Lost Angeles

by Mantchev, Lisa

  LOST ANGELES

  Lisa Mantchev and A.L. Purol

  Copyright © 2015 Lisa Mantchev and A.L. Purol

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781495158810

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written consent from the publisher and author, except in the instance of quotes for reviews. No part of this book may be uploaded without the permission of the publisher and author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is originally published.

  This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, actual events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters and names are products of the authors imagination and used fictitiously.

  The publisher and author acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.

  For Charles Dickens and Anne Rice, neither of whom got it exactly right

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lore

  Golden eyes. Silver teeth. And blood.

  Golden eyes. Silver teeth. So much—

  A strong slap to the face interrupts the looping nightmare. “Get up, kid.”

  It’s pretty crap in the introduction department, but I can’t help the overwhelming relief that accompanies waking up. Breathing hard, heart pounding in my chest, it takes me a few blinks to bring everything into focus.

  His eyes are blue; that’s the first thing I notice. Blue, clear like a cloudless sky, and so bright that it hurts to look at them. Beyond that, the stranger’s got dark hair and a square jaw with enough stubble on it to contradict the gel-shell on top of his head. Everything is classic: lips, jawline, nose. Hell, the guy’s probably packing a fig leaf in the expensive jeans belted neatly around his classically narrow hips.

  Belted with a diamond-studded, shield-shaped buckle… that’s got a silver cross on it.

  “What the fuck?” I can only mumble. “Where am I?”

  Because I don’t know, and when I do a mental backtrack, there’s nothing in my sketchy recollections but hazy snippets and blurred lines.

  Yeah, those kind.

  “You’re in Vegas,” the stranger says. “You smoked crack and married Noah Carmichael.”

  “Bullshit,” I tell him, rubbing at the grit in my eyes. “Noah Carmichael will never get married.”

  “But you’d smoke crack, huh?”

  I frown as I look this guy up and down, trying to place him in the gaping hole that’s last night. A second later, the sudden rumbling vibration of the air conditioner kicks on, and I swear the temperature drops twenty degrees in two seconds flat. It’s the nipple-scrunching chill that knocks my brain into gear, and then my current situation slams home.

  “Oh, my god.” Jackknifing upward, I prop an arm behind me on the bed and wince at the sudden head rush. There’s a haze over my thoughts, a thin veneer of slime coating every sensation currently coursing through my veins. My body aches in a haven’tworked-those-muscles-in-a-while way that tells me that, for at least a portion of my evening, I wasn’t alone in this bed. I curl my hands in a set of crunchy sheets and clutch them against my chest. “I’m naked.”

  “What tipped you off?” the stranger grunts over his shoulder. “Was it the cool breeze shooting up your ass, or the fact that your underwear are hanging from the ceiling fan?”

  I glance up, heat rushing to my cheeks when I catch sight of the scrap of pink fabric slowly spinning around and around with each revolution of the fan blades.

  At least it looks like I had fun.

  I think.

  As my wake-up call digs underneath the bed, fishes out a shoe, and collects my jeans, I let my eyes wander, desperately trying to recall last night. My gaze flickers outward, upward, all around, taking in the shiny off-white walls, the paint-by-number pictures tacked to them, and the old-as-hell television perched atop a cheap dresser that looks like a relic from 1974. On the periphery are ice-block glass windows and yellow-brown shag carpet with several unsavory stains that I don’t even want to consider.

  “Come on, kid,” the stranger says, chucking a pile of clothes at my head. “We need to get the hell outta here.”

  The legs of my jeans end up wrapped unceremoniously around my skull, threads of ripped-up denim catching on my nose ring. After I disentangle myself, I’m right back to staring my newest friend right in his impatient ass as he forages for lost articles of clothing. Face-slapping aside, I don’t feel especially threatened by Fig Leaf. Quite the opposite, I almost feel relieved that he’s here. Like I woke up and, boom, there’s my dad, glaring down at me with equal parts disappointment and concern. It’s the same expression I got the day I left home, so similar it’s eerie, which would make it really awkward if me and this stranger—

  Gross.

