ENTANGLED
A Paranormal Anthology
Edited by Edie Ramer and Misty Evans
Compilation copyright 2011 by Edie Ramer and Misty Evans
Foreword copyright 2011 by Stacia Kane
All stories copyright 2011 by their authors
Smashwords Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Halloween Frost by Jennifer Estep
Sinfully Sweet by Michelle Miles
A Night of Forever by Lori Brighton
Breaking Out by Michelle Diener
Ghostly Justice by Allison Brennan
FOREWORD
The other day I got involved in an online conversation with some other writers about condoms. Specifically about condoms and their use in books, as in whether or not the characters we write use them. As with anything and everything online there was a diversity of opinions, from people who think it’s absolutely necessary to people who hate writing condoms and think if you’re old enough to be reading a book which includes a scene where condoms may be used, you’re old enough to understand that fiction isn’t real life.
Personally, I’ve been able to sidestep the issue in both of my series; in the first my hero is a demon, who can’t catch or carry human diseases and can’t impregnate the heroine (he tells her this while offering to wear one anyway). In the other—and this is the point of this little anecdote—the only reason to use a condom is to prevent pregnancy, because the totalitarian atheistic Church government embarked on an “eradication program” when it took over the world following a ghost apocalypse (this essentially amounted to a quarantine program, which isn’t particularly nice, no, but then the Church often isn’t particularly nice). Thus, the world’s population is much smaller, and there are no STDs.
In other words, I wanted to dispense with the stupid condoms, so I created a world where there were no STDs in order to do so. Once my heroine’s lack of fertility had been established, I was free to have my characters bare-backing all over the city; on kitchen counters, in cemeteries, tunnels underground, nightclub bathrooms, in the front seat of a muscle car, whatever I wanted.
In fiction we can change the rules however we want. We can eradicate any disease we want simply by typing in a few words and Making It So. When I’m writing a book and I don’t want a character to get breast cancer, it’s easy. I just make sure I don’t write a scene where they’re diagnosed with breast cancer. If for some reason I do happen to accidentally write such a scene—hey, when you mix alcohol, painkillers, and “Television for Women” at two in the morning, you never know what will pop out—I can just go ahead and cut it. A click-and-drag of the mouse, a Delete key press, and it’s all gone.
I can avoid it. I can pretend it doesn’t happen—I can make it not happen. I can cure it easily and instantly, if I want. I can protect everyone I love from it; I can keep families intact. I can make sure mothers get to watch their children grow up. I can make sure no one has an empty seat at the dinner table, an empty space in their hearts.
This is why fiction is often so much better than real life.
In real life I can’t just delete the scene in the Doctor’s office. In real life I can’t just decide that medical science took a great leap forward and cancer is totally curable now. In real life I can’t just pretend breast cancer doesn’t exist. Neither can any of us. I wish we could, but we can’t.
What we can do, though, is hope. We can hope that one day our children or our grandchildren will be able to think of breast cancer the way we think of illnesses like typhoid fever, that once killed thousands but are now essentially eradicated and/or curable. There are doctors and scientists and really scarily smart people out there working hard to try to make that so, to re-write our world so “breast cancer” becomes maybe a little more serious than a cold, but with the same prognosis: Yeah, you might feel kind of tired for a couple of days, but you’re totally going to be fine after that.
We can hope that happens. And we can do our part to Make it So; you’ve done it, just by buying this book, because in doing so you’ve contributed much-needed funds to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which funds those doctors and scientists and scary-smart people—in fact, more than ninety cents of every dollar they get goes to fund those people, and to awareness programs. They’ve been doing it since 1992 and they’ll keep on doing it until we’ve managed to write breast cancer—and hopefully every other cancer—out of our world.
That can’t happen soon enough.
I’m honored to be invited to participate in this anthology, and honored to dedicate that participation to the memory of Elizabeth Chang, the sister of one of my closest friends, who left behind two young children, a mother, a father, and a brother, all of whom loved her very much. If I was writing the world, she would definitely still be in it.
~Stacia
Stacia Kane is the author of the gritty dystopian urban fantasy Downside series starring Chess Putnam and featuring ghosts, human sacrifice, drugs, witchcraft, punk rock, and a badass ’69 Chevelle. She bleaches her hair and wears a lot of black.
Halloween Frost
A Mythos Academy short story
Jennifer Estep
“Don’t you think we’re a little old for trick or treating?”
Daphne Cruz, my best friend, looked in the mirror and opened up a tube of lip gloss. “Are you kidding? Absolutely not. Halloween’s one of my favorite holidays.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And why is that?”
“Because,” Daphne said, putting some pale pink gloss on her lips, “we get to dress up, get free candy, and get to stay out late. What’s not to like?”
It was a little after six, and the two of us were in my dorm room at Mythos Academy. Even though it was a school night, it was also Halloween, and Daphne was determined to drag me out trick or treating with her, even though I would have been just as happy staying in my room reading comic books the rest of the night.
Daphne had meant what she said about loving Halloween because she’d gone all out with her costume. My friend wore a gorgeous pink flapper dress covered with fringe and hundreds of tiny crystals, along with matching high heels. Several strings of real pearls hung from her neck, adding even more shine to her costume. Her blond hair was curled into flat waves against her head, and her subtle makeup made her amber skin look absolutely flawless.
Daphne dropped her lip gloss into a small beaded purse, causing princess pink sparks of magic to shoot out of her fingertips. The sparks matched the flash of the crystals on her dress before winking out a few seconds later. The magic sparks were one of the things that made Daphne a Valkyrie, along with her superstrength.
Finally satisfied with her appearance, Daphne turned to look at me. “Aren’t you going to change? Where’s your costume?”
“This is my costume.”
Her black eyes flicked over my sneakers, jeans, T-shirt, and gray hoodie. “That’s not a costume. That’s just what you wear every day—every single day.”
