The Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar (Sam Quinn Book 1) Read online

  Running again, I carved my way through the long beach grass, swirling in the high winds along the bluff. The waxing moon glowed in the gathering fog. A couple of miles from the bookstore, I scented a wolf and skidded to a stop. I was the only wolf in San Francisco. There were no packs in town. It was part of the reason I lived here.

  Heart thundering, I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman we’d fished out of the bay. I desperately wanted to shift, to protect myself, to have claws and fangs. It would take too long, though. I’d be vulnerable to attack until I’d completed the change. Tipping my head up, I scented the wind again. It was stronger. The wolf was closing in and I was out of time.

  I tore back towards my cliff. A mile from home, the sound of paws pounded the sandy dirt behind me. Would anyone hear if I screamed? The fog swallowed screams. I raced headlong toward the trees, frantically looking for a weapon of some kind. I wouldn’t let anyone overpower me, hold me down—not ever again. Paws thundered on the path.

  Ahead, I saw the silhouette of a woman. I ran to her. Moonlight glinted off a swath of blonde hair. I felt momentary relief, thinking I had help. Then the hatred rolling off her hit, and I realized too late that I’d been herded into a bigger threat. I didn’t know what she was—the wolf’s scent was too strong—but I knew she wasn’t human.

  Understanding that death loomed before and behind, I pivoted to the right and ran toward the brush growing at the edge of the cliff. I felt the wolf’s fur brush my ankle as he passed. He skidded, spun, and started after me again. Out of options, I sprinted to the cliff and threw myself over.

  My heart stopped on the free fall. I had three or four seconds to question the sanity of my plan before I was plunging into freezing seawater.

  Plummeting down, my body cracked against the slanted cliff face, deep underwater. I kicked off, fighting my way to the surface before my lungs burst. Breathing was difficult at the surface as waves capsized over me, pulling me under. I spat seawater. Knowing I couldn’t be far from the bar entrance, I swam, hoping the wolf hadn’t followed me over the cliff.

  Like a ragdoll, I was tossed, pulled down, and then shoved back up by the teeming ocean. Something brushed across my cheek, something long and flat that I hoped very much was kelp. I caught only a glimpse of it before I was knocked sideways by another wave.

  The seaweed or whatever it was scraped against the back of my neck. Cringing, I batted it away as I was yanked under again and again, fighting the relentless undertow. I sputtered to the surface and realized the vine had encircled my neck, squeezing tighter as my body was spun in the churning waves. Treading water as best I could, keeping an eye out for jagged rocks, I scanned the darkened cliff face, looking for the bar entrance. It was hidden from view, glamoured to look like nothing but rock, but there was a deep groove bisected by a forty-five-degree slash that almost made an X-marks-the-spot landmark. The bar entrance was right beneath that X in the stone.

  Sputtering water, I yanked at the vine that had begun choking me. It moved and constricted once more. When I pulled, it undulated in a way plant life didn’t. The scream stayed trapped inside my head as my larynx was crushed by what I hoped, by all that was holy, was not an eel. Sentient underwater seaweed was less terrifying to me than an eel wrapped around my neck.

  Needle-like teeth latched onto my hand. I froze in horror for only a moment, but it was enough to drag me back under the freezing waves. Fingers numb, I tore like a wild thing at the creature encircling my neck. I felt bites on my neck and hands, but I didn’t care, so great was the cringe factor. With a final rip, I snatched the now inert pieces of God-anything-but-an-eel from my throat and let them drop from my bloody hands.

  A wave crashed, and I was under again. Eel parts floated away, but it was the shiny thing dropping straight down that caught my attention. My hands flew to my neck. It was bare. My mother’s necklace. I’d ripped it off when I’d killed the eel. It was all I had, my only link to her. Diving down, I grabbed with unfeeling hands, but somehow managed to catch it by the stone pendant before it sunk into the murky depths of the bay.

  Eel-free and clutching my mother’s necklace, I swam toward the bar’s entrance. Even though I was preternaturally strong, it was a slow and arduous journey. Thankfully, the wolf hadn’t followed me over the cliff. When I finally found the entrance, I dragged my exhausted, battered body in and lay there, panting and shivering on the barroom floor. Who were those two up top? Were they connected to the dead woman?

