Creature of Habit (Creature of Habit #1)

by Angel Lawson

  I was at my wits-end and refused to be his lackey any longer, so I resolved to finish the day, scrub his damn furniture and quit. But first, I was going to make him pay.

  Armed with my supplies, and dressed in Grant Palmer's vintage T-shirt, I opened the back door and walked out to his overly manicured patio. Potted plants, ferns, and ornamental trees surrounded the brick floor. It was sunny today and the bricks felt warm under my bare feet. A huge stone fireplace sat in the corner while white painted wrought iron furniture was placed around the patio strategically, designed for socializing.

  I tried to imagine Mr. Palmer out here socializing with friends or his family on a cool fall night, fireplace lit and candles all around. Maybe they had s’mores. Ha! As if. I honestly couldn't see it. I could see Olivia out here holding court, glass in hand, while he lurked inside, hiding from people.

  I sat the bucket down and poured in the bleach and pulled out the hose from beside the house. I mixed the up the two and began working. With every minute, every scrub of the brush and rinse of water, I grew more and more furious at my boss. I was more convinced than ever that he was actually trying to make me quit and I had reached the point where I was happy to grant him his wish.

  Chapter 15

  Grant

  I heard Elijah the moment he pulled into the garage. Ms. Chase was outside, scrubbing the never-used patio furniture, unaware of his arrival. I hoped Olivia was right and this dirty task would be the final straw, resulting in her to leave today and never return. I even had a reference letter prepared to send her next week if she needed it, although her time here was so short I was sure it would be better never to mention it again.

  I'd spent the morning going over my maps and the recent news about the murder from Monday night. None of it was very useful, which was why I'd asked Elijah to come see me.

  Through the monitors I saw him approach my office door.

  “How was your trip?" I asked, opening the door to my office.

  He walked in the room and sat in the same seat Olivia had occupied the day before. “Good, although I’ll be happy to get home to the family.”

  They all craved the closeness. The support. They wanted everything I didn’t—no, couldn’t have. Even so, they’d take me back in a heartbeat. The eternal prodigal son.

  Elijah stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankle, and pushed a thick piece of blonde hair behind his ear. His eyes lit up and he began to recall the hunting trip he and the others just returned from. "It was amazing, Grant. You should have been there. Ryan obsessed over one particular antelope and chased him halfway to Wyoming. Just when he thought he’d caught it he miscalculated and fell fifty feet off a cliff, landing in the river. He ruined his new phone in the water. It's the third one this month. I doubt either Sebastian or I have ever laughed so hard."

  I found myself laughing with him. Ryan could be such a fool sometimes, but at heart he was an absolute competitor. No way would he have stopped a kill for a replaceable object.

  “You should have come. You know making fun of Ryan is better when you're there.”

  The smile slowly slid from my face. "I know. I wish I could have, but Elijah, something is going on around here and I need your help. Have you been following the news?"

  He nodded and said, "Yes. Miles and I were watching it this morning. The national press has picked up on it. What are you thinking?"

  I waved him over to look at the map spread across my desk. I pointed out the pattern, which he was able to spot easily. I showed him the descriptions of the bodies found and I told him what I'd heard and seen the other night. Eli stopped my explanation and clarified, "So you think there were three of them, one leader and two others?"

  I nodded. "Yes, that was all I could hear, but the scents were not the same as they were from the other sites. The Predator has left his distinctive mark at each location, but the others seem to change."

  Elijah sat back in his seat and was quiet for a moment. I saw the faint lines appear around his eyes, the ones he got when he was stressed. Only one thing stressed him, other than Olivia, and that was his past.

  "What are you thinking?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure, but it feels familiar yet still kind of…off. When I ran with the gangs, sometimes there were one or two guys that would get off on patterned kills. You know, like, Jack The Ripper style or something," he explained. “But this sounds even more intense than that. Those guys were loners—they never should have been with the gang in the first place.”

  “The group dynamic is making me uncomfortable too,” I agreed.

