by E. J. Mellow
Contents
Copyright
Also By E.J. Mellow
Dedication
Title
Quote
Prologue
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Acknowledgments
About The Author
The Animal Under The Fur
Copyright © 2017 E.J. Mellow
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical article and reviews. Making or distributing copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
Published by Four Eyed Owl,
Village Station PO Box #204, New York, NY 10014
Editing by Dori Harrell
Cover Design by E.J. Mellow
Cover Typography by Dan Covert
ISBN # (print) : 978-0-9981563-3-0
ISBN (ebook) : 978-0-9981563-1-6
Also by E.J. Mellow
The Dreamland Series
The Dreamer
The Dreamcatcher (novella)
The Divide
The Destined
For Joy,
whose fire can illuminate galaxies.
The Devil whispered in my ear,
“You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.”
Today I whispered in the Devil’s ear,
“I am the storm.”
- Unknown
PROLOGUE
Nashville
I’ve killed more people than years I’ve been alive.
And for reference I’m twenty-six.
With a name like Nashville Brown, one might be surprised by this. Well, more surprised than normal when learning someone has taken lives. A woman called Nashville Brown, with her charming red hair and angel blue eyes, sounds like the type of girl who traps intruding spiders in water glasses to free them outside. Someone who might smile as a leaf floats into her lap where she sits under a giant oak, reading a book. A book most likely given to her by some small-town sweetheart or, better yet, borrowed from the quaint bookstore where she works weekends after her shifts are up at the local diner.
This girl deserves my name, deserves to laugh carefree with her head thrown back as the summer sun dances across her vibrant burgundy strands. But life, I’ve had to learn too early, doesn’t quite work out like we expect it to. It can be cruel, a jester, and most always too short.
So I’ve adapted. Done what the creature I’ve been born into was made for—I’ve survived.
And by doing so, I’ve been able to maintain some semblance of the Nashville I should be, the Nashville that my name was meant for. I’ve separated her from the other me, from my other life, job, and dark soul that delights in swimming under the surface waiting for prey, a coiled snake ready to bite. This predator has a different name, though just as fake and made up, which might be my two halves only similarities. Both names were given by others. Neither of them what’s legally written on some lost and forgotten birth certificate. Neither of them what my parents had called me when I first came into this world.
Which is fine.
I don’t want to know that girl. I abandoned her the day they abandoned me.
So I’ll take my two invented names and live my two lives and be whoever I want to be, whoever they want me to be.
And most of the time that’s a killer.
1
3
MADRID, SPAIN: 2300 HOURS
He looks as bad as he smells, a festering wound left out in the heat, and despite the opulent penthouse, he matches it well. It might be the overindulgence of gold fixtures or the mirrors stretched across every surface, but they both reek of tacky European new rich. The oxblood leather couch slumps with exhaustion as he sits in the middle, his belly a balloon about to pop the buttons down his yellow shirt.
“Mmm, where are you going, cielo?” the large Spaniard calls as I walk away.
I glance over my shoulder, giving him a heavy-lidded stare. “I think we should take this to a place where you can get me more wet,” I purr, deliberately letting a strap of my turquoise gown slip down before slinking backward toward the large bathroom.
“Gracias a dios!” he whispers, flicking his gaze to the ceiling before attempting the impossible of pushing his two-hundred-and-forty-pound form from the sofa. His silk suspenders dangle with defeat as he waddles forward, his greased-back black hair, tied low in a ponytail, winks under the dim lights. His pencil-thin mustache shares the same sheen, either from a mutual hair product or from the collection of sweat that seems to always gather on his brown-hued skin. His dark eyes, which roam my body, are polished with a slight coat of intoxication.
“Turn the water on real hot, will you, amante?” I murmur as he comes to stand before me, and I run an obsidian shellacked nail over his belly, stopping right above the top of his pants. “I’m going to get something from the bedroom and will join you shortly.”
“Join me now.” He grabs my wrist with rough insistence, the scent of his recent twenty-five-year-old McCallen scotch and two Cuban cigars wafting from his palate, stale and acidic.
“But, amante.” I lean into the round man. “Don’t you want to make me more dirty in the shower than clean? I have some toys that will make me very dirty,” I whisper into his ear before giving his lobe a lick, tasting salt and his vitamin B, as well as probably X, Y, and Z deficiencies.
He groans, and I can’t ignore the heavy cologne mixed with body odor that flows off him like animated stink lines. Having an advanced sense of smell isn’t always a plus.
