by Cara Villar
The Better to Eat You With
Book 1 of The Red Journals
Cara Villar
Text copyright © 2014 Cara Villar
All Rights Reserved
Dedication
This, the very first, is dedicated to my fellow fairies.
Pink and Green, you know who you are.
This book is also dedicated to my family.
They never once said it couldn’t be done.
Thanks for that.
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Epilogue
1
Pulling a body out of a flat-bed truck is so much easier than pulling one out of the trunk of a car. And, I got to say, when the tarp you’ve wrapped around said body snags on the trunk lock, it’s even harder.
After ten minutes of wrestling, and practically leaning horizontal trying to pull the damn corpse out, the tarp gave. Of course it gave. It wouldn’t be right if, with a gasp, I didn’t go flying down hard on my butt, the body half-hitting the dirt, and a massive tear through the remainder of the tarp wasn’t the result. Even as I watched, the fellow’s leg flopped out of its ominous cover and the trunk, as if to mock me.
When I took this one on, I obviously underestimated how heavy he was.
Rubbing my butt cheek and grumbling, I scrambled to my feet and dragged the body to the edge of the ravine. In the dark, you couldn’t see the bottom of it. Hell, you could barely see the ledge half the time. The cloud cover and lack of moon made it so I had to rely on vision alone. I knew there were trees and shrubs down there, and a couple burned out cars where people who didn’t know the roads very well had ended up going off the edge.
Tragic, really. Thank fuck for enhanced hybrid senses, let me tell you.
Squatting down, I flicked back the tarp edges to reveal the face that, not so long before, had twisted into a savage snarl, revealing long, poisonous canines and livid, crackling gold eyes. Not long before that, the face had smiled enticingly, the allure of a predator that saw me as his prey. I hadn’t been completely immune, I mean, he had been a good looking chap and it’s been a very long time for me. He was clean and had smelled good. If I’d met him on my own, I probably coulda, maybe, perhaps, had dinner with him—
Snicker, snicker.
Sorry. Vampire humor at its worst.
Anywhoo, as Death is wont to do, the male’s features were smoothed out, his lips slightly parted, eyes closed. Nothing like the idealized movie version where death returns immortality to its true age. This fellow would forever be encased in youth, frozen in his Immortal beauty, looking as fragile as porcelain and glass, but as strong as marble. His dark sweep of lashes cast deep shadows over his pale, flawless skin with its high cheekbones, his hair still thick and dark and wavy, though it had lost that luster of supernatural life. His delightfully alluring scent was marred by the distinctive aroma of cadaver. He looked peaceful.
The guy had looked as if he could have been no more than twenty-two years old. Not bad for a ninety-odd year old Vampire, eh?
You wouldn’t have thought that, mere hours earlier, his eyes had been sparkling golden light, shards like lightning strikes bleeding from his pupils through his irises. He’d hissed and spat at me for wrapping a fine silver chain around his throat, trying to get a chunk out my neck while I tried to take his head. I had settled for staking; it was easier.
My eyes had sparked back of course—part of the Vampire package. He had thought he could take me, simply because I don’t pulse with power like most Immortals, and my heart beat faster than his. I shook my head again at his stupidity. Forever will I be underestimated, forever underappreciated. Sigh. He never saw my claws coming—which is part of the whole Werewolf package.
Bully for me.
“Shoulda backed down when I told you to, buddy. Just because you brutalize a woman’s neck in Idaho, doesn’t mean you can brutalize mine in South Carolina.” Standing, I slipped my fingers over the tail of my fine titanium chain, and curled the end around them. The length tightened, and the remnants still embedded in the male’s neck went taught and started to sizzle. With a fierce tug, the chain constricted, the sharp edge biting into flesh with the ease of a warm knife through butter, the now-severed head flopped sideways onto the tarp. Blood—slow, dark and sluggish—began to seep out almost immediately. Gross.
