Read The Better to Eat You With: The Red Journals Online
Authors: Cara Villar
The Better to Eat You With: The Red Journals
The Better to Eat You With
Book 1 of The Red Journals
Cara Villar
Text copyright © 2014 Cara Villar
All Rights Reserved
Dedication
This, the very first, is dedicated to my fellow
fairies.
Pink and Green, you know who you are.
This book is also dedicated to my family.
They never once said it couldn’t be done.
Thanks for that.
Pulling a body out of a flat-bed truck is so much
easier than pulling one out of the trunk of a car. And, I got to say, when the
tarp you’ve wrapped around said body snags on the trunk lock, it’s even harder.
After ten minutes of wrestling, and practically
leaning horizontal trying to pull the damn corpse out, the tarp gave. Of course
it gave. It wouldn’t be right if, with a gasp, I didn’t go flying down hard on
my butt, the body half-hitting the dirt, and a massive tear through the
remainder of the tarp wasn’t the result. Even as I watched, the fellow’s leg
flopped out of its ominous cover and the trunk, as if to mock me.
When I took this one on, I obviously underestimated
how heavy he was.
Rubbing my butt cheek and grumbling, I scrambled to my
feet and dragged the body to the edge of the ravine. In the dark, you couldn’t
see the bottom of it. Hell, you could barely see the ledge half the time. The
cloud cover and lack of moon made it so I had to rely on vision alone. I knew
there were trees and shrubs down there, and a couple burned out cars where
people who didn’t know the roads very well had ended up going off the edge.
Tragic, really. Thank fuck for enhanced hybrid senses,
let me tell you.
Squatting down, I flicked back the tarp edges to
reveal the face that, not so long before, had twisted into a savage snarl,
revealing long, poisonous canines and livid, crackling gold eyes. Not long
before that, the face had smiled enticingly, the allure of a predator that saw
me as his prey. I hadn’t been completely immune, I mean, he had been a good
looking chap and it’s been a
very
long time for me. He was clean and had
smelled good. If I’d met him on my own, I probably coulda, maybe, perhaps, had
dinner with him—
Snicker, snicker.
Sorry. Vampire humor at its worst.
Anywhoo, as Death is wont to do, the male’s features
were smoothed out, his lips slightly parted, eyes closed. Nothing like the idealized
movie version where death returns immortality to its true age. This fellow would
forever be encased in youth, frozen in his Immortal beauty, looking as fragile
as porcelain and glass, but as strong as marble. His dark sweep of lashes cast
deep shadows over his pale, flawless skin with its high cheekbones, his hair
still thick and dark and wavy, though it had lost that luster of supernatural
life. His delightfully alluring scent was marred by the distinctive aroma of cadaver.
He looked peaceful.
The guy had looked as if he could have been no more
than twenty-two years old. Not bad for a ninety-odd year old Vampire, eh?
You wouldn’t have thought that, mere hours earlier,
his eyes had been sparkling golden light, shards like lightning strikes
bleeding from his pupils through his irises. He’d hissed and spat at me for
wrapping a fine silver chain around his throat, trying to get a chunk out my
neck while I tried to take his head. I had settled for staking; it was easier.
My eyes had sparked back of course—part of the Vampire
package. He had thought he could take me, simply because I don’t pulse with
power like most Immortals, and my heart beat faster than his. I shook my head
again at his stupidity. Forever will I be underestimated, forever
underappreciated.
Sigh.
He never saw my claws coming—which is part of
the whole Werewolf package.
Bully for me.
“Shoulda backed down when I told you to, buddy. Just
because you brutalize a woman’s neck in Idaho, doesn’t mean you can brutalize mine
in South Carolina.” Standing, I slipped my fingers over the tail of my fine
titanium chain, and curled the end around them. The length tightened, and the
remnants still embedded in the male’s neck went taught and started to sizzle. With
a fierce tug, the chain constricted, the sharp edge biting into flesh with the
ease of a warm knife through butter, the now-severed head flopped sideways onto
the tarp. Blood—slow, dark and sluggish—began to seep out almost immediately.
Gross.
No coming back from that, no matter how good you
regenerate.
Flicking dead Vampire flesh from the links of my favorite
pest-control device—
Ick!