It was true. Jeans and hoodies were pretty much my outfit of choice, and I looked rather plain standing next to Daphne in her shimmering costume. I hadn’t even done anything different with my hair tonight, although the loose brown waves seemed to bring out my pale skin and violet eyes a little more than usual. Or maybe that was just my own wishful thinking.
“Seriously, Gwen, aren’t you going to change into something else?” Daphne asked. “Some sort of costume?”
“Ah, but this is a costume.” I held my hands out wide. “Right now, I’m just Gwen Frost, that weird Gypsy girl who touches stuff and see things.”
I walked over to my desk, picked up a black leather scabbard that held a sword, and brandished the weapon at Daphne. “But now, I’m Gwen Frost, Gypsy girl, Nike’s Champion, and warrior in training. See the difference?”
Daphne snorted. “The only thing I see is how impossible you are. Tell me again why we’re friends?”
“Because I hooked you up with your dream guy.”
“Oh, yeah. That.” Daphne’s voice was sarcastic, but a smile creased her face.
“I agree with Gwen,” a voice with an English accent piped up. “This is all utter nonsense if you ask me.”
I looked down at the sword, which was where the voice had come from. Instead of being plain and featureless, the sword’s hilt was shaped like half of a man’s face, complete with an ear, a nose, a mouth, and one round, bulging eye that wasn’t quite purple but wasn’t really gray either. The weapon had been given to me by Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, when she’d chosen me to be her Champion, the girl who helped her fight Reapers of Chaos here in the mortal realm. Vic was the sword’s name, and I’d quickly learned that he had opinions and attitude to spare, along with his cool, slightly snooty English accent.
“Halloween. It’s quite ridiculous if you ask me.” Vic sniffed. “Putting on silly costumes, asking strangers for candy, and trying to scare each other to death in the meantime. There are enough real monsters in the world, you know. You warriors don’t have to dress up like them too.”
Yeah, Daphne and I knew all about the monsters in the world, nasty things like Nemean prowlers that could rip a person to pieces. That’s why we were here at Mythos Academy in the first place. From the outside, the academy looked like just another fancy boarding school, some place that rich parents sent their spoiled kids to so they could get a proper education and make all the right connections before going off to an Ivy League college. But really, Mythos was a school for the descendants of ancient warriors like Valkyries, Amazons, Spartans, and more.
Daphne, me, and all the other warrior whiz kids were here at Mythos learning how to use our magic and training with weapons so we could fight Reapers of Chaos, some bad guys who wanted to free the evil god Loki from his mythological prison and plunge the world into a second Chaos War.
“Well, I happen to like Halloween,” Daphne said, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at the sword.
“Hmph. I’d rather eat Reaper blood than chocolate bars any day,” Vic said.
I winced at his words. I knew that Vic was a sword, but still, it always surprised me how totally bloodthirsty he was. Vic was always talking about fighting Reapers, cutting them to pieces, and munching on their bones. I’d barely survived going up against Jasmine Ashton, a Reaper who’d tried to kill me recently. I had no desire to run into another Reaper anytime soon or one of the Nemean prowlers they used as oversize, kitty-cat assassins.
Daphne and Vic glared at each other a few more seconds before the Valkyrie looked at me again.
“Come on, Gypsy girl,” Daphne said, linking her arm through mine. “Let’s go have some fun.”
o0o
Carson Callahan, Daphne’s boyfriend, was waiting downstairs in the common area of Styx Hall, my dorm. Carson had dressed up in a dapper black suit complete with glossy wingtips and a black fedora that covered his brown hair. The pink ribbon around the base of his hat matched Daphne’s flapper costume. Together, the two of them looked like they’d just stepped out of some movie about the Roaring Twenties. Carson’s brown eyes lit up at the sight of the pretty Valkyrie.
“You look amazing,” he said, slipping his fingers through Daphne’s.
The Valkyrie blushed. “Thanks. So do you.”
My friends stood there staring dreamily into each other’s eyes, as though there wasn’t anyone else left in the entire world but the two of them. I was all for new love, but I didn’t like being ignored either, so I cleared my throat. Carson peered through his black glasses at me, like he hadn’t even noticed me until this very second.
“Oh, hi, Gwen.” He frowned. “Where’s your costume?”
Daphne snorted again. “You don’t want to know. Come on. I want to hit the stores before all the good candy is gone.”
We left Styx Hall, stepped onto one of the ash gray cobblestone paths that wound past the student dorms, and walked down to the twelve-foot-high stone wall that ringed the Mythos Academy campus. Normally, the main iron gate would be shut and locked, since students weren’t supposed to leave the grounds during school nights, but the gate stood open tonight, and a steady stream of kids marched through, ready for an evening of Halloween fun.
Daphne, Carson, and I stepped into the flow of traffic. Stone sphinxes perched on the wall on either side of the gate, their open eyes seeming to track the movements of the students walking by below them. The sphinxes were some of the many statues at the academy, and they always creeped me out. The sphinxes seemed a little too lifelike for my peace of mind, like the stone was just a thin shell that covered a real monster underneath—one that could leap down and eat me any time it wanted to. I shivered and dropped my gaze from the statues.
The academy was located in Cypress Mountain, North Carolina, a suburb that was up in the mountains above the city of Asheville. Daphne, Carson, and I headed across the road that wound by the academy and into the suburb itself. Tourists flocked to Cypress Mountain year-round because of all the primo shops that sold everything from designer clothes to expensive jewelry to high-end art. What the tourists didn’t know was that the boutiques were really located here to take advantage of the credit cards and limitless trust funds of the academy’s rich students.
