by Leela Ash
Still, he clearly had issues. She didn’t know who these ‘Fangs of Apophis’ were, but she knew the signs of a gang when she saw them.
C’mon, girl! I wasn’t joking when I said I needed to take a break from Bad Choices.
Bangor wasn’t much. An oversized town pretending to be a city. For a while, Tess circled around it, admiring the tiny downtown and the broad Penobscot River that ran through it. The town’s charms were limited, however, and after a half hour, she grew bored. Time to grab a backpack full of supplies and head back to the shack.
Or I could say, ‘Screw the Deep Woods’ and just head to Boston.
She’d found a large roll of cash in her ‘home’, along with a handful of papers identifying a Boston bank account. It seemed to belong to her – though she had no clue why it had so much money in it.
I could head down to the city… get new clothes… find a nice hotel with room service… stop sleeping on a damned lawn chair…
…and never see Darian Morland again.
Tess scowled and swerved around a slow-moving SUV. Why did that matter? The man didn’t even like her! He thought she was some kind of mob enforcer or something. I-95 was just to her right. Hop on it and, in five hours, she would land in the lap of luxury.
Instead, she passed over the interstate and headed toward the grocery store.
Why?
Because a shack next to him was better than an empty penthouse.
The thought shocked her, and immediately, excuses flooded her mind. She didn’t know him. He was trouble. He didn’t like her.
His kid does, though. Ethan, right? Nice boy.
Nice enough to give up a Four Seasons suite for, though?
Yeah. And that whole ‘his dad doesn’t like me’ thing? That can change. Especially if I help them out. If there’s really a gang coming for them, Darian’s going to need backup. I don’t recall much of my past, but I think I can handle myself in a fight.
There it was. With a sigh of resignation, Tess accepted the painful truth: she was already committed to making Bad Choice #13. No sense pretending she was going to be sensible this time. One handsome stranger plus one devilishly hot dream, and her common sense flew out the window.
Annoyed and amused by her own foolishness, she signaled to turn into the ‘Shop Rite’ parking lot.
As she did, a town car glided up lane beside her. One of its black tinted windows rolled down, and a cultured male voice said, “Amatessandra?”
The man in the back seat was, on the surface, good looking. Slender, with an almost feminine, willowy grace. He wore a black tailored suit that perfectly fit his form and showed off the whippet-thin lines of his body. He could have been any handsome businessman – except for two details. First, his black hair, pulled back in a long pony tail, was far too long for mundane society. Second, his eyes were a brilliant violet.
Contacts, obviously. Still, the color was an odd choice. It made her think of that strange, elfin woman from her dream.
There wasn’t a single thing about him that was at all menacing. In fact, slouching languidly in the back of his limo, he looked bored beyond words. Yet, the moment she spotted his face, alarm bells went off in Tess’ head.
This man was dangerous. Treacherous, untrustworthy, and a complete slime ball. Bits and pieces of old memory rattled through her head, like dead leaves.
She didn’t know his name, but, somehow, she suspected that all her memories of him lay in one of those painted stones on Picture Rock Island. This guy was somebody she’d tried to forget – and no friend.
“Amatessandra?” he repeated.
Tess stared coldly at him. “Gesundheit.”
Irritation clouded his narrow face. “You don’t even remember your own name? How disappointing.”
“Of course I know my name. It’s Tess Everlyn.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s Amatessandra.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it was that – once. Now it’s Tess. Deal with that or stop talking to me.”
“As you will.” His sulky pout stirred the sediments in her mind, dim memories of a hundred other temper tantrums. “Do you recall me?”
“Nope.” Damn this was a long light. Briefly, she considered running the red.
“I’m Terandicandros.”
“Too long.” Tess revved the Harley’s engine. “I’m going to call you ‘Dick.’ I don’t really remember you, but from what little I recall, that’s about right.”
The sulk deepened. She found herself delighted by the way that every little slight and vexation showed in his face. “I am your servant, of course. But my lady, we need…”
Ha! Green light! Tess roared off without waiting to hear what Weasel-Face ‘needed.’