  The Slaughtered Lamb was warded to high heaven. My wards, a kind of magical security system, were set with me as the key. Over time, they had begun to respond to my intentions as well as my words. I locked them down and dragged myself back to my apartment to take a long, hot shower.

  The black stone pendant hung limply from my injured hand. I couldn’t explain it, but not having it around my neck was causing my head to throb. I would get it fixed. The first chance I got, I would get it fixed and back around my neck. I’d been little when my Mom set out the jewelry making tools and made it for me, when she made me promise to never take it off.

  Even after a steaming shower, I couldn’t stop shivering. Later, dressed in my warmest sweats and burrowed under blankets, I wished for a cup of cocoa and a hand to hold. Instead, I fell into a restless sleep as my mind cycled through trauma, past and present.

  Two

  We Now Join this Nightmare, Already in Progress

  The sheets twisted around my kicking legs, as I dropped back down into nightmares.

  Rain splashes on the pristine marble headstone.

  Bridget Corey Quinn

  Beloved Mother.

  I overhear a murmuring of voices, but I can’t tear my eyes from the evidence of my mother’s death. Sobs catch in my chest. I’m alone in the world. Seventeen and completely alone. I hear a strange growling sound and then a blinding flash of light in the sky. There are gasps and mutters, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the headstone. Loss, crushing inescapable loss, takes me out at the knees. I drop into a shallow puddle of mud atop the new sod. A crack splits the stone, a jagged scar between Corey and Quinn. My tears mix with rain. My necklace throbs in time with my breaking heart as footsteps sound…

  My traitorous subconscious plucked through memories for the next stop on Sam’s Repressed Horrors Roundup.

  Footsteps crackle on pine needles. It’s past midnight as I walk in the inky black, flashlight forgotten on my uncle’s entry table. The cabin I’m staying in isn’t far. I have my phone if I need a light. A breath of sound behind me and then blinding pain. Nothingness. I awake to suffocating fear and unimaginable agony. Blindfolded, arms strain over my head in scalding, metal handcuffs. The passage of time is marked by screams turning to breathy croaks. Slick, sticky blood runs down my body, dripping off my toes. The tickling of fur against my skin signals his change. Part of me is happy for the blindfold, that I don’t have to watch this monster tear me apart. Teeth shred my skin. Claws dig under my ribs. Does the blindfold make it worse? Faceless, he becomes every man. Liquid washes over my abdomen and legs. Slashes burn anew. I kick out again and connect. I’m in hell, the torture never ending, but I’m still fighting. The long, serrated blade slices through my chest as he continues to carve in the dark…

  The memory faded, tension leaving my body with it, until my mind plucked out another one to torment me with.

  It’s night again. The Slaughtered Lamb is under construction. I’m doing my best to ignore the angry vampire whose name I don’t remember. He stands in the corner of the cavernous bookstore and bar. Helena, the wicche I’ve been staying with in the months since the attack, says that Clive assigned guards for me. I don’t understand why. I’m no one. Looking through catalogs of book titles, choosing what to stock, I try to ignore the dark, resentful eyes peering out of the shadows.

  Working, lost in my own thoughts, I miss something important. Hours pass. Fog blankets the ocean, obscuring the moon. There’s a strange, wet sound. A great, shaggy shape stands out agains
t the gloom. I search the bar’s corners. The angry eyes are gone. Have I fallen asleep? A large, black horse shakes himself, water dousing me. A soft plip, plop echoes in the silent room. Reaching out to him, he snarls, teeth snapping. Blood drips. A shocked scream breaks the dream-like quiet. I’m running, a monster at my heels. Hooves thunder in the empty rooms. I race through the back and around to the huge, free-standing bookshelves that were delivered earlier. Hiding, hunkered down between wood and wall, breath held as my heart races, I make myself as small and silent as possible. A gust of hot air hits the top of my head. When I look up, blood-red eyes skewer me. I flip myself over and kick out at his muzzle. Broad shoulders shove the bookshelves away as powerful jaws snap down on my leg, crushing my ankle. He drags me toward the water entrance, toward death.

