Kissed by Smoke (23 page)

Shéa MacLeod writes urban fantasy post-apocalyptic
sci-fi paranormal romances with a twist of steampunk. Mostly
because she can’t make up her mind which genre she likes best.

After living in Portland, Oregon most of her life,
she now makes her home in an Edwardian town house in London just a
stone’s throw from the local cemetery. Which probably explains a
lot. Fortunately, the neighbors are quiet.

In addition to Kissed by Smoke and the first two
books in the Sunwalker Saga, Kissed by Darkness and Kissed by Fire,
Shéa is also the author of Dragon Warrior.

My nails were still drying, shining like
fresh blood in the ambient evening light that came through the
windows of my bedroom as I spread lotion on my legs. Cool air
seeped through the ancient panes, raising goose bumps on my skin.
The chill, dry English wind was wreaking havoc on my pores. I’d
gone through almost an entire bottle of tea tree lotion since the
minute I came off the plane, and a lack of Bath and Body Works
meant I wouldn’t be replacing the bottle anytime soon.

Downstairs in the kitchen, my clock radio
played bad 90s rock in between bouts of rambling British nonsense.
It was taking some getting used to, living in a foreign country;
unfamiliar slang and people with accents so thick you could stab a
knife through them. Anybody who has said the English speak the same
language as Americans was dreaming, or drunk. I swiped the last of
the lotion onto my neck, shivering.

Adipiphine jumped on my bed with a little
mewling purr, and curled into the spot I had vacated a short time
before, the indentation from my body probably still warm. Her
fluffy black form was a perfect oval on my cream colored sheets as
she licked contentedly at the fur sticking out from between the
pads of one paw. I dropped a pat to her heart-shaped head,
comforted by her presence.

I felt refreshed, having slept through the
brightest hours of the day before capping it off with a long, hot
shower. My landlord said the building was older than his parents
(and he was no spring chicken himself), but the tub was brand new,
just installed last year. It was a claw foot, high backed affair
surrounded by a red plaid shower curtain that would at some point
be replaced by something more my style. The shower head had a flow
that rivaled the best waterfall, resulting in issues actually
getting
out
of the shower.

It had taken almost a week to finally get
over the jet lag. I’d barely left but for groceries; a far cry from
the girl who used every excuse in the book to get out of the house
as a teen. But now, I felt energized, standing in my very own
apartment, with my very own furniture, ready to embark on my new
employment venture; sketchy, though it seemed.

With no hands and just a thought, I sent the
bottle of lotion I was using sailing across the room and into the
red wicker basket on my dresser. It clicked into place between a
metal can of hair spray and a bottle of cheap, green hair gel.
Squinting into the dim room, another thought had my hairbrush
flying through the air and into my hand with a slapping sound that
hurt as much as it sounded. “Oww,” I groaned, switching hands and
shaking out my injured palm.

I guess I forgot to mention I’m not exactly
what one would consider normal.

At three, I lifted my adoptive mother,
Theresa, a foot in the air by wrapping my two stubby arms around
one of her legs. According to her recount of the story, I didn’t
wobble once while mumbling unintelligibly at her in delight. She
just politely asked me to put her down and picked up the phone to
call her husband, Dane, to share the revelation that their daughter
was exhibiting signs of super-strength.

The two of them have been steadfast
enthusiasts since my powers began to surface. I know I’m lucky to
have them; lucky because for every strange thing I did, they didn’t
run screaming the other direction, ripping out handfuls of hair and
cursing the gods. Nothing short of fate could have brought me to
them.

Interrupted from my musings by a yowl from
Addie, I bent down and cupped her ebony head, scratching my thumbs
behind her ears. She shut her eyes, her purr a freight train. If my
cat had her way, I'd be giving her ears constant attention.

Leaving Addie to her ecstasy, I pulled my
brush through my hair. It was black and thick as the bowels of
earth and hung past my shoulder blades with a full fringe of bangs
constantly in my dark brown eyes. I used my free hand to push back
the curtain at my window, gazing out into the night. It was densely
forested behind my building, and the River Lee flowed just beyond
the first line of trees, an incessant gurgling that could be heard
when the sash was up. In the evenings, the sun dipping into the
horizon would set the river on fire—the days we actually
saw
the
sun.