He followed her. Of course, he did. When she pulled into a parking space in the grocery lot, his driver blocked her in.
Dick was really starting to get on her nerves, even if she couldn’t quite remember him.
Once more, his window rolled down, as she tucked her helmet onto the bike’s back. “Lady Tess, listen to me, please. You’re in danger.”
“Yeah, I doubt that.” She stepped close to the limo. Dick shrank back, as if he expected her to haul him out through the window. When, instead, she started to slip past, he changed his tactics.
“Wait! I know people who will pay a fortune for your aid!”
Tess paused, scowling. “I thought I was in danger. You’re just making this stuff up as you go, aren’t you?”
“No! Of course not!” His eyes flickered uneasily about the parking lot. “We can’t talk here, though. Not in public.”
“Sorry, Dick.” She slipped between the limo and a blue sedan. “I’m not going anyplace private with you.”
“Is the name ‘the Fangs of Apophis’ familiar?”
Now that caught her attention. Tess hesitated, eyeing the stranger suspiciously. Dick knew something about the gang hunting Darian? Ah hell, maybe she ought to talk to him.
Seeing her reaction, the man smirked. One long, languid hand stretched out of the car, offering her a slip of paper. “Emerald Lounge. Address is there. I’ll await you, and we can talk. About the Fangs and your future.”
With a flick of his wrist, he signaled his driver. Tess stared as the limo pulled away, then glowered at the slip of paper in her hand.
This is a bad idea. But she was still going to do it.
What else was new?
Chapter 8
The Emerald Lounge was every bit as cheap and tawdry as its name suggested. A dingy bar huddled in one corner, sticky with years of sloshed beer. Dirty booths lined the walls, their seats covered with duct tape repairs. Four doors hinted that there was a lot more to this place that wasn’t open to the public. But as Tess strode through the lounge’s dank, cigarette-fouled main room, all she wanted to do was get out as quickly as possible.
Dick waited in one of the booths. The only other patron was a pale, thin woman at the bar, weighing gently on her stool. She had the rotten, skeletal gauntness of a meth addict, and the blank look in her eye suggested she was wasted right now.
Tess ignored her and plunked down across from her old companion. His smile widened, grew more simpering. “Good of you to come, my lady. This is a discrete place. Nothing we say will pass to unworthy ears.”
“Whatever.” Stoner-girl looked too wasted to notice the world, much less eavesdrop. Still, something about this place disturbed her. Not just its general filth and stench. There was something off about the people in it. For a second, the bartender’s form seemed to shimmer, shifting into that of a mangy, toothless bear. The addict dreaming on her stool transformed into a white rabbit with wide, blind eyes. Yet, when Tess snapped around to stare at them directly, bear and rabbit vanished. Leaving just a paunchy old biker and some washed up meth-head.
“Before we start, may I offer you an amenity?” From under his jacket he pulled a baggie full of a white powder. “If I remember correctly, you’ve always been partial to cocaine.”
Had sh
e? The accusation seemed depressingly plausible to her. With a grimace, she shook her head.
The rejection seemed to surprise Dick. “Meth? Heroin? Or do your pleasures run in other directions these days?”
Bile rose in her throat. Damn, what kind of a messed up fool was she? No wonder she’d dumped her past under a tree in the Maine woods. “I’m good. All I want is information.”
“Of course.” He tucked the drugs away safely again.
“Let’s start with the Fangs of Apophis. Who are they, why are they here in Nowhereville, Maine, and what do I have to do with them?”
Dick leaned back, spreading his arms along the top of the booth. “The Fangs are a… shall we say… practical group of Shifters. Ones who refuse to allow their Shifter souls to dominate them. They’re committed to controlling this world and its myriad pleasures. The Other Side be damned.”
Shifters… Other Side…
Darian had used those words. Which made sense, she guessed, if he’d dealt with this gang in the past. Still, none of it made sense to her. “Back up. What’s a Shifter?”
