by Angie Fox
“You’d better not, I mean—” I said, cursing myself for rambling, but I wasn’t used to this kind of attention. It was too intimate and frankly, it made me nervous. “I’m stinky and wet and—”
“Brave. When you need to be.” He touched the cool cloth to my elbow and I winced. Every stroke of his fingers spiraled right down to my toes. I really didn’t need to be here, especially if I found myself wanting to reach out and touch him back.
Keep it together, Lizzie. He’s just trying to keep as much gunk as possible off his nice leather seats. I flinched as the water stung a particularly deep scratch. His warm palm cradled my forearm. I pushed through the pain until the only thing I could feel was the soft cloth and him holding me steady.
I had to know. “What are you?”
His eyes met mine. A rich brown, sinful as buttermilk chocolate—not green or yellow…or orange as they had been before.
He shrugged. “I am your protector. That’s the only thing that matters.”
I felt my blood run cold. It was a straight question, and I deserved a straight answer.
My whole life, all I’d asked from people was for a little honesty. I snatched the cloth from him and cringed at the stinging pain as I dabbed at my own friggin’ arm. No matter what it was, I could handle the truth better than avoidance and downright lies. One by one, they’d let me down—Cliff, Hillary, basically everyone who claimed to have my best interests at heart. And now this guy. I was sick and tired of it.
He sat back on his haunches. “Your grandmother has been less than honest with me.”
Boo flipping hoo. “Doesn’t feel very good, does it?” I pressed the cloth to a burning scrape.
Grandma was down the road, saying something to her bike. A final good-bye, perhaps. Even the best body-shop repairman would need a boatload of magic in order to put that hog to rights again.
He saw me watching her. “She hasn’t told you the whole truth.”
My stomach churned at the thought. Actually, in the short time I’d known her, Grandma had been remarkably straight with me. If I thought about it, that was probably one of the reasons I’d jumped on her hog in the first place. That and the demon in my bathroom.
Reluctance swept across Dimitri’s features before he resumed his mask of calm. “There’s something you need to know. I’d let your grandma tell you herself,” he tossed the towel over his shoulder, “but she won’t until it’s too late.”
He placed his hand on my leg, his dark eyes catching mine. “Lizzie, your grandmother is wanted for murder.”
Nothing could have prepared me for that. Shock slammed into my throat. I couldn’t see her as a killer. I just couldn’t. Not without a good reason.
“Murder?” I repeated. Impossible. My mind reeled, trying to deny it, knowing very well it could be true. If so, it would explain why she was on the run. “Who did she kill?” A person? A creature? I searched his face. “Is that why those things tied her up back there?”
The tiny lines around his eyes crinkled as he frowned. “No,” he said, reluctant to say more.
“What? You’re going to tell me just enough to worry the snot out of me? Stop being such a jerk and level with me.” I clenched my fists. How dare he try and drive a wedge between me and Grandma and then hold out on me. I needed answers. “Now.”
He contemplated the darkness, seeming to decide if he wanted to come clean. The muscles in his jaw clenched before he finally answered. “Facing the evil that surrounds us takes strength, focus. Your grandmother has too many of her own problems. Her energy is scattered.”
He searched my face. “You need to have a serious talk with your grandmother. Make her explain why she’s on the run. While you’re at it, ask her how she thinks she can possibly protect you.”
Doubt gnawed at me. “We did fine,” I said, not even believing it myself. “Those creatures didn’t get what they wanted.”
He shook his head. “No, they didn’t.” His eyes caught mine. “Lizzie, I’m afraid those creatures wanted you.”
Lovely.
And why, by the way, was everybody after me when I couldn’t even fight an imp without getting my butt kicked? My brain felt like it was about to explode. “So tell me. What makes you think you can possibly protect me? And why do you even want the gig? What’s in it for you?”
He opened his arms, palms raised to the sky. Mr. Innocence. My foot.
