The Broken Bell (49 page)
Ten or more glided past, quiet as ghosts. My giver of handkerchiefs joined them, gliding toward the warehouse like a black-clad puff of wind.
I shuddered, but I held the cloth tight to my nose and marched toward the carriage. More halfdead popped out of the shadows. Each and all ignored me, though I tottered and stank and dripped their favorite beverage liberally out onto the street.
There’s a metaphor there, somewhere. Something about bleeding profusely at a vampire parade. One day I’ll finish it and tell Mama it’s a Troll saying. But that night I just clamped the cloth to my nose and headed for Evis’s carriage.
I found it easily enough, though the coachmen had lit their lanterns. They were both on the street, and both bore crossbows and nervous frowns.
They backed up and wrinkled their noses at my approach.
“We’ll never get the smell out,” said one to the other.
“Just be glad you aren’t wearing it,” I said. The driver, bless him, produced a clean handkerchief and stepped close enough to hand it to me.
“The boss said you found a bad one,” he said, quietly.
I mopped and nodded, not asking how the Boss had communicated this to the driver. I figured House Avalante could afford the finest sorcerous long-talkers.
The driver’s friend opened the door. “Best get in. We’ll be leaving soon, and in a hurry.” He squinted at me in the lantern light. “It didn’t scratch you, did it?”
Hell. Had it?
I shook off my old Army jacket, kicked it into the gutter when I saw the thick black stain all down the back. I rolled up my sleeves, checked my arms and waist and legs.
All the fresh blood was from my nose or my right hand. All the other—well, it wasn’t mine.
“No,” I said. My voice shook, and I was getting weak at the knees, so I climbed into Evis’s fine carriage, leaving black stains as I went.
Bertram and Floyd—I never learned which was which—watched me go, then turned their frowns and their crossbows back out toward the night.
I sat and I panted and even with the door and window open I gagged at my smell. My heart still rushed, and memories of the thing’s bloated, eyeless face, I knew, would haunt my dreams for years.
“The boss said you found a bad one.”
That’s what the driver had said. A bad one. The flip side of Evis and his well-groomed friends. Halfdead in the raw—a hungry corpse, rotted and foul, still driven to a grim parody of life by a hunger that drove it from the grave.
She holds the key to unlock his past—or unleash hell.
Love’s Alchemy
© 2009 Ciar Cullen
Sidra Patmos has the ability to see the real underbelly of lower Manhattan—a horrifying world where wraiths, demons and a few quirky mortals battle for supremacy. Desperate, she seeks out a paranormal researcher to tell her why her life is a waking nightmare.
Instead of answers, her meeting with the dark and irresistible Van Barlowe unleashes a chain of events far more dangerous than her blackest visions. And a desire she can barely manage to hold at arm’s length.
After three desperate centuries, Van has finally found the Alchemist. Sidra. Somewhere locked deep inside her lies the knowledge that will rescue his family from ruin. The only way to reawaken her abilities is to hold his enemies at bay long enough to convince her to step through the mists of time.
Redemption waits there, and a timeless bond ignited by the undeniable pull between them. The missing ingredient: Sidra’s willingness to risk that Van’s attraction runs deeper than sexual chemistry…
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Love’s Alchemy:
Sidra sat on the bed and thought about the intense longing for Van that pulled at her, longing older and deeper than possible in the few days she’d known him. She rubbed her palm across the shades of brown silk artfully covering the enormous bed.
“I think he’s still in love with you, Van. I think part of me feels his pain, his fear, his excruciating need for you. I don’t think it died with his body.”
“You finally believe, then?”
Sidra nodded. Since her vision of the past, the evening before, tiny flickers of memory beckoned to her, but she’d been pushing them down. She lay back on the bed, closed her eyes, and with a quick prayer for protection, opened herself to the realization that she was really remembering another person’s life.
“Do you remember any more?”
“Bits and pieces. Nothing important, I’m afraid. The smell of wood burning, the sound of heavy glassware, the laughter of men. Utter exhaustion. The feel of a pen in my hand, my arm shaking from tiredness, my eyes burning from sleeplessness. I feel pangs of unfamiliar pain, emotional pain, as if life itself had become such a burden as to be intolerable. Right before I woke this morning I thought I saw men and women gathered around me as I lay in bed. They were crying.”
“That all makes sense to me.” His eyes looked strained, and Sidra wanted to ease his troubled heart.
“Do you want me to try to understand him, to reach out to him for you?”
Van sat by her side and squeezed her hand. “No, not now. I want you, Sidra. Whatever you might feel for me.”
Sidra opened her eyes. “You only have feelings for your Maker. This has nothing to do with me.”
“I can’t separate the two, love, I’m sorry. I only know that I haven’t felt this way before in my life, and that this is not what I felt for Isaac. I’m desperate for you, Sidra. I know I come with a heavy price tag for a woman who’s lost too much already. Maybe it’s not worth it to you? I can’t promise I won’t die, that we’ll figure this out.”
“We’ll figure it out. We have to.”
“Why?” Van leaned in and kissed her on the lips, moved to her neck, nibbling his way down her cleavage. “Tell me. Say it, Sidra.”
“Let this be enough, Van.”
“I need to hear it from you.”
Sidra fought to keep the last thread of resistance alive. “I’m sure enough women have told you they were in love with you.”
“Many. I wasn’t in love with them.”
“You’re not in love with me. You’re all caught up in your past.”
“Don’t deny me my own thoughts, Sidra. Isaac gave me life, but he also gave me free will. I’m asking for both from you. Tell me you love me back.”
“I love you back,” she muttered.
“You’re really annoying.”
Sidra pulled off her shirt and bra and stepped out of her shoes and jeans.
“Get back here,” he gasped through clenched teeth.
“You’re pretty impatient for a guy who’s been around a couple hundred years.”
“I feel like I’ve had this hard-on for a couple hundred years.”
“Let’s see what we can do about that, impatient one.” Sidra helped him out of his slacks and boxer shorts. Sidra ran her palm along the taut length of his shaft, tracing her fingers over the large veins pulsing with his life’s blood.
The Broken Bell
Frank Tuttle
Ask not for whom the wedding bells toll…
The Markhat Files, Book 6
There’s no way Markhat can turn away his newest client. Who is he to refuse the woman he loves—especially when she bribes him with breakfast?
This time it’s Darla’s friend Tamar Fields, whose fiancé vanished days before the wedding. His wealthy family insists Carris Lethway is simply away on urgent business. Tamar smells a lie, and she needs Rannit’s most famous finder to figure out if the source of the suspicious aroma is a conspiracy, or the groom’s cold, sweaty feet.
As if his plate isn’t piled high enough, Mama Hog’s slip of the tongue has landed him in the middle of a good old-fashioned Pot Lockery clan feud. Plus, Rannit’s streets are abuzz with rumors of war—and Tamar’s case has his own lady love hearing wedding bells of her own.
As Rannit arms for battle, Markhat finds himself torn between old alliances and new commitments, and a growing, awful fear that no matter which way he turns, all he loves is about to go up in flames.
Warning: This work of fiction is known to contain dangerous vowels and at least two instances of provocative folk dancing. Readers should be prepared to produce fresh emus for inspection
at any time
while reading pages 78 or 134. Neither the Publisher nor the Author condones the formation of covalent hydrogen bonds, although the Author does wink at them when his attorney isn't looking.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
The Broken Bell
Copyright © 2011 by Frank Tuttle
ISBN: 978-1-60928-569-2
Edited by Bethany Morgan
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: December 2011