The store owners in Cypress Mountain must have loved Halloween just as much as Daphne did because they’d gone all out with the spooky decorations. Carved jack-o’-lanterns lined all the cobblestone streets, the lit candles inside them flickering and making their grins seem particularly sinister in the darkening shadows. Thick, silvery webs complete with fat, rubber spiders swooped from one doorway to the next, while ghosts, ghouls, and other classic monsters could be seen in the storefront windows, arms outstretched like they wanted to break through the glass and grab the students strolling by.
But those weren’t the only decorations I saw. There were also statues—lots and lots of statues. But they weren’t your normal cutesy garden gnomes or other flowery lawn ornaments. Oh, no. These statues were of monsters—Nemean prowlers, to be exact.
Prowlers were basically like black panthers, only much bigger, much stronger, and much, much deadlier. The prowlers that I’d seen in real life had seemed to me to be more teeth and claws than anything else, and the statues that lined the street were no exception. The stone monstrosities were all longer than I was tall, and most of the statues showed the prowlers with their lips drawn back in snarling smiles, revealing their razor-sharp teeth. I guessed the statues were just the Mythos Academy version of the black cats that other folks might use for their Halloween decorations.
But the worst thing was that the statues’ eyes seem to follow my every movement, my every step, my every breath even, just like the sphinxes at the academy gate had earlier. Like the prowlers were just patiently watching and waiting until I was alone so they could break out of their stone shells and kill me until I was dead, dead, dead.
“Statues,” I muttered. “More freaking statues. Great. Just great.”
“What, Gwen?” Carson asked, turning to look at me. “What did you say?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
We got some hollow plastic orange pumpkins that one of the stores was handing out and went from shop to shop, loading up our pumpkins with everything from gourmet pretzels to delicious brownies to candy apples bigger than my fist. I had a serious sweet tooth and quickly filled up my pumpkin, even though we hadn’t gone through half the stores yet. I popped a piece of dark chocolate fudge topped with vanilla-raspberry syrup into my mouth and sighed as the rich flavors exploded on my tongue. Yum. So good.
To my surprise, the shops weren’t just handing out free candy tonight. Weapons, armor, clothing, jewelry. Many of the stores were giving away expensive replicas of the various artifacts that the members of the Pantheon, the good guys, had used to fight Loki and his Reapers of Chaos during the long, bloody Chaos War.
We stopped in one jewelry store that was passing out beautiful rings made of clear, sparkling, heart-shaped crystals held together with thin silver wire. Supposedly, the rings were modeled after one worn by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.
“Meh,” Daphne said, putting the ring back down on the glass counter with all the others just like it. “Last year, they were giving away necklaces with real diamonds in them.”
Sometimes, I didn’t think that I’d ever get used to how casual Daphne and the other rich academy kids were about money—especially since I used my magic to make extra cash.
I was a Gypsy, which meant that I’d been gifted with magic by one of the gods. In my case, that god was Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, and that magic was psychometry, a fancy way of saying that I could touch any object and immediately know, feel, and see its history. I could see every person who’d ever picked up a book or used a sword, and I could feel their emotions too—if they’d been bored or brave or scared to death. My Gypsy gift let me uncover people’s deepest, darkest secrets no matter how hard they tried to hide them from me—or even themselves.
I used my magic to find things that the kids at Mythos lost—wallets, keys, cell phones, purses, laptops. Of course, when something was missing, I couldn’t actually touch it, but usually, all I had to do to find a girl’s cell phone was walk around her room, touch her furniture, and see where the vibes that I got off her desk and dresser led me. Most of the time, I’d flash on an image of the girl throwing her phone into a drawer, then forgetting where she’d put it. Phone found, and yours truly, Gwen Frost, was a couple hundred bucks richer.
“Yeah, well,” I said, picking up one of the rings and putting it in my plastic pumpkin. “It may not be made out of real diamonds, but I still think it’s pretty. I might give it to my Grandma Frost. She wears stacks of rings.”
Daphne shook her head, and we walked on to the next store.
The whole town of Cypress Mountain had been closed down and taken over by Mythos students for the night, along with the professors and other folks who worked at the academy. Professor Metis, my myth-history teacher, Coach Ajax, the guy who oversaw all the weapons training and athletic programs, Nickamedes, the head honcho at the Library of Antiquities. I spotted them in the crowd of people moving in and out of shops on the main drag, along with one face that made my heart pound in my chest.
Logan Quinn.
The sexy Spartan warrior stood across the street outside the jewelry store that we’d been in a few minutes ago. Thick, wavy, black hair, lean, muscled body, ice blue eyes. Logan was cute enough in regular clothes, but tonight, he’d dressed up in black leather and sandals like one of his ancient Spartan ancestors. He carried a bronze sword, and a matching shield was strapped to his left arm. He looked absolutely gorgeous—fierce and strong and brave all at the same time, just like I knew he was.
Logan had saved my life a couple of times recently, and as a result, I’d developed a mad, mad crush on the Spartan. Even now, despite the fact that he’d told me that we couldn’t be together, part of me wanted to go over and talk to him, to see his sexy grin spread across his face, and listen to him tease me about how I wasn’t wearing a costume like everyone else.
Too bad the Spartan wasn’t alone. Savannah Warren, his date, was with him. Savannah was a pretty Amazon with beautiful red hair that flowed down her back, and tonight, she was dressed in an emerald-colored, sea nymph costume that brought out her green eyes. Logan said something to her, and Savannah smiled, her whole face lighting up as she looked at the Spartan.
My heart started to burn with bitter, bitter jealousy. Why couldn’t I be the one that Logan was with tonight? Why couldn’t I be the one that he was smiling at? Why couldn’t he look at me the way that he was at Savannah right now?
As if he could hear my thoughts, the Spartan turned in my direction, and our eyes met. Logan hesitated, then waved at me. I gritted my teeth, lifted my hand, and waved back, even though I didn’t really want to.
