Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (42 page)

“Nothing. It’s on a Tuesday — how much partying can I do on a Tuesday?”

“We could still go out to dinner or something.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless Danny’s taking you out?”

“Danny?” I laughed, but I didn’t sound very amused, even to myself. “If he actually remembers that it’s my birthday, I’ll probably fall down dead of a heart attack.”

“Well, did you tell him it was?”

“I might have mentioned it once or twice.” And I had, even though the last comment had been almost a month ago. Still, the guy was practically glued to his iPhone. He could have written it down and put an alarm on the entry or something so he wouldn’t forget. Unfortunately, that assumed a level of concern I was pretty certain didn’t exist.

“So if he forgets, are you going to dump him?”

“I might,” I said evasively. “Look, something is better than nothing, isn’t it?”

Nina sighed. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. You were doing fine before Danny came along, and you’ll be fine when he’s gone. I think he’s more of a distraction than anything else. If you’ve got a relationship going on, even a half-assed one, you’re not going to work very hard to find someone else.”

“Maybe there isn’t anyone else,” I argued.

“There’s always someone else,” she said calmly. “All this stuff about there being only one perfect person for everybody is crap. Don’t tell me you’ve started reading romance novels in your spare time, ’cause that’s the only way I can see you starting to think that’s how the world works.”

“No romance novels.” I held up a hand in a mocking imitation of the Girl Scout salute. “I solemnly swear that there are no Nora Roberts or Barbara Michaels books lurking under my bed.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

The conversation drifted off into other matters after that, and then it was time to head out and get in a little more shopping before the early dark of a January afternoon fell. Rather, I got to watch Nina create havoc with her platinum card as we wended our way down the Third Street Promenade. She’d landed a cushy gig as the manager of an extremely high-end art gallery in Santa Monica, and her paychecks were a lot fatter than mine. But I didn’t mind watching as she shopped; at least it kept me occupied and away from my apartment for a few more hours. I didn’t even have a cat to go home to. My apartment building didn’t allow pets, and besides, I had a mortal fear of turning into the crazy cat lady. Anything but that.

Eventually, though, I had to go home. Once there, I shoved my iPod in its dock and turned up the volume on my stereo to drown out the silence. Then I got to work on laundry and bills and all the other fun stuff I inevitably put off until the weekend. It worked a little; I actually had stretches of a half-hour or so where I didn’t feel completely alone.

A
s it turned out
, my birthday ended up sucking even more than I thought it would. Not only did Danny completely forget that Tuesday, January 23, held any special significance, but Nina came down with a nasty cold that was making the rounds and couldn’t possibly be expected to go anywhere except maybe the local drugstore to pick up more tissues and Nyquil.

“Sorry,” she told me. I winced as a particularly piercing sneeze came through the earpiece of the hands-free unit on my cell phone. “I’ve been sucking zinc lozenges like there’s no tomorrow. I haven’t noticed much of a difference.”

“It’s all right,” I said miserably. Someone behind me honked, and I realized the light I’d been sitting at had finally turned green. I took my foot off the brake and slowly moved forward. “I’ll figure out something.”

“What about Jennifer or Micaela?” Nina asked, naming the only two from our group of friends at UCLA that we’d continued to hang out with after graduation.

“Jennifer’s up skiing in Mammoth, and Micaela’s production schedule just got bumped ten days. She’ll be lucky if she gets home before midnight.” A film major, Micaela was actually doing what so many people only dreamed of — she was a production assistant at Warner Brothers. Unfortunately, her dream job meant her schedule was beyond screwy. I repressed the urge to heave a world-weary sigh and said, “It’s all right. My dad sent me a huge check — guilt money for being in Hawaii on my birthday, I guess — so I’m going shopping.”

“Good girl.” Nina sneezed again. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “You go lie down. You sound terrible.”

“You should see how I look. It’s even worse.”

Somehow I doubted that, since even with a head cold Nina always managed to look fabulous, but I didn’t argue. I just made some more sympathetic noises into the phone, assured her I was fine, and hung up.