  “The Council has made it clear that this area is protected by a coven. I can’t imagine someone with this much organizational ability not having an awareness of that.”

  “From the little I’ve gleaned from the Predator, I don’t think he cares about the Council or anything else, especially our coven.” I picked up a newspaper and pointed to a couple of grainy photographs. “What do you think about the missing people? Abductions? Kidnappings? Do you think they’re connected?”

  “Possibly. If he really has organized his own gang he may need new recruits.”

  I walked over to the window and looked out, thinking about the information we had and how to piece it all together. "Stupid ones, too. If Miles calls in the Council there will be trouble for everyone—including myself.”

  Elijah sighed. None of us wanted to move. Not yet. "You're positive the bite marks on the arms were from vampires?"

  "I'm sure, but what I don't understand is why does he let the others eat while he simply breaks their necks?"

  He shook his head, still caught up in thoughts of his past. "I have no idea, Grant. But it begs the question; if he isn't feeding on them then who is he feeding on?"

  We spent some time discussing strategy, how I should step up my patrols, and ways to get to my target faster. “If he can beat you then he must have some enhanced sense.”

  “I had a similar suspicion.” All vampires had enhanced senses; hearing, strength, smell…that sort of thing. Others were quite gifted. While I had the ability to convince people to just about anything and an almost debilitating level of obsessiveness that touched every part of my life, Olivia’s mind operated like she was a member of the psychic friends. Eli’s gifts were what could be best described as an enhanced enhancement. Smell, taste, hearing. His photographic memory was astonishing allowing him the skill we needed to keep up with technology as well as history. He was similar to a walking Encyclopedia. “There’s no doubt he can communicate telepathically. Anytime I get near he taps into my head. It’s incredibly unnerving.”

  “Unnerving but not enough to give him that much of a jump on you,” he said. “You’re one of the best fighters I know. No way he continues to get the jump on you without some sort of additional juice.”

  “I hate this bastard.” I clenched my fists.

  “We’ll catch him.”

  He stood to leave but I stopped him. "Can you look at this for me? I want to be able to access my assistant's computer downstairs from this one, but I don’t want her to have access to mine. Can you help me set this up?"

  "Sure, let me mess around a little." He walked around the desk and sat in my chair. “You don’t trust her?”

  “It’s not that. I’m simply not sure how much longer she’ll be here and I need to secure the information for my next employee.”

  Elijah continued working on the computer, his fingers moving swiftly across the keys, never looking up. “So you want her to quit?”

  I grunted low in my throat and muttered, “Olivia is a blabbermouth.”

  “She worries.”

  I rolled my eyes but nodded. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’ve experienced challenges like this before. You’ll do the right thing.” He reached over and flipped on the monitors, enlarging the one for the back patio. “Frankly, if you were going to kill her it would have happened already. You’ve got this.”

  We watched as Ms. Chase c
rouched in front of a chaise lounge and scrubbed the arms and legs of the chair with a thick brush. Her hair was plastered around her face and I could see sweat dripping down the sides of her neck. Her skin was flushed. Pink and inviting. I watched as she stood up and rubbed her brow with the back of her hand.

  I swallowed back the first hint of desire.

  I heard Elijah choke and stifle a laugh and I shot him a questioning look.

  “Oh, man. Your shirt. I thought I smelled bleach on my way up here.”

  I looked closer and saw Amelia was wearing my classic 1969 Let It Bleed Rolling Stones T-shirt. It was wet and I saw spots of bleach splattered across the fabric.

  "What the fuck?" I growled.

  Eli leaned back in my chair and began laughing uncontrollably and said, "Stop. It's too funny and you're making me angry and I want to laugh at you instead," he said, gasping for words. "Please don't make her quit. I like her already."

  I turned back to the monitor and watched her as she lifted the hem of my shirt and wiped her chin with it. The tiniest sliver of pale white skin popped out from underneath and I ran a hand through my hair while shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

  Mine.

  Elijah's laughter faded in the background and I heard him, faintly in the background. "Grant?"

