by C. L. Stone
I shake my head. "No. I was one of his friends and occasionally would do errands for him." "Was?" Marcus lifts an eyebrow. Is he playing dumb? I nod. "Yes. Ziggy was murdered five nights ago." It takes everything to keep my emotions in check.
His eyes widen. "What?" He slams his fists down onto his thighs before placing his head in his hands.
I wasn't expecting that reaction. He looks to me with angry tears in his eyes. "Who did it? I'll torture and kill them myself."
Definitely not the reaction I thought I would get. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. You and I both know the cops aren't going to solve a murder case for a known gangster."
He stands and goes to the gas fireplace. In one fluid motion he knocks the glass vase off the mantel while screaming. I do everything to keep my composure in tact. He can't see that I'm afraid. "I told him! I told him to come stay here. Did he ever fucking listen, no!" I sit forward. "You told him? You knew he was going to die?"
He turns to face me. "A Fae like you can't sense what I am?"
A shiver runs along my arms. "I'm new."
He laughs. "Angel, tell her."
Greed stiffens behind me. "He's a reaper, H. He takes souls for a living, and usually knows when people are going to die. If I had known we were walking into reaper territory, I wouldn't have let us come here."
I straighten my back. "I'm guessing since you didn't know he was dead, you didn't take he's soul?"
His eyes widen. "I'm the reaper of New York. I wasn't notified of his soul to take. That's why I didn't think he was dead. He's been texting me, but avoiding my calls. Who the fuck took his soul? Dear Moon god, is it still lurking? Fuck!"
Moon god?
"Were you good friends with him?" I don't remember Ziggy being happy when Marcus stopped by that night. Marcus rubs a hand over his face. "Girl, we were more than friends. Jacob was my lover."
Jacob, was that Ziggy's real name? Wait. "What?" "You didn't know he was gay?"
I shake my head. "Not the slightest idea."
Greed clears his throat. "Do you have an idea of who killed him?"
Marcus sneers. "Don't use your compulsion powers on me, Angel. They won't work. Do you think I'd be standing here if I knew?"
My phone chimes just as Marcus's does. I unlock the screen. Zigs: Don't be late. I look up to Marcus. "Do they have you meeting them at Hart island at five?"
He nods. "I should've realised. Jacob liked meeting in strange places though, it was our thing."
I shake my head. "I don't even know how to get there."
Marcus runs a hand over his scalp."I use that island a lot to make dumps. We'll go together. Your guardian angel included."
*
I shiver in the cold as we step off of Marcus's helicopter and onto the island, where thousands of unmarked grave lie. Greed wraps an arm around me. "Stay close. The energy here is dense with sorrow."
Marcus and two of his henchmen lead the way to the old asylum. The only light we have is the fireballs the two henchmen have created to float in front of us. I want to ask Greed how they're doing it, but my lips stay shut. I feel as if uttering a sound would disrespect the dead. As we get closer to the building, a voice interrupts the silence. "I'm sorry. I-I did it."
Hairs stand up all over my body. A woman cries. "I k-killed him."
A light flickers through one of the holes in a wall.
"I'm sorry. I-I did it."
Another cry. "I k-killed him."
Greed holds me even tighter. I'm surprised he hasn't picked me up yet. We enter the building. A projection screen plays on the wall. I turn my head away as a body hangs from the ceiling. The image playing over it. "Fucking hell!" Marcus kicks something. I force myself to look at the body. I frown. I know who this is. The hooker who served me the burger and Fanta the night Ziggy died.
"I'm sorry, I-I did it." The video skips forward. "I k-killed him, Ziggy. He wouldn't give me my half."
I look closer at the body, something hangs over her shoulders. "Is that a tiger's pelt?"
Marcus throws a rock. "This is a set up! This bitch hasn't ever killed anyone. I'd smell the murder on her soul if she had."
Her soul? "Can you see it?"