  “Did I… um, did we…?”

  Fig Leaf stops moving around the room, his dark brows pulling together and his face scrunching up in confusion. I lift one hand and make a gesture that encompasses the both of us. Me and him.

  Him and me.

  Abruptly, his features twist into an indecipherable expression. “No, we didn’t.” He fishes my other shoe from behind the television set. “You’re not really my type. I tend to prefer them a little…” He thinks about it for a second before finishing with, “sluttier?”

  I can’t help but gape at him. Waking up in some cheap motel with a complete stranger isn’t exactly my usual MO, but according to Fig Leaf, naked on a strange bed, with a strange man, in a very strange situation, somehow equates to not slutty enough.

  “Do you remember anything from last night?” he asks, sounding as if he already knows the answer and wholeheartedly disapproves.

  “Not so much,” I hear myself saying, “but maybe if I sit here and stare at your stupid butt-chin for a while, it’ll come back to me—”

  “Heya, blondie.” His voice is low and pleasing, tinged with the arrogance of someone who thinks they’ve stumbled upon a sure thing. “Come here often?”

  “Often enough.” I take a sip of my free post-show beer without shifting my eyes away from the act that’s currently playing O’Reilly’s pitted stage. “Also, worst pickup line in the history of ever, dude.”

  “Not the worst,” he says, laughing when I snort a little. “I could have asked if you fell from heaven.”

  “I did. It hurt.” I lift the bottle to my lips for another swig before the heavy glass base hits the bar again. “A lot.”

  “Aren’t you exhausted?” he asks. “Because you’ve been running through my mind all day.”

  “Nope.” I slide my finger around and around the ring of condensation on the bar. “I don’t run. If I ran, I’d knock myself out with my own boobies.”

  “I dunno,” he says. “The Baywatch babes managed it, somehow.”

  “Thanks for the mid-nineties newsflash, Hasselhoff.” I roll the bottle between my palms. “What do you want?”

  “I want to have a good time,” he tells me, and I feel the soft brush of fingers across my shoulder, my neck, hot breath in my ear that raises goosebumps all over me. “I want to strip you naked and take all your nightmares away.” His voice seems distant, like it’s echoing down an empty hallway in my head.

  “You’ve got it all wrong, buddy.” When I pull myself out of his grasp, everything tilts a little, sliding sideways, and the next words are slurred. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

  When I try to get up, I nearly fall off the stool. The bartender, a face without a name, reaches over the bar and grasps my arm so I don’t fall down. I grip t
he wood, trying desperately to steady myself, but all I can manage is a white-knuckled cling.

  From far away, the stranger says, “Looks like you’ve had a little too much to drink, Lo. We should probably get you home.”

  His hands are on me again, holding me up, and all I can see of his face are a pair of silvery eyes. The rest is a blur, and a second later, it all just slips away.

  “Home…”

  “Earth to Lourdes.”

  The hotel comes back in a flash. Fig Leaf is standing at the foot of the bed, hands on his hips.

  “Want to get a move-on? I mean, unless you want me to pack you out of here naked.”

  One hand to my forehead, I stare at the wad of clothes in my lap, straining to remember the rest. I had a little bit, for a moment, but then it all went blank, and when I try to reach for it—

  “Could you wait a minute?” I say, and hold up one finger. “I just need like… two seconds.”

  “We don’t have a minute. Or two seconds, for that matter.” He hucks the other shoe into my lap with all the rest. “Up and at ’em.”

  “Well, what about them?” I say.

  “Who?”

  Jabbing one finger upward, I watch those blue eyes tilt toward the ceiling, taking in the pink flag of my panties as they whirl around at top speed. The distraction buys me the precious seconds that I need to slow my heart rate, to take a breath, to swallow, to mentally regurgitate a few of the mantras they used at the institution. I don’t pray, because I’m pretty sure there is no God, but the doctors taught me a thing or two about managing my reality.

