Fallen Giant

by Monica Owens

  Olivier stepped closer. “What do you need.”

  “This one is not acceptable.”

  Olivier looked over the floor of the cage, at the dismembered and bloody corpse.

  “Why is this one not acceptable?”

  “It’s too old.” Arnaud sent an arm spinning out through the bars. The crepey skin mocked Olivier. Arnaud only needed the blood, it was Olivier who devoured the meaty parts. “I want something younger.”

  Olivier crouched down to look in the cage. “You’ll get what I give you.”

  “Let me hunt. Let me feed—”

  Olivier slammed his hand on the bars. “You’ll get what I give you.”

  Arnaud fell silent, but bared his teeth in a hiss. The pearly whites were pearly no more, now streaked with blood. His canines protruded out and down, sharpened to a killing point.

  Olivier stood back up. “I’d send you back if I could.”

  Now Arnaud growled. “You backstabber. You turned on all of us.”

  Olivier flew at Arnaud, his body breaking into millions of pieces, cutting through the bars to attack and claw at the other man. The beetles, wasps, and other insects buzzed and whirled around Arnaud, scaring him and belittling him, until Olivier decided enough was enough. He flew back out of the cage, the little pieces knitting themselves back into one man.

  Arnaud sat, his arms over his head, and glared at the man before him.

  “Don’t forget who brings your food,” Olivier said haughtily. He adjusted his sleeves and turned to leave. At the last second, he stopped and turned back. “You’re lucky, you know.”

  “How so?” Arnaud growled.

  “Well, that I found you, of course. You would have rampaged all over the Southwest and gotten all of us hunted down. Really, you owe me, don’t you, Arnaud?”

  Now Olivier did leave. He shut the door and heard Arnaud rage at him, slamming his hands and feet on the cage.

  And wasn’t Olivier the lucky one as well, stumbling upon this newly minted vampire out in the middle of Death Valley. His plan was set in motion years ago and now he was back to collect. Make no mistake, he bore no ill will toward the people of Magnolia except that they were in the way. Using Arnaud to scare them off didn’t hurt. They all had to go, after all. Once all these feeble residents were gone, including that insipid mayor, Olivier planned on selling all this land off to a developer, making millions. He’d leave and not look back.

  He’d done it before. He’d do it again.

  *****

  Levi lay on his back, Trish’s head pillowed on his shoulder. She’d covered them with a sheet when the electricity came back on and the air began to blow. He didn’t think he could move, his body was so sated.

  Trish sighed and he felt her breath puff along his chest. Her fingers moved across his pectoral muscle lazily, an idle movement that he figured she didn’t realize she was making.

  All through his long life, Levi had never wanted to simply lay with a woman. Have sex? Fuck? Yes and yes. Stay afterward? No. Never. Since coming back to earth, he’d made it a point to not stay, to not become attached. With Trish? It was like he didn’t have a choice. She was his other half. All the unspoken words stopping up in his chest, all the things he knew he should say? He was 100% sure that Trish was laying there thinking all those same things, but just like him, not ready to voice them.

  And in the next moment, that knowledge was confirmed.

  “So you said you had some things to say,” Trish murmured.

  He wanted to groan, but held it back. “Yeah.”

  She tilted her head, resting her chin on his shoulder so she could look at him. “Is this about you being a professor?”

  “You just won’t let that go.”

  “I don’t think you were a professor.”

  “I did a lot of things before crossing your path,” Levi said with a grin.

  “Well, I find it highly unlikely that you were a theology professor.”

  His grin widened when she dared him with those big brown eyes. “Want to see my transcripts?”

  “Yes.”

  He rolled his eyes and laughed. “I was a theology professor at a small college in Pennsylvania for about four years.”

  “Really.”

  “Burned out. Flamed out, actually. You start to care too much and it takes a lot out of you.”

  “What kinds of kids did you teach?”

  “The kind that think they know everything.” Levi rubbed a hand down his face. Just thinking about those times made him angry. Granted, he’d taught over twenty years ago, but it felt like yesterday.

  “Aren’t those all kids?” Trish asked with a chuckle.

  “True. But these were kids that wanted to be pastors or work in some capacity for the church.”

  “How’d you get that gig?”

  “Because I used to be one of them.”

  Trish scooted higher to get a better look at him. “You’re kidding.”

  “Why would I be kidding?”

  “You? A pastor?”

  He grinned, putting every bit of charm into the stretch of his lips. “Hey, the parishioners would have flocked to me in droves.”

  “The women maybe,” Trish grunted. She settled back down on his chest, now with her arms crossed and her chin propped on her forearm. “So, why didn’t you go through with it?”

  Levi reached a hand out and captured a lock of her hair. Twirling it around and around his finger, he shrugged. “Wasn’t for me. Figured I could serve the world better in other ways.”

  “What other ways?”

  “Well, I got a theology degree and I worked with law enforcement for a couple years. Helped with some religious cases, consulted on cults and murders, then decided all that was too dark. I went back to teach, but the luster was gone.”