“You okay, Gwen?” Daphne asked in a sympathetic voice. The Valkyrie had noticed Logan waving at me—and that Savannah was standing by his side.
“I’m fine,” I said, deliberately turning away from the Spartan. “Just fine. Where to next?”
We kept wandering through town. After about an hour, we’d hit all the shops on the main drag and scored all the goodies they had to offer, so we started going down some of the side streets to the smaller stores. There weren’t as many people here, and night had started to creep over the landscape, bringing blackening shadows along with it. The air was getting colder too, and I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my hoodie, trying to keep them warm. My pumpkin dangled off my arm, bumping along my thigh. Every once in a while, the plastic container would smack into Vic’s hilt, since I had the sword and his scabbard strapped to the black leather belt around my waist. Vic sniffed indignantly every time the pumpkin bumped him, but I ignored the sword’s faint mutterings. He’d quiet down sooner or later.
We cut down another deserted side street. Daphne and Carson walked a few steps ahead of me, talking about all the goodies that they’d picked up tonight and how this year’s haul compared to last year’s. I kicked at a few loose rocks and let their happy, excited words wash over me. All I wanted to do right now was go back to my dorm room, stuff my face full of the junk food that I’d gotten, and try to forget about the fact that Logan was here with another girl. I sighed. Easier said than done.
We kept walking. Eventually, we passed another statue of a Nemean prowler, probably the hundredth one that we’d strolled by tonight. Strangely enough, this one was hidden back in the shadows in one of the alleys, instead of being out on the street near the shops like all the others that I’d seen.
Still, I started to look past the creature when I noticed that its tail was twitching.
For a moment, I thought that maybe my Gypsy gift was just playing tricks on me. It did that sometimes and made me see things that weren’t really there. But no matter how many times or how hard I blinked, the prowler’s tail kept lashing from side to side. The creature sank down onto its haunches, like it was an oversize house cat about to pounce on a mouse. A moment later, its eyes snapped open, and I noticed how red they were—such a bright, burning red.
Cold dread filled my stomach as I realized that the statue wasn’t a statue, that it was a real, live, Nemean prowler—one that was about to rip me and my friends to pieces.
o0o
I didn’t think—I just reacted.
I threw myself into Daphne and Carson, knocking them both to the side and down to the ground as far away from the prowler as I could get them. My desperate act worked because instead of leaping on top of my friends, the Nemean prowler came up short, landing in a crouch a few feet away. The creature immediately snapped its head around to us. Its thick, black fur took on a reddish tinge underneath the golden glow of the street lamps, and its eyes blazed like bloody rubies in its face.
“Gwen! What the—” Daphne sputtered, her face mashed against the cobblestone street.
“Fight now, talk later!” I yelled, scrambling off the Valkyrie and getting to my feet.
I stepped in front of my friends, who froze when they spotted the prowler crouched in the street behind us. Daphne let out a curse, and she and Carson both struggled to untangle themselves from each other, get up, and help me.
The creature let out an evil hiss and charged at me. I didn’t have time to draw Vic out of the scabbard that hung from my waist, but I’d managed to hold onto my plastic container of goodies, so I did the only thing that I could—I smashed the prowler in the face with the hollow pumpkin.
The orange plastic exploded like a piñata, and the candy, jewelry, and all the other knickknacks that I’d picked up flew everywhere. The prowler hissed with surprise and stopped short, but it still lashed out and swiped its claws at me. I barely managed to leap back in time to keep from getting slashed to ribbons.
The prowler swiped at me again, causing me to back up even more, and Daphne stepped in front of me to meet the creature’s charge. The Valkyrie had gotten to her feet and grabbed one of the enormous jack-o’-lanterns that lined the street. The carved pumpkin had to weigh at least seventy-five pounds, but thanks to her Valkyrie strength, Daphne hefted it up like it didn’t weigh any more than her tiny purse, lunged forward, and brought it down right on top of the prowler’s head.
The jack-o’-lantern got stuck on there for a second, giving the prowler a comical look, before the creature used its claws to rip the gourd to pieces. Daphne darted back and grabbed another jack-o’-lantern to heave at the creature. Carson did the same, although he couldn’t pick up the heavier ones like Daphne could. As a Celt, he just didn’t have her strength.
I fumbled with my scabbard and finally pulled Vic free of the soft leather.
“About time you remembered that you were carrying me,” the sword said, his purplish eye gleaming in the semidarkness. “Now, let’s kill us a prowler!”
“Shut up, Vic!” I said and raised my sword.
The prowler paced up and down the street in front of the three of us. The creature’s red eyes went from me to Daphne to Carson and back again, considering which one of us was the greatest threat and who to attack first. Me with my sword, or Daphne and Carson with their jack-o’-lanterns. Finally, it decided on Daphne, since she’d beaned it in the head once before.
The prowler sank down on its haunches, then sprang at the Valkyrie, but Daphne was ready for the attack. She waited until the creature was in range, then smashed the jack-o’-lantern against its head as hard as she could.
“That’s for ruining my dress, you overgrown kitten!” the Valkyrie snapped.
Once again, the gourd exploded on impact, but it wasn’t enough to slow down the prowler. The creature slammed into Daphne, knocking her to the ground again, then whipped around and did the same thing to Carson before he even knew what hit him. The prowler whirled around a second time, ready to pounce on my friends and rip them to ribbons, but I rushed forward and raised up Vic.
Swing-swing-swing.
I swung my sword at the prowler, trying to remember the moves that Coach Ajax had shown us in gym class, trying to remember how to attack the prowler without getting killed myself. But I hadn’t been using a sword very long, and all my awkward motions did was delay my death for a few seconds.
Swipe-swipe-swipe.
The prowler lashed out at me with its claws again, forcing me to jump away from it. My sneaker caught on a loose cobblestone, my arms windmilled, and I stumbled back. I closed my eyes, expecting to smash into the ground and feel the prowler’s teeth tearing into me a second later.
