Love Lies (Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery Book 3)

by Cynthia St. Aubin

My couches had been stacked in a corner to accommodate the mass of writhing bodies. More black light paint splattered the walls, cutting through the hazy air like an electric oracle’s message. Fuck me stooped, said the wall behind my bed. The message above the couch was more enigmatic. Wallis has a big crock. Another unfortunate misspelling I hoped.

  Had Steve not texted me earlier to let me know he’d taken the cats for a sleepover, panic would have forced my hand sooner. When an empty beer can bounced off my forehead, major motor functions kicked in, and I hit the light.

  Bodies sought the darkened corners like cockroaches.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” I demanded, finally finding words.

  The humans in the room, mostly topless, some completely nude, were predominantly female. The men varied widely. More satyrs. Werewolves.

  And...leprechauns? At least I hoped they were leprechauns. Despite their disparate sizes, the bodies in my living room had one thing in common.

  They were pointing toward the kitchen.

  “I am going to move out of the doorway,” I announced. “And I would recommend that you all consider this an invitation to exit without bodily harm.” I pulled my suitcase up by the door and turned into the kitchen.

  A parade of hurried footsteps behind my back provided little comfort against the sight in the kitchen.

  The horse’s muscular white body glowed ultraviolet in the black light. It reared back onto its hind legs, forelegs pawing at the air in slow motion like a commercial honoring the Wild West’s former glory. A silvered mane, tossed from the majestic neck, rippled like a violent rainbow. The sound of hooves crashing against the wooden floor echoed through my apartment like the apocalypse.

  “Chug! Chug! Chug!” came the shouted order from the kitchen’s perimeter.

  Only then did I notice the woman on the horse’s back.

  Chug she did. From one of my crystal champagne glasses, which she turned over upon a golden horn with a victorious shout.

  A golden horn. Sprouting from the forehead of the horse she was riding. In my kitchen.

  No, not horse. Unicorn. There was a unicorn in my kitchen.

  I slapped the overhead light switch at the precise moment the words found their way out of my mouth. “There’s a unicorn in my kitchen!”

  The sleek white head turned toward me, its dark lips parting to deliver some mystical edict. “You don’t fucking say?”

  I rushed forward, clapping my hands over his elegant, velvety muzzle. “Those are bad words. Swear words. You’re a unicorn. You shouldn’t say those things.” I moved my hands upward, stroking his nose.

  “Harder,” he neighed.

  “What did you just say?”

  The beautiful beast regarded his audience, his expression both discerning and wise. “I said...show me your tits!” A cheer rose from the crowd.

  My arm swung of its own accord, the flat of my palm landing squarely across his the proverbial horse’s mouth.

  A collective gasp silenced the kitchen and a sudden horror seized me. “I just slapped a unicorn!”

  “Do it again.”

  I looked at his face, and saw genuine pleasure there. Additional revelations followed at a snail’s pace. “You’re a pervert. You’re a perverted unicorn!”

  “Joe said you were fast.” A golden hoof stroked my thigh.

  I slapped it away. “Stop that! You’re a unicorn. You’re supposed to be all magical and shit.”

  “You got it all wrong, lady. I’m not a fucking unicorn. I am the fucking unicorn. Name’s Wallis, and it is a pleasure making your acquaintance.” When his long tongue snaked out of his lips and stroked his horsey teeth, I felt the first stirrings of rage.

  “Wallis, is it? What, the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”

  “Easy, honey,” the unicorn said, casting a comforting glance at his posse. “Joe said we could crash here, okay?”

  “No, not okay. And who the hell is Joe?”

  “If you don’t know, then I’m sorry for you.” Several feminine laughs tinkled like bells. “Joe Abernathy. The man. The wolf. The legend.”

  Bang bang bang.

  All heads, mine included, whipped toward my front door. Someone must have shut it on their way out. We held our collective breath.

  Bang bang bang.

  “Shhh!” I hissed. “That’s probably the landlord!”

  Only it wasn’t. It was someone much, much worse.

