by Nalini Singh
For a while we stayed just like that and then slowly he slid his big body to the side and pulled me to him.
“Mine.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“You’re all mine.” He grabbed and hoisted me onto him. “Mine, mine, mine.”
I laughed and sprawled on top of him.
JIM was a cat. And like all cats, he liked soft places, sleeping, and lying around. We hadn’t left the bedroom. We napped, we cuddled, we had sex again and it was glorious. And now we just lay together enjoying each other’s company. We were both starving but going downstairs was just too much effort. Outside the sun slowly set. The world was growing dark.
“About the barbecue,” I said. “Should I bring something?”
“No, they’ve got it under control.” He was playing with my hair. “I called and told them you would be coming for sure. You’ll have to cut them some slack. They’ve never dealt with anyone like you.”
“Anyone like me? Indonesian?” They probably didn’t expect him to bring home someone like me. What if they didn’t like me?
“No,” he said. “Vegetarian.”
I stared at him for moment.
“It’s a barbecue,” he said. “We’re werecats. Everything is either meat or has meat in it. I explained to them about stuff not touching. They bought a new grill for you, but they can’t figure out what to grill on it . . .”
I snorted and laughed.
He grinned back at me. My handsome, smart Jim.
“Just a fair warning: you might end up having corn seasoned in three different ways . . .”
I giggled.
“They’re excited,” he told me. “You’ll have to answer questions. If it gets too much, tell me and I will snarl and make an ass of myself.”
“Diversion tactics!”
“That’s right. Anything for my beautiful girl.”
He said I was beautiful. I smiled.
“I called in a request to the Pack,” Jim said. “Let’s see if they can dig up anything on that law firm.”
The doorbell rang. Who could that be? I slid off the bed and glanced out of the window. My mother, my aunt, Komang, and her daughter stood on my doorstep. Oh no.
“My family is here,” I hissed. “Do not make noise.”
He laughed at me.
“Jim! I’ll strangle you.”
“Okay, okay.”
I ran into the bathroom to clean up, threw on fresh clothes, and ran down the stairs.
Oh no, the stupid steak again. I dashed into the kitchen, grabbed the cutting board with the steak, and whirled around. Where to put it? Not the cabinet, Mom would find it. Not in the fridge either, it would contaminate all my groceries . . .
I jerked the wooden cover off the oversize bread basket, stuck the cutting board and the steak in there, pulled it closed, and raced for the door.
My mother raised her hands. “Again?”
“I was sleeping.”
“I thought you were chasing after that stray cat you adopted.” She walked inside and the other three women followed her.
“You got a cat?” my aunt asked.
“It’s a stray,” my mother said. “She adopted him.”
I sighed, shut the door, and followed them into the kitchen. We sat at the table.
“About that boyfriend . . .” my mother said.
“There is no boyfriend,” I said. “It’s someone from the Pack. He was helping me and he was just being funny. He’s a practical joker.”
Komang opened her mouth. Aulia made big eyes at her and Komang closed her lips and sat back.
“Anyway, I found out about jenglots.” I explained about the cursing and the property. “This magic user is very dangerous and powerful. It’s one thing to summon a mythological horror like a hag. But this person also summoned a living killer car. People believe in old hag syndrome, but most of us would instantly dismiss a killer car as complete nonsense. He or she doesn’t require a mythological basis for their summonings. So if someone was afraid of ghosts, this person would conjure a murderous ghost for them even though ghosts do not exist.”
“So this person will try to kill grandmother again?” Aulia asked.
“I believe so,” I said. “But he or she will come after the comic book guys, the courier shop owner, or me first. This person is clearly targeting everyone in the building and I’ve made them very angry. They must’ve sacrificed something personal and now that sacrifice is wasted because of me. They may want to get me out of the way.”
My mother frowned. “What is so special about that property?”
“I don’t know. I’m checking into it. It is likely that . . .”
Jim walked into the kitchen. He was wearing a white towel around his hips and nothing else. His skin glistened with dampness—he had obviously just taken a shower.
I stared at him in horror.
He nodded to my aunt, my mother, and the two other women. “Ladies.”
Then he walked to my silverware drawer, got a fork, took a plate out of my cabinet, walked to the breadbox, speared the steak with his fork, put it on the plate, turned around and walked out.
This did not just happen. It did not happen.
Aulia looked at me with eyes as big as dessert plates and mouthed, “Wow.”
All four of them stared at me.
I had to say something. I opened my mouth. “As I was saying, I think the next two targets would be the comic book store guys and the courier shop owner. Their curses are likely already in place. Then me, because I made this person really angry. So Eyang Ida is safe for the time being.”
“That’s good to hear,” Komang said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. We will be going now.”
She got up. Aulia jumped up as well.
“I am going, too,” my aunt said, her voice too high.
I followed them to the door. Aulia was the last one through it. She turned around, pointed up, pretended to flex, gave me a thumbs-up, and fled. I took a deep breath, walked into the kitchen, and sat down.
“I knew,” my mother said.
What? “Since when?”
“He came to see me after you saved him from the spider woman.”
