Paladin (Graven Gods 1) (2 page)

BOOK: Paladin (Graven Gods 1)
3.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

She quit yowling to hook her claws in my sleep shirt. Clinging, she began to shake in racking quivers, a pitiful ball of feline panic. I forgot about my own scare and hugged her, stroking her silky ears and murmuring the sort of nonsense people say to terrified cats. My ankle stung; she’d probably clawed me bloody. I’d tend it later. The important thing was to convince Cal she was safe from cat-eating monsters.

Thoroughly awake now, I limped around, Calliope in the crook of one arm as I used my free hand to turn off lamps and the overhead light. I got back in bed, her lashing tail beating softly against my ribs. “I guess I’m not the only one who had a nightmare, huh, baby?”

With me curled protectively around her, Calliope finally calmed down. Running a hand down her ebony fur, so did I.

I must have dreamed those sparks, just as I’d dreamed Paladin’s kiss.

I’d grown up sleepwalking. Every couple of weeks I’d wake shaking, convinced I’d almost died. My dreams were intense: the smell of burning skin, flashes of agony and desperate effort against tattooed men in robes and armor.

I used the dreams as inspiration for scenes in my books: Richard Paladin battling demons, his big body launching punches and spinning kicks, his sword an arc of light as magic flashed in his pale eyes. Night after night I dreamed, until repetition rendered the horrific almost routine.

But that thing just now had been another order of magnitude worse than the worst of those. Distilled evil, looking at me. And hungering.

More terrifying than any dream I’d ever had.


Summer, go to sleep. You had a nightmare
,” Paladin murmured from the depths of my mind, his rich voice lulling.

I let my head drop back on the pillow with a sigh. He might be nothing more than my subconscious given voice, but he seemed like so much more. He’d always been there for me, even during my lonely childhood.

It’s no wonder I can’t keep a lover
, I thought sleepily.


I can’t compete with your imaginary fuck buddy
,” my ex-boyfriend snarled on his way out, wrapped in wounded vanity.

Paladin was more than a fuck buddy. Hell, sometimes I thought he was more than imaginary…


Summer
,” Paladin rumbled, “
Go to sleep
.”

The room filled with the thrum of Calliope’s purr. She’d quit shaking, though her blue eyes glowed in the dark, worried and watchful.

Sleep gulped me down.

When I woke the next morning Calliope was gone. There wasn’t so much as a black cat hair on the embroidered white wedding ring quilt I’d inherited from… someone. Mother, grandmother, great-grandmother? I had no idea, thanks to the amnesia that kept me from remembering the first twelve years of my childhood.

I wondered if the cat had really been there last night. For once, I knew how to find out. Rolling out of bed, I examined my ankles. If it had been real, there should be claw marks, maybe a puncture or two from Calliope’s efficient teeth. But my skin was unbroken.

Guess I dreamed the whole thing after all. Too bad
, I thought, remembering the dancing sparks that had looked like one of Paladin’s spells. It would be cool to be able to work magic, to summon energies science had never discovered.

I eyed the bed. A gauzy white lace canopy hung suspended above it from a brass ring in the middle of the ceiling. Strings of fairy lights wound amid its folds, shedding lacy shadows over the room, a DIY project I’d seen on Pinterest. If I ever found a potential lover, I’d have to sneak in and take it all down. Otherwise he’d think I was the kind of overly romantic bimbo who’d expect a proposal for breakfast.

He’d be gone so fast, he’d leave a contrail.

Could I have seen those fairy lights and mistaken them for magical sparks? Yeah, that made sense. More sense than the idea I’d started working magic in my sleep, anyway.

As for the Lovecraftian horror that had contemplated me in the dark, that was just your typical Summer St. Clare bad dream. I’ve had people gush about how lucky I am to be creative.
Yeah, right. Let’s swap nightmares. See what you say the morning after
.

I dressed for the day in my usual blend of styles -- hipster with a dash of neo-Goth, covered in nutty Cosplay goodness. Today I wore black jeans, a pair of Wonder Woman Converse All Stars, and one of my favorite snarky T-shirts -- Darth Vader on a star field background intoning, “The NERD is strong in this one!”

