Playing With Fury

by Annabel Chase

  “The motel is empty because it’s still under construction,” I said. “And your seizure of the moment is considered a crime of opportunity.”

  Blaine cocked his head. “I don’t understand why we can’t see you. Is that how the FBM operates? Invisible agents?”

  “That’s pretty cool,” a fifth vampire said, nodding with enthusiasm.

  “I don’t know,” Blaine said. “I feel like it’s a violation of our rights. We should have the right to address our accuser.”

  “You can address me as Agent Fury. Satisfied? Now, I need your names and contact details.”

  Laughter drowned out the high-pitched voice of Cyndi Lauper.

  “I’m not giving you anything except a puncture wound,” the redhead said.

  Blaine cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, I’ve never tasted a federal agent before.”

  “This is your last chance. I want your names and contact information and then I want you to head straight home. If you refuse to cooperate, I’ll need to arrest you.”

  The vampires smirked at me.

  “Six of us and one of you?” Blaine asked. “I’ll take those odds.”

  “Yeah. No dice,” the floppy blonde agreed.

  I shook my head, disappointed. I should’ve known they’d choose the hard way.

  “Hard to fight what you can’t see,” I said. I set down the keg, unwilling to waste any of the blood. This keg hadn’t yet been tapped so it was likely salvageable.

  The second the keg touched the floor, Blaine charged me.

  I had a feeling he was the stupid one in the group and he didn’t let me down. I snatched the keg off the floor and used it as a shield. Blaine crashed into the barrel and staggered backward in a stupor. I set the keg aside and grabbed Blaine by the collar.

  “Last name and address,” I said.

  The sixth vampire decided to try his luck and sprinted forward. I flung Blaine backward and the two vampires smashed into each other.

  “You’re making this worse for yourselves,” I said. “Now I have to add assault of a federal agent to the charges.”

  “I bet you’re a real hag,” the redhead spat. “That’s why you stay invisible. You’re so ugly that we could die from looking at you. That’s your lethal weapon.”

  “Looks can kill,” the sixth vampire said, laughing.

  “If you want ugly, I can give you hideous,” I said. Arguably, ‘ugliness’ was one of my super powers. Unfortunately, it would be wasted on them given that I was invisible.

  Although it wouldn’t be wasted on me.

  An idea took shape in my mind. Pasty vampire was right. No one could see me, which made this the ideal opportunity to let loose and go full fury. The only potential downside was acquiring more fury traits, but these vamps were small potatoes. If I dispatched them really, really quickly, the risk was low there’d be any repercussions.

  “Snake hair, don’t care,” I said, and uncloaked my head. The snakes writhed and hissed. There was no chance of turning anyone to stone and no chance of anyone catching a glimpse of my dark wings either.

  Six sets of fangs gleamed in the light.

  “You’re not the only ones who can make puncture wounds, boys,” I said.

  “What’s that sound?” the floppy blonde asked.

  The snakes hissed louder.

  “I believe it’s the sound of you getting your ass kicked,” I said.

  I sprang into action. I knocked two of their heads together so hard that they fell unconscious. For the next two, I waited until they were almost on top of me before turning their fangs on each other. They both wailed in protest as another set of fangs pierced their skin.

  I grabbed the floppy blonde in a headlock. “Name and address,” I demanded.

  “Scooter,” he choked out.

  “Your real name,” I said, tightening my grip.

  “His name is Tad Witherspoon,” the redhead said. He unbuttoned his denim sleeves and rolled them up. “Now let him go.”

  I released the vampire and shoved him aside. “Do your eye a favor and get a haircut, Tad.” I looked at the last vampire standing. “And your name, friend?”

  “You’ll have to guess.”

  “Oh, Rumpelstiltskin, is it?”

  The tempo changed to a familiar funky beat and the pasty vampire tapped his foot in time to the music.

  “I know this song,” I said, trying to remember the name. The redhead edged closer, his hips swiveling to the music, and I stepped out of reach. “Is this a dance-off because it’s hardly fair when no one can see me?”