—I gave the body a shove with my pink-and-black-DC’d
foot and off he went, rolling over the ledge and bopping off the ravine wall
like a bouncy ball down the stairs. For a moment, I stood there wrapping my
chain around my wrist and contemplating the irony of this fellow’s death.
“Last tumble you’ll ever have, mate.”
Snicker, snicker.
With a dusting off of hands and a mental pat on the
back for another job efficiently done, I spun on my heel and waltzed back to
the car, thoughts of payday flittering like pretty butterflies in my head. My quarry’s
‘car’—and I use the term loosely since the elderly Plymouth Valore could have
been as old as the chap I just tossed off the cliff and had paint that
was…well, non-existent at this point. Unless you consider rust-red come
human-corpse-beige a paint job. The inside smelled as musty as cobwebs and
tombs, and I was never so grateful that I wore driving gloves to hide prints.
Not that my prints would make any sense to anyone able
to lift and run them. Not only have I never had the wonderful occasion to end
up on official reports. I’ve also technically been dead for, oh…a century or
three, give or take.
When you live this long, you learn to take on new
personas to keep the nosey neighbors off your lawn. You choose personas to
protect your anonymity. This time, I took on an identity to suit my job. You
might have heard of me, although the story has become a little twisted since my
Immortal youth when I first took on the fictional mantle. I was a fresh, newly
made Immortal when the story was published. A totally oblivious,
nineteen-year-old woman whose fate sought to intervene and change her entire
existence—although, that part isn’t in the kiddies’ books. That part is all me.
But here, I’ll give you a hint. I have a red hooded cape, wolves follow me
around and I was real fond of my grandmother.
I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t
count.
Anyway, I still got the red hood, wolves still don’t
like me, and grandmother is actually my
grandfather
who is also long
dead. I’m Immortal thanks to a wolf’s bite and a Vampire saving me—I’m sure
you’ll find out the gruesome details eventually—and my name is Willow Ashwin.
Yeah…‘Red’ is way cooler.
I’m now a bounty hunter for hire, tracking down
rogue-whatever for select clientele at a hefty price, dead or alive, as
required. Alive, the prey is caged and collection arranged, protecting the
secrecy of my client as well as myself. Dead, the prey is disposed of and
instructions sent on how to retrieve the body, again protecting the secrecy of
my client.
Easy money.
Before closing the rusted, icky-smelling trunk, I
brushed off the few stray sprigs of tarp that had snagged on the lock,
depositing them outside the car for the wind to carry far, far away. The
authorities will find the car eventually, but no point making it easy for them
to figure out it was used as a body-disposal vehicle. I like to make them work
for the tax I pay. It’s my contribution to society.
Among other things.
Shush!
Hopping back into the car, I started the engine. It
gurgled to life with all the enthusiasm of an obese marathon runner—with a
grunt and a wheeze. I groaned as I inspected the silver chain wrapped around my
wrist, flecks of drying blood and flesh evident in the creases. I had one for
each wrist. The left was silver for Weres and demons. The right was titanium
for Vampires and Fae. They were both five feet long and super cool for
restraining quarry, or beheading them. Both were imbedded with iron, because Fae,
more than any other being, were tricksy fuckers. The chains were a real bitch
to maintain though.
Gonna have to scrub that before bed. Sigh.
Of
all my weapons, why was the most simple and handy the hardest to clean?
Blah.
Tapping the steering wheel with my red-gloved hand, I
purred endearments like “good girl” to the car as I pulled away, bumping and
rolling through the dips and rivets, back onto the main roadway.
Summerville
is practically
a small city, with a population of around forty-three thousand. Situated
comfortably in South Carolina, breaching three counties, it boasts being one of
the two best areas in the world for treatment and recovery of lung and throat
disorders. Scientists put it down to some funky gas the pine trees release and
the dry, sandy nature of this part of the country. After living here for nearly
a decade, I wondered if the scientists had ever thought to visit Summersville,
because I put it down to the fact that people come here as a last resort. When
all other routes fail, and the prospect of asking an Immortal for a drop of
their blood to cure their disease becomes a lot less ridiculous and a lot more
attractive. People make promises they don’t necessarily expect to come through
on—like first-born sons or half a century of servitude.
