by Eve Langlais
“How am I supposed to learn about the genies and their culture if I can’t ask questions?”
“You won’t ask questions because you’re not meeting them.”
“Yes I am.” Stated with a quiet assurance that Felicia knew wouldn’t waver. If Ella said it would happen, then it would.
“You want to know about the djinn? Then, for starters, how about we don’t treat them like they’re different. They’re people just like you and me.” For hundreds of years, Felicia had been teaching people that vampires could coexist with humans and not eat everyone they met.
Hundreds. Of. Years.
The lesson still hadn’t stuck. Humans learned and then died of old age, meaning new ones had to be taught to take their place. Then there were the unfortunate incidents where vampires actually did snack on unsuspecting humans.
Image tarnished.
And she was tired of fixing it.
“But we are different,” Ella retorted. “Which is okay. It’s what makes the world an interesting place.”
Felicia resisted an urge to rub her forehead. “Being different isn’t the problem. It’s the incessant badgering questions that are the issue. Why can’t you simply listen?”
“How come it’s okay for you to ask me about my magic and my childhood and how long my periods last, but I can’t ask some guy if Aladdin was real?”
A smile lurked around the corners of Felicia’s lips. “Aladdin was very real. He belonged to a political party that fell out of favor about eight centuries ago. So tread carefully before mentioning his name.”
Ella’s mouth rounded. “Oh. That’s fascinating.”
“I have a book about it in the library if you’d like to borrow it.”
“I just might, and then maybe I can find a ghost still around from that time.” The world relied on Google and translations of recovered texts for history. Ella spoke to those who lived it.
Major envy moment.
“Asking a ghost is a better idea than asking a djinn,” Felicia remarked.
“If gin is for one, is it ginnie or gins for two or more?”
“Still djinn.”
“What do they look like?”
“Whatever they want. Puff of smoke. Dragon. Man. Woman. I once knew one that chose to be a four-foot blue-skinned troll.” Poor Baku. He ended up being eaten by a goblin who thought he was a new flavor.
“You’ve had a zillion adventures and met a ton of people. You’re so lucky.”
Lucky? Not quite the word Felicia used. The term survivor came to mind. There were a few moments in her past she’d rather erase. “Adventure is not as glamorous as you’d think.” For one thing, it usually involved sleeping in cramped, dirty holes hidden from daylight and people bearing wooden stakes. And I should add that if you chose to spend less time watching Netflix—”
“And chilling with my man!”
“—you could see more of the world.”
“I’ll be seeing it soon enough. The time of portent arrives with quickening steps,” Ella said with utmost seriousness. Before Felicia could question the odd statement, Ella clapped her hands. “What time do they arrive tomorrow?”
Was there any point in hiding it? “Seven p.m. And it’s tonight.” Just over sixteen hours away.
“Why aren’t you preparing?”
A snort escaped Felicia. “You do know I have staff for that kind of stuff.”
“Don’t you have to shop for a slinky dress? What if they’re cute?”
“No need to shop. I have a closetful of garments.” Something to suit every occasion, including rarely used items of seduction. It had been so long since she’d worn that finery it would probably disintegrate into dust if touched.
The distant purr of an engine drew her attention. Felicia tipped back the rest of her glass before saying, “We are done for today. I hear Zane arriving.” She heard just about everything that happened in her house. Spells placed by warlocks and elven mages amplified the sound in the rooms she wanted to spy on. Nothing happened that she wasn’t aware of.
Ella whirled and faced the door, eager as always to greet her lover. She wasn’t alone in her haste. Zane walked with purposeful energy whenever he came to fetch Ella. And he never failed to show. Ella never traveled alone. He displayed a protectiveness that bordered on claustrophobic, at least for Felicia. But Ella didn’t mind it. A good thing because ever since Zane had paid a visit to the woman who’d placed Ella in the asylum, he’d been tense. Apparently, Ella’s past held some secrets. Zane said something about a prophecy, which Felicia didn’t pay much mind. Prophecies that were given too much attention had a tendency of being self-fulfilling.