  “Every time you speak, you give away your location,” he said. “You might want to think about that.”

  The singer crooned the first few lines of the song—Never Gonna Give You Up.

  I gaped at the redhead. “Am I seriously being rick-rolled by a vampire?”

  The vampire groaned. “Aw, man. I was so close.”

  “Your name is Rick,” I said.

  He bowed. “Rick Ashley. Not quite the same but close enough.” He cut a glance at his friends. “It wasn’t a fair fight. You’re invisible and all the blood has rushed to their heads.”

  “Newsflash, Rick. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight anyway. I’m a fury and you’re six measly vampires.”

  Rick’s eyes bulged. “An actual fury? Wow, I thought you were a myth.”

  “Rare but real.”

  “So you’re supposed to be pretty strong. How much can you bench press?”

  I rolled my eyes. Men.

  “I need to gather all your info, Rick, and then I need to get this blood to a safe location. I also need you to promise me that you won’t trespass or steal again or you won’t like the consequences.”

  Rick held up a hand, his palm facing me. “I swear. It was all in good fun. We wouldn’t really have hurt you.

  “Oh, I know you wouldn’t have,” I said. “You’re lucky the owner doesn’t know you’re here. He might want to press charges, even if I’m willing to let you off the hook.”

  Rick’s expression turned curious. “Why are you willing to let us off the hook?”

  “Because I think you’re young and stupid vampires and we all make mistakes when we’re young and stupid.” I had an ex-boyfriend who was living proof of that. “In your case, the consequences would be far more severe than the crime.”

  The other vampires stirred and Rick seemed to reach a decision.

  “Why don’t my friends and I drive these kegs to the hospital?” he asked. “That is, if you trust us.”

  “I’m going to give you a chance to make this right, Rick.” I paused. “And if you don’t, I know how to find you.”

  I felt good about myself for letting the Vampire Brat Pack off the hook. My mother was always raging that I had an unhealthy relationship with rules, but this proved I was flexible. As I flew over town, I decided to make a pitstop at Clara’s to see how her tour with Otto went and tell her about the trespassers.

  It was only as I stood in the foyer that I realized the car outside belonged to Sassy and not Clara. Technically, Sassy was the last person to ‘see’ me. We arrived home from the mayor’s party together and went straight to bed. She knew nothing about the supernatural world, which meant she couldn’t know I was invisible. I turned to beat a hasty retreat when a wailing sound stopped me in my tracks.

  Dear gods. Someone was attacking Sassy.

  I raced to the living room, ready to come to her aid.

  Sassy stood on the middle cushion of the sofa using a cucumber as a microphone. A quick glance at the television revealed the closing credits to Titanic. Great balls of fury. She was belting out the lyrics to Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. Discarded tissues littered the coffee table.

  I hovered in the doorway, unable to move. The former cheerleader’s eyes were rimmed with red and her skin was blotchy and tear-stained. I was pretty sure she was still wearing the same boxer shorts and T-shirt she’d worn to bed at my house the night before. This was a far cry from the woman wit
h the peppy demeanor who left me notes with smiley faces and hearts. For a non-supernatural, she’d always seemed the least human of anyone I knew. This Sassy was so…normal.

  I knew I was intruding on an intensely private moment, but it was like a car wreck and I couldn’t bring myself to look away. Her voice was high-pitched and off-key. She sounded like a banshee who’d stubbed her toe on a concrete brick.

  The song finished and she tossed the cucumber onto the floor with a dramatic flourish before dropping onto her bottom on the cushion. She blew her nose and threw the tissue on the coffee table to join the others.

  Sassy insisted she was moving on from Tanner, but this scene suggested she was taking the breakup quite hard. Not that I blamed her. I’d been in her position and I knew the pain she was feeling. I also knew if she screeched one more song, she’d be hoarse for the rest of the day.

  Sassy grabbed her phone from the coffee table and tapped the screen. My stomach clenched. I thought she was about to call Tanner and moved closer to investigate. Maybe I could knock the phone out of her hand before she did something she’d regret.

