cat, he asked her, “Where’s your mom at?”
His question was answered by the clanging of a pot on the stove downstairs and a couple choice curses in a familiar feminine voice. Now fully awake, Flip became aware of the scent of bacon, eggs, and pancakes – his favorites – and strong black coffee just how he liked it. This was a rare treat. Flip usually assumed the duty of cooking breakfast on the days they could enjoy it together. Hearing his girl down in the kitchen, slaving away over the stove at such an unconscionable hour, as she deemed it, made him grin at the effort she put in for him.
“Your mom’s a keeper,” he confided to the cat and patted her round belly. “But you’re a sorry little porker.”
Flip stretched again and ran a hand through his unruly hair. He thought he should brush it before going downstairs, but he knew how she liked it when he looked a little wilder than usual. She liked him best when he smelled fresh from a shower but looked unbrushed, unshaven, and what he thought was mildly unkempt. Women are nonsensical creatures, he had realized early in his dating career. He damn sure needed to brush his teeth and wash his face though. He pulled on the pair of jeans he wore the day before and the flannel shirt he had thrown across the room the night before, only bothering to button two of the center buttons. The phone he’d left in his jeans pocket buzzed insistently against his ass.
Should have turned the fuckin’ thing off, he lamented as he retrieved it and saw the tirade of missed calls. He knew what all those calls meant. But as long as he ignored them, he had plausible deniability, as the bloodsucking lawyers say. As his girl would say. He lost his phone; his battery died; service is bad out at his place; his wife threw it at his head and it broke against the wall.
Against his better judgment, and because it was Stallworth calling and Flip didn’t feel right about ignoring his best friend, he answered.
“What,” Flip grunted, leaving no doubt as to his feelings over this intrusion. He thought to himself, This is the beginning of a bad fuckin’ day.
“Good morning to you too,” Ron said in his easy, affable tone. “It’s a beautiful day out, isn’t it?”
“I have a feelin’ I’m not gonna think so after you tell me why in the hell you’re calling.” Flip walked sullenly to the bathroom while Stallworth ran through some pleasantries. Thankfully, he didn’t lead with Happy Birthday. Flip would have hung up on him. Flip lifted the toilet seat and unzipped his jeans.
“We just got a big break in that jewel heist case. Actually, I did. On a stakeout last night,” Ron said proudly, then paused. “Are you taking a piss while I’m talking to you?”
“We’d both be happier if you weren’t talkin’ to me, but you called,” Flip muttered and flushed the toilet. He held the phone toward the bowl so Stallworth could hear the rush of water, mimicking Flip’s interest in the matter.
“You’re a barbarian, you know that?” Stallworth laughed despite himself.
“Flattery don’t do it for me,” Flip said as he ran the sink, letting the water warm. He noticed four angry red scratches on the side of his neck from his girl’s fingernails and felt a rush of pride. “Go out and catch your jewel thief and take all the glory. Girls love that shit.” He splashed his face with hot water and lathered it with his soapy hands. “I’ll read all about your heroics in the paper.”
“It’s not that simple,” Ron said regretfully. “We need you on this one. You know I wouldn’t be calling if we didn’t.”
“I’m off. It’s a Sunday. And it’s,” he just stopped himself from saying my fuckin’ birthday. “Too fuckin’ early.”
“You think I like being the guy who has to roust the bear out of his cave?” Ron tried to joke to his entirely unreceptive audience. “We need you. Get dressed and get your ass out here.”
“God damnit.” Flip hung up and shoved his phone back in his pocket. Oh yeah, it’s gonna be a great day, he thought. Aloud, he grumbled to his reflection in the mirror, “Happy fuckin’ birthday, you old bastard.”
A scalding droplet of bacon grease jumped from the sizzling cast iron pan to land on your exposed thigh, making you cuss under your breath as you quickly wiped it away. You were always extra prickly in the morning. Flip deserves a nice birthday breakfast, you reminded yourself and inhaled deeply, deep enough to force a good mood down your throat along with the chilly morning air. Also in honor of his birthday, you opted for a casually sexy look as opposed to something more comfortable like pajama pants and a tank. You wore only one of his favorite shirts, worn until it was soft as velvet, and slippers. Early on you had realized he liked that look on you and something about seeing you in his clothes appealed to his innate possessiveness.
It was chilly inside the cabin, save for the heat from the stove. On cold winter mornings like this the little cabin furnace had to work overtime just to keep the pipes from freezing. To really get the temperature up in the cabin, a fire needed to be lit in the living room fireplace, but you were not that ambitious before sunrise and would leave it to Flip.