“I’m nervous,” I told Addie, fingering the
rough linen curtain. A slight breeze rocked the trees out back as
if they were trying to bow to the earth in penance.

Her bright green eyes peered up at me,
framed by pointy eyelashes.
Why?
the tilt of her head inquired.

“Because I know nothing about this place or
this job.”

You’re the idiot who accepted it without asking
questions
. She used her scornful voice in my imagination. I
sighed, knowing I was talking to myself and that usually precluded
being locked up in the bin of crazies.

I padded downstairs in my bare feet, the
wood floors cold. Addie slithered along behind me, the two of us
passing through my living area with its well-worn couch and
loveseat, the dark TV and the maroon recliner losing its stuffing.
I’d purchased them all on the internet from various occupants of
the English countryside, so none of them matched, but they were
comfy.

My kitchen was tucked in the back, only a
single counter with three mismatched bar stools separating it from
the living room. I plucked the long, white envelope off the gray
marble, and pulled out a sheet of paper I’d already read and
re-read too many times. I shoved a spoon into the roll of cookie
dough in my refrigerator and stuck it in my mouth before shutting
off the radio announcer in mid-sentence and unfolding the
letter.

I found it cryptic, my call to arms, so to
speak. A job offer…meet at a specific GPS location in plain clothes
by nine p.m. Today. I’d received the letter the day I arrived, as
if they’d been watching me—whoever
They
should be. Dodgy, yes, but not all
that out of the ordinary to a girl who could bend steel and shatter
fine china with her mind. According to Dane, I was being offered
the job strictly because of my powers.

The cookie dough was sweet and salty on my
tongue. I crossed an arm under my breasts, leaning my hip on the
sink beneath the kitchen window and taking my time eating it, with
Addie’s petite body rubbing my ankles adoringly. The moon shone
like a lantern through the small window over the sink, an arc of
white soaring just above the tree line. Closing my eyes, I reveled
in the silence of my new home—my own home. Nobody here to keep me
from pattering around in my lacy bits, to warn me off of eating raw
cookie dough, or to flip on the lights when all I wanted was
darkness.

The phone rang and I dropped my spoon,
licked clean, into the sink before answering, “Yeah?”

“Vale? It’s Theresa. How you getting on,
sweetie?”

As usual, her chirpy, maternal voice brought
a smile to my face. The woman always knew just when to call. “Good.
Homesick, but settling in. It’s really pretty here, if a little
overboard on the freezing rain.” Bending down, I cradled my cat’s
body in my arms and the phone between my shoulder and ear, before I
headed back upstairs to get dressed.

“How’s the apartment? Did Dane do you good?
He sent you an email last night with some names and numbers of
friends he has there. In case you need anything.” She paused, then
added, “Like a home cooked meal.”

She just had to go there. I dropped Addie on
the soft down comforter crumpled on the bed before answering.

“He has friends everywhere, and I’m
perfectly capable of feeding myself.” My father, Dane, had told me
he’d never been here before, but it was his friend who got me the
place. I glanced around my townhouse, all windows and vibrant
colors. I stood in the loft-style bedroom, the balcony overlooking
the dark living room to my left.

“Cookie dough and tuna sandwiches do not
cover the bases of the food pyramid,” she chastised gently.

“I start work tonight,” I told her,
attempting to aim the conversation away from my controversial
eating habits and into successful territory. I rifled through my
dresser for a tank top.

Theresa drew in a breath. “It makes me
nervous you know, you out there alone. You don’t know anything
about this job!”

”You should know better by now,” I laughed,
choosing a lacy camisole and sniffing it for foul odors. “I’m cut
out for security.”

She was silent for a moment. In the
background I could hear the clink of dishes accompanied by
splashing water. “You could have at least gone for a real law
enforcement position. Your grandfather was a police officer, you
know.”

