Hard as a Rock

Hard as a Rock

Mina Carter © Sept 2011

Copyright, Mina Carter. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Editor: Marisa Chenery

Cover Artist: Mina Carter

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the

author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or

persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Hard as a Rock

By Mina Carter

“What’s the matter, Iliona? A
 
mere
 
human not good enough for you now?”

I sighed as Kenneth’s shrill voice echoed along the seemingly empty corridor of my apartment

block. I say seemingly empty, because there was no way Mrs. Robertson in twenty-one was going to

miss any gossip, never mind anything as juicy as a domestic breakup. Hell, even though she had to be

pushing ninety-something, she wasn’t above leaning so far out of her bathroom window to hear what

was going on in the flat below I thought she’d somehow rewritten the laws of gravity. No doubt she’d

cracked her front door open as soon as Kenneth had stepped out of the lift.

I say breakup,  but that’s not entirely correct. Kenneth and I broke up a month ago, after he’d

decided my “comfort” level with paranormals tweaked his “squick” radar. Kenneth hates paranormals

with a passion. So, since they’d all “come out of the closet” so to speak ten  years ago, he’d been shit out

of luck. Now there are all sorts of rules…forget racism, there are whole new laws going through

parliament about speciesism. Me, personally? I think anything that gave the human race a kick up the

backside and got us all playing along nicely in the sandpit was a bloody good thing.

Right now, though, I really wished I hadn’t opened the door. My fault, I’d thought he was the

pizza delivery guy. Anticipating a large Hawaiian with garlic bread on the side, I hadn’t checked the

peephole first. Just grabbed my purse and opened up.

“Kenneth, I’ve had a long day and it’s late.”

I didn’t bother to moderate the sharp tone in my voice. I wasn’t lying. I’d been up at the crack of

dawn and down in the office sorting a fuckup of monumental  proportions. Since I was a case manager

for a personal protection company, problems meant a high likelihood of someone dying. Needless to

say, I didn’t like problems.

I also didn’t like ex-boyfriends showing up when they weren’t welcome. Folding my arms,  I

leaned against the door jam and gave him my best “I don’t want to have this conversation now” look.

Like seriously. I’d rather eat razor blades and gargle bleach than rehash why we’d split up.

The dumb fuck just stood there, all neatly pressed suit and  tie. His banker uniform, I called it,

and I hated it. I hated suits, even though I wore one on a regular basis. Actually, that’s a lie, I just hated

suits when Kenneth wore them.

“So are you going to answer the question?”

His voice rose in volume now as h is carefully tanned face took on a hint of red. Kenneth was

naturally pale with dark brown hair. He used sun beds and bleached his hair, terrified someone would

mistake him for a vampire. Didn’t matter I’d told him vampires tanned really well and that Rupe rt, our

in-house vamp, loved garlic chicken pizza, the stupid twat insisted on frying himself on a regular basis.

I massaged the bridge of my nose and fought down the urge to murder him with one of my high

heels. Since I didn’t wear stilettos, it would have to be blunt force trauma. Fortunately for Kenneth, until

I’d had my pizza I really didn’t have the energy.

“When you ask a sensible question, then I might see my way clear to answering it.”

He chewed on nothing, a vein pulsing in the corner of his eye. B less him, little Kenneth Baker

had been brought up to be master of his destiny, a man…the be-all and end-all of his little world. A

world his parents hadn’t anticipated on containing a) werewolves or anything that went bump in the

night, or b) anyone more  intelligent than their son running rings around him.

Absently, I wondered what would happen if someone took a pin and pricked that little vein.

Would he deflate like a—

“Which abomination are you screwing at your father’s office?” he demanded, crowding me in

the doorway. “It’s that bloodsucker, isn’t it? Or is it the fucking dog?”

Forget the pin, he was lucky I didn’t have a meat cleaver. I matched him glare for glare and

refused to back down. I’d learnt that much, working with the guys we recruited for protection work.

Forget your average heavy…we used the elite. Ex-commandos used to living behind enemy lines on

nothing more than fresh air and dung beetles, and who could zero in on a target using mouse farts three

miles away. But those were for the normal  jobs. For the real heavy stuff we used paras…and I’m not

talking paratroopers. Paranormals. People not of the human persuasion.

“You mean Rupert… Who’s gay. And Kevin, who’s mated. Twice.”