No coming back from that, no matter how good you regenerate.
Flicking dead Vampire flesh from the links of my favorite pest-control device—Ick!—I gave the body a shove with my pink-and-black-DC’d foot and off he went, rolling over the ledge and bopping off the ravine wall like a bouncy ball down the stairs. For a moment, I stood there wrapping my chain around my wrist and contemplating the irony of this fellow’s death.
“Last tumble you’ll ever have, mate.”
Snicker, snicker.
With a dusting off of hands and a mental pat on the back for another job efficiently done, I spun on my heel and waltzed back to the car, thoughts of payday flittering like pretty butterflies in my head. My quarry’s ‘car’—and I use the term loosely since the elderly Plymouth Valore could have been as old as the chap I just tossed off the cliff and had paint that was…well, non-existent at this point. Unless you consider rust-red come human-corpse-beige a paint job. The inside smelled as musty as cobwebs and tombs, and I was never so grateful that I wore driving gloves to hide prints.
Not that my prints would make any sense to anyone able to lift and run them. Not only have I never had the wonderful occasion to end up on official reports. I’ve also technically been dead for, oh…a century or three, give or take.
When you live this long, you learn to take on new personas to keep the nosey neighbors off your lawn. You choose personas to protect your anonymity. This time, I took on an identity to suit my job. You might have heard of me, although the story has become a little twisted since my Immortal youth when I first took on the fictional mantle. I was a fresh, newly made Immortal when the story was published. A totally oblivious, nineteen-year-old woman whose fate sought to intervene and change her entire existence—although, that part isn’t in the kiddies’ books. That part is all me. But here, I’ll give you a hint. I have a red hooded cape, wolves follow me around and I was real fond of my grandmother.
I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
Anyway, I still got the red hood, wolves still don’t like me, and grandmother is actually my grandfather who is also long dead. I’m Immortal thanks to a wolf’s bite and a Vampire saving me—I’m sure you’ll find out the gruesome details eventually—and my name is Willow Ashwin.
Yeah…‘Red’ is way cooler.
I’m now a bounty hunter for hire, tracking down rogue-whatever for select clientele at a hefty price, dead or alive, as required. Alive, the prey is caged and collection arranged, protecting the secrecy of my client as well as myself. Dead, the prey is disposed of and instructions sent on how to retrieve the body, again protecting the secrecy of my client.
Easy money.
Before closing the rusted, icky-smelling trunk, I brushed off the few stray sprigs of tarp that had snagged on the lock, depositing them ou
tside the car for the wind to carry far, far away. The authorities will find the car eventually, but no point making it easy for them to figure out it was used as a body-disposal vehicle. I like to make them work for the tax I pay. It’s my contribution to society.
Among other things.
Shush!
Hopping back into the car, I started the engine. It gurgled to life with all the enthusiasm of an obese marathon runner—with a grunt and a wheeze. I groaned as I inspected the silver chain wrapped around my wrist, flecks of drying blood and flesh evident in the creases. I had one for each wrist. The left was silver for Weres and demons. The right was titanium for Vampires and Fae. They were both five feet long and super cool for restraining quarry, or beheading them. Both were imbedded with iron, because Fae, more than any other being, were tricksy fuckers. The chains were a real bitch to maintain though.
Gonna have to scrub that before bed. Sigh. Of all my weapons, why was the most simple and handy the hardest to clean? Blah.
Tapping the steering wheel with my red-gloved hand, I purred endearments like “good girl” to the car as I pulled away, bumping and rolling through the dips and rivets, back onto the main roadway.
Summerville is practically a small city, with a population of around forty-three thousand. Situated comfortably in South Carolina, breaching three counties, it boasts being one of the two best areas in the world for treatment and recovery of lung and throat disorders. Scientists put it down to some funky gas the pine trees release and the dry, sandy nature of this part of the country. After living here for nearly a decade, I wondered if the scientists had ever thought to visit Summersville, because I put it down to the fact that people come here as a last resort. When all other routes fail, and the prospect of asking an Immortal for a drop of their blood to cure their disease becomes a lot less ridiculous and a lot more attractive. People make promises they don’t necessarily expect to come through on—like first-born sons or half a century of servitude.