  Fighting, kicking, leg shredded, shouts hoarse, I claw at the floor, desperate to escape. My foot drops from its mouth as the fae horse rears up, slamming down on my stomach, crushing my organs. Why have me live through that werewolf’s torture just so I could die now, as I was learning to hope again? Teeth scrape bone, as it drags me toward the inevitable. Unspeakable pain like fire bathes me. I twist and writhe, but his hold is unbreakable.

  Eyes screwed closed against the pain, a wail on my lips, I kick again and again. My mangled leg drops. Clive is standing over me. Gray eyes take in my battered state as he yanks the jaws of the kelpie open. A sick, squelching pop sounds as Clive tears them apart. He throws the carcass toward the water entrance and then is kneeling in blood and seawater, gentle hands ghost over me, pulling away the pain.

  And then the darkness pulled me under again.

  Shooting up in bed, I awoke with a start. That damn kelpie. Kelpies were magical water creatures that took the shape of horses and lured people to the water before attacking and snacking. If I had known there were freaking kelpies in the San Francisco Bay, I’d never have put in a water entrance. I was destined to end my life as chum.

  The kelpie attack had taken place over six years ago, when the bookstore and bar were under construction, and I still had nightmares about it. Thankfully, not as often these days. I guess the dead woman, the wolf, and the scary blonde were too much for my subconscious. The kelpie had sensed my fear and decided to haunt my dreams again. Bastard. Dreaming about Mom was odd, though. I rarely ever dreamed about her funeral and the freak lightning storm. That day was a blur of pain and fear. Details were missing, but perhaps that was normal, given how my life had changed so completely.

  Clamping down tightly on the other part of the nightmare, the part I refused to think about, I turned on the bedside lamp. No more darkness. Pulling up the covers, I flinched, my arms stinging. I rubbed them, assuming I’d cut off the circulation, and yelped in pain. Slowly pulling up my hoodie sleeves, I saw long, livid scratches running down my arms. How the hell had I done that?

  This was no good. I’d never fall back asleep. Grabbing a book off my nightstand, I pushed into my bunny slippers and shuffled into the living room. After pulling a soft ocean-colored throw from the back of my couch, I padded through the bar’s kitchen, picking up a plate of snickerdoodles Dave had left me—for a demon, he was a good guy—and wandered into the darkened bar. I worked the knobs and buttons on the espresso machine. Cocoa, that was what I needed. With marshmallows. Snickerdoodles, Pride and Prejudice, and a cozy blanky were the perfect antidote for tortured nightmares and mysterious injuries. Sitting at the corner table next to the window, I turned the lamp to its lowest setting and read, erasing the ugliness.

  Suffering along with Lizzy through Darcy’s ‘not handsome enough to tempt me’ declaration, I sensed unnatural movement in the water. I’d become used to the rhythm of the ocean, the ebb and flow as the dark waves hit the window at my side. The tide was high, so the waterline was far above my head. Turning off the lamp, I peered into the swirling bay, trying to locate what had inexplicably sent chills up my spine.

  Please, don’t let it be another dead woman. I didn’t think my psyche could take too much more tonight. Finishing the last of my cooled cocoa, I watched the silent swirling beauty, the cool weightlessness of the water, pressing in on all sides. It could buoy and it could sink. Life and death. Tonight, though, it seemed to be watching me.

  A dark, massive tentacle struck the window, right where I was sitting. Leaping back, I fell off the chair, slippers tangled in the blanket. What the… In all the years I’d lived here, I’d only ever seen a handful of octopuses in the bay. Whatever this giant tentacle was attached to was not native to San Francisco.

  Suckers spread on the window, and then the tentacle pulled. The window bowed but held. A piercing squeal had me clamping my hands over my ears as the monstrous tentacle dragged its suckers down the windowpane. The ocean churned. Something huge was displacing water.

  Holding my breath, I slowly withdrew, trying not to draw its attention. I rounded the bar and grabbed the phone. No dial tone. I wasn’t sure what was out there, but I knew I didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

  Impossibly long tentacles slammed against the window again. They covered the ten-foot-high window and then some. Bluish suckers as large as my fists stood out against the almost-black tentacles. When they convulsed, the window rippled. Adrenaline spiking, my stomach dropped. I slid along the back of the bar toward the stairs. Fangs and claws were no match for that thing. What I needed was a harpoon.

