by Jane Cousins
As he moved, double-time, flashes and images of the previous night hit him. His mother had been waiting for him in his kitchen, preparing dinner, and she hadn’t been alone. Some pseudo-artistic wannabe had been with her. Erik tried to recall what the woman looked like but was only getting flashes of a billowing kimono, lots of jangly bracelets and for some reason bright blue hair.
He remembered stumbling to the sink and drinking down about two gallons of water, his mother saying something about noticing a flat tire on his truck and calling Hamilton. That she’d known he’d been in his studio all day and thought he might like a home cooked meal that… Cecilia, no… Susi, no… Saffron, yeah, Saffron had made.
What had he done next? He’d been hungry… yeah, so he’d picked up a spoon and taken a taste of Saffron’s offering simmering gently on the stove and…oh, and spit it out into the sink. Oh yeah, it was definitely all coming back to him now.
He closed his bedroom door on the angry little post-it note and leapt down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He needed to collect his tools, the unfinished marble and go… where exactly?
Where could he hide from his angry mother who he had embarrassed and humiliated last night? Because in technicolour detail he could now recall shoving half a loaf of bread into his mouth whilst his mother profusely apologised to Saffron, who’d turned beetroot red, threatening to storm out in a huff.
Exhausted, Erik had turned and proceeded to strip right there in the kitchen, no point in tracking dust and dirt through the house. He needed a shower and he needed sleep, the intruders could do whatever they wanted. Though as he stumbled off, naked, it had sounded distinctly like Saffron had suddenly decided she wanted to stay and it was his mother now insisting they leave… women, would he ever understand them.
Now, sitting in his truck, his gear tied down and stowed in the back he contemplated his options. Obviously his home was no longer safe… ah, the irony, he needed a sanctuary in the Sanctuary.
He ruled out Fen’s house, first place his mother would look. Couldn’t go to Locke’s, nah, his OCD clean freak brother would take one look at his tools and the unfinished marble and crack an epic hissy fit about dust and dirt.
Damn, he had a couple of relatives he could go to, but nowhere was particularly safe thanks to the speed and accuracy of the town grapevine. What he needed was a men’s club or a cubbyhouse with an enforceable ‘no girls allowed’ sign, like the one he and his other brothers had made as kids to taunt Hadleigh.
And just like that it clicked, a sign… a keep-out sign. Hah, he had the perfect place to hide out and finish the marble.
Chapter Seven
Cara’s head jerked up for the tenth time in as many minutes. Something was definitely moving in the stacks on the upper walkway off to her right. Damn, she should never have set up her research materials in the magic mojo wing, but the massively huge desks available in this section of the library were perfectly sized to hold all her books, files and notes.
Ignore it, just ignore it. Yes, just ignore the fact that you are completely alone in the library late on a Sunday night, in a room full of books that might actually bite.
Hmm, with that in mind she pulled her jean clad legs up so she was sitting cross legged on the big cushy chair.
Determinedly, she focused on the paperwork in front of her, frowning as she tried to read the smudged entries listed on the photocopy of the parish rectory records written sometime in the fifteenth century. Was that married or buried? Someone really needed to work on their penmanship.
Perhaps thinking she could trace her biological father’s side of the family back to Apep had been overly ambitious. Still, when someone tells you that you are a descendant of a God… the God of Chaos no less, you kind of want to double check the facts for yourself.
Plus, there was still a puzzle to be solved. None of Maat’s warriors had been able to tell her which of Apep’s children she was directly descended from… if it was either Sek or Mot, perhaps she could appeal to the family connection and get the death sentence hanging over her head lifted.
Heaving a frustrated sigh, Cara pushed the rectory record away and picked up the next document. All she’d discovered so far was a lineage of embarrassingly boring relatives with the occasional all out bonkers nut job, born every third generation or so, who lived amidst a calamity of natural disasters and who invariably died young. In one of said natural disasters.
