Christmas Wishes (novella)

by Cahill, Rhian

  As she scribbled down the details he noticed her absence of rings. He hadn’t got around to asking about partners and such, but it appeared from her bare hands she hadn’t succumbed to the last legal form of slavery.

  She slid the notebook back to him.

  “Go home and make sure the original photographs are where they should be. Phone me immediately if they’ve been disturbed. I want a list of every person who’s had access to your home since breaking up with Noble.”

  “Okay.”

  Strange, she didn’t seem at all phased by his request. Most people groaned and objected, daunted by the task. “I mean everyone you can think of Allegra. Family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, work colleagues, tradesmen, landlords, cleaning staff, anyone who could conceivably have gained access to those photographs.”

  “In Melbourne they were locked in a safety deposit box, but since moving to Sydney I’ve kept them hidden in my apartment.”

  “Then I only need a list of people who’ve visited your Sydney residence.”

  She nodded. “When do you want it?”

  “Is seven in the morning too early?”

  She shook her head, blonde highlights shining under the fluorescents. “I’m used to deadlines.”

  “Then I’ll come by and pick it up, check out your security,” he said in an offhand manner, trying to give the impression it was standard procedure. It wasn’t. From cases he’d worked, extortionists were predictable, demanding money straight up. No demand for cash pointed to something more sinister.

  He watched the colour drain from her face, his nonchalance not fooling her for a second.

  “You think they could come to my home?”

  Nothing to be gained by sugar coating it. “A photograph without a demand for cash smacks of a stalker or a psychological blackmailer.”

  Her eyes widened, and for the briefest moment she looked truly frightened. He waited, letting his words sink in. She needed time to accept the ugly truth. A hidden enemy intended doing her harm.

  “I hoped it might be a prank,” she said finally, her voice thick and shaken.

  “Could be, but I doubt it. Having it delivered by bicycle courier shows it’s well thought out.”

  She stared at him, a bemused expression on her face. “It doesn’t sound like Chris at all.”

  A spurt of anger surfaced at her stoic defence of the photographer. Despite her position, she didn’t appear all that street smart, or men smart.

  “Not the Chris you remember, but people change.”

  Luke shifted in his seat, longing to undo the top button of his shirt but unwilling to draw another comment from the body language expert. Would he ever feel comfortable in business attire? Probably not, too many years spent in camouflage gear and paratrooper pants.

  She blinked, drawing his attention to the amazing blue of her eyes. Not that he needed reminding. They were seared into his memory.

  “So, what’s your take on it, Luke?”

  An unexpected charge jolted through him at her use of his name. “There’s been no demand for cash or threats to expose you.”

  “So they aren’t motivated by money?”

  “I doubt it. They know you understand the harm they can do. They could be getting kicks from causing you mental anguish. But we won’t know for sure, until we get the next one.”

  She swallowed, and in her eyes he saw helplessness and resignation. “That was my next question. You think we will?”

  “I’m fairly certain. We know they have one photograph. If they’re in possession of the others, it’s more a matter of when.”

  She nodded, then reached down with unsteady hands and slung the satchel diagonally across her body. “If we’re finished, I might go home and check the apartment.”

  Luke pushed himself out of his chair. “That’s it for now.”

  He strode to the door and held it open for her.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” she murmured, brushing past him.

  “No problem.”

  He watched her walk towards the elevator, paying attention to the hip satchel slung across her body and the skyscraper heels she wore. Yes, if you looked hard enough, there were signs Allegra Greenwood had a non-conformist streak in her.

  As she pushed the elevator button, she turned to look back at him, and he hurriedly closed his office door. He didn’t want to be caught spying. He slid the lock and moved back to his desk. Feeling a little guilty, he picked up the tweezers and shook out the folded sheet of paper still lying there. He felt his heartbeat crank up and the breath catch in his throat at the glorious image staring back at him.

