Familiar Stranger

by Michele Hauf

  “So how’s tricks up top?” Squire asked as he paged through the book.

  “Don’t get out much, you know. They like to keep me in the dungeon.”

  “Squire, you do your job well. Someone’s got to hold down the fort while others walk the top.”

  “Need a partner?” He looked up from the book. All right, so the man could use a few steaks and doughnuts to put some meat on his bones. She wondered if the UV flashlights the Cadre used against vampires might give his skin some much needed color.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Squire said. “I love my work. But I need to get my fingers into the action, you know? You’re out there every day, stalking and capturing paras. I want that glory.”

  “You don’t get enough on the computer?”

  “Warcraft is pretend, Mersey. You know that, don’t you?”

  “As long as you do, that’s all that matters.” She sighed and toggled the corner of the book he paged through. “Squire, your job is much more dangerous than mine. I just crystallize them and hand them over. You’re the one who has to determine species, and maintain the fine balance in the storage archives.”

  He twirled his forefinger in a big-whoop motion. “Like that’s difficult. Wish the High Council would approve my deportment training. Lady Dawn promised she’d put in a good word for me.”

  Deportment involved releasing demons from crystal storage and returning them to the dark realm. A highly skilled talent that was only achieved after reaching adept level.

  And did she want to achieve that level? Every day her heart grew less attached to this place, and sought…something. It was a deep pining that she felt sure could be answered elsewhere, but never here.

  “Sorry, Squire, I work alone.”

  “Right. What about the demon hunter? From the looks of it—” he splayed his hand before the crystals Mersey had set on the table; they hummed with demon energy “—the two of you work well together. He helped you nab the mischief demon. Is there something I don’t know, Mersey? You know LadyAurora would not like it if she found out you were flirting with the opposition.”

  “It was one kiss!” she defended, and then slapped her hand over her mouth. Oops. Had she said that out loud?

  “Ah. I’m assuming that’s demon hunters you’re kissing, and not faeries. My, my Mersey, I wonder what you’ll do to keep that information a secret?”

  “Squire, you wouldn’t.”

  “I might.” He bowed his head over the text and began to read. Mersey saw his huge smile, though. He teased her often, in fact, she sensed he had a crush on her. Too bad her type had developed muscles and an attitude.

  “What if I bring you out on the next surveillance? You’ve got to promise to keep out of the way. You have no idea what stalking requires.”

  “Deal.” He held out a hand, waiting for her to shake it. Mersey had hoped to be a little less “bound” by the deal. Reluctantly, she shook. “I am so going to lose my job for this.”

  “No, you won’t. But you might if someone discovered you’ve been snogging—”

  “Stop, Squire. No mention of demon hunters within hearing distance of Lady Aurora or the earl, all right by you?”

  Lady Aurora handled most operations in the Cadre, under the discerning guidance of her father, the earl.

  “What does the book say?”

  “You mean, what wisdom does your father have to bestow upon his daughter?”

  Squire was acquainted with her family history. Caractacus Bane had always been a folk hero to her. He’d breeze in and out of her and her mother’s lives, bestowing gifts and telling tales of his ventures in the dark realm. He had traveled there often, for reasons still quite mysterious to Mersey.

  He’d never been a true father, in the sense that he’d shared a home with her and her mother, yet, he had been the one to guide Mersey through her shape-shifting training. But once mastered, he’d become distant. After her mother had died, Caractacus had planted a kiss on Mersey’s forehead, explained she need never fear for money or shelter, and had handed her over to the Cadre. Mersey hadn’t seen him since. She focused to find Squire, chin in palm gazing at her like a lovesick puppy.

  “Blimey, just read it to me, will you?”

  “Touchy. But not without cause.”

  Squire had been a new addition to the Cadre family that year of her mother’s death. They’d instantly bonded over their shared orphanage. He knew things about Mersey, but was ever discreet.

  “Very well, there are a few ways to determine if one is a familiar.”

  He drew his finger down the page, his lips moving as he read the words.

