“Where’s Tommaso? He hasn’t been answering my calls! Did those fuckers take him?” Andrus stormed past me inside, immediately spotting the huge man laid out on my couch. I had brought the soldier inside after telling him I was going to call 9-1-1. He’d groaned and insisted I just help him to his feet, which I did. But then he started flagging again, and I got him over to the couch. I sort of hoped he might wake up and tell me where to find Tommaso. Then the doorbell rang.
Andrus began shaking the soldier like a ragdoll. “Brutus! Where the fuck is he?”
Andrus knew this man?
Andrus slapped the man so hard that blood started dribbling from his lip.
The man moaned, but didn’t wake.
Andrus continued, “You think you can take him, Brutus? Fuck him over like that and not have to answer?” Andrus drew his dagger and pressed it to the man’s throat.
“Andrus! Put that down this minute or I swear I’ll go demonic on your ass!” said a female voice.
I looked in the doorway and spotted…and spotted…a woman with long auburn hair whose face looked just like mine.
“Sadie?” I gasped her name.
She sighed with exasperation. “I’m so, so sorry, Charlotte. This is not how I wanted our reunion to go.”
“You’re really here,” I muttered.
“Yes. And it’s about twenty years overdue.” She looked at Andrus, who still gripped the soldier in his hands. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Let poor Brutus go.”
Andrus grumbled something in a foreign language—Russian?—and then let the man fall back onto the couch.
“What are you,” I pointed to Sadie, “doing here with him?” I pointed to Andrus.
Sadie, who wore plum-colored leather pants and a black tank, looked down at her booted feet. “Charlotte.” She drew a breath and looked at me. “I have so much to tell you. So much to say—I don’t even know where to start.”
Well, I knew exactly where to start! My mother told me that Uncle Chuck, Sadie and Nell’s father, was a violent and “deadly” man. Then, after going to that party in L.A., with Sadie’s crazy, wannabe vampire friends…well, no thank you! “I’m not interested in hearing about your depraved lifestyle and monster worshiping.”
“I don’t worship monsters, Charlotte. I am one of those monsters. But I don’t prey on the innocent.”
I stepped back. “This isn’t funny. Get out.”
Sadie crossed her arms over her chest, and I watched as her eyes turned a bright orange.
“Fuck!” I stepped back. Words could not describe how I felt.
I was about to make a dash for my clubs, but Andrus stepped in the way, blocking me from getting near them or the front door.
Sadie sighed. “We didn’t cut our honeymoon short and fly thousands of miles just to come and hurt you, Charlotte. I promise.”
“What are you?” I asked.
“I am a succubus. And before you laugh because the name is so comical, I will tell you that my father is an incubus.”
“You mean Uncle Chuck? The violent criminal?” I said.
“Char, he’s not a violent man—”
“But then why did your mother run?” I asked.
“He loved my mother with all his heart. He tried to convince her he would never hurt her, but when she threatened to leave with me and Nell, he wouldn’t have it. She then realized we were half-breeds and gladly left us behind.”
Somewhere, beyond the present shock, the harshness of what she said was sinking in.
Sadie went on, “He and my very human and loving stepmother raised me and my sister, Nell, who has stayed human, by the way. But my father hurts no one—he’s a dentist now.”
“You kill people,” I said, unable to believe this wild story.
“Sometimes, but mostly I dine on Andrus now. He’s immortal.”
“Immortal? Like vampires?” Oh god. Those people at the party weren’t pretending? It was time to hit the “freak the hell out” button. “Then you’re a monster.” I looked at Andrus. “You’re both monsters!”
“Charlotte,” Andrus barked at me, “you may call me anything you like, but do not speak to my wife in such a manner.”
Who did this guy think he was? “This is my house and you can shove—”
Sadie held out her hand. “It’s okay, Andrus.”
“No.” He stepped toward me. “You may be my mate, Charlotte. But she is the love of my life.”
