[M__M 03] Misery Loves Company

by Tracey Martin

  Lucen grabbed the last box, which contained my pots and pans, and I grabbed my comforter. “You owe me for this, little siren. You owe me so much.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Oh, no.” Lucen was grinning again as he shook his head. “Not that way. I’m repainting my apartment this fall. I hope you know how to use a roller.”

  I banged my hip against the building door to open it. “Your apartment is gorgeous. What does it need repainting for?”

  “It doesn’t. I just want to watch you work.”

  I called him a few names as I climbed the stairs, but my laugher faded when I reached the top. Lucen smacked me in the back with the box, and I jumped out of his way.

  His brow furrowed as he noticed what I was staring at. “Where did that come from?”

  “Got me, but someone was sneaky.” And fast. Lucen and I couldn’t have been outside more than a couple minutes.

  I pushed the gift basket aside with my toe so I could open the apartment door. After I dumped the comforter on the partially assembled futon, I stuck my head back outside and scanned the landing and stairwell. They were both empty. Not exactly surprising. I didn’t see a reason why whoever had left the basket would hang around to watch me take it. Yet its presence left me with a bad feeling.

  Lucen had been moving my kitchen boxes around on the scant counter space, and he opened the fridge and took out the two beers we’d stuck in there earlier. I put the gift basket down in the spot he’d freed. Wrapped in cellophane was a bottle of wine, some cheese, crackers and nuts.

  “That’s a harpy-owed shop that sent it.” He must have recognized the logo on the envelope. With a nod, Lucen handed me one of the beers. “So who’s it from?”

  The beer hadn’t chilled enough, but it was better than nothing. I took a swig and contemplated. “Dezzi?” I couldn’t think of anyone else who might send me a welcome basket.

  “I wouldn’t count on it. What about your family?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. They wouldn’t contact a pred-owned business.”

  “The suspense is killing me. Open the damn thing.” Lucen made to grab for the envelope, but I snatched it away and tore into it for the card. Almost immediately, I wished I hadn’t.

  Miss Moore, welcome to the neighborhood. I request that you grant me the honor of your presence at four o’clock tomorrow for tea.

  Best wishes, Gunthra

  I swallowed and reached for more beer. Shit. My gut had been right to be wary.

  Lucen grabbed the card from my hand. “What does the goblins’ Dom want with you?”

  Since I suspected the answer and it wouldn’t please him, I opted to say nothing. During the week when I’d been framed for murder, I’d made a bargain with Gunthra. She’d known what I was, and in desperation, believing knowing the truth about myself could help save me, I’d made a deal with her. The truth about my gift in return for an unspecified future favor.

  I’d been right to a degree. Gunthra’s information had probably kept me alive. But now I’d bet she was ready to collect. I’d also bet that I wasn’t going to like upholding my end of the deal.

  Welcome to the neighborhood, indeed.

  Chapter Two

  Having lived and worked with preds most of the last month, I’d become nearly as nocturnal as they were. But I sure didn’t feel it tonight.

  By the time seven o’clock rolled around, I was ready to collapse onto my reassembled futon. I liked to think I was in good shape, but a full day of moving and cleaning had worn me out. And Lucen hadn’t helped. Or rather he had with the actual moving and a bit of the cleaning, but then we’d gone about breaking in every room in my apartment. That probably contributed to half of my exhaustion right there.

  Alas, I had to suck it up because I wasn’t about to flake out on Steph, or her cousin whom I was excited to meet. Dutifully showered and changed, I hauled my strongly caffeinated butt across town, hoping that leaving Shadowtown would boost my energy.

  Part of being a satyr meant I got a high off human misery. Preds called the magical hit “feeding”, and they needed it to survive. I had no idea if the same were true for me, nor did I wish to find out. It was enough to know I tasted other people’s negative emotions, and they kept me energized. Unfortunately, I couldn’t feed from preds or their addicts. Only un-addicted humans would do, and there weren’t many of them roaming Shadowtown.

