by Michele Hauf
Closing her eyes, Mersey nodded. “It’s worth another look.”
She bent to kiss him, and Jack pulled down the front of her shirt to kiss the crescent mark on her breast.
“You think so?” she murmured, eyes dancing in challenge.
“I know so, little girl. Let’s shag.”
“How can I resist a romantic come-on like that?”
Jack sat on the curb outside his building. It was barely seven in the morning. The roads were empty of traffic and a light mist shrouded the city. Cool rain dusted his face. After making love until the wee hours, he’d woken to find Mersey’s side of the bed cool. Shards from yet another ring had been tucked in a fold of the sheets. She’d just left? Without so much as a note. She had to be the singularly most frustrating woman he’d ever met.
A black cat curled its tail along Jack’s back. The thing purred so loudly, Jack took the hint and reached out to scratch under its chin. That, it loved, so much so that it climbed onto Jack’s lap and put its paws up on his chest.
More, it seemed to say with a meowr.
“You like affection, eh, pussycat?” He obligingly scratched, slicking away the jewels of rain tipping the cat’s fur, and the purrs hummed against his chest, chasing away his frazzled thoughts. Breathing deeply the misted air, Jack drew in calm, and nodded. “Gorgeous black fur. And you’re talkative, aren’t you? Just like a woman I know. She purrs when she comes. It’s amazing.”
Jack bracketed the cat’s head and peered into its vivid green eyes.
“There’s something familiar about your eyes.”
The green eyes glinted and smiled. The cat did not stop purring, in fact, its noise increased, as if pleased.
“Mersey? Nod your head if this is you.”
The cat tilted its head, purring even louder.
“That could have been a nod. Blimey. So it’s really you?” He gave her neck another scratch. “Why’d you leave? Need to do some prowling? I guess I can understand. Don’t worry, it doesn’t bother me.”
And it didn’t, for reasons he couldn’t even touch. All Jack knew was that Mersey sat on his lap purring, and nothing felt more right in the world. He stroked her fur and coiled his fingers down her sleek tail.
“So this whole familiar thing is a little weird. Maybe you can teach me things?”
“Sure,” a voice said from behind him. Mersey, the human-form woman Jack knew, squatted beside him and patted the cat on the head. “First lesson? Sometimes a cat is just a cat.”
“Oh, Christ.” Jack shoved the cat away and it mewled in protest. Stretching out her legs and heeling her boots into the tarmac, Mersey shooed away the curious cat. She wore striped tights beneath the long skirt and combat boots. “Did you think that was me?”
“Of course not. Er, where did you come from?”
“That way.” She pointed down the roadway and then settled closer to him on the curb. “Should I be jealous that you’re cozying up with other kitties?”
Relieved she was teasing, yet still embarrassed that he’d been holding conversation with a plain old cat, Jack leaned forward, elbows to knees and shook his head.
“I just thought…I know familiars change to cats and vice versa. Why did you leave?”
She hefted a grocery bag. “Thought I’d make breakfast. Were you looking for me?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, I should have left a note. So you know about a familiar’s ability to change shapes?”
“Actually, I’ve known since I was eight.”
“Ah. The same year you received the ball of wonder from your aunt?”
“Yep. I used to live in the countryside, west of Shrewsbury. A big oak forest backed up to our land. I played in it every day.”
“I love forests. They’re so magical.”
“So it would seem. Your St.Yve wood isn’t particularly normal.”
“Normal is so dull.”
“Since knowing you, that is a philosophy I can completely get behind.”
He kissed her mouth and rubbed his cheek aside hers, catching a lowtoned purr. God, he loved her purrs.
“Anyway, I was out one night, lurking along the borders of the forest, as I usually did. I was a boy. That’s what we did—lurk. Had my trusty wishing ball with me.”
“A symbol of mystical and dark enchantments. Were you trying to conjure magic?”
