by Richard Amos
“I know she is. Extremely.” I shuffled forward across the sofa. “But she’s got nothing on you.”
He blushed, crimson coming to his pale cheeks. “Stop. No way.”
“Erm, yes way. Just look at you.” I reached for his dark hair, running my fingers over it. “Love that hair.”
“Stop.”
My fingers moved down the side of face, across his stubbled cheek, over to his lips. “Perfect lips.”
“You’re really laying it on thick.”
I moved closer still. “Eyes I could drown in.” Closer. “A soul that is more beautiful than any sunrise, sunset, or—”
“I think I’m gonna puke,” he whispered.
“Give me that tea.” I took his cup and placed it on the table, then returned to the close proximity we’d just enjoyed. “Those lips.”
“You already said about the—”
I stole a kiss. Soft, with tongue, slow. His hands hooked around the back of my head, pulling me in deeper. I reached for his cock, stroking him through his jeans.
I broke this kiss. “I love this too.” I popped the top button. “How about I look after you right now? This has been a challenging evening, and I want to show you how much I appreciate you putting up with it.”
Our eyes locked together, he stroked my lips with his fingers. “It was challenging for you, too.”
“Maybe, but I really need to give you a blow job right now.”
A wicked grin spread across his handsome face. “I ain’t gonna say no to that.”
I came into his mouth, him having returned the favor, both of us naked on the living room floor. He kissed the top of my cock, rolled my Prince Albert piercing around with his tongue. Jake really loved that silver ring.
“Wow,” I breathed, “that was great.”
“Nice after-dinner treat.” He slid in next to me, and I wrapped my arm around him. “This is nice.”
“It is.”
“Thanks.”
“Thanks yourself.”
“I feel better now.”
“Good.”
That’s exactly what I wanted, to let him know I was his and he was mine. No one would ever break us. Maybe I was using sex as a weapon, but why not if it reassured him?
“What now?” he asked.
“You want to go again?”
“Nah. I’m too knackered. I meant, do you wanna go to bed, watch a movie?”
I sat up, enjoying the sight of his naked body spread out beside me. “A movie sounds good.”
He then sprang up, and I got a sweet, sweet eyeful of his perky backside. I stopped myself from lunging for it, burying my face in there.
Maybe later.
“Hot chocolate?” he asked, spotting me looking. “Oh. Gonna tell me how great back there is now?” He gave it a wiggle.
“Words cannot describe it, my love.”
“You’re really full of it tonight.” He came down, straddling my lap, grinding himself into my dick. “Maybe I’m not that knackered.”
We never got to the movie or the hot chocolate.
Five
Jake
Another sunny morning. Awesome. There was something about Saturday mornings being sunny that made me happy.
Fuck knows why. I was just a weirdo.
Sitting out in a chair in our small back garden of concrete and flower pots, I was enjoying my tea and a re-read of The Lord of the Rings, drinking my cuppa from my The Lord of the Rings mug Dean and Lou had got me—with the ring as the handle. I had two the same, and both were still intact. I’d broken several mugs, getting myself a bit of a reputation for being clumsy. I was determined to break the crockery curse.
It was half seven in the morning, and I was the only one up and at ‘em. Well, not at ‘em, but having a merry old time with my book and beverage.
I had to go into work today. Annoying, yes, but only for a few hours. I had some stuff I needed to go over, paperwork to sort out, and maybe even have a bloody dust. It was getting grim over in our offices.
“Morning, Daddy.”
My daughter shuffled outside, her dark curls wild, cute as a button as always.
“Hello, you. Did you sleep okay?” I put the book and mug down and took her onto my lap for cuddles, kissing the top of her head several times.
She yawned and giggled. “Silly, Daddy.”
“I am.”
She kissed my cheek and cuddled up tight. “Is Papa sleeping?”
“He is.”
“You working today.” A statement, not a question.
“I am. But I’m not leaving until ten, and Papa’s hanging around until twelve. Cool, right?”
“Yep. Then I meet Grandpa tonight.”
“Yes.” I refrained from gritting my teeth. “I’ll be home by three, and we can get things ready. You can help me with the food if you like.”
“I’d love that.”
“Me too, sugar plum.”
She sat up, frowning at me. “Sugar plum?”
“No? Don’t like that one?”
She pulled one of her yuck faces normally reserved for broccoli.
“Okay. How about my cutie pie of Lou-Lou sweetness?”
“That’s worse!”
“What’cha saying?” I tickled her belly.
“Daddy!”
“What’s going on out here?”
Dean stood in the doorway, bathed in morning light, also cute as a button in his black shorts and white T-shirt, bed hair such a contrast to his usual cool, bad-arse vibe.
God, I loved the shit out of him.
“Daddy tickled me, Papa.” Lou hiccupped.
“Oh no! Look what he’s done,” Dean declared. “The hiccups? We’ll have to scare them away now.”
“Do it!”
“What? I was joking.”
“You hide, and I’ll come and look for you, and you go boo!”
Dean crouched down to her level, the wriggling girl still on my lap. “How about I just give you morning kisses?”
She sighed. “Fine.” She presented her cheek.