“Oh, cielo, you might be my new favorite.” He squeezes my bottom before letting me go.
I giggle and playfully swat at him before sauntering toward the bedroom. As soon as I’m out of sight, m
y smile drops, and I walk to my bag that Señor Bejar’s men placed on the silk-sheeted bed after thoroughly checking its contents. This room is another overdecorated space draped in opal-soaked end tables, gold-dipped adornments, and intricate woven rugs. I wait to hear the water run, his bare feet slapping heavily across the bathroom’s tiled floor before unzipping the duffel and taking out a purple dildo. Unscrewing the bottom, I remove the battery area and break open the plastic compartment above. A small syringe falls out.
I grin.
Not thorough enough, compadres.
Reaching once more into the bag, I remove a ball gag, twisting it open to find a clear vial of liquid. Rhythmically, I fill the syringe while replacing the objects in my carry-on. Sliding out of my dress, revealing specially made black lingerie underneath, I place the syringe in a safety compartment in the string of my thong.
I turn just as Alanzo calls out, “Cielo, you are making me wait too long. You better get in here soon if you don’t want to be made too dirty.”
Stopping at the threshold of the gold, silver, and marble bathroom, I catch a glimpse of myself in one of the large mirrors. My lithe body is moon pale against my inky-black wig, and I know if I looked closer, my natural blue eyes would be covered with brown. Turning from my reflection, I watch the devil himself—dubbed El Dragón Rojo, The Red Dragon—and kingpin of the European sex trafficking trade stand under the cascading water. It’s as if every pound of his evil hugs him with sick pride, every inch of his fat a woman, a body he’s easily handed over, stolen, abused for monetary gain. But just as his collection of girls makes him strong, women are also his weakness. Like most men, his lower half is nothing but a divining rod trying to find water, and I just happen to be a giant overflowing lake.
Transforming my face into a feline smile, I concentrate on the back of the fat man’s head and desperately ignore the rest of his naked life-size Pillsbury Doughboy form. Quickly and quietly I enter the large standing shower. Steam wafts around his large shoulders, the floor slick from the three working showerheads.
Placing my hands along his pock-scarred back, I say into his ear, “But I wasn’t gone too long, amante, and I can promise it will be well worth the wait.”
He moans in pleasure.
I’m not sure why, but I decide to look him in the eyes as I do it. It might be because this particular man disgusts me to no end, or I’ve grown bored with how easy it’s become to sneak up and deliver the eternal card of sleep, or I’ve just finally become a sick son of bitch. Whatever the reason, at this particular time and place, I don’t really give a flying squirrel’s derrière, so with an even pulse I gently guide Jabba the Hut around.
He has a quick flicker of hungry appreciation as he takes in my exposed body before his dark eyes widen in shock when he finds my hand jabbing into his flabby neck, dispelling the contents of my syringe.
He stumbles backward, the poison rapidly taking effect.
“Cielo?” he whispers in confusion and then “Puta!” as he has the brief clarity of the situation.
The room shakes with his weight hitting the tiled floor, and I lean over his corpulent form now slumped in the corner of the shower, the water beating over his pathetically exposed churro. “Yes, I might be a bitch, Señor Alanzo Bejar,” I sweetly coo, “but you, sir, are a terrible dresser, and…you smell…bad.”
That’ll show him.
His eyes rage as his body groans to react but stays paralyzed to the spot.
“Don’t worry, amante. It won’t be humiliating at all when they find your naked”—I flicker my gaze down—“lacking self dead in the shower. But I think this is a rather poetic end in comparison to the ones you often deliver, don’t you think?”
He grunts in the pitiful way they all do when they can do nothing but stare and listen.
I pat his head. “Shhh, don’t try and get up for my sake.”
Watching his mouth begin to foam and his gaze lose the lucidness of the present, I turn away. I know what comes next and have no need to see it to confirm it.
After appearing like an airheaded side companion for the past two week (proximity is everything with these particular jobs), I’ve finally, finally located the whereabouts of his cathouses and can truly croon with contentment, those future and current women potentially saved, at least from new nightmares. Their current memories will be a different beast for them to slay.
This thought brings a growl to my throat, and I resist turning back around, exercising my true creativity with El Dragón Rojo’s corpse. Instead I take in a calming breath and step out of the shower.
I unfortunately don’t have time to play.
Running a towel over my wigged hair, I pat dry my undergarments that, after enough of these gigs, the agency has thankfully made waterproof, and wipe the suite of my DNA and fingerprints. Now a ghost in the room, I grab my cell from my bag and press in my code.