  I sat beside her on the sofa and peered at the phone. A photo of Tanner smiled back at me. He was shirtless on the beach and his hair was still damp from the water. His skin had a bronze glow from hours in the sun. It was a good picture. If I didn’t know him, I’d say he had the face of someone trustworthy. Someone who wouldn’t conduct a clandestine affair with a woman he met in another city on a business trip. He may have been under a spell when he cheated on me, but he no longer had that excuse with Sassy.

  Sassy closed the image and opened another one. I narrowed my eyes at the picture of the white strapless dress with a billowing skirt and a beaded corset. My breath caught in my throat when I realized it was a wedding gown.

  Even before she learned of his betrayal, Sassy seemed conflicted about marriage. Still, I guess it made sense that she harbored misgivings. She’d been with Tanner for years. At some point, she thought she’d marry him and have children. She wasn’t just mourning the end of a relationship. She was grieving the loss of an unlived life, one that she imagined for herself once upon a time.

  I understand that feeling all too well. If I was being honest, part of me was still grieving too. Not the loss of Tanner, of course, but my life as an FBI agent in San Francisco. It had been the dream I’d worked toward and it had ended in a split second—in the time it took me to siphon vampire power and bite Fergus. My partner may have lived, but my dream died that day.

  I resisted the urge to put a comforting arm around Sassy. She had no idea I was here. If she suddenly felt the weight of an arm along her shoulders, I’d be listening to more than an off-key power ballad.

  Sassy swiped away the image of the bridal gown and closed her eyes. A few more tears spilled down her cheeks, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. She seemed listless now, her energy spent. She dragged herself off the sofa, leaving the phone on the cushion.

  I watched her wander aimlessly into the kitchen and fumble around until she managed to fill a glass with water. Anger began to bubble. How dare Tanner hurt her like this. His selfishness had reduced a vibrant young woman to a shell of her former self. It wasn’t right. For a fleeting moment, I considered paying a visit to Tanner and his new girlfriend and scaring the daylights out of them. I was invisible. He’d never know it was me. Or I could replace his contact lens solution with rubbing alcohol. Okay, that was overkill. I didn’t need to blind the guy, only humiliate him or scare him. Something to make him feel an ounce of what Sassy was feeling right now.

  Except I couldn’t. If I did something like that to Tanner, then I was no better than my family and I’d spent too many years trying to distance myself from their antics to succumb to that kind of behavior now. To paraphrase Gandhi, I had to be the change I wanted to see in my neck of the woods.

  In an effort to distract myself from evil thoughts, I picked up her phone and spotted a dating app. There was a little number posted in the corner of the app. Sassy had fifty unread messages from potential suitors.

  I knew she was active on the dating sites, but from what I could see, she hadn’t been bothering to communicate with anyone interested in her. With one eye on Sassy, I started clicking through her messages. There was nothing wrong with helping her along. I ruled out the ones that only said ‘hi’ or the more eloquent ‘hey, beautiful.’ I also deleted the ones that only talked about themselves and didn’t ask her any questions. One narcissist in her life was quite enough.

  Sassy leaned against the kitchen counter and hiccupped. It was painful to watch her and I felt guilty for ever being annoyed by her plucky attitude. It had been forced cheer, though. Sassy had been pretending to be fine for my sake and that made me feel even worse. Her heart was broken. She had every right to tap her inner Celine Dion. It wasn’t healthy to sweep her feelings under the carpet. We may have had our differences, but I had no desire to see her suffer.

  I scrolled through the profiles at lightning speed and found the one that seemed the most compatible with Sassy. It helped that he was insanely hot. If I weren’t in love with the chief, I’d be uploading my own profile just to find this guy on the app. I left his photo visible on the screen and set the phone on the cushion before fleeing the scene. Sassy needed a distraction from Tanner and I had a feeling that cowboy99 was the perfect choice.