He smothered her in them, setting her off again. “I need a pee.”
That had her out of my lap instantly. “Okay. Off to the loo with ya!”
She skipped inside.
“Close one,” I said.
My turn to get my morning kiss. “Hi.”
“Hi. I was thinking of making sausage and bacon baps this morning. How does that grab you?”
“Grabs me in all the right places.”
“Ooo, I like the sound of that.”
Sexy time and sleep had helped clear my head from last night. A bit. There was still that distrust lingering. Not of Dean, of Orla and his dad. I know the sex we’d had was his way of reassuring me there was sod all to worry about, but still. Orla had triggered alarm bells, even if they were in the background.
I’d kill for my man, for Lou. No question.
I got up. “Okay. Let me work my magic.”
“Can’t wait. Want some tea?”
“I won’t say no to another one.”
With my goodbyes all done, I cycled from my house on Blauwebeergracht, a stretch of canal near Keizersgracht, heading over to the offices of Jake & Dean Investigations on Oudezijds Achterburgwal—within the red-light district. I took it easy, eyeballs on high alert for any activity. Those poxy Ricci twins (part of the Conclave) liked to come with random attacks, though I hadn’t seen them for awhile. Plus, there was another real nasty piece of work, Izzie, who seemed to be Elijah Hart’s right-hand woman.
The Conclave was growing in numbers and even had a new HQ being built here in Amsterdam over in Beatrixpark. Great. Not only that, there were also rallies every week in different, busy parts of the city. Basically, bollocks being spouted, flyers handed out, and videos going up online every day about how magic and supernaturals were evil, along with everything else they labeled a sin (like being gay, for example). And that God’s way was the only way—also known as the Conclave being the only way seeing as t
hey were the holiest of them all.
Not.
I still remembered the fucked-up prayer they’d had about me: Protect us in the presence of the Bringer of Doom, the evil one. His tongue is vicious, but we stand firm. The time for the blessed fire is near. He will burn, he will be cleansed from your garden like the demonic weed he is, and then the earth will be free of the pain he has wrought. Give us the strength to see this through.
Sounded super-fun. Couldn’t wait to get myself burned.
They’d have a hell of a time of it when they tried it. I wouldn’t go down easy, like trying to swallow a whole pineapple.
My trusty spear strapped to my back was reassuring, plus the belt of exploder potions around my waist.
Yep. Wasn’t going down easy. At. All.
The streets were dodgy as hell. Conclave, pod-born. All sorts.
“Holy shit!” I slammed on the brakes just before the turning onto Oudezijds Achterburgwal, almost going over the handlebars.
A man jogging close to me screamed.
There was a spider in the middle of the path. Not any old spider, but a pod spider. The size of a Labrador puppy, purple with red eyes, and what can only be described as a silk flag sticking out of its back on a shard of jagged bone.
Yep. Proper dodgy.
The man next to me cursed in Dutch, and the spider hissed, its eight legs twitching. Wait. Not eight. Ten. No. More than that.
Me and arachnids did not mix. Too many legs and eyes. Fine, they got rid of bugs and stuff. Back in the pod-free days, I lived in harmony-ish with them. As long as we didn’t come into contact, they could spin webs wherever they wanted. Out of sight, out of mind.
Not anymore. Not after that bloody incident, we’d had at home with an eight-legged wanker.
At least that one’d had eight legs!
“I see you have met my darling.” Full-on English accent. Male. Just spotted him sitting on a bench with his legs crossed. Tight jeans, muddy boots, no top, skin the milky silver of a spider’s web. Red eyes, a beard of web, plus the hair. Web. Oh, shit. His nose was a spinneret. An actual spinneret.
And his nipples.
Three spinnerets.
Fuck this morning.
I slowly got off the bike. “Your darling, huh?”
“Isn’t she gorgeous? I made her myself.”
Ugh. That had all sorts of mind-screwing implications. “You did? Great. Can’t say she’s the prettiest baby I’ve seen. But everyone says that about their kids, right? Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder.”
Pod-born. Man, there really was one born every minute.
Oh, look. Fangs to show me, seeing as I’d just pissed him off. “She is beautiful. Exquisite. It’s not her fault you can’t see that.”
The jogger had scarpered.
“You’re from the United Kingdom?” he questioned.
I kicked the bike stand out, wary of that ten-legged knob head eyeing me with its overload of eyeballs. “Yeah. London. You?”
“Winchester.”
“Nice place.”
“It is. Far more charming than the vulgarities of London.”
“Ah, that’s my hometown, mate. Mind your mouth.”
“I could say the same for you.”
“Okay. Right. What’s the plan here?”
“Plan?”
“You and your darling?”
“I was simply taking her out for a walk.”
“Were you now?”
“I am allowed to take my child into the fresh air.”
“For sure. Only, that child ain’t just any child, is it?”
The spider sprang onto the wall of a coffee shop, then shot a web at a passing bird. Lightning quick. It had the poor thing in its clutches in seconds—a silken parcel it snacked on loudly.
Gross.
“Cats eat birds,” he pointed out.