As you thought of him, you heard the wooden stairs creak and knew he was descending them. His footfalls were always light, he moved agility for such a large man. You pretended not to hear him and moved to the side of the stove, leaning forward in a provocative invitation under the guise of fiddling with the coffee maker. Predictably, Flip took the bait and wrapped his arms around you from behind, pressing his chest against your back and molding his body against yours. But his arms enfolded you chastely around your waist and his hands didn’t roam higher or lower to seek out their favorite places.
“Happy birthday, old man,” you purred, rubbing your ass back against him. You felt he was wearing jeans and turned inside his arms to face him. He was fully dressed, right down to his boots. “You’re violating your own self-imposed dress code, or rather lack thereof, for this weekend.”
“I have good news for you, sugar,” Flip told you with a grin and kissed you deeply. “You get to sleep in today after all.”
“You mean after we succumb to a food and orgasm coma in a couple hours?” You grinned back. “I’d call that a nap, but suit yourself.”
“I got a call,” Flip started.
“We agreed no phones this weekend!” you cut across him, instantly bristling. “That was your rule. I have a big trial Monday and I’ve been ignoring my phone for a day and a half already. You better be joking.”
“You of all people know rules are made to be broken,” Flip tried again, still maintaining his grin that now looked moronic to you.
“I’m sore everywhere from you wanting to act like a horny teenager all day yesterday.” You raised a dangerous eyebrow. “I got up when it was still dark to freeze in your kitchen and get burned by grease to cook for you on your birthday, and you’re taking calls?” Your voice had dropped an octave and sounded deceptively calm. Flip knew these were very bad signs.
“I didn’t even take my phone out of my pocket yesterday. Ron caught me off guard this mornin,’” Flip used a reasoning tone, like he would when talking to a jumper. It didn’t help your darkening mood. “But listen, there’s been a big break in that jewel heist Ron and I’ve been workin.’ He got a tip, a hot tip, on where we can catch the bastard. But it’s tonight.”
“And Ron needs you to hold his hand for this escapade?” you asked testily.
“Well, he’s still a little green on things like this.” Flip rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor. He always did that when he was in trouble, like a grounded boy trying to look contrite. “I can eat breakfast real quick with you before I go.”
“Real quick?” you laughed sarcastically. “Just what every girl wants to hear?”
“How about I eat somethin’ else before I head out.” He winked at you, trying his best to lighten your mood.
“Yes, I’ve always loved the wham, bam, thank you, ma’am approach.” You glared at him. “How long will you be gone?”
“Well, I have to go in now to go over everything and get briefed before I go out to nab the bastard.” Knowing he was digging his hole deeper, he muttered the next confession. “And it’s at some fancy party down at the Broadmoor tonight. They figure I’d be better to walk in there and get the job done. That reminds me, I’ll need you to pick out a nice suit for me.”
“Let me make sure I understand you correctly.” You stepped away from him, beyond arm’s reach. “You’re leaving me alone today – on your day off, on a weekend, on your birthday – to go out to a swanky party at the Broadmoor while I wait here until you decide to show up again?” You raised your eyebrows. “And then, let me guess – when you get home, late, I’m sure, you want me to feed you dinner and fuck you all night again. Or will you have eaten dinner at your soiree?”
“Sugar, you know I can’t control the timing of these things,” Flip said regretfully. “Breakfast looks great. You look delicious. I don’t want to leave, you know that.” He shook his head and asked exasperatedly, “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s your birthday.” You crossed your arms over your chest and narrowed your eyes. “So, it’s your choice.”
Flip had been in enough life and death situations to know he was approaching one now. But he didn’t have much choice. “I have to go in. But I’ll be as quick as I can and I’ll see you tonight. I’ll make it up to you tonight, sugar.”
“This is such bullshit, Flip.” You were fully angry now. Flip knew he was going to be in trouble for a while. “I blew off my responsibilities to let you fuck me as much as you wanted this weekend, and what do I get? You blowing me off to run out and try to catch some petty thief? What happens if you don’t catch this guy today? You have no personal consequences. If I screw up at my job, I lose business and lose actual income, and still, I’ve been blowing off my duties for you this weekend. But you have to strut out to make an arrest now, just so you can dick wave.”
“C’mon, darlin,’” Flip pleaded, holding his arms out, as if you’d run into them. “It’s not like that.”
“No, it’s exactly like that.” You shook your head and shoved past him toward the stairs. “If you’re going to work today, so am I. I have a hearing to prep for, and at least I can bill three-fifty an hour. I’ll be late too.” You paused at the bottom of the stairs to twist the knife a little more. “Since you let these criminals interfere in our lives, maybe I’ll take your thief’s case pro bono after you arrest him and get him off in court instead of getting you off in bed.”
“Calm the fuck down!” Flip lost his temper and instantly regretted it. He calmed his own voice and added, “It’s not that big of a deal. Quit pullin’ your lawyer shit on me.”