“3, is it done already?” A man’s voice clicks on.
“Yes, the pig has been slaughtered. I’m sending the coordinates now.” I drape my gown back over me.
“Damn, that might be the new record.”
“Akoni?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop buttering me up, and inform Axel. I’m going home.” I slip into my heels.
“Don’t get all pissy, 3. I’m trying to compliment you.”
“Yeah, well, if you had to spend the last couple evenings with this slimy blimp of a man, you’d be pissy too. Thank God I was able to dance around his advances until now.”
Akoni laughs through the line. “Heavyset men not your thing?”
Opening the balcony door that’s on the top level of the hotel, I shine my phone’s light three times into the darkness before I duck back inside. “Heavyset perhaps. Swollen, curdled, and rancid leche fritas, no thanks.”
Akoni chuckles again as a thwack hits the exterior of the building. “And here I was jealous of your trip to Spain.”
Reopening the balcony, I find the expected grapple buried into the marble facade.
“Yes, by all means, next time take my place,” I say, stepping outside. Madrid’s summer night breeze dances through my legs, sending my dress fluttering, and I grab the handle attached to the wire.
“Nah, I think I’m good living vicariously through you.”
“No surprise there.” I test the line with a gentle pull. “Considering your whole life is lived vicariously through your nightly MMO gaming.”
“Screw y—”
Clicking off my phone, I place it in my bag now strapped behind me and push off the balcony.
Flying over the unaware Spanish streets below, I don’t look back as I zoom toward what awaits me on the other side.
My other self.
2
Nashville
Her familiar lilac perfume hits me the second she steps out of the elevator. The sound of her juggling the keys out of her purse rang in my ears six minutes before that. The front door opens and then closes.
“I didn’t expect you to be home already.” Ceci places the groceries by the door and throws her tote on the bench that lines the entryway. Her dark skin has a slight sheen from lugging the parcels up, and she pushes her thick, curly black hair out of her face. Wearing one of her favorite baby-blue short-sleeved blouses with a jean skirt, her delicately defined legs stretch out to slip into low-top sneakers.
“The deal got settled faster than we thought it would.” Lounging on the couch in my gray shorts and white tee, I glance back at my tablet—I’m playing my nightly game of Internet Scrabble.
Turds! Triple-word score. Stupid smart computer.
With a huff I click off the screen as Ceci carries the bags farther into my large loft apartment. Situated in the West Loop of Chicago, it’s part of a trendy new condo complex made from once abandoned warehouses. I moved to this neighborhood two years ago after switching to a freelance operative for SI6.
“I hope you bought those groceries with the money I left you.” I walk from the living room
to the kitchen, where Ceci has started putting things away. My space might be open and modern, but I made sure to cover it with enough wood to make it cozy. A butcher-block island separates me from where she opens rustic but sleek wooden cabinets.
“I didn’t touch that money, Nash. It’s still on my dresser where you left it, like I was some weekend whore.”
“Please, I paid you too high if that was the case.”
I easily snatch the package of toilet paper she throws at my head. “You’re such a cow sometimes, you know that?” She glowers.
I flash her a smile.
Ceci and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. We both grew up at the Bell Buckle Orphanage in Tennessee, one of the few orphanages left in the States. Later I learned this was because SI6 is the private benefactor of the home—keeping it running fairly decently in comparison to the other foster care houses in the US. Obviously their charity isn’t without reason, since they use it as a recruitment center. Orphans make the perfect operatives.
Ceci was there two years before me, and even though she was one of the youngest kids, she was never approached about a future with SI6. Most of the children weren’t actually, leaving them oblivious about the real role of the orphanage. I on the other hand was sought out before the end of my first month. Considering my whacked-out genes, it wasn’t any great surprise. I’m what’s called an A+. Not the curriculum grade, but a genome type—A-positive aggressor. A human born with the gift of heightened senses, above-average strength, and an aggressive streak to survive.
We exist.
We walk among you.
And despite the larger population having no idea about our presence, A+ humans make up about two percent of the world’s population. Most aren’t functioning in society though. The majority who are still alive are held in high-security prisons around the world. These individuals either weren’t found early enough, trained properly, or didn’t give a shit even when they were and acted more on their aggressive side than their logical one, condemning them to a life of solitude in a windowless box with five-inch-thick walls. I could’ve easily ended up like that, bound with a muzzle, sedated daily with horse tranquilizers…a murderer.