  Until recently, Steph had been the only human who knew about my misery-sucking ability, and she’d been okay with it. It was my other pred-like power that had become a point of contention between us, and that contention gave me a serious case of angst each time I saw her. Tonight was no exception, and my nerves buzzed with tension as I got off the subway in Cambridge.

  Regular preds exuded power everywhere they went, and they could use it to control the humans around them. At its strongest, this magic was the way preds turned humans into addicts. I couldn’t addict humans, but I could still use that magic in some powerful ways. Specifically, by binding people to me with lust, I could influence them.

  The last time I’d done so, Steph had freaked. Although she’d gotten over it, or claimed to, I wasn’t sure I had. I worried because Steph didn’t know the half of it.

  She didn’t know that my pred-like abilities existed because I was a pred.

  Like most humans, Steph feared and hated preds. They fed on suffering, turned desperate humans into addict slaves. But I was what I was, and I couldn’t help but think Lucen wasn’t so bad. And if he wasn’t so bad, and I wasn’t so bad, then likely not all of them were so damn bad.

  I was fairly certain, however, that Steph would require more convincing than that. So I kept my mouth shut and lied by omission to my best friend of ten years.

  Which meant that maybe, actually, I was so bad.

  I did my best to push these unfortunate thoughts aside as I approached the bookstore where I was meeting Steph for her cousin’s book signing. I was tired of feeling guilty along with just plain tired. One day, I would get the guts to tell Steph the truth, and when that day came, I prayed she’d be okay with it. But that was not today.

  The evening was warm and humid, and a line snaked down the block as people waited to get in. I found Steph near the front of it and joined her, pleased to see she’d ditched the blonde wig she’d been sporting the other week and returned to her dark reddish one. It went much better with her style. At over six feet in her heels and dressed all in black, the people near her in line gave us a wide berth.

  “Are all these people actually going to fit in the shop?”

  “Got me,” she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I’m only waiting in line for the signing because you asked me to. Otherwise, I’d have gone straight in and attacked the coffee they set out.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t want Eric Marshall to sign a copy of his new book for you?”

  Steph snorted. “You’re talking about the man who used to drive toy cars over my head when we were kids.”

  “So? He’s Eric Marshall. Internationally renowned bestseller. They’ve made movies off his books.”

  “Bad movies.”

  “Whatever. Lots of stuff explodes in them. Anyway, I can’t believe I’ve known you for ten years and only the other week did I learn that he’s your cousin. You’ve seen my bookshelves, and you never thought to mention this sooner?”

  The line shuffled forward, and Steph looked like she was fighting a smile. “I hadn’t talked to him in about eight years. It had occurred to me to mention it when he reached out to me, but you were a bit preoccupied at the time.”

  I sighed simply to be dramatic because Steph was right about the timing.

  When she’d ditched her former life as Stephen and started living openly as a woman, most of her very conservative family had been horrified, and they’d cut her out of their lives. Eric,
who was five years older than she was, had been among them.

  Then, about a month ago, right around the time I’d been framed for murder, Steph had gotten an email from Eric. He’d had a change of heart and felt terrible for going along with the rest of the family. He wanted to reconnect and have Steph back in his life. Since then, they’d met on a couple occasions, and Steph had been willing to forgive him.

  Given the vitriol with which Steph usually spoke of her family—when she could be bothered to speak of them at all—I’d been surprised by that. It was nice to know that my friend, whose mantra had always been that forgiveness was for suckers, wasn’t as hard-hearted as she liked to pretend.

  It gave me hope that one day she could forgive me for hiding my secret from her.

  “So any more work from the Gryphons?” Steph asked as we approached the door.

  I bit my lip. Yet another thing I hadn’t told Steph was how I’d quit. Such was the problem with lies. They built on each other. I had no way to explain to her about why I’d quit without explaining what I was. “The director called me this afternoon. We’ll see.”