  Transfixed, I eyed the hem of the shirt grazing against the soft curve of her thighs.

  “Grant.”

  The hollow pit of my stomach clenched.

  “Grant!”

  Something hard hit my shoulder followed by the clatter of metal against the hardwood floors. I flicked my eyes toward Eli, “What?”

  "What are you doing?" he asked barely above a whisper.

  I immediately was flooded with guilt. "She just makes me so hungry. Nothing I do makes it better. Not hunting or drinking blood.”

  His eyes were filled with confusion. God, he’s disgusted with me. Is it because I’m weak and won’t kill her? Or is it because I’m weak and should kill her?” I shot back from the desk, pacing furiously around the room.

  I locked eyes with him for a moment trying to understand. His eyebrow arched, curious. “Dude…”

  "What?" I snapped again.

  "That's not hunger. Well, a little bit of hunger, but that is not what I’m getting from you…" he trailed off, skirting around the word. His fingers drummed the arms of the chair and he struggled to keep his eyes on mine.

  "What the hell are you talking about, Elijah?”

  I paused in the middle of the room and ran my hands though my hair. I looked directly at him to make sure he wasn't playing a joke on me or trying to piss me off. His dark eyes were filled with sincerity and a touch of shock. The shock was probably a reflection of my own.

  “That feeling? The one rolling off you in waves so hard I could ride one on a surfboard? The pheromones alone are about to knock me out and you’re,” he looks down at my waist and shakes his head, “That’s not hunger, Grant. That’s lust.”

  "Lust?"

  “Lust.”

  The word hung thick in the air.

  Lust.

  Chapter 16

  Grant

  The word, no, idea brought about a range of tensions that coursed between Elijah and me like a rubber ball. I had no idea what to do with feelings like that.

  He continued working, glancing down occasionally at the monitors, updating the system like I'd asked him to. I was across the room, as far away as possible, as though that made it less likely for him to read me.

  The minutes ticked by and he finally spoke. "Grant, it's not a big deal. Well, it is a big deal, but not the way you're thinking. I mean you like her. She's cute and for some strange reason not afraid of you," he said, breaking out into a huge grin. "This makes her either the coolest girl you've ever met or the dumbest. I'm not sure which." He glanced down again at the monitors and I could see her reflected in his eyes, spraying down the furniture and cleaning up the mess she had made on the patio.

  My shirt hung over her shoulders and her jaw was set. There was a look of something, determination, possibly, in her eyes. I wasn't sure. Again, the fact I couldn't read her well was disturbing. I mean, really disturbing. This situation opened up a whole other equation I'd never considered. Lust? I rubbed my hands back and forth across the top of my legs, trying to squelch the feelings bubbling from inside my chest.

  Although I was confused, I was utterly intrigued. In all my years I truly had never experienced pure lust. Not like this.

  Desire was something all creatures experienced. We experienced even more than others, it usually manifested into blood-lust rather than sexual craving. Love wasn’t out of the question—Olivia and Eli proved that, but even so, after more than a hundred years that particular feeling had eluded me.

  Sex? That was a different matter. I had experience, although always with my own kind. Relationships with humans were strictly forbidden by the Council—as they should be. Humans were too pliable. Too easily manipulated. We’re genetically superior. We were also, as a species, in hiding. Revealing ourselves and leaving survivors was considered a crime in our society. Beyond that, having actual feelings for a human was incomprehensible.

  To be fair, on one level as far as I was concerned, Amelia was different. She was obstinate. Frustratingly independent. I had not been able to manipulate or compel her to do anything. She rebelled against me—only drawing the line at appearing unprofessional. I seemed to have no upper hand with her at all.

  Through the reflection in Elijah's eyes, I watched her complete her work outside and return to the house. She meticulously placed the cleaning supplies in the cabinet before she fell out of camera range in the bathroom.

  Staring down at my knees, I finally broke. “She doesn’t react to my commands,” I said, barely above a whisper. He heard me of course.

  There was a tinge of a smirk on his face. “So she’s immune to your compulsion?”