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, a pair of strong arms caught me and set me back up on my feet. I shrieked and jerked away, not knowing what was going on, not knowing why I wasn’t dead yet.
“Easy, Gypsy girl,” a voice said in my ear. “It’s just me.”
I opened my eyes, and suddenly, Logan was there. He twirled his sword and stepped in front of me, putting himself in between me and the Nemean prowler like he’d done twice before now. A smile spread across the Spartan’s face as he regarded the mythological monster, and his icy eyes began to glow in anticipation of the battle to come. Spartans were kind of freaky that way. They actually loved to fight, especially since they had the ability to pick up ordinary, everyday objects and automatically know how to kill with them.
The prowler stopped in its tracks at the sight of the Spartan, and it let out another yowling hiss, recognizing him as a dangerous enemy.
Logan looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Now, what do you say we take care of this thing together?”
I smiled at him. “Sounds good to me.”
Logan went one way, and I went the other until we stood on opposite sides of the street. The prowler whipped its head back and forth, trying to keep both of us in sight at the same time.
“You first, Gypsy girl,” Logan said.
I feinted in, forcing the prowler to turn toward me. That gave Logan the chance to attack the creature from the other side. The Spartan got in a nice slice with his sword before jumping back out of the path of the prowler’s killer claws. Back and forth, we battled the prowler, with both of us feinting in and moving out, wounding the creature, until finally, we were both able to stab the prowler at the same time. The creature howled again, a terrible, terrible noise, before it slumped to the street and was still.
For a moment, there was only silence, mixed with the sounds of our heavy breathing.
“Is it really dead?” Carson asked, getting to his feet and then helping Daphne do the same.
The two of them looked a little beat up and bruised from their tumbles to the ground, but other than that, they were okay. Daphne stared down at all the rips and tears in her flapper dress and sighed.
Logan walked over and prodded the creature with his sandaled foot. The prowler didn’t move. “Definitely dead.”
“So,” I wheezed, still trying to catch my breath, and looked over at the Valkyrie. “Is Halloween still your favorite holiday?”
Daphne just gave me a dirty look.
o0o
Carson and Daphne headed off to go find Professor Metis, Coach Ajax, and Nickamedes so they could come and deal with the prowler. That left me standing in the street with Logan. I stared down at the prowler, which didn’t look nearly as scary in death. Now it just looked … broken—broken and bloody and still and defeated. I knew that the prowler had wanted to tear me, Daphne, and Carson into little bloody chunks, but part of me still felt sad that we’d had to kill it. In its own way, the prowler was a beautiful, magnificent creature, even if the Reapers had trained it to murder warrior whiz kids like us.
“Why do you think it was here?” I asked. “The prowler?”
Logan shrugged. “The Reapers usually let one or two of them loose every year in Cypress Mountain while school is in session, hoping that maybe the prowlers will be able to kill a student or two before they’re caught or killed themselves. This year, well, I suppose that it’s the Reapers own twisted version of trick or treat.”
“Some trick,” I muttered.
“Yeah.”
I didn’t want to look at the prowler anymore, but I didn’t want to stare at Logan either, so I slid Vic back into the scabbard on my waist. Now that the battle was over, the sword had closed his eye and gone back to sleep.
Once I had Vic secured, I crouched down and started picking up the mess I’d made when I’d swung my plastic pumpkin at the prowler. The pretzels, the brownies, the candy apples. They’d all been crushed and stomped to bits during the fight. And I’d so been looking forward to gnoshing on them later tonight. I sighed, gathered up as much of the mess as I could in my hands, then dumped everything in a nearby trash can. I wiped my hands off as best I could on the bottom of my hoodie, even though it was just as torn and dirty as Daphne and Carson’s clothes were.
“Here. You forgot this,” Logan said in a quiet voice.
The Spartan stepped forward, held out his fist, and uncurled his fingers. The ring that I’d picked up earlier in the jewelry store glimmered in the palm of his hand. Somehow, it had survived the fight unscathed, and the heart-shaped crystals gleamed like diamond teardrops against Logan’s skin.
“Thanks,” I said.
I took the ring, careful not to touch his bare fingers with mine. My psychometry magic let me pick up vivid enough memories from objects, but I could get major whammies, major flashes of feelings, when I touched another person. Part of me ached to touch Logan, to see if I could figure out how he really felt about me, and what secret he was hiding that made him think that I wouldn’t like him anymore. But the other part worried about what I might see, if I might discover that Logan didn’t care for me like I did him. That would break my heart more than seeing him with Savannah tonight already had.
“I’m glad that you’re okay, Gypsy girl,” Logan said in a soft voice.
I nodded. “Me too. Although I have to ask, why were you on this street to start with? All the action is back over on the main drag.”
He shrugged. “I saw you guys come down this way. I wanted to say hi, so I followed you.”
“Good thing you did,” I said. “Or the prowler would have killed us all.”
The Spartan shook his head. “I don’t think so. It looked to me like you were holding your own with it, Gypsy girl. Just like you always do.”
He smiled at me then—a warm, sexy, teasing grin that took my breath away. I looked into his ice blue eyes, and suddenly, my insecurities didn’t seem to matter anymore. Nothing seemed to matter but telling Logan how grateful I was that he’d rescued me yet again, how much I appreciated it, how much I appreciated him, how much I felt for him.
“Logan, I—”
“Logan!” another voice called out.
The Spartan looked over my shoulder. I turned and saw Savannah Warren in the street behind us, hurrying toward Logan. The Spartan stared down at me, something almost like regret flashing in his eyes, before he walked past me toward the other girl. My heart sank like a stone dropping to the bottom of a river, drowning the words that I’d been about to say right along with it.
Savannah reached Logan’s side and threw her arms around his waist. “Are you okay?”