“Oh no. That act doesn’t fly. I know you have a stake, or you wouldn’t be out in BFE in the middle of the night, dragging bikes out of ditches and—miracle of miracles—you also happen to be the only man who can drive us back to civilization.” I stared at him and his mock expression of sincerity. If he told me the truth now, I might have at least a thimbleful of respect for the man. But he stood silent. “Fine. Don’t tell me.” At least I’d spotted his smoke and mirrors from the start, unlike the disaster with my adoptive parents. They let me live a lie for sixteen years.
He gripped my shoulders—warm, demanding. “I suppose this would be the wrong time to inform you that you need me. I know you don’t trust me, and that’s fine. I haven’t earned that yet. But it is crucial that you look to me for guidance.”
Fat chance.
Even though Dimitri was a godsend while we were stuck here with a broken-down hog, I didn’t hold any illusions about him. He’d probably aired Grandma’s dirty laundry in order to chip us apart. It burned me to realize it had worked. I did doubt her. Well, enough to learn more.
Grandma’s boots crunched against the loose rocks on the side of the road. She whipped the towel from Dimitri’s shoulder and used it to wipe the sweat from her neck. “I’d say she’s clean enough, buster.”
Dimitri snapped to attention and leveled a steely-eyed gaze at Grandma. He pulled another clean towel from his back pocket. “This one’s for your dog. I think you’d better handle him.”
Pirate jammed his nose into the highway rocks at Dimitri’s feet. He circled, muttering to himself. “You say I never met you, but I know that smell. I could smell a German shepherd drug-sniffing dog to shame, that’s how good I can smell.”
“Pirate!” This time, he leaped into my arms, my cuts burning with the impact.
Pirate made a show of sniffing the air in front of Dimitri as I touched the damp cloth to Pirate’s back. “E-yow!” He scrambled to escape.
It was everything I could do to hold him down. The imps had sliced his back pretty bad. It hurt to look at it. One particularly deep scrape might even require stitches. I cleaned his back as well as I could, pain for my little doggy lodging in my throat. It was my fault this happened. I should have left him in Atlanta.
I looked up and found Dimitri watching me. Something flickered in his eyes. Understanding?
Grandma huffed. “So are we going to stand on the side of the road all night, or are we going to get the hell out of here?” My thoughts exactly.
Dimitri flipped a Milk-Bone to Pirate as my watchdog and I scooted into the backseat.
“Do you have a dog?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Dimitri replied, sparing a glance at my grandma.
The door thwumped closed and silence enveloped us. “I swear this backseat is bigger than my first apartment ,” I said, eyeing the gray leather interior.
“I still say something smells funny.” Pirate devoured the Milk-Bone and immediately began sniffing for crumbs.
Grandma rode with Dimitri in the front seat. If she was a cold-blooded murderer, I wondered what he’d done to get her goat. Something worse? While it was true I didn’t know the woman very well, she didn’t seem like the type to get offended easily. And while Dimitri might have told me one of Grandma’s secrets, both of them still had plenty of their own. Those two were hiding something. Grandma wasn’t surprised enough when he saved our butts. Or grateful enough. What did he have on us?
As soon as he started the car, they fell into a heated discussion. I tried to listen, but Dimitri turned up the radio. The only thing I could hear from the bac
k of the car was Mick Jagger belting out “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Oh no. Not on my watch. I unbuckled my seat belt and shoved between the two front seats. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Grandma huffed. “Except for the fact you need instruction.”
“She needs to be safe,” Dimitri said, his eyes on the road.
“I can keep her safe,” Grandma declared.
“Oh yes,” he said, contempt dripping from his voice. “With troll hitmen after her.” He paused to let that sink in before he continued. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they unleashed the demons.”
Um, like Xerxes? Maybe Dimitri had a point.
Grandma shot me a keep quiet glare. Oh sure. Why shouldn’t I stay out of a conversation—about me?
My involvement pretty much ended the conversation. We tried to use the remainder of the journey to rest up. According to Grandma, we’d need it. The hum of the motor was a treat for my aching muscles. Pirate and I were asleep before Haleyville. We curled together in an easy slumber until the SUV started bouncing through a country side road with more holes than Augusta National.
I opened my eyes, my contacts fused to my corneas, and batted a muddy paw out of my face.
“The coven in Nashville would be a wiser choice,” said Dimitri.
