“Well, I sleep on Frankie’s bed so you’ll need to take the spare room.”
“Yeah, planned to anyway, and I’ll buy fresh bedding.”
Maisie tilted her head to one side. “Please don’t tell anyone that you met the real me. If Frankie comes back, I will probably remain his pet as long as his ability to care for me is intact.”
“You have my word. So when was the last time you went out? Properly out? As in for a drink or something and I don’t mean a saucer of milk from next door.”
“Erm, two years ago maybe?”
“Excellent. Tomorrow night you and me are going out on the town. I need to see what the Withernsea night life looks like and check out the human men until the dating agency match me up with my new love.”
Maisie’s brows drew together. “What would you need from a dating agency? You are beautiful, with your pale skin and glorious ginger hair. Men should fall over themselves to date you, especially my fellow cat shifters. Female gingers are rare in our world and revered.”
“Yes, well, I’m out of practice and things have changed a lot since I last dated. I mean what’s that app thing? You didn’t swipe people away like a piece of toilet roll across your shitty arse back in my day. So I have applied to the dating agency, but that costs money so in the meantime we shall see what is available for free.”
“I suppose I could go out. As long as we don’t stay out too late.” She yawned again.
“Right, well are you going to give me a tour of the house because I’m due at work for the evening shift later.”
“You have a job? Where?”
“I own Red’s Steakhouse near the Promenade.”
Maisie’s eyes lit up, they looked like they were almost twinkling. “Oh, I quite often hang around the backyard when I’m out on the prowl. The smells from that place are divine.”
I shook my head. “Most definitely not divine. Tantalising, tempting, but not anything from up there.” I pointed heavenward. “You mustn’t mention those above in name to me. I have a strange reaction. Like I’m allergic to goodness.”
“Interesting. Well I’ll attempt to not say anything about up there if you can bring me home a portion of your special grilled and smoked salmon home from the restaurant.”
“Deal.” I held out my hand but instead of shaking it she knelt down and pushed her head into it. I could see we would need to teach her some skills on how to behave back in the human world. Between us we were a right pair.
* * *
After unpacking the few items I had collected, namely a couple of changes of outfits, underwear and some toiletries, I headed over to the restaurant. Red’s had become my safe place. Amongst the smell of chargrill, I felt at home, comforted. I know I’d told Kim I didn’t like the smell or heat, but as much as Hell had been hard work, (torturing could be tough on the arms from all that whipping), it had been my home for the last two-and-a-half decades and I couldn’t leave it behind as much as I’d have liked to. So somehow here where the barbecuing smells led to nice meals for the residents of Withernsea, rather than a punishment for someone who’d been too naughty for upstairs, I could stop worrying about my future for a couple of hours.
Although I could cook, I wasn’t restaurant standard, so I had my Head chef, Grant; and a team of other personnel. My job was to ensure that all the ordering was done, financial accounts kept in order, and rotas organised. I’d been an office secretary and bookkeeper before Hell. Only a few of my staff, the supernatural ones, were aware of who I really was. One day I hoped we supes could stand tall amongst the human population and live as one.
I shook myself. Where had that statement come from? All live as one? Panic gripped my chest. An unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling. I didn’t have thoughts like that. The people upstairs had thoughts like that. I needed to get a grip.
You used to be like that once upon a time.
You used to be young and in love and… human.
Now you’re human again.
* * *
Okay, I’d had enough of the crap spilling out in my inner thoughts. It was time to go out onto the restaurant floor, this alone time wasn’t doing me any good.
Henry, one of the wait staff came walking over to me as I made my way to the front of the restaurant. “I think we’ve got one about to try to escape, table six.”
“What’s he been doing?” I nonchalantly looked around the restaurant, sweeping my eyes over the suspect runner.
“He’s had a full three courses with three beers. Now he’s sweating and looking around the exits. He visited the bathroom a few minutes ago. I followed him in and he was opening the window, saying he ‘needed air’.
“Leave him to me. Go back to what you were doing.”
“Okay, Lucy.”
Henry walked away, and I slipped out of the back exit and waited around the corner for the familiar sound of my restaurant door jangling.
A couple of minutes later the noise came. He was so busy looking behind him to make sure he wasn’t being followed that he failed to see me.
Anger fuelled me and I caught his arm and dragged him back to behind the restaurant. It would appear I really wasn’t fully human just yet, my demon strength giving me an advantage over a man who was half a foot taller than me and about five stones heavier. He was an obvious gym bunny, and I wondered why he’d tried to steal from me.
“You didn’t pay for your food.” I reminded him. “Would you like to explain why?”
He sneered at me. “They sent a woman after me? Have the men in there got no balls?”
I clicked my fingers until a flame appeared. “They have, but I’m a demon and so my balls are bigger. Let me demonstrate.” I watched as the flame hovered and grew in midair until a massive ball of flame hung there. “Now, how was it you liked your dinner? Well done, I think you said.”
I made out like I would throw it.