However, Zane was worried. He was the one who insisted Felicia work Ella hard. He never said it, but Felicia got the impression he was concerned an untrained Ella might actually become a menace to the world. One could only hope. Felicia found the concept intriguing enough to overlook Ella’s cheerful nature.
“Zane!” Sunshine and happiness. That was the expression on Ella’s face each time Zane walked into a room.
It was revolting. Clingy.
Adorable. Enviable.
Felicia turned away from the embrace. “Get a room.”
“Or you could just leave. We’ve not yet done it on a throne,” was the deep baritone reply.
The very idea had her glaring at Zane, who stared at her with a mocking grin, his arms looped loosely around Ella.
“Don’t you dare,” Felicia stated.
“Now you know I will.”
Felicia flung her hands. “Bah, the pair of you drive me insane. You, with your teenage libido and her, with her laziness.”
“I am not lazy,” Ella hotly retorted. “I’m not taking advantage of my attic friends just because your throne’s not centered.”
Felicia’s gaze narrowed. How did she know? Was it really that noticeable? “Fine, you’re not lazy, but you do lack proper control.”
“I controlled it just fine when I had to.”
The problem with vanquishing a badass, say like the recently defeated sorcerer who tried to use Ella’s power, was the false self-assurance. “A fluke. What if next time you’re up against someone with more skill?”
“I can handle trouble.”
“The correct answer is to eliminate trouble.” How many times did she have to say it?
“And there’s the problem,” Ella said to Zane. “Why must I always kill? Why can’t I just give someone a firm scare? A second chance?”
Zane tugged his shirt up and showed off a rather ridged scar. Left by a feral vampire, the enzymes in the bite meant the flesh never fully healed. “This is what happens when you allow the wrong person a second chance.”
Ella ran her fingers over it. “I thought you said a bad vampire did this.”
“A bad vampire I had the opportunity to stop.” He dropped the shirt. “Sometimes showing mercy is the wrong thing to do.”
“Your reluctance to act is a danger not only to yourself but others,” Felicia added.
An eye roll accompanied Ella’s sigh. “If I have to kill, I’ll kill.” The chilling words lost their punch spoken in her sweet voice.
Felicia snorted. “Can’t you make it sound at least a little ominous?”
“You want ominous?” The deep voice emerged from a suddenly rigid Ella. “He who rides is coming. He who craves is hungering. He who died is living. He who bows survives.”
It obviously wasn’t Ella speaking. “Who are you?” Felicia snapped.
Meanwhile, poor Zane looked frantic as he didn’t know who to fight. Ella was in danger; anyone could see it by the red glow emanating from her eyes. “Get out of my wife!” he shouted, fists clenched, a vein in his temple throbbing.
“I am he who comes. The destroyer of nations. Leader of the legions.” The red spark in her eyes flared brighter, and Ella’s hair lifted in a staticky halo.
“What do you want?” Zane growled. “Leave my wife alone.”
“She will serve me,” t
he thing inside Ella hissed. “All will bow. All will serve. All—”
Felicia had heard enough.
Crack. Her hand connected with Ella’s cheek. She snapped, “Fight. Take back control.”
“She can’t because she is mine.” The voice laughed.
Felicia didn’t let it chill her as intended. She knew of a way to grab Ella’s attention. She flung herself at Zane and wrapped her arms around him.
Zane, who’d stiffened on contact, grasped her idea. He smiled down at Felicia, or his lips did at least. His eyes remained stone cold.
“Aaaaaaaaarhhhhr.” The sound whistled out of Ella’s mouth as her head thrashed from side to side.
Ran a finger down his cheek.
Ella snapped. She yelled, “Out!” and her arms flung away from her body, sending out a wave of scorching air that whipped past Felicia’s skin, smelling of the desert sands. Then, as quickly as it hit, it was gone, leaving behind a deep silence broken by Ella declaring, “Well, that was unexpected.”
