by Petra J Knox
Make Me Real
The Dirty Heroes Collection
Petra J. Knox
Contents
The Dirty Heroes Collection
Preface
Act I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Act II
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Cruel Water - Sneak Peek
Chapter 1
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 by Petra J. Knox
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by Jay Aheer, Simply Defined Art
Formatting by Raven Designs
Once upon a time, a scorned Queen opened a box, unleashing horrible evil on the world's heroes.
Instead of gallantry and chivalry, they now possessed much more perverse traits. They’ve fallen victim to their darkest and most deviant desires.
This is one of their stories...
Blurb
In the City of Lights, I'm a shadow. I have no substance. I'm the whisper behind you that you think you heard. I'm the one that swallows your light like a black hole. You think you see me, but like my pop says, I'm just a puppet. A blip. Air. A thought gone by.
I'll never be real.
But after twenty-four years of silently watching life in this city pass me by, I hunger for the one thing that beckons me like a lighthouse on a torrential sea: Blue. The girl with glitter eyes, a body spun of sin, and the only soul to make me feel. She terrifies me as much as tempts me... because I know she sees who I could be.
The urge to keep her for my own is strong.
So is the urge to destroy her.
Preface
Because—" answered Pinocchio, stammering and stuttering, "because—you look like—you remind me of—yes, yes, the same voice, the same eyes, the same hair—yes, yes, yes, you also have the same azure hair she had—Oh, my little Fairy, my little Fairy! Tell me that it is you! Don't make me cry any longer! If you only knew! I have cried so much, I have suffered so!"
-Carlo Collodi: The Adventures of Pinocchio
Her eyes are bluebells now, her voice a bird,
And the long sighing grass her elegy;
She who a woman was is now a star
In the high heaven shining down on me.
-Richard Le Gallienne
Act I
1
The Stage
“Welcome to the City of Lights, welcome!” sang the recorded voice through the speakers somewhere above me.
A group of harlequin clowns with black and gold balloons tied around their ruffled, satin cuffs repeated the mantra as I walked past them through the streets, sticking to the shadows that I was born to.
If I were the kind of man that smiled, there’d be one on my face right now. Instead, I simply inhaled the scent of fried treats, spun sugar, and popcorn, soothed by the sounds of merriment around me.
Home.
The City of Lights was finally awake as the night rose. People called it a magical place, a place where anything and everything under the moon could happen. A carnival that never moved on, a party that started, again and again, each night, one that everyone was invited to.
But there was a price. If you stayed too long, the magic of the city swallowed you whole, turning you into its victim like a prisoner on an acid trip. The surreal would become your reality, and the mundane the enemy, and you’d be nothing but a gaping maw of constant hunger, always craving that first high and never satisfied.
That was unless you were born and raised here. There weren’t many of us, but there were enough to not be taken in by the City’s lure. And it was a good thing, too, otherwise, there’d be no one manning the ship, and a big ship the City of Lights was.
Bars, cabarets, opera houses, restaurants, shows, events, and salons. The Corral, the Crystal Garden, the Ethereal Imperial Circus, The Rabbit Hole. The Carnivale. All the infamous attractions for the adult senses.
Every night, like a living thing, the electric lights would display the full gamut of sin, luring and feeding the many visitors.
But it was the dark places that the lights cast shadows on that held me here and made me feel at home. The quiet corners, the shady alcoves. The breakrooms where the workers with sweaty brows took a beat or two to rest from their customers. The walk home on Esplanade Lane as the sun began to awaken in a marbled sky in a last hurrah to the end of a long night, where the last bit of the City’s employees headed to their beds, always accompanied by a lonesome pair of lovers walking hand in hand, whispering and laughing softly to themselves in wine-colored voices.
It was my city, glamorous and grotesque is all its glory.
But tonight, something was different. Something inside me felt unsettled, as if something were waking up inside me, restless, wanting.
But the feeling was subtle enough that I barely registered it as I kept to the wall, my target in sight.
About ten yards ahead, the man crossed the cobblestone lane. His hands were in his pockets, his dark long coat touching the ground, and every few paces, puffs of steam would bellow out from the grates below his boots as he meandered his way through the Night District.
Pepper Stone was his name. A high-stakes player Johnny-Come-Lately.
Pepper had been on Pop’s radar for weeks now, ever since wiping the Wolf boys clean of ten grand. Whether or not he’d cheated wasn’t the point. He was new. Flashy. Arrogant. And more importantly, he didn’t stay to play.
When I rounded the corner, I checked to my left and right, preparing to cross. A troupe of jugglers and jesters passed by, their laughter singing in my ears. Up ahead, Pepper stood, body turned toward a hidden door in the wall.