  The beast’s vast, dark body rose in the water, obscuring the bay. A gigantic, glowing yellow eye found me, hiding in the dark. My blood ran cold, as death stared me down.

  Colossal tentacles convulsed again, and a seal on the window broke. Water ran down the inside of the glass, pooling on the bar floor. No, no, no. The eye moved closer, the suckers constricting. More seals broke. Seawater sprayed the bookstore and bar, cascading down the window. My bunny slippers were drowning. Another squeeze and the water gushed freely, rapidly filling my home.

  Trapped in the monster’s glare, my brain was sluggish. Why wasn’t I moving? I couldn’t think past the glowing, yellow eye staring into my soul, finding me weak and wanting. I should give up. It wasn’t as though anyone would miss me, scarred, damaged, abomination that I was. Alone, hiding with my stupid books.

  Like the nightmare earlier, my brain couldn’t stop cycling through every horror I’d survived. The psychic assault kept me rooted to the spot. Worthless. Head throbbing, I realized those weren’t my words. The voice in my head was dark and cruel. Knowing it wasn’t me, that while I might think poorly of myself, I’d never disparage books, helped me to distance the pain of those words, helped me to think.

  Shit. I knew what this was. I hadn’t been hiding in a bookstore for seven years for nothing. I’d been researching and studying, learning everything I could about the supernatural world I was now a part of. Slamming my eyes closed, I broke the connection.

  The Kraken ensnared its victims, keeping them docile as he ate. Eyes closed, I splashed for the exit. Tripping on the bottom step and pitching forward, I slammed my knees against the stairs, righted myself, and then raced up. I almost knocked myself out when my head hit the immovable ward sealing the entrance. My wards were keyed to me. It was impossible for one of my wards to refuse me. And yet, I realized as I ran my hands over the solid barrier of the ward, one had. I screamed and pounded. “Open! Open!” It didn’t give way. I was trapped.

  The tunnels!

  Frigid seawater hit me far sooner than it should have. By the time I made it to the barroom floor again, the icy water was at my waist. Eyes still closed, I slogged as quickly as I could through the water and headed toward my apartment.

  I stepped on a bottle and it rolled, dropping me into the rapidly rising flood. Scrambling, getting my feet back under me, I stood. The water was chest high now. Sliding my feet along the floor so as not to trip again, I kicked another bottle out of the way. I was sure the eye was still on me. I could feel it watching, like a cat tracking a mouse. It was playing with me.

  Something grazed my leg. Please
be a fish. Please be a fish. Spinning, eyes opening against my will, I peered into the dark water, too afraid of what might be in here with me to worry about the eye. A tentacle had pushed up through the ocean entrance. It was searching for me. I jumped out of the water and landed, crouched on the bar. Shaking, soaked, I ran, sloshing toward the door to the kitchen. The tentacle slammed down on the bar right in front of me, cracking the wood and almost knocking me off my feet again. Leaping over it, I dove for the swinging door.

  Wrapping around my knee, the tentacle dragged me back, pulling me under the water. My left hand slid down the kitchen door, trying to find purchase. A shard of wood tore open my palm, but still I held on. Another hard yank had me racing toward a window just as it shattered. A wave of ocean water pushed me to the floor. I grabbed the side of the bar, trying to yank my leg out of its grip before I was drowned or eaten, but the tentacle tightened again and pulled with far more strength than one werewolf possessed. My shoulder popped out of its socket, and I was again being dragged through the water toward the monster.

  Two more tentacles wrapped around me from chest to knees, pulling me above the water. One short panicked breath and I was eye to eye with the Kraken. My home was flooded, books and bottles floating, washing out into the bay. It was all gone. My home, my dream, destroyed.

  Pulled down, deep into the water, the Kraken tightened its tentacles, driving the breath out of me. Ribs splintering, lungs like cement, I was sucked down deep into the water. The Kraken’s maw loomed, a razor-sharp beak waiting. I was going to die. Given my life so far, it was probably inevitable that I’d die badly. The tentacles constricted again, crushing bones.

  As it tore my flesh in big meaty bites, I tried to scream. Bloody bubbles foamed from my mouth and then there was nothing, but a beak covered in gore.