Two
“It only possessed me for a minute,” Ella explained for the zillionth time as they drove home. She tried to downplay it.
Zane still freaked. “What do you mean it possessed you? How does that happen, Ella? I thought you controlled the spirits.”
“I do, but like I told you back at Felicia’s place, whatever took over was more than a spirit.” The presence that stepped into her body and wore her like a suit glowed with the heat of a hundred suns. Filled her to almost bursting. He didn’t spark in her presence like a regular ghost; he exploded.
“Saying it was more than a spirit doesn’t reassure me, moonbeam.”
“It’s not as if I got hurt. He only wanted to relay a message.”
“About the apocalypse coming.” Zane’s hands gripped the wheel tight.
“That seems a rather dark analysis for the poem.”
“How else can you interpret it?” He took his eyes off the road long enough to ask.
“How bad can it be? It did say ‘dead to alive.’ Someone’s getting a second chance. Good for them.”
Zane gaped at her. “I don’t believe you just fucking said that.” He turned his head to stare at the road once more, his jaw a grim line of annoyance.
It took biting her lip to hold in a snicker. Sometimes baiting her husband was just too easy. But Ella had to do it. Had to lighten the mood because she couldn’t let Zane know how terrified she was. Shaking inside her own skin.
Which was better than being shoved out of it.
Having never experienced it before, it took her by surprise when the evil spirit hijacked her body, leaving Ella in a strange limbo, watching herself.
I really need to do something about my bangs. And that ugly pair of pants. They made her look like she had no butt.
It took her a moment to register what had happened. To realize her body had been kidnapped. A second longer before she acted. Ghost Ella flew at the thing occupying her body and slammed at it. Might as well hit a wall. It kept her out, didn’t even waver.
When Felicia slapped her, she didn’t even feel it. But seeing the queen, with her curvy frame, drape herself on Zane, touching her husband… Jealousy made her scream, and the noise snapped the ghosts out of their shock. Together they rushed Ella’s body and shoved out the fiend wearing it.
Or did he relinquish it because he’d imparted his message? Either way, she snapped back into herself. Terrified, but unable to show it. Worried, because if it happened once, it could happen again.
Worse, what if the ghosts decided to try the same trick? A few she could hold off, but what if they banded? What if they saw her weakness? What if… What if…
Imagining Felicia, she gave herself a mental slap. I am stronger than this. Ella didn’t crack in the asylum. She wasn’t cracking now, and part of the reason why she wouldn’t was sitting beside her.
Zane. Her husband. Her lover. Her rock.
She leaned against his arm, the close interior of his sports car making it easy to snuggle. She put a hand on his thigh. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“You’d better be.”
“It didn’t hurt.”
“You weren’t in control.”
“I beat it,” she lied. Maybe.
“You got lucky, dammit.” She heard a crack as he fisted the steering wheel a tad too tight. He loved her so much.
And she loved him. So much at times it scared her. The only thing she feared was losing him, a fear she knew he suffered from, too. But if there was something she’d learned since she met him, it was that the sex was always best after the danger was past.
Her hand moved from his thigh to the spot between them. She rubbed the bulge there. It grew with every stroke.
“E-l-l-a.” He stretched her name.
“Yes?” She smiled and cupped him before letting her fingers work at his zipper.
“I’m driving.”
“Pay attention, then.” Her head dropped into his lap, her warm breath blowing on the erection she freed from his pants. “So, tell me, husband.” She purred the word onto his cock. “How come you haven’t taught me to drive yet? I could totally handle a stick.” She wrapped her fingers around him.
A raspy quality invaded his reply. “Maybe you should show me.”
She blew hotly across the tip of cock and felt him shudder. She treasured intimate moments like these, just the two of them, no ghosts. They didn’t like Zane and shut right up when she touched him.
She touched him a lot.
