Trickster’s Hunt

by Kel Carpenter

  “Another three please. Charge them to two nineteen.”

  I’d already clocked the suit at the other side of the open bar in the centre of the room. He was at least three glasses of scotch into his day, and I would be pointing that out if I met any resistance. The guy was clearly smarter than he looked and he poured three more.

  As the sixth slid down, burning my already acid ravaged throat, I began to relax. There was no cat and no freaky men following me. It was broad daylight, in a hotel where they held all my details, and if anything happened to me I would be missed when Adam turned up in two days. I was okay. There was no danger.

  I believed it until I remembered my leg and I looked down and saw that it had fully healed. I couldn’t cope with even considering how that had happened. I needed to lock myself in my room and examine the thing.

  Doing that meant moving through the hotel.

  All I was missing was a headscarf and dark sunglasses for the subtlety of my movements. A bit of foliage wouldn’t have gone amiss either as I practically peeled the paint from the walls creeping from the bar to the lifts. The damn things always seem to take too long when you really need them, and I stood there punching the up button over and over until the doors slid open. Luckily, there was no one inside, so I could slip straight in and start punching the button to the second floor immediately. I felt safer in the lift with the doors closed, which was insane. Who feels safe locked in a tin can?

  It was only a couple of minutes before I was safely locked in my room, but it felt like hours. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I double checked the lock and then ran to the windows, locking them and closing the curtains.

  With the room now dark, I made for the bathroom where, thankfully, I’d left the light on, and locked myself in. Perched on the edge of the bath, I looked down at my bare thigh. My shorts weren’t tight any more, the swollen, angry flesh had returned to its usual milky white, and there was no sign of a single, solitary scratch.

  With a shudder, I closed my eyes and replayed every tiny, stupid detail of my life since I’d arrived in London.

  Every mishap. Every meeting. Every meal. Every word.

  It was far easier to explain it all away as malnourished confusion than to accept that hot stranger number one had magically healed the raked skin on my leg. Then to rationalise hot stranger number two’s conversation with that awful fucking cat as him really having a thing for languages. Or to admit that hot stranger number three had only kissed me because he wanted to get his friends close.

  What I could admit was that I was in some seriously deep shit.

  I must have sat on the edge of that bath for over an hour, because I only left the room when my stomach was growling and the nausea came back. I didn’t open the curtains or even turn on a light as I crossed to my bed and picked up the hotel phone.

  “Room service. Can I have the double burger, extra cheese, and the lasagne with two sides of garlic bread, and two sides of duck fat chips?” I waited for the snotty woman on the other end of the phone to finish making her notes. “Oh, and two desserts. I don’t care. Surprise me. Just charge it to the room then. Yeah, that’s fine.”

  Unwilling to move, I waited where I was for the knock on the door and hoped I had the guts to answer it.

  14

  I was much less jittery after something half decent to eat. When I was done scraping the last of the raspberry coulis from my plate, I managed to open the curtains. It was late afternoon. I’d lost most of the day to cowering in my room.

  Awesome. Pissed off was an understatement.

  Grumbling to myself, I went back into the bathroom and snatched my bikini from where it hung drying over the shower screen. I would not be a prisoner in a damned hotel. This was not a horror story. It was my life, and whoever those weirdos thought they were, I wouldn’t let them reduce me to hiding for the rest of the week.

  The spa wasn’t busy, but there were a few people there, which was what I wanted. While I was feeling more confident, I wasn’t feeling brave enough to risk them showing up. And let’s be honest, they seemed to have free run of the hotel. Pricks.

  So, I stuck to populated areas, starting with the steam room. It was far too hot in there to wear a robe, but I didn’t feel like just wearing the bikini. Following the example of two other women I’d seen going in before me, I tucked a towel around myself, let myself in, and found a gloomy corner to sit in.

  I don’t know what it is about those places, but everything just makes me go floppy. The heat, the smells, the sounds…I leaned up against the damp tile wall and closed my eyes wondering if I’d imagined most of it.

  Okay, the cat definitely scratched me. That happened. There was no way I dreamed that hell up, however far-fetched it seemed.

  Three guys following me around? Yeah, that was a bit much.

  I’d been totally and utterly single for over six months and hadn’t managed to get so much as a smile from anyone not watching me stuff my face. The last one had found my need to keep eating unattractive, apparently. That’s why he…yeah. Says a lot about someone who met me in a diner polishing off a slab of cake and the world’s biggest ice cream milkshake.

  It wasn’t much of a loss. I wasn’t changing for anyone. I don’t care who they are.

  So, after that, three of them was too much of a coincidence. It should have occurred to me sooner, really, but I suppose I was too busy fighting between dampening my raging libido and not being a whore around them to connect the dots.

  There was no way the cab was connected. That was just shitty luck. Like the contestant choking. I shuddered as my thoughts settled on that. It had been horrendous. I was convinced he was going to die and looking back, I think I only carried on smothering the event in “normal” so I could forget about it.

  So, it was just the three blokes and the damn cat that I had to worry about.

  Just. The. Three. Blokes.

  And a cat…

  I shifted uncomfortably as I thought of them. I don’t know what it was about them, but they got me all hot and bothered with the simplest of thoughts. Maybe if I’d taken the handsy one up on his offer it’d be out of my system? Talk about missed opportunities.

  It did occur to me that I’d just run away from one of them and that I was currently hiding from them and that crazy cat, as I simultaneously thought about the possibility of having fucked him. In my defence, I was horny as hell and extremely confused. I challenge anyone to have seen their body healed before their eyes then be presented with magically forming food and not run screaming.

  I hadn’t screamed. I was counting that as a small victory.

  The two other women left the steam room, interrupting my thoughts, and I looked at the door through the heavy fog of the little room as though it was going to open and suck me out. It was so quiet. I couldn’t tell if there were still people outside or not; there was no movement near the frosted glass door. I felt eerily isolated. Almost threatened. I was out of there in a flash.

  I felt ridiculous standing there, panting in the middle of the relaxation area, and a few people gave me odd looks. I resisted the urge to flag them off and made my way over to the empty sauna.

  It wasn’t so bad in there, I could see through the windows that the spa was still being used by other people. I took the wooden ladle from the bucket of water on the floor and tipped it over the coals before settling on the wooden bench. It was hard and uncomfortable, and I was grateful for the towel providing a barrier between my thighs and the slats.

  Still, the dry heat was a welcome change from the sweat-drawing humidity of the steam room. Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes. If it weren’t for the uncomfortable bench, I could almost have imagined I were somewhere hot and exotic. But the bench…

  I’d been in there over twenty minutes, and the other spa users were filtering out when I emerged all hot and relaxed. I showered and made my way to the huge jacuzzi. My anxiety was dissolving the longer I stayed there, which was precisely the point.
r />   I ignored the feel of the jets on my newly repaired thigh as I lowered myself into the hot, swirling water. I allowed myself to be swallowed by the bubbles as they danced over my skin. I was okay. Everything was fine. No one was going to bother me again. I would compete on Saturday, I would win on Saturday, I would go home to my little house, my dog and my platonic life partner, and everything would go back to normal.

  No weirdness. No stalkers. No cats. Bruno would handle the latter.

  I repeated that in my head, over and over, until the very last of the worry trickled away, and I lay back in the water. My feet rested on the wall of the jacuzzi, my head only a few inches from the wall at the other side, and I left myself to float.

  Warm. Safe. Relaxed. It was perfection, and I arched my back to dip my head beneath the water.

  Swirling bubbles tickled my face and neck, and the current caught my hair. I felt it being blown about by the jets and the feeling of the bubbles massaging my scalp was incredible. That was my happy place. I could have stayed there forever.

  Then I felt a hard tug.

  Serenity was replaced with heart-stopping fear. Relaxed and floppy became tense and fighting. The only thought in my head was holding my breath while I worked out what was happening to me.

  Arms and legs flailing, I tried to right myself, but my hair held me firmly beneath the water.

  My hair.

  My hair was going to kill me.

  Wrapping both hands around it, I pulled, trying to dislodge it from wherever it was caught, but all that did was tear at my scalp. The pain was like a thousand tiny needles digging into my skin, and despite my desperation, I couldn’t break the hair free.

  It was bizarre. I was trapped under the water, I was panicking, I was scrabbling to escape, but there in the background was the comforting heat and massaging jets telling my body to relax, to unwind, to give up the fight.

  I was running out of air. I couldn’t hold my breath for much longer, I knew. The pressure in my lungs was beginning to build to a painful crescendo, my heels had smashed on the tiled wall so many times my feet felt as though they were splintering, and my scalp felt as though it were being torn off as my body began to buck and strain to free itself. To survive.

  That was when I fully realised I was about to die.

  Death by drowning. In a jacuzzi. Alone and sober. It was typical, really. After such a shitty week, with all that mental stuff going on and me being alone through it all, it was just perfect that I was going to drown in a fucking hot tub.

  The water carried on swirling, the bubbles carried on massaging, and I let myself go. My hair held me steady, and with my eyes open I could see the water whirling just inches away from my face. The bubbles looked so pretty, dancing and popping. I hadn’t noticed the mood lighting in the spa rooms before, but from beneath the water the greens and blues were really calming.

  Until they were blocked out by a shadow. A shape. A body. Whoever that was, they were looking down at me. Watching me. I couldn’t react. I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t hallucinating it.

  The last of the precious air my burning lungs had clung to was forced out, letting the warm, chlorinated water rush in. The darkness closed in, blocking out all light as my scalp began to burn again, as my body lurched with the final, desperate inhalations it took on instinct. That instinct was its destruction.

  My destruction.

  “Then what is your price?”

  The man sat back, arms crossed over his chest, a smug look upon his beautiful face. It was beautiful; there was no denying it. But there was a mischief in his eyes that made me wary. “You.”

  “All of this to share my bed, Sety?”

  His laughter was bordering on mocking. “I want you. All of you, to do with as I wish.”