  Trish eyed him thoughtfully. “Did you go back? To law enforcement, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Eventually. But it’s hard to watch what people will do to each other. And I was seeing the worst of the worst. Things people will do to each other for the sake of God. I stayed with it for years because I was making a difference, but I had to stop or it would have destroyed me.”

  “So the pawn shop.”

  He nodded. “Yep. Took the money I had and bought a pawn shop. Brought some friends in to help so that when the occasional case pops up, I can help. My name is still registered with the FBI as a consultant.”

  “That’s how the mayor found you?”

  Levi pursed his lips. “I’m not sure how the mayor found me.”

  “Yeah, you’d think if he went to the FBI for help, they would have sent an FBI agent or something.”

  “Yeah,” Levi echoed. The thought had occurred to him, of course. But how else would the mayor get his information? Yet one more thing to ask that sack of shit when he caught up to him. “So. That’s my background. Maybe I should have started with my whole name, though.”

  Trish sucked in a huge breath. “Oh. My. God.”

  “What?”

  She smashed a hand to her forehead, her thick bangs dragging into eyes. “I slept with a man whose name I don’t know. Oh my God!”

  He laughed. His Trish, so fundamentally good and right, making a huge personal decision based on no known facts.

  “Why are you laughing?” she moaned.

  He cupped the back of her head. “Because you’re freaking out over nothing. Did you not look at the dossier they compiled of me?”

  She thought about it, even closing one eye and biting her lip. “I don’t think there was one.”

  “Trust me, there was a dossier.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I saw it.”

  “Oh.” She settled back down and lowered her chin again. “So. Full name.”

  “Leviathan…”

  “Wait. Leviathan?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s your first name?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why would your parents saddle you with a huge name like that?”

&nbs
p; Levi paused. Should he go for it? Tell her everything? He ran a hand through her hair and thought about it. Hard. What were the odds that anything from this case was not going to end up in his world? Shouldn’t he brace her for this? Prepare her?

  He drew circles on her arm with a fingertip. He could trust her. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was…well, the problem was she was so black and white, the way a good cop should be. Would she be able to see his side? Would she believe any of it?

  “I don’t have parents,” he said gently.

  “Everyone has parents,” she dismissed.

  “No. Not everyone,” he reiterated.

  She cocked her head to the side. “Did you grow up in foster care?”

  He met her eyes. Yeah. Time to take the plunge. “No. I didn’t grow up.”

  Her brow furrowed.

  “Trish, I’m not who you think I am.”

  He felt her still and her body go on high alert. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “Who do you think I think you are?”

  “You think I’m some guy from Vegas who owns a pawn shop. Did some teaching and consulting in my day.”

  “I think that because you just told me that. Now you’re saying that’s not right.”

  “No, all the things I did are right. It’s who I am that’s different.”

  She shook her head slightly. Very quickly, she rolled to her back and sat up. She pulled the sheet up over her breasts and turned again to face him. “You better explain real quick, Levi.”

  The loss of her warmth next to him startled him. But he understood why she pulled away. “Trish…”

  “Explain.”

  “Keep an open mind, okay?”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” she shot back.

  “Fair enough,” he responded. But he sat up, too, slower, though, so as not to spook her. “You think I’m a guy from Vegas,” he began again.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m not a guy. I’m not a real man at all.”

  She frowned. “Like transgender?”

  “No, like not from earth.”

  She reared back. “What?”

  “Trish, I’m…” God, why was this hard to say? Was it because it was Trish? He didn’t want her to push him away and this could do it. This wasn’t something that he told just anyone. He was forbidden to, actually. But Trish…she needed to know, for more than one reason. This case, of course, and the other reason, the one he was having a hard time justifying to himself. He wanted to keep Trish around. Keep her with him wherever he was. He wanted her. As in forever. So he took a deep breath and let the words come out. “Trish, I’m a fallen angel.”

  The words lay between them like lead. Trish studied him, from the tip of his head to the sheet that covered his legs. Her eyes swept over his arms, the faces now swirling where once they’d been stagnant. He hadn’t even meant to do that, but all the emotions throughout the last hour were whirling through him and he couldn’t control his brand. He felt her gaze bore into him and he wished he knew what was going on in her mind.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Get out.”

  *****

  He blinked at her. “What?”

  The solid lead in Trish’s stomach made it cramp. “You heard me. Get out.” She yanked on the sheet, sliding off her bed and wrapping it around herself. Levi grabbed a pillow to cover up. Trish didn’t care. She’d burn that pillow along with everything else from this house once she’d left Magnolia behind.

  Right now, though, she stood at the side of her bed, wrapped in a sheet, humiliated. She glared at his handsome, stupid face and wished he was anywhere but here.

  “Trish—”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “No, Trish, I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

  The slow way he spoke to her made her narrow her eyes. “Yeah, believable.”

  “Trish—”

  She turned away and bent to gather his clothes. “I can’t believe you’d think I’d be that gullible.”

