Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1)

by Margo Bond Collins

  "Hell no. Draws the wrong kind of attention. The name on my illegally created identity is Peter Panic." The corner of his lips twitched as he attempted to keep a straight face.

  "Um..."

  "What?" Pan waved the panpipes around. "I'm a musician."

  Her face met the palm of her hand. "I bet you invented the term 'panic' to create a legacy to yourself in human language."

  "I admit to nothing."

  Unsure how else to respond to his easygoing banter, she snickered. His gaze heated, and she choked. As he dropped eye contact to stare at her mouth, her lips suddenly felt sticky and dry. Kat had an incontrollable urge to moisten them with her tongue. She'd read enough romance novels to know the man always considered such a move as invitation. As though her body had a mind of its own, it urged her to invite him, but in her mind, she wasn't sure it was such a good idea.

  The dampness between her legs mocked her brain and its objections. She knew getting it on with Pan was wrong, but she grew a little wetter as she imagined allowing it to occur. Traitor. You're mad at him. Stay mad!

  He's a god. A freaking god wants you bad!

  Ugh. She was ashamed even her thoughts could be so shallow. It didn't matter that he was a god, if he really was. Or sexy as all hell, even with the freakish satyr legs... What does that say about me anyway? She glanced away, covering her mouth with her hand in a motion to scratch the opposite cheek. While her lips were covered, she licked them to dampen them again.

  Ha ha! Because I'm sneaky.

  The movement broke Pan's focus, and he closed his eyes. Could he be fighting his response to her as strongly as she was?

  "I enjoyed that." When Kat didn't respond, he elaborated, "The conversation. You have a quick wit and the most beautiful laugh I have ever heard. Musical even."

  "Oh, uh...thanks." How does anyone respond to something like that? Drop trou?

  Her lady parts were totally down with that idea. She was back to feeling the way she did at the hotel when she met him, wanting him terribly, but not understanding the ferocity of her lust. And his junk looked human enough. It was the knees down that looked wrong. Maybe if he wore pants...

  She mentally slapped herself out of it. Kat knew she should continue being mad at Pan, but she wasn't an angry sort of person. She hated to admit it, but they kind of got along pretty well when they joked and teased.

  I can't get Stockholm syndrome overnight, can I?

  "I suppose I should explain why I took you." Pan fidgeted with the panpipes. "I heard your laugh the day I made that ruckus in the woods for your camera. I was moving on to another area when you and your friend showed up. Then you laughed." His emerald eyes sparkled. "It seeped into me, grabbing hold. I wanted you desperately. More than anyone before you." He peered over his shoulder to the face of the statue. His skin paled slightly and sadness seemed to overcome his features. "More than her..."

  Before Kat had a chance to ask about whom the statue depicted or even comment over why one did not simply kidnap people based on their pretty laughs, Pan turned away from the stone woman. "I hadn't even seen you yet and I wanted you. At first I believed it had to do with the curse. If you know anything about satyrs, I am sure you've heard we are most often seen chasing the nymphs and women around because we are lascivious beasts. Sadly, in the first century of the curse's hold, it was true. Over time, we have managed to recognize when our urges are out of control, and we take to seclusion, or at least I do. So it was very possible my reaction was because I'd denied myself for nearly thirty years."

  He'd been celibate for thirty years? Kat shuddered at the thought. She'd assumed going one year had been terrible. Life didn't revolve around sex, but where was the fun in that? Although, she had also never been forced to have it due to a curse. She couldn't begin to understand what he'd gone through. Realizing her train of thought was becoming sympathetic toward him, she shook her head to clear it.

  "Then you made a retort about the Jersey Devil, and I wanted to play with you. Make you believe in the unknown. Give you hope that you were not hunting a fantasy." He smiled. "Impulsiveness has always been a burden I live with. As you've noticed, I have the tendency to act before thinking things through."

  "You hadn't planned on kidnapping me?"

  Pan shook his head. "I almost lost my hold on this form when I was in your hotel room and you produced Dionysus' wine, which is why I shot out of there like my ass was on fire. I apologize for that. I wanted to believe Dionysus had nothing to do with you being here, but there were too many coincidental factors at play."

  Kat nodded. "At first I thought you were a super-weirdo. Then I worried you didn't like me, or I was, uh—" She almost revealed she'd been ready to jump his bones so hard the hotel quaked. "I don't think I would have reacted very well to a satyr standing in my room."

  However, the way he'd revealed it had been about a hundred times worse.

  The wind blew cool air in their direction. Kat rubbed her arms through her sweater. It was a chilly autumn day.

  "I stayed away as much as I could, trying to come up with a way to be less awkward and approach you again after the previous mishap, but I kept expecting Dionysus or someone else unsavory to show up. They never did. So I promised myself I wouldn't seduce you until I knew for sure you weren't in cahoots with anyone."

  Kat wondered who he meant by someone else, and her eyebrows rose when he'd implied he'd seduce her as though he'd succeed.