Then, according to the historic records, as soon as her paranoid ancestor who ran around claiming the world was about to end bit the dust, all the natural disasters appeared to magically stop or at least occurred a lot less frequently. That had to be a connection to her chaos - out of control - whammy powers, a decidedly worrisome connection at that.
Was she fated to die in a natural disaster?
Although, could it be considered natural if she was the cause of it? Now that she knew that she was ground zero for all the problems… couldn’t she do something to stop it? Ugh, it was all so frustratingly confusing and the fact that she was operating on barely any sleep just made her task that much harder.
Thursday night, she’d spent the evening tossing and turning, dreaming about an annoying dark haired man and his far too handy ways and tight ass.
Friday and Saturday night she’d been kept awake by the howling night winds barrelling in off the ocean. Effectively buffeting her little cottage from side to side seemingly from dusk until dawn. The gale-force winds sending wave after wave of fine sand to scratch at her windows, roof and front door, as if a thousand tiny creatures circled her house, trying to get in.
The constant howl of the full blown gale whirling about her house grated on her nerve endings at a bone deep level that she couldn’t consciously explain, plus she kept hearing weird… moaning sounds out there in the darkness. The logical explanation was that the sound she heard was just the overhanging gutters vibrating against the house but still… she found herself wandering her dark little cottage constantly testing the windows and double checking the locks.
At one point, just as the sun kissed the horizon good morning she could have sworn she’d seen… not a person… but a person shaped thing, moving across the street at the edge of the park. Shaking her head, blinking hard, she’d looked again and nothing… just an early morning jogger headed across the park to the beach.
Today, when late Sunday afternoon had rolled around and she’d looked out her front window at the calm blue sky day she’d felt a chill race down her spine, a premonition. Knowing she was being foolish, there was no evidence to suggest the strange eerie winds would be back at dusk, she’d nevertheless hurriedly packed up her books and files and scurried out of the house ten minutes before the sun set. Feeling, as she walked fast down the street, that something wrong… something evil, was nipping at her heels.
Back to her research, damn, was that a p or an l? She squinted, shifting the paper to better reflect the light from the desk lamp… maybe it was a k. Merda, who was she kidding? Tracing her biological father’s lineage all the way back to an ancient Egyptian God? Thousands of years? It was a futile, impossible task.
Sighing, she reached over and pinched the back of her left hand… no, she was definitely awake, this was her life. She was surprised she hadn’t given herself permanent nerve damage after eighteen months of trying… praying… to wake up from the nightmare that had become her existence.
Eighteen months… it sounded such a short span of time but at the same time it felt like a lifetime had passed. Hard to believe that eighteen months ago she’d had a cosy safe insular life. A close circle of friends, a job at the Essex library, visiting her mother regularly at weekends. She’d had a lovely, if cramped, rental apartment and she had a thoughtful, sweet boyfriend, Paul Jacobs… God, she hadn’t thought about Paul in ages.
She found herself frowning, trying to picture him. He’d been a nice man, a history teacher at the local high school. They’d dated for six months, she’d met his friends, his family, they liked the
same books, the same music. Their relationship, looking back, had been so incredibly… convenient. Ah, now there was a word that defined explosive passion and soul deep yearning.
They never fought, seemed to agree on absolutely everything. Upon reflection it was kind of tragic how she’d just drifted along in their relationship.
She could only assume that if her mother hadn’t died so unexpectedly… if what had happened at her funeral… when she’d gone a little nutso… hadn’t happened… then she supposed she would have drifted into getting engaged, married… kids, with a man she could no longer picture very clearly in her mind. Had Paul’s eyes been brown or blue?
It was sad… how small a life she had allowed herself to live. She’d always had a gentle life, protected. But when had she become frightened to take chances? Risks? Yes, she loved books but hadn’t she always yearned to travel. Yet prior to her mother’s death she’d never left Vermont, she’d even attended college locally.