My father really had sent me a birthday card with a check for five hundred dollars in it. While I had no intention of blowing even a third of that money tonight, I thought a little shopping at The Grove might make me feel better about being completely abandoned on my birthday. Oh, I supposed if I had really wanted to I could have driven down to Orange County to see my mother, but the traffic was so bad by the time I got off work at five that it would have taken me at least two hours to get there. Besides, we already had plans to get together on Saturday. No doubt she’d take me to some “fabulous” new organic place she’d found in Laguna Beach, and I’d have to pretend I was happy eating something covered in sprouts and suspiciously lacking in meat. But if it made her happy, I’d survive. I figured I could always get a burger on the way home if I felt particularly starved afterward.

The Grove was located near the old Farmer’s Market at the corner of Third and Fairfax. While it had considerably expanded the shopping possibilities in the area, its presence also increased traffic to the point where it was practically gridlocked during peak drive times. Although my company’s offices were a scant mile and a half from the shopping center, it took me almost fifteen minutes to get there, crawl up to the top level of the parking structure, and finally drag myself out of my Mercedes C-class, feeling vaguely homicidal. I reflected it was a good thing I didn’t have to do much driving. For some reason, being in a car really brought home to me how overpopulated Southern California actually was. When you start to sympathize with serial killers because at least they’re reducing the surplus population, you know you’ve got a problem.

By the way, the car was a graduation present from my father. I sure as hell couldn’t have afforded it on my salary. I had to give him that — he definitely wasn’t stingy. And in L.A., where what you drive is just as important as what you do, having something better than the tired Honda Accord I’d been piloting since tenth grade was a definite relief.

Intellectually I knew that you shouldn’t have your identity wrapped up in your car, and I didn’t (mostly), but the change in people’s attitudes after I started driving the Mercedes told me there was a very good reason why people here were so car-obsessed. Besides, I felt safe in it, the gas mileage was fairly decent, and it hadn’t given me a moment’s trouble in the almost four years that I’d been driving it. I couldn’t say that much for my Honda, which by the end was making piteous groaning noises and leaking oil. It had practically been begging to be taken out behind the barn and shot. Not knowing what else to do with it, I’d donated it to charity. The tax write-off was helpful at least, although I came out of the transaction feeling as if I’d done something vaguely illegal.

I pulled my coat more closely around me as I hurried over to the elevator and pushed the button. Some people might claim that Southern California doesn’t have seasons, but they must not have ever lived here. Sure, it doesn’t snow in L.A., but it can get pretty darn cold during the winter. Okay, maybe not cold compared to say, Quebec or something, but certainly cold enough to require a warm coat if you’re going to spend any more time outdoors than simply walking to your car.

It had rained the night before, but at least by the time I got to The Grove it was dry. Shoving my chilled fingers into my pockets, I stepped out of the elevator and moved into the open plaza in the center of the mall. The Grove was always fairly crowded, but that night it was more maneuverable than usual. January was sort of a dead season for retail sales, and the cold weather wasn’t helping much.

I didn’t have a real game plan; I just wandered in and out of several stores, thinking something would catch my eye. Having that much spare money burning a hole in my pocket certainly wasn’t my normal experience. Usually I had to budget and figure out if I’d really have enough extra cash to buy that great pair of shoes I’d been lusting after, or whether it would be better to just put it away in case of any real financial emergencies. I’d say my better nature won out only about half the time, but at least I had some killer shoes.

Eventually I came to Victoria’s Secret. Part of my brain tried to instruct me in the futility of buying fancy underwear when I didn’t have anyone around to give a damn about how I looked in it, but I’d always had a weakness for girly stuff. Besides, they were having a sale, and damn it, it was my birthday.

I suppose it was my musing over the matching red satin bra and panties I’d just purchased that made me a little absentminded. Then again, maybe that was just what he wanted me to think.

Whatever the reason, I was peering into the bag as I left the store (I tended to get paranoid about dropping a store receipt and having someone somehow steal my identity from the four digits of my Visa number printed on it), and I walked right into him.

“Sorry!” I said automatically. Then I looked up to see who I had collided with.