  "Then you went out at night in bad areas of the Pine Barrens," Pan continued. "Wearing bright colors and being reckless. I thought you wanted a monster to find you since you behaved as such, so I became that monster and granted your wish."

  He put his head in his hands, tugging at his dark hair. "Once I had a hold of you, I couldn't think of what to do. If I let you go, you'd have left New Jersey and disappeared. I can't flash myself to other locations like I could before the curse, and flying with a cloaking glamour expels a lot of energy. Chasing you across state lines may not have worked in my favor, so I brought you here."

  She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He'd scared the hell out of her. If he'd eased her into the fact he was more than human, showed her gradually, she may have been able to deal with it better. Accept it. And, yeah, she might have even thrown caution to the wind and slept with him had things ended differently.

  There was no telling what would happen anymore. She desired him, strongly, but having sex with him wouldn't do more than make him believe he hadn't done anything wrong because he would be getting what he'd wanted from the start. Just because he apologized didn't mean the actions were erased. Not to mention the idea of having sex with a satyr was...weird. Not horrid, but strange. And having seen him as the full-fledged JD, sort of terrifying.

  What she wanted was to make contact with Cindy and Rick, but doubted Pan had a phone. No utilities lead to no landline, and who would he be talking to on a cell phone? She knew asking would bring nothing but failure, so she placed the wish on the backburner. Not to mention, she needed to know more before she brought anyone she cared about back to his attention. She would worry more about her friends later.

  Instead, she focused on what information he was willing to give her currently. "This was your home once, wasn't it?" The thought had crossed her mind several times. The bedroom, the graffiti on the walls, and his reaction to the fountain. The woman immortalized in marble must have been a great love of his.

  "Yes. I built this house in 1697. The forest was dense and uninhibited by colonists for the most part. At least in this section. Native tribes knew I lived in these woods, but having seen me in my true form as I built the house from the foundation up, they knew I was more than a man. It was because I was a creature of nature that they showed me no ill will. I returned the favor likewise."

  "So you weren't the thirteenth child of the Jersey Devil legend?" Kat joked.

  "Unfortunately, no. The legend of the Jersey Devil was created by superstitious men and women, using the names of neighbors they
disliked." He cocked his head to the side." However, I'm sure Hermes would have loved that version of my supposed origin."

  "Seriously, though. How did the Jersey Devil arrive in New Jersey?"

  "Are you asking because you genuinely want to know, or because you are paid to seek out answers regarding me?" he teased.

  "I want to know. I mean, I did find you..."

  "I let you find me, but that is beside the point. In actuality, my coming to be the Jersey Devil was an accident. I had lured a woman into the woods through the song of my panpipes. Because my human form is retained by illusion, in the middle of things, well...illusions can falter when you stop concentrating on them. We were caught by a group of drunken adolescent boys. The woman, I regret I never asked her name, didn't see my satyr form as I was taking her from behind." He laughed. "Don't give me that look. If they can't see the horns or the hooves, they can't be horrified by the sight of them, and I don't have to explain myself or placate them. Anyway, the woman was very, uh, vocal and drew the attention of the boys."

  "Then what happened?"

  "The boys saw what I was and thought a woman who would lower herself to a monster would be open for a round with all of them. They attempted to kill me and rape her."

  Kat gasped. The story had not gone how she expected at all. It was terrible. Pan furrowed his brows as he retold the events. She could tell he was still infuriated by the actions of those men.

  "In my anger, I manifested the form immortalized today as the Jersey Devil for the first time. Later, I was able to study it, learn how I achieved the form, and realized it was how I was meant to have been changed by the curse. I'd frightened the boys so badly that half of them pissed themselves. They ran away, screaming and crying like small children. The woman fainted under the duress." He added softly, "I played her a song to forget the whole evening ever happened and took her home."

  "Let me guess. Tales of your existence were spread in a state of panic and skepticism?"

  Pan winked. "Yup. And occasionally I would hop out and scare someone new to keep Jersey on its toes. Old habits never die and all that."

  "If you don't mind me asking..." Kat stood up and stretched. Sitting for long periods of time sometimes cramped her scarred leg. "How did your house become so rundown?"

  With a shrug, Pan said, "I've been spending days, and then months, sometimes years, wandering around the woods. On occasion I travel into other states, losing track of time. I'll live in town for a while, catch up on the current literature and films. Keeps me from feeling too old. I had the electricity and modern plumbing installed sometime in the late 1990s when I came back from exploring the Pacific Coast. The men who came out thought it was strange to have such a large house out in the woods no one knew about. I played them a song to forget; I'm not one for many visitors. They have the information in their systems somewhere, but no one from the electric or water companies remember this house until they have reason to come here. As to the current state of the place, I just never got around to repairing the building since then or paying the bills." He shrugged. "I cast an illusion over it using the panpipes when I am not around. Humans will stumble upon it, some spend a night here and leave, but they cannot find the house again after."

  That explained the graffiti. Someone must have suspected.

  "And the woman in the fountain?" Kat gestured back at the figure.

  He sighed. "She is a long story."

  "Well, I am a captive audience. Emphasis on captive."