“Nooooooo. Oh fuck, here, here. I’ll pay, I’ll pay.” The man went into his pockets and threw his wallet onto the floor. I picked it up, the ball of fire still hovering in front of his face and I withdrew the exact amount he owed, then an extra twenty. “That’s the tip for your wait staff tonight. Very generous of you.” I told him.
“So, you’ll let me go right? I paid. I’m free to go, yeah?” The man trembled in front of me, his frightened eyes reflected my flames.
“Well you’ve paid but you haven’t been punished.” I said. “So let me see. What would affect a man like you the most?”
I looked at his suit, at his appearance. Was that fake tan? I guessed his appearance was important to him.
I dropped the ball of fire and singed off his eyebrows. The smell of burning lingered in the air and he felt at his face while he sniffed.
“What did you do? My eyebrows, where are they? Crap, my eyebrows. I’ve a date tomorrow night. What am I going to do? That’s why I didn’t pay tonight. I wanted to try the place out but I can’t afford to eat out tonight and tomorrow.”
“Have you heard of internet reviews?” I snarled. “They’d show you that my restaurant is the best in Withernsea without you stealing from me. Do not enter my establishment again or next time I will burn your bollocks off. Are we clear?” I said, my voice deepening.
“Your eyes, your eyes.” He said and the smell of urine pervaded the air.
I let a flame lick out from my fingertips again.
“Do you want me to dry your trousers?” I said and laughed.
With that he took off and as he ran away, I laughed again. I felt so much better now. Much more myself.
* * *
I heard a slow clap from behind me.
“Well done, Lucy. I thought I’d lost you but it appears you still have potential.”
I pivoted. A tall pale man with dark hair stood there. He told people his name was Reuben and he was a vampire, but I knew him as Satan. I had seen his true self, and it was so frightening he wouldn’t be able to stand here in Withernsea in that form.
“I thought you weren’t allowed her
e?”
“Shelley may be more powerful than me, but it doesn’t mean I can’t sneak down here now and again when she’s busy shagging the vampire. I must keep an eye on things for when I work out how to get the place back. It will be mine again, Lucy.”
I started to walk away.
“The fight is within you, Lucy. Whether to let your human side through and become just yet another boring inhabitant of Withernsea, or whether to enjoy that evil inside yourself and let it go free. I know what it looked like just now. You enjoyed tormenting that man, admit it.”
“I was just fed up that he tried to rob me, that’s all.” I pretended to check out my nails.
He smiled, his mouth curving up at one side.
“You keep telling yourself that. I’ll be nearby though, just in case I get the chance to take you home.”
“Hell is not my home.” I shouted, my voice clipped in anger.
“If you say so.” Satan said. Then he ripped a tear in the air and disappeared through it.
I sat down on the steps at the back of the restaurant shaking.
I couldn’t go back there. Ever. I would have to work hard on restraining my temper and on becoming, I gulped, good. I knew I needed to fall in love, fast. Love might be the only thing that could redeem me.
Chapter Five
Kim
“Hello?”
“Shelley? I’m sorry to phone and interrupt your marathon baby-making session but I need help with Frankie. He’s got worse and I know I bought a gym membership in January but I’ve only been once because it was a free workout with a trainer and he was well fit; anyway, basically he’s too heavy to drag around and I need some assistance.”
“It’s fine. Why would you need to drag him around though?”
“Because he won’t move. He’s sitting on the floor trembling. It’s only when I threaten to leave him by himself that he gets up. He’s in a bad way, Shell, and I don’t know what to do anymore. I know you only have one week to make a baby before you have to wait another hundred years but I seriously can’t carry on. I need advice. Can Theo help?”
“Hold on, let me just have a word.”
She put me on hold.
“You’re talking about me like you want to be rid of me.” Wailed Frankie.
“I do want to be rid of you. You’re my ex. You’re totally cramping my style.” I yelled exasperated.
He curled back up in a ball, so feeling like shit for shouting I stroked his back soothingly while I waited.
Shelley’s voice came back down the line. “Theo says to bring him over. We need to get a look at him. It might be you need to stay here for a night or two, so bring a change of clothes for you both.”
“But Shelley, it’s your-”
She interrupted me and whispered down the phone. “I can barely walk, he won’t leave me alone. I need a fucking break, like literally, a break from fucking. It’s alright for him with his stupid vamp strength. Get yourself down here, even if Frankie makes a miraculous recovery, you hear me?”
“Okay then. See you in about an hour.” I told her.
I carried on stroking Frankie as it seemed to be relaxing him a little. “Hey, we’re going to Theo and Shelley’s farm. They’ve loads of space for us there. Theo’s going to assess you to see if he can help.”
“What’s the point? Why don’t you just stake me? You don’t care.” He rolled away from me.
“Hey, fuckface.” I flicked his ear hard using my thumb and middle finger, back to my usual take-no-shit self. “I do care because I’ve been with you all the time, ever since you changed and went all pathetic. However, I’d like my friend back. I don’t want to be lovers anymore because I’m focusing on my career, but I got your back, Frankie, and people will want to be around you more if you’re not lying around like some poor pathetic slug, when you’re supposed to be a cool-ass vamp.”
“Focusing on your career? By picking out the hot men and taking them on test dates?”