Jack shrugged and swiped a hand over his five o’clock stubbled chin. “I suppose so. I don’t remember what I said exactly, or how it happened, when suddenly this cat padded right across my chest and scampered off and into a clearing. I was about to throw a stone at it, when it changed.”
He had never recounted the happening. Not even to his parents. It felt right now; he trusted Mersey. A child’s curious excitement stirred in his belly.
“The cat changed into a woman. A naked woman. And she was fat.”
“Jack!”
“Though, to look back now, I know that she was pregnant. She was glowing and had long black hair, same color as the cat. She scampered across the field, and before she disappeared into the forest, she turned and looked right at me and winked.”
“You witnessed a familiar changing. Jack, that’s so awesome.”
“Awesome? I was scared out of my gourd. And not so much at seeing a cat change to a lady, but for seeing a naked lady, you understand? I wasn’t yet at the age where I could appreciate a naked woman.”
“You’ve grown into a very appreciative man.”
“I have.” He nuzzled into her palm and kissed it, finding her heat delicious. “Anyway, that’s when the demon appeared above the woman. It was going to hurt her, I knew it. So I threw the glass ball and hit it.”
“Really?”
“I pitched for my school’s cricket team. I thought I’d defeated a monster, you know? Then it came after me and touched me with its long tongue.”
“Tapped you?”
“I don’t think so. It wasn’t painful, just frightening. There was a burn on my shirt for which I got switched later—but it didn’t hurt.”
“Interesting. Demons usually don’t tap young mortal children. If anything, they usually go for the pubescent girls.”
“You mean Exorcist kind of stuff?”
Mersey shrugged. “Never heard much about them.”
Interesting that she didn’t know about exorcisms. P-Cell had trained him in the rare event he came upon a possessed human. Exorcisms were one thing Jack hoped never to have to perform.
“Anyway, I ran straight home and locked myself in my room. I shoved that strange glass ball deep into my sock drawer.”
“And you never tried your magic again?”
“It wasn’t my magic. It wasn’t even the gazing ball. I know now, it was being in the right place at the wrong time. Though at the time I believed it magic.”
“You still do. Admit it. You need to begin to recognize that belief, Jack the Demon Frightener.”
“What did you say?”
“I called you Jack the Demon Frightener. Because you are.”
“That’s the same thing the lady said after I’d scared the demon away. And then later—”
“She came back to you?”
“Yes, and…yes. It was weird, and at the time, scared the shivers from me. Later that night, when the moon was high and my folks were snoring in the next room, there was this awful scratching noise at my window. I knew right away it was that bloody cat. I pressed my nose to the window, but wasn’t about to open it.”
“You thought you’d be inviting a naked fat lady into your room?”
“Oh, you know it!” He clasped both her hands and held them to his mouth a moment, as he hid his guilty smile, “So, the cat sat there, incessantly scratching, then finally it opened it jaws and out dropped a black ring onto the sill. Then it leapt to the ground and scurried away.”
“A black ring?”
“Yes. Like the ones you wear. Anyway, I didn’t dare open the window, and by morning I had forgotten all about i
t. I didn’t remember until days later when I was chasing a cricket around the house and saw that ring. I thought it was cursed, so I took it and buried it—Mersey?”
She stood up beside him, her fingers working in balls clasped before her.
“What’s wrong? Did I say something?”
“Huh? No. Er, you buried the ring? Did you ever dig it up?”
“Hell, no. It’s probably part of a grand old oak tree now. Right at the edge of the forest where I used to go to hide in the branches when Mum called me to take a bath.”
“I’ve got to go.” She shoved the groceries into his hands and took off.
“Sorry! Rain check on breakfast.”
“But, Mersey, wait!”
She was already running—running—away from him.
For the life of him, Jack couldn’t figure what he’d said wrong.
“Not this time,” he muttered as he stood and raced after her. “No more running. We’re going to start talking, Mersey Bane. If it kills us.”