  He rolled his eyes playfully. "It's a story I can't really tell you. Syrinx"—he gestured to the woman—"is the start, middle, and end to how the curse of the Satyroi came into being. The only way to really tell the story is to show you."

  "Can you do that?"

  "Why, woman, must you constantly doubt me? I'm a god. Of course I can." He stood and put the panpipes back in his pocket. He gestured to the pile of leaves in the empty structure. "Now help me clear this rubbish, and I will play the song of my memories for you."

  "Song? As in an actual song?"

  "Doubting again. Remember the conversation in which I am a musician? Less questions. More clearing." He grabbed two armfuls of leaves and tossed them outside of the fountain, not seeming to care where they ended up.

  Kat bit her tongue, on the verge of retorting that he should just swoosh it all away with his wings like he had the night before with the dust, but then she remembered the hurt in his eyes when he had glanced up at the statue. He needed to do this by hand. Guilt perhaps? She'd give him this boon.

  Chapter 9

  "Tell me where that asshole is hiding," Silenus demanded as soon as Dion stepped out of the bathroom stall. He had flashed to one of the men's restrooms at the airport in Atlantic City, one of the few areas where surveillance was not an issue. Pavlo, Melancton, and Silenus were waiting on him, having arrived not too long beforehand from private jets owned by Bach Industries.

  "I'll tell you where he is once I am sure of the location and the timing is right. I know he's in the area, but you cannot act out. Not yet. There are certain events that must take place before you can confront him." Dion pushed past Silenus, noting the rage in the man's icy glare. He'd promised the satyr revenge thousands of years ago, but had never let him take it. Soon he would.

  Silenus had been forty-two when he'd become a satyr. He was the oldest, in terms of human years, and it showed in the gray at his temples and facial hair. When in satyr form, his pelted legs were also sprinkled with gray. Silenus was the only satyr with the characteristic goatee the classical depictions favored, at least that Dion knew about—he didn't particularly keep tabs on the Arcadians' grooming habits.

  Furthermore, Dion was aware Silenus rarely sported a human glamour anymore, but it was hard to focus on magic when one's very core was seething hatred. Hatred for Pan. Hatred for Dion. It had gotten old centuries ago. He had festered into an infectious cyst of violent rage waiting to erupt.

  The fool had been spotted by mortals so many times, it was a wonder it took Dion so damn long to figure out he could pinpoint Pan's location through urban legends. Silenus had been the cause of "goatman" legends in at least five states that he knew of, reported to have attacked people with his axe and frighten people on bridges.

  Even though Dion hadn't allowed Silenus to go after Pan, he knew the crotchety old goat had searched anyway. It was nearly time to see what would happen when the two of them met once again. Of course, Pan could always kill Silenus, which would not necessarily be a bad thing as the Boeotian had lost his usefulness a long time ago. This could be his defining moment, or his final.

  Either result would be...interesting. Pan refused to take a life, but Dion secretly hoped he would falter in his ways. He would relish in Pan's regret for the rest of eternity. Corrupting that sap would be glorious in its own right. Though he supposed it was cruel of him to not care which satyr killed the other in the long run. Oh, well... Things happen.

  Melancton cracked the restroom door open and peered out, his long raven hair shining in the glow of the fluorescents. "We do not have much time until the humans realize no one authorized this facility to be closed from the public."

  "Facility? Stop being so stuffy, Melancton."

  Melancton turned and bowed his head, a subtle glimmer of defiance quickly masked in his expression. "I will try to appease your wishes, sir." When he lifted his head, his light violet gaze scanned the area for signs of threats, even though they were both aware there were none. Habits were hard things to break, and while Dion knew Melancton loathed him, the satyr remained loyal. He had his reasons.

  "Appease," Dion repeated under his breath and rolled his eyes.

  Dion and Melancton exited the bathroom, and then headed in the direction of the luggage carousels to collect the items brought with them for their stay. They didn't need a lot, but to keep up appearances, they all had luggage. The only thing not with them was Silenus' axe, which had been FedExed to the hotel to avoid getting it past airport security, and a
lso to remove the temptation for the satyr to use it on anyone.

  Pavlo stomped into stride beside Dion a few seconds later and bit out, "Where's the car?"

  Silenus seemed a bit smug when he finally emerged from the restroom. Obviously, he'd said something to rile Pavlo. It was like working with a bunch of children always picking on each other. Melancton was charged with keeping a leash on Silenus until Dion approved a confrontation with Pan. But it seemed he'd have to worry about an altercation between Pavlo and the elder satyr in the meantime. Given their past with Syrinx, there was no surprise.

  About an hour or so later, the taxi that took them to meet with the Martinezes came to a stop outside of the Fancy Pines Hotel. Dion had sat in the front with the driver. He tried not to laugh as he recalled glancing over his shoulder during the silent drive through Jersey. Melancton had sat between Pavlo and Silenus, all of them looking pissed to no end. Hell, they still did. Arms crossed, Pavlo and Silenus stared out the opposite windows. Only Melancton had met his gaze dead on.