  Could you lie with the truth?

  I really was a horrible person.

  For half a second, I almost capitulated under the pressure of all my guilt. I felt it pressing down on my heart, on my conscience, like a lead weight. But my breath that carried the words stuck in my throat, and the moment passed. Just as well. This was the wrong time and the wrong place. If I ever did tell her, it would have to be somewhere more private.

  “You okay?”

  I nodded and faked a yawn, which quickly became a real yawn. “Tired. Too much moving today.”

  “Did your satyr friend help?” The dubious emphasis Steph put on friend was as good a reminder as any as to why I wasn’t spilling my guts.

  “Yes, Lucen helped. I’m just beat.”

  We shifted forward again and at last entered the building. I kept Steph busy with my own questions about her job and her boyfriend so she couldn’t ask me anything else about the Gryphons.

  Finally, the woman ahead of us in line finished gushing over Eric’s book and took her signed copy away. With no one left between me and Steph’s cousin, I got a good look at the guy whose many books adorned my shelves.

  And I swallowed, completely unprepared for what I found.

  It wasn’t as if Eric Marshall appeared all that different in real life than how he did on his dust-jacket photo. Sure, he was older, although he sported no gray hairs or obvious wrinkles to back that up. Yet his face had clearly aged, leading me to assume he’d been using the same photo since he sold his first book.

  For all that though, he wasn’t an unattractive guy. His brown hair was spiky, and a touch of a five o’clock shadow graced his chin. The top couple buttons on his blue shirt were open, and he wore a slightly rumpled sports jacket over them. It was all very authorly in a manly, I-write-thrillers way.

  But what I noticed in particular was something that probably no one else in the bookstore could see. Eric Marshall was an addict.

  “Steph!” Eric stood to greet his cousin, a genuine smile replacing the practiced one I’d first seen.

  Steph wormed her way around the table, and they exchanged a tentative hug. The sort you give someone when you don’t know them well but feel like it’s the appropriate thing to do.

  “This is Jess.” Steph motioned to me. “She owns all your books.”

  Eric beamed and offered me a hand. “Thank you so much.”

  I grinned back as we shook, and I tried not to let my concern for his addict state influence my opinion of him. “Nice to meet you.”

  And that was that. We exchanged a few more words, Steph told him we were staying for the reading, and Eric signed his new book for me. Then we stepped out of line, and Steph made a dash for the coffee just like she’d said she would. I could have used another cup myself, but I made my way to the register to pay for the book first.

  The bookshop had cleared out an area near the back for people to gather for the reading, and the space was mostly filled. With my receipt tucked into the book, I leaned against one of the rustic wood pillars and once more examined Eric Marshall.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was an addict. Selling one’s soul for success was a cliché for a reason, and Eric Marshall’s success was the sort that should have led to those rumors. He’d been twenty-six when his first book sold for an enormous sum. Twenty-nine when the blockbuster film came out. And that was only the start. Five books and three movies later, Eric Marshall was big news.

  To be fair, his books were good. I liked to think I had excellent taste, and I liked them. But sometimes good wasn’t enough to lead to riches and fame, and if those were a person’s goals, there were ways to cheat fate. Eric must have used them.

  He was a greed addict, which meant he’d struck a deal with a goblin. I had no clue what the exact terms would have been, but somewhere lived a goblin who owned Eric’s soul. Eric had gotten everything he’d probably wanted at first, but now it would never be enough. The goblin’s power would make him crave more, and that unrequited longing would feed his goblin master.

  I shivered and hoped Eric had known how to bargain. Hoped he’d known to set a time limit on the deal so that it would end without his soul being fed upon to the point of no return. Hoped he’d have some life left at the end that he could enjoy.

  “Coffee?” Steph slid the steaming paper cup under my nose.