Next came the makeup; smoky blue, blending into green toward the center, then a sweep of black liquid eyeliner and a coat of mascara. The dramatic color made my blue eyes pop, accented by shoulder-length black hair, the bottom third of it dyed peacock blue, shading into violet at the tips. That, in turn, matched the swirling tattoos on my forearms, blue on one, violet on the other, matching sigils inked on each palm. The tatts were so cool, I’d given them to Paladin in the urban fantasies I wrote.

Basically I looked like a character from one of my own novels. Which was the whole idea. Fantasy writers are expected to be a little weird.

Almost as weird as the fact I didn’t actually remember getting those tatts. I just woke up with them one day eight years ago, when I was seventeen. Judging from the psychic fog that surrounded the event, I blame beer. Shit like that is why I don’t drink anymore.

My aunt, Mary Reynolds, who’d raised me after my mother died, had given the ink a long, worried look. To my surprise, she didn’t jump me about it, though her then-husband Bob wanted to ground me until the next ice age. She’d coolly informed him I had her permission, a lie which resulted in a ferocious fight.

I’d always suspected I was one of the reasons they broke up, though Mary had sworn the divorce was the inevitable result of Bob’s asshattery.

Remembering her voice drawling that bit of sarcasm made me smile, even as it caused a familiar stab of grief.

After breakfast -- Captain Crunch for me, Tender Vittles for Calliope -- I scooped up cat and purse for the trip to the shop. Leaving Cal at home wasn’t an option; she’d avenge her loneliness on my antiques. I liked the house too much to leave it to Calliope’s dubious feline mercy.

Besides, bookstores and cats go together. Customers loved sitting in one of the store’s shabby armchairs, Calliope purring in somebody’s lap, drinking coffee and reading used paperbacks. These days, a bookstore needs all the customer-bait it can get.

New day
, I reminded myself.
Lots of shit to get done
.

Purse slung over my shoulder and Cal in my arms, I started for the bright blue Kia Soul parked at the curb. I glanced up at the house silhouetted against the bright blue October morning. It had that charmingly creepy quality some Victorians have, with its mansard roof of fish scale slate, dove gray siding, and white porch. Geometric details were picked out around the windows in slate gray trim, while the window frames themselves were painted a deep blue.

My eyes strayed to the top floor, then slid quickly away. Some things you just don’t want to think about first thing in the morning. The fact that Mom had been murdered in the dojo was definitely one of them.

I put Calliope into the cat carrier belted into the passenger seat. She went willingly enough, only to huddle behind the wire door looking grim. I don’t think she liked my driving.

We roared out of the driveway a bit faster than we probably should. Flights of Fancy was supposed to open at ten o’clock, and I was running late. Last night’s… dream, sleepwalking episode, whatever you wanted to call it, had resulted in my hitting the snooze button a few too many times. My eyes felt gritty, and my muscles ached.

With the cat rumbling bad-tempered complaints from the depths of her carrier, I navigated the neighborhood’s narrow streets. Victorian, Craftsman, and Colonials presided over manicured postage-stamp lawns, surrounded by elms and oaks flaming with the colors of fall. In my upscale Graven neighborhood, people treated their yards like children, nurturing them with the fanatical attention of helicopter parents. Elaborate gardens, like elaborate old houses, were the rule rather than the exception in Morgan Heights. Most of the homes dated back at least a century, and some went all the way back to the founding of the city two hundred years ago.

By all rights I should live in some skanky apartment complex, while working my ass off at a couple of minimum wage jobs in order to afford rent.

Instead, my mother had left me the house, the strip mall my bookstore occupied, and several other properties. There’d also been half a million in cash and investments. Apparently it was old family money, though exactly what my ancestors had done to earn it was anybody’s guess. Mary had been surprisingly closed-mouth about it, despite my attempts to get her to talk.

God knew the money hadn’t come from running a bookstore. The only one who’s ever gotten rich selling books is Jeff Bezos.

When it came to solving my life’s assorted mysteries, I wasn’t exactly Richard Paladin. Either the clues weren’t there, or I was too dumb to recognize them.

Flights of Fancy occupied one end of the strip mall, a couple of miles from the house. My tenants included a Chinese restaurant with a decent buffet, a tattoo parlor that did truly amazing ink, and a consignment shop whose owner seemed to find me somehow menacing.

Jennifer Stone got out of her car at the same time I emerged from mine. She was a pretty forty-year-old, with red hair, blue eyes and a teenage son who was one of my best customers. Dave Stone was fifteen, a carrot-top like his mother, tall, blue-eyed and surprisingly athletic for such a devout nerd. A participant in the weekly Magic the Gathering tournaments, Dave also adored Calliope, which got him automatic cat-lover points with me.

