by Jen Pretty
“Whoa, what are you?”
He grinned and I got a flash in my mind of a lion.
“A lion?” I asked. I had no idea where that came from, but Durga brushed against me, making me wonder if she had shown me that. Maybe I had been ignoring her.
“Some say so, others think I am a tiger. I am the will and power of the goddess Durga. I am the reminder to control negative emotions. Durga strayed from the path, but has seen the error of her ways.”
Durga spun inside me, causing me to gasp at his words. That was weird. “Ok,” I said, still stunned by the whole situation. “So, how did I get here?”
“That is a bit of a long story. I imagine you would like to go home. Your warlock and vampire will be glad to see you are back.”
I turned and walked to the reception desk, but it was empty and the key was on the desk with a note from Randy. It read ‘gone home, please lock the door.’
I tucked the note in my pocket, grabbed the key and held the door for the weird lion guy behind me.
“What’s your name again?” I asked.
“You may call me Singh, I will be staying with you.”
“Oh, ok, sure. More the merrier.” Hopefully Vincent didn’t mind.
Thankfully my new friend Singh had a cell phone. I used it to call Vincent to come get me but warned him that his two-seated sports car wouldn’t fit me and my new bud. So, he rolled up in my SUV.
I opened the door but he got out and grabbed me from behind, spinning me and pushing me up against the side of the vehicle. I heard a distinct growl from Singh, but Vincent paid him no attention.
“Is it you?” he asked.
“Fucking vampire, yes it’s me,” I said trying to catch the breath he had knocked out of me.
His lips came down on mine so fast, I gasped. The warmth of his body pressed against mine, sent delicious shivers down my spine. He broke away too soon and finally seemed to realize we weren’t alone. He looked the other man up and down. Sizing him up.
“Who are you really, then?” he asked before his eyes returned to mine and he smoothed my tangled hair back from my face. Apparently not too worried about the lion man.
“My name is Singh. Though in society I go by Allan Jeffery.”
“Singh means lion in Sanskrit,” Vincent said his eyes still locked on my features.
“That is true,” Singh replied.
Vincent looked at the other man again with a different expression on his face. One of almost wonder and surprise.
“Did you bring her back?” he whispered.
“No, you have Shiva to thank for that. He was uncharacteristically bold today.”
“Thank you for your assistance then,” Vincent opened the passenger side door, ushering me in.
“Singh’s going to come with us,” I said, searching Vincent’s face.
“Of course, anything.”
Vincent got behind the wheel and then reached over and took my hand, holding it while he drove home, with our new friend in the back seat.
At the mansion, Singh got some sideways looks from the vampires. He was still dressed in his uniform. Vincent took him to get different clothes. Apparently, the lion man had an apartment across town. If he was going to stay here, as he had said, he would need to go get his things. Luckily one of the vampires was as tall as him and they were able to find him some clothes while I was getting cleaned up.
In the dining room, Singh and Vincent tried to fill in the gaps in my memory of what had happened while Durga was in control. Clive, Drew and Vlad sat listening in. Singh was just explaining what he knew of the vampires Durga had killed the night before when I saw a flash in my mind. Like the one I had of Singh as a lion. This time it was a location I knew.
It was the abandoned house I had found Trevor in. I recognized the stairs and the door on the second-floor room. A sense of urgency came over me. Durga was talking to me. This was what I had been ignoring before that got Durga so angry.
“We have to go,” I said, cutting Singh off mid-sentence. I stood, knocking over my chair and wove through the tables to the door of the dining room. Then, I just kept going, straight out to darkest part of the night.
My SUV was still sitting in the driveway. I climbed in and put it in gear as the rest of the doors opened and Singh and the team all jumped in. Before they even had the doors closed, I was driving down the dark driveway towards the road. The gate opened as we approached. Thank God. Otherwise, I might have driven through it.
Durga pushed at my skin, but she didn’t force me out of the way, so I drove fast out of the quiet sleeping neighbourhood and towards the old part of town.
I pulled up to the curb and slid out of the vehicle without even turning it off. Cedric called out to me, but I didn’t slow. I called my blade to my hand and felt a flash of encouragement. Inside, the smell of waste and blood hung in the air. I passed a few junkies, splayed out on the floor, sleeping like rag dolls, forgotten.
Running up the stairs now, I got to the top and shouldered the door open. What I found inside startled me even more than the revelations of what had happened in the last 24 hours.
Three bodies lay on the floor in pools of glistening red. There was a message on the walls, crudely written like a sick finger painting. The moon hung low and shone in through the open window, giving just enough light, with my enhanced vision, to read the words.
‘DURGA LEAVES OR ALL SUFFER’
Well, that was a pretty obvious ultimatum. The team came rushing in behind me.
“Awe, shit, that’s gross.” Trust Drew to state the obvious.
“Lark, you still with us?” Cedric asked as I stared out the window at the moon. Whoever had done this, it was all for me. I took some deep breaths, closed my eyes and sent my senses out into the night. The team was here, I moved farther out. I sensed something bordering the river. It didn’t feel like a vampire though it was definitely evil. I waited a moment and then it disappeared. I stretched my senses as far as they would go, but it was gone.