  "It appears so."

  “Woah.” He lifted his brow, and stretched back in his seat, placing his hands behind his head. He was clearly enjoying my discomfort. “How does the Great Grant Palmer handle not being able to control everyone around you?”

  “I don’t try to control everyone.”

  He snorted. “You’ve got the hots for this girl, yet you can't penetrate her free-will. And it seems,” his eyes flick to the monitor, “that she hates you. The others will find this very interesting.”

  I glared at him. "Yes. It's fascinating. Tell me then, what does she think about me right now? Does she…smell interested?"

  He ignored my sarcasm, strong willed and powerful. "Uh, not exactly. She’s definitely not giving off the same triggers you are, my friend.”

  “Elijah, so help me, I will tear you limb from limb. Tell me what’s going on behind…all that.”

  His lips tugged at the corners, even though he was about to break. He could only hold off on my demand for so long.

  "So what's really going on here…is you like a girl,” he taunted. "Grant likes a girl…"

  In an instant I was up and over the desk, throwing my weight against him. I pinned him and the chair against the wall. "Tell me, you idiot. What. Is. She. Feeling?" I was going to kill him.

  He pushed me off, his foot firmly placed against my chest, and I flew backwards across the room. I arched over the desk and landed on my own chair, shattering the wood under my weight. I leapt to my feet, tangled in splinters of wood and leather ready to rain down on him, but Eli was in front of me already, hands on his hips and a huge grin on his face.

  "Man, I'm impressed. You cleared the desk. I was sure you were going to take out the computer,” he laughed, picking up the leg of the chair and flipping it in his hands.

  I stared hard at him for a moment—two beats—before I shook my head and laughed. "I know. I wasn't sure if I could make it, either. At the last second I twisted a little."

  I walked across the room to get a trash can. We bent down to clean up the pieces of pulverized leather and wood sc
attered across the floor. Together we cleaned up the mess and put all of the debris in the bin. Elijah, apparently done tormenting me for the day, finally gave me what I'd asked for.

  “She's pissed, Grant. Like really, really, pissed. Her body is releasing chemicals and the rate of her pulse suggests she’s in an unpredictable range from bitterness to rage. Oh, and I'm picking up on a little bit of smugness since she ruined your shirt and she knew it would make you mad. Despite what Olivia thinks, I’m betting that she’ll definitely quit. She’s 100% done with you.”

  I nodded. Her anger was for the best, even though I wasn't sure it was what I wanted anymore. Since when did I get what I wanted, anyway? And this? Whatever this was fell into a realm of impossibility. My life had been about sacrifice and discipline, especially the last couple of decades. Amelia Chase was simply another sacrifice I had to make.

  Chapter 17

  Amelia

  I looked in the bathroom mirror and saw a sweaty, red-faced mess. I took a finger and rubbed at a swipe of dirt smudged across my face. All that did was make a darker red mark on my already red skin. Wisps of hair stuck to my cheeks and neck. I tried to tidy up but that only made it worse. Shifting my gaze downward, I saw the full destruction of Mr. Palmer’s shirt. The fabric was splotchy with bleach and smeared with grime.

  Good.

  I didn't feel bad.

  The controlling bastard deserved it.

  I had two hours left before the end of the day, but I was done. My plan was to leave Mr. Palmer my pre-written letter of resignation on my desk where he could find it when he came by for my daily report.

  Daily report: I QUIT.

  The thought of leaving that note and the look of confusion on his perfectly featured face made me smile for the first time all day. Sure, I could walk away without leaving the note, but I had a tiny scrap of professional dignity remaining. Barefoot and dirty, I left the bathroom like a hillbilly and walked to my desk, placing the letter on the corner where he would definitely see it.

  I had my bag and my shoes and I needed to stop in the kitchen to remove my food and other items. I wanted to leave Mr. Palmer's home the way I found it and remove every trace of my presence. So that I would be nothing more than a blip in his life. Two weeks of disturbance in his routine and stagnant existence. Maybe next time he’d hire a robot instead.