Some people find an Immortal. Some don’t, if they’re lucky.
Some Immortals allow their blood to be taken. Some refuse. Either way, you pay a steep price just for the privilege of asking. I’ve seen a few instances where money and promises have changed hands for this exact purpose, and I tell you, it’s almost enough to make me reconsider my anonymity. Almost.
Summerville is a beautiful and romantic little place, especially in the Town Square where North Main Street and Richardson intersect. The buildings are either old or simple, but perfectly kept and reminiscent of my Immortal youth back in rural England. Jeepers, that’s far too long ago to be remembering something. The concrete used to be dirt, the fields used to be grass and the pines…well, there have always been pines. I used to walk among trees just like them on dirty trails to my grandparent’s house as a child. Now that house is an ancient ruin, and those dirty trails are a hiker’s paradise.
Oh, how the world has changed. Blah.
Coming into town, the big festival banner flapped lazily overhead. It had rained, a brief, misting shower, just enough to bring the flowers up nice and perky. Further down along Main, where the Flowertown Festival would take place, is Azaela Park, which has fountains, walking paths, and beautiful sculptures. I’ve only really seen them at night, when I’m working. It really is quite hauntingly beautiful. During the day, I’m recovering. Or I’m trying too. Damn you, drapes that aren’t quite long enough and pesky sun that insists on blinding me.
Montreux Bar and Grill won Best Bar in Summerville, what with their soft leather couches and multitude of flat screen televisions sporting, well…sports. On Friday and Saturday nights they have live bands, and this weekend was no exception. The place was packed to the rafters, and the mouth-watering aroma of grilled steaks and home-made fries with salsa… Yum. I rolled the car into an alley and my stomach gave a happy, eager rumble at the prospect of meat.
Beheading always gives me an appetite. Just saying.
Checking my phone as I walked the long way around to Main and Richardson, I noted that it was half past one in the morning. For a moment, I hovered on the corner, glancing up and down the street, wondering where I was going to get food at that time of night. Food wasn’t a necessity, but it was a pleasure. I do work better on a full stomach.
Decision made, I headed on up to Montreux with the hope that I could sway the owner, Gray, to let me pick at his leftovers in the kitchen. I hated trying to order food then eat it when the crowds were like this
Seeing at a glance through the windows fronting the place that, yep, it was packed. Still going strong by the looks of things, with the scent of nummy-nummy increasing as the lights and music wafted down the street, making my tummy give another ecstatic gurgle. Shushing it, I swept in through the dark wood doors. Righto, something to eat and then back to hunting.
Tossing back my red wool hood on my favorite red leather jacket, I glided through the ruckus of sweaty, intoxicated and handsy—might I add—crowd of people. At the far end I bounced over to the edge of the bar, away from the main thoroughfare of drunken people, leaned over the counter. Following my nose to the familiar scent of cosmopolitans and wind, I peered down, blinking innocently at a mop of dark hair with silver bands streaking away from the temples like pale flames. Broad shoulders and strong, tanned hands worked to cram as many bottles into the fridge as possible, and I waited patiently for him to notice me.
Bright blue eyes glanced up, and then they did a double-take. Gray rolled his eyes and groaned theatrically, physically slumping at the sight of me. I beamed my mega-watt-smile at him as he came to his feet, his Cosmo and wind aroma intensifying as he slapped big hands down on the bar’s glossy surface.