It was
him
.

He smiled at me.

“Hello, Christa,” he said.

F
or a second
, I just goggled at him. Then I remembered to shut my mouth. At first I wanted to demand how the hell he could possibly know my name, and then that thought got twisted up in bemusement at the fact that he still looked exactly the same.

My tongue tripped over itself, and all that came out was a strangled, “Wha — who — ”

Again that smile. “Call me Luke.”

If someone asks you to “call them” something, then you can be pretty damn sure it’s not their real name. I clutched my Victoria’s Secret shopping bag against my chest like a shield and tried to gather whatever shreds of my dignity might be left. Not knowing what else to say, I asked, “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“Perhaps.”

Perhaps
?
Who says “perhaps” these days?
“I know I saw you,” I said firmly. “About seven years ago, on the campus at UCLA. Or maybe we should go a little further back...say, to my eighth-grade graduation?”

“You are observant, aren’t you, Christa?” He glanced around us, at the people hurrying in and out of shops and restaurants. “Not a very private place for a conversation, is it?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why would we need to have a private conversation?”

“You’ll see.” He stuck his hands in his coat pockets, still smiling that enigmatic smile, and then suddenly we were someplace else.

The whole world seemed to tilt around me, and I let out a little shriek. Not very dignified, I know, but you try standing in the middle of a shopping center one second and then being — well, I didn’t know exactly where I was, but it certainly wasn’t The Grove.

My first impression was of a panorama that glittered in the darkness, and then I realized I stood in the living room of a house that must have been built up against the Hollywood Hills or someplace like that. Los Angeles lay spread out beneath me, a moving carpet of light. After I caught my breath and looked around a little more, I realized the place looked oddly familiar.

What the hell? “Is this the
Charlie’s Angels
house?” I demanded. I was kind of obsessed with that movie back in high school. Kicking ass while wearing a progression of crazy disguises looked like a lot of fun.

“The what?” he asked.

“In the first
Charlie’s Angels
movie, the computer genius who turns out to be the bad guy had one of those houses up on stilts in the hills. This one looks just like it.”

The stranger appeared nonplused. “Aren’t you even going to ask how we got here?”

Well, my brain had sort of skipped over that part, probably because if I’d stopped to think about it, my head would have exploded. But the rationalizing had already kicked in. Maybe he’d injected something in my arm when we bumped into each other, and he’d dragged me up here while I was in a drugged state. Or maybe I only thought I was here, while in reality I’d actually fallen down and was now lying on the ground, still at The Grove, with a concussion and possibly worse.

I shot him a wary look. “Are you going to tell me if I ask?”

He gave me the last answer I expected. “Of course.”

That took me off-guard, so I had to digest his reply for a few seconds before saying, “Okay, then…how did we get here?”

“I brought us here.”

“You…brought…us here.”

He shrugged. “It’s a little thing I do.”

“You…
do
?”

Up until that moment I thought he had dark eyes, since his hair and brows were such a deep brown, but as his eyes glinted at me I suddenly realized they were a very dark blue. A corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “It’s because I’m the Devil.”

Again, I could only stand there and stare at him, feeling as if somehow I had been made the butt of a colossal joke. Finally I managed, “The
what
?”

He moved across the living room, which was decorated with museum-quality ’60s-vintage modern furniture, and paused at the bar that separated the kitchen and dining room. “Cosmo?”

“Yes,” I said automatically. Right then the only thing in the universe I thought I had a firm grasp on was that I needed a stiff drink.

As if by magic a cocktail shaker appeared on the bar before him; he busied himself with pouring a measure of Grey Goose vodka into it, followed by the necessary cranberry juice and Cointreau. He transferred the resulting concoction into a martini glass, then came back around the bar and handed the drink to me.

I looked at it with some suspicion, but need won out over caution. I took a sip, then another. It was good.

“So you’re the Devil,” I said, in what I hoped was an off-hand conversational tone. He didn’t look particularly crazy, but that didn’t mean much. The evening news was full of people saying,
But he seemed like such a normal person....