“Are you having a senior moment? You must be getting old, after all,” you snapped and stormed up the stairs. “Don’t worry. Maybe we’ll celebrate your birthday next year.”
“You don’t think you’re overreacting just a little?” Flip asked foolishly.
“Not just yet, I’m not.” Halfway up the staircase you turned, pulled off a slipper, and threw it across the room at him. Flip ducked just in time to avoid a perfectly aimed headshot.
“You missed!” Flip bellowed triumphantly then added a cocky laugh.
You didn’t miss your second shot. You whipped your other slipper with more sting, sending it flying right into his chest with a satisfying whap. Then you turned on your heel and trotted up the stairs.
“Love you, sugar!” Flip shouted sarcastically after you. His face was hot and the thick vein in his neck pulsed angrily.
“Happy fucking birthday!” You slammed the bedroom door.
The drive into the station seemed longer than usual, possibly because Flip spent the better part of it grinding his teeth and strangling the steering wheel in a white-knuckled death grip. He was not at all amused when Stallworth met him at the station door holding a cane.
“Take it easy, old guy,” Stallworth said, offering him the cane. “Need a hand getting to your desk?”
“You’ll need a hand pullin’ that cane out of your ass if you don’t get it out of my face.” Flip shoved past his friend and made his way to his desk, waving off several other old jokes and happy birthdays. His menacing glare would be enough to make strangers piss their pants. Sadly, his co-workers at the station knew this was mostly posturing and it did little to deter them.
Chief Bridges was waiting for Flip at his desk, leaning against it intrusively. He wore a shit-eating grin and said with every indicia of seriousness, “Forty, huh? You know what that means, Zimmerman. It’s time to re-take your firearms training. Maybe driving too. Make sure you’re not slipping as an old man. A man’s aim is the first thing to go.”
“Fuck you,” Flip growled irritably. “I’m in better shape now than I was in my twenties.”
“It’s worse than I feared.” Bridges grinned. “Sometimes, the mind goes first.”
“Forty’s not all that old,” Stallworth came to Flip’s defense. “For a tree or a tortoise.”
“Don’t let me catch you trying to get little blue pills off any trafficking suspects.” Bridges waved a finger at Flip. “I’ve had to write up more old farts for that in this department than you want to know.”
“Not one of my complaints.” Flip smirked. “You sound like you have some personal experience in that department, Chief.”
“I’m glad you’re a cocky sonofabitch, Zimmerman. And a ladies man. It makes this part of the job a helluva lot more fun for me,” Bridges said and Flip’s smirk melted away. “A ladies man is just what the doctor ordered for this sting. Turns out our jewel thief is a broad! Can you believe it? Word says she’s going to the event at the Broadmoor tonight and she’ll be wearing a black dress. All you have to do is sidle up to her, blow whatever smoke up her ass you need to, and get her to waltz right out of the party with you and up to the room we have setup. Stallworth will be there to help make the arrest in case you need backup. You think you’ll need a hand putting handcuffs on a woman once you get her into your bedroom?”
“I can’t fuckin’ do that and you know it!” Flip exclaimed angrily, on the verge of shouting. “I’m already in deep shit with the little woman over comin’ in at all today, and you think I’m gonna go out to a party and then bring some floozy back to a hotel room? I’ll do stupid things in the line of duty, but that’s a death sentence. No fuckin’ way.”
“Scared of a dame, are you, Zimmerman?” Bridges poked.
“I’m scared of the one I have at home,” Flip huffed indignantly. “I’d be a fool not to be. She’d string you up right alongside me, Chief. Find someone else. Ron’s single.”
“Our thief’s a tall gal. A woman won’t be interested in a man who’s shorter than she is, now will she? You’re the only man in the department who’ll be taller than her in heels.” Bridges looked at Stallworth and shrugged. “There’s a height requirement on this ride, and Ron’s several inches too short.”
“Just put a tail on her and grab her when she goes to the ladies room,” Flip suggested. “Easy.”
“If you haven’t noticed, the CSPD has been written up in the paper about once a month this whole year. All you overeager assholes making scenes and causing property damage during arrests,” Bridges chided both men, who had each been featured prominently in various articles. “The last thing I need is some big public scene at the Broadmoor to kick off the holiday season. Do you think this is a fucking negotiation, Zimmerman?”
“There wouldn’t be any negotiation if I told you to shove it up your ass along with my badge and gun,” Flip grunted, thinking that his job was interfering too much in his enjoyment of life.
“What else are you qualified to do? Public relations? Customer service?” Bridges laughed. “Being shacked up with a high-power lawyer the way you are, you should thank me every day for this job. You think a dame like that is gonna want some unemployed grumpy sonofabitch keeping her couch from running away. I got news for you, Zimmerman, cabana boys are about fifteen or twenty years younger than you.”
