Serpent's Kiss_A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy

by Tansey Morgan

  A single car drifted lazily along the quiet road we were walking. “They aren’t here because I didn’t want to bring them with us. And I don’t know where the mentors were last, but I know where they were staying.”

  “They weren’t staying at the Alexandria?”

  “Of course not; the Alexandria isn’t a hotel anymore.”

  “They’re putting us up, aren’t they?” Aiden put in.

  “Yes, but that’s different. We’ve come here specifically to see them. Henry and Covell had other business in London.”

  “Any idea what that business was?” I asked.

  “None, but right now the only thing we can do is get to their apartment in Victoria and hope something turns up.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Then we keep looking. There’s no room for tried to or failed, here. We have to find them, dead or alive.”

  “You really think they’re dead?”

  “I’m willing to believe anything at this point, which is why the two of you have to be on your toes. Keep your eyes peeled for anything, or anyone, that looks out of the ordinary. I know you’re good at that.”

  He was right about that. I had gotten by, had survived in fact, on my own, largely thanks to my ability to pick out potential threats and dangers before they had a chance to manifest. Not only had I evaded predators, perverts and, on occasion, the police thanks to my instincts, but I had also avoided vampires.

  Considering I was human at the time, that meant my senses were pretty sharp.

  “Well, if they’re missing, we’ll find them,” I said.

  “Good, that’s what I want to hear.”

  I know it is; that’s why I said it, asshole.

  Leo’s stride was longer than mine, so I naturally fell behind him a few steps. Aiden, noticing this, fell in beside me. “Are you okay?” he asked, “You seem a little… on edge.”

  I glanced over at him, then whispered, “I think there are things Leo isn’t telling us.”

  Aiden lowered his voice to match mine. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t say right now, just… be careful.”

  He nodded, and we broke apart a little to make it look less like we were having a conspiratorial meeting behind Leo’s back, and more like it was morning, and we just didn’t have the energy to walk as fast as he was. But he hadn’t noticed anyway, didn’t seem to be paying us much attention, which begged the question; what was his internal monologue? What did he know about this situation that I didn’t? What was he preparing for?

  I didn’t know, but I would find out soon.

  CHAPTER NINE

  We weren’t on the tube long before Leo told us to get off at Victoria Station. Victoria was another train station, a whole district in and of itself, and by the time we reached it, the press of people was thick even at this sleepy hour of the morning, which made me wonder what the hell rush hour looked like in London.

  Once out of the station we made our way on foot through back streets and alleys, even crossing through a small park pockmarked with brown and black trees, to get to the grey, low-rise apartment block where mentors had been staying. It a quiet area, despite this part of London also being busy, and the buildings here were full of character, their grey, stone facades making them look effortlessly better than the hastily constructed, roach infested buildings I was used to renting back in Seattle.

  We walked up three flights of stairs and headed towards the last door at the end of the hallway. Leo, pressing his palm against the lock and sending magic into it, caused the mechanism to turn and open the door for us. Tentatively he nudged it open, making it creak on its hinges as it swung, revealing a dimly lit, minimalist looking dwelling on the other side of it. Even from the hallway I noticed the bookshelves flanking the large TV mounted on the long wall.

  I looked at Aiden, and he nodded to signal his readiness; Leo simply walked in as if he owned the apartment. I stepped into line behind him, briskly following him inside expecting to see signs of a struggle, or worse, dead bodies and blood. That was the way these things always worked out on TV, wasn’t it? But there didn’t seem to be a single thing out of place in the apartment; at least nothing that immediately stood out to me.

  The TV was remained firmly mounted on the wall—that was usually the first thing to go. The L-shaped couch wasn’t overturned; neither was the wooden coffee table in front of the couch. Scanning around at the open-plan kitchen on the other side of the room, where nothing—not a single plate or pot was out of place—was enough to confirm that nothing had happened here.

  I exhaled my held breath, then shut the door once Aiden was inside. Leo circled around on the spot, then went into each of the rooms, checking for intruders.

  “This is a classy looking place,” I said, walking over to the bookshelves. On it were entire collections of classic novels; everything from Jane Austen to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to more modern classics like Orwell and Vonnegut. Whoever these mentors were, they enjoyed prose-heavy fiction. The décor, likewise, was old fashioned—lots of browns, and mossy greens. Pictures of people and landscapes hung from walls, each framed in gold and so well maintained, neither had dust nor smudges. (there was not a hint of a smudge or a speck of dust)

  “Yeah,” Aiden said, “I’ve known them for a while, but I’ve never seen this place, or their rooms back at the mansion.”

  “Did you ever spend much time with them?”

  “Leo never liked me hanging out with the other students much, but it was impossible to miss each other. The mansion was huge, but I couldn’t avoid everyone all the time.”

  “Do you have any idea why they might have just disappeared like this?”

  He shook his head. “They might have said something to Vik and Raph.”

  “They didn’t,” Leo said, entering the room. “All anyone knew of Henry and Covell was that they were in London on business. There was some contact, but they went dark after a couple of days.”