  “Ah, here! You could ask his demon master for the identity of its familiar and the demon would have to tell you.”

  “Uh-huh. And with thousands upon thousands of demons stalking all the realms, just how am I supposed to locate the one who—”

  “It worked with the mischief demon.”

  “I’m still not convinced it wasn’t lying.”

  “The text claims they cannot lie about the identity of their familiars.”

  Right. And deep inside, Mersey did believe. Just as she believed in Jack. She believed that he was a man torn in opposite directions, struggling with right and wrong. Yet he confused her on too many levels. She exhaled. “Anything else?”

  “Familiars attract cats. Er, normal cats. Not like, er…you know.”

  “Cats are old school. Give me something better, Squire.”

  “Ah.” He raised a finger and cast her a waggling blond eyebrow. “Now here’s something interesting, if a bit salacious.”

  Couldn’t be good, whatever it was.

  “It’s says…”

  “Spit it out, Squire!”

  “You could have sex with him. Says so right here.” He tapped the book and shifted on the stool. “There’s a certain energy shared between familiars. Supposed to rock your world to have sex with another familiar.”

  Sex sounds good, got stuck on the end of Mersey’s tongue. Especially with tall, brooding and handsome.

  No. She was so not going to do that. Never. Absolutely not. Although…

  “Also,” Squire continued, “it says when you have sex with a familiar, and look into his or her eyes during climax, you see the image of their demon master reflected in their eyes. Well, if that’s not a definitive way to know, then I just don’t—Mersey?”

  Already heading toward the door, Mersey called back, “Thanks, Squire. I’m out of here.”

  “Good then. Off to shag the demon hunter?”

  She would not dignify that one with an answer.

  Chapter 11

  “H ow’d you get my number?”

  “You gave me your card,” Mersey said into the phone receiver.

  “Remember?”

  “Right.” Jack exhaled heavily into the receiver. “In need of pest control?”

  Despite the nervousness that drummed her fingers against her thigh, she smiled.

  When she didn’t answer straight away, Jack rattled out, “Are you in trouble? Where are you? I can be there in two minutes.”

  “I’m not in trouble, and even if I was I wouldn’t call you. Oh, let’s forget this.” Prepared to hang up, Mersey paused at Jack’s shout for her to wait. “What?”

  “You tell me. Why’d you call?”

  Twisting her toes into the satin bed comforter, Mersey caught her head in her palm and winced. She had to do this. She needed to know, whether or not Jack wanted to know. “I just thought…I—er, maybe we could get together. To…chat. Like meet over dinner?”

  “Sounds like another date.”

  Another? Had the man been counting their every meeting as a date? “Do you need it to be a date?”

  “I think I do.”

  She smiled and twisted the phone cord about her forefinger. “Fine, then it’s date number two.”

  “Three. The Eye was number two, if you’ll remember.”

  “Why are you keeping track?”

  “I’m a
bloke. It’s what we do. I look forward to yet another evening of excitement. From where shall I pick you up?”

  “Oh, you’re good, Jack, but not that good. Meet you at Monkey Chews in two hours?”

  “Up on Primrose Hill? I’ll be there.”

  Jack arrived at Monkey Chews early and ordered a pint of ale and chips with bacon, his favorite. The black button-up shirt he’d pulled from the back of his closet—the only one without wrinkles—was tight. He unbuttoned the top two buttons and undid his cuffs. Looked naff, but he wasn’t trying to win best dressed.

  Mersey wouldn’t care. Would she?

  He downed a few bacon-crusted chips and swished back half the pint. This is not a date.

  Right. But he had to assume the role, make it look right. Yet, he couldn’t deny his interest in Mersey. Despite her being a cat—

  but it wasn’t as if she were a furry feline all the time, so he could deal—

  he just couldn’t not like her.

  He tugged down his sleeves and toyed with the button hole. He’d been so concerned with keeping his identity secret while spooking about for MI5 that dates were rare. He had usually fulfilled his desires by picking up a one-night stand after hours.