“Nope, I’ll go over to the dark side.” Flip smirked again. “The Feds have been houndin’ me pretty hard lately.”
“You’re getting to be a crotchety bastard in your old age,” Bridges said dismissively. He patted Flip on the back as he started toward his office. “Quit your bitching moaning and go get the job done. The faster you get it done, the faster you can be back home with your wife.”
“Sometimes I envy those whiny bastards who call in for their birthdays,” Flip groaned to Stallworth when they were alone.
“Too late for that now,” Stallworth said brightly. “Man up.”
“Manning up has never been a problem for me.” Flip glared at him and sat down heavily in his chair.
“What happened there?” Stallworth eyed the scratches you had left on Flip’s neck, pulling his shirt collar back to get a better look. “Are you being abused? Do you need a safe house interview? Was there some animal control problem with a bobcat I missed over the weekend?”
“I guess I’ve still got it,” Flip said proudly.
“Wow, and you left her on your birthday to come down here for me?” Stallworth batted his eyes and teased, “I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I feel like that’s a big step in our relationship.”
“She already calls you my work wife.” Flip shook his head. “Watch your ass, rookie, or there’s gonna be some domestic violence in our relationship.” Flip slumped in his chair, highly unamused and gestured for Ron to get on with it.
“Want me to talk slow when I go over this, old timer?” Stallworth teased, holding the casefile.
“Not in the fuckin’ mood.” Flip glared at his friend, not teasing at all. He snatched the file from Stallworth and slapped it down open on his desk. He was going to get this shit over with as fast as humanly possible. He retrieved a pair of glasses with large lenses and tortoise rims from his shirt pocket, a new addition to his wardrobe. He only recently capitulated to wearing them on occasion. But only for reading. He narrowed his eyes at Stallworth in anticipation. “Not a fuckin’ word.”
Before Flip could take in much on the first page, a commotion from the front of the station drew his attention. An argument and raised voices along with the shuffling of papers, all boded nothing good in a police station. Flip shoved up from his desk and hurried to see the cause of the uproar. Several officers argued with a fat little man who was so short Flip could only see the shiny top of his greasy bald scalp hovering chest level to the average sized officers around him. Dan Goldleaf was a private investigator who served papers in his spare time, one of the lowest forms of ilk to a cop, just above pedophiles and traffickers. Worst of all, the human shitstain worked for most of the defense lawyers in town.
When Flip approached the unruly spectacle, the trollish man excitedly waved the papers in his hand. He was gelatinously fat, and his whole body jiggled with the movement. He flashed a golden smile as he waddled to Flip. He pushed the papers into Flip’s chest and announced, “Here ya go, Zimmerman!” Quick as a ferret, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture of Flip holding the papers in a clenched fist, a deadly glare on his face. Goldleaf straightened to his full height of around five feet and popped the lapels of his brown jacket, crackling a fresh mustard stain. The gaudy gold rings on every fat sausage finger glittered in the fluorescent lights. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
Flip wanted to squish the greasy troll like a slug, but there were too many witnesses for that now. He looked at the crumpled papers he held in his fist and backed to the wall until his back was pressed against it. It kept him from pacing like a caged animal. He had been served with a formal looking document consisting of several pages. The papers had been sent by the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum & Howe. It began with:
CANDICE GOODING,
Petitioner,
Vs.
PHILIP ZIMMERMAN,
Respondent.
VERIFIED PETITION TO ESTABLISH PATERNITY
COMES NOW the Petitioner, Candice Gooding, by and through undersigned counsel, Rob Cheatum, and in support of her Verified Petition STATES THE FOLLOWING:
“Christ, it’s a fuckin’ paternity suit from some bitch named Candice Gooding. Says she has a five-year-old kid and it’s mine! She’s comin’ after me for goddamn child support,” Flip gritted through clenched teeth. Every muscle in his body contracted and he shook with rage. He wanted to break something, or at least punch through a wall. He managed to grate out, “I don’t even know this bitch!”
“Candice Gooding,” Stallworth said slowly, enunciating every syllable, as if speaking to an idiot. “That doesn’t ring any bells?”
“It sure as hell doesn’t!” Flip was fuming, his chest flushed hot.
“What else could she call herself?” Stallworth mused, pretending to consider the issue. “Candy maybe?” Slowly, the red flush drained from Flip’s face until he was unusually pale. “Candy Goodie, maybe? Ring any bells now? Wasn’t she an ex-girlfriend some five, six years ago?”