  “And you think we’re going to find something here?”

  “No, but it’s as good a place as any to start looking.”

  I shook my head. “You should have brought Vik and Raph with you instead of us. They’ll unearth way more than we will. Not bringing them was stupid.”

  “Stupid is running your mouth when it isn’t necessary. I knew who I was bringing and why, that’s all I need to say about it.”

  I wasn’t sure, because I could never reliably get a good reading from Leo, but I thought maybe he knew he had made a mistake, but he had been too proud to rectify it. Why not bring Vik? Leo must have known about a mage’s second sight, must have suspected bringing a mage would have been infinitely more useful than bringing a succubus and a demon, but he had brought us anyway. Why else other than pride?

  Pushing him out of my mind, and deciding to focus on the task at hand, I let my eyes move around the room, looking for empty spaces on the walls where hidden messages could be written, waiting to be found, but there was no way I was going to see them. I could have been staring one in the face, and without Vik’s mage sight, there wasn’t a shred of a chance that I would notice. But I did come across something strange.

  Slowly, I walked toward a long table on the far side of the room. There were four chairs around it, and it was positioned directly in front of the window with a commanding view of the park on the street below. I also noticed an arrangement of plants and flowers in pots on the ledge, though many of the flowers were brown, and wilted. The mentors hadn’t been back in a while.

  The plants, however, weren’t what caught my eye. What caught my eye was a collection of notebooks sitting at the center of the table, next to a perfectly upright card. I walked around the table, curiously trying to figure out how it was something that looked like a business card was able to stand upright, and not just upright—it was on one of its corners.

  “Guys,” I said, slowly reaching for the card.

  Aiden approached first and watched as, gently, I plucked the business card
from off the table. A tingling feeling washed over the hand I had used to pick up the card, and then it was gone. Had that been magic? After what I had experienced during my kiss with Vik on the plane, I had to believe it was magic I had just felt passing through me.

  “What the hell was that?” Aiden asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, turning the card around. It was all black. On the front was a single word, written in gold, cursive lettering. Pandora. On the back was an address written in small, bold, corporate type, also gold.

  “Where did you find this?” Leo asked.

  “It was just hovering here,” I said, “On one of its corners.”

  “Hovering?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe they wanted us to find this?”

  “Pandora,” Leo said, “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why not?” Aiden asked.

  “Because this is a business card for a nightclub. I know Henry, and he isn’t the type to go out partying. Not at a place like this.”

  “What kind of place is it?” I asked.

  Leo handed the business card back to me and walked around the table and toward the bookshelves, pulling each book out one by one and searching behind it. “It’s not just any nightclub; it’s a nightclub for supernaturals.”

  “That… sounds awesome. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned it yet?”

  “Because we aren’t here to go partying. We’re here as guests of the Alexandria, and we’re going to behave as such.”

  Aiden looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed, then looked at Leo. “So, you’re just going to ignore it?”

  “Ignore what?” Leo said, not looking around.

  “The business card you just pocketed.”

  “What about it?”

  Aiden turned to look at me. “Well, don’t you think it could be a clue?” I asked.

  “Even if the business card was a clue as to their whereabouts, the last thing I want to do is take you down to a supernatural nightclub.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because Pandora is a place where supernaturals go to dance, drink, and make business deals in the dark. People who go there asking questions arouse suspicion, maybe even animosity sometimes. I may be able to blend in, but you two will have trouble.”

  “I’m a succubus. I can be whoever I want to be.”

  “Yeah, maybe you can look like whoever you want to look like, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about how to handle yourself in a nest of vipers like Pandora.”

  “So, what are you suggesting?” I asked.

  “We need to keep looking for more clues. If they left one, they’ll have left more.”

  “You’re not listening to me. Are you a mage?”

  He rounded on me, face red, neck veins bulging. “No, I’m not. I’m a demon, and I think you forget that sometimes.”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything, but you’ve forgotten that Vik is the only one of us who can see these clues you’ve got us looking for, so unless—”

  A thought occurred to me, then, as if a bolt of lightning had struck, freezing my brain before I could speak another word. I remembered that book Vik had shown me on the plane; there had been no text on the front, except for when he had touched me and allowed me to use his sight to see what was written on the dust jacket.

  “Notebooks,” I said, reaching for the pile on the table and opening one. It was blank. Every single page. The others, too. A smile blossomed on my face. “Grab whatever notebooks you can find. Look in drawers, under the bed, in closets.”

  “Notebooks? Why do we need those?” Leo asked.

  “Just get them and bring them out here. The business card, too. I think Henry was trying to tell us something with the business card, and I know he’s left more information around somewhere in this apartment for us to find. I can feel it.”

  Aiden and moved off into the bedroom. Leo hesitated, sizing me up from across the room. Then he turned, opened a low cabinet, and started rummaging around for anything a mage could have used to write on, but the notebooks I had in my hand, three of them, all blank, were all the clues we would find. I just had a feeling. These books had been left here for us to find. I had been the one to find them, and the game point goes to team Lilith.