“Yes,” he said.

“And so you’re visiting L.A.?” I asked, thinking,
Just don’t make any sudden movements, and you’ll be fine.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that,” I said hastily. Nutcases hated having their psychoses thrown back at them.

“This isn’t evidence enough?” He gestured toward the oddly familiar room in which we stood.

I hesitated. While I wanted to point out that he could have drugged me and brought me here, or that he could be another element in some elaborate hallucination, I didn’t want to upset him, either. Just because I couldn’t see any sharp pointy objects in the vicinity didn’t mean he couldn’t get his hands on something if necessary.

Realizing I still held the Victoria’s Secret bag, I wadded it up and shoved it inside my purse. There were just so many blows to my dignity I could take in one evening, and every time his eyes went to the shopping bag I wondered if he were imagining what sorts of unmentionables I had hidden inside.

“All right,” I said at last. “If you’re really the Devil, why go for something so — so — ”

“So what?” he asked softly.

“So typical,” I replied. “I mean, wow, you’re the Devil, and now you’ve got the ultimate L.A. bachelor pad from the movies or whatever. Do you really think this sort of thing impresses women?”

Dead silence. I swallowed, and wondered where the front door was and whether I could get to it quickly enough before he decided my rudeness deserved a quick evisceration.

Then he threw back his head and laughed. It wasn’t crazy hysterical laughter — he just sounded like someone who’d heard a friend tell a particularly funny bar joke. “I begin to see what He meant,” he murmured.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” For the first time I noticed he held a martini of his own. I hadn’t seen him mix it, but maybe he had a second cocktail shaker hidden somewhere on the bar.

Or maybe he really
is
the Devil
, I thought,
and he just conjured it out of thin air...because he can.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” he asked. Lifting his glass, he took a swallow of his own drink. Then he winked at me.

And the scene changed again. Somehow I managed to retain enough presence of mind to maintain a death grip on my martini glass. I blinked, and we were no longer standing in that overly retro-cool living room. Instead, my surroundings reminded me of a Tuscan villa — dark wood floors with faded but still costly oriental rugs, antiques in simple woods that matched the floors. At one end of the chamber in which we stood, a fire burned softly in an enormous fireplace with a surround of glazed red tiles.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Italy?”

“Hancock Park.”

Hancock Park was an extremely upscale part of Los Angeles approximately five miles east of where I lived in the Fairfax District. A hell of a lot closer than Tuscany, that was for sure, but still there was no way we could have gotten there in the blink of an eye, especially with rush hour crawling toward seven o’clock on the streets outside.

“I think I need to sit down.” I spotted a couch a few yards away and stumbled over to it, feeling as if someone had smacked me upside the head a few times with a baseball bat.

“Good idea.” He followed me but remained standing while I sank down onto the sofa. I felt the warmth of down-filled cushions support my outraged muscles.

Not knowing what else to do, I sipped at my drink again. Devil or not, he made a hell of a Cosmo.

“Better?” he asked.

“Nice house,” I said cautiously. “Is it yours?”

“It is now.”

I hated it when people made me feel stupid. Frowning a little, I asked, “What does that mean?”

“I mean that it was on the market, but with after-holiday sales sluggish as they are, the realtor had despaired and dropped the price. Lo and behold! She’ll come into the office tomorrow and find the offers all signed and countersigned, and the owners paid with a cashier’s check for the full asking price.”

“You can do that?”

He smiled at me. If it had been anyone else, that sort of smile would have made my knees melt. As it was….

“I can do anything I want,” he replied.

“Anything?” I asked. It came out more as a squeak. So much for the whole dignity thing.

“Well, almost.” The smile faded slightly. “I do have a few rules I have to follow.”

I wondered who would set rules the Devil had to follow, came to the immediate conclusion that it had to be someone Very Important, and gulped. In what I hoped were airy tones I commented, “But obviously they don’t prevent you from making real estate deals.”

“No, not that.”

Feeling a little braver — after all, he might be the Devil, but he certainly hadn’t done anything threatening so far — I asked, “So why are you here? And what does any of this have to do with me?”