Of course it was easy to pinpoint the day her world had shrunk, in her fourteenth year when her deceased father’s nephew… Xander Marr, her cousin by blood, had tracked her down and told them about the potentially fatal blood disease that affected his side of the family.
Her mother had gone into hyper-protect mode. No more sports, no school outings, Cara had even stopped going to friends for sleep-overs because she knew how much it worried her mother to have her out of sight. Every two weeks she dutifully visited the local hospital to have blood drawn and sent off to the lab in Texas for testing.
Funny, once she was on the run, she’d never thought about her blood or the disease she supposedly carried again.
Maat’s warriors had been very interested in hearing about the routine blood tests, but they seemed to think it was some grand plot on the part of her now deceased cousin Xander, in cahoots with Sek and Mot, to get their hands on her blood for some as yet unexplained nefarious purpose.
Certainly Nell, who taken a sample of her blood for testing couldn’t seem to find anything abnormal or sinister. She should be relieved, there was no mysterious disease, yet it didn’t change the facts, did it. She couldn’t take back her life and re-live it; her mother was still dead, Poppy, long gone.
Heaving a pent up sigh, Cara considered whether her time would be better spent if she concentrated instead on her second research project. She eyed the desk to her left, piled high with books, scrolls and files. It was everything she’d been able to find in the history section that mentioned Apep, Sek and Mot. History! Only here at the Sanctuary would you find tales concerning the Gods in the non-fiction section. She was determined to study them; their powers, strengths and weaknesses. The only problem was separating the hyperbole from fact. Fact! Merda, Gods were real and she was talking about facts.
But it was the only defence she could think to come up with. Find out everything she could about her family… her enemies. She wanted to know how they lived, how they were worshipped, romances, feuds, what they ate, what they wore and how they died.
Apep was a God… how had he come to be incarcerated in a sarcophagus? Why? Or perhaps more importantly… who, had managed such a feat?
Cara froze as a soft thump sounded up on the right hand mezzanine walkway. Was that leather sliding over carpet? Ignore it… ignore it. Heavens, as if she wasn’t already ignoring enough things. Being the descendant of an actual God. Having weird, uncontrollable bursts, explosions of magic that emanated from within her… somehow. Living in a town full of people who believed in magic, were magic… the state of her frizz free hair was proof enough that magic really did exist here at the Sanctuary.
More sounds came from her right, from the nearest spiral staircase. Umm, ignoring whatever was in the room with her definitely did not appear to be working. Perhaps, no, the box with the oven mitts and the wire was too far away, she should… a chair on the far side of the room wobbled visibly for a moment before falling to the carpet with a thud.
Cara was standing on top of her desk in a second flat, watching in horror as more chairs wobbled as something brushed up against them as it moved across the floor, under the desks, headed right for her. Merda, this was a waking nightmare. She clutched her pen tighter, surprised her breathing, though fast, wasn’t coming in short anxiety induced pants. Where was a panic attack when you needed one?
A short two and a half weeks ago she would have been standing amidst toppled bookcases, fallen light fixtures and collapsed desks by now… ideally one of them collapsing right on top of whatever book creature was stalking her. But oh no, typical her luck, she had to go get half cured or something. The slight buzz of the molten lava of power only background noise at the moment, pulsing faintly between her legs… useless chaos power.
Think Cara, you read all those books, what would one of your heroes do? Um, stand and fight with only a pen? No stupid, run!
Cara leapt to the nearest desk, took three running steps and sailed over to the next and the next. Yikes, there came the sound of thumping wood and leather scrabbling over carpet behind her, it was definitely chasing her. This was just like Jaws… but on land… and in a library.
She didn’t slow down and she didn’t look back, only too stupid to live characters did that. She built up quite the rhythm, run three steps, leap, land, run three steps, leap… repeat. She could see the arched doorway looming large, pity the damn thing didn’t have a door to slam shut behind her.