Some people find an Immortal. Some don’t, if they’re
lucky.
Some Immortals allow their blood to be taken. Some
refuse. Either way, you pay a steep price just for the privilege of asking.
I’ve seen a few instances where money and promises
have changed hands for this exact purpose, and I tell you, it’s almost enough
to make me reconsider my anonymity. Almost.
Summerville
is a beautiful and romantic little place, especially in the Town Square where
North Main Street and Richardson intersect.
The
buildings are either old or simple, but perfectly kept and reminiscent of my
Immortal youth back in rural England
. Jeepers, that’s far too long ago to be
remembering something.
The concrete used to be dirt, the fields used to be
grass and the pines…well, there have always been pines. I used to walk among trees
just like them on dirty trails to my grandparent’s house as a child. Now that
house is an ancient ruin, and those dirty trails are a hiker’s paradise.
Oh, how the world has changed. Blah.
Coming
into town, the big festival banner flapped lazily overhead. It had rained, a brief,
misting shower, just enough to bring the flowers up nice and perky. Further
down along Main, where the Flowertown Festival would take place, is Azaela
Park, which has fountains, walking paths, and beautiful sculptures.
I’ve only really seen them at night, when I’m
working. It really is quite hauntingly beautiful. During the day, I’m
recovering. Or I’m trying too.
Damn you, drapes that aren’t quite long
enough and pesky sun that insists on blinding me.
Montreux
Bar and Grill won Best Bar in Summerville, what with their soft leather couches
and multitude of flat screen televisions sporting, well…sports. On Friday and
Saturday nights they have live bands, and this weekend was no exception. The
place was packed to the rafters, and the mouth-watering aroma of grilled steaks
and home-made fries with salsa… Yum. I rolled the car into an alley and my
stomach gave a happy, eager rumble at the prospect of meat.
Beheading
always gives me an appetite. Just saying.
Checking
my phone as I walked the long way around to Main and Richardson, I noted that
it was half past one in the morning. For a moment, I hovered on the corner,
glancing up and down the street, wondering where I was going to get food at that
time of night. Food wasn’t a necessity, but it was a pleasure. I
do
work
better on a full stomach.
Decision
made, I headed on up to Montreux with the hope that I could sway the owner,
Gray, to let me pick at his leftovers in the kitchen. I hated trying to order
food then eat it when the crowds were like this
Seeing at
a glance through the windows fronting the place that, yep, it was packed. Still
going strong by the looks of things, with the scent of nummy-nummy increasing
as the lights and music wafted down the street, making my tummy give another
ecstatic gurgle. Shushing it, I swept in through the dark wood doors.
Righto,
something to eat and then back to hunting.
Tossing
back my red wool hood on my favorite red leather jacket, I glided through the
ruckus of sweaty, intoxicated and handsy—might I add—crowd of people. At the
far end I bounced over to the edge of the bar, away from the main thoroughfare
of drunken people, leaned over the counter. Following my nose to the familiar
scent of cosmopolitans and wind, I peered down, blinking innocently at a mop of
dark hair with silver bands streaking away from the temples like pale flames. Broad
shoulders and strong, tanned hands worked to cram as many bottles into the
fridge as possible, and I waited patiently for him to notice me.
Bright
blue eyes glanced up, and then they did a double-take. Gray rolled his eyes and
groaned theatrically, physically slumping at the sight of me. I beamed my
mega-watt-smile at him as he came to his feet, his Cosmo and wind aroma
intensifying as he slapped big hands down on the bar’s glossy surface.
“Red,” he
huffed. “Come to scavenge have we?” His voice was deep and rough, rumbling
along my skin like a deep bone massage. His tanned, slightly-lined face glared
at me, making one of his dark brows sit somewhat higher than the other. The
cleft in his chin worked side to side, up and down, as he ground his teeth, his
annoyance clear as he leaned on the bar and I peered up from my measly
five-foot-five to his six-foot. He appeared to be about mid-thirties, but was
actually coming up to his mid-forties, and had ‘military’ practically stamped
on his forehead. He looked at me and saw a young woman, maybe a girl in her
late teens. He used to call me ‘kid’ until I punched a guy in the face for
smoothing his hand over my ass.