Athena's Jewel: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Aya Harris Collection Book 2) Read online

  ATHENA’S JEWEL

  Aya Harris Collection

  Book 2

  LACY ANDERSEN

  ATHENA’S JEWEL