Logan hugged her back. “I’m fine. It was just a prowler. Nothing too dangerous.”
Relief filled the Amazon’s face, and she put her head against Logan’s chest. My stomach clenched, and I looked away from them.
A few seconds later, Daphne and Carson hurried back down the street, along with Professor Metis, Coach Ajax, and Nickamedes. I’d seen the adults earlier, but I hadn’t really noticed their costumes until now.
Metis was dressed up like Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, since that’s whose Champion Metis was. The professor looked pretty tonight, her long, elegant gown hanging off one shoulder and draping over her body. The silvery color of the fabric brought out the bronze tint of her skin, along with her black hair. Metis’s eyes were a bright green behind her glasses.
Ajax was clad like an ancient Spartan warrior just like Logan was, his skin, hair and eyes almost the same color as the black leather that covered his body. But the coach wasn’t carrying a sword or any sort of shield. He was so big and burly that he didn’t need to. Ajax looked like the kind of person who could crush diamonds with his bare hands.
But it was Nickamedes’s costume that made me do a double-take. The librarian was clad in bright purple silk from head to toe, with jangling bells on the ends of his shirt sleeves and shoes. A ridiculous hat with four floppy points on it, all capped with bells, hid his black hair from sight. He looked like a reject from a Renaissance fair, and it took me a moment to realize that he was supposed to be an old-fashioned court jester. The joke was definitely on him tonight with that outfit.
“Nice costume,” I said in a snarky tone.
Nickamedes glared at me, his blue eyes frosty in his pale face, but that was nothing unusual. The librarian liked me as little as I did him, despite the fact that I worked for him several hours a week at the Library of Antiquities as sort of an after-school job.
“At least I bothered to dress for the occasion, Gwendolyn,” Nickamedes snapped. “Unlike you.”
My eyes narrowed, and I opened my mouth to snap back at him, but Metis held up her hand, playing the role of peacekeeper like she so often did.
“Tell us what happened,” Metis interrupted. “From the beginning.”
Daphne told the three of them about the prowler attacking us. Metis, Ajax, and Nickamedes were on the academy’s security council and were responsible for student safety, among other things. Once the adults realized that we were all okay, they told us to leave and that they’d handle disposing of the prowler’s body, as well as making sure that there weren’t any more of the creatures lurking in the shadow-filled alleys.
Logan looked at me a final time, before he and Savannah turned and walked down the street back toward the main drag.
“Are you okay, Gwen?” Daphne asked in a soft voice, pink sparks of magic streaming out of her fingertips in sympathy.
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling my eyes away from the Spartan’s retreating figure and trying to ignore the pulsing ache in my heart. “Let’s go back to the academy. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m all tricked out for the night.”
o0o
Daphne, Carson, and I walked back through Cypress Mountain. We stopped at a few shops and picked up some items to replace the ones that we’d lost, but my friends were as tired and exhausted as I was. Fighting for your life against a mythological monster will do that to you. Forty-five minutes later, I said goodnight to Daphne and Carson outside of Styx Hall and headed up to my dorm room.
I took a shower, put on a pair of soft, flannel, purple plaid pajamas, and got ready for bed. I hung Vic on his usual spot on the wall. The sword let out a yawn, finally waking up from his nap, and opened his one eye.
“What? We’re back in the bloody room already? How disappointing,” Vic muttered.
“Why’s that so disappointing?”
Vic gave me a put-upon look, like the answer should be obvious. “Because we should be out killing more prowlers. And Reapers too. Why, I bet there are dozens of them still lurking around the shops and alleys, just waiting to strike.”
I shivered, thinking of how the prowler had almost pounced on me, Daphne, and Carson. “I think running into one was more than enough for tonight.”
“Well, I suppose that killing one prowler isn’t a bad start to the week,” Vic admitted. “But we will definitely have to up our quota in the coming days. Nike gave me to you for a reason, Gwen. And do you know what that reason is? To kill things. Lots of things. The sooner we get started, the better. Because with me by your side, you can’t lose!”
I rolled my eyes at the sword’s crowing, cocky words. Confidence was something else that Vic had an abundance of, right along with attitude.
“Well, we can talk about all that tomorrow. In the meantime, I need my beauty rest, and so do you. Goodnight, Vic.”
My words seemed to soothe the bloodthirsty sword, and he nodded his head in agreement.
“Very well. Until the morrow then.”
Vic closed his eye and went back to sleep.
I settled myself on the bed, but instead of crawling under the covers, I unwrapped one of the chocolate ganache-covered brownies that I’d snagged on the way back to the academy. I broke off a piece of the brownie and popped it into my mouth. It wasn’t quite as good as the ones that my Grandma Frost made, but it satisfied my need for a quick sugar fix.
I could have stayed up longer and eaten the rest of the sweet treats that I’d brought back, but I had classes tomorrow. Despite the Halloween party over in Cypress Mountain, the Powers That Were at the academy still expected the students to get up bright and early in the morning.
I snuggled down underneath my gray microfleece sheets and turned off the light by my bed, but I couldn’t go to sleep. Instead, I kept replaying the fight with the prowler over and over again in my head. Despite how scared I’d been, Vic was right—things hadn’t turned out too badly. I’d had a fun night with my friends, well, up until the prowler had tried to eat us. Still, I’d survived another encounter with a Nemean prowler when I probably shouldn’t have. That was reason enough to celebrate right there.
And then there was Logan.
My eyes drifted over to my desk. When I’d come back to my room, I’d slid the ring that the Spartan had handed me over the small replica statue of Nike that stood on my desk, so that the ring hung around the goddess’s throat like a miniature necklace. Moonlight slipping in through the curtains illuminated the whole room, including the crystal hearts on the ring, making them look like silver stars shimmering against the goddess’s skin.