She also liked to taste him. In her mouth. Sucking on him while he drove, hearing him curse she’d kill them both, was one of the highlights of her day. Especially when he slammed the car onto a shoulder of road, rammed his seat as far back as it would go, and dragged her onto his lap, facing away from him.
“I wasn’t done,” she protested.
“Don’t worry. I’ll help you finish.” His hands tugged at her pants, baring her bottom. The rigid length of him poked, and she held on to the steering wheel to balance herself as he lifted her enough he could guide himself into her.
The thickness of him stretched her, and she sighed with pleasure as she sank down. His hands gripped her around the waist, helping her to rock and grind against him, driving him deep. Bringing her the pleasure she craved.
“Zane.” She whispered his name and he replied by sliding a hand between her thighs to play with her clitoris, rubbing it as he thrust into her. Faster and faster. Pleasure—that glorious, body-shuddering ecstasy he always gave—rolled through her. Shook her. Shook him.
For a moment after, they remained joined.
“Have I told you how much I love car sex?” she finally said.
“One of these days, moonbeam, your need for it is going to get one of us hurt.”
“Don’t be a grump.” She squirmed atop him, and he groaned.
The frosted windows meant they didn’t see who knocked, but it did startle.
Ella rolled off Zane’s lap and wriggled her pants back over her girly parts while Zane just had to zip.
“I swear, if we get another ticket because you can’t keep it in your pants,” she said with a giggle.
“Another for the collection.” He grinned at Ella and winked as he rolled down the window. Not paying attention. Never seeing the gun aimed at his head.
Ella screamed as the weapon went off.
Three
The knock came at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. A knock Felicia shouldn’t have heard, yet for some reason, it sounded freakishly loud.
She hid under her pillow rather than answer. She’d learned in the fourteenth century to ignore knocks before noon. And after noon. Anything before dusk or after dawn just wasn’t conducive to a vampire’s continued good health.
The knock came again. A rapid pounding.
Seriously? Rolling onto her back, she shoved the pillow over her head and added fingers to her ears.
Still not answering. Either the knocker would get the point, or one of he
r lazy staff would answer despite her orders. She’d fire them if they did. Six to six. The rules were very clear. No visitors. Not even deliveries. Which begged the question, how did the person even get onto the grounds? They should have never made it past the guarded gate. And what of her personal guards? They roamed the grounds. They protected the house. They should have shot the knocker’s ass before he even made it up the steps!
The third knock was a single fierce boom. The entire house shook, and more than ever, she wouldn’t answer. Nothing good would come of it.
The reverberations died, and no other knocks occurred. She relaxed. Removed the pillow from her head. Sighed as she snuggled into the bed she’d crawled into at five a.m., less than two hours ago.
Then screamed as a voice said, “Boo!”
Jumping to her feet, Felicia hollered, “Lights,” and reached into the canopy that ringed her bed for the rapier she kept stashed. It had been awhile since she’d had to pull the steel blade; however, like other things that never changed, every few years, someone tried to accost her while she slept. She blamed those Dusk ‘til Dawn movies. They made vampire killing seem cool. What they failed to properly portray was it never ended well—for the humans.
Vampires were top of the food chain and ruthless about staying there. The hilt of the sword filled her hand, and she twirled with it, jabbing in the direction of…nothing.
“Missed me.” The taunt came from her left.
Whirl and stab.
“Missed me again.”
This time from her right. Another lunge and miss.
A fast foe. Making a mockery of her. She closed her eyes rather than look for someone she couldn’t see.
She let her other senses take over.
Heard his teasing whisper at her ear. “Hello, beautiful.”
She ignored the words and shot her hand straight forward. Made contact. Only when she gripped someone by the neck did she open her eyes.
The lamps that lit at her command meant she could see she held a man. A tall man. She stood on her plush bed, and he still managed to look her in the eyes. The height of her bed plus her five-foot-two had to make him close to eight feet. Impossible.