Author’s note: So, I pitched this book to two (2) agents. I heard from neither and I was too exhausted by the pitching to continue so I give you Fros Kirova, a troubled soul who’s about to get a lot more troubled after what walks like romance and talks like romance turns out to be a lot of other things. And they’re all smelly.
A drop of water splashed on the concrete and soaked into it without a trace. It was that hot even though it was close to eight. A tall copper-haired woman in a black tank top and utility pants who was bringing a can of beer to her mouth paused and waited. Another drop hit the ground an inch from the top of her boot. The woman groaned under her breath and drank. The beer had gone warm but she swallowed it.
She’d been waiting for hours or so it felt and she had forgotten her phone at home so she had no way of knowing. Finally, just as the drops stopped pretending they were a random discharge from the clouds and revealed themselves for the summer rain they were by beginning to fall faster, a figure appeared from around the corner. Two figures, one short and one towering.
“What the hell, Sam?” the woman said, tucking her hands into the pockets of her pants. “I’ve been here for hours.”
“Fros, I’m so sorry, my shower head broke, I had to go buy a new one and there was this huge queue at the DIY store, I’ve no idea what all these people were buying but I stood there for hours.” The newcomer paused for breath.
“I know exactly how you felt,” the woman who the newcomer had addressed as Fros said. She glanced at the man. The newcomer caught the glance.
“That’s Peter,” she said and clapped him on the elbow. His shoulder was too far. “Funny story. I ran out of the house when I saw what the time was and I decided to have a smoke while I walked here and he came out of nowhere asking for a light.” She laughed. “Turned out he only smokes the old kind of cigarettes.”
“Nice to meet you,” the man said and extended a hand.
“Hi.” The hand was dry and cool. The skin slithered against Fros’s palm when the handshake ended and she stifled a shudder.
“So I thought we could take him with us. Any objections?” Sam said brightly. “I’m sure Rory won’t mind. He always invites half the city anyway, what’s one more guest.”
“I forced myself on her,” Peter said with a smile that could only be described as moderate. He had probably practised it. “It’s Saturday night, my plans for the night fell through so I thought I’d join someone else’s plans. I’m safe. I’m a car dealer.”
“Yeah, well, we might as well get a move on before we drown,” Fros said, eyeing the sky suspiciously.
Sam and Peter looked up as if on cue.
“It’s just a drizzle, Fros,” Sam said and pulled out a pack of tobacco sticks and her e-cigarette from her small backpack, more a decoration than a useful container for personal effects.
“I don’t like rain,” Fros said. Her lips stretched over her teeth in her best imitation of a smile but she knew it wasn’t good enough. Not that she cared. It was just Samantha here and some stranger she would never see again after tonight. Although he wasn’t too hard on the eye.
There was a fine curve to the jaw, the lips were wide but unobtrusive on the face and the eyes were almond-shaped, slightly hooded. She stole another glance while Sam lit her foul-smelling stick of nicotine and inhaled. His nose wasn’t too bad, either, just big enough to give him a strong determined profile. And then there was the smell that almost knocked her off her feet.
“I’m ready when you’re ready,” Peter said with a slight bow.
“Come on, Sam, you can smoke on the way. I waited enough for you today,” Fros said, threw her beer can in the bin nearby and started down the street. The smell was too much. The hair was too much. Tall, dark and handsome was fine when it wasn’t overdone but the hair was an overdo. Really, who had naturally wavy hair these days? Nobody, that’s who. And that smell wasn’t cologne. It was his body odour.
Peter caught up with her just as she was trying to remember who Rory had said would be at the party to prepare for the unpleasant encounters in advance and distract herself from smells and wavy hair. Unfortunately, her mind was temporarily a blank. It was the rain. Whatever Sam – who was now complaining that they were walking too fast for her – had said it wasn’t a drizzle. It was an ominous drizzle and Fros could bet money it would turn into a torrent before they turned the corner.
“You don’t look too happy about me coming with you,” Peter said with another smile, this one of the uncertain but charming variety.
Fros shrugged.
“I don’t mind. Sam is old enough to choose her companions.”
“Okay, that’s good to hear,” Peter said. “Though I’m not actually a companion. I’m just tagging along. Sam said this Rory throws great parties.”
“If you have nothing else to do on a Saturday, yeah, maybe.” Fros was about to shrug again but a drop of water fell on her nose and she made a sound of disgust instead. She brushed the water off with force.