“How’s Macy? Is she doing okay with
classes?” I asked, smoothly changing subjects, once again. It’s an
art form with my mother. Macy, Theresa and Dane’s biological
daughter, was born four years after I came to live with them, and
she’s the light to my dark. Short and elfish with golden blond hair
and piercing green eyes, she was a miniature Theresa with her
daddy’s smile and the kind of curvy body that went out of style
years ago. I took to the role of big sister with reckless abandon
and have come out with a lifelong partner in crime. My oddities
were already a daily occurrence before Macy, so when I could set
the table at age nine without lifting a finger it was just less
work for her.

“Good, I think. She loves her Feminist
Literature teacher, but I don’t think she cares for her Biology
teacher. He’s very chauvinistic, and you know how your sister is.
Oh!” Theresa lowered her voice. I could picture her cupping her
mouth and the receiver like a teenager telling secrets. I bet she
probably soaked the phone in dishwater. “She brought a girl home
for dinner last night.”

“That’s great! What was she like?” I’d only
met one girlfriend before. It’d taken Macy a long time to finally
come out, which is funny considering Dane and Theresa’s love-all,
be-all hippie open-mindedness.

“A lovely, lovely girl named Amy,” Theresa
answered with a sigh. I could picture her standing over the sink,
hand-washing the dishes she was going to put into the dishwasher.
She’d be wearing the frilly pink apron Dane bought her for their
fifteenth anniversary, over a billowy, ankle length skirt and sheer
peasant blouse. The apron reads
Don’t anger the cook, she has access to household
poisons
. It's my favorite. “She had pretty brown hair
chopped right about her chin, and a heart shaped face with just the
biggest, darkest eyes, a little like yours, dear. And she wore a
dress! A pretty flowered thing, like what your sister likes to
wear.”

“Keep me posted on the Amy front, but I’ve
gotta get ready for work, Mom.” I told her I loved her and hung up,
tossing the cordless on the bed where it would lose it’s charge
before I remembered to put it back on the base. Addie glared at me
when it bounced twice and came to rest against her. She shuffled
sideways, dripping disdain.

I settled on a pair of stone washed jeans
and a black tank top with gray Nikes. Thudding back to the kitchen,
I tossed together a turkey sandwich, bypassing the cupboard full of
tuna on principle, and opened a can of fish innards for Addie. She
mewed girlishly, rubbing my ankles before digging in. We ate in
silence side by side.

The forecast had been for a cold one, so I
threw on a black zip-up hoodie and slipped into a black and gold
University of Southern Mississippi toboggan. Locking the door to my
bumble ahode in the cool night air, I took a deep breath and
smelled peace.

It was an inky night. The sky glittered with
the frost of a thousand stars, the moon hiding out behind a
gargantuan cloud. So far out in the country, Quicksilver didn’t
have many street lights, and what few they did have lined the main
street through what was considered “downtown.” My apartment complex
was a two story, six side-by-side units brick building about a
fifteen minute drive from town proper. The only other civilization
nearby was a set of apartments across the street, and the
occasional farmhouse set off the road between home and Main.

I’d purchased a tiny black Mini Cooper, the
kind that looked stylish but would mean certain death in a battle
with an SUV. Lucky the Brits were unlike Americans, who thirst for
“bigger is better.” No Ford Heavy-Duty or Hummer in my
neighborhood. I loved how I towered over the short car and could
look down into the sunroof, yet once inside it was spacey and chic.
Not that I cared about chic, of course.

Don’t tell anybody.

I clicked the button on my key chain to
unlock the doors, and slid inside.

It still smelled like new car. The engine
barely made a sound when I turned it over, backed out of the lot
and took a right on to the street. I shifted easily for someone
who’d only just recently learned how to handle a manual
transmission, traveling an empty stretch of highway to pass through
town.

Quicksilver was sleeping. The single stretch
of Main Street was devoid of any sign of life; no lights on in the
stores, no people walking, and no cars parked on the sides of the
street. I passed the bakery and deli, my favorite little grocery
with the bright purple awning, and a couple antique and clothing
stores, all with locked doors and closed signs. The road itself was
a study in disaster, rutted with holes that shook my car as I
passed over them.