He points to a corner. "She's hiding over there. Too afraid to come out. Come over here so I can relieve your soul, bitch, and tell us who killed you."
I don't see anything but Marcus puts a hand over his mouth. "Dear Moon god, what the fuck did they do to you?" He puts his hand out. "What's going on?" I whisper. "Her soul's mouth has been sealed shut. She won't be able to talk." Greed whispers in my ear, his breath hot over my chilled skin.
I step into his embrace. I don't want to be here anymore; this was a bad idea. We were just supposed to interrogate people and find Ziggy's killer. Sirens pierce the air. The police? How are they here? Marcus breathes in deep. "We have to go now!" They run off. I go to follow but Greed stops me. "I'll get us back to the prison. Hold on tight. Don't let go."
He picks me up with ease and I wrap my arms around his neck. Black feathered wings unfurl from his back, before he shoots into the air and through a hole in the roof. I keep my eyes firmly closed as the sirens disappear into nothing, and soon his feet touch the ground. He sets me down. "You're safe now." I open my eyes to find us back in front of the prison's entrance. Hot tears prick at my eyes. "What was that back there?"
"Someone murdered that woman and then mutilated her poor soul."
My phone rings. Keifer.
"Keifer, I--"
"Hope, we found his killer."
The bile burns my throat as I hunch over to puke. "Hope, are you okay?" Keifer calls, as Greed rubs my back. Hot tears stain my cheeks. "No, I'm far from okay."
My phone chimes. I hold it away from ear to see the message. Zigs: You didn't stay around for the fun. I guess you weren't as greedy as your shifter friend. We'll be seeing you, Hope. Dread drapes itself over my body. Me: When I find you, I'll kill you myself.
Zigs: I look forward to that day.
To be continued in Two Lustful Nights.
About the Author
A.S. Oren lives in Colorado with her family and her cats. She has several Reverse Harem series out with more romance to come. In her off time, she enjoys drawing and going on driving adventures. She’s also obsessed with anything peppermint and chocolate.
Newsletter:
http://eepurl.com/bggTLv
A.S.OrenAuthor
Asoren.net
Favored
C.L. Stone
1
Taels
My mother’s eyes were green, like the sea next to the small village she lived in all her life.
My father, a fisherman, often said he married her for her eyes. He loved the ocean, and he loved her.
When I was born, and my eyes developed into shades of the sea, that was when the fortune tellers told my father there was too much water in the family. “You need other elements to even it out.”
Faithful to this, my father planted trees all around the house, creating a forest around our small home. Willows, great broad oaks, evergreens… He encouraged sprites to harbor by building tiny huts out of seashells, inviting magic.
He also built a second fireplace, which he lit every night from fallen branches around us, and left the doors open to let in air, elements that might bring our house luck. Our house looked bigger with two fireplaces, and people thought us wealthy, even as we struggled along with everyone else. It was twice the work to upkeep the chimneys.
With all these elements, this should have meant better fortunes for our family, until one summer when my mother insisted on going with my father out to sea.
“I want to join you on your adventures instead of hearing about them.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I miss you too much when you’re gone.”
My father warned her it was dangerous. She said it was just as dangerous for him, and convinced him to let her go along.
They promised to bring me in a cou
ple of years, when I was older.
I was fourteen at the time they departed, attending school in the village, and already in charge of the garden and chickens. I could boil an egg, and feed myself.
They asked Dr. Aoi, my teacher, to keep an eye out for me. I knew I would miss them, but the lure and promise of joining them in a couple of years spurred me to focus on my studies and work hard to become strong enough to join a ship. I reveled in my independence.
Months passed. The ship eventually returned.
My parents didn’t.
The crew said there was a terrible storm. When they managed to get away from it, and did a headcount, my parents, along with a handful of other crewmembers, were missing.
Gravestones were built to honor the dead. Despite the bodies not being in the earth, I still visited the stones with my parents’ names written in black letters against the gray marble column. I was angry and bitter at first, and eventually grieved. The winds from the sea whipped into my teary eyes, icing my face, just as cold as my heart felt.
