Enchanted Immortals Series Box Set: Books 1-4 plus Novella

by C. J. Pinard

  This was more than a stakeout. She planned on approaching the shifters this time, unbeknownst to poor Christian, who thought he was in for another night of magazine reading and flirtatious banter.

  “Does Al even know we’re out here?” Christian asked, peeling a sunflower seed from his mouth and flicking it into the car’s built-in ashtray.

  Annette smiled and nodded. “Of course he does. He doesn’t care if we do stakeouts. It’s not like he has to pay us overtime.”

  “Yeah, about that. I have a life, you know.”

  Annette snorted. “Really? Am I keeping you from a hot date on a Friday night?”

  This is my Friday night hot date, Christian thought… and Annette heard.

  Annette bit back a smile. “Really? What’s her name?”

  “I can get chicks, you know,” he said with mock sincerity.

  Annette wasn’t buying it. “I know you can, a young, good-lookin’ guy like you.”

  Christian’s face flushed red. He was glad it was dark in the car and Annette couldn’t see. “You think I’m good looking?”

  She studied him for a minute. “Yeah. You know, you kind of have a James Dean thing going on.” She pointed at him with her finger making circles at his face.

  He smiled at her and studied her face. His eyes trailed down to her full, cherry-red lips then back up to her yellowish-brown eyes framed by eyelashes coated in dark mascara. That was the only makeup she seemed to wear, though, and Christian liked that.

  A light in the shapeshifter’s house flicked on and Annette’s eyes flipped from Christian’s face to the house behind him. She pointed. “Look.”

  Christian turned to look at the house and saw that not only the porch light was illuminated, but the living room light, as well. Then, as luck would have it, a familiar black town car pulled up into the driveway, as if on cue.

  “Wow, we sure got lucky,” Christian whispered, pointing at the black sedan.

  Annette shook her head. “No, I figured Jeremy would show up again tonight.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because vamps have to feed at least once a week. Although they do indulge more than that quite frequently,” Annette answered.

  “And you know this, how?” Christian asked.

  She exhaled dramatically. “Did you not pay attention at the academy?” She was lying. They didn’t teach this at the academy, she just knew it from years of experience.

  “Uh, yes I did but I don’t remember that. And I took notes.”

  Of course you did, Annette thought.

  He turned his head and looked back toward the house, where the large shapeshifter from the other night stepped out onto the porch to greet Jeremy. They didn’t shake hands, but they seemed friendly enough. The shifter opened the screen door and ushered the vampire in with a flourish. His eyes scanned the dark street before going back inside, closing the door.

  “C’mon, let’s go look in the window,” Annette said, tapping Christian on the shoulder.

  “Seriously?” he said, looking at her as if she were crazy.

  She nodded. “Yeah, c’mon.”

  Christian didn’t want to, but he couldn’t wuss out in front of his female partner. Plus he worked for the BSI now. This is my job, he thought to himself.

  He drew his gun this time, following Annette and feeling kind of bad for letting her lead. They snaked up to the front window and slunk around the side of the house with their backs against it.

  Annette peered in and saw the same scene as before. Human girl in a white bathrobe and the shifter with his hands out. The vampire placed several bills into his outstretched palm.

  Now, Annette had obviously never seen the big guy shift – she just assumed he was one by the way he had spoken directly to the wolf the night they’d been discovered in the backyard. They had yet to discover if a shifter, while in human form, could communicate directly with one who was in animal form. She suspected so, by the way he had spoken to the wolf.

  She knew she was taking a big risk sleazing around the house the way she was – and dragging Agent Estes with her, but her confidence was a bit more bolstered thanks to Leo being in the car down the street. She had spotted his Ford about an hour ago as she was talking to Christian. Leo was insanely strong and was a very old Immortal who took shit from absolutely nobody. She’d only been in the Chicago coven for a couple of years, but in that time, she had seen him literally tear off the heads of vampires and break the necks of shapeshifters, both in human form and animal form. The thought made her shudder, but she knew Leo had her back. Always.