  Much as he hated to admit it, Noble had done a fine job. Allegra lay reclined on plush velvet, one long leg bent at the knee and crossed with the other in a manner that revealed nothing, though an arm thrown languidly above her head exposed the sloping outside curves of her breasts. Her blonde hair, so much longer then, swept over one shoulder and cleverly covered a nipple, while the other lay hidden behind a strand of expensive looking white pearls looped numerous times around her neck.

  Stunning. Enough to make any red blooded man salivate.

  Pushing it aside, he shoved his hands deep in his pockets and stared through the window at the Opera House, its pearly sails poised on the water’s edge a masterpiece of human creativity.

  He’d often thought about their first meeting, the day fresh in his mind for all the wrong reasons. A horror case involving children. A couple of drinks to ease the pain of the gruesome images he couldn’t wipe from his mind. Not the smartest move when trying to make a good impression. Then, as he stood on the terrace, wishing with all his heart he could just go home and avoid the Meet and Greet, a vision in blue walked up and introduced herself. They’d talked, and at some point he’d suffered an overwhelming urge to kiss her.

  It was inappropriate, out of character, and far from his finest hour.

  Still, he’d been angry when she’d blackballed him.

  Luke sighed. His job required an extensive assortment of intuitive skills, and it wasn’t often someone left him astonished. But she had. Smart and alluring, never in a million years would he have put her name, together with the word centrefold, in the same sentence.

  He shook his head in disbelief. Nude photos. Who would have guessed?

  With another heavy sigh, he closed his eyes, blanking out the memories of a mission gone wrong. There was no way he could let anything bad happen to Allegra Greenwood.

  He owed her brother that much.

  He’d been Trooper Martin Greenwood’s Commanding Officer in Afghanistan, and as such, the man ultimately responsible for his death.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Grease Monkey Jive by Ainslie Paton

  When Alex was a kid, she gave herself a nasty electric shock by sticking a knife down the slot of the toaster to rescue her breakfast. As the electricity gripped her in the seconds before shutting off, every muscle spasmed and the air crackled and fizzed with blue sparks.

  She was twelve years old, had burned fingers, and was in lot of trouble with Mum and Gran.

  She was twice that age now and hadn’t forgotten the intensity of that electric zap and how wildly it made her heart beat and her thoughts fly, from the sheer physical surprise and the recognition that she was in serious strife.

  There was no toast, no toaster, and no knife anywhere to hand, but the sensation that struck her body when she looked into his eyes was the same. Electricity pulsed through her nerves, leaped in her muscles, and fired inside her brain. She was in deep trouble.

  All he’d done was lower his chin and raise his eyes, looking at her from across the room. That’s all. It barely counted as a movement. It was more a re-positioning, more an adjustment than a conscious action, but everything changed in that moment.

  The breath sucked out of her; the room closed in. She felt energised and inspired beyond the bounds of her training and the encouragement of the music. There was nothing she couldn’t achieve. Her feet flew through the st
eps, her placement never more accurate, her leaps and kicks never higher, her body positioning and posture never prouder or more abandoned at the same time.

  She danced on air, as a beam of sunlight might chase a shadow across the floor. It was physically effortless and without the need to think. She was carelessness and precision, passion and control, pure energy and heat. She was the blue fizz and crackle, she was the shock of power, and she adored it.

  When she got closer to him she could hear him breathing hard, see the dark blue of his bright eyes and their expression of wonder. She caught fire. When she circled around him, she saw tension flick along the ridge of muscle in his back and across the breadth of his shoulders. The line of his jaw tightened and his lips twitched into a smile as he looked for her and the fire caught, flared, lifting her higher, giving her iridescent wings and divine purpose.

  When the music stopped, the silence was hopelessly profound. Her body became her own again and she felt the old stiffness behind her left knee and the too tight strap of her shoe.

  She looked at Dan, still standing where Trevor had put him, but studying her as though he’d never met her before. She looked at Scott – surely he’d noticed something odd just happened – but he only had eyes for Dan, critical eyes.