  The clearing of a throat and a murmured warning came from behind. “Mistress.”

  It went ignored. “Very well. Will we shake hands?”

  The handsome man looked down. “No. Your word is enough.”

  “Out of interest…”

  He looked up, tilting his head in question.

  “Should I win?”

  His lips curved up at one side. “Then you keep all that you are.”

  15

  Silas

  His yellow eyes gazed at me as if he hadn’t understood a word.

  “Tell me why you hurt her.”

  He blinked once and turned away, tail high in the air.

  “Speak, or I will impale you on that bureau.”

  “My mistress would have a problem with that.”

  He couldn’t actually speak. He was a cat. But whatever magic he possessed meant he could project his thoughts, which served much the same purpose.

  “Old Mrs. Barnes?”

  “Not the human, foolish djinni. Although I believe I must be out of favour with Her to have been tasked with acting as go-between with you three.”

  I’d been drawn into one of his musings over why before. I didn’t have time for it right then, and my temper was already wearing thin.

  “Why did you attack the girl?”

  He turned to look back at me. “To lure her out. Surely she was easier to approach in the hospital.”

  “Hospital? She sat in the hotel and treated it with cream!”

  “Silly girl. Humans are so incredibly stupid sometimes, it’s a wonder they survived this long.”

  “That is rich coming from a creature that relies on them to feed it.” Judging by his tone, Rhett was as displeased as I was.

  “We use them for their opposable thumbs.”

  “Your lack thereof setting you several pegs below the species on the evolutionary ladder.”

  While I would usually have enjoyed watching Rhett tear the obnoxious shit to pieces with logic, there wasn’t time. I thought it best to stop that conversation before they got carried away.

  “You could have made her seriously ill.”

  The cat looked back to me. “Yet you’re here and not there, which suggests she is in no danger, or you perceive her to be safe at the very least. You healed her, didn’t you?”

  “That’s beside the point. You were sent to bring us together, for whatever purpose, by whatever fucking deity is controlling your actions. Not to put a helpless human girl in danger.”

  If cats can shrug, that’s what it did. “If She wanted you to know, she would have had me tell you. It is not for us to question higher powers. They are to be revered.”

  He liked that word. Revered. That’s what he thought he should be, rather than petted and pampered.

  “The human was not in danger. She had a few scratches—”

  “Did you see the state of her?” It had the sense to flinch as I raised my voice.

  “The woman, Silas.” Amos’s warning was subtle, his low tone the only indication of his unease.

  I didn’t care. The cat had made her ill. He’d attacked her for no reason and I refused to believe that whatever power was working through him intended her harm. The wicked creature had a considerable amount of free will. He’d proven that time and again. He chose to hurt her.

  The small antique shop that we’d found ourselves in was tucked away down a small street in Notting Hill. An odd, but pleasant little woman owned it, now in her mid-seventies. She lived above the shop with our irritating acquaintance and had a fondness for the unassuming container that had been our jail and home for millennia.

  The cat had intervened a number of times when customers had paid too much attention to it and he seemed to think that gave him reign to take liberties. This was the perfect example.

  “I handled her this morning. She will be cooking dinner now and having a relaxing evening in front of her television.”

  Rhett often looked after her. As she’d aged, she’d begun to suffer a number of minor health complaints, and Rhett would attend her needs as they arose. He said it was in recompense for her hospitality, but Amos and I both knew it was his nature. He may be unbearably frank, but he was fundamentally kind and comp
assionate. By “handling,” which sounded much like he’d harmed her in some way, he meant that he had lessened her aches and pains and ensured that she would sleep well that night. Small payment for two decades of shelter and protection. We stood little chance of being detected there.

  I leaned closer to the cat, baring my teeth. “Who sent you?”

  The cat closed his eyes.

  “Pip.”

  “My name,” he said without bothering to look at me, his tail twitching from side to side, “is Lord Peregrine Proudfoot the Third. Not Pip.”

  Amos must have seen my fingers flex because he grasped my arm and pulled me aside.

  “We need answers. This girl, who is she?”

  Lord Peregrine Proudfoot flopped down onto the table and rolled onto his side, looking up at Amos with his large yellow eyes. “You know who she is. She is a lost soul, and she needs protection. You are that protection.”

  Rhett stepped up to the table, looking down at the furry mass sprawled on its top. “Protection from what?”

  “A threat. You witnessed the choking incident; that was intended to be her. The car was meant to hit her. Thankfully she saved herself since you got there late.” He gave Amos an accusatory look. “The next attack on her may be successful if you are not present to intervene.”

  “Where is she safe?”

  The cat seemed to roll his eyes as he turned his gaze on me. “With you.”

  “Me alone?”

  I could hope.

  The cat rolled over and sprang to its feet before turning and walking away. He paused at the table edge and looked back at me.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It will take all three of you to protect her from what hunts her. It is powerful, and it is tenacious. There is no guarantee that you three are enough, but you must try. Should the girl die, my mistress cannot guarantee she can locate and deliver her to you again. Her involvement is already suspected.”