  “Hanna?” Morrison’s instantly recognizable voice demanded. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “Someone want to join the party?” Wallis asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “No, you idiot,” I stage-whispered. “That’s a police detective!”

  “It’s the fuzz!” the unicorn shouted.

  Bodies tripped over each other as they scattered, some diving from the windows to risk minor injury at the lawn’s mercy rather than face justice.

  I scanned my kitchen, searching for a place to hide. Then I looked at the unicorn. Hide me? Fuck that. Hide him! “Get in the shower!” I ordered, swatting his flank.

  He looked me from foot to head and nodded in approval. “Get clean before you get dirty. I like the way you roll.”

  “Are you out of your goddamn mind? The police are at the door, and I have fucking unicorn in my kitchen! Shut your fucking mouth and get in the fucking shower!”

  Bang bang bang. “Hanna! Open up!”

  I reached into the drawer and pulled out my grandmother’s well-loved rolling pin. “So help me God, if you don’t get in the shower, I am going to beat your magical head in.”

  “All right, all right,” he said, trotting toward the bathroom. “You don’t have to be like that.”

  At the last minute, I grabbed a crumpled party hat off the counter and swapped it with the champagne glass on his golden horn. “Just in case.”

  It took him a few tries to get all four hooves over the tall sides of my claw foot tub. I yanked the shower surround closed behind him. “Not a peep,” I warned him.

  Looking over the kitchen, I was overcome by a tsunami of futility. Every available surface was littered with glasses, bottles of booze in various states of consumption, trash, and dear God, was that a used condom? I stepped over a pair of legs jutting out from under my kitchen table and made my way into the living room, where the situation was about the same.

  I flopped a throw pillow over yet another topless woman, this one passed out on my couch, unplugged the stereo and strobe lights, and opened the door to Morrison.

  His appearance had improved considerably since the last time I’d seen him. Last time he’d been on my doorstep, he’d been the one passed out in a pool of his own vomit. Now, he was a stark contrast to the pantsless man Morrison nudged with his shoe.

  We looked at each other and then looked down.

  “Want to tell me what’s going on here? I heard a public disturbance call for your address go out over the scanner. You are damn lucky I’m the first one to respond.”

  “So you’re off suspension?” I said, tossing my hair in what I hoped was a flirtatious manner. “That’s great!”

  His cop face had returned, pressed and polished, along with his button-up shirt and tie. “Don’t even think about trying to change the subject, Hannalore Harvey.”

  Shit. Conversations using my full name tended not to end well for me. I glanced at the wreckage beyond him in the hall, trying to decide which way to play this. A pair of sequined G-string panties dangled from the newel post at the top of the stairs. “Oh, you know. Just one of those little get-togethers that got a little out of hand.”

  “Hanna, I had to step over two homeless people to get to your door. And one of them thinks he’s a dog.”

  Shit. Still, ‘thinks he’s a dog’ was acres better than ‘transformed into a wolf.’ Even better, he hadn’t said anything about satyrs.

  “They just had a little too much to drink is all. I thought maybe they should sleep it off, you know?”

  “This is a
known drug dealer,” he said, giving ‘ole No Pants another nudge with his shoe.

  “Oh?” I tried to look interested but unconcerned.

  “Yes.” He looked past me into the apartment. “And the woman passed out in your bed got picked up for prostitution for the eighth time a couple days ago.”

  “Huh,” I said. “So crazy.”

  “I have a hard time believing you know these people,” Morrison said.

  Me too. “They’re friends of a friend. Of a friend.”

  “Friends of friends of friends notwithstanding, I need to take a look around.”

  “Nah, you don’t want to come in here. Just more of the same. I’ll have it cleaned up by morn—”

  “Your landlord is pressing charges for vandalism. She also asked the dispatcher about starting the eviction process. If you have any of hope of keeping this place, you had better let me see the damage.”

  I let all the air out of my lungs in a giant whoosh and stepped aside. “Be my guest.”

