The Goddess Durga Series: (Urban Fantasy box set)

by Jen Pretty

  I sat back and watched the world go by. The city was alive during the day. Commuters drove like maniacs, in and out of traffic and pedestrians with brightly coloured umbrellas hustled to where they had to be. I rarely got to see the world this time of day because I was always so tired and just trying to get home to bed after Yoga. On the rare occasions I did notice the day time world, I was amazed at the vibrant colours and fast movement.

  I was having trouble fighting off the sleep that tried to pull me under and eventually the gentle motion of the car lulled me, and I started to doze a bit. I must have fallen asleep because my eyes shot open at the sound of the car door slamming I looked up to find we were in a cemetery.

  “What the hell?” I muttered as I hurried out of the vehicle. At least the rain had stopped. Vincent had already started walking away from the car and deeper into the cemetery.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow a vampire through there, but my better judgement was still asleep. His long strides were still taking him farther away from me, so I jogged to catch up.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked as I finally came up beside him.

  He noticed me jogging and slowed his pace. “You will see,” was his only reply.

  As we crested the hill near what I thought was the back of the cemetery, I noticed the gravestones continued but looked older. They were cracked and covered in moss. Some were so worn by time, they were smooth and could no longer be read.

  When we reached the bottom of the slope, Vincent continued into the trees. The loamy scent made my nose itch, and the soft ground was difficult to walk through. It seemed to pull the last of the energy out of my legs, and I was barely shuffling along under the giant old-growth canopy. My eyes were heavy now too, with the sun rising into the sky.

  “Shit,” I cursed as I tripped over a root and almost fell to my knees. “What are you … oof,” I gasped as the vampire scooped me up and started carrying me through the forest.

  “I can walk,” I complained.

  “Evidence suggests the contrary.”

  “That’s not funny. It’s daytime. I should be in bed.”

  “It’s not much further,” he replied, flaring his nostrils. “You still smell like the warlock.”

  “Don’t sniff me, you weirdo. And what’s not much farther?”

  Then the trees opened up and before us was a small rotting cabin. The roof looked like it was barely hanging on and it had more moss than walls.

  “Did you bring me here to kill me?” I asked half serious.

  He grimaced at me. “Will you ever believe I don’t intend to kill you?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

  “I was just joking,” I said, before muttering “mostly.”

  He shook his head and set my feet back down on the overgrown, weedy ground.

  “This,” he said with a flourish, “is the first house I lived in when I came to the new land. America.”

  “Holy shit,” I said walking towards the humble old shack.

  “I was one of the first of my kind to come here. Vlad followed shortly after.”

  “Why are you showing me this?” I asked, turning around to face him.

  “Because I want you to know me. To know that I was once like you; in a new world and trying to find my way. This land was overrun with witches and warlocks. We had no treaty in place, and it was hazardous for my kind, but Vlad and I persevered and made a life here. We called a truce with our enemies. You can do that, too. Your new life will be better with us. It will be more.”

  I wasn’t sure when he got all philosophical, but his words did strike a chord with me. I had sometimes allowed myself to dream of a better life. One where I wasn’t lonely all the time. One where I wasn’t afraid to get close to people.

  A life I could actually live.

  After a moment, I nodded silently. The rawness of the moment hit me, closing my throat so I couldn’t speak. No one had ever given me hope before. If he was offering me a better way, a safe way, how could I turn that down? I had already accepted his job offer. Signed the lawyer’s paperwork. But I understood what he was asking of me. He wanted me to accept this new life. Accept him.

  For the first time, he didn’t look like a monster. He still had bright glowing eyes and rows of pointed teeth, but his humanity was showing too.

  “Good, now come along. I plan to start your training in four hours. You human types need some sleep, I suppose.” He turned and marched off back the way we came, leaving me behind.

  So much for his humanity showing.

  ✽✽✽

  “You aren’t even trying!” he yelled at me while I lay there dying. Ok, maybe I wasn’t dying.

  I groaned, rolled onto my side and pushed up to my hands and knees.

  “I’ve only had four hours sleep,” I moaned.

  “This level of incompetence cannot be blamed on lack of sleep.”

  “Argh, you are such an asshole,” I whimpered, struggling to my feet. Apparently, there was no way to teach me to fight without knocking me down… a lot.

  “This time, if you could not trip over your own feet and actually attack me, that would be appreciated.”

  I grumbled and got into the fighting stance he had taught me. I moved forward quickly, swinging my fist at his head before aiming my foot at his solar plexus. Both missed him, but I was still on my feet, so I spun quickly and punched again. Every other time he had come up behind me when he zoomed out of the way of my attack. This time was no different, so when I let my arm blindly lash out, I caught him right in his solid square jaw.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I screamed holding my hand. I looked down at it and almost passed out at the bloody mangled mess my hand had become. “Oh God, I’m going to puke,” I wailed, running from the mats towards the bathroom in the far corner. I made it in time, just barely, and collapsed, losing all my dinner.

  “Are you finished?” the bastard asked.

  “Look at what your face did to my hand!” I hollered, holding up the injured appendage for his inspection.