I waited patiently as two dancers cartwheeled past me, one turning in my direction to wink. I crossed the lane, just as my target went inside.
I jogged the last few yards to the secret door that practically blended in with the stone façade. Hidden in the third knot of rock above a thin seam of door frame was the buzzer. I pressed the button and checked my pocket watch. I had thirty minutes before I needed to get back to the shop.
In seconds, a small partition slid open and a pair of dark eyes met mine.
“Jasmine,” I replied, my voice gruff from disuse. The partition shut once more and the door opened, admitting me in.
Mesmer was an old establishment, and its clientele came from all walks of life. Each night, the password changed. Secrets and forbidden desires held court. Big money and loose morals, small minds and hungry eyes.
I felt the stain of sin blanket me as I passed the threshold and entered the main salon.
Crooning music with a heavy, slow bass played from the stage. The club had a crowd of thirty or so people tonight. I scanned the smoky, dim room. Pepper was seated at the bar.
“What can I get you, sexy?” a lush feminine voice said on my left.
When I felt her touch on my bicep, I turned to look at her and shrugged her off with a shake. Her face was painted white, framed by cotton candy pink hair that really did look like spun sugar. She wore a blue sequined outfit that barely covered her goods, and her thin lips were stained raspberry.
I ignored her and made my way to the b
ack. About ten or twelve customers sat at the long glossy bar, most facing the stage to the right. There were two stools unoccupied next to Pepper. I chose the closest one.
The bartender put a napkin in front of me. He had to have been over seven feet tall. Rail thin with muddy green eyes that narrowed on me in a flash of recognition. I knew what he saw; broad shoulders underneath a dark gray hooded-sweatshirt, hood-up, menacing energy. He didn’t know me personally, but my instincts told me he knew of me.
He cleared his throat and tossed the frown, replacing it with resolve. “What can I get you, sir?”
“Water.”
The man next to me, my target, overheard and laughed as the bartender walked away to get my order. “Water? Boy, you’re missing out. Life’s too short for temperance.”
I didn’t need to turn and face him. I could see him clearly in the mirror in front of me, but he wasn’t glancing my way. Instead, he faced the stage
My water came, but I didn’t touch it. I waited a bit. The music ended and started up a new tune, coinciding perfectly with the lights around us that changed to a cerulean blue. When Pepper’s glass slowly touched down on my right, I reached back, straightening my leg so that I could get into my back pocket. I turned my head to the stage and froze.
She sat on a stool, her long legs crossed at the ankles, her knees open just enough for me to see a glimpse of ruffled panties. My eyes traveled back up. Breasts full, soft yet firm, bordering on spilling from a corset of powder blue. Her shoulders gleamed with an ivory shimmer, contrasting with the shadows of her collar bone and the delicate dip of her throat. A long, graceful neck, smooth and inviting, led straight up to a heart-shaped face of pure angelic beauty.
It was her eyes that trapped me, though. Luminous eyes that sparkled like frost and rain and winter skies, captured inside the white, feathery mask she wore. She was singing low, a sweet, sultry tune that wrapped around me, melting the ice around my heart. When she closed her glitter eyes and tossed back her head on a high note that pierced my soul, ribbons of blue silk touched the floor—her hair, soft, so long, so smooth.
Minutes, hours, years passed as I sat enthralled by her. Long after she’d left the stage, taking her blue lights and sultry jazz with her, my eyes stayed glued to the spot she once occupied, until the bartender’s voice broke the spell.
“—sure you don’t want anything else?” he was asking.
I turned and noticed immediately that my target was gone. Fuck. Fuck!
Grabbing my wallet, I threw down a ten and shook my head at the bartender.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” he asked, taking my napkin and wiping the bar down where my glass had been. When I didn’t say anything, he must have assumed I didn’t understand. “Blue. The last performer? She was just hired. Almost a week ago, actually. Such a voice. She’s going to be a star one day, mark my words!” He grinned in a dreamy, stupid manner and walked away, pausing to talk to another customer.
Blue.
I felt a hand on my back and closed my eyes, feeling spiders and fire ants dancing under my skin. When I stood and turned, Cotton Candy was there again. She leaned in close and tugged on the string of my hoodie.
“Want some company tonight, big man? My shift’s just ended. Come on, I’ll make you feel so good.” She licked her raspberry lips, her bloodshot eyes scanning my chest and shoulders.
I leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Get the fuck away from me.”
She flinched as if I’d slapped her and pulled her hand away. “Sorry…uh…”
I walked away, but not before glancing back at the stage.
Blue. Her name was Blue.
The house music was playing, my target was long gone, and the stage was empty.
What had just happened?
2
Big Fish
“Where are you, you little shit?”
Dread pooled in my stomach. Pop was drunk already.