“Mate? What are you talking…” I looked at him. Then I looked at her. Then I looked at him again. For some god-awful reason, I felt connected to him, but it was completely against my will. Almost like feeling hungry for something you knew might make you sick. That was the only way to describe it.
Ohmygod. He means “mate” just like in those crazy romance books I read! It dawned on me that something had been off when I’d first met him at that mixer. The moment I set eyes on him, I felt like I’d been drugged or hypnotized or entranced by him. I hadn’t been able to explain it.
This is real. This is really happening. I walked over to my empty khaki couch by the fireplace and plunked down, my head spinning with so many questions.
“Charlotte? Say something.” Sadie walked over and sat down next to me.
I instinctively wanted to move away, but then I caught a whiff of something. It was sweet and delicious and made me want to stay close to her.
Whoa! I jumped up. “You’re doing some sort of voodoo crap on me.” I made the symbol of the cross with my two fingers. “Stay back.”
Sadie gave me a strange look with her big brown eyes. “Honey, I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. Otherwise the gods wouldn’t let me roam free. Or my father for that matter.”
“She speaks the truth,” Andrus said. “I keep my woman well fed so she’s never tempted.” He flashed a flirty smirk at Sadie.
“Gods?” I looked at them both.
Andrus’s gaze fell on his black leather biker boots for a moment as if debating.
“Well, if you’re not going to tell her, then I will,” Sadie said. “She has to know what’s going on.”
Andrus held out his palm and looked up at me. “No, I will tell you. I don’t want the gods having any reason to punish you, Sadie.”
“Punish her for what?” I asked, slightly panicked.
“It’s on a need-to-know basis, but I agree. You need to know,” Andrus said.
I waited to hear what other sort of bizarre crap would come out of their mouths next. “Well?”
He drew a breath. “There are fourteen gods and a host of other immortals—demigods, vampires, fairies, and such—that make up our community, so to speak. And it seems that something happened during the last near apocalypse.”
Apocalypse?
He continued, “We are seeing cases of good immortals turning evil. Evil immortals are turning good. We don’t know why. We don’t know if this is permanent. All we know is that anyone who is mated seems to be immune.”
“But you said I’m your mate—and we’re not together,” I pointed out.
“Yes. You are the woman the Universe chose for me. But my heart was already taken. Either way, Sadie is my soul mate, and we are safe. Tommaso, however, is not. And we must help him.”
Tommaso. In all of this, I’d forgotten about him for a moment. “He lied to me, didn’t he? You do know each other.”
Andrus made a weird face, somewhere between a wince and a cringe.
“Yes,” Sadie jumped in. “They’re best friends.”
I felt the room spinning. “And he knows about all of you and these…these…these gods?”
“Yes,” Andrus said.
He lied to me. This entire time, he lied to me. “What is he? Some sort of demon or…”
“He is a demigod, like myself. A human infused with the light of the gods to make us immortal. But don’t let the name fool you. We have no powers. Aside from our awesome manliness.”
“Tommaso is a demigod?” I said aloud as the idea tried to sink in.
>
Andrus pointed to his eyes. “The turquoise eyes are a giveaway. Tommaso’s eyes are dark brown because he’s already turning into a Maaskab.”
“What the hell is that?” I asked, forgetting to mention that I’d seen Tommaso’s eyes turn a bluish green right before he bolted from my house on some mad revenge spree.
Andrus explained that Maaskab were some horribly evil sect of priests who worshiped the dark arts, descendants of the Mayans. Tommaso had been captured by them, brainwashed with their dark energy crap, and then cured by the light of the gods. Only his cure was reversing itself.
“They look a bit like those monsters from the Predator movies,” Sadie added. “And they smell like roadkill.”
Those were the men he told me about. The ones who’d captured him in the jungle. And he used to be one? And he was turning into one again? My blood pressure dropped so low, I felt like a vacuum had been created inside my body. Hollow. I felt hollow.
“He’s…he’s…” I shook my head from side to side. This entire time, I’d had the monster inside my house. He’d been in my goddamned bed! I almost slept with him! He’d washed a load of my laundry!