  She shook her head to try to reclaim her scorched senses and when she walked across to the stereo, she thought her legs might give way on her and spill her on the wooden floor.

  Dan’s eyes never left her and a flood of self consciousness coursed through her, replacing the earlier feeling of joy with embarrassment. That was too much inspiration for a trial run. She could’ve just walked it through; there was no reason whatsoever to have danced like that, not for Dan, he’d have no idea of the technique he was seeing. Scott might’ve enjoyed it, the freedom and clarity of it, but Scott would’ve been annoyed she didn’t dance like that for him.

  “What do you think?” said Scott, but not waiting for her reply. “You’re a good physical match and he does look the part. Of course, you’ll have to do all the work, girlfriend, but assuming he can at least do what he did then, we might be able to pull this off.”

  Afterwards, Alex would wonder what she’d said in reply; she was already thinking it might be better to abandon this idea before it took on its own life and required her to reorganise hers.

  He felt like he’d been hit by a train.

  The shock to his chest was palpable, as though something steel hard and lightning sharp had ripped through him, leaving him open and raw and aching hot with sensation. His jaw dropped, his lids lowered, his breathing was suddenly laboured, and every muscle was tense with anticipation.

  And despite the impression that he’d been shoved backwards at a great rate, staggering from the sheer force of the impact, he was standing stock still, statue still, shop window dummy still, just like he’d been told to.

  He had no idea what just happened, why it felt like there was fire in his fingertips and his blood was circulating four times faster than normal, why he could hear bells ringing deep inside his head…

  Maybe he was sick, this was a stroke or an aneurysm, come on suddenly with no warning and pushing him so far off balance he was electrified. He needed Google to check for the symptoms because maybe that explained his unexpected inability to speak or think clearly.

  He had no idea how long Scott had been talking at him, so obviously his hearing was blown as well. It was her hand placed softly on his arm that brought him back, rushing back, and her honey voice saying his name that snatched him into the present again.

  He snapped his mouth closed and made some sound, more a grunt than anything intelligible, and she turned away. Shit, she thought he was a Neanderthal and he’d just proven it. He ran a hand through the tangle of his hair and pushed a breath out, turning to look at Scott.

  “Can you do that again, caveman?”

  “Ah...?”

  “Don’t over-think it. You either can or you can’t.”

  “I don’t know what I did.”

  Scott groaned, “You were perfect. Who’d have guessed, straight out of the box, never been used. You just have to do exactly what you did then and everything will be rainbows.”

  ‘Rainbows!’ What was this tool talking about? He couldn’t do that again; he wouldn’t live through the intensity of it. How was it she appeared so unaffected?

  She was over by the stereo, nonchalantly selecting the next track, her long dark ponytail swinging over her shoulder, cascading across her elegantly slender neck. She had her extraordinary pale amber eyes down on the screen, leaning forward slightly, a delicious arch in her back, one long, well muscled leg in front of the other.

  She looked real and natural, made of ordinary flesh and bone, where only a minute ago she’d seemed entirely illusory, like air, like desire given life in the form of an exotically beautiful girl.

  He looked at Mitch and Fluke, sitting on the floor over against the mirror. They were both grinning at him like circus clowns. They must have felt it too then, or seen her change form and become something supernatural.

  “Dan!”

  “Sorry, Scott – what?”

  “We’re going to do it again.”

  “No, I...”

  “Ok, take a minute.”

  He glanced at Alex, now discussing something with Scott, a bright smile animating her face. He might as well have been insect repellent for all the impact he had on her. He shook his head to try to clear it and walked across to the boys.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate,” said Fluke.

  “Did you see it too?” He heard how utterly dazed and insanely stupid he sounded.

  “Nope?”

  “Mitch?”

  “Nah, you’re the one got stung.”

  “I don’t know what just happened.”

  Mitch laughed, but not unkindly, and jostled Fluke. “You’re in trouble, Dan.”