Even though I’d lived with him all my life, his rages and moods still took me by surprise, as if my brain expected him to one day be different.
He’d never be sober. He’d never be anything more than the bastard he’d always been.
I honestly couldn’t remember if he’d ever been sober for more than a few days. But my memories were funny things on a good day and weren’t all that reliable. I wasn’t one to look back, though, so none of that shit bothered me. Only the present mattered. Always the present. The now. The mission. The goal. Getting it done. Wash and repeat.
Now that I was older, the cold, metal cage that sat in the cellar had served its purpose well. I was goddamned leashed and tagged by Pop’s hold on me, his words burned into my brain like a brand: His.
He called out again. I didn’t bother responding, just walked right into the workshop and sat on the stool in front of him. He was sitting behind his desk in his rickety chair, an old man with dirty glasses perched on his hawk of a nose, carburetors piled helter-skelter among all the other shit he’d been working on tonight.
He looked me up and down and grunted before getting back to work. I waited. Medoro crouched low and crawled over to me, licking my ankle, his minuscule tail wagging and giving away his excitement at seeing me. But he was a good dog and didn’t whine. He knew his place just like I did.
Finally, after about ten minutes, Pop looked back up at me. “Pepper?”
“Lost him.”
Pop nodded slowly, polishing a part with a dingy rag. “Got a shipment coming in at the wharf around 6:00 am. Make sure you come straight home with it. No dallying.”
“Yes, Pop.”
“In the meantime, find Gideon Fox. He’ll have answers on that other business, that mess with Coach.” Pop leaned to the side and spit. “Fucking rusty dildo, that wanna-be thug.” He waved the hand that held the dingy rag, as if swatting away the image of his arch-rival away. “Gideon should be leaving Portman’s Pub around midnight. Take care of it.”
I took out my pocket watch and saw that I had about twenty minutes. I was about to get up and leave but Pop stopped me.
“You watch yourself, Pinn. Don’t be getting lazy on me, boy, you hear?” He didn’t bother looking at me, just kept polishing.
“Yes, Pop.”
“Go on then. And take that damn mutt with you.”
I looked down at Medoro and whistled at the old dog, then led him through the back of the shop where the stairs were. The top floor was where Pop and I lived. One bathroom, a living area—where I slept most times—a small kitchen with a beat-up table and two chairs, and the back room that doubled as Pop’s bedroom and office.
Medoro knew the routine and went to stand by the pantry. His bowl was low on water, so I filled it from the tap and opened a can of dog food, chucking the congealed mass into his other bowl. I didn’t have time to stick around, so I left him to it and shut the landing door at the stairs behind me so Medoro wouldn’t follow me down and bother Pop.
I left through the alley door of the shop and pulled my hood up. Once again, I was a shadow.
“I told you already, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I don’t know any Coach.” Gideon twisted his body on the rope that I’d hung from the rafters. His arms pulled tautly, his feet encased in cinderblocks.
“Fuck!” he shouted when the cement at his ankles scrapped a bloody line across his skin.
I sat in a chair about ten feet away and waited. My patience was legendary. I had all the time in the world. As long as my goal got met, the journey mattered little.
In silence, I stared at him. I felt nothing. Not anger, not pity, not even boredom. I only waited.
I knew I wouldn’t be waiting for long.
Humans, men especially, were so damn predictable. When caught by a bigger predator, their bravado comes on strong. And interestingly, the length of time it took for them to realize they were now the prey, usually equaled the size of their egos. A stupid man with a big mouth, say, might last about twenty minutes before he was crying for his mothe
r. The stronger, more dangerous man could go hours, sometimes days, if he had enough dominance in him. The one thing both examples had in common, however, was they never outlasted me. I was the biggest shark in their sea.
No matter how it was done, I always came out on top.
In nature, there was a prey and predator pecking order. Humans displayed this in spades, every day. Especially here in The City of Lights, where fish of all sizes swam.
Gideon Fox was a little shit fish. I had no beef with him personally—this was all about his supposed business associate, John “Coach” Stanalli, someone Pop wanted more than he wanted Pepper. For Pop, it was personal, not that I was privy to any of the whys and hows. I didn’t ask.
The City of Lights had been getting more business than usual this season, making my job a bit more challenging, a bit more time-consuming. Places to corner them became harder to find. So I had to resort to digging through of bit of their garbage when going to the source became more trouble than it was worth.
Hence Gideon tied up and waiting to be dropped through the floor and into the ocean under us. He didn’t know this, though. The floor looked like an ordinary plank-wooded platform, just an ordinary boathouse. But unlike other boathouses, this one was Pop’s. One of the many seclusive places that I took advantage of when carrying out my jobs.