  Glass crunched under his shoes as he stepped on the remnants of a broken bottle. “What...the fuck...happened here?”

  “A welcome home party?” I picked after him in the debris, trying to avoid limbs.

  “Home from where?”

  “Scotland,” I said. “Business trip.”

  “So that’s where he’s been.”

  I rolled my eyes at Morrison’s back. There was only one he in Morrison’s world. “Yes, he was there with me, as were many other artists and collectors.” Who also happened to be vampires and werewolves.

  “He came back with you, then?” The question failed to sound as casual as he’d tried to make it.

  “No, he had to stay behind for a meeting.” With the millennia old ruler of the vampire kingdom, Akhenaten. Details.

  “Handy how he never seems to be around when shit goes sideways for you.”

  Actually, I found it decidedly un-handy. “Who said anything went sideways? I like a party as much as the next girl.”

  “There’s a little person in your refrigerator,” Morrison informed me.

  “I totally know that,” I said. Truly, I hadn’t even glanced in that direction. The door hung ajar, the light having long since burned out. The fridge’s entire contents had been emptied, and in their place was a tiny man, folded like a contortionist, snoring.

  “Why the hell is he dressed like a leprechaun?”

  “He was part of the...entertainment?” Embarrassing how easy the lies came these days.

  Morrison shuffled through clinking bottles to the center of my kitchen and waited for me to join him. “Hanna, there is thousands of dollars worth of damage to this home. Your landlord has a solid case for eviction.”

  My heart sank into my shoes. “I was afraid of that.”

  “The way I see it—”

  A high-pitched giggle erupted from under the bathroom door.

  “What was that?” Morrison asked.

  “What was what?” I blinked at him.

  “It sounded like a baby laughing.”

  I gave him my best exasperated expression. “Yep, you got me. There’s a baby in my bathroom.”

  He shook his head and began again. “Anyway, as I was saying. Unless you—”

  The laugh came again, louder this time, and longer.

  “You have to have heard it that time,” Morrison said.

  “Old pipes,” I shrugged. “This place makes weird noises all the time. There was a week, a solid six days I was convinced there was a badger living in my cabinet.”

  “And it was the pipes?”

  “No. It was a raccoon, but you get the point. You were saying?”

  Eyes narrowed, he continued. “Here’s the deal, Hanna. The eviction process takes longer than most people think, but this place isn’t—”

  And that’s when the laugh of all baby laughs rattled the bathroom door on its hinges.

  “That’s it.” Morrison lunged toward the door, but I threw myself in the way to block him.

  “It’s just someone else passed out in there, sleeping it off. Probably if we go in there we’ll see a bunch of vomit, and we’ll both get nauseous, and then we’ll throw up, and then there will be thrice as much vomit on the floor, which is just more work for me, and is there really any reason why you’d want to do that to me after everything we’ve been through?”

  “Did you just use the word thrice?” A familiar, heart-softening, panty-melting grin slanted across Morrison’s mouth.

  I gave him my most charming, there’s totally not a unicorn in there smile. “Yes. Yes I did.”

  “Hanna, don’t make me move you.”

  My fingers tightened on the doorframe. “That would be a use of excessive force. I am being completely non-threatening right now.”

  “I have probable cause to believe there is an infant at risk in your bathroom. You’re obstructing an officer.”

  “You haven’t presented me with any documentation that—”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Morrison grumbled, grabbing me by the hips and swinging me easily out of his path.

  Damn. I had been so much more commanding in the version of events transpiring in my head. “James! Don’t—”

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Morrison staggered backward out of the bathroom, his face ashen. “Hanna! There’s a horse! A horse in your bath tub!”

  I wondered if his mane was only rainbow-colored by black light. And this was to say nothing of the horn. Thank God Wallis had kept the party hat on.

  “And he’s wearing a fucking party hat!”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said summoning my best beleaguered sigh. “Someone brought him as a gag. I guess you can rent party horses these days. Isn’t that the damnedest thing?” God, but I was getting good at this shit.

  “Who the fuck rents a horse?”