I thought of how the Spartan had charged into battle without a second’s hesitation, of how he’d stepped in between me and the prowler, determined to keep me safe from the creature no matter what. Sure, Logan had been out with Savannah tonight, but he’d come to my rescue once again when it had really mattered. Somehow, I knew that he always would.
The Spartan might be with another girl right now, he might have said that we couldn’t be together, but things weren’t over with Logan and me yet. They were just getting started. Somehow, I knew that—I just knew it. Even now, alone in the darkness, the thought gave me hope—so much hope.
Smiling, I closed my eyes, ready to face tomorrow and whatever new trials I might encounter here at Mythos Academy. The Spartan had been right about something tonight. Whether the new dangers were tricks, treats, or something else, I’d hold my own against them, just the way I had so far. Logan’s face was the last thing that I remembered seeing before sleep finally claimed me for the night.
-o0o-
Note from the author:
Unfortunately, breast cancer is a disease that seems to affect all of us. Everyone seems to know someone who’s had the disease, whether it’s their mother, grandmother, sister, or friend. My grandmother is a breast cancer survivor, and I wanted to write a story for this anthology to honor her strength and spirit, as well as everyone else who’s struggled with or been affected by the disease. Here’s hoping for a cure—the sooner, the better.
USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Estep writes the Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series for Kensington. Books in the series include Touch of Frost and Kiss of Frost. The books focus on Gwen Frost, a 17-year-old Gypsy girl who has the gift of psychometry, or the ability to know an object’s history just by touching it. After a serious freak-out with her magic, Gwen is shipped off to Mythos Academy, a school for the descendants of ancient warriors like Spartans, Valkyries, Amazons, and more.
Jennifer also writes the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series for Pocket Books, and she is the author of the Bigtime superhero romance series. Visit www.jenniferestep.com for more information.
THE FAT CAT
Edie Ramer
Chapter One
July
Of all the cat houses, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.
Tory locked eyes with a fat, black cat and shivered. It wasn’t really misquoting Casablanca at her, was it? She was a witch, not a cat whisperer.
It had to be in her mind. The cats she knew wouldn’t lower themselves to speak human.
“I don’t like this place.” Sorcha’s gaze around the cat playroom in the Humane Society was as scornful as if the place was violating the Geneva Convention instead of crammed with carpet-covered climbing thingies and scratching posts, plus strategically placed litter boxes that looked barely used.
Tory glanced around, too, from one cat to another, twenty or more. All colors, all sizes, all ages. Even the fat, black one who’d been staring at her since she walked into the oversized cat cage.
Or, as Sorcha called it, their prison.
“It’s clean,” Max said.
Sorcha stared at her husband, Tory’s brother, her expression as horrified as if he’d said she needed to stop eating ice cream. “So are hospitals. I don’t like them, either.”
Tory sniggered. She could always count on her sister-in-law to cheer her up, even after a break-up with her boyfriend.
She was replacing him with a cat.
Sorcha had told her she was trading up.
Her younger brother Ted had said he hoped she had better taste in cats than men.
“I assure you,” the chubby young woman with earnest eyes and a Volunteer badge said, catching Tory’s attention, “the animals love it here.”
Tory could see why. The place was cleaner and even smelled better than the apartment Tory had shared with three other girls when she lived in New York, her eyes on Broadway, her heart back home in Wisconsin.
“Don’t you have kittens?” she asked. “That’s what I’m looking for.”
“There are advantages to adopting an older cat.” The volunteer scooped up a thin, tiger-striped cat, its eyes widening, its paws windmilling, a loud “Mreowwww” spilling out of its mouth.
The woman set it down quickly. “Perhaps not this one, though if you—”
“I really want a younger cat.” Tory squared her shoulders. If she hadn’t let a man who looked as if he’d walked off the cover of a woman’s romance novel change her mind, she certainly wasn’t going to let this volunteer do it.
As if she’d stop being a witch just because Phil decided making it her career was weird.
She’d thought of putting a bad luck spell on him, but she was a good witch, not a bad one. As Sorcha would say, his punishment was living without her.
A movement drew her eyes downward. The black cat moved closer, next to the volunteer’s tennis shoes, still staring at Tory. No one else. Just her.
“Almost everyone wants younger cats.” The volunteer sighed, her expression as woeful as a Bassett hound’s, then turned to the door.
Sorcha was first behind her, her body language eager to leave, Max at her side, his hand on her back. Supporting her, there for her.
Tory stepped behind them, a tiny ache in her chest because she wanted what they had.
Take me.
Tory started. That voice inside her mind again. This was crazy. It couldn’t really be the cat. Though it sounded oddly catlike and unmistakably male.
Take me.
Tory’s breath caught. She looked behind her and down, straight at the black cat. It stepped up to her, its back swayed but walking gracefully despite its age and bulk. Close up, Tory saw its fur was mangy in spots.
The cat raised its head, staring into her eyes. Take me. Feed me. Love me.
“Miss,” the volunteer said, her voice lilted, her face lighting up, “are you interested in Samson?”
“No, no.” Tory snapped around and hurried to catch up to the others. Her heart thudded. She was imagining things. She must be.
Even witches didn’t hear animals talk. That only happened in Disney movies.
The volunteer sighed. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for. Not at his age and, um, bulk. His owner died and he’s been with us for two weeks…” Her mouth curved down as she opened the door for them to step outside. “It’s hard when they’re that old. Oh well.”
A shiver crawled up Tory’s spine and onto her nape, but she followed Sorcha and Max out of the room and across the wide hall. This room was long and lined with double rows of cages, each containing one or two kittens.
Sorcha made the same soft sound she used when her twin three-year-old boys slept, the only times they resembled anything close to angelic. The volunteer’s lips curved into a smile. Hard to be sad in a room filled with cute triangle faces and big green eyes.