“You really hate rain,” Peter observed.
“I really do,” Fros confirmed and started walking faster.
“Come on, you guys,” Sam wailed. “I can’t walk that fast. My legs are not that long!”
Rory’s loft was noisy and smelly. Rory himself greeted Fros and Sam with rib-crushing hugs and shook Peter’s hand cordially enough. Fros had never seen Rory angry but was still hoping. Everyone had a breaking point. There was no way this former youth rugby star turned lawyer after a shoulder injury did not know what anger was. And if there was a way – because Rory was the sweetest, kindest man Fros knew – then there was a monster hiding among people somewhere. The universe wanted balance.
“Come in, come in, we’ve got food and everything.”
“By food you mean beer, right?” Fros said and grinned. She was in the mood for a few beers. That piss she had drunk while waiting for Sam had left a bad taste in her mouth.
“And sushi,” Rory said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and leading her into the space that served as living room and kitchen, with floor to ceiling windows looking out to the city.
“Sushi and beer. Classy.”
“We have crisps,” Rory continued unfazed. “And mini-burgers. And I think Monica is making some salad because she doesn’t eat… most things, I think.”
While Rory spoke Fros felt an unusual itch to look back. She’d left Sam and Peter at the door but they had probably found their way into the house. There was no reason to worry about them or think about them at all. She had come here to have some fun after a rough week.
Rory led her to the kitchen part of the vast space almost without stops to chat with this or that casual acquaintance and let go of her to take a beer out of the fridge. Fros massaged her shoulder. Rory was a gentle giant but still a giant and giants had heavy arms.
“So, how was your week, lovely Euphrosyne?” he asked.
“So boring you wouldn’t believe,” she said and drank. This was something else. Crisp, cold, and bitter. Rory always bought a six pack of her favourite beer brand for these parties and hid it from everyone else. Fros sometimes wondered if it was because of a favour she had done Rory years ago or just because he was attentive to his friends’ needs and preferences. She had never asked.
“Really? You don’t look like someone who can be bored.”
“I don’t?”
“No, you definitely don’t.”
“Hm,” Fros said and drank more beer to stop herself from following her instinct and looking around.
“Anyway, I have a full house to entertain, and you can take care of yourself. Plus I know you don’t like company except in very special cases,” Rory said and scooped up his own beer from the table.
“If you mean that Christmas party two years ago, nothing happened between me and that… What was his name?”
“His name was Owen and I know exactly what didn’t happen. Come on, shoo, mingle, sit outside alone, do whatever you want. See you.”
Sitting outside was not such a bad idea. The room was getting stuffy with all the people in it. Fros could use some fresh air. Besides, Rory’s balcony had an awning.
The rain pattered on that awning like bullets. For a moment Fros wanted to go back in and drag Samantha outside to show her the rain. To her pride, she had learned to control these “I told you so” urges. Her satisfaction with being right was marred, however, by the presence of someone else on the balcony. Fros discovered with some surprise she wasn’t all that surprised to find him here. Another thing she discovered, with some disgust, was that he was leaning on the railing, letting the rain soak his short black coat and his hair.
“Is the party that boring?” she asked.
Peter turned.
“It’s not boring at all. A little crowded, maybe. I thought I’d come out for a bit of fresh air.”
“And a shower, apparently.”
Peter laughed. Fros gritted her teeth. If this laughter was a smell it would be musky, heavy but not too heavy, with a tangerine note, alluring but not imposing. But it wasn’t the laugher. It was Peter that smelled this way. Fros shook her head to clear her nose.
“I like rain,” he said. “And you hate it with a passion, I see.”
“Everyone needs something to hate,” Fros said and took a sip of beer, sniffing deeply. Peter’s smell had stuck. Of course it would. Sam could sure pick them.
“They do?” he asked.
“Yes, they do.” She drank again.
“That’s… interesting.”
Fros sighed.
“It’s just a fact of life. It’s not interesting and neither am I if those were going to be your next words.”
There was this laughter again. It made the hairs on her arms stand on end and she wasn’t sure if it was from annoyance or arousal.
“There you are.” Rory stood at the door. “Fros, could you do me a huge favour and go get some cigarettes? Apparently, I know more smokers than I thought. They must have some at the off-licence round the corner. Please?”
Fros blinked.
“Rory, it’s raining. You know I don’t like the rain.”