What if I had been with them?
I remembered my father’s warnings of it being dangerous, and how my mother must have been too much water for a ship to handle.
I vowed never to set foot on a ship. I would be bad luck.
•••
I never returned to school. I was too paranoid of starvation since there wouldn’t be any more fish unless I caught them myself from the pier. I was alone, and there were bitter winters to prepare for.
Dr. Aoi brought books to my door once a week.
“I don’t need to read,” I told him one day, annoyed at the clutter of books on my table when I had so many chores to complete. “I haul fresh water to the garden in the dry heat of summer. I chase the rabbits from the cabbages and crows from the beans. I trade what little possessions I have left for rice. I’m too tired at the end of the day to read.”
He sat on his knees on the floor near the table, with knobby hands and squinty eyes and lashes like spider legs. He was important in the village, a doctor and teacher, and a big believer in every child knowing all the kanji characters in our written language. “Your mother would have wanted you to,” he’d say calmly, and recommend another book.
Despite my bitterness toward it, I did read, more often because I was alone in the house surrounded by trees and the creatures that slithered or flew among the branches. The isolation didn’t bother me, but in the night with fires burning in the two fireplaces, I’d open a book and brought my own worlds to life in my mind. Any kanji characters I didn’t know, I copied them for Dr. Aoi to tell me what they were later.
Over the next five years, the pile of books on my table grew. Dr. Aoi had so many at his house, and I suspected he used my table as a warehouse to store the books he was tired of. Regardless, I grew fond of them, especially the accounts of countries far away from our village, and stories where women did not work like I did, in the soil, but in fine houses, directing servants or sewing delicate kimonos.
One early morning when I was nineteen, singing, a light silvery song, woke me. I was sure I was dreaming.
I rose from the tatami mat, the blanket falling away from my body. My long, straight black hair shifted around my shoulders. I bent my knees to sit cross-legged, one leg knocking a book I’d fallen asleep reading off the mat.
I listened, fingers pressed to my ear as if this would assist me to detect where the sound was coming from.
The song was in a language foreign to me. The tone was that of a male trying to mimic the higher pitches of a woman’s natural voice. The source was close enough to the house that someone had to be standing just behind the wall.
I scrambled out of bed, adjusting the thin length of old fish net I used to tie a peasant skirt around my waist and dusted soot from my hair. A breeze from outside swept down from the fireplace, and undid my efforts. My bed was too close to the fire, but it had been colder at night. All the other rooms were empty since I’d sold anything of real value for food.
I dashed out the door. A beam of sunlight struck me in the eyes through the tree canopy. Shielding my eyes, I searched the trees and the garden, looking for the source.
On a branch on a willow tree sat a hawk-sized bird, with blue feathers on its stomach and a fluffy white, wispy tail like snow.
It opened its delicate white beak and sang. Octaves changed at different lines, tones changed, developing crescendos and then quieting, somber.
I froze, partially surprised by a bird able to sing as well to sound so human, and that the bird hadn’t flown as I’d rushed out as graceful as a cow. I crept toward the willow, using the low hanging branches to mask me as I watched it, in awe of its beauty and song.
It repeated its song and I tried to mimic it.
It stopped at the sound of my voice, feathers rising at its neck and tail splaying out in full.
I closed my lips, unsure if it wanted a singing partner. I didn’t often use my voice, and had no idea about the art of singing.
Just when I thought it wouldn’t sing again and I should go back inside, it started up again, slow, one note at a time.
Was it showing me how to sing along?
I didn’t know the words, so I hummed the same notes, one after the other, for every word. I got the hang of it, and it sang and I hummed with it.
I edged myself closer to the tree. The branches hung in a wide circle, and the bird was at the very top, sitting far out of my reach. I just wanted a closer look.