  CHAPTER TEN

  We searched every nook and cranny we could think of, spending almost an hour of our time to make sure we had been as thorough as possible, and came away with three potential notebooks where Henry could have left messages for us to find. The business card was the only real clue we had right now—a card suggesting a place neither Henry nor Covell would have visited without having a real reason to—but there was nothing to do unless we found more information. I had suggested bringing Vik to the apartment, but Leo was having none of it. He didn’t want to say a thing until there was something to say.

  Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t how things were going to play out.

  I was the one to open the Alexandria’s front door, which meant I was the first person to see the gathering of people in the foyer. For a split second I wondered to myself who all these people were, but it quickly became apparent that these were all residents of the Alexandria, students and mentors. We had arrived so late and left so early this morning that we had not seen anyone other than Madeline, but now the room was packed. Why were there so many students here when we only had five in our German mansion?

  Assembled as a group, closer to the door than anyone else moving through the foyer, were Vikram, Liam, Dante, Raph, the Keeper, and Madeline, looking as though they were deep in conversation. When I opened the door, they all turned on me in unison. By the way they were staring at me, I thought something terrible had happened—thought maybe someone had died in the time since we had been gone, but then I looked at Dante, and I knew.

  I knew what he had done.

  Leo came into the mansion, slipping past me, and it took Vik all of half a second to round on him, veins tight at the neck, eyes filled with venom. “You,” he said, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about Henry?”

  Vik’s outburst gave Leo pause, and he stood frozen for a moment, a few feet into the mansion. But Leo wasn’t the kind of guy to put his hands up and act like he didn’t know what Vik was talking about. Leo was a bull who charged headlong into confrontations with his head low and his horns ready to impale anyone stupid enough to get in his way.

  Right now, that person was Vik.

  “So,” Leo said, “You found out. Which one of you was the one who spoke?”

  I felt that familiar bubbling in the pit of my stomach, the one I usually identified as the thing that warned me I was about to do something seriously not good for my own health.

  “It was me,” Dante said, stepping forward.

  “Actually, I did,” I said, moving further into the mansion and coming up beside Vik. “I heard you and Madeline talking in the hallway last night, then I went and told Dante.”

  “Perfect,” Leo said, “My own student spies on me and then runs to Dante to tell him what she’s learned. How am I ever supposed to start trusting you?”

  “I did what I had to do. You had no right keeping this from Vik and Raph.”

  “And you had no right telling them like this.”

  “She didn’t tell them,” Dante said, “She told me, and I warned her not to say anything. I asked her to keep quiet until we could figure something out.”

  “So, why did you tell them now?”

  “Because she was right—they needed to know.”

  Leo shook his head in disbelief. “You realize I’m trying to protect all of you, right? Everything I do is for the good of all of us.”

  “How are you protecting us by lying?” Raph said, stepping forward, “It does not make sense to me.”

  “Because if I had told you, you would have gone off and done something stupid and impulsive, and I didn’t want that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know you, Raphael. I know all of you inside and out. I have a keen insight
into your personalities, I know what buttons to press to piss you off, and which to press to calm you down. I needed to do this on my terms because it was the best thing to do.”

  “You don’t get to decide how to run our lives!” Vik yelled.

  “Alright, that’s enough,” the Keeper said, raising his voice above the others. Everybody looked at him, drawn to silence by the sound of his voice. “Enough of this. Why Leo didn’t tell you about the mentors going missing is irrelevant. I knew about this too, and I didn’t say anything for the same reason, so if anyone’s getting crucified here, I should be along with them.”

  “That still doesn’t change the fact that Leo has kept important information from Vik and Raphael,” Dante said. “This is a man who thinks he can do whatever he wants, who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. He proved that when he killed the man we were interrogating without letting us ask our question first.”

  “That man was never going to speak,” Leo said, “And if you’re stupid enough to believe he was going to do anything other than lie to you, you’re dumber than I thought.”

  “Dammit, Leo, why do you have to be such a prick all the time?” Dante asked.

  “Gentlemen,” Madeline’s voice, though gracious and soft, was authoritative and commanding nonetheless. “May I remind you that as long as you are staying in the Alexandria, you are to follow my rules; and in my home, there are strict rules of decorum I would like followed. Number one, no one raises their voice.”

  With just a single chance to speak, Madeline had diffused the entire situation. I could see it in the way Vik had turned around to look at her; how Raph no longer looked ready to pounce; how Dante had taken his eyes off Leo and given them to her. I could feel my own heart starting to slow down, too. I didn’t know if that was magic or just her natural ability to calm people down, but I was in awe of it.

  In awe of her.

  “As I understand it,” Madeline said, “Leo was wrong for not telling you the truth about the missing mentors, however, it is also true that he kept the burden to himself in order to protect you all. If indeed the mentors are missing, then the situation is quite serious, and it must be handled delicately, and by someone with experience. Leo is the most experienced person in this room. He is even more experienced than your Keeper, which makes him qualified to make the decision to withhold the information until such a time as he saw fit.”