Snapping back to the room, I checked the bodies on the floor. They were still warm, but dead. I was nauseated, but when Cedric looked at me like I was a bomb ready to go off, I swallowed the sick feeling and walked back out of the house.
I leaned against the SUV, took some deep breaths of the cool air and calmed my racing heart.
Singh came down and leaned beside me.
“What was it that you sensed?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know. Something evil,” I replied.
“Durga fights all forms of evil, not just vampires. There are other demons.”
“Of course, there are. I just get used to killing vampires, and now I have to go find some other demon and kill him while still trying to track down that jerk Vernon? I should just let Durga do it all.”
“That is not the way. There are those who would not bear to lose you. Call your warlock,” he said.
“Frankie? I don’t call him, he just pops in when he feels like it.”
Frankie appeared in front of us and I looked at Singh. He shrugged. Ok then.
“Hey, Frankie, you know anything about an evil that is not a vampire?” I asked, not expecting to get an answer. But Frankie’s face darkened.
“Was he here?” Frankie turned and sprinted into the house.
“Was who here?” I asked, but he was gone. I wanted to follow him back into the building, but Singh stopped me.
“This is Frankie’s personal demon. Tread lightly.”
I leaned back against the vehicle and considered Singh’s words. He was trimming his nails with his teeth and spitting the bits onto the sidewalk. I wanted to ask him how he knew anything about Frankie, but couldn’t stop staring at his disgusting personal grooming habit. The team came down a few minutes later, but no Frankie.
“Where is he?” I asked as Vlad opened the door to the SUV.
“He disappeared, as he tends to do,” Vlad said before sliding into the passenger seat. I heard the engine start and looked to see Ced
ric in the driver’s seat. Apparently, he was driving my car now. I slid into the back, wedged between Drew and Singh.
“We should go find him. He would be at the biker bar off the highway.”
“You might be welcome there, Lark. But the rest of us would get some wicked hocus pocus if we showed up there. Let’s go home and see what Vincent wants us to do.”
“Call him,” I said, looking at Vlad who was just sitting there doing nothing.
Drew handed me his phone before I could say anymore. I wasn’t sure why they were being such chickens. The witches and warlocks seemed ok. Vincent had said they had a truce or something.
I dialed Vincent and it rang once before he picked up.
“What?” he said shortly.
“Hello to you too. These vampires are too afraid to go to Frankie’s without permission,” I said.
“Lark. Of course, they are. Vampires aren’t allowed on the sacred grounds,” he replied in a much less harsh tone than his original greeting.
“Well, I need to talk to Frankie about the evil that slaughtered three junkies in a house in lower town.”
Vincent grunted. Then there was a long pause.
“Leave the team here and take Singh with you. Those magic people will love him.” Then there was a dial tone. He hung up on me. Huh.
I handed the phone back to Drew.
“Alright, you are off the hook. Boss says you can stay home while I go chat with the big bad magic folks.”
Cedric slumped in obvious relief and drove us out of the dirty streets back to the clean crisp neighbourhood we all called home just as the sun was peeking over the horizon.
I got out and slid into the driver seat as the team walked back to the house. Singh got in the passenger seat and we drove out of the city.
The music at the club house was loud enough that we could hear it as we pulled up even with the windows up.
When we got out a couple of witches came out the front door and stopped, their eyes locked on Singh. I looked at Singh more objectively. He was quite handsome, really. His olive complexion and stylish messy white hair put him right in that ‘exotic handsome’ category.
As we walked up, the witches finally noticed me and took a step away from the door to let us pass. Inside there were dozens of witches and warlocks gathered around. My least favorite witch, Cindy, didn’t bother to get up or glance my way more than once.
I walked straight to the back room and knocked on the door. I turned back to see if Singh had followed, but he was at the bar with a drink already in his hand and a horde of witches around him.
“Come in, Lark.” I heard Frankie’s muffled voice form beyond the door, so I walked in and shut it behind me, blocking out enough of the heavy music to at least let me think straight.
Frankie was sitting behind his desk, holding a picture frame. He set it face down on the desk and looked up at me.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, I heard you had quite the adventure.”
“Yeah, and then my friend Frankie showed up and disappeared again pretty quick,” I said. “It was the strangest thing.”
He gave me a crooked smile.
“Sorry, I thought I could catch him this time,” he said.
“It wasn’t Vernon.”
“No, I know it wasn’t Vernon,” he replied.
“Then who was it?” I asked, exasperated with the cagey warlock.
“My father.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I thought your father died.”
“I let people think that. I have tried to keep it hidden from the coven; a few know the truth, but they are devoted to me. The council don’t care that he went dark. They don’t believe it is hereditary, but some still believe the superstition and wouldn’t stand for my leadership if they found out.”
“Jesus, Frankie,” I said. “I’m so sorry. Is that where you have been all this time. I thought you were looking for Vernon.”
