Chapter One #2
brAX CURSED OUT ANY ancient deities he’d ever played cards with.
They were all sore losers. He was convinced they’d put him in Marietta’s path.
They’d probably also been working against him and liquidated his assets (not that he’d ever been much good at saving money—it’s hard to do when you don’t work and find it difficult to keep a job if you happen to stumble into one).
But this was the last straw. He could barely live with whatever curse sent him to this dinky little town where friendly monsters watched you like hawks and made it clear they’d kill their own kind if that one was “evil.” But no one touched his beautiful black El Camino.
Until his hand connected with the key, and the battery clicked once and died.
How does one beat up gods that are probably all hanging out in the Forgotten Realm?
Something to do with Ley Lines, he was sure, and this town sat on top of three of them, a broody hen hatching monsters and a mix of malevolent and benevolent energy.
He breathed out—not that he needed to—and his breath iced over the windshield.
He was going for malevolence right now.
“I’m going to eat that incompetent little witch upstairs, Mr. Minegold and the good neighbor policy be damned,” he hissed and ran blindly towards the building, painfully aware that wherever his boots touched sprouted sheets of ice.
He slipped. One hundred years of immortality and vampiric grace shot to hell by one curse. He flailed and rocked like a cartoon character on the edge of a cliff, then let out a very undignified shout and crashed.
Onto something incredibly hot and soft—and loud.
“Get off of me, you idiot vampire! Egh!” Petite fists were pummeling him, and he couldn’t even hit back without the curse making it seem like a cannonball was ricocheting off of him. “Stop that! Stop, I slipped!” he protested, rolling onto his back, palms up like a defenseless piece of prey.
Humiliation galore. Abraxus Leon, once the scourge of New Orleans, the toast of the underworld, and now... broke. Friendless. Assaulted by puny women in panties.
He couldn’t even enjoy the sight because his entire body was seizing up with cold.
“You got a stake?” he groaned. “Go ahead and use it. I’m done.”
PENNY DECIDED THIS whole thing was ludicrous. For years following the hockey incident, she’d kept quiet about the monsters in town. When she was fourteen, she’d told her mother and father everything—and had a nice week drugged out of her skull in a hospital until she said they were all gone.
They were never gone.
One was with her now. This one on the ground was obviously pulling something. Somehow, he was killing her with his vampire evil, boiling her alive in her own skin. He was cold, so nice and delightfully cold, and he was lying on his back like he wanted a belly rub. A trap!
People needed to be warned. Vampires were lurking in their town! Everyone was at risk. Her parents should not shush her. They should applaud her. And if they put her in a straitjacket, she would ask for one with AC.
Her neighbor was rising slowly. His pale skin was even whiter than usual. Like snow.
Snow White. Was she a vampire? Maybe that’s how she slept so long in a glass coffin and didn’t die. Did the fairytale people ever think of that? Maybe she was cold as snow, too.
Brax (stupid name) was as cold as snow.
When he ran into her, it was horrible, of course—except that it felt so good.
For a second, her mind seemed clear. When he stopped touching her, all the heated fog of fever came back.
He was hot looking—yes, her delirious mind would tell her the truth about some things, it seemed, and that was one of them.
The term ‘handsome devil’ made a lot of sense.
Hot to behold, but cold to touch. To actually hold.
Somewhere in her brain, that was funny. Behold, hold, hot, cold. She was humming out a little rhyme.
Hm. Vampire fighting would be a good therapy for people with supernatural fevers. Or regular fevers.
Unless the vampires bit them, then they’d die. And the fever wouldn’t matter anymore, would it?
People should be warned. “Vampires are real! Silver bullets wanted!” Penny bellowed, looking right at her bewildered (yet hot and dangerous) neighbor.
“Are you outta your flamin’ mind?” Brax hissed, tackling her and pulling her back toward the apartment, looking around frantically. He clapped a hand to her mouth and smothered her scream. Or was that a moan of relief?
Brax didn’t seem to know, either. “Um. Was that a moan?”
“No! Shut up.” Penny blushed, but took comfort in the fact that no one would be able to tell, since she was the same color as an overripe Pink Lady apple from her forehead to her toes.
“All right, then. Look, you’re not dressed for this weather, and you’ve gone insane. I’m usually good with both problems, but—”
“Oh, my God! You’re perfect. You feel so good!