“Motherfucker,” Flip groaned. He suddenly felt very old, as if he had aged a decade on his birthday. He leaned against the wall and knocked his head back against it roughly, as if he could bang some sense into his younger self. “She wasn’t my goddamn girlfriend, and you know it. She was just a slutty little cocktail waitress whose big dream in life was to be a stripper in Vegas where she could make the ‘big bucks.’ She was hot and easy and I fucked her a few times when I was hard up. Big deal. Any port in a storm, you know? Every girl I banged when I was footloose and fancy free wasn’t a girlfriend.”
“Guess you should have used some rubber to weather that particular storm,” Stallworth quipped, studying the papers more closely. “That candy must have been good if you went back for seconds.”
“Fuck you, buddy,” Flip said, really and truly wanting to punch something now.
“Better call your wife,” Stallworth suggested.
A look of pure terror flashed across Flip’s face for an instant before he could mask it. “Don’t you dare call her. Or tell her anything about this at all! Christ, you want to get me killed?”
“She’s a lawyer. Who do you think will be handling this for you?” Stallworth tried unsuccessfully to be helpful.
“Just haul me out back and shoot me now. Get it over with quick.” Flip dropped his head into his hands, shaking his head. “She can’t know a thing about this until I figure it out.”
“Hey, Sugar,” Flip crooned into the phone when you answered. “I was thinkin’ that since I have to get dressed up and put on the ritz tonight that you could get all dolled up too like you like and meet me after. I’ll take you out on the town and show you a real nice time.”
“I’m not in the mood,” you said, your tone told him you were far from appeased. “I thought you decided we were working today. And tonight.”
Flip had called while he was changing into his suit, a black one with a button up shirt in a dark shade of charcoal. He realized you had picked out one of your favorites for him that morning and it made him feel even guiltier. A nice suit usually had the effect of making him feel dashing, now it felt like he was dressing for his own funeral. Maybe I am, he thought to himself with a rueful smirk. Aloud, he said, “I know you’re mad as hell, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. I love you, sugar.”
“I’m on the clock, Flip,” you said sternly. “Something you know a lot about, right? We’ll catch up later. Whenever that might be.”
On the drive to the Broadmoor Stallworth informed Flip, “I called a clerk I know at the court who can verify the paternity suit on a Sunday. It’s real.”
“It’s like all my birthday wishes are comin’ true.” Flip glared out of the window, particularly eyeing the couples walking down the street, having a much better evening than he was.
Stallworth had informed Flip of all the details of their sting, how the event was in a private room of the Broadmoor, how they had booked a suite under the name of Frank Zeiss, a cover name Flip often used. All Flip had to do was find the mark, lure her up to the suite, and help Ron make the arrest. Flip didn’t even want credit. He wanted to forget everything about this day and pretend his fortieth birthday was limited to the nearly perfect Friday and Saturday he spent with his girl. Before he had to leave on call. Why in the fuck did he have to answer his damned phone this morning?
Flip stopped in at the hotel bar before seeking out the private event room. He needed a drink for this shit. He ordered an Old Fashioned and swirled the tawny liquid around in his glass. He thought of the way you always laughed at him like he was an idiot instead of suave when he tied the cherry stem in a knot with his tongue for your amusement.
As he thought of you, to his horror, you walked into the bar and aimed right for him. Wearing a sultry blue dress that hugged your curves in all the best places, he thought his girl had never looked like more of a knockout. But…
“What the hell are you doin’ here?!” Flip grabbed your arm when you got close to the bar and yanked you to him.
“It’s nice to see you too,” you said with only a hint of warning in your tone.
“I’m glad you’ve retracted your claws a bit from earlier,” Flip said in a quick, agitated voice. “But it’s not nice to see you. Not now, not here.”
“If you’re here looking for someone, shouldn’t you have your glasses on, old man?” you teased.
“Watch it, sugar.” Flip stepped closer to you until your bodies were nearly touching. “This old man was still goin’ strong when you threw in the towel last night.”
“Nice suit.” You ignored him and ran your eyes over his body. “You clean up alright.”
“This isn’t a game.” Flip fought to keep his voice low. “You could get us both hurt.”
“So serious,” you chided dismissively and placed a hand on his chest. It was endearing how nervous he was at the concern for your safety. A bead of sweat ran down from his temple. “Relax, handsome. All you have to do is stand there and look pretty, right?”
“Funny,” Flip said edgily. “Now get the hell outta here and I’ll call you when I’m done. I don’t want to be distracted by you and I don’t want you mixed up in all this.”
“Actually, I wanted to find you sooner rather than later because I got a call from a colleague. It made me think you might be in some kind of trouble.” You watched him closely as you spoke. “Or should I say, opposing counsel. A lawyer named Rob Cheatum.”