For a moment he didn’t say anything. He turned away from me slightly and appeared to watch the movement of the fire in the hearth. Finally he said, “I needed to ask you something.”

That sounded ominous. Maybe he was under his soul-collection quota for the month. With nervous fingers I tucked a strand of hair back behind one ear. “Um — what did you need to ask me?”

The blue eyes met mine. If he were just a regular guy I’d met on the street, I would have killed to hear the question he asked next.

“Would you have dinner with me?”

Again I found myself momentarily struck dumb. Possibly I wasn’t acquitting myself too well — I, who had always prided myself on being good with words if nothing else — but then again, how many people can handle a dinner invitation from the Devil without feeling just a little over-balanced?

Eventually, however, my vocal chords decided to function again. “Why?”

He definitely had a smile that made you think maybe Hell had gotten a bad rap all those years. “It’s your birthday,” he replied.

“Well, when you put it that way,” I said. Then I thought,
Oh, the hell with it...literally
. “Dinner sounds great.”

The smile deepened. “I thought you might say that.”

It was too late to back out now. I just smiled back at him and hoped I hadn’t done something really, really stupid.

F
or some reason
I’d thought he would simply whisk me away to a restaurant by the same precipitous eye-blink method he’d used earlier. Instead, he instructed me to wait for him at a side entrance of the house under a porte-cochere (which was something I’d read about but had never actually seen in real life). Then he pulled up in a massive hunk of impressively gleaming metal.

“What is that?” I asked, staring at the car. I’d never seen anything like it before in my life.

“Bentley Arnage,” he replied, opening the passenger door for me.

Well, damn. I was sure my car-obsessed father would have a fit if he could see me riding around in something like this. He drove an AMG-tuned Mercedes S-class and thought it was just about the pinnacle of automotive perfection, but this behemoth made my father’s Mercedes look like a Yugo.

“Nice,” I said, sliding carefully onto the diamond-upholstered leather seat. “Being the Devil must pay well.”

“It has its perks.” He shut the door after I seated myself; it closed with the sort of soft, solid
thunk
that only a very, very expensive car can make.

I sat there, taking in the scent of finely burnished leather upholstery, as he made his way back over to the driver’s side and buckled himself in. Then I said, “So you do get around like a normal person.” Pausing, I took in the opulent interior and added, “At least like a normal oil sheik or something.”

He chuckled, then put the car in drive. The only reason I could tell we were moving was that I saw the manicured front yard slipping past us as he pulled out of the driveway. “Although people do tend to be notoriously unobservant, after a while too much inexplicable appearing and disappearing can get one noticed.” He leaned over and touched a knob on the dashboard; the delicate sound of a string quartet began to play in the background. “Besides, I like to drive.”

Who wouldn’t, with a car like that? I thought that even being stuck in traffic on the 405 Freeway could be made bearable by sitting in a mobile Ritz like this mammoth piece of machinery.
The gas mileage must suck
, I thought, then,
as if that makes a difference for anyone who can afford a car like this.

“I thought we’d go to Campanile,” he went on, pulling out of the exclusive subdivision where his home was located and onto Beverly Boulevard. “If that’s all right with you.”

It was more than a little all right. Although the restaurant wasn’t that far from where I lived, it certainly wasn’t the sort of place where I could afford to eat on a whim, and none of the guys I’d dated had the means (or the taste, I had to admit) to take me someplace like that. “Sounds great,” I managed.

He nodded, then pulled into the left lane so he could turn south on La Brea. Everything in his manner suggested that he’d done this a hundred times before, and maybe he had. Who knew how long he’d been loitering in the Los Angeles area, driving around in his luxo-mobile and observing the doings of lesser mortals?

That led me to wonder exactly what he was doing here and, more importantly, what on earth he wanted with me. I wasn’t anyone special, that was for sure. The fate of the planet didn’t rest on my shoulders; I wasn’t an activist or a politician or anyone with any real influence. There were probably a hundred thousand other young women of my age and basic physical type in Southern California, so what led him to hone in on me?