  After a second of consideration, Fig Leaf looks back at me, his face etched with irritation. “You don’t need them.”

  “Am I being kidnapped?”

  “If I say yes, will you move faster?”

  My gaze flicks toward the hotel door as I assess my odds of escape. “Probably not.”

  “Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, Lourdes,” he counters. I raise my brow at that, because it’s like every curse word and none of them all rolled into one. “Get the fuck up and put on your clothes.”

  “Cheese ’n’ rice, Fig Leaf, take it easy.” Climbing from the bed, I shake out my jeans. “What’s the damn hurry anyway?”

  “You’re late, and I’m your ride. Or do you want to miss your audition at Scion?”

  My heart jumps into my throat as my head swivels, eyes seeking out the standard issue digital clock on the hotel nightstand. I am late, or I will be if I don’t get the hell out of here right now. Underwear be damned, I start pulling on clothes as fast as I can, bra inside-out, shirt backwards, but none of it matters because the girly bits are covered.

  “Shit, my laptop!” Panic on top of more panic. I had it with me when I went to O’Reilly’s yesterday evening. Needed it for the gig. I try to retrace the steps, following everything backwards to the last place I saw the laptop alive.

  At the pub. After my set. Before… before what?

  Fuck. Fuck. What the crap happened last night?

  “I could have asked if you fell from heaven…”

  When I spin around, Fig Leaf is there, the strap of my computer case already slung over his shoulder, and I don’t even have the grace to wonder where he found it. Behind the TV probably, or in the bathtub. It hardly matters, considering I’m not even sure where I am or how I got here or who I was with. Or who the hell he is, slapping me awake and throwing clothes at me like he’s my fucking dad.

  It’s happening again.

  Fig Leaf stares at me with no little bit of concern. “You okay, kid?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Except, I’m not; I’m one hyperventilation bag away from a complete freak-out, and he seems to realize it a second later. Strong hands come up, smooth palms meeting the bare skin of my jaw. He starts nodding and keeps at it until I follow suit. The words tumble out of him, chased by thoughts that are clear as those damn eyes of his.

  “It’s all right, kid.” Take a breath. “I’ve got you now.” I can’t change the past. “It’s going to be fine.” But we’ll see about the future. “Okay?” Together.

  “Okay,” I find myself repeating. A shiver runs down my spine, but it seems to take all the angst and trepidation with it. I don’t know what kind of motivational mojo Fig Leaf is packing, but whatever it is, it’s powerful stuff.

  “Okay. Great. Awesome. Fabulous. Now, we need to get the fuck outta here.” One of those capable hands curls around my bicep and hauls me toward the door before I’ve even managed to put my shoes on. Apparently I’m out of time, because the next second he slips a smooth gold disk into the palm of my hand with a curt, “Hold onto this for me, will ya, kid?”

  I stare down at the coin settled in the dip of my hand. It’s like some sort of magic trick prop, the smooth surface manifesting the image of a bird: a dove maybe, or something similar. No time to study it, because Fig Leaf drags me toward the exit like so much baggage. He pauses only long enough to close his other hand around the knob before he wrenches it open—

  And draws up short because another man’s standing there.

  “Jackson,” the newcomer murmurs, betraying not a speck of surprise.

  Fig Leaf tightens down on everything until I can practically feel his butthole pucker. Bachelor Number Two behind Door Number One has eyes so dark that I can’t even distinguish between the pupils and irises. Black hair falls in gentle waves to his shoulders, so that even the ultra-clean lines of his suit feel the tiniest bit Old World. The leather gloves, though, they’re the same bright red as Dorothy’s ruby slippers and twice as out of place in the Los Angeles heat. The whole effect weirds me out a little, raising the hairs on my arms and sending a tiny chill racing down my spine.