How did I not know this?
“He said he wanted to date you and he understood if I had a problem with it because he wasn’t Indonesian, but that it wouldn’t stop him. I told him that you were special and if he wanted to try and win you, he could knock himself out. I told him that prettier men tried and failed.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that was fine and you were beautiful enough for both you and him. And that’s when I knew.” My mother smiled. “True beauty isn’t in how big your breasts are, or how large your eyes are, or how pretty your nose is. All that is temporary. Breasts sag, skin gets wrinkles, waists become wider, and strong backs stoop. I tried to teach you this when you were younger, but I must’ve done a bad job, because you never learned it. True beauty is in how that person makes you feel. When a man truly loves you, the longer you are together, the more beautiful you will be to him. When he looks at you and you look at him, you won’t just see the surface. You will see everything you shared, everything you’ve been through, and every happy moment you hope for.”
Her eyes teared. “Your father died a middle-aged man, balding, with a round belly and when I looked at him, he was more beautiful to me than when we first met and he was twenty and all the girls panted after him.” Her voice trembled. “After thirty-two years, we were more than lovers. We were family.”
I swiped tears from my eyes.
“You either have that bond or you don’t,” my mother said. “If the bond isn’t there, no matter how pretty the two of you are, you’ll go your separate ways. You’ve changed, sweetheart, since the two of you started going out. You don’t lose your temper as often. It used to be one wrong word, and you had all your claws out. He must make you happy. So. If you like him, I like him. If you hate him, I hate him. But I think he loves yo
u and that’s all any mother could hope for.”
My mother got up and left.
For a while I sat at the table crying and I didn’t even know why. About five minutes after the door closed Jim came down from upstairs and put his arms around me. I leaned against him and let him hold me.
MAGIC flooded during the night, but the phone rang anyway. It wasn’t for me. It was for Jim. He listened to it for a long time, while I made us breakfast and wondered why I wasn’t freaking out about the fact that someone in the Pack clearly knew Jim was spending his nights with me.
“Wait a minute.” Jim pulled the phone from his ear. “Dali? I’ve got a guy at the courthouse. Want to hear what he’s found?”
“Yes!” I waved the kitchen towel at him.
“The law firm that sent the letters only exists on paper,” Jim said. “It was active about eight years ago but Shirley retired from law practice five years ago and moved away, Sadlowski died shortly after, and Abbot died about a year ago. But the firm still exists as a legal corporation. It’s registered with the Georgia Bar Association under John Abbot.”
“The one who died?”
“No, different bar number.” Jim frowned. “This is where it gets interesting. I also had them check into the building. It’s old, pre-Shift. The records are sketchy, but apparently it used to be a strip joint.”
“I don’t see why it’s so valuable.” Strip clubs sprang up in Atlanta like mushrooms.
“It was a full-nudity strip club,” Jim said.
“And?”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t understand what the deal is either. A full-nudity license is more expensive, but that’s about it.”
“What was the name of the club?” I asked.
Jim repeated the question into the phone. “The Dirty Martini.”
“Is the license still active? Can they pull up prior owners?”
“Good idea. Check if that license is still active and see about the last owner,” Jim said. “Oh and, Tamra? Check the alcohol permit for me.”
“Why alcohol permit?” I asked.
“A place with the name Dirty Martini is likely to serve alcohol.” Jim tapped his fingers on the table. He was thinking about something. I could see it in his eyes.
Minutes passed by.
“Okay,” Jim said. “Thanks.”
He hung up and looked at me.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“The club owner’s name was Chad Toole. He was indicted twelve years ago on money-laundering charges, convicted, and sentenced to thirty years in prison,” Jim said. “He died while incarcerated. Guess who represented him?”
“Abbot, Sadlowski, and Shirley?”
He nodded. “You were right. License is still active. The strip club hasn’t been open for eleven years, but apparently John Abbot has paid that license every year.”
“That had to cost a fortune.”
“Oh it did.” Jim nodded.
“So let me get this straight. Chad Toole owns a strip club. He gets in trouble, hires John Abbot to represent him and turns the club over to him as payment for legal services. Chad goes to prison and dies. John Abbot’s firm divides the club into five shops and sells it as retail space?”
“Looks that way.”
“I am confused. If John Abbot sold the club, what’s the point of paying for the permit?” I thought out loud. “Permits are tied to the address. John Abbot must’ve only sold four shops and held on to one. He still owns a chunk of the original building. That’s the only way his permit would be valid.”
Jim grinned. “Exactly. There is more. The club also has an up-to-date liquor permit, paid in full again by John Abbot.”
He looked at me.
“Why is that significant?” I asked.
“Because it is illegal for a full-nude bar to serve alcohol in Atlanta’s city limits. Topless bars can serve it, but the dancers have to wear a G-string.”
I crossed my arms. “How do you know that?”
Jim gave me a look. “It’s my business to know.”
Aha. “So if it’s illegal . . .”
“It’s not. This law was relaxed after the Shift and then tightened again, but Dirty Martini must’ve been grandfathered in. It is the only wet full-nudity strip club in Atlanta. In the right hands, it would be a gold mine.”