“Red,” he huffed. “Come to scavenge have we?” His voice was deep and rough, rumbling along my skin like a deep bone massage. His tanned, slightly-lined face glared at me, making one of his dark brows sit somewhat higher than the other. The cleft in his chin worked side to side, up and down, as he ground his teeth, his annoyance clear as he leaned on the bar and I peered up from my measly five-foot-five to his six-foot. He appeared to be about mid-thirties, but was actually coming up to his mid-forties, and had ‘military’ practically stamped on his forehead. He looked at me and saw a young woman, maybe a girl in her late teens. He used to call me ‘kid’ until I punched a guy in the face for smoothing his hand over my ass.
Skeeze.
“You know it’s what I’m good at, Gray,” I said in a sing-song voice with a grin, blinking my best adorable look for him.
He rolled his baby-blues and lifted the bar flap, almost knocking me off my feet. A bruise to match the other cheek? No, thank you. Gray crooked a finger at me, then turned away and headed for the kitchen. Beaming even brighter, bouncing on my DC’s after him, I rubbed my hands together at the prospect of what he might have.
I stopped dead and turned, eyes scanning sharply over the bar. Tilting my chin up slightly, I inhaled deep and slow, scrutinizing the crowd. Yes…there it is…like coffee, ice and exotic spices. I exhaled slowly through my mouth, coating my tongue with the flavor of expensive coffee, mist, ice, and a touch of…liquorice? No, wait…anise.
My breath came out in a shuddering sigh as my gaze locked on one of the booths near the crowded dance floor. Immortals always smell good, almost as if their scent alone could lure in an unsuspecting mortal, enticing images of dark sensuality and shadowed promises of pleasure. And it could…for a time.
With my enhanced sense of smell, this particular immortal smelled damn near irresistible, making my inner-wolf sit up and purr, sending shivers across every inch of skin, and raising it to the point where even I wanted to touch myself. If L’Oréal could bottle that scent, I’d buy shares; shit would be canned orgasm.
With the main lights off and the disco lights going, the booth seats were shrouded in shadow, nothing visible but a hand from mid-forearm down, pale, elegant fingers lightly tracing the base of a tumbler. I may not have been able to see who was there, but I could smell him, and hi
s power all but clung to my skin like sweat.
Sweet, delicious, lickable, irresistibly hot, dirty monkey sex sweat.
“Red?” I jumped as Gray appeared next to me, my cheeks heating as I watched him follow my gaze before he frowned, as if he didn’t see what I saw. And technically, he didn’t. Mortals never see until it’s too late—bar a select few. I was once one of the select few.
“Do you know who that is?” I asked, inclining my head in the booth’s general direction as I looked up at Gray.
His eyes briefly flicked up, then returned to me with a frown. It’s little things like that, which made me certain he was something more, before he was ever a grouchy bar owner.
“He’s been in here the last few nights. Orders a few whiskeys, sits on his lonesome in the same booth, doesn’t cause trouble…” His eyes narrowed at me. “Now, Red, don’t go scaring off my customers.” I spluttered for a response and his scowl deepened. “Red!”
I swear my Gramps used to use that exact same tone.
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “Not my fault you cater to all sorts,” I mumbled.
He snorted, “That’s the only reason I let you in.”
I gave him an exaggerated affronted expression, complete with gaping mouth and long shocked gasp. “That hurts, Gray.” Pressing a hand to my “wounded” heart, I added, “What would your wife say?”
“That your skirts are too short.”
My lips twitched despite themselves, trying to keep a straight face and not tug on my skirt as Gray turned back to the kitchen. She probably would tell me that too.
I twisted back to the booth. “Shit.” It was empty. The guy was just…gone, nothing left but the tumbler and the remnant of canned orgasm.
Well, I feel dirty.
Striding across the floor, slipping past floppy dancers, I snatched up the tumbler and walked back the way I’d come. I slipped it into my jacket pocket, and prayed no one slammed into me and broke it. Glass in my side was so not what I needed.
Popping through the kitchen door, I strolled in to see Gray piling a baguette with glistening strips of steak. Cue the tummy rumble and drool.