“And you know we are trying to cure you of that stupid phobia. Besides, I have an enormous umbrella and you can have it. Please? Nobody else wants to go, even the smokers. Go figure.”
Rory was clearly lying. Fros knew smokers. She was one of them. They would crawl on live embers to get to a pack of cigarettes if they had finished their last one. Rory was trying to cure her of her hate for rain. They had talked about it more than once. He had repeatedly failed to understand that it was not just a random phobia and that no phobia was really random. Yet he simply wanted to help and she didn’t have the heart to make him feel like he failed on that especially since going out, even in the rain, would put more distance between her and the musk and tangerine aura of cool-handed Peter.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “But you could’ve just said you want me to go for a walk in the rain. You didn’t need to lie.”
“May I come?” Peter said. “Just in case a rain drop jumps at you and tries to bite.”
Fros stared at him.
“This wasn’t funny, man,” Rory said. “She’s dealing with it but it’s hard.”
“I’m sorry.” Peter put his hand on his chest like an actor in a classical play. A comic rendering of a classical play. His shirt was open at the throat revealing skin that glistened with rain drops. “I really am. But I would like to come with you. I love walking in the rain.”
Fros pushed away any thoughts about skin, turned and walked back inside without a word. A feeling she was being directed towards something and she couldn’t help herself but go nagged at her but she did her best to ignore it. She was curious what she would find there. A walk in the rain. That was ridiculous. This Peter wanted something from her and if she was right about what it was, it was too bad for him because he wasn’t going to get it.
The pavement was slick with rainwater but it wasn’t flooded as Fros had been afraid it would. Gripping the umbrella’s handle as tightly as a lifeline, she stepped on the wet cement. Peter walked on her right, the side of the hand that held the umbrella. He didn’t seem to notice the rain at all. His hair was dripping water now but he strolled like a man strolling under the sun. On a beach. With not a single care in the world.
“So, what do you do for a living, Fros?” he asked just as casually as that walker on the beach Fros was visualising would.
“I’m a photographer,” she said. “You?”
“A photographer? That’s fascinating. What’s your specialty? Or is this too personal a question?”
“No more personal than my question about what you do,” she said and even managed a smile from under the brim of the umbrella. He was walking hunched now, so he could see her under her anti-rain shield, which was indeed as enormous as Rory had said. Now he stopped. She stopped, too. He turned to her.
“I sell cars,” he said and made a step towards her. “Expensive cars.” He took another step. Fros took a step back. Her heel scraped against the wall of the building. She gripped the handle harder. “I buy them when they come out and then sell them to those who really, really want them. Basically,” he took another step. “I give people what they want.”
“For a price,” Fros said through a throat that was suddenly two sizes too large for the muscles around it.
“Everything has a price,” Peter murmured and leaned in under the umbrella.
Fros had nowhere to go. Her back was against the wall and the umbrella was no good as a weapon. To use it she would have to fold it and that would mean exposing herself to the rain. She couldn’t do that. That was a price too high. She braced herself for the attack. It wouldn’t last long, anyway.
Easily shockable was not how Fros would describe herself but shock was what she felt when Peter’s lips touched hers very gently.
“What?” she said and opened her eyes.
“What what?” Peter said.
“I thought you’d go straight for my jugular.” She relaxed her grip on the umbrella handle. Her hand was beginning to hurt anyway.
“The what? Why would I do that?”
“You’re dangerous,” she said. “Not a figure of speech. And you have a hungry look around the eyes.”
Peter smiled.
“Quite an imagination,” he said and leaned in again. “I like that.”
“Well, well, well, two lovebirds in the rain,” another voice said, freezing them on the spot, their faces an inch from each other. Fros used the moment to study Peter’s features. There was nothing out of the ordinary except an extra intensity in the chestnut-coloured eyes… until the voice spoke again. “Just reach out into your wallet pocket, sir, and throw the contents on the street. I have a gun on you and you don’t want me to use that on your lady, do you? Thanks.”
For the tiniest nanosecond Peter’s eyes flashed a pitch-black – a colour Fros had no idea could flash – and then he smiled.
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said, let go of her and spun around.
Fros tipped the umbrella back just in time to see how Peter caught the robber by the neck in a chokehold and brought his face down as if to whisper in his ear. Only he wasn’t whispering because when he let go, the robber fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. A big sack. Peter ran his hand across his mouth and bent over to pick something up.