A hand reached out from among the branches, snagged my elbow, and yanked me into the mess of hanging branches.
My face smacked into a branch on the way in, splitting my lip. Dazed, I landed on my knees on the soft earth and grass, holding my face, pain radiating from my mouth. Blood pooled at my teeth. I spat it out at the dirt.
When I opened my eyes, I recognized the face of the young man who had pulled me in. I knew him in school, but I couldn’t recall the name.
He had a dark tan, more from heritage than sun. His eyes were as black as polished onyx. His skin was taut at his high cheekbones, and with a youthful glow. His dark hair was smoothed back into a ponytail at the nape. He wore a plain-colored man’s kimono with kimono trousers.
He kneeled over me, his hand on my shoulder, pulling me into the underside of the branches with him. He glowered at me, and then his expression changed into recognition. “I know you,” he whispered.
This surprised me. I was quiet as a girl, and didn’t think anyone noticed me, and would have forgotten of me after I’d been out of school for so long. “I know you, too,” I said and then stopped, covering my mouth with my hand again, and sucking at the blood. I wanted to scold him for pulling me, but his fancy clothes threw me off. I thought I remembered him in peasant clothes, like mine, when we were in school. He was so clean and formal now; I didn’t know how to address him.
The bird continued its song, and then slowed, one note at a time, as if waiting for me to sing back.
“What’s your name?” he whispered, easing back to sit on the ground, his back against the willow’s trunk. “Isn’t it…No, I can’t remember.”
“Mizuki,” I said. “What’s yours? And why did you yank me in here?”
The bird stopped singing.
He lunged at me, covering my lips with his dusty fingers.
“Shh,” he said. “Hopefully he thinks you left.”
I glared at him but then worried perhaps this bird was dangerous. It seemed so beautiful, but I knew little about birds.
Until I noticed the cage near the tree trunk, and the net behind him. I realized he meant to capture him.
I grumbled low, and glared at him, pulling back.
He breathed out fully through his nose. “Don’t even think about it. I found him first.”
The bird whistled again, slower still.
Waiting for me.
I don’t know how I knew, but I felt if singing would keep this bird free from this his cage, I’d do just that. It seemed wrong to
capture him.
I tilted my body to the ground, rolling out from under the branches and leaves hiding me.
I sung along the way, not as well, but I tried.
The bird picked up its tempo as I followed along.
“Don’t!” he seethed, and peeked out at me from under the brambles. “I’m not going to hurt him. Just stop singing.”
I sprawled out in the dirt and sang what words I could remember, and hummed what I didn’t, as loud as I could follow.
The bird sang with me in an ever-growing crescendo.
“I’ll split the money with you!” he said louder.
The bird stopped singing at the interruption.
I paused, turning my head to look at him. “Money? You’re going to sell him.”
He stuck his head out from the branches. “Don’t you remember me? My name is Ryuu. My father’s a trader. I am, too, now. This is a Shinpi Taka and I can sell him in the city. I’ll give you five silver taels if you’ll let me capture him.” He held out a hand to me, showing me silver coins in his palm. “All you have to do is stop singing.”
Five taels could have bought rice for a month, and all I had to do was stop singing?
How much was he worth if I caught him myself? He must have been valuable.
I got up on my knees, moving away from the willow, away from Ryuu and hummed.
The bird started up again guiding me in his singing.
“Ten taels!” Ryuu said, coming out from the branches to stand. He was a head taller than me, with broad shoulders, and a body like an oak tree, thick and strong. He could have held me down, tried to stop me that way, so I walked carefully, keeping an eye on him and distance between us.
This bird must be worth a lot. He was on my land. Why should I let him take it? Again, I sang, and the bird sang along, stronger now.
Ryuu growled in frustration, shaking his hand enclosed around the coins, so they jingled. “Stop singing or…”
The bird opened its wings and sailed down to me. I froze, thinking it was going to fly to another branch or he’d scared it off.