SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (3 page)

Analise looked around with something akin to horror. What had she expected? Picket fences and petunias?

He pointed to the black ravine sloping down just ahead. It had shocked him the first time he’d seen it. It opened so suddenly, like a hole straight to hell. As dry now as the crackling air. Hard to imagine it had ever held healing waters.

Analise turned away from the dirt fissure and stared out at the silhouetted town. A few lights twinkled in windows as night worked its way into homes. Her expression, her reaction to his surprise, wasn’t at all what he’d imagined. Anger stirred beneath his breastbone.

He reached in the back seat and pulled out a blanket, which he spread over an unlikely patch of even ground. As he smoothed it down, he discovered a miniscule sprouting of what looked like grass. Grass, even here. Feeling somehow betrayed by it, he twisted it until its grasping roots snapped and hurled it away.

“Sit down, babe. I brought us a little picnic.”

Analise gave the blanket a nervous look. She held her self stiff as a doll, seemingly undecided about which way to face. The town and the ravine were like warring poles and she the metal pin in between. Brendan frowned.

“I don’t like it here, Brendan. Let’s go.”

How like his little princess to find this place that welcomed him like family distasteful. It was nothing but dirt. Just like him.

“Go where?” he said bitterly. “Maybe to the Ritz? You think I got that kind of money?”

Analise looked instantly contrite, which only made him feel like a bigger shit.

“Brendan, I’m sorry. This was a great surprise. I do want to see it all, but it’s getting really dark.”

“So?”

“It’s . . . I mean . . . Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”

In fact, as she spoke, pointing out the clustering darkness, he did feel it. A disturbance, rippling through the air like the hot and gritty breeze. It held a tension, a feeling of violation, a sense of aggression. And he liked it. Brendan shook his head.

“You afraid of the dark now, babe?”

Her smile was small and forced.

He got up and went to the truck where he rummaged for his flashlight, hoping its batteries were still good. He turned it on and a pale, buttery beam chased back the shadows. It waned after the initial burst, but held.

“Better?” he asked.

Analise nodded without much conviction. “I guess. It’s just really creepy here.”

It didn’t matter that she was right, it made him mad. “Do you know how hard it was to get off work so I could bring you here?”

Tears made her eyes shiny and luminous. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I’m scared, Brendan.”

“You’re scared of everything. You—” He stopped abruptly and scanned the area around them. He’d heard something.

“What?” Analise said.

“Shh.” He stood, searching the darkness. The feeble glow of the flashlight reached only a foot or two in front of him. Past that it was all huddled shadows and looming shapes. He strained with the effort to hear. The quiet folded in and stretched out in a hiss. Then a slight, slithering sound reached his ears. Like dirt spilling into an empty hole.

In unison, he and Analise looked to the ravine. He took a step closer.

“No. Brendan, no. Let’s just get out of here.”

He waved her off and took another step. Frozen, Analise watched. The sound came again. Loose soil and rock sliding down the side. As if something were climbing up.

“What do you see?” she whispered.

Brendan shook his head and moved closer to the edge of the chasm. A rock joined the slight avalanche of dirt. It clicked and thumped down and down and down. Analise made a whimpering sound and for a moment, his foggy mind cleared with a suddenness that made him stagger. He shook his head, stunned by the sudden clarity. What the hell were they doing here?

Analise was right. This place . . . It wasn’t natural. It felt wrong. Something rank hovered in the air like a layer of dust.

More rocks, the earth slide increased. As if something had lost its foothold and slipped back a few feet, causing the rocks to cave in around it.

Brendan was almost to the edge. His flashlight crawled over the terrain and then inched up to the piled dirt circling the chasm. The blackness around him seemed more complete because of the tiny rent he and his light put in it. He acknowledged the fear that threatened to buckle his knees even as he refused to give into it.

He stopped a few steps from the plunging brink.

“Brendan,” Analise said, her voice a shaky whisper in the disturbing dark.

He leaned forward, trying to peer into the pit without actually going to the rim. He couldn’t see a damn thing, but more dirt shifted and skipped into the depths. Dirt he’d dislodged? Or—

“Brendan, please come back. Please?”