” Penny struggled limply, and to her semi-surprise, Brax instantly released her, hands up and out, indicating he wouldn’t harm her, nor even try.
She managed to face him and instantly smacked both her palms to his ice-white cheeks. “Ahhhh.” Her eyes fluttered closed.
He moaned back.
SHE WAS ON FIRE, JUST a few degrees from burning him, but with this damned weather and whatever had whammied him and turned him into a walking icicle, she was perfect.
He felt warmth begin to painfully prickle back into his body, starting from where her hands were clapped against his cheeks.
“What happened to you?” he asked in a smushed voice.
“I’m sick. Got really hot. Apartment is like a million degrees, and I—dizzy now.” She pitched forward, and he caught her.
As he pulled her upright against him, her moan turned into something purely orgasmic. Brax jumped back as much as he could, even though he’d much rather press up closer. “Shit, Penny, why—”
“Can’t get cool! Burning my skin off, too many clothes, gonna die and burst into flames, but then you— you’re perfect. Like a big, cold ice pack that’s sexy and I can put lots of places at once.”
“The whole effing town is an ice pack, you loony. There’s a reason I never travel farther north than Miami in the winter,” Brax groused, but helped her upright.
When she seemed reluctant to let go, rather preferring to cling to him like creeping ivy, he picked her up like a groom sweeping his bride over the threshold.
She limply clung to him, arm around his neck, seeking the bare nape, still doing those very evocative moans that suddenly made it hard to walk.
But walk he did. “I’m taking you home. You’re sick.
Fever. Why in the world aren’t you tucked up with some tea at your mother’s house or something? ”
“I’m contagious. Or I might be.” She looked at him with confused eyes. Sweet eyes. “I could get my father sick, and he just had surgery. I shouldn’t be near anyone.” She started to push off, and he held her.
“I can’t catch what you’ve got. If I could, I’d welcome it about now. I’m about to freeze. Not to death, but to a lot of pain. You’re doing me a favor, neighbor. First time I’ve felt even a bit of warmth in hours.”
Penny shook her head and mumbled something.
She really is delirious. And that could be good—for me. Just let her keep talking, let her keep close. If I can’t drink her blood, at least I can borrow her body heat.
“I don’t have a lot of friends in this town, anyway.
I mean, I’ve lived here my whole life, but I can see things other people can’t.
My parents and brothers,” Penny shook her head with a frown.
“They can’t see people like you. When I told them.
.. Well, you try going back to middle school as the girl from the funny farm.
It—it’s hard to be with friends who are going to find out you’re crazy.
Or a boyfriend. Hard to have a relationship with someone who you’ll always have to hide things from.
” She spoke in thoughts, whatever passed through her head.
“I think people like me, the crazy ones, are supposed to be alone.”
“Yeah, well, so are vamps. Lonely ones, they call us, trying to be poetic. We don’t fit in with humans, we don’t fit in with demons. You don’t fit in around here.”
“I try!”
“Standing in next to nothing in subzero temps, screaming that vampires are real? The only place you’ll fit in is the loony bin.”
She shivered convulsively. Brax thought she was finally feeling the cold, but then she whimpered. “Don’t let them take me back there. I know you’re real. You know it. Do you know what it’s like to see what’s true while everyone else around you is blind?” There was an edge of pure panic in her tone.
It was Marietta’s curse, he was sure. In the past, a screaming, panicking human meant he’d kill it quicker to shut it up. Now? Something protective plagued him. He wanted to soothe the bundle in his arms, the delightfully warm bundle pushing life and heat back into his chest.
“Yes, I know all about that. I am the thing they deny, say doesn’t exist, and yet here I am.” He walked faster, held her tighter.
“My parents said it was for attention. Said I lied. Said I was jealous of my big brothers, that I wanted to be special. Different. I tried not to see monsters, but I still see them. See you.” Her eyes were clouded with tears, and her voice was not the one Brax was used to.
It belonged to a frightened child, not the woman who scowled at him and told him in no uncertain terms that she would kill him if he crowded her at the trash dumpster.
“I was put in some ward and locked up, and I know they’ll send me back if I keep talking about it.
.. Gotta get away... Want to get away, but I can’t drive like this. ..”
“Oh, honey!” Brax’s shocked tone was genuine, and he pulled her closer instinctively. “I’ve been chained up a bit myself—figuratively. I’m not gonna let anyone put you in some ward.”
