Hey y'all, Dakota here. Thank you so much for all your support from the first two chapters. While I'd written stuff on the more risque side before this was the first time I thought I had something good enough for Lit so your ratings and comments mean a lot to me. Thank you!
"Lenore, be nice," Gwen warned but it was too late.
The redhead, another absolute knockout by James' estimation, had already bared her fangs at him and his appreciation of the pale beauty turned to terror as he struggled with two new and novel concepts.
One, that vampires were also real.
And two, that one was about to kill him.
The vampire crossed the room so fast that James didn't see her move. Her eyes were black like a shark's and when she appeared in front of him, he couldn't look away. She yanked him by the hair exposing his neck and he attempted to push her but he might as well have been trying to stop a car. He didn't have to guess what she intended next.
He closed his eyes.
But no bite came.
There was a thud as the vampire--Lenore, Gwen had called her--impacted the far wall, skipping off it at an angle, and causing a priceless painting to fall.
Gwen was holding out both hands.
Lenore was on her feet immediately but didn't move to attack again.
"Really, Gwendolyn?" she asked, indignant. "Over a human?"
"I already told him he could leave."
"At least when I hunt, I have the good sense to do so away from where I live."
"We're not hunting!" Ash interjected. "This is James and he's nice! You don't get to just eat whoever you want!"
"Easy, Ariel," Lenore said. "This is no time for pet humans."
"I'm not Ariel!" Ash yelled. "I don't even have red hair! You do! You're Ariel!" Ash's hair, while decidedly not red, did begin to float upward, as if charged by static electricity. Then it started flowing as if she were underwater, the blonde becoming nearly white. Her skin began to glow. "And he's not a pet!"
Energy, the likes of which James had never felt, filled the room and he understood that whatever was about to happen it would probably be bad. He jumped between Ash and Lenore, hands up, trying to stop whatever crazy magic she was about to release.
"Woah, woah, woah! I think there has been a huge misunderstanding." He turned to Lenore. "Hi. I'm James and I just found out that mermaids, vampires, and magic exist all in the same day. It's actually really great to meet you. Big fan of you guys. Lost Boys is one of my favorite movies."
"I'm gonna kill him," Lenore said.
"Wait!" James kept his hand up, willing her to stay back. "Gwen was nice enough to give me an amnesia potion, which I was about to take. So I'll just do that and then, you know, leave."
James attempted to locate the vial he'd just been holding and found it, instead, on the floor, the vial shattered, and its contents spilled.
"Well, shit."
Gwen stood next to him, hand on his shoulder but still addressing Lenore. "How about you just talk instead of barging in here without knowing the situation?"
Lenore paused then relented. She retracted her fangs and her eyes cleared, black eyes turning emerald, but she still looked just as pissed. "You want to know the situation? Fine. Anubis is back and he's found us."
"What?" James and Gwen said in unison.
The news immediately deflated Ash, her hair falling back down and the strange energy dissipating. "Uh-oh."
James looked at Gwen and then at Ash as both were stunned to momentary silence.
"You mean
the
Anubis? The Egyptian god of death? That guy?"
"Oh, you know Annie too?" Ash asked, stunned.
"I mean, he's the only one I remember when we learned about pharaohs and mummies in middle school. He has a dog head, right?"
"Jackle," Gwen said, then waved her hand. "Not important. Lenore, exactly what happened?"
Lenore gave a brief rundown of her encounter with him with Gwen hanging on her every word.
"Does he know about us?" Gwen asked.
"I don't know. I don't think so, but we didn't do much catching up."
Gwen thought for a moment. "This house is shielded by pretty powerful protection spells. If he doesn't directly know about it, it's unlikely that he'd stumble across us here. Still..." She turned to James. "Sorry, loverboy. There's no easy way to say this but you're gonna have to stay here for the time being. Since you've already been here, if Anubis were to stumble across
you
, he could easily become aware of this place. Even with the forgetting potion."
"There's a lot to take in here," James said. "How could I find this place if protection spells will keep it concealed from Anubis?"
"I was quite curious about that. While you were in the pool I checked to make sure my enchantments were still active. They were but magic tends to have a mind of its own at times. The main reason I invited you in was to ascertain how you found us. For some reason, you could see through the veil."
"And an ancient Egyptian god wouldn't?"
"Oh, he could find this place easily. But only if he were to become aware of its existence. And knew where to look."
"Let me see if I have this right: Anubis is real too and he doesn't like you, and the plan is to hide out here. And I can't leave because he could read my memory-wiped mind and learn that this house exists."
"Jeez, you sure found a smart one, dincha Gwen? Someone, please get the boy a cookie."
"Ooo," Ash interjected. "I think we still have some of the macadamia nut ones."
"I don't think she wants to give me a cookie," James said.
Lenore glared at him.
"So what does Anubis want with you?" James asked, directing the question to Lenore and not breaking eye contact. Despite almost killing him, he decided he was not going to be intimidated by her.
"To drag me to the underworld. I'm dead, after all."
"Theoretically, he'd be after all of us," Gwen added. "We have avoided dying for centuries. He's a psychopomp."
"A what?"
"Psychopomps guide souls to the afterlife. They come in all shapes and sizes but the one thing they hate, above all else, are souls that are able to avoid them. They are the apex predators of our kind."
James nodded. "So the grim reaper hunts you?"