Tory walked slowly down the row of cages, gazing at each kitten, forcing herself to be selective. She wanted a friendly cat. It had been nearly four years since her brother’s cat disappeared, but she still missed her. When she watched her favorite soap opera, Belle used to sit on her lap and meow a demand to be petted. Tory hoped she’d found a good home.
In the seventh cage, a young ginger cat rubbed her body against the crisscrossed cage wire, purring.
“Is this a girl?” Tory asked. She’d heard males were more likely to spray, and she didn’t want to deal with that. Besides, except for occasional visits from her two brothers, right now her condo was a No Penis Zone.
“It’s a girl.” The woman stepped in front of her, reaching for the latch.
Max pulled one of Tory’s curls. “A redhead like you.”
“Hers is like a lion’s.” Tory patted her hair and repeated what a waiter said yesterday at lunch. “Mine is like a sunrise.”
He rolled his eyes, but the volunteer was handing her the kitten, making it easy to ignore him. Tory held the little bundle of fun against her chest, right over her heart, rubbing the soft fur behind the right ear with the tips of her fingers. The kitten purred, her small body reverberating.
“Aw, what a cutie.” It would be easy to fall in love with this kitten.
Take me! The voice shouted into her head from across the hall.
Tory’s muscles tensed but she continued to rub the kitten’s ear, a soothing hum in her throat.
Me!
Her teeth clenched. This was getting old. She looked at the door, a scream welling up in her head. No!
The kitten jerked, making a sound like a squeaky door, its legs scrabbling. Pinpricks from her nails stabbed Tory’s skin through her sweatshirt.
“You’re squeezing the kitten.” The volunteer wrenched the kitten out of Tory’s arms.
Tory stood with her empty hands still in the air. “I didn’t squeeze her. I would never hurt a kitten.” What was she supposed to say? That she’d shouted silently and the kitten freaked?
They’re going to kill me. I heard them.
Tory glanced behind her, her fingers curling into her palms. If she didn’t answer the voice, it would go away.
They think no one will take me. I’m old and I eat too much.
I can’t take you. Tory gave in. I—
A yowl stopped Tory’s mental voice. It turned into words. If you don’t take me, I’ll die. I don’t want to die. I want to live.
“Tory.” A hand touched her shoulder and she started, realizing she was staring at the door. She whipped her head around, her hair flying out. Max was leaning toward her. “You all right?”
“Did you hear anything?” she asked. “Someone speaking? A voice from across the hall?”
Sorcha stepped next to Max, the crease between her eyebrows matching his, while the volunteer behind them soothed the kitten.
“I know you had a rough time with Phil.” Max lowered his voice, as if talking to a deranged person. “You want me to take you home, just say the word.”
She looked at the door. Why did you choose me?
Because you hear me. No one else does.
“I’m okay,” she said aloud, but she wasn’t. She was crazy. Had to be. If she was sane, she’d be in the parking lot already, telling Max to stomp on the gas pedal and take her far away from this place.
She looked from his face to Sorcha’s, both of them frowning at her in concern. But neither of them said, “Don’t do it, Tory. Whatever the hell you’re thinking, don’t do it.”
Neither of them could read her mind.
Only the cat could do that.
A fatalistic feeling spread inside her like indigestion. The kind she got after she did something really, really stupid. She took a deep breath, and when she let it out, so did words she would never have thought to say when she woke up this morning, excited at the thought of adopting a kitten.
“I’ve decided to take the black cat.”
While they looked at her as if wondering whether her brain cells had gone funky—something she wondered, too—she heard the cat again.
I’m hungry. Got tuna?
Chapter Two
October
“You’re killing me.” The cold wind in Tory’s Madison condo raised goosebumps on her skin beneath her Badgers sweatshirt.
Still, it was better than the vile stink that came out of Samson’s back end. No matter what she fed him, it was always the same thing.
It left her with one choice.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, eye level with Samson, who was sprawled on the couch. He wouldn’t deign to sit on the wooden floor when he could have a cushion under his plus-sized body.
“I don’t want to do this.”
He opened one eye. Then don’t.
“But I can’t stand the smell anymore.”
He closed his eye.
“I don’t like messing with Mother Nature, but I’ll do it this one time. Because of the smell, of course.” She was lying. His farts were vile, but she’d lived with Phil. His hadn’t smelled like lilacs in spring. No, she was doing this because Samson was old and aging fast. He had arthritis and obvious intestinal problems.
And the thought of losing him so soon after she found him squeezed her heart.
Leaning forward, she landed a kiss on the back of his head. He lifted his furry jaw, and she felt his smile inside her chest.
“Would you like to be young and virile again?” she asked.
Yes.
No hesitation. No time to think. She shook her head. “It won’t be as wonderful as you think. It never is. My spells don’t always come out the way I mean them.” She glowered, picturing the coven she’d been kicked out of because she wouldn’t follow outdated customs. “No matter what anyone says, it’s not because I don’t dance nude or say my spells in bad rhymes. As if the goddess cares for that.”
I don’t care, either. Do it.
“You trust me.”
A sigh whispered in her head, and a breeze from the window she’d opened to clear out the smell chilled the back of her neck. She reached up and pulled the tie from her ponytail, her hair falling over her shoulders and covering her nape.
Do it. His green eyes were mesmerizing. She suspected he had witchy powers of his own. Why else was he the only animal she could hear?
His gaze continued to bore into hers. Do it.
“Okay, okay.” She sucked in a deep breath. No more postponing this. She needed to get on with it and ignore the dread that sat heavy in her belly like a fist-sized hairball.
She scooted closer to the couch. Put one hand on his head and one on his back, near his tail. The breeze coming from the open window picked up, blowing tendrils around her face, but she kept eye contact with him.
Power filled her, stronger than usual tonight. The nearly full moon and the blustery wind added to her energy, feeding it.