A deep and dank odor wafted up toward him. Like something dead and long ago rotted had escaped its sealed chamber. What the hell was it? Another step and then a rush of air blasted out in a gust that lifted his hair and scared a
“What the fuck!”
right out of him. The scrabbling sound raced up the ravine wall and Brendan stumbled back, shouting again as he tried to catch his balance. Behind him, Analise began to scream.

“Run!” he hollered, racing past her to the truck.

She didn’t even know from what, but she didn’t stop to ask. She scrambled through the door he held open, over the seat to her side as he jumped in behind the wheel and threw the gear into reverse. The truck fish tailed before spinning around and out the way they’d come. Shaking and crying Analise turned in her seat and looked back.

“What do you see?” he demanded.

She was sobbing, too hysterical to even answer. He tore his gaze from the road and looked in the rearview mirror. A pale light seemed to hover over the pit. What was it? A face? But it glowed, not like skin but— Without warning, it shifted and it felt . . . it felt like it looked at him. Analise screamed.

“What is it?” Brendan shouted. “Is it following us?”

“I don’t know,” Analise sobbed.

Brendan had the pedal to the floor and the truck felt like it had wings as it flew across the desert, barely staying on the excuse for a road. It hadn’t taken them this long to get there, had it? Shit, was he lost? Had he gotten turned around? Where was the moon? Where was the fucking
town
?

“Why did you bring me here?” Analise was crying over and over. “Why, why?”

He turned in his seat and looked back. Nothing following, and yet . . . a glimmer. The town. How had the town ended up on his right? Didn’t matter, as long as he got there. He cranked the wheel, his instincts telling him he was backtracking while his eyes told him he was headed the right way.

“No,” Analise shouted. “You’re going back.”

He opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong, but now he was completely disoriented and his headlights picked out the gaping ravine ahead. At seventy miles an hour, they were going in.

He turned hard left, taking the truck into a crazy spin at the edge of the abyss. He felt the wheels lose traction. Felt the pull of gravity trying to suck them down. The back end hovered for an instant over the great nothingness of it, and then slowly, the truck began to slide down.

Diablo Springs: Chapter Two

Some say destiny is unavoidable. Some say a person’s whole life is determined before he or she is even born. Reilly Alexander didn’t buy into that, which wasn’t the same as saying he didn’t believe it. When he looked back on his life, it seemed fate had done more than drive him around; it had plotted out a specific course that brought him here, now, to a bookstore in Los Angeles where he would meet his destiny.

“We’ve put your table right up front,” the Barnes & Noble manager told him.

“Thank you.”

“I think you’ll have a good turnout. Your book has been selling quite well for us.”

This was his fourth book, and he still couldn’t get used to hearing that it wasn’t complete crap. Maybe he’d never get used to hearing it. A part of him still believed that it was his nefarious and disastrous venture into the music business that brought the readers to his books, not the writing. Not
his
stories, but
the
story of a failed rocker turned literary genius. He smirked to himself at that. Yeah, that.

But fans did come. The women, as often as not, looking for something better than a book to take to bed. The young musicians came because they thought some of his luck would rub off on them. It didn’t matter that his luck in the music business had run out fast. The others . . . He still hadn’t figured out what drew the others. All in all, though, he ate well, traveled in fair style, and lived a life of quasi-fame. In honesty, more than he’d ever expected of himself.

He ran a hand over his nearly shaved head, still expecting the shoulder-length shag he’d worn until a few months ago when he’d decided it was time to cut even that from his life. The impeccably dressed manager he followed to the table hadn’t said a word about Reilly’s appearance, but it was there in the look that skimmed his Flogging Molly T-shirt and faded blue jeans. In the beginning, when the first book had come out, he’d tried the dressing up and felt like an even bigger idiot and imposter. The slacks and button-down had fit his image like panty hose and a sunbonnet.

“Just let me know if you need anything,” the manager said before going about his business. A cold beer would be nice, but Reilly refrained from asking and simply thanked the man. All he could hope was that the next two hours went fast.