Oh, fuck. Flip’s mouth went dry and he fought to keep his expression stern and to give nothing away. “Must be important for him to call you on a Sunday.”
“Actually, he called me Friday after work. But unlike you, I followed the rules you wanted for your birthday and didn’t look at my phone until I was driving in today. That’s when I saw it. He said he’s representing some woman in a case against you.” You looked straight into his eyes. “What the fuck is he talking about, Flip?”
“Sounds like some bloodsucker out to sue the department again,” he deflected unpersuasively. “Isn’t that how you people get in the holiday spirit, by drumming up business?”
“Oh my god, don’t tell me you lost your temper and punched a suspect again,” you sighed exasperatedly. “It gets old seeing your name in the paper.”
“We all know the only animals worse than lawyers are reporters.” Flip looked around, scanning for his suspect. “All the more reason for you to get outta here until I get this thing wrapped up. You don’t want to be included in a cover story with me when I cause a scene at this party, do you?”
“I can see it now.” You spread your hands like a banner. “Grouchy old man snaps at the younger crowd out having fun.”
“I sure don’t love you for your mouth, sugar.” Flip shook his head. He saw a tall woman in a black dress walking purposefully and fixed his eyes on her like a hunting dog. But there were several women in view wearing black dresses. And what was tall, anyway? The woman was probably five-eight, although heels always threw him off. Was that tall enough to be described as very tall? Probably not. Flip had been staring at her while running these mental calculations.
“Like what you see?” you asked, more to poke him than anything. You knew he was here under the guise of working.
“Not particularly. I’d give her a seven at best,” Flip gritted out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ve got a helluva lot better at home.”
“Speaking of, how long until the woman you’ve got at home is going to get some time with you?” you asked.
“Not long.” He shrugged.
“Not an answer, Detective,” you quipped.
Flip knew you only called him Detective when you were feeling flirty or feeling as mad as a wet cat. He knew which this was. Best to remain silent, he concluded.
“You’re here to grab some suspect, a woman, I gather from your roaming eyes,” you accused and Flip’s eyes darted immediately back to you, a little wider than usual. “You’re getting served papers from strange women, too. Is this some half-assed midlife crisis? Is it time for you to embarrass yourself trying to pick up eighteen-year-olds in a new convertible?”
“Whoa, pump the brakes on the crazy train.” Flip held up his hands in surrender. “I’m innocent until proven guilty.”
“Oh, you think this is a democracy?” you scoffed. “I don’t think so. This is a monarchy, and all ways here are the Queen’s ways.”
“I’ll tell you all about it later. I promise.” Flip tried a calming tone that had zero effect. “Just let me find this woman and then we can get outta here.”
“Fine.” You put your hands on your hips.
“Don’t fine me, darlin.’” Flip mocked your posture, also putting his hands on his hips. “I know what fine means.”
“This is ridiculous. I’ll find this damn woman in black myself.” You turned on your heel and walked away.
Flip took a bounding step after you and grabbed your arm roughly, stopping you. “You’re making a fuckin’ scene.”
“Is this guy bothering you, miss?” The bartender asked, a clear warning in his voice.
You looked at Flip’s hand where he gripped your arm and cocked an eyebrow. Flip slackened his grip and you yanked your arm free. You strode purposely through the bar and toward the series of the Broadmoor event rooms. You looked over your shoulder once just to make sure Flip was following you. He was, of course, walking stiffly a few paces behind with his shoulders set and eyes narrowed, looking ready and eager to bust some heads. The hotel was crowded with holiday traffic and you both knew he couldn’t grab you again without making an even bigger scene.
At the door to the private room, Flip caught you again, grabbing the door handle in front of you and pinning you close with his body from behind. To an observer, it might look affectionate but his body was rigid against you and his tone angry, “This isn’t the time or place for you to act like a goddamn prima donna. Knock it off.”
“Just think, all this because you had to answer Ron’s call this morning.” You grinned and before he had time to process the implications of your words, you pushed his hand down on the door handle and leaned into it.
Flip stumbled into the event room right at your back, a little off balance and fuming.
“Surprise!” A chorus of voices shouted inside the room.
Flip was nearly stunned by the cacophony of light and movement and shouting assholes inside the room. He stood, still gawkily positioned mid-stumble, blinking like a deer in the headlights. There were sparkly lights and girly decorations done in black and gold, and a table set with a giant cake and a few buckets of champagne. Music blared noisily from somewhere. All his traitorous friends smiled at him, Stallworth leading the charge of ingrates. Festive lights even shimmered on the greasy dome of Goldleaf’s head. The group of traitors yelled “Surprise!” again and then broke into a terrible round of Happy Birthday. Flip straightened and smoothed a hand over his suit, trying to look dignified while feeling like an absolute jackass for falling for this shit.