“But the club doesn’t exist anymore,” I said.
“As long as the permits are on file and the physical location is unchanged, I don’t know that the city would care.”
I leaned against the island. “Okay. John Abbot, the lawyer, secretly owns one of the five shops. He decides he wants to bring back the club. He tries to buy out the other four shop owners, so he can reopen Dirty Martini and make a fortune. Except they don’t want to sell, so he gets them cursed to get them out of the building? This John Abbot was willing to kill five people over a strip club?”
“People killed for less,” Jim said.
“I don’t suppose there is a picture of John Abbot or an address?” I asked.
“The address is the same as the former strip club. He also could hire someone to manage one of the shops for him.”
I ran through the list of shop owners in my head. “I think we can eliminate Eyang Ida and Vasil Dobrev,” I said. “They were targeted.”
“We can eliminate them because they were personally in danger. We can probably eliminate the chiropractor, even. I saw her face. She loves her son. But we can’t discount Cole,” Jim said.
“You think he could try to kill his own son?”
“People are fucked-up,” Jim said.
I couldn’t argue with him there. “So we have Cole, the kids from the comic book shop, and Steven. All of them seemed harmless.” The kids were probably too young to be involved, but we couldn’t discount them based on their appearance alone. Magic Atlanta did all sorts of fun things with people’s age and looks.
“We haven’t met the second kid,” Jim said.
“That’s true. We can go there and meet him now.”
“Good idea.” Jim got up. “I’ll drive.”
I just laughed and got my keys.
I was two blocks away from the shopping center when I saw a man running full speed down the street. He was wearing a T-shirt with a Hulk’s fist smashing the ground and glasses, and he carried two identical toddlers.
Behind him two teenage boys tore down the street, their faces blanched with fear.
“Step on it,” Jim said.
I pressed the gas pedal and Pooki shot forward. In two breaths we saw the building. People were running from Eleventh Planet, scattering in all directions. A crowd blocked the door of the comic book store, pounding with their fists on the door.
What in blazes was going on?
In front of us a woman stood in torn clothes, her head oddly indented. She turned to look at us. A raw, red wound gaped where the left half of her face used to be. She screeched and reached for our car with gnarled fingers.
The hair on my arms rose. Someone in Eleventh Planet was afraid of zombies.
“Not worth damaging the car,” Jim said.
I stood on the brakes. Pooki screeched, slowing down. Before he rolled to a stop, Jim leaped out and pounced on the zombie. The knife flashed in his hand and the zombie woman’s head rolled off her shoulders. Jim caught it. So gross. So, so gross.
The woman’s body toppled.
I jumped out of Pooki. He threw the head at me. I grabbed it. Rotten magic touched my fingers and recoiled. The head melted, the skin and muscle dripping off it, turned to white ash, and disappeared.
Ha! Unclean. My magic worked on it. There were no such thing as zombies in our world, but whatever these things were, I could purge them.
Jim pulled a second knife from the sheath at the small of his back. His eyes shone with green. “Let’s do this.”
We walked to the crowd of zombies blocking the comic book shop. I never felt so badass and completely terrified at the same time in my whole entire life. There were so
many . . . If my magic failed, they would rip me apart with their rotten teeth. For some reason the image of yellow rotting teeth stuck with me. I shivered and glanced at Jim. He just kept walking, like he had no doubt I would lay waste to the whole horde of zombies.
The zombies moaned at the comic book store, oblivious to us.
“Hey!” Jim roared, his voice deep and laced with a snarl.
They turned and looked at him.
“Fresh meat,” Jim said.
The mass of undead turned and ran for us, gnashing their rotten teeth, their hands stretched for us like claws. Jim spun like a dervish, his knives out. Heads rolled.
I took a deep breath, stepped next to him, and walked into the crowd. My magic waited for my orders.
I am the White Tiger. An invisible aura flared around me.
A huge zombie with half of his guts hanging out was running straight at me.
What if it didn’t work? A pang of panic shot through me. No, can’t think like that. I focused on the zombie. He was over six feet tall, arms like tree trunks.
You are an aberration. You skew the balance.
The zombie spread his arms, moaning, ready to crush me with his bulk.
I will restore the balance. I will purify this land.
He reached for me. My magic surged, the aura coating me gaining a weak, pale glow.
The zombie touched me. Foul, dark-colored fluid dripped from his fingers. He froze as if petrified, his flesh running off him in dirty rivulets. A blink and he became ash.
I could do this.
Another zombie grabbed me and melted. I held my arms out and walked right through the crowd. They fell all around me. Some bumped into me, some tried to bite me, some attempted to claw my back, but in the end all of them became liquid, then ash. Next to me Jim carved a path through bodies, each strike of his knife finding the target with deadly precision. Limbs fell as he cleaved them off, driving the knives with superhuman strength. Heads tumbled, severed clean off the rotting necks. Skulls cracked as the knives pierced the brain inside.
We kept going. It felt so right. So right. If only all fights would be like this.
The last zombie melted at my feet.