  He gently wrapped a towel around it. Probably just to keep it from bleeding on the floor. Bits of broken bone had penetrated the skin on the back of my hand. I had never seen something so disgusting in all my life. It hardly even resembled a hand anymore. Once it was wrapped in the towel, I could no longer see it, but I could feel the awkward way the tendons sagged, and the bones scraped. It turned my stomach again, but I swallowed steadfastly and tucked my wrapped hand into the crook of my other arm. Denying my brain access to the images that were probably etched on the backs of my eyeballs was all I could do.

  “You will probably live. Come on, I will get you healed up, so we can continue,” the idiot replied.

  I pushed off the floor, thankful that I had tied my hair up before we began and now didn’t have any vomit in it. My hand was throbbing, and when I stood up, I felt a bit dizzy. The asshole took hold of my good arm and helped me out of the bathroom. He led me across the gym. All the other vampires who had been pretending to work out, so they could watch me get my ass kicked, again, turned back to their machines and weights as Vincent’s eyes swept across the room.

  “Where are we even going?” I asked as we passed the front door and headed up the stairs “I need to go to the hospital.”

  He just kept pulling me up the stairs and around to the third floor. I had never been up that far but hoped he had some magic to fix me as he seemed to suggest. I was probably going to pass out soon, and I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. The swelling was setting in.

  At the top of the stairs, he took a left and pulled me through a doorway. Inside, the bedroom was large with a double set of doors on the far side that led out to a balcony. The bed was an extravagant four poster with red silk sheets and an excessive number of pillows. Besides the bed, there was an armchair in one corner, and several shelves lined the walls, full of old books. Everything was immaculate, and I realized this was probably Vincent’s own bedroom.

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

/>   He spun around to face me. “You are here because I am going to heal your hand and then you will learn how to punch without breaking your hand.”

  “Do vampires have magic or something? How are you…? Ugh, never mind. Just fix it. I’m going to pass out.” The edges of my vision turned black as he settled me down into the chair. Just as my eyes closed, I swear I saw the vampire lick my hand. That jerk.

  I am not an appetizer.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Where the hell am I?

  Daylight was streaming through the huge double patio doors as I sat up and rubbed my eyes, vaguely recognizing the red sheets and the bookcases along the walls. Then it all came flooding back. The room, the fighting, the broken hand, the vampire licking me. Gross. Vamp drool.

  I held up my arm and admired my fully healed hand. I could probably put up with a little vamp tongue action if it meant I wouldn’t be disfigured the rest of my life. Angry voices echoed from outside the door. One I recognized as the hoity vamp himself. The other sounded like Frankie, and he was pissed.

  “I told you not to hurt her or I would fry you,” the warlock hollered.

  “And I told you,” the vampire countered, “she punched me and broke her own hand. I have already healed her, and she is resting. She is perfectly fine. You have no reason to be concerned.”

  “Please, gentleman, perhaps you would take this discussion to the office,” Drake interjected.

  The arguing continued but moved away from the bedroom door, so I lay back down and held my hand up to inspect it again. Not even a scar remained. It was like it never happened. My eyelids were heavy still, and the sun through the window was blinding, but I pushed the covers off and stood. My shoes had been taken off, but I still wore my bloody jeans and shirt. Thankfully, black didn’t stain, but the blood had crusted, leaving my clothes feeling hard and scratchy.

  I opened the door and peeked out. Nobody was around, so I walked to my room, quickly stripped, and threw myself in the shower. I scrubbed off the reminder of what I had done to myself.

  Fresh and in clean clothes, I walked down the stairs towards the office.

  “Thank god you are up,” Cedric said from behind me. “I thought your warlock was going to turn Vincent into a toad.”

  I spun around to face the team leader. “He’s not my warlock,” I said, irritated by the implication. “Are they still in the office?”

  “Guess your super hearing hasn’t kicked in yet?”

  “Super hearing?” I asked, confused.

  “Ya, Durga’s get improved hearing. Didn’t anyone tell you? Cedric asked.

  “I knew I would get faster and stronger. I didn’t know I would get other bonuses, but I guess it hasn’t kicked in yet.”

  He laughed, “Well they are still in the office and still mad. In fact, I think Vincent is madder now. I’m not sure which one of them would win in a fight. It’s like Superman versus Batman.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” I muttered under my breath, hustling towards the office. These two were going to give me grey hairs with this crap. I pushed the door open without knocking.

  “For the sake of the treaty, you better hope to God she is in one piece,” Frankie finished.

  “You mean me?” I asked innocently.

  Vincent straightened, his eyes falling on me. Frankie spun on his heel and poofed across the room, appearing in front of me so suddenly I almost fell backwards. He caught my shoulders, holding me upright and inspecting me like I was a piece of fine china that had been dropped on the floor.

  “I’m fine, Frankie. I just hurt my hand on the vampire’s hard old head,” I snickered trying to bring the tension in the room down to a reasonable level.

  He finally looked me in the eye, apparently satisfied with my appearance. He didn’t say anything for a long minute then he pulled me into his arms and hugged me. It still felt foreign and uncomfortable when he held me, but after a moment I relaxed and accepted it. I hadn’t had a real hug in years.