Chapter 21
A fter running up to his flat for the keys, Jack commandeered the Range Rover and quickly tracked Mersey’s white Volkswagen. This time he wasn’t concerned so much with losing her because he remembered the drive. At least, until he got as far as where the snowstorm had struck. So far, the sky looked clear, no flakes in sight. On the passenger seat, the glass ball rocked with the motion of the car. He didn’t think about why he’d brought that along. It had been a feeling that Jack reacted to, so he’d grabbed it as he’d left his flat. He wasn’t prepared when the road came to a complete end. No left turn. No right access. The road just ended. And yet he could still see Mersey’s taillights straight ahead.
“Lovely. Just bloody rich. Now what, wise guy?”
Mersey ran down the hallway to the private residents’ quarters. She didn’t stop until the bed in her room caught her body. She slid across the old handmade quilt spotted with tufts of faded red yarn, her fingers landing on the drawer pull of the Louis XIV nightstand. Inside sat a small red glass box, no larger than a tin of breath mints. Heartbeats pounding in anticipation, she sat cross-legged on the bed and huddled over the treasure.
Inside, one remaining hematite ring slid across the mirrored bottom as she tilted it. She took it out and held it before her, slinking backward to lie on the bed.
She had always worn eight of the rings on her right hand. Protection. But two remained. Her mother had had the rings bespelled before Mersey’s birth. She’d gifted them to Mersey on her tenth birthday—
three days before Mirabelle Bane’s death.
A twinge of sadness tugged at the corner of Mersey’s mouth. It was almost as if her mother had known she was not long for this earth. Mersey distinctly recalled how upset she’d been to see her mother packing up valuables and giving away her clothes. “Only the necessities,”
Mirabelle Bane had said to her daughter. “I don’t need things. They’re just clutter.” Even Mirabelle’s assignments with the Cadre had come to completion a week before Mersey’s birthday.
An ache had grown in her gut, as Mersey silently stood by, not daring to ask her mother if she had plans to flee or run off. Something ominous was about to happen.
Mirabelle Bane’s body had never been found. Mersey had cried for weeks.
She would never forget the portentous words her mother had given her that evening she’d gifted Mersey the red glass box. “Inside are nine, for you. But there are ten in total. Thanks to the spell, they will protect and alert you to danger—most especially to a particular demon—but they are not armor.”
Mersey had nodded and tried on a few. The smaller rings had loosely fit her thumb. Not until her teens had she been able to wear them all. The right hand represented her future. As a palm reader, her mother had told Mersey her left hand represented her past, and one should cherish memories, but never seek to protect them. The past must remain as it was. Mersey had chosen to wear eight of the rings, thinking one must be preserved in case the others were lost.
“Or broken,” she whispered now.
“Ten total?” Mersey had questioned her mother because her little box had contained but nine.
“There is one other,” Mirabelle had said, with a twinkle to her emerald eyes.
Mersey rolled over on the bed now and sought the square of green calico she’d oft traced when younger. The brilliant emerald of her mother’s eyes forever preserved in this palm-sized square of fabric.
“I’ve given it to the one whom I approve for you, daughter,” her mother had said. “You will know him when you see a similar ring on his finger, and he will tell you a cat gave it to him.”
The cat? Mersey’s mother in feline shape. She had chosen Mersey’s mate while Mersey yet grew in her belly.
She was a naked fat lady. I know now that she was pregnant.
“My mother approved Jack Harris?” Mersey slipped the ninth, and largest, ring down her thumb. “He must have been so young then. How could my mother have known? And how could she guess I would ever see him in my lifetime?”
But he didn’t wear the ring.
They were fashioned from common hematite, actually mass-made and sold in huge bowls at festivals and shops. Mersey had seen them many times.
Jack could have been talking about any ring. Not necessarily the one ring Mirabelle Bane had bespelled and then had given to a boy. Any boy in this whole, huge world.
Of course, it would be an incredible coincidence that Jack had witnessed a familiar transforming to human shape as a child. And to have that same familiar then drop a hematite ring outside his bedroom window?
Had the one man her mother approved for Mersey actually found her?