  “Dickhead,” my chaperon fires back at him. “Perfect timing, as usual.”

  “Still the epitome of class, I see. It’s been a long time, old friend.”

  “I’m not your friend. Now, move.”

  I glance between the two of them, feeling like the filling in some kind of hangover sandwich. “Of course you know each other. Of course you do. Am I being punked?”

  Both men ignore me in favor of glaring holes into one another.

  “How long has it been, Jackson?” Red Gloves arches one black brow. “Couple of decades, at least. You must be feeling a bit old these days.”

  My blue-eyed companion—the man named Jackson—shoots a glance my way, like he’s checking to see if I’m paying attention. He doesn’t look old to me. There isn’t a stray white hair on his head, not a single wrinkle on his face beyond a few laugh lines at the corners of his mouth. Forty, tops.

  He tightens his grasp on my arm, tugging me to his side “You’re too late.”

  Those dark eyes are deadly calm when Red Gloves says, “She’s mine.”

  “Not anymore.” Jackson’s grasp slides down to my wrist, and he raises my hand to eye level to display my fingers still clamped down on the gold coin.

  I don’t know what it means, but my eyes are drawn to the little tic of a muscle in the other man’s jaw. He stares impassively at my fist, but the tension is palpable.

  “I could take her alive,” Red Gloves says.

  “Yes, but then you’d have to take her,” Jackson shoots back. “And no fight between us has ever ended well for you.”

  “Whoa, whoa!” I blurt out. “Nobody’s fighting anyone!”

  “Shut up,” Jackson barks.

  Panic bubbles up in my chest. I don’t know either of these men. My blue-eyed kidnapper seems to know a few things about me, but whatever squishy feelings I was entertaining back on the bed fly right out the window in the face of the strange, electric intensity crackling between the two of them.

  Jackson returns his attention to the other man. “Unless you want to wipe the slate clean?”

  He uses my hand to offer the coin to Red Gloves, peeling back my curled fingers to expose the golden disk. I swallow a little thickly, because I get the feeling that I’m witnessing something huge
here. Something epic. Something earth-shattering.

  Something biblical.

  Red Gloves’s stoic expression betrays nothing in the way of emotion. It’s not until I see him swallow, until I actually witness the slow bobbing motion of his Adam’s apple that I realize something.

  He’s afraid.

  “Yeah,” Jackson says with a smug smile as he closes my fingers again. “That’s what I thought.”

  Coward.

  He doesn’t speak the word out loud, but I can hear it all the same, a tiny unspoken thing that pings between them.

  Challenge not accepted.

  Red Gloves draws himself up and fixes Jackson with a stony stare, pride ruffling all his feathers. “Your time is coming, sooner rather than later. And when you’re gone—”

  “Whatever, asshole.” Jackson cuts him off, hauling me around the other man as if hell is on his heels. “Better luck next time. Call me when you find your balls.”

  Then I have two options: I can either follow him or get dragged like a recalcitrant cat on a leash. It takes a few steps on sharp pebbles to register the fact that I’m still barefoot. Hopping along behind Jackson, I manage to get one ballet flat on, and good thing too, because the entire parking lot is nothing but gravel and broken glass. I shove my other foot into the second shoe, but the exercise was enough to leave me slightly winded when I demand, “Who are you?”

  “Consider me your guardian angel, kid.”

  “What does that make him?” I jerk a thumb at the man standing in the hotel room doorway.

  “The goddamn devil,” Jackson answers bitterly, leading me toward a gunmetal-grey Audi parked next to the glittering swimming pool.

  It’s a joke, but a really bad one. Vampires might be mainstream now—amazing what a couple hundred years and scientific proof that they’re simply one rung up the evolutionary ladder can do—but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t looking over their collective, fragile, human shoulders and wondering what’s next?

  “Yeah, right,” I scoff as I give him the once-over. “He was way more polite than you, and you swear too much for an angel.”

  “You talk too much for a woman.”