Grandma huffed. “We haven’t been welcome there since Crazy Frieda clogged their pipes with water sprites back in ’92.”
I stared out the window at a small, main street. This wasn’t Memphis. It had to be one of the smaller towns on the outskirts. Worn, turn-of-the-century buildings housed a pawn shop, a barbeque joint and a few junk shops disguised as antique stores. We stopped in front of a bar called the Red Skull. Purple neon snaked up the side of the crimson front door. Beer signs suffocated the windows. The thump-thump of heavy-metal music was obvious even inside the car. Large black crows roosted in the twiggy trees that sprouted from breaks in the sidewalk. I could just imagine what we’d find inside.
“Here we are.” Grandma patted the seat back as she twisted around to see me. “Home for the next month or so. We live on the two floors above the Red Skull.”
“A heavy-metal bar?”
“Buck up, buttercup. The Red Skull is a happening place. Lenny named it after our red hat club.” She frowned. “You know, for gals fifty and over.”
“I thought you belonged to a biker gang.”
“What’s the difference?” She sidled out of the car.
“I smell cheeseburgers!” Pirate jumped over the seat and darted out behind her.
“Stay where we can see you!” I called to my dog, who chased the crows out of the trees. The birds beat their wings and squawked in protest.
When Grandma opened the door to the Red Skull, Iron Maiden’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” blasted us. She ushered us inside the dark hole of a bar. About thirty bikers, mostly women, crowded the pinball machines and pool tables. Cigar smoke burned my lungs.
“Gertie!” Wild shouts erupted and we found ourselves at the center of a group of leather-clad bodies. I stared at Grandma, who now had a cigarette dangling from her lower lip. Grandma Gertie? It just didn’t sound right.
I knew Dimitri stood behind me. I felt him. His presence put me on edge. I didn’t know what he wanted from Grandma or from me. The folks in the bar seemed to give him a wide berth. More than one gray-haired rider nodded solemnly to the man behind me before diving at Grandma with a whoop and a holler.
“Pay attention, princess.” Grandma slapped me on the back. “This is Ant Eater, Betty Two Sticks, Crazy Frieda…” I nodded at the parade of Red Skulls, knowing I’d never be able to keep the names and faces straight. Not tonight, at least. Although I did have to wonder how Crazy Frieda managed to glue rhinestones on the tips of her fake lashes.
Dimitri drew me against his hard chest. Oh my. The man had abs. “I need to see you,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. “Tonight.”
“Not until you tell me why.” In the last twelve hours, I’d been taken from my friends, my job, my home. I’d been stalked by imps, a griffin and a demon. Now I was stuck at a Red Hats biker bar five hundred miles from home where a seventy-year-old-plus woman named Ant Eater sat stuffing peanuts up her nose in a disturbingly successful attempt to impress a woman named Betty Two Sticks. I didn’t need to be playing games with Dimitri.
The crowd jostled us as Grandma hugged some friends and thumped others on the arm. I did my fair share of handshaking and smiling as I tried to ignore Dimitri and at the same time, hear something, anything these people said above the roar of the music.
Dimitri’s warm hand seized mine and pulled me away from the crowd, toward the pinball machines. His dark eyes studied me. “I’m serious. I need to talk to you.” His fingers rubbed at the sensitive spot between my thumb and my forefinger. “Leave your bedroom window open.”
Well, when he put it that way…“No.”
“Do it,” he said under his breath as Grandma hurried toward us, her posse in pursuit.
I stared up at the massive hunk of man in front of me. “I’ll open my window when you come clean about who you are and why you think you’re my protector.” In the meantime, he could stay outside with the troll hitmen, the demons and maybe a few regular old criminals.
“Thank you, Dimitri,” Grandma said, attempting to sidle between us. “But I think your services are no long er needed.”
He refused to budge.
“Good-bye, Dimitri,” Grandma said, irritation tingeing her voice.
The corners of his mouth tugged into a devilish grin.
He reached down and kissed me, a brief brush of the lips. But still, I felt him shudder, or maybe that was me.