There was little Flip hated more in life than surprise parties. He forced a smile and thought that maybe it wasn’t as bad as those times he’d been shot. But no. The first time, he’d gotten some really good drugs. The second time, he got six weeks off and left the hell alone. The third time had given him one of your favorite scars that made him feel even tougher than he was. No, a surprise party was far worse than getting shot.
Flip squared his shoulders and put on his game face, steeling himself to endure a long night of socializing. He pulled you to his side just a little roughly and joined his own birthday party.
“That party must have cost a fortune,” Flip bemoaned. “I hope you didn’t foot the bill just to torture me.”
“Not a dime, actually. The owner of the Broadmoor is a client. Or rather, his son on his eighth DWI is,” you said nonchalantly. “He’s innocent, of course. Or rather, he will be once I’m done with him.”
Flip made a noncommittal grunt, still in the throes of post-party-trauma.
“He also threw in a free suite.” You looped your arm through Flip’s and steered him toward the elevators. “I’m sure you’ll like it more.”
The suite was equipped with a private balcony and hottub for guests who liked to enjoy the snowy alpine winters along with a steaming soak and a glass of wine. Flip held the door open for you like a perfect gentleman before slamming it closed behind him after following you inside. He held you at arm’s length when you tried to close the distance between you.
“I need a shower. I’ve been sweatin’ bullets all day thanks to you.” His lips were poutier than usual as he unbuttoned his shirt. Shrugging roughly out of it, he balled it up in his hands and threw it into the furthest corner of the room. Flip paused to glare at the shirt where it landed on the floor and huff a few breaths before storming into the bathroom as he unbuckled his belt. The slam of the bathroom door reverberated through the room when he kicked it closed. He continued to grumble and cuss under his breath inside the bathroom. The few words you could make out seemed to be in vehement criticism of birthdays and surprise parties and pondering the eternal question of just how much bullshit one man can take.
Smiling to yourself at his grouchiness, you decided to wait for him in the hottub on the balcony. Steaming jets and your warm touch would be just the ticket to turn his anger into something a lot more enjoyable for you both.
As you peeled your own clothes away, you could still hear him bitching from inside the bathroom and it made you grin. The icy air hit you when you stepped naked out onto the balcony. Goosebumps rose across your skin, breath fogged from your lips, and your nipples peaked instantly at the chill as you quickly covered the few steps to the hottub. The crisp winter air made the hot water even more welcoming, and a cloud of steam surrounded you when you lowered yourself into the bubbling water. Leaning your head back against the edge of the hottub, you felt all the tension leaving your body as you waited for Flip.
“I’m out here,” you called when you heard him emerge. “Come keep me company.”
Flip’s face and chest were still flushed from the heat of his shower when he walked onto the balcony, scowling. Pausing to linger in the doorway, towel slung around his hips, he leaned against the doorframe. He had to fight to keep his face stern as he looked down at your bare curves sitting tantalizingly amid the steam.
“You’re not bad lookin’ for a double agent,” he told you, sucking at his teeth.
“Evil machinations are much easier when you’re pretty,” you teased and beckoned him to join you with a curled finger. “Don’t just stand there gawking about it, handsome.”
His scowl turned into something far more devilish as he tossed his towel back into the room and lowered himself into the hottub beside you. Slinging one arm behind you along the rim of the hottub, Flip wasted no time in pulling you close. Beside you, he turned to kiss your cheek, to nuzzle his nose softly against your skin along your jaw before he moved his lips to the place below your ear. Inhaling your scent, he began to lose himself in you. His kisses drifted to your neck and turned more biting and heated when you raised your hand to stroke his cheek.
“I’m sure sorry for takin’ that call,” he mumbled against your skin.
“Are you?” you asked with a laugh. “We’ll see if you learn anything from it.”
“I’m a quick learner.” Flip couldn’t help but laugh as his hand trailed up your thigh.
Turning into him, you met his lips while he teased you with his fingers. Flip kissed you hungrily, his lingering anger coming out in his eager tongue licking into your mouth, his teeth clicking against yours, and his thick fingers pushing into you.
“We’re not done celebrating yet,” you whispered into his kiss. “Your real birthday present is that I took next week off and arranged with the chief to note you as staking out a cabin for the week.”
He laughed when you told him the location, “That’s our address.”
“Is it really?” you feigned ignorance. “I’d call it a paid vacation on the taxpayers. As someone who gets shafted by Uncle Sam almost as often as I get it from you, I see no problem at all.”
“I thought you had work tomorrow?” Flip asked, looking at you with deep lusting respect.
“You thought so, yes,” you teased. “I’m off too.”