  Chapter Eight

  I felt emotionally drained by the time I walked through the front door of the main house and immediately regretted my decision to stop here on my way to the barn. I thought I might ask Grandma and Aunt Thora about digger demons, but the tension in the air suggested this was a very bad idea. Hostility crackled as I entered the kitchen. My mother twirled around in an emerald green dress like a five-year-old showing off her underpants.

  “You asked and I answered,” Grandma said from her place at the table.

  My mother stopped spinning. “Yes, but I didn’t like your answer. That means you should try a different one.”

  Grandma gave her a defiant look. “You look like a leprechaun exploded. There. Do you like that answer better?”

  My mother glanced at Aunt Thora. “You’ve been quiet. What do you think?”

  Aunt Thora’s gaze darted to her sister and back to her niece. She was caught between a landmine and a hand grenade.

  “I think I would prefer it in yellow,” Aunt Thora said carefully.

  “It doesn’t come in yellow; it comes in green,” my mother huffed. She fiddled with the bottom half of the dress. “I don’t know why I bother to ask you about fashion anyway. You two are as blind as a mole.”

  “Funny. That’s what I say about your dates,” Grandma shot back.

  I cleared my throat to let them know I was there. “What’s the occasion?” I asked.

  “Oh, good. Eden’s here. She can help.” My mother’s brow creased. “On second thought, never mind.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because you inherited your grandmother’s fashion sense, that’s why not.”

  “Just because I don’t dress to appeal to men doesn’t mean I have no fashion sense,” I said.

  “Is that so?” My mother looked up and down at the empty air. “I bet you’re wearing one of those irritating T-shirts with an irreverent slogan right now.”

  I glanced down at the I’m a Ray of Sunshine with a Chance of Hurricane T-shirt. “No, I’m not. It’s a tasteful black top with a scoop neckline. You’d want to borrow it if you could see it.”

  “Liar,” my mother said. “I can hear the snark in your voice. It’s more audible when I’m not distracted by your clothes.”

  “I guess you didn’t have any luck with your glitch,” Grandma said to me.

  “Not yet. I’m still working on it.”

  “Are you hungry, Eden?” Aunt Thora asked. “I have a box of donuts if you’d like a snack. Variety pack.”

  “I’ll polish off a danish later if I’m lucky,” my mother said.

  Aunt Tho
ra held up the box of donuts. “We should finish these before we bother with danish.”

  My mother winked. “I’m not talking about food. I’m talking about Hans, that sweet man I met at the library.”

  “You were at the library?” I asked.

  My mother adjusted her earring. “That sweet man I met outside the library, on my way home from the liquor store.”

  “Now that’s more believable,” I said.

  “He invited me for a drink…” She smiled demurely. “Let’s just say that rolls will be buttered.” She paused dramatically. “On both sides.”

  “That reminds me…” Aunt Thora said.

  Grandma glanced at her sister. “Dare I ask?”

  Aunt Thora unhooked her purse from the back of the chair and emptied the contents on the table. Three lemons spilled out, along with a wallet, loose change, a pack of mints, and a pair of glasses.

  “Why are you carrying around lemons in your handbag?” I asked.

  Aunt Thora sniffed the interior of the bag. “It masks the smell.”

  “What smell can you possibly be generating in your purse?” my mother asked.

  “I’d left a buttered roll in there from the senior center and it got moldy.” Aunt Thora put all the items back in the purse except two lemons. “I also use them in lieu of pepper spray. If I squirt a little lemon juice in their eyes, I’m home-free.”

  “You’re a witch, Thora,” Grandma said. “You don’t need to rely on lemon juice to overpower an attacker.”

  “I’m not like you, Esther. I don’t like to use magic if I can help it.”

  “Must be where Eden gets it,” my mother grumbled.

  “You weren’t always like that,” Grandma said. “Old age has made you as soft as one of those buttered rolls.”

  “Oh, mine won’t be soft,” my mother said. “It’ll be very, very hard.” She picked up an oven glove and fanned herself with it.

  “Who are you calling old and soft?” Aunt Thora demanded. “You make me sound like a well-used mattress.”