  “You wanted answers—”

  She tossed his boxer briefs at him, hitting him in the face. “Get. Out.”

  Levi bounded out of the bed, his underwear in hand. “Babe, I’m not fucking with you.”

  Trish averted her eyes from his…area. How stupid was she? All the warning signs were there she just ignored them. She leaned down and scooped up his pants. “Out!”

  Those he caught. “You need to listen.”

  “I need to listen? I need to listen?” she shrieked. “You blow into town, give me some cockamamie story about being a theology professor—”

  “I was!”

  “Then ‘helping’ law enforcement,” she yelled using air quotes.

  “I did!”

  Trish snarled in frustration and charged out of the room. Her feet slapped on the hardwood but she heard Levi right behind her. Hopping, it sounded like. Probably pulling on his pants. She saw his shirt in the hall by the door and went to get it. When she turned, he was coming down the hall, all anger, irritation, and hot, just-had-sex man. And he’d only put on his boxer briefs.

  “Trish, there’s shit in this town you don’t understand.”

  “Get out.”

  “Listen to me—”

  “No!” she shouted. “Look, you came to this town to get my job taken away. Congratulations! You’ve done it. Now you’ve humiliated me, told me some stupid story, got me in bed, and you can run back to the mayor and tell him all about how you treated me!” She balled his shirt up and threw it, hitting him in the chest. “You’ve done what you came for. Now get out.”

  She was only imagining the hurt in his eyes, right? Surely, he’d come here to lie to her and give her some sort of stupid story about who he was and what he was doing. Why not get a little ass on the side?

  “Trish,” he said softly. “I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

  “Oh, no? Then why lie?”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “No, you just told me you were a fallen angel.”

  The words sounded ridiculous when she said them aloud. More stupid than when he said them. She shook her head and opened her front door.

  “I think the murders have something to do with my world, Trish. Like those damn beetles. I need to make some inquiries—”

  “By all means, don’t let me stop you.”

  He waited. But Trish knew how stubborn she could be. He could stand there all night staring at her. She wasn’t going to change her mind. Her first instinct had been right, the mayor had brought Levi in to solve this case and get her gone. She’d handed it to him, then she’d gone and gotten stupid with Levi. Now he was telling her a pack of lies even a simple beauty queen could see through.

  So she stood there with the door open, wrapped in a bed sheet, while a man in his boxer briefs stared at her. She refused to look his direction anymore. She was done.

  “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. He scooped up his shoes and socks and stormed toward her. “Goddamn, Trish, I wish you’d listen to me.”

  She looked away.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  Tears threatened but she continued to look pointedly away.

  “I’ll let you know what I find out about the beetle,” he said quietly. “Until then, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Get out of my house,” she whispered.

  He still stood there, trying to get her to turn to him. “Trish, you have to believe me that I’m not here to hurt you.”

  She narrowed her eyes and whipped her head around to glare at him. “I have to believe you? Yeah, send the man candy and have him pretend he’s interested in poor Trish,” she spat. “Get out of my house. Get out of this town. I can solve these murders on my own.”

  “Man candy?”

  “Get out!” she shouted.

  He leaned down into her face. “I’m staying in this town. I’ll protect you even though you don’t want me to
. And I’ll stay until you don’t need me anymore. When you’re ready to listen, you know where I’ll be.”

  She glared at him, not answering.

  “Fuck,” he muttered again. He banged through the screen door and Trish slammed the storm door behind him.

  Then she sank to her knees in front of the door and cried.

  *****

  Levi stood on Trish’s porch in his underwear. He tossed his shoes down and yanked on his jeans.

  “Fucking man candy?” he muttered. “What the fuck?”

  The denim was still wet so he had a hard time getting the fabric up his legs. Once he did, he left the fastenings open and shoved his feet in his boots, all the while muttering under his breath.

  He shoved a hand through his hair and grabbed his shirt off the porch. As he pulled the T-shirt over his head, he heard a low growl.

  By his truck was a big, black dog. He felt like banging on the door to let Trish know she was in danger, but he didn’t. She wouldn’t believe him even if she did answer the door. Instead he came down the stairs, pulling his keys out of his pocket.

  The dog continued to growl.

  “Who are you, big guy?” Levi asked conversationally.

  The dog bared his teeth.

  “Oh, yeah? You the big dog Mrs. Feeney keeps seeing?” He jingled his keys and kept walking. “I remember big dogs like you from down in hell. That who you are?”

  The dog paused and licked his lips.

  “Who let you out, big guy? I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.” Levi stopped abruptly. “And if you’re here, then someone else who shouldn’t be is also here.” Briskly he walked swiftly straight at the dog. “Look, dog, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but we’re going to get something straight right now.” Levi stopped in front of him, the dog having backed up against the truck. “I’m in charge. You’re not going to hurt anyone while you’re here. You’re more than welcome to come with me, but the second you look at a human wrong, I’ll take you out. You got me?”

  The dog looked up at him with big brown eyes.

  “Yeah. Thought so. I’m Levi. Want to show me where you came from?”