Oh, God. Oh, God.
“Out!” I screamed, popping up from the couch. “Both of you out! And take that guy with you!” I pointed to the unconscious man on my sofa.
“Charlotte, please,” said Sadie. “Tommaso is like a brother to Andrus. We understand if you don’t love him—that can’t be helped—but at least tell us where he went or what happened.”
“Love him? Love him? Wait—you weren’t—he’s wasn’t—did everyone think I’d be his special someone?”
Andrus and Sadie just kind of stared at me.
“I could never love him. Never,” I growled. “He’s everything I loathe in this world—a monster—not to mention, he’s a liar and completely untrustworthy.”
God, I just couldn’t believe this. The entire time, I’d been seeing only what I wanted to see: a beautiful man, perfect in every way, coming to rescue me from my misery. All the while, I had ignored what I already knew. He was dangerous. He was one of those things who’d come into my home and hurt me.
“Charlotte,” Andrus said, his voice low and stern, “Tommaso is not a monster. And he needs our help. Where did he go?”
“If I tell you what I know, will you leave and promise never to come back?”
There was a long moment of silence. Finally, “If that’s truly what you want, Charlotte,” Sadie said with a sadness in her eyes.
But there was no one sadder than me. My mother had gone crazy because of “people” like Sadie. And now, to learn there were real live gods on the planet? Where were they when she needed help? Where were they when I’d been attacked? I wanted nothing to do with any of this.
“I’ve never wanted anything more,” I replied, pointing at the front door, urging them to leave.
“Okay. But if you ever change your mind—”
“I won’t. I was attacked when I was nineteen by one of those things. I told Tommaso about it and he ran off, saying he wanted to settle a score.” Now I knew he was simply going to be united with his flock of rotten, evil bastards.
Andrus whooshed out a breath and scratched the back of his head.
“What?” Sadie asked Andrus.
“The Maaskab were basically exterminated,” he replied. “Cimil said they’d only left a couple alive in case they ever needed help with dark energy. But since the whole postapocalyptic-good-versus-evil mishmash, I know one of the surviving Maaskab is now her nanny. Still disgusting and smelly, of course, but incredibly nice. Who knows where the other one is or where Tommaso went?”
What in the… “Out! Leave. All of you. Go figure out your Satanic Scooby mystery somewhere else.”
Sadie stood from the couch and was about to speak but snapped her mouth closed. Good choice. Because there wasn’t anything she had to say that I wanted to hear.
I watched the two leave, Andrus carrying out the soldier by throwing him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing. Muscly show-off! Part of me wondered why I’d ever felt so hurt when he’d rejected me at first sight, but now I didn’t seem to care. All I could think of was Tommaso. How I’d trusted him implicitly. How he’d lied to me. How I couldn’t see that he was one of those despicable creatures inside.
I slammed the door shut and turned to head to my kitchen. Vodka. I needed vodka.
My doorbell suddenly rang, stopping me in my tracks. Seriously? What part of “go away and never come back” don’t they understand?
I returned to the door and yanked. “I wasn’t joking when I said—oh shit! No, not you!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The moment my mind registered the fiery redheaded nut bag standing on my porch, wearing shiny pink Spandex pants and a “Let’s Poke the Bear” shirt—with a picture of a bear bending over—I tried to slam the door shut. “Oh, hell no!”
But her pink, jewel-encrusted platform flip-flop wedged into the door. “Ow!” she yelped, “That was my foot, you tart!”
“Go! Leave! You are not welcome here,” I grunted as she pushed the door open with her body, and I tried to keep her out.
“Fine. But I wouldn’t recommend staying in there alone with Minky. She hasn’t fed yet.”
“Who’s…Minky?” I continued pushing and grunting.
“My unicorn. She’s invisible, but trust me, that doesn’t make her any less dangerous.”
What the fuck? “Okay, Crazy Face, you’re definitely not coming in!” I almost had the door shut. The little five-foot woman was no match for me—five-five of solid golfing athlete, emphasis on the solid.