  Before that, he’d had the usual college girlfriends who’d drop by the dorm room for some pseudo-studying that always led to sex. But no official dates in there.

  He buttoned up his cuffs. Civility before comfort, right? He put back the remainder of his ale and ordered another pint. Newcastle Brown, that was his usual. It never failed to relax him, but tonight, his heels drummed up and down beneath the bench. Mersey had already seen him at his worst—spattered with demon guts and spouting angry diatribes—so what was he so nervous about?

  The woman had pinned him for a freelance demon hunter. That was a good guess. And if she was with the Cadre, then it made sense that she would go there. But her accusation about him being a familiar was ludicrous.

  Did she know something he did not? Could a familiar recognize their own, even a tapped mortal?

  And who was he? A hunter who had allowed his prey to escape. Jack was still learning, and obviously hadn’t yet mastered the influenceavoidance technique. But that Beryth hadn’t killed him in the car was even worse. The demon needed Jack to do some foulness that Jack didn’t even want to imagine.

  And yet, while it had glanced its tongue across him when he was a boy, it had got much deeper months earlier. It had put its tongue right through Jack’s chest….

  He’d just crashed through the door of a warehouse on the Thames dock in hopes of taking down a gang of arms dealers he and Monica had been tracking for weeks. Already inside the warehouse, Monica had given the signal to Jack over her hidden microphone. A very panicked signal. Jack raced into the warehouse. Instead of an easy bust, he walked into a weird devil-worship ceremony. And the devil himself had come for tea. No, not the devil; it was nasty, red, horned and spiked. A childhood flashback had made Jack falter for but a moment before opening fire on the monster.

  The thing thrust its tongue down Monica’s throat—and pulled out her heart.

  What kind of horror was that for anyone to witness? And Jack, though he fired his pitiful MI5-issue pistol like a madman, wasn’t able to stop it. The monster didn’t flinch as each bullet bounced off its leathery hide.

  With a crooked, toothy smirk and a wickedly human chortle, the thing then smacked its forked tongue across thick black lips and soared toward Jack. Taloned appendages gripped him around the throat. All around them the suspects fled, while Jack was literally lifted from the ground.

  Suspended by the monster’s burning red clutch, Jack felt his entire body burn, as if on fire—yet there were no flames. The creature’s eyes glowed as it snarled at him, patted him on the head and then dropped him at its feet.

  No, it hadn’t feet; the thing ended in swirling black mist. Nasty, niffy stuff. It was the first time Jack associated sulfur with the otherworld. Brimstone.

  Lying there, flat on his back, arms spread across the concrete floor and spitting up his own blood, Jack felt sure this was it. His number had been called, and instead of taking the up lift, he was headed down, down, down. He didn’t like the heat, never had. Hell would not be a good place for him.

  The monster flicked out a forked tongue, touching Jack right over his heart—the tongue permeated his Dragon Skin vest and literally entered his chest. And then it growled in a brimstone-laced snarl, “Mine.”

  Jack blinked. And the whole nightmare evaporated.

  Prone, and shaking, he looked around the empty warehouse, spying the long picnic table that did indeed offer neatly arranged weapons waiting for transport. And there, not eight strides away from where he lay, he saw her face, her eyes void. The monster had stolen her heart and eaten it.

  He remembered the vile smell of the demon’s breath, tainted with the blood of his partner as it had growled mine in Jack’s face. Yes, he knew now to call it a demon. Monster was too vague a term.

  “I’ve got your back” was the last thing Jack had said to Monica, after verifying she had entered the warehouse to observe the goings-on. But he had not. He hadn’t protected the one woman who meant the world to him.

  Tapped? He’d not given it thought at the time. But now, Mersey’s suggestion that he’d been tapped did trouble him.

  If she was a familiar, wouldn’t she know?

  “Thanks, mate,” Jack said to the waiter as he plopped down another pint. The froth of foam spilled down the chilled frosty glass, but that wasn’t what caught Jack’s attention. “Well.”

  A vision had entered the dark entryway.