“Hey, them’s the perks. You, my man, need to realise how hot some women will think you are. You have watched Batman right? I mean blow me, Christian Bale in that bat suit. You could give him a run for his money you know, and the best thing is, you’re not fiction, you’re the real deal.”
“I’m defective.”
“Well, that’s why we’re going to take you to Theo’s. If anyone knows how to help, it’s another vamp. So come on, let’s get you up off the floor and into my car. We need to call home for some clothes and then it’s operation ‘Get Frankie His Freak On'."
* * *
We pulled up at the farmhouse. It had belonged to Theo’s family back in the day, and he and Shelley had recently bought it back. It was a decently sized place and to me seemed too big for a small family, but Shelley said Theo had plans for the place. Those plans would need to work around the fact that Theo’s mother’s ghost frequented the farm.
I turned to Frankie who’d stared out of the window in silence the whole way here. “Okay, we’re here. Remember, this is all to help you. Yes, I want you to be able to spend time on your own eventually but I know that might not happen overnight. I’m your friend, okay?”
He carried on staring out of the window.
“Frankie. I am your friend. I’m not doing this to abandon you. I’m doing it because we need you back. Where’s Frankie, my red hot lover gone? Yes, you are now a vampire and no longer a wizard but you still have a dick if you look down your trousers.”
“It doesn’t work. Like my vampire genes.” He still wasn’t looking at me but at least he was now talking.
“And that’s probably all related to how you feel. However I’m not a trained counsellor, and I know barely anything about being turned into a vampire, so let’s go see the people who do, okay? Let’s treat it like we’re having a little holiday.”
“What if it does nothing?” He finally turned to me.
“Then we try something else, buddy.” I rested a hand on his arm. “I won’t give up, even if you do.”
Frankie surprised me by giving me a tiny hint of a smile and I was amazed at how much that warmed my heart. He even opened his car door and got out by himself.
“You’re a great friend, Kim.” He said. “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’m causing.”
“You just died, Frankie, and got brought back from the dead. I’d rather have you here causing me grief than be mourning the loss of a good friend. Now that said, if you tell Shelley about the change I made to the contract I’ll stake you before you get the sentence out.”
* * *
Shelley appeared in the doorway. “Come through and I’ll make you both a hot drink. It’s cold out there today.”
We followed her through to a large country kitchen complete with an aga. It was lovely and warm and we both took a seat around the large oval oak dining table towards the rear of the room. “Okay, so I know what you’ll want, Kim. What about you, Frankie? Tea or O-neg?”
“Tea please.”
She looked at him strangely and then met my gaze. I shrugged my shoulders.
Footsteps were audible, and I turned around to look for Theo but there was no one there. I thought I’d imagined it until Shelley put my coffee on the table and I watched as a coaster sailed through the air, my mug lifting up and the coaster sliding underneath. Then a thin apparition of a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties appeared.
“That table has been in my family for years. Would you mind not marking it with cup rings?”
“Sorry about that, Mary. I forgot.”
It was the first time I’d actually met the ghost of Theo’s mother, as I’d only ever been to the outside of the farmhouse before when I’d dropped Shelley off after a night out. She had long dark brown hair, tied up in a bun and wore a plain white cotton dress that went past her knees.
“Mary. This is my friend and business partner, Kim; and this is Frankie, who-”
“Oh I know all about him. I eavesdrop on most of your conversations, honey, and while we’re
on the subject, I think you overuse the blasphemy a little in the bedroom. Maybe try not to take the Lord’s name in vain quite so much.”
I giggle-snorted as I witnessed Shelley’s jaw drop.
“What have I told you about the bedroom being off limits? I’ll fix wards if you don’t behave.”
“I haven’t set foot in your room, you’re just so loud. That’s my son in there, how do you think it makes me feel? Although I’m very excited about the prospects of a future grandchild.”
“I swear I heard clapping outside our bedroom door yesterday.” Shelley said to me.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Mary. So you’ll know that Frankie here is having a few problems so we’ve come to stay for a day or two?”
She hovered next to him. “I understand, son.” She said, which was weird cos they looked more or less the same age. “My transition to a ghost was a shock. One minute my son was helping me milk the cows and the next he was draining me of all my blood. All I can say is time is a healer and you’ll adjust. At first I thought it was the Devil’s work but now I see it was in God’s plan. Instead of us only having a limited time together in the mortal realm, I can now spend eternity with my son. There’s no greater gift than that, even if he did have to murder me painfully for us to get there.”
Hmmm, it seemed like she still harboured a little grudge.
Theo walked in. “I’ve apologised profusely for that, mother, and I will continue to do so until the day I’m staked or visit the caves to be put to sleep.”
“Hush your mouth talking about places like that. You can’t leave your mother behind.”
“I think you’ll find that there’s a little thing called The Light, that you can follow anytime you want out of here.”
“It’s more difficult for those of us who encountered traumatic deaths. I’m tethered to the farm.”
“Yes and we love having you here, as long as you give us a little space, so right now I need to focus on Frankie if that’s okay?”
The Complete Collection: Supernatural Dating Agency Books 1-6 Page 15