  As Jeremy bit down into the human’s neck, the large shifter watched with disgust then walked into the adjoining kitchen and busied himself in there, but Annette could see he was still keeping an eye on them. She motioned for Christian to watch, and as he peered in, the vampire, with his mouth still at her neck, began to untie her robe at the waist and opened it. His pale hands trailed up her flat stomach to her bare chest and that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Christian let out a gasp when the large shifter moved unnaturally fast back to the dining room area of the small house and grabbed the vampire by his wavy black hair, slamming him to the ground.

  Jeremy recovered and hissed at the shifter, who then shifted into a large tiger, his clothes exploding off of him into bits, and lunged at the vampire. The human female, although she seemed drowsy from the bite, sort of shook her head and snapped back to reality, and as she saw the vampire backhand the large tiger, she let out a blood-curdling scream.

  Another male appeared from a hallway off the side of the kitchen. He was tall and thin, with long, scraggly hair and bad teeth. His eyes widened as he observed the brawl and quickly morphed into the gray wolf Annette and Christian had witnessed the other night.

  A blurring fast fight was on – the shapeshifters seemed to be getting the upper hand but the vampire was holding his own. The female was screaming and had her arms wrapped around herself. She seemed to be conflicted on what to do, whether to run out of the house or help her boyfriend in the fight.

  Annette ran to the front door with Christian on her tail and threw open the front door and fired two shots into the low ceiling of the small home. The fight suddenly stopped. Plaster dust from the hole rained down on their heads. The tiger, the wolf, and the now very bloody, disheveled vampire stopped and stared at her – along with the human female who yelled, “Help them, please!”

  Christian walked to her and sat her down in one of the dining room chairs. “Sit and be quiet.”

  Annette produced an ID. “Department of Justice. What the hell is going on here, mister?” She directed her question at the vampire. “Do you have a permit for these animals?”

  He stared at her, dumbfounded, then a small smirk found his face as he wiped blood from his mouth with his finger. “No, officer, I don’t. Perhaps you should call Animal Control and have them picked up. They are quite the menace, as you can see.”

  “They’re not animals!” the human female screamed.

  Annette raised her eyebrow at her, amused. “Then what are they?”

  “Donny, Andy, help me out here!” she yelled at the tiger and wolf.

  They were still frozen, staring at Annette, who was clearly nervous, the attack from Howie in Lincoln Park still fresh in her mind.

  Just then, Jeremy blurred out of the house at superhuman speed, leaving a wisp of air in his wake. He stormed into the town car and it squealed off down the street.

  Donny slowly turned from a wolf into a very thin, naked man. Andy, however, lunged at Annette in his tiger form but Annette was ready for him.

  She ducked, rolling once on the ground and getting up. “You need to show yourself as human, or I promise you, I will shoot you.” She was up and had her gun aimed at the tiger. The tiger lunged at her again without thought.

  Christian fired a shot at it and missed.

  Before she could get a shot off, though, Leo burst through the front door and surprised the large cat, t
ackling it and snapping its neck. He threw it to the carpeted floor of the small house.

  The human female screamed at the top of her lungs, a shrilly, devastated, blood-curdling scream.

  Donny yelled, “No! Andy!”

  Christian was still with the human female and had his mouth open.

  They all watched in horror as Andy’s orange and black stripes turned into tanned human skin and his other features turned into a naked human male, lying motionless on the floor.

  The female ran up to him.

  “Carol, don’t touch him! He needs to heal!” Donny screamed, holding her back. He looked up at Leo, Annette, and Christian and said, “Who the hell are you people and what are you doing here?”

  “Like I said, Feds,” Annette answered, trying to maintain some sort of semblance of control while she was shaking.

  “Wait, I know you two, you were in our backyard a few weeks ago.”

  Christian stood up. “That’s right. We’re with the Justice Department.”

  “Well you need to get out of here. You’ve already seen too much,” Donny said, pointing at his friend. He seemed to have absolutely no shame that he was standing there as naked as the day he was born.