“I must find out for sure—” she sat up on the bed “—if Jack is the one.”
Jack peered through an iron gate and across the small flowered front yard nestled before a cozy cottage. Covered over with climbing vines and blooming white and pink flowers, the home looked like a faery-tale retreat where the princess always fled, yet found dark, growling evils waiting for her within.
He tried the gate, but it wouldn’t budge. Two stone gargoyles guarded each post. Their wings spanned across the gate, touching in the middle. There was no sign of a latch.
He’d seen light from the road, a glimmer like a winking eye.
“Hello?” he called.
A pulse in his chest, behind the scar, alerted him. Was Beryth with him? He searched the sky, knowing he would not see the demon. A sniff didn’t scent brimstone.
Something shifted in the garden. The swaying red-petaled flowers and lavender stalks couldn’t disguise a garish orange frock. A little old lady?
“I’m lost!” Jack tried. “I need directions, if you please.”
If he could get through this gate, he felt sure access to the Cadre would follow.
Both gargoyles silently growled at him, their wings canopied over his head, the talons digging into the stone pedestals. In preparation to attack?
Jack slid a hand behind his back, securing the gun tucked in his waistband. Another pulse at his scar made him wince. The gun was loaded with salt shells. If Beryth was lingering close by, he’d be ready.
“I’ve lost my traveling companion,” he called. “Mersey Bane? She’s a good friend.”
The orange frock swirled about, and though the distance was too far for Jack to get a good fix on the face, he did see the waving hand. But it wasn’t a friendly wave. More…commanding?
A hush of hot air stole over Jack’s scalp.
Instinct scurried a chill shiver up his spine. Beryth? Stepping back and looking up out of the corner of his eye, he verified that the hot air had come from now-moving stone jaws. Wings spread, and a silent stony yowl took escape.
Not the demon Beryth, but something more startling.
“Right then. Not the friendly sorts, are you?”
Backing slowly down the pathway he’d come, Jack tugged out his gun. The first gargoyle took to flight. The wingspan stretched ten feet
and gushed the air with a mighty rumble.
Taking aim, Jack pulled the trigger. Stone exploded and scattered. Jack turned and broke into a sprint. The second gargoyle cut through the sky behind him. The noise of its wings was like rocks tumbling down the side of a stony outcrop.
He stumbled on a tree root. Lunging forward, but not falling, he twisted a look over his shoulder. The gargoyle had not entered the thick copse of white birch that lined the roadway. Couldn’t stretch out its wings between the close-spaced trunks, no doubt.
Bugger it, he’d been chased off by a pair of rocks!
Climbing the ditch to the road, Jack pulled himself up and looked down the road beyond his car. A figure framed by brilliant sunlight stood fifty yards away. Slender hair moving gently in the breeze, she beckoned to him.
Chapter 22
M ersey rushed to Jack as he neared the car and spread her arms around his shoulders. Lifting her, he supported her fey weight and kissed her soundly.
Had she returned to gloat that she’d yet again given him the slip? And almost to his detriment? This hug didn’t feel at all wallowing. And the kiss was unfettered by reluctance.
He wanted to show Mersey he needed her. Craved her. Felt as if she were the only one for him.
He buried his nose in her loose hair and held her until the eerie shivers he’d gained during the flight from the gate dissipated. Together they sought sanity in the embrace. A kiss tore away Jack’s final bits of reluctance. And then it was all good. Mersey in his arms. Mersey at his mouth. Mersey all over him—
“What are you doing wandering the road all by yourself?”
“I’ve had a change of heart,” she said as he set her down. Reaching up, she corralled her long hair into a ponytail behind her head and then let the silken strands swish back down her shoulders.
“You need to see inside the Cadre, Jack. To learn about us. To know that not all paras are dangerous and worthy of your violence.”
What was this woman up to? To completely reverse her stand? Had she been ordered by someone higher up to bring him inside? So the Cadre would have leverage over P-Cell by using one of their men? Why would they need leverage?