His jaw actually dropped and he gaped at her, all pretense of sophistication lost. “You don’t remember Shifters? How much of yourself have you shed?”
Judging from the rocks on that island, twelve stones’ worth – however much that was. Probably a lot, given the blank slate of her past. Not that she was telling him that.
Quickly, Dick’s mouth snapped shut. An oily compassion – completely unbelievable – settled over his fine features. “I’m sure this world has been hard on one of your refined lineage. Even I, a mere commoner, find it a maddening burden. But, you see, that’s the wonderful news: there’s a way for us to get home. We don’t have to stay in this hellhole any longer.”
She had a home? A dull pain blossomed behind her eyes. “Stop. Back it up and answer my question. What’s a Shifter?”
“A mortal joined to a being of the Other Side. A Bear,” he gestured at the bartender cleaning glasses. “A Witch Hare.” Another wave at the shivering addict. “Shifters can ‘shift’ into that other form. Normal humans can’t see that. Or, rather, can’t deal with it. Their minds twist and break if they look directly at that kind of magic.”
Magic. Were-bears. Were- … bunnies?
Laughter bubbled up inside her and Tess pressed a hand to her lips to keep it in. With it, though, came a sobering thought.
Are Shifters any weirder than women who put their memories in rocks?
Yeah, she wasn’t really in a position to sneer at Shifters. Especially since she actually could see their bodies, well, Shifting every time she turned away from them.
Dick’s form didn’t Shift at all. “If humans can’t look at Shifters, why aren’t we going nuts?” she asked him.
At once, disgust flashed across his face. “We are not Shifters!” he snapped.
Ooh, hit a nerve with that one. She’d have to remember that. Somebody didn’t like Shifters very much. Funny, since he was apparently working with them. “What are we?”
Pride washed away his disdain and he raised his chin. “We are Adanai. The Pure.”
He seemed to expect a reaction to that pronouncement. Tess just blinked. “Okay. So what do we do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Shifters change into bears and rabbits. What do we do?”
“Nothing!” The very idea seemed to affront him.
“That sucks!” she exclaimed. “The impure get to Shift into cool animal forms while we ‘pure’ just… what? Sit around looking pretty?”
Dick sputtered, a noise she thoroughly enjoyed. Then he bit back some angry reply and his eyes narrowed. “If you want to know what we do, go collect the memories you shed.”
Jerk. Though he had a point.
“Fine. Whatever. So why are the Fangs of Apophis here in Maine?”
“Looking for information.” He raised a hand. The bartender glanced up, nodded, and retrieved a dusty bottle of red wine. “Information that your neighbor possesses.”
Anger blazed inside her and she fought to keep it from her face. “What makes you think I’ve got a neighbor?”
Dick shrugged, his eyes locked on the bartender who shuffled toward them, wine and glass in hand. “Please. I know where you go to shed your memories.”
Note to self: I need to move.
“When I saw this man’s address, I thought it a tremendous coincidence. One that could prove very profitable, for both of us.”
The bartender blew dust out of his wine glass and set it on the table. Then he carefully poured out a dark red liquid.
“What is it?” Dick asked.
“Wine.”
A muscle in the man’s smooth chin twitched. “I can see that. What kind of wine?”
“Red.”
Another tic. “Cabernet Sauvignon? Shiraz? Carmentiere? Light save us, do tell me it’s not a merlot.”
“It’s not a merlot,” the Bear replied dutifully. “It’s a red. You said you liked those.”
Dick closed his eyes and pinched his nose. “Go away,” he hissed. “And leave the wine – whatever it is.”
Sadly, Tess knew every varietal of grape he’d mentioned.
Apparently, meth and cocaine weren’t the only things I did back in the day.
“So what info do the Fangs want from this neighbor of mine?”
“Darian Morland is his name. You’ve met him?”
Her mind strayed back to that wild, delirious dream. “Yeah, I know him.”