They reached the lobby, and Penny slid from his arms. “Why would you help me?”
Help might be a bit of a stretch. Brax coughed, “Well, look, I’m not going to bite. I can’t.”
“That’s what everyone thinks. There are a few other humans who see monsters in this town—and some of them are perfectly okay with it. Even in relationships with them,” Penny hissed. “It doesn’t make it true.”
“No, I mean I literally can’t bite. I’ve got a voodoo hex or somesuch on me. Can’t harm a human, or the pain I inflict rebounds. First nip would send me into a coma of pain.”
“Try it.” Penny put her hands on her hips.
Her slender hips, leading to glistening, lightly tanned legs.
“Huh? No!”
Penny walked up and slapped him.
“Don’t try any foreplay on me, darlin’, I like it,” Brax chuckled.
The next slap made his eyes short-circuit for a second. “Fine. The hard way it is.” He reached out and gave her upper arm a swift pinch, and instantly felt like a blade was slicing through him. Brax grabbed his arm and groaned, speaking through gritted teeth. “See?”
“You could be acting.”
“I’m too fucking cold to act.”
“That’s true. You are cold. So cold.”
“Come on, back to your beddy bye.” Brax shook off the pain as best he could and ushered his delirious little human back towards her apartment. She’d left the door open, but when he tried to push her through it, she clambered back up him like a cat trying to avoid a pool of water. “What is it?”
“I don’t want to go in there. I’ll die in there! It’s too hot for humans.”
“Well, my place is too cold for humans. Or vamps.”
“Then undo the spell or whatever you did!”
“Listen, sweets, some fancy vamps have magic. I’m just the good-looking boy on the wrong side of town who got turned into vamp chow when I was twenty. At a card game of the very worst kind. When someone says ‘bet your life’ in New Orleans, they mean it.”
Penny winced. “I’m sorry. But you’re not a human now. You’re immortal. Don’t you have some kind of powers?”
“Not me. Never blessed or cursed with ‘em. Just fangs. Need to feed. Now, I can’t even do that.”
“Well... Then what’s happening? My apartment is a furnace, yours is a freezer... I’m holding onto you like a cat on a curtain rod.”
Brax laughed softly, “Yes, but you warm me up a treat. I’ll stand here all night.”
“I wish—but I’m thirsty, and I need something to drink, but my pipes are spitting steam. My throat is killing me. Is your throat killing you?”
“No, that’d be my utter shock,” he said as he wincingly walked through the door with her and didn’t get any sort of zap. He’d never been invited inside, but he supposed her refusal to get off of him while wanting to venture inside counted for something.
Penny was still talking. “I’m not supposed to ask you to touch me. That’s wrong. You’re evil. You killed people, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but not in the last sixteen months.”
“See? I hate you. But I kind of like you to talk to right now. Don’t tell anyone. Why are we out of orange juice?” Penny pulled him behind her as she pawed weakly in the fridge, keeping her feverish hand in his.
“Your secret is safe with me, and you’re right. It’s an oven in here.”
“So it’s not just me?”
“No. I think it’s the witchette upstairs.”
“There’s a witch upstairs?”
“Cute college girl? Cross between goth and butterflies?”
“Oh, her.”
“Pretty sure she’s not the real thing—and I don’t know what the hell she was doing, but suddenly you’re in the Sahara, and I’m in the Arctic, and it follows us wherever we go. Look.” Brax pointed to the floor. His boots had made ice tracks that melted as soon as they formed.
“You got my floor wet?”
“I’m literally making ice. I’m turning to ice.”
Brax paused. Sucked in air with a gasp, relieved that for a second it didn’t feel like frost was forming in his lungs. “Could that be?”
“I don’t know, but you can’t die from it, can you?” Penny found a carton of juice and drained it, frowning. “It turned warm.”
Brax nodded solemnly. Can’t die from it, can you?
She could. What if she couldn’t cool down? Humans had delicate little systems. He should know; he used to be one. A fever of 104 or 105, and their brains started to sizzle.
If I let her die, does that count as the curse coming back on me? Would I fry, too, at ten times the heat?
He swallowed. Ice wouldn’t kill him, probably, but flames? Flames absolutely could.
“I think we need to go pay that little witch a visit—but you’d better put on some pants.”