  “Trust us, son, we’ve already seen plenty long before tonight,” Leo answered.

  Christian looked from Annette to Leo, then back at Annette. She could hear his frantic, jumbled thoughts as he tried to make sense of how Leo, whom he’d only met once in her hospital room, not only seemed to know all about shifters, but had been strong enough to kill a tiger with his bare hands. Christian knew he wasn’t BSI.

  He would get answers tonight, even if it killed him.

  Donny reached down and put his ear next to Andy’s mouth. “He’s still breathing, but barely.” He looked at Carol, who had tears streaming down her pale face. Two bloody holes were leaking down her neck.

  She nodded and laid her head on his chest.

  “Ma’am, do you know this shapeshifter?”

  She lifted her head and looked at Leo a little surprised. “Yes, he’s my husband.”

  Annette lifted an eyebrow at her. “And you let him loan you out to vampires?”

  She nodded and wrung her hands. “We needed the money. But I don’t give up no sex. I knew he was feelin’ me up, but I was in a trance and couldn’t stop Jeremy. I’m always in a trance when he bites me.”

  “Do you know you’re called a ‘blood whore’?”

  She looked at him disgust. “A blood whore?”

  “Yes,” Annette said. “I suggest you stop before it kills you. Unless you want this…” she motioned around to the destruction of the living room furniture, “to happen again. Feeding is sexually arousing to vampires.”

  She shuddered. “Ew.”

  Leo gave commanding eyes to Annette, who motioned to Christian. “Have a good night, folks.”

  The three walked out of the small house, leaving one stunned human and a dumbfounded shapeshifter in the house.

  ∞∞∞

  “In the words of Ricky Ricardo, you have some ‘splanin’ to do, Lucy,” Christian said as he brushed a stray red curl from Annette’s face.

  They were sitting in Christian’s apartment, TV on but not really watching it. They had been kissing for a while, mostly because Annette was trying to avoid answering questions about herself but she knew Leo had blown their cover and was trying to find a diplomatic way of telling him.

  She smiled at the Lucy comment, as that wasn’t the first time she’d been called that since the popular actress had become a household name. Then her face grew serious. “Here’s the thing. I’m one-hundred and thirteen years old.”

  Christian threw his head back and laughed. “Okay, joker, stop playing around.”

  A serious looked passed over her features and she untangled herself from his sensuous grip. “I’m serious, Christian. I was born in Oklahoma in 1850. I went to Los Angeles in the late 1800s and got married. Tim was killed by a shapeshifter and an Immortal named Scott found me and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “An Immortal? You mean a vampire?”

  She shook her head, her red curls bouncing freely. “No, I belong to a coven of former humans who police the Fae – vampires and shapeshifters.”

  “Fae?”

  “Yes, that’s what we call them. We’ve been around for decades. First Immortal was created in 1809,” she said with seriousness.

  He clucked his tongue. OK, I’ll play, he thought. “That’s quite a tall tale, Annie. I mean, how do you keep from aging?”

  She smiled, her brown eyes twinkling. “I knew you’d ask that. A sylph gives us a magical elixir to drink every five years. It tastes like toxic waste and burns like fire, but it does the trick.”

  “A sylph?”

  “Yeah, she’s kind of like a witch, or a faerie. I’d never call her a witch, though. They’re kind of temperamental.”

  “They?” he asked, still amused by her story.

  “There are a coven of them, they live on an island in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  Now he was laughing. “Prove it.”

  She turned her head at him, getting annoyed. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you. Leo is going to kill me.”

  “So how old is Leo?”

  “Oh, he’s close to two hundred years old.”

  He leaned in to kiss her once more. “So tell me, little miss immortal, if you have this secret group that police the… Fae – what do you need the BSI for?”

  Her ruby red lips twisted into a facetious grin. “Who else is going to save your asses?”

  He leaned back. “Really. Well, I want in.”

  She nodded. “I knew you were going to say that. I’ll talk to Leo. I’m not sure we need two BSI Immortals in this field office, though.”