  Donned in flouncy black lacy stuff, and her waist cinched by a black corset laced in red, Mersey Bane crossed the pub floor, turning all male

  —and a few female—eyes as she went.

  The rings on her right hand glinted with a splay of her fingers. Long black leather boots stopped just above her knees. Little black bows attached to the tops of the boots met the tight black leather pants. Her wicked, pointed-toe black heels clipped a smart pace over to Jack’s table.

  Jack sat up straighter. Candy walking toward him? He was game. Even if it was a strange flavor of sweet. Hell, it kept his mind from grimmer thoughts.

  Her sleek black hair had been smoothed and tamed behind her shoulders. The severe cut of her bangs—the first time he’d seen her wear bangs—gave her a touch of the Goth. Bettie Page bangs, Jack mused. This bird had transformed herself to sex on heels. Green eyes surrounded in smoky shadow blinked at him. A small smile grew onto her pale lips. But Jack’s attention kept straying to the leather clinging to her legs. Those legs. Blimey, as petite as she was, those gams went on forever. And the bows were placed as a flirtatious tease. Did he want to see what went on farther up? Bloody, sodding yes.

  Was this the same woman he’d first met covered in demon residue and sporting a feisty mouth? Now she’d been touched by the feminine—with a wicked sexy Goth edge.

  Sliding onto the bench opposite him, Mersey seemed oblivious to the trail of hungry eyes that had followed her progression to the table. She ordered a cream soda and settled back, offering Jack a cat-whocaught-the-rat smile. Those green eyes played up the feline similarities. What, exactly, was she up to? Did she think to seduce him? For what reason?

  And that smile. Had he seen that exact smile before? Realization struck Jack like a pickax to the heart. He clutched his chest. Mersey reminded him of…the woman in the field. He’d been so young. And the woman—she’d been naked—had cast him a sly wink. And then things had gone pear-shaped.

  Snagging a chip from his plate, Mersey gobbled it down and gestured toward the dance floor at the back in a dark corner near an oldfashioned jukebox. “Angel Eyes,” by the Jeff Healey Band filled the pub with steel guitar and mellow jazzy bass.

  “I love this song. Fancy a dance, hotshot?”

  “Dance? I, er…” Coordinating his feet while matching the beat? Not his cup of tea. But those green eyes pleaded wi
th an intensity that poked at Jack’s heart. “Sure.”

  Mersey was up in a moment and tugging Jack along to the small, scuffed wood floor. Another couple did a soft-shoe, lost in the rhythm. Following Mersey’s directions, Jack slid his hands into hers and she held her arms out, as if ready for something far too complicated. Aware they had an audience, Jack leaned in to whisper at Mersey’s ear,

  “I, er…I don’t know how to do this.” He stepped back and ran a palm over his scalp.

  Sweet, petite and dusted with an accidental helping of Goth, Mersey beamed up at him. “Not so good with the steps myself. But I can manage something slow.” She slid her palm up his chest.

  Nervous as he’d been to follow her to the place where his inadequacies would be exposed, an overwhelming relief melted over Jack as Mersey pressed her head against his shoulder and they began to sway together to the beat.

  The song was slow, which was good. Too much to concentrate on if he had to figure where, when and how quickly to place his feet. None of it mattered. The heat of Mersey’s body invading his pores mastered all reluctance. There at his shoulder, the sparrow nestled to the hawk’s wing. Her breasts nudged his rib cage. Every part of him wanted to get closer to every part of her. The curves of her felt too good.

  “I wish I wasn’t so short,” she said. “Of course, you are rather high.”

  The bright lemon scent of her awakened his senses and kept him from the deep stir memory threatened.

  There was so much about her he wanted to discover. When and why had she become someone who tracked and captured demons? Was it because she was a familiar? Did they all do that?

  She should be standing behind a cosmetics counter, brandishing perfume or modeling the latest shade of cheek color to Harrods’s lunchtime shoppers. Though she wore feminine a little awkwardly, Mersey was much more beneath the surface.