It was over before I knew it. Heck, it was enough, with everyone watching. But he didn’t stop there. I went rigid with astonishment as he came back for more. He ran his thumb along my chin, tilting my head back for a kiss that sent molten heat coursing through my body. Claimed. In front of everyone. A wicked heat wound through my body, along with a little hum of pleasure. My first touch of goodness in a horrid night. That jarred me back to reality and I broke away.
What a presumptuous, forward, ungentlemanly— “Jerk,” I whispered.
His eyes burned. “You win,” he said, his lips inches from mine. “I’ll tell you everything. Tonight.”
I touched my hand to my mouth as he pulled away. His mouth curved into a predatory smile.
Dimitri ignored the gaping crowd of bikers, except for one. He nodded to a tall, bald fellow with a Ride Like You Stole It tattoo before he turned his broad back and strode out into the night.
Chapter Five
“I declare,” Crazy Frieda checked out my bloodied arms. “Lizzie Brown, you look like you picked a fight with a briar patch.”
At least she was kind enough not to mention Dimitri’s kiss. I didn’t know what to think, much less how to explain it to anyone else. He’d been gone ten minutes and I still found myself stealing glances at the door.
Don’t trust Dimitri, I warned myself. Don’t trust Dimitri. Maybe I should write it on my hand so I wouldn’t forget.
“You okay?” Frieda cocked her head. Geez, it was like she was the biker reincarnation of Flo from Mel’s Diner. Or maybe I’d watched too much Alice as a kid. “You don’t look so good.”
Said the woman whose fashion choices included a paisley dog collar and a canary blonde bouffant. The rhinestones on her lashes sparkled in the glow of a neon tribute to Milwaukee’s Best. I did feel rotten, though. The few hours of sleep in the car had been a tease. Even then, I’d slept with one ear open, waiting to hear if Grandma confronted Dimitri. I still didn’t know why he wanted to help us. I didn’t trust him, even if his kiss made my toes curl.
“I need to talk to my grandmother,” I said to Frieda.
“You will, sweetie,” Frieda’s white plastic hoop earrings dangled practically to her shoulders. “But first I’m gonna help you out.”
Well, what would it hurt? Ant Eater had Gra
ndma in a headlock and didn’t look like she’d be letting go anytime soon. Pirate was perched on the bar, sharing a basket of popcorn with Betty Two Sticks. I followed Frieda to the back.
It irked me to admit it, but Dimitri was right about one thing. I needed to learn more about Grandma’s past. There hadn’t been time before. Now that I was officially hiding out with the Red Skulls, I deserved to know if Grandma had killed someone, and exactly what the members of her coven had done that kept them on the run for thirty years.
Frieda led me to a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. “How long have you known my grandma?” I asked. And is she a murderer? I wanted to add.
“Oh, sweetie, I’ve known Gertie since before you were born.” She held the door open for me, and I snuck one last look at Grandma. I could barely see her flowing gray hair behind a crowd of bikers. I’d never had that many friends in my life, much less in one room. And the kicker was, Grandma had to be feeling as bad—or worse—than me. My back throbbed, my legs ached. I plucked at my muddied khakis. They were starting to dry stiff and smelly.
“Now, stop that,” Frieda said, patting at my arms. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head. Come along and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
We passed through a small industrial kitchen and up a narrow, back staircase. Sticky booze residue clung to the concrete floor. The place smelled like pork rinds and beer.
“Too bad you missed dinner,” Frieda said, the heels of her boots echoing on the hollow stairs. She stopped abruptly and I nearly ran into her. “Skunk surprise.” She rubbed a manicured hand over her almost flat tummy. “We don’t hardly get it, but when we bag one or two, it’s certainly a surprise. Phew! You hungry?”
“No,” I snapped. “I mean, no thanks. My stomach is still pretty shaken from the ride over here.”
Frieda lit a cigarette and the smoky fumes poured into the claustrophobic space between us. The rhinestones on her cotton candy pink nails flickered along with the bare bulb dangling above our heads. “At any rate, we set fire to the Beast Feast as soon as we heard you were coming. Like I could eat another thing. But you’re gonna love it.”