  “Oh, so you think you’re something special, do you?” he asked, running light fingers over her arm.

  She raised her chin. “Yes, yes I do.”

  He nodded. “I see. Well now that I know about your secret group, you’re not going to have to kill me, are you?”

  “I think if you’re not careful, a vampire or shifter will do that for you.”

  He shook his head and faked a pout. “Low blow, Russell.”

  She leaned over and kissed him once again, giggling into his mouth.

  PART III: NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – 1989

  Chapter 11

  ∞∞∞

  Special Agent Lauren Clark stepped out of her late model Ford sedan and wiped the sweat from her upper lip with her fingertip. She absolutely hated the summer. Seems as a Florida native she’d be used to it, and as a kid it hadn’t bothered her, but as she’d grown into an adult, she decided the whole upper lip sweat moustache wasn’t a good look for her.

  She blew out a breath, her blonde bangs tousled by the air she blew as she moved them out of the way of her sunglasses once again.

  “Black, one sugar, just the way you like it, sugar,” said Tristan Ellis with a smirk, handing her the steaming coffee in a paper cup from the gas station.

  She had gone back into the car where the air conditioning was blasting after scanning the parking lot of the Circle-K convenience store. She grabbed the cup and blew on it and said, “It’s too hot for this crap but I need the caffeine jolt. This weather is making me sleepy.”

  Tristan nodded. “I heard that. It gets humid in Minnesota, but the summers ain’t no joke here!”

  Lauren looked at his shiny bald brown head and nodded at it. “At least you can keep cool without hair. I’m about to shave my own damn head.”

  He laughed. “You definitely will not get any play with this look.” He pointed at his head. “Fortunately for me, I can rock the q-ball look with no problem.”

  Lauren laughed and put the car in gear, sipping her coffee while steering the ridiculously large, white, government-issued car one-handed. They drove in silence until they pulled up to the BSI headquarters on St. Charles Street, lucky enough to find a spot
in front on the street.

  As they took the elevator to the third floor, Tristan looked at Lauren and admired her dark green pantsuit and shiny high-heeled, nude-colored pumps. He respected her for dressing so conservatively, versus the ostentatious 80s style of pink and blue floral patterned dresses and blouses with the ridiculous shoulder pads he thought made women look like linebackers. He preferred his football players to be on the field or TV, not in his office.

  The elevator dinged their arrival and they made their way to the boss’s office to give a report.

  The SAC’s office was large. Glass walls made up the outside with a wooden door Lauren found useless. Why have glass walls and a solid wooden door? The government definitely designed this office, she thought with a snicker she had to suppress.

  She knocked on the door and waited for a response. Peering around the solid door through the glass, she saw her boss was on the phone. She put her pinky and thumb up to her ear at Tristan to indicate to him the boss was on the phone.

  “I know,” Tristan said. “I can see that.” He pointed at the sparkling glass wall.

  “Come in,” said a voice.

  They opened the door just as Special Agent in Charge Sheila Morris was hanging up.

  “Sit down, you two,” she said, pointing at the chairs in front of her massive oak desk.

  Sheila, the SAC of the New Orleans division, definitely did embrace the flamboyancy of the 80s era. With her large gold earrings and bright pink fitted polyester dress, and long, fluorescent fingernails, she obviously liked to be noticed. Her black hair was weaved with braids of synthetic hair and the pink lipstick on her full lips matched her nails perfectly. Lauren suspected her shoes under the desk also matched.

  Tristan and Lauren couldn’t help but wonder if they were in trouble by the way she was glaring at them.

  “So, what’s the 4-1-1 from my two favorite agents?” she asked, powdering her nose with a compact she’d pulled from her desk drawer.

  Lauren tried to hide the incredulous look on her face, as she hardly wore any makeup at all and wondered why women bothered sometimes. She cleared her throat and plastered on a smile. “Nothing, really. We cruised the Riverwalk and weaved our way through the Quarter and even Bourbon Street last night, but didn’t see much.”