Kenneth sneered. “Doesn’t mean he can’t fuck about. I hear that’s  all they do.”

“Says the man whose sole knowledge of anything paranormal can fit on a postage stamp, as

long as it’s a small one.” I smiled sweetly and shoved at the center of his chest. It was like shoving

granite. Spongy granite, admittedly, but he didn’t budge. “A bit like something else we can mention, eh,

Kenneth? Now kindly get lost. I’m busy.”

“You fucking bitch!”

Now in my line of work, you get used to being called names, and given the emotional state

Kenneth had worked himself up into, I expected it from him. What I didn’t expect, though, was the fist

suddenly winging its way toward my face. There is a moment before someone hits you that everything

slows down and time dilates. I think it’s that bitch Fate’s way of making sure you fully appreciate wh at is

about to happen, and the fact that when that fist connects, your face is about to become the epicenter

in a world of pain.

The fist didn’t connect. Instead, the door slammed open and a solid, male body shoved into the

gap between me and it. Kenneth’s punch was caught in a hard hand, one he wasn’t expecting by the

look of shock on his face. I stumbled backward, caught myself on the door as my unexpected rescuer

shoved his face into Kenneth’s.

“I think the lady asked you to leave, meat sack.”

His voice was quiet, but had that indefinable rumble, as if most of it were below the human

hearing threshold, which defined a paranormal. In this case, a gargoyle. I recognized him instantly. Cal

was one of the paras we used for jobs. What he was doing in my apa rtment, I hadn’t a clue. Right about

now, though, I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.

“M-meat sack?” The blood drained from Kenneth’s face as he glared up at nearly seven feet of

pissed off gargoyle. At least, I’m assuming Cal was pissed off, since I’d never seen him take on his

gargoyle form in public before. I mean, he was tall as a human, but normally his skin was

less…countertop and a little pinker. The talons were new additions as well.

“Uh-huh,” I supplied helpfully, trying and failing to step around Cal’s bulk in the doorway. God,

the guy was built like a bloody mountain.

“Move your arm down a little, Cal…thanks, chick. Yeah,” I carried on, addressing Kenneth

through the gap between a rocky arm and the doorframe. “Gargoyles tend to view us as rather squishy.

Just meat tied up in a little skin bag. Just last week, Grav managed to crush a guy…mind you, he was

trying to gain entry into the building Grav guarded. Which is a bit of a no-no where gargoyles are

concerned.”

“Gargoyles…guard,” Cal grou nd out, his voice like a landslide. His knuckles cracked as his free

hand snaked out to grab Kenneth around the throat.

“They do indeed.” A little worried about the shade of purple Kenneth had turned, I reached out

to pat Cal’s arm. “You want to ease up o n the death grip, sweetheart? I’d hate for you to get any of his

pulverized flesh under your fingernails.”

He slid me a sideways glance, which was code for his head turning on his neck with the squeal of

rock across more rock to look at me quizzically. I suddenly had an insight into what building Stonehenge

must have been like.

“You want I should…” he paused for a moment. Every paranormal species is different. Vampires

tend toward verbal diarrhea, werewolves are vain, incubus…yeah, that one goes without sa ying.

Gargoyles, though, gargoyles are careful with their words and actions. Mind you, if I lived in a world

where treading on someone’s foot tended to pulverize said appendage, so would I. It saved on the “Is

this your hand? Oh, so sorry. It’s amazing what they can do with restorative surgery these days, isn’t it?”

conversations. Most gargoyles weren’t that garrulous. They picked their words with care and we were

already pushing the upper conversational limit with three sentences.

“You want I should blow  him?”

Kenneth passed out.

Trying not to smirk, I patted Cal’s stony forearm again. “I think you mean blow him
 
away,
 
chick.

It’s okay, just go put him in the lobby. The doorman’ll put him in a taxi when he comes around.”

***

It didn’t take Cal long to drop Kenneth off and get back up to my flat. I’d barely emptied half of

what was left in the vodka bottle before he reappeared at the front door. Carefully closing it with a click

behind him, he walked into the main room with the air of a man facing the gallows.

Sitting in one corner of the sofa opposite the door, I looked my fill. In human form, Cal was a

looker. Not so good-looking that bimbos and modeling scouts fell over themselves, but with a body like

a Greek god and a passable face…yeah, I’d do him. Seriously.