During his college years Reilly had made his living as a lead singer and songwriter of a band called Badlands. When the group broke up after three years and one hit single, Reilly had been left with a bit of fame and little fortune. Individually, each of the band members had branched out and failed to produce anything worth listening to. Reilly had resorted to writing songs for others until he’d finally settled down and pounded out the novel he’d been thinking of for years.

Four books later, he’d gained enough traction to warrant a fifth. Riding the infamy tide with Badlands had taught him not to believe his own press, though. They loved his books today, but only if he had something better to provide tomorrow. His problem of the hour was that he didn’t. The channel of ideas he’d been surfing had disappeared and left him lost and in a panic over what came next. Was it time for yet another career change?

The signing started like clockwork with a steady trickle of readers who had fished his other titles off the shelves and now wanted his signature on the new one. It never felt real to scrawl his name on the title page, but he tried not to let it show. A few strays showed up, too, most of them looking for the bathroom, a couple in search of Cinnabon and its seductive aroma.

When a young man in board shorts and an old Badlands concert T-shirt came up to the table, Reilly immediately took note. He hadn’t seen one of those shirts in years. It made him feel nostalgic for a minute.

The kid told him, “I’m writing a report for my music history class about one-hit wonders. You know, where are they now?”

“They’re all in hiding,” Reilly said. He knew for a fact that one or two of his own one-hit disaster group would probably shoot the pimply kid if he tried to out them. Oblivious, the kid sat on the edge of Reilly’s table and picked up a copy of his latest book,
Broken
.

“So is this based on your life?” he asked.

Reilly gave him a steady look. “It’s about a maniac who stalks groupies and murders them.”

The kid nodded, still wearing the idiot smile.

“So, no,” Reilly said patiently, “it’s not about my life.”

The kid let go a snort of laughter. “Good thing, huh?”

And so it went, until finally, the lull gave him a chance to sit back and drink the water so thoughtfully provided by one of the cute sales clerks.

“Excuse me?”

Reilly looked up to find an older woman standing in front of him. Fine-boned and birdlike, she had paper-thin skin the color of toffee—not black, brown, or white, but a mixture that defied racial claims. Deep lines fanned from the corners of eyes that sparkled like black diamonds. She wore pink lipstick—a young girl’s color, but she managed to carry it off. Perhaps it was the white-toothed smile. A turban in bright African colors wrapped around her hair and a long flowing tunic matched it. Black pants with precise creases covered her legs and black sneakers completed the outfit. Reilly stared at the athletic shoes with a bemused smile. The words
super granny
came to mind.

Behind her stood a hodgepodge of humanity that Reilly couldn’t have dreamed up and fictionalized if he’d tried. Like some kind of comic book depiction of a crowd, they clustered together, some extremely tall and others excessively short, some unnaturally thin and others uncommonly fat. Their clothes crossed the spectrum from white gauze to fuchsia, tie-dye to black satin. One man wore white gloves and a priest’s vestments. Either this was the weirdest book club on the planet or they’d been beamed down from a circling vessel. The group watched the old woman with avid interest.

“You are Nathan Reilly Alexander?” she said, her voice strong and clear.

No one called him Nathan. If it wouldn’t have been such a pointless pain in the ass to do it, he’d have had the name removed from record. “It’s Reilly. Reilly Alexander.”

He reached for the book she held out and opened it to the title page.

“You can make it out to Chloe Lamont,” she said. “Your guide to your destiny.”

He paused, pen poised over the page. “Come again?”

“You’ve been waiting for me, haven’t you?”

Reilly gave her a slanted look and a head shake. “Can’t say that I have.”

“You haven’t been thinking of fate, of your destiny? Of where you go from here?”

He wanted to scoff, but of course he’d been doing more than thinking about it. He’d been dwelling on it. He wrote,
To Chloe, enjoy the book
, signed it, and handed it back to her. She took it with a strange smile.

“Don’t you wonder why I’m here?”

“It’s a book signing. People are supposed come to them.”