I had no idea why his mother seemed to find me so intimidating.

“Hello, Ms. Stone,” I said over Calliope’s sharp black ears, as the cat rode in my arms. “Pretty day.” It was the kind of cool, piercingly clear morning that made October in South Carolina a luminous delight.

Waving vaguely without looking at me, my tenant speed-walked to her shop. Its door opened and closed with a jangle of agitated bells before I even made it across the parking lot.

“What the hell is her problem?” Shaking my head, I unlocked Flights of Fancy, pushed the door open, and released Calliope. The cat thumped to the floor and ghosted off ahead of me, soundless as a puff of smoke. The string of bells attached to the door jingled as I closed it.

Turning on the lights, I surveyed the room with satisfaction, breathing deep, enjoying the dry, dusty smell of ink, books and old paper.

I loved that smell. It always reminded me of summer mornings at Mary’s shop in Charlotte. Sprawled on my stomach reading while my aunt worked, or sharing a giggle with her about the handsome hunk on the cover of some romance.

God, I missed my aunt. It had been three years since Mary died, but sometimes the pain felt as vivid as if it had just happened. Drunk driver, a blind curve, head-on collision. The only comfort in the whole situation was that it had been so fast, the coroner said she didn’t suffer.

But that meant I also hadn’t had time to say goodbye, just as I’d been unable to say goodbye to my parents and my brother. Or if I had, I didn’t remember it.

The family had a tragic history of car wrecks. My father and brother died two years before my mother’s murder when their Jeep ran off the road and flipped. Sometimes I wondered if the home invasion that had killed Mom would have happened at all if Dad had still been alive. Thinking about that kind of thing would drive you crazy if you let it, so I didn’t.

You’d think my amnesia would be a blessing, considering how many tragic losses I’d suffered. And true, there was a certain welcome numbness that came with a lack of memory. Yet I also found comfort in my happy Mary memories that I didn’t have when it came to my family.

So I stayed busy. Since returning to Graven following Mary’s death, I’d opened Flights of Fancy and turned it into a haven for my fellow nerds. There were posters celebrating anime and superhero movies, models of the Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon hung from the ceiling, and a cardboard Harry Potter rode his broom over the children’s section.

I also held Magic the Gathering card game tournaments every Saturday, hosted elaborate Halloween costume parties, and booked science fiction novelists to do signings.

As a result, kids like Dave Stone hung out at my shop. And yes, my little nerd friends bought everything from science fiction novels to Dungeons and Dragons manuals. Yet I was motivated less by profit than a craving for friendship. I’d spent too many lonely childhood years when my only friends were Calliope and Mary.

And Paladin, once my imaginary boy companion, now my swashbuckling magical hero. Also demon lover, best friend, and erotic inspiration. Whoever, whenever, however I needed him.


And I always will be
,” he murmured, deep voice filling my head.

Going to the antique china hutch against one wall, I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a coffee filter and a bag of expensive coffee. The customers loved the brew as much as I did, which was how I justified buying it.

Running a business is expensive. I had to be careful or I’d burn through my cash and end up flat broke. As it was, I survived thanks to customers who never set foot in the store. I loves me some Internet. Fulfilling the needs of my online clientele kept me in business, not to mention prowling conventions and flea markets searching for collectables.

Now if only Paladin’s novels would take off. At the moment my royalties were just barely paying the shop’s water bill.

And yes, I am aware of the irony of a bookseller writing e-books. More than one brick-and-mortar shopkeeper has given me Facebook lectures about being an e-traitor.

But I was a writer first, and I wanted to be published. The big New York publishers didn’t bite, which left self-publishing as my only option. Sue me.

And why didn’t New York bite? Was I that bad?

My answers to that question usually range from
I’m awesome
to
I suck
, depending on whether I’ve gotten any one-star reviews on Amazon that particular day.

BOOK: Paladin (Graven Gods 1)
3.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Enforcer by Campbell, Caesar, Campbell, Donna
All For An Angel by Jasmine Black
Healing Hands by Hoy, E.S
Mad Powers (Tapped In) by Mark Wayne McGinnis
The Heart Denied by Wulf, Linda Anne
The Canterbury Murders by Maureen Ash
Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips