The Highwayman

by Michele Hauf

  “Please leave,” she said.

  “Not until we work things out. Far as I know, Gandras wasn’t able to maintain corporeality on this realm without its shadow. It must have dissipated soon after the summoning. I have the summoning spell in my brain. I just need a conduit.”

  “And you never thought to summon it to get the shadow from you until recently?”

  He cocked his head. The look he stabbed her with could have frozen water. “I’ve thought of it every day since. I’ve tried many a time with witches, wizards, magicians.”

  “But never with the use of a familiar?”

  “They’ve always been enemies.”

  Aby turned her wrist inward and tucked it against her stomach. She’d had the truth tattooed on her wrist, and still, she’d thought to mistrust it. Fool.

  “I’m not sorry for the things I’ve done, Aby, but I do know they could have been handled differently.”

  “How so? Perhaps you would have said sorry before killing all those familiars?”

  “Listen, I know there’s nothing I can say that will make me honorable or halfway likeable in your mind. And, yeah, I think I can actually get beyond the need to kill another familiar if you’ll agree to help me. I mean, hell, if you do help me, then your reward should be life.”

  “Magnanimous of you.”

  He clutched a fist near his head, but then released it. Frustration hummed from his being. Aby felt the heaviness of it.

  “I’ve tolerated this curse for so long,” he said, walking over to her. “But I’m tired of it, Aby. I want to be mortal. I want to sleep. I want to eat. I want to…” He fisted the air. “I don’t want to be a slave to the shadow, because if I forget about it one night the next day my mind will be chaos. And if centuries of witches, warlocks and soothsayers weren’t able to dredge this bastard out of me, then it’s time I gave familiars a try. Do you…do you think it possible?”

  Aby didn’t know for sure if it was possible. Obviously this was one tough demon. “Maybe.”

  On the other hand, it had originally been summoned with the assistance of a familiar, so there was no reason why that couldn’t happen again.

  She had mastered her bridging techniques and was considered one of the best familiars in the country. There weren’t a lot of familiars around, so she figured the ranking wasn’t so hard to come by. Also, her Abyssinian breed placed her top of the charts. She’d like to see a Persian go an all-nighter and then not freak out over the sudden appearance of a demon. Ha!

  Normally she left the conjuring details to the witches. She couldn’t summon a demon on her own; that required a spell. She was just the catalyst. But any demon could be contacted if you had its name. And if Max wanted to do this on his own…“You know the summoning spell?”

  “I’ve studied it for decades. I’m prepared.”

  “Why don’t you want to involve another?” she asked.

  “You mean bridging the demon via the spell, or the having sex part?”

  “Both. I work with Jeremy. I’m not sure I can do it with a stranger. You’re asking quite a lot, Max.”

  “I know. But trust me, I don’t want to do this to get into your pants. Aby, this is very personal for me.”

  “I’m beginning to understand that. But…” It would be personal for her, too.

  Despite his penchant for killing familiars, she was beginning to warm to Max, to notice things about him. Like the way his hair was always tousled and that made her want to run her fingers through it. Or the dimple in his left cheek that wasn’t obvious and only peeked out on occasion.

  He was sexy. And she could entirely imagine having sex with him. Real sex.

  But then, Aby wasn’t sure what real sex was.

  And why did she keep overlooking the part where he wanted to kill her?

  “So what life are you on?” he asked softly. He pointed to her hand, loosely fisted at her thigh. “Can I take a look?”

  Aby tugged down her sleeve and wrapped her fingers about her left wrist.

  “Are you right-handed?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Let me see the left.”

  He knew the past was imprinted on a person’s less dominant hand. Hell, what was wrong with showing him? They already knew exactly what they were to each other.

  Opening her palm, she displayed it for him.

  Max leaned in and drew his finger along the curved lifelines that arced at the base of her thumb. That he knew how to read a familiar’s lives impressed her. Of course, he would know everything about her species.

  Breathing in the scent of him, Aby closed her eyes. Danger had never smelled so seductive.

  “One, two, three,” he said as he traced the lines. “Three lives behind you.”

  “Very good. I’m on my fourth.”

  The warmth of his touch made her so aware he was a man. A man who could touch her, do things to her, kiss her.

  Seeming to realize the awkward silence, Max let go of her hand. “Do you remember anything from your past lives?”

  “Nope. I came to this life sometime during my late teens, or so that’s what Severo guesses. Eleven years into this one, and determined to make it the longest ever by avoiding the big bads as much as possible. Thus the retirement.”

  “Demons being the big bads? I would think it’s something you’re accustomed to.”

  “One never gets accustomed to bridging demons into this realm. Or all the sex.”

  Now she was telling him entirely too much. Yet she felt comfortable talking to him, as if he understood her, and he wasn’t going to impose rules on her, as Severo did, or try to flirt, as Ian did. His distance made him dangerously attractive.

  “Can I look at the tattoo?”

  She flashed her gaze to his.

  “I saw it this morning at the restaurant, but didn’t want to stare. If it’s personal…”

  “It’s something Severo had me do before moving.” She stroked her wrist, unsure. “You know we can’t recall our previous lives from one life to the next.”

  “So it’s important information?”

  “Yes.” Aby twisted her wrist, then held it out, displaying it for him. Yes, she wanted him to look. She needed him to know how much he asked her to sacrifice.

  Max took her hand gently and swiveled to stand close to her to read the small text. “I am: Aby,” he read. “You don’t remember your name from life to life?”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s gotta bite.” He read the next line. A group of letters and ten numbers. “Bank account? Maybe the werewolf isn’t so stupid after all. This is good info to have. Next line. I trust: Severo. I’m guessing the numbers are a password?”

  “To get into his home. Don’t ever let him know I showed you this.”

  “I won’t. There’s Jeremy’s name. You also trust Jeremy Stokes.” He paused, then read the last line. “My enemy: The Highwayman.”

  He turned a condemning look on her. Finally, he nodded. “The wolf looks out for you.”

  “He loves me.” Aby tucked her arm to her chest.

  “It’s good to know who you can trust and who you can’t.”

  “I might be able to trust you.”

  “Yeah? According to the tattoo, you should be a hell of a lot more fearful of me.”

  “This is Severo’s thinking. He once said something to me about keeping your enemies close.”

  Max chuckled. “I don’t think he had this scenario in mind. Bet the wolf would pop his talons if he knew I was in your home.”

  Aby shrugged.

  “Thought so,” Max said. “You and a wolf. You say he’s not your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not.”

  “Have you asked him what he considers himself to be to you?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just that he’s pretty cozy with you.”

  “Severo and I are good friends.”

  “Right, and that friend thinks it’s okay for you to work with Grim, and he’
s got his name tattooed on your wrist.”

  She also had Max’s moniker tattooed on her wrist, Aby thought, but he didn’t seem to put merit in that.

  “He bothers you so much that it makes a girl wonder why?” Aby looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you like me, Max?”

  “You’re a—”

  “Familiar? Why, yes, I am. Good of you to notice. So you hate us all, no matter what?”

  “You’re nice enough.”

  Ugh. Did the guy not have a charming bone in his body?

  “I do like you, Aby. More than I should.”

  Now that was better. “I like you, too.”

  “So have I earned your trust?”

  He hadn’t done anything to earn her trust, except saving her from a crazed demon. And coming to breakfast to talk.

  “Do you think you’ll still be immortal when the shadow is gone?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to sleep. I want to eat a cheese pastry and taste it. I want to…to dream.”

  Aby could understand the desperation of wanting to escape a fate life had stuck you with. How many times had she wondered what it would be like to be normal? Too many to count.

  “Here I thought you were some he-man highwayman who protected the innocent from the big bads. You’re not so tough.”

  “Would you like me better if I forced you to bridge the demon for me?”

  She shook her head, but didn’t say anything. She’d like it very much if he simply touched her. And kissed her. And put his body close to hers so she could feel his warmth.

  Outside the sky was bright white with high sun. Max observed the flight of a robin across the yard. “What’s your usual asking price?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “I said I’d give you ten.”

  “How’s a guy who spends his nights fighting demons and days driving a muscle car make money? You still rob people?”

  “Fifteen thousand, Aby. I’ll be respectful, and we’ll take precautions to ensure your safety.”

  She didn’t want to have business sex with this guy. But she did want to help him. It wasn’t fair what had happened to him. He’d had no choice in what he was now.

  “Aby, I’ve lived my life by trick or trade. I avoid trade and mostly utilize trick. You can’t trust me. You shouldn’t trust me.”

  Pacing before the double glass doors, she shrugged her fingers through her hair. “I’m out of my element here, not working with Jeremy.”

  “So that means you’ll do this? Aby, you don’t know how much that would mean to me.”

  “I think I do. It would give you back your dreams. Your love for life. You’ve lost it, haven’t you? Life is simply slaying demons from one town to the next. You don’t have meaning.”

  “A guy tends to get into a rut after a couple hundred years. But I’d do anything to make it right. Will you help me become mortal, Aby?”

  “I can give you the life you want?”

  He nodded.

  “Then yes. I will.” Because this would be an adventure she could have. “With two requests.”

  “Name them.”

  “Promise you won’t kill me.”

  “Promise.” He said it so quickly, and with surety, Aby was inclined to believe him. She wanted to believe him.

  She would believe him.

  “What else?”

  There was only one way to seal a deal. “Kiss me, Max.”

  Instead of stepping away, as she expected, he curled his fingers about hers. “A kiss?”

  “We’ll be doing a lot more than that when it comes to bridging Gandras. Please, Max?”

  He didn’t nod so much as dip his head close to hers, and Aby knew it was going to happen. Her heart shuddered against her ribs as the clean scent of him wrapped about her. She sighed and closed her eyes just as his mouth found hers.

  The tenderest touch warmed her lips for a brief moment, then he pulled away. Their eyes met. Before Aby could decide if it had been a good or bad kiss, he pressed his lips to hers again. Longer this time.

  The glide of his hand along her back tilted her slightly forward and deeper into the kiss. Melting. Connecting. Falling into wonder.

  And when he parted from her, their breaths meshed.

  The Highwayman held her, searching her eyes. Aby could but grasp his shoulders to stand without stumbling. With a half smile, Max nodded, satisfied with his work.

  Aby touched her lower lip. It was still warm. He was still there. Could she keep him there?

  “That was awesome,” she said. “My first kiss.”

  “What?”

  Chapter 8

  H e couldn’t have heard her right.

  “Your first kiss?” Max swallowed all kinds of oaths.

  But then, maybe he was looking at this wrong.

  “From me, right? I mean, you’ve had plenty of kisses before this one.”

  Aby smiled sweetly, silent in her bright-eyed innocence. A newly emerging innocence that reached out and slapped Max across the face. Ha, it said, fooled you good, Highwayman.

  “No.” He shrugged a hand through his hair. “Not your—Really?”

  Aby nodded. “And it was more than I imagined it could be.”

  He bent before her, meeting her eyes. They were green. Green had never let him down. Green meant good memories, only good things.

  Her lips pursed and he wanted to kiss her again. She tasted sweet and new, like things he’d refused for fear of frustration. But he was too stunned.

  Actually, he felt as if he’d done something wrong, like steal a neighbor’s mail, or a woman’s virginity?

  “Are you telling me you’ve never been kissed before by anyone?”

  “Well, Severo has kissed me on the cheek, the forehead and the hand. Other guys have done the cheek thing. But, yes, you’re the first man who’s ever kissed me for real.”

  What about all the sex she’d had? “Don’t you…? I mean, when you and whatshisname…?”

  “Jeremy.”

  “The two of you don’t kiss when you summon a demon?”

  “Never. Kisses are too personal, Max. Jeremy respects me. He understands what we do together is a job.” She clasped her hands beneath her chin. Her eyes absolutely twinkled. “Kiss me again.”

  “Again?” Max swallowed. He gripped his chest. Mercy.

  How in hell did a woman who had lived four lifetimes manage to go without a kiss? It astounded him.

  “The first for this life, right?”

  She shrugged. “I think it’s the first for all of them.”

  Max gulped audibly.

  If he’d known it was her first, he would have tried to make it…well, more spectacular. How to do that? He wasn’t into romance and all that gazing-adoringly-into-one’s-eyes stuff.

  She’d blindsided him. He felt as if he’d been gut-punched by a vicious demon.

  He wasn’t beyond retreating from an uncomfortable situation.

  “I should go.” He walked toward the door.

  Aby followed closely. “What’s wrong, Max?”

  “I need to figure some things out.” He stepped over the threshold. The wards were not so strong leaving, but they still zinged at his energy like pins pricking his flesh.

  “We didn’t set an appointment!”

  Max disregarded her urgency and rushed through the doorway. An appointment—to summon his demon, to have sex with Aby.

  Sex with Aby…No, he wanted to make love with Aby. And the thought freaked him out.

  Outside, he kicked a stone into the street. His spur skidded on the cement. “Damn it!”

  Find the familiar. Have sex with her. Then kill her. Those were the rules he had made. The line he’d drawn in the sand.

  And today he’d scuffed a heel through that line.

  He found a motel a mile south of Aby’s condo. Max paid housekeeping to launder his clothes and to stay out of his room. He didn’t need the maid snooping through his stuff.

  Once
a year he returned to his home base in Milan. There he owned a small country estate bordering a neighboring olive grove. It provided a retreat, quiet to recharge, and an opportunity to research the occult and paranormal in his extensive library.

  After dropping his things in the motel room, Max stopped into the local library and looked up his bank account information online. Credit cards were in order, automatically paid each month from his account. The amount in his savings was ample. He didn’t need to work to pay for travel expenses, thanks to a shrewd financial advisor who invested in Apple, Amazon and Google. Just because he didn’t “get” technology didn’t mean he didn’t understand the earnings value of its stock.

  He had no patience for computers, and so the library visit was brief. Max preferred the feel of paper, of old books and real money.

  He barely made it to the post office before it closed. Slipping the pearl necklace he’d nicked from the hostess at the International in a plain brown padded envelope, Max addressed it to Ginnie in Paris, for services rendered. She liked the sparkly stuff as much as he did, and, unlike him, she had a use for it.

  The sun had set, but he used the overhead light in the car as he flipped through a book he kept tucked at the bottom of the trunk. Cat Breeds and Their Care. The Abyssinian was a breed he’d not before encountered.

  “One of the world’s oldest recognized breeds,” he muttered as he read. “An elegant feline. Muscular body, beautiful arched neck, with large ears and almond-shaped eyes.”

  Aby’s ears hadn’t seemed overly large to him. But her body? Nice.

  “Focus, Max. Drag yourself back behind the line. This is serious.”

  Right. He’d never faltered before.

  He read more. “One of the most intelligent animals in creation. Hmm…People-oriented. This cat wants to know what you’re doing, and wants to help. Yikes. That’s Aby to a T.”

  “Abys—” that was what breeders called them “—are good at training people to do what they want them to do. This breed gets along well with dogs.”

  Max set the book aside. “That explains the wolf.”

  He glanced across the street to the condo. He had parked a house down the street from Aby’s. If a demon was after her, he wasn’t about to step down from his post.