  “But I haven’t done anything. I just stood there like they told me to.”

  “Yeah, you did something.”

  Dan turned to Fluke, always the ‘go to’ for tricky things. “What did I do?”

  “I think you might have taken the plunge, mate.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s the one.”

  “What?”

  “She’s the one.”

  “What one?”

  Mitch jumped in, “Some pissed off angel in a nappy shot you in the fat head with a laser beam.”

  “Be serious!”

  “I am. She just hit you for six, Dan. You’re gone.”

  Dan looked at Fluke to verify the emergence of this horror, both hands up as though to ward off the danger, to bounce the dirty truth of it away.

  “Yeah,” said Fluke, “Your dog days are over bar how fast she tells you to fuck off and how long you stay depressed about it.”

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Chaos Born by Rebekah Turner

  As my eyes moved over Arthur Roper through the two-way mirror, it occurred to me the saying was true. It really was hard out there for a pimp.

  Roper sat on a ratty bed in a ratty room in a ratty brothel in Bangkok, haggling with a bored looking woman for a discount on her services. The woman wore a dirty blonde wig and a white spandex cat suit several sizes too small. Her scarlet lips were pressed to thin lines, as if she’d gotten Roper’s measure and found him a quart short. Who could blame her? If my job required me to wear an outfit that gave me a painful looking camel-toe, I’d be unimpressed by life as well. Not to mention having to touch individuals like Roper. Personally, I’d need a flea bath after touching such a rodent. And touch him I knew I’d have to. Retrieval jobs were never easy. In my experience, no thief ever likes giving up their ill-gotten goods and they always need some encouragement.

  Most of the time my jobs were security work, retrievals, sometimes even an exorcism or two. Here, in the Outlands, maybe I’d be called a mercenary. Back home, in The Weald, I was called a Runner. My work brought me into c
ontact with all sorts of scum and Arthur Roper was no exception. Back home, past the tollbooths that guarded the entryway into the hidden world of The Weald, Roper ran a couple of low-budget brothels. Roper wasn’t a nice pimp; I’d seen his handiwork on a couple of women’s faces and it was the kind of hurt that never healed quite right. But now, this predator was my prey, and I was damned good at what I did.

  I read the dirty blonde’s lips as they worked around what looked like imaginative profanities, and wished there was sound in the cramped viewing room. The click of a latch sounded behind me and a noxious vapour of cheap perfume filled the room. A thick voice spoke. “I don’t need this trouble. I want him gone.”

  Turning my head, I saw Norma, the owner of the brothel leaning against the closed door. Her faced was scrunched as tight as her steel-blue perm and she wore a lemon-yellow velour tracksuit. Like Roper, she was otherkin: a crossbreed of the mystic races. Norma was lucky that she could pass for human, magic and glamour spells didn’t work for long beyond The Weald. From the uneven shape of her ears and the slope of her nose, I guessed that after mostly human blood, she had some elf and maybe a sprinkling of hobgoblin thrown in.

  Roper wasn’t as lucky as Norma. A low-slung baseball cap couldn’t hide his diseased skin, crusty warts and piggy nose. As far as otherkin went, Roper was one ugly bastard.

  “He says I owe him money.” Norma’s voice was like dark treacle in my ears; rich and sweet. I didn’t know Norma myself, but she knew my boss, Gideon, and his business well enough to be on the lookout for Roper; she had sent Gideon the tip Roper would be here tonight.

  “He asks for too much,” Norma continued. “My debt to him is half what he claims. He would take everything I’ve worked so hard for. He tells me if I don’t pay, he’ll tip off the authorities in Harken City with where I am.”

  I heard the hint and made a show of thinking. As well as a pimp, Roper worked for Joseph Daleman, a loan shark nicknamed The Hacksaw. If Roper disappeared, Daleman might come looking. That wouldn’t have been a big deal in itself; trouble was I owed Daleman money and who wanted to remind him of that?