“He’s a Shifter. A Dragon.”
That tattoo. Probably a dead give-away, if she hadn’t dumped all her memories. But why couldn’t she see his soul’s form, as she could with the Witch Hare and Bear-tender?
As soon as she wondered that, she remembered one of the strange details of her dream. Thick bars, inked black, crossed over the Dragon’s head. Maybe that hides his Shifter powers?
If the bars were even real. Tess grimaced when she realized that she was treating this stupid dream like it had really happened.
Dick didn’t notice her expression, or didn’t care. “He’s too dangerous, obviously, to confront directly.”
That made sense. Dragons sounded a hell of a lot meaner than the poor Hare up at the bar.
“But there are rumors.” Eyes glittering with excitement, Dick leaned across the table toward her. Tess tilted her chair back. “Whispers that his Flight – the other Dragons he knows – have discovered a priceless treasure.” He paused, obviously hoping she’d beg him to tell her what that was. When she remained silent, he added, after a dramatic pause: “A living Wellspring.”
That meant absolutely nothing to her. Dick waited, expecting some emotional outburst. Instead, Tess shrugged. “Yay?”
Outrage, and she won another drop of his jaw. Taunting him was such a delight. Tess couldn’t remember why she loathed the man (though she thought it had something to do with another woman; scratch that – several other women…). But she couldn’t deny the deep, nasty joy she felt every time she horrified her… “ex”? Yeah. Crap. That seemed likely too. Dick and she had been something, once upon a time.
“You don’t remember Wellsprings? Is there anything left of you?” he whispered in disgust.
“Enough to know that I don’t like you.”
“You discarded all your knowledge and yet you kept your grudges.” He shook his head, still reeling from her ‘ignorance’.
“Hey, the fact that you’re a treacherous scum ball was the most important thing I knew,” she snapped back. “I kept that.”
For a moment, the two of them glared across the table. Dick’s no-pedigree wine sat, neglected. Her heart urged her to slap him and storm out. Her head, however, reminded her that she came here for a reason.
These Fangs were Darian’s enemies. She needed to get information about them.
For him.
“So…”
“Fine,” Dick grumbled. “I’ll explain. Wellsprings are…”
“Don’t bot
her. I don’t care.” When she wanted to know, she’d ask Darian. He was a hell of a lot more trustworthy than her ex. “They’re valuable. You want me to find the location of one. The Fangs will pay a lot for that info. That’s all I need to know.”
Her fake indifference reassured him, as she hoped it would. He relaxed enough to sample his wine. A decision he immediately regretted, judging from the grimace that followed.
Time to learn something she cared about. “One thing doesn’t make sense. How’d you know Morland lived next to me?”
Dick pushed his glass to the edge of the table, clearly displeased with it. “He isn’t half as subtle as he thinks he is. The Fangs tracked his financial payments. Located his realtor, put some pressure on her. She caved. Of course.”
Huh. Sounded like she wasn’t the only one who needed to move. “You told them about me?”
“No! Of course not!” Oddly, he seemed genuinely shocked by the question. Then again, he did despise Shifters. “We may be the only two Adanai in this world. We need to protect each other.”
Tess burst out laughing. “You’re going to protect me? Oh yeah, that’s believable.”
He said nothing. Just watched her, a pout ruining his handsome features. When she finally stopped chuckling, he snapped, “Do we have a deal then?”
She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “Nope. You haven’t given me any reason to help you.”
“But we’re…!”
“Over. Whatever we had,” she waved her hand vaguely, “is dead. You killed it when you cheated on me.” She couldn’t remember the details, but the longer she talked to him, the more confident she was that he was a philanderer. Time and time again.
“As if those women could ever compare to you,” he snorted. “I will never understand how you could be so petty and jealous.”
That’s because you don’t understand the first thing about love.
Fortunately, she caught herself before that blurted out. Love was a weapon to men like him. A tool they could use to hurt and control women. Damned if she’d admit he’d ever wielded that knife against her.