“It was a good cover. I need to kill him before he destroys any more lives. Dark warlocks are more dangerous than fallen vampires. They can wipe out whole cities. Make them disappear off the map.”
I was hit with the gravity of the situation. Frankie’s father wanted me dead. That was really inconvenient for our friendship.
A scream from the bar pulled me from my thoughts. We rushed back out the door to find a white lion sitting on the bar, his tail flicking back and forth. His giant maw opened in a yawn that turned into a roar, jingling the glasses behind the bar. He shook his white mane and began grooming his paw like a house cat.
“Jesus, Singh? What the hell?” I yelled over the witches and warlocks in the bar. Their animated faces and talking sounded like a bunch of children on a field trip to the zoo. It wasn’t far off, I suppose. His yellow eyes trained on me and he lifted one lip in a weird lion smile.
Frankie laughed behind me. I spun around to look at him, giving him a questioning look.
“The shifters always end up shifting here. There’s too much magic. I bet no one expected him to be a white lion.”
He said ‘the shifters’ like there were more of them. I did not need to consider more shifters
“Ok, fuck.” I rubbed my forehead. How did my life get this weird? “I’m going to take him to Vincent’s. Can you come with me so we can discuss this business?”
Frankie sobered at my words. “Ok, let’s go talk to your vampire.”
I wanted to smack him and say he wasn’t my vampire, but it was pointless.
Singh hopped down off the bar, on silent feet. The restrained power and control of each muscle in his sleek body, right to the very tip of his tail was almost frightening. Durga chose that moment to send me a flash of the lion rending flesh from bone, his white face stained blood red. Great.
As we walked out, the witches and warlocks followed behind us in silence but as we approached the SUV, I began to hear whispers from the crowd.
“Can you change back into a person, Singh?” I asked as we approached my brand-new SUV with the leather seats. His claws had left deep gashes in the bar top as he leaped down. I had visions of much worse happening in my vehicle.
The lion huffed and between one blink and the next he was a man again. He didn’t break stride, but the swagger he had as a lion continued for a few more steps before he walked normally again.
We drove back to the mansion, each in our own worlds. My thoughts lingered on Frankie. He had to kill his own father. His father who wanted me dead. Ugh, Durga wanted Frankie’s father dead too. If I killed his father, that might make things weird between us.
“Stop worrying about me, Lark.”
I screamed and swerved, making Singh holler in the backseat. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Shit, Frankie.”
“I won’t hold it against you if you kill my father before he kills you. In fact, I will be really pissed if you don’t kill him first,” Frankie said never even commenting on the fact I almost killed us all in a fiery crash.
“It was hardly a near death experience,” he said. “Your lion might just be lacking in the courage department,” he snickered.
I really needed to get a tattoo that said ‘Frankie reads your mind’ so I remembered to think more selectively.
“That’s hot,” he said.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked as we turn off the highway into the subdivision.
“I can answer that,” Singh piped in from the backseat.
“Shut it, lion man,” Frankie retorted.
I rubbed my forehead, feeling a head ache coming on and pulled up to the gate of the mansion. I put my window down and waved to the guard who smiled and opened the electric gate before waving me through.
Inside, I followed the corridor around to Vincent’s office. Frankie and Singh on my heels.
I knocked and walked in without waiting. Vincent wasn’t alone. I was greeted by the back view of a blonde in high heels. I would probably be average height with heels that tall. She was standing in front of Vincent, his arm was wou
nd around her shoulders, holding her close to his chest and his teeth were in her neck. The blonde’s skirt was extremely short. I wasn’t sure how she could sit down. Perhaps that was the point.
Durga jumped forward in righteous indignation on my behalf. Flashing our knife into my hand, she gave me a shove in their direction. Goddess, she’s a hot head. Instead I turned and pushed past the two idiots behind me who were staring at the blonde too and I walked back out the door. I reminded myself I had no business being jealous, despite what Durga said. She flashed me an image of my knife stuck in Vincent’s stomach.
At least she didn’t want him dead.
I walked up to my room and changed into yoga pants and an oversized sweater, reminded myself again that I had no right to be jealous and walked back out of my closet. I startled, nearly tripping over my own bare feet because suddenly he was sitting in his chair in the corner of my room.
“Christ, Vincent.”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, but I got the feeling it wasn’t just for startling me.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. Old habits die hard.”
“You mean tall, blonde, bombshell habits?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have any say in what you do with tall blonde bombshells,” I said sitting down on my bed to put on some wooly socks.
“But I want you to have a say. I want you, Lark.”
“Not tall, blond bombshells?”
“Would you stop saying tall blond bombshells.”
“Only if you stop dining on them,” I replied with a smile.
“Done.” He stood and scooped me into his arms. His lips found mine as he tangled his fingers in my hair. My pulse jumped, racing in my ears. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, wanting the moment to last forever, so was pretty disappointed when a throat cleared behind me.
Vincent pulled away with a groan.
“I understand we have something to discuss,” Vincent said scowling over my shoulder. I turned around to find Frankie there. Great.