  “That’s terrible,” Frankie whispered, plucking the embarrassing thought right out of my head. Great.

  “Are you satisfied now, warlock?” Vincent growled. As Frankie released me, I looked past him to the vampire whose eyes were shining bright red.

  “Just be more careful till her powers come in. She is basically human still,” Frankie warned before he hugged me again, holding me longer than he needed to before walking out the door.

  My eyes met Vincent’s, and I watched as his eyes slowly drained of red.

  “We will try again after dinner tonight. You should get more sleep,” he said, picking up his pen and scratching notes on a piece of paper.

  “Alright,” I muttered as I turned and left his office.

  I found myself in the dining room without really meaning to go there. I was lost in thought about the vampire, the warlock and my missing Hindu deity with my superpowers. I wanted to be faster and stronger. Who wouldn’t? If they made me strong enough to fight a vampire, I wanted them right now.

  The dining room was nearly at full capacity. It was lunch time, and I had never visited at this time of day. Everyone apparently gathered together at noon. I grabbed a sandwich and drink and squished in between Gabby and Vlad at the table with the rest of the team.

  “How are things going?” I asked. Then I noticed they all looked a bit unhappy.

  “Fine,” Gabby muttered. “We just aren’t having much luck finding the rogue vamp that has been killing people down by the waterfront.” She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed heavily. I started feeling guilty. My ability to see the vampires wasn’t doing anyone any good locked up in this house.

  “We got spoiled the two days we had you out with us,” Vlad said, smiling at me.

  “I’ll be ready to go soon,” I promised. Maybe I could take a stroll down by the docks tonight and see what I could see.

  ✽✽✽

  “Absolutely not.”

  I shouldn’t have asked for permission.

  “Oh, come on, Vincent,” I begged from my seat across the desk from him that evening. “People are dying. I could go, have a look around at the docks, and be back with plenty of time to train.”

  “Yes, and more humans will die if you go off and get yourself killed before you are strong enough to fight the rogue vampires. We have already seen what little you can do when confronted with a raging vampire, so until you figure out how to keep yourself alive or find the powers of the Goddess, you will stay protected.”

  “I would be protected. I could stay with the team and look around,” I protested.

  “Last time that didn’t work out for you. Why would you want to go back out there?”

  I looked around the office trying to come up with a reason that didn’t sound crazy. I felt crazy. Apart from honestly wanting to help, something was pushing me towards those docks; I could feel it trying to shove me out the door.

  I kept biting my lip. I didn’t want to sound foolish. I was a tiny girl who had taken a couple of self-defence classes and been knocked around by some vampires for the last week. I still hadn’t seen any sign of these supernatural powers everyone seemed to think I would have. Ugh.

  “Are you suicidal?” Vincent asked, seriously. “Having lived a very long time, I understand that feeling, but you have a bright future to look forward to.”

  “God, no, I’m not suicidal. I want to help, and I think I can without getting killed. If I’m careful and stick close to the team, I can make a difference. I’m supposed to be doing that, right?”

  He stared at me for a moment. I assumed he was weighing the risk against the rewards. He seemed the type to consider all possibilities before acting.

  “Alright, you may go out for one hour and look around. You will not wander off from your team. You will stay within arm’s reach of Vlad the whole time.”

  “OK,” I said, jumping from my seat and exiting the office before he could change his mind. I travelled down the halls and stairways until I finally found my team in their m
eeting room discussing the night’s strategy.

  “I’m in,” I said. “Boss says I can go out for an hour as long as I stay close to you guys.”

  “Awesome,” Gabby said.

  “We won’t let you get eaten, Lark,” Vlad added.

  Cedric stood and straightened his jacket before speaking, “Alright team, lets head out.”

  Everyone stood, and we headed for the garage.

  Gabby hadn’t stopped texting since we left the conference room.

  The ride through the city to the docks took forever. Traffic was jam-packed, and we hit every red light on the way. The people leaving the hockey stadium were boisterous and revelling; the home team must have won.

  By the time we parked, I was starting to regret my enthusiasm to come out tonight. The push to come had lessened now that I was here, and it was so sketchy. There were very few street lights and a lot of people hanging around. It was mostly homeless people, setting up camp for the night. At daybreak, the police cars made a sweep through and kicked out anyone still loitering here, but at night they never seemed to bother with this area of the city.

  Though a large number of homeless people populated the area, they were mostly transients and kept to themselves. I could see how a vampire would have an easy time picking them off.

  Gabby finally tucked her phone away and looked up, opening the door to the van and letting us out the side door.

  “Alright, kiddo, if the boss says we have you for one hour then we better get you home on time,” Cedric said.

  I nodded and moved with the team across the parking lot towards the water. The docks were a massive series of shipping ports that stand high above the shoreline. The shore was rocky and not good for swimming, but the docks provided decent cover and kept the people safe from the elements. As we scaled down the embankment, we could see most of the homeless people were jammed in a tight space near the top of the embankment, where the ground meets the dock. It gave the best protection from the elements, and they were hidden from view there.