  “My guess? The little guy in the fridge. He looks like the type, am I right?”

  Morrison’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again before he finally found words. “That doesn’t explain that creepy baby laugh.”

  A thought that had occurred to me as well. Knowing it had something to do with Wallis brought little comfort. “Told you. These pipes are crazy.”

  Morrison regarded me through a narrowed gaze. “Okay, here’s the rub. There is way more going on here than you’re telling me, but I’m exhausted, and from the look of it, so are you. I’m calling for back up to come and pick up everyone that’s left in the apartment. In the meantime, you’re going to put that suitcase back in your car. You’re coming home with me.”

  “Oh no I’m not. This is my apartment, and I’m staying right here.” I folded my arms and planted my feet stubbornly on the floor.

  “You do know you’re standing in a puddle of piss,” Morrison said, glancing down at my feet.

  I gritted my teeth against the urge to take off like a bottle rocket, refusing to look down. “Of course I know. You think I just stand around in piss without knowing it? When I’m standing in piss, I fucking stand in it, it’s what I do.”

  “And horse apples,” Morrison added.

  “What?”

  “You’re standing in a puddle of piss and a pile of horse shit.”

  At which point, I jumped away screaming like a little girl. Searching the kitchen for something to wipe my shoe on, I settled on the legs still sticking out from under my table. “That is so not okay,” I said, dragging my boot down the length of his jeans. Or its jeans because who the fuck knew, anymore?

  Morrison leaned toward the pile I had just catapulted myself from. “What the hell are they feeding that thing? This shit is like...rainbow-colored.”

  My eyes widened. Of course it would be. After all, it wasn’t a horse that left it, but a unicorn. “Who knows what the poor thing ate while wandering around the kitchen, you know?”

  “Like I said.” Morrison looked at me, and through me at the same time. “There’s plenty you’re not telling me. But this place is uninhabitable and it’s three o’clock in the morning
. I’m calling for back-up, and you’re coming with me. Got it?”

  Having exhausted all other possibilities after a quick mental review, I had already decided to agree. “Okay, fine. Let me just grab a few things.”

  As soon as Morrison migrated toward the living room with his cell phone attached to his ear, I shot into the bathroom.

  Wallis was exactly where I’d left him. Only when I looked at him, I saw golden hooves and a rainbow colored mane. “What the fuck was all that about? God, are you lucky he thought you were a horse!”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it,” he said. “Only other paranormals can see this goodness. And seeing as you’re a werewolf—”

  “Heir,” I corrected. “A werewolf heir.”

  “Ohhh. So you mean you and Mark haven’t done the deed yet? Cause if it were up to me, I’d bend you over—”

  I grabbed a handful of his rainbow-colored mane and jerked it. “Listen you four-legged shit-stain, there is a detective in my living room calling for back-up, and probably agents from the ASPCA. You had better find a way to get out of here without being seen. In fact, the more people you can get out of here before the cops come, the better.”

  “Easy, girl. Wallis will take care of it.” And then he winked at me.

  “And you know what else? If there’s anything worse than a perverted unicorn, it’s a perverted unicorn that refers to himself in the third person.”

  “Wallis has decided not to take that personally,” he whispered, swatting my ass with his tail.

  “Hanna!” Morrison called from the living room. “Let’s go!”

  “Just a second! I’m feeding the u—horse a...waffle! He looked hungry.”

  “Rather eat your muffin,” Wallis mumbled.

  “And I’d rather punch you right in your horseface.” I grabbed a can of shaving gel from the sink and stomped out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

  Morrison had cleared a path for me in the living room and had my suitcase in his hand and my carry-on bag slung over his shoulder. “Steve have your cats?” he asked.

  “Yep. Took them for a sleepover.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ve always liked that guy. You’ll follow me?”

  I gave him a half-hearted salute. “Yes, sir.”

  The smile he sent back to me in reply slid right off propriety and into suggestion. “Maybe I’ll think of a few more interesting requests, if you’re feeling so compliant.”