Still, she had a plan, thanking God she was wearing sensible footwear. As soon as she leapt off the last desk she would race through the domed room, heading straight for reception, scramble up on top of the large wrap around desk out in the main area and call security.
It sounded like an excellent plan, only one little problem as she sailed off the last desk, stumbled across the carpet, past the arched doorway and onto the mosaic tile… she’d completely forgotten to factor in a hard broad wall of muscle that would be directly in her way.
Wham, she hit the man with a bone crunching thud that sent her rebounding backwards, sprawling to the floor, staring up at him dazed and confused for just a moment.
Cobalt blue eyes met hers. “Wow, déjà vu. Pity about the clothes this time though.”
Cara felt the small ball of hot chaos power between her legs expand supernova quick and burst out of her.
“Asshole.” She growled out between gritted teeth, even as her whole body burned from where she’d made physical contact with him, as if the touch of him had somehow branded her.
Too bad he was such a dick, with his sleazy comments and predatory grin. Acting like he was the big bad wolf and she was little red riding hood who’d just been dumped in his lap. Too bad, so sad, he’d gone and done it now. Instead of calling security she’d better call an ambulance, Erik Valhalla wouldn’t be walking away from an encounter with her unscathed this time.
Chapter Eight
Asshole! That was kind of harsh an uncalled for.
Erik frowned. Okay, so he’d leered with intent to scare her off, and talked to her boobs to reinforce the message. In his defence, the woman did have spectacular breasts. What man wouldn’t want to hold a conversation with them?
But he’d driven her home, hadn’t he? Okay, okay, so he’d been a little terse, a lot distracted and out of his mind horny. He may have even kind of… sort of, kicked her out of his car… hmmm, yeah, asshole was looking more and more of an apt description every second.
Damn, he liked seeing her sprawled at his feet, laid out like an all you can eat banquet, even if she was wearing faded blue jeans that hugged rounded curves and a black – too big for her – sweater that kept slipping off one creamy golden shoulder.
He was in the process of reaching down to help her up when something flapping and snarling launched itself out of the magic wing and latched onto his boot. His immediate reaction was to kick the thing away, sending it soaring through the air to land amidst a stack of upright metal poles waiting to be transferred into the work site.
The poles hit the tiles
with a tremendous clatter, one of them striking a nearby metal round table, sending it catapulting through the air, aimed straight for Erik’s face. He batted it away, and then the two chairs that followed it… weird how accurate the furniture in here was turning out to be.
“Fuck! Stay down Cara.”
Another of the metal poles hit a nearby decorative brass standing candelabra which tipped over and like a domino hit the next candelabra and the next. Erik was so busy ducking one of the huge hanging copper pot plants that had somehow come loose from its wrought iron framework, swinging back and forth like a giant pendulum on its dangling chain, that he didn’t see the candelabra directly behind him tilt in his direction until the damn thing conked him on the head. Issuing a sound that distantly sounded like brass hitting brass as it bounced off his skull and fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Landing only inches away from Cara’s head.
Goddess, Erik took up a protective stance over Cara’s prone body so that he blocked her from any harm. That was if he knew which direction to look at for the next surprise attack as that damn flappy attack book, that had started this shit storm, came racing back towards him for round two.
Intellectually, as the thing launched itself off the floor diving for his mid-section he knew the book just wanted to get at the leather of his belt. But being male, and very sensitive about anything diving towards his mid-section or anywhere in the vicinity of his favourite body part, he was understandably focused on the book, failing to note the pot plant swinging wildly around the room hit a second pot plant and change trajectory abruptly, targeted right for his head.
He caught the book in mid-flight, its leather covers snapping at him whilst he did his very best not to harm the thing. Aunt Patricia would be the one after his favourite body part if he damaged one of her precious books. Bloody hell, the task of trying to get the thing under control was proving kind of a challenge.
“Erik, Look out!”