“Minky, bite her!” Cimil commanded through the door.
Suddenly, I felt a puff of hot air on the back of my neck. “Gah!” I let go of the door and jumped back, stumbling toward my clubs. I quickly grabbed the putter and started swinging it from side to side. “Stay away!”
Something grabbed the club and then it disappeared into thin air.
“Oh! Just great!” Cimil spouted from the doorway. “Now I’m probably going to have to take her to the vet again. And, of course, it will have to be a new one because she ate the last poor woman. Minky, what did I say about eating sports equipment? Huh?”
I heard a little huff and a neigh.
With my back pressed against the wall, my eyes frantically searching the room for…well…I didn’t know, it began to sink in: There was a fucking invisible unicorn in my house.
Like someone had pulled a black curtain over my eyes, I felt my body going limp.
~~~
“Hey, Char-Char! Waky, waky!” said a voice and then something warm and wet slithered over my cheek.
I felt too dizzy to open my eyes.
“Okay, Minky. I heard you,” said the woman. “But you may not nibble on her toes. Or cheeks. On either side of her body. Go outside and forage. I think I heard some clucking out there.”
Chickens. My chickens. I cracked my eyes open, only vaguely aware that I was lying on my tile floor in the foyer. With my shoes off. And my pants off.
“Don’t you dare touch my chickens,” I grumbled. “And where the hell are my pants?”
“Under your head, silly. I had to put something there to stop the bleeding. Looks like you had a boo-boo that reopened when you fainted and fell. BTW, nice tile. Not even a crack.” Standing over me, Cimil batted her big turquoise eyes at me.
Turquoise. They’re turquoise. That means she’s one of them! I popped up, feeling woozy, but lucid enough to run. And defend my chickens. From invisible unicorns.
Unfortunately, the throbbing in my head had its own plans. Bad ones.
I threw my hands over my eyes. “Owww…shit. I think my brain is dented.”
“Oh, you shut up. And get up. We have some serious bull-cocky to chew.”
I looked up at her, my head pounding away. “Are all immortals as mental as you?”
“Fuck no! I’m seventy Gs old and counting. Even my pubes are wacky
. All curly ’n’ stuff. It’s downright irritating.”
I cringed as my mind produced an unwanted image of the curly carpet to match her crazy red drapes. God, please kill me now. Runaway boulder. Swarm of African bees. Misdirected arrow from Daryl’s bow. Anything!
“Please stop talking,” I groaned my words.
Before I could blink, Cimil plucked me from the floor by my upper arms and stood me up with my toes barely touching the ground. I quickly realized that the earlier battle at my front door had been a show.
“All right, missy,” she said, “you need to listen close and listen good, or you will spend the next eternity scraping gum off of the bottom of tables in a federal penitentiary. I’ll let you know which one after I decide, but there are many with gum problems. And the eternity after that will be served cleaning Minky’s room, and let me assure you, the task puts hair on your chest!”
She glanced down at her cleavage, and I noticed a few little red hairs sticking out.
“Dear Lord, what or who are you?” Aside from completely bat-shit crazy.
She released me, and I leaned against the wall, thinking about making a run for it.
“Take one step toward that door, and I stop playing nice god. Get it?” she growled, guessing my thoughts.
Oh shit. “You’re a god?”
“Goddess of the Underworld,” she dipped her head, “at your service. Actually, I’m in hot water for nearly ending the world and constantly lying to my brethren, so my powers and title have been given a time out while I pay penance. Anywhoodles, the dead still speak to me and give me makeup tips and cookie recipes and the like, but without my powers, it’s difficult to sort through all of the noise.”
She was a goddess. A real live goddess. With a freaking unicorn. And she was standing in my foyer, rambling about…well…I wasn’t sure. I only knew I really, really wanted this interaction to end. Despite being beautiful in a very surreal sort of way, she was scary as hell. And frankly, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I wasn’t dreaming again.