  I breathed it in, relieved to stop thinking about her cousin. “Thanks.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the line for signed books trailed away, and everyone had gathered around the reading area. The store had to be violating some fire code to squeeze in this crowd. Grateful for the coffee, I buried my nose in the cup’s dregs so that the aroma would overpower the perfume that the woman standing in front of me was wearing.

  Eric chatted about his book and the research that had gone into it, which was interesting, then settled in to do a reading. Yawning, I adjusted position against the column supporting my weight. I let my gaze un-focus, concentrating on the sound of Eric’s voice to stay awake, but it didn’t help. He kept speaking more and more quietly. I wondered if he was tired too.

  Then he stopped reading altogether.

  An unquiet pause overtook the store, an emptiness that soon filled with the sound of chairs creaking and people shuffling. Someone sneezed, a noise as loud as a 747 in the unexpected silence.

  That stopped my mind from drifting, as the mildly butterscotch confusion of the crowd increased. Frowning, I stood on my toes to see what was going on.

  As I did, Eric dropped his book. It hit the wide-beamed floor with an ominous thud, and Eric doubled over in his chair. My stomach knotted, and mine likely wasn’t the only one. Under the confusion ran a river of fear that swept away the butterscotch-candy taste in my mouth and replaced it with something like a sour cherry cough drop.

  Steph grasped my arm as someone ran forward. The crowd swayed, blocking my view again, and I wished for Steph’s height.

  “Eric, you okay?”

  I couldn’t see what was going on, but he must not have responded because the same voice then yelled for someone to call an ambulance. Wide awake, on the awful high from everyone’s emotions, I cringed.

  Steph’s grip tightened something fierce on my arm. “Jess, look.”

  Calling Eric’s name, she yanked me through the people surrounding her cousin. Her horror was a sour blue flame, urging me on. People drew back like they always did for Steph, and I grabbed one of the cheap metal folding chairs at the front of the room as she knelt next to her cousin. I swore, understanding her panic at once.

  Right before my eyes, Eric’s skin was slowly turning a fetid gray, his eyes glassy and unseeing. Everything within him—everything that was him—seemed to shrink away, to fade and die.

  People cal
led a person’s soul a lot of things. But whether it was the light in Eric’s eyes, or the spark that made him human, all those things were gone. Drained from him in seconds. And all any of us could do was stand around helplessly and watch.

  I swallowed, tormented by the disparate emotions coursing through my blood. My humanity was horrified, yet my pred-self was alive and buzzing with everyone else’s horror. I was frozen in shock, but capable of bouncing in place with energy.

  Unbidden, my thoughts strayed to Lucen and my secret. What I was. What he wanted me to do. I wanted to embrace my pred power for his sake, but staring at the creature that had once been Eric, my old loathing for preds reasserted itself more strongly than ever.

  In the back of the room, someone yelled that an ambulance was on its way, but an ambulance was of no use. Eric was beyond paramedic help. He was beyond anyone’s help.

  His goblin master had just sucked his soul dry all at once and turned him into a ghoul. And I hadn’t the faintest idea how that was possible.

  Chapter Three

  “Everyone back off. Give him space.” One of the store clerks shooed us away. “Clear a path for the EMTs.”

  Excess energy crawled along my skin, and I rubbed my arms. I wanted to help, but I was as useless as everyone else. Or was I? Something wasn’t right here, in more ways than the usual wrongness that surrounded anything pred.

  Leaving Steph and the crowded bookstore behind, I stepped outside and called the Gryphons’ emergency line.

  The mere act of someone turning into a ghoul wouldn’t get the Gryphons to come running, but this wasn’t an ordinary way of turning someone into a ghoul. “Magical attack,” I told the operator, which was true enough as far as I knew. “Someone’s seriously injured.” Also true.

  I declined to leave my name since that was only likely to complicate matters these days. Then, taking a deep breath, I weaved my way back inside. The store clerks were still trying to appeal to everyone’s good sense, but though some customers were leaving, almost as many were hanging around and gawking. Already, down the narrow street, I could hear sirens approaching.