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Staying alive to raise my daughter, love my family, and fulfill my dream of mass marketing a line of gourmet cocktail mixes are all on my bucket list, but Edmond’s is the face I see when I close my eyes and dream my sweetest dreams.
I have it bad for the man, a fact proven when his voice booms from the entrance, “Put her down! Now!”
My heart leaps, and my blood goes fizzy in my veins, my body celebrating his appearance as if the danger has already passed, and I don’t have a racist pervert’s hand still locked around my throat.
It’s not there for long, however.
Before I can aim another kick at Sultan’s crotch, he drops to the floor behind the bar with a grunt, and I’m in Edmond’s arms. He isn’t as strong as other vampires—Edmond’s only supernatural gift is the ability to speak to animals—but his arms are the only ones I want around me right now.
Even when Sultan jumps to his feet, looking ready to rumble, I feel so safe, so right now that Edmond’s here. He has to feel it, too, he just has to, no matter how cool he plays it when we’re alone.
I make up my mind to ask him—once we’ve dispatched with this sentient hemorrhoid—and reach for the heaviest bottle of whiskey on the shelf. I lift it high and bring it down hard on Sultan’s head, sending him back to the ground.
This time, when he collapses with a miserable groan, he stays there as Edmond and I step over him and rush to the door, hand in hand.
We burst out into the street, and I go left, only to nearly have my arm jerked out of the socket as Edmond goes right.
“This way, nothing’s open by the water,” I pant, frowning as I turn back to see him standing stock-still in the middle of the road. I tug his hand, “Come on. I think he’s out cold, but who knows how long he’ll stay that way. I forgot my cell, but we can call for help from the—”
“Hush,” Edmond says, lifting a finger to his lips and squinting harder. “The rat says something’s happening inside.”
My brows shoot up. “The rat?”
“The rat that lives under the pub steps.”
I drop his hand like it’s a diseased rodent and clutch the top of my lacy uniform shirt. “What?”
“It’s all right, she’s been there for years. Flip’s a sweetheart, and she keeps the untidy rats away. Now let me…” He trails off again while I fight the urge to ask how long he’s known there was a rat under the pub where I eat half my dinners these days, and why he didn’t say something sooner.
Also, is there really such a thing as a tidy rat?
That feels like an oxymoron.
Like true lies or jumbo shrimp or delicious asparagus.
But before I can break the silence or ask Edmond any of the above, he dashes back into the bar.
“Stop!” I shout, tailing him back inside. “We should wait for backup, we don’t know—” My words end in a swift intake of breath as I skid to a stop inside the door to see Edmond dragging Sultan out of what looks like a glowing, S-shaped mirror on the opposite side of the pub.
“Let me go! Release me this instant,” the slightly shorter, much chubbier man insists.
“My pleasure,” Edmond says, shoving him unceremoniously to the ground before grabbing a saltshaker from a nearby table and scattering a generous spray into the red glow of the mirror.
Though now I realize it isn’t a mirror at all. It’s a portal to another realm, most likely the demon one if the color is anything to judge by.
I squint into the ruby haze, pulse racing as I try to make out the silhouettes of demons on their way to spirit my daughter away, but the portal is already disintegrating in the wake of the salt.
I cross to Edmond, kicking Sultan in the side when he reaches for my leg. “Stay down, shithead,” I warn him before grabbing Edmond’s sleeve. “Was that a demon portal? Is Amy in danger? Should I call the daycare center and—”
“No, I don’t think so,” Edmond says, cupping my cheek. “And I closed it before anyone could come through. We’re safe.” The breath wooshes out of me in relief, but before it can woosh back in, he adds, “For now.”
“For now?” I squeak. “What do you mean for now? What was that about? What was he trying to do?”
“We’ll talk after I call for backup,” he says, hopping up onto the bar and swinging his long legs over it in one easy motion.
“Okay,” I say, glaring at Sultan hard enough that he’ll hopefully think twice about trying to stand up again. But the man suddenly seems defeated, almost…deflated, lying there on the worn floorboards, clutching the place where I kicked him like he was gored by a unicorn not the toe of my soft leather boot.
Turning back to Edmond I continue, “And what about the rat? Are you friends with it? And do you have other furry friends I should know about who are also vectors for plague, typhus, lyme disease, salmonella, and other diseases I’ve forgotten how to pronounce?”