“What do you know, he did have a gun,” he said and raised the weapon for Fros to see. “Are you okay?”
Fros crossed over to where the body lay and prodded it with her foot. The body did not move. The air stank of blood but not a drop was to be seen anywhere. Fros made a face to mask the sudden flood of saliva her glands released.
“Are you okay?” Peter asked again, peering under the rim of the umbrella. “I had to neutralise him. He had a gun. He’ll probably come around soon, so we’d better go.”
Fros felt her eyebrows jump so suddenly and with such force she almost reached out to make sure they hadn’t detached.
“You can drop the act,” she said and prodded the body again. “He’s dead and you left your marks on him. What now?”
Peter cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes.
“You look human.”
“So do you.” Fros said. Crossing her arms would have been in order at this point but she couldn’t because the umbrella was in the way. Yet the sounds had changed. She extended her hand outside the reach of the umbrella. Nothing. The rain had stopped. She folded the umbrella and hung it on her elbow before crossing her arms. It wasn’t ideal but it made the point she wanted to make. He was going to have to guess.
“You hate rain,” he said, stepping around the body, closer to her. Fros didn’t move. “Did you smell the blood or see it?”
“Smelled it.”
“And you’re glancing at him like you’re starving and he’s a three-course meal.”
“He is,” she said. “More like one-course but yes, a meal.”
Peter took her by the shoulders and peered into her face. This earned him a point for choosing the gentle touch and not the path of the threat and attack. He deserved a clue. Fros leveled her eyes on his. It was safe. He wasn’t alive. And there it was, the gasp of recognition.
“Golden eyes,” he murmured. “I’ve only ever read about the golden eyes.”
“Say my name,” Fros said, not quite sure why. She meant it to sound like an order. It almost did. He was too close, that was the problem.
“Well I don’t know what your full name is but I know what you are.”
“Say it.”
“A basilisk,” he said. “Fascinating.”
“Isn’t life full of surprises?”
“How did you know about me?” he said. “I mean, when did you know?”
“Just now, when you didn’t die after I looked at you.” She had known the moment his hand had touched hers. Humans, even humans with bad circulation, never had hands this cold. Not this kind of cold.
Peter laughed. He laughed some more. Fros tried to force her mouth to stay put but the grin really wanted to come out so she let it.
“Okay, it’s been fun but I suggest we go now because there may be other people who like to walk in the rain,” she said. It wasn’t true. She wanted to go because the smell of fresh meat was beginning to interfere with her self-control. And Peter caught her. Literally. His arms wrapped her in a loose but nevertheless strong embrace and stopped her.
“Now you drop the act and tell me why do you want to get out of here so much?”
“Fair enough. He’s fresh meat. If I hang around fresh meat for too long I will, well, change.”
“Oh, I have to see this.” The fascination in his eyes sparked like fireworks and fireworks could be blinding if you looked at them too long. Fros had never told any of her human friends what she was. It was too risky. Humans talked, even the ones who swore they wouldn’t. She’d experimented with smaller secrets and had been convinced it’s not worth the risk just to have someone know the truth. Her basilisk ego had been starved for attention for years and here was a feast of not just attention but, by the look of it, admiration, in addition to the literal feast on the street. And unfortunately for her, genuine as these two were, neither could trump the scent that was already beginning to make her arms and legs vibrate.
“We have to go,” she said, freeing herself from his grip. “Now.”
He scooped up the umbrella she had dropped when he had hugged her. Then they almost ran down the street, hand in hand. Around the next corner and down another street Fros decided it was far enough. The smell of the robber’s body was only a distant whiff now, mixed with a hundred other smells.
“Okay, we can stop running now,” Fros said. She was a little out of breath, just a little, and she wasn’t sure it was because of the running. “Well, it has been interesting.”
“It certainly has,” Peter said.
They were both silent for a moment. Fros gently pulled her hand free.
“I should probably go, leave you in peace,” he said, leaving ample space for protest.
Fros had no intention of protesting. She had no intention of opening her mouth at all because she was too uncertain what would come out of it. There was too high a risk it would be something embarrassing such as ‘Stay’ or the far worse ‘Don’t go.’ As she deliberated nodding, turning around and going she found herself flung against another wall and pressed into it. She had momentarily forgotten vampires were not juts fast but strong, too.
“But not before I finish what I started,” Peter said. The scent of musk and tangerine filled the air.