“So, you have to put me through the ringer first to earn it, huh?” He nipped your neck.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a grouchy bastard, you wouldn’t invite being screwed with, hmmm?” You twisted your fingers into his hair. “But we’ll never know.”
“A surprise party is playin’ dirty,” he said against your neck. “That’s hittin’ below the belt.”
“Funny thing is that I agree with you.” You tugged his hair sharply enough for it to be a reprimand. “Ron badly wanted to throw you a surprise party for your fortieth. I told him that I was giving you what you really wanted for the weekend, and that you would absolutely hate a surprise party. After a debate, Ron and I agreed that if he could entice you away from me today, he could inflict his surprise party upon you and I’d help lure you into it. It was insultingly easy for him, I might add. I really thought he’d have a harder time. So, I think it’s only fair to make you suffer a little on top of it. Serves you right for leaving me for your work wife.”
“So, you all gang up on me, huh? Wonderful.” He grinned. “You almost gave me a heart attack with that fuckin’ paternity horseshit. You arranged that awfully fast.”
“I thought it was nice icing on the cake,” you grinned back. “How long do you think it takes me to type a paternity petition? Fifteen minutes tops. Goldleaf is always happy to screw with you and so is Cheatum. A good time had by all. And just think, you chose all this.” You gestured grandly to encompass the enormity of the shitshow Flip had gotten himself into, “instead of staying shut in in bed with me all day.”
“I’ll never answer my phone again unless it’s you,” Flip huffed a laugh.
Deciding he had suffered enough for now, you slung your leg over his lap to straddle him. His cock was already deliciously hard and ready for you when you sank down onto him. No matter how many times he fucked you, it was always wonderfully intense before you adjusted to accommodate him. Flip’s hands smoothed down your sides, caressing you gently now before his fingers would grip bruises into you as you rode him. He kissed your neck and rolled his hips beneath you, groaning in that heady way of his when he was losing himself in the pleasure of your body.
The water sloshed in the hottub and steam whirled around you both as he fucked an orgasm out of you and followed you down into a warm, blissful afterglow. After several moments, cock still buried inside of you, he kissed your neck a few final times and raised his head to look at you with a satisfied grin.
“I hope this birthday was one to remember, old timer,” you teased as you moved your hands to rub the knots in his broad shoulders. “Forty’s a big one.”
“I really hate birthdays,” was his only grumbled response.
“Spoken just like a grumpy old man,” you said amid a fresh stream of soft laughter.
“Real funny, sugar.” Flip nipped at your skin before pulling you close again for round two. “Happy fuckin’ birthday to me.”
I saw this on Twitter and thought it'd be fun to do here as a mini celebration. Interaction has been so dead on here for everyone, it'd be fun to liven it back up! Everyone feel free to play along!
Favorite Movie(s)
The Last Duel! I love that movie. Blackkklansman is the runner up.
I actually don't care for most of his other movies at all in terms of the movie itself. 65, The Report, and Logan Lucky were decent, but definitely second tier.
Favorite Character(s)
Jacques, Flip, and Mills
Favorite Co-Star(s)
Ben Affleck blows absolutely everyone else out of the water! "Come In! Take your pants off!"
Bill Murray and John David Washington are runners up, and I loved Jeremy Irons in Gucci.
Favorite Love Interest(s)
None so far! Rey and Hanna are my absolute least favorites. I hate them, honestly. Jodie Cromer was my favorite female lead in one of his movies. Lady Gaga and Marion Cottilard were alright too. I like Scarlett Johannson the best as a stand alone actress, but I hated her character in Marriage Story. I anticipate liking Aubrey Plaza
Favorite Scene(s)
Jousting and kicking ass are hard to beat!
Favorite Sex Scene(s)
All the scenes from Last Duel! I don't care how offensive that is!
This scene from The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.
Girls seasons 5 and 6 were hard to beat. The couch scene in season 5 is pretty nice.
Favorite SNL Skit(s)
Slow for obvious reasons.
Undercover Boss Part 2
Favorite Line(s)
Dream Role(s)
I got a Knight with Jacques and an Action Hero with Mills, both of which were high on my list. I'd love to see him as a Vampire, a Dark Victorian Gentleman, an Old West Gunfighter, an Adventurer, and a John Wick style Hitman or Action Hero.
Oh, and he needs to be his actual age and not have goddamn face prosthetics, altered hairlines, or terrible fucking haircuts!
Dream Co-Star(s)
Love Interests: Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, Margot Robbie, Ana De Armas, and Lily Rose Depp for size kink purposes.
Co-Stars: Another hot guy like Goran Visnjic or Gerard Butler. Keanu Reeves would also be a blast.
Directors: Ridley Scott (again), Clint Eastwood, Tim Burton, Robert Eggars, Quentin Tarantino.