“I know. I’m not denying nature here. We live in a new world where nature’s been turned upside down. Change is change.” And it sucked hard. “But I need to know what you’re up to. You see, there’s been a few people try and be Billy Big Bollocks about things. Take over the city, spread across the word. That’s not just the one spider in your spider army, is it? Have we got to tangle now?”
Didn’t fancy getting caught up in the stickiness that would come out of those spinnerets.
His crimson eyes narrowed. “I was walking my child. My one and only child.”
Hmmm… “Really?”
“Yes, really. I have no spider army.”
I actually believed him. “I need to log this, though. I’m sorry. What if the spider needs more than a bird to eat? And what about you? What’s your pleasure?”
“I’m vegan.”
“Maybe once you were.”
“I am.”
“Okay. Don’t suppose I can take your name?” My PIA powers gave me the authority to record matters of concern, and I also had a license to slice if I needed to. Last resort stuff. The law allowed you to defend yourself since the pod crisis. Only if necessary, though. Obviously, there’d been some dickheads who’d taken it too far.
Always was.
“You’re making me feel like I’m some sort of criminal,” he protested.
The spider was done with the bird, dropping the package and scuttling back to her master.
“Come on, mate. You know the rules. I don’t make them. All pod-born need to make themselves known. If you don’t, you’ll make things worse for yourself.”
“I have no right to life?”
“Yeah, you do. Until you start killing people. Or try and take over Amsterdam. You know how it goes.”
“I do.”
Some pod-born tried to make a life for themselves with their new transformations. They didn’t want to be super-villains. Just wanted normality—as much of it as they could grab hold of.
Didn’t work out well for most of them, though.
Probably not a good idea to broker the idea of the sanctuary to him just yet. He did have the right to try and make it work first.
“William Craig.”
“That’s your name?”
“Yes.” He then told me his address. Wow. No spider fight! Phew!
Speaking of which, she was now resting on his shoulder. Polly want a, erm… I didn’t know how to finish that one.
“You’ll see, I’m already registered.”
Why couldn’t he have told me that in the first place? “Cool. Okay. Well, have a great day.”
“She won’t hurt anyone. She likes birds, rats, and maybe tiny dogs if the fancy strikes her.”
“Wh-what?”
“I’m joking.”
Not funny. “You better be.”
“Check my records. I’m an upstanding citizen. Always have been. You’ll also see I’m a vegan. I frequent a place over near Dam Square. I’m there every night for coconut curry. Do come and see for yourself.”
“That’s fine. I’ll leave you to it.” Both of them were making my skin crawl.
“Come on, Diana. Let’s enjoy the rest of our walk.”
Diana?
“Goodbye,” he said.
“Bye.”
Rather than taking a poodle for a stroll, it was now commonplace for someone to be seen out walking their ten-legged spider. Was that it?
Not that I saw many people walking poodles.
I arrived safely at work to find Cherry standing outside her window, currently closed for the morning.
Our offices were in a three-story building on the canal path, with the top two floors being our place, and the bottom Cherry’s window with the blue light (a sign for potential clients that she was a trans woman).
Next door to our building was covered in scaffolding still from the damage caused by an exploding wand that’d been fired at Dean and our Alchemist friend Mila Young.
A reminder of that awful case that’d ended so fucking tragically.
I didn’t want to think about it.
“Goedemorgen, Cherry. You okay?”
<
br /> Sleek, red hair, narrow, fair features, I always thought Cherry looked pretty fragile. But she was much tougher than she looked. She had to be, doing what she did.
Cherry was dressed in a white hoody and tracksuit bottoms, looking worried.
“Hallo, Jake. Can we talk?” Her arms were wrapped around her as if she were cold.
“Sure. Come up.”
The front door was already open—a shared access hallway with the access door to her window on the left, the stairs up to Jake & Dean Investigations straight ahead. She followed me up, and I immediately put the kettle on, wincing at the chaos spread across the two desks belonging to me and my man, the shameful dust particles dancing in the sunlight streaming through the windows.
“Excuse the, erm, mess.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
The bottom floor was our main section for paperwork and dealing with clients, while upstairs was where we stored our potions, books, magical traps, and emptied our bladders.
If there were still goblins around, I’d hire one to help clean up. But they were all in hiding, not talking to anyone after that massacre. Didn’t blame them. Still, goblins made the best cleaners (even if they were expensive).
“Take a seat,” I directed her to Dean’s desk closest to the main door. His was the least messy. “You want some tea?”
“Yes, please.”
“Milk? Sugar?”
She nodded. “Both, please. Thank you.”
After whipping it up, I came and sat at Dean’s desk—his chair, Cherry in the client one. “What’s wrong?”
“I need your help. One of my friends is missing.”
“Oh? Who?”
“You know Melony?”
“Yeah. She’s missing?”
“For two days now.”
Melony was another woman who worked in the windows, working under a red light on the corner of the second right turning just north of this building.
“Have you called the police?” I asked.
“Yes. But all they’re doing is searching.” She sniffed. “I know that’s all they can do, but I’m so scared. You know, what with the abuse we’ve been getting from the Conclave.”
Vile abuse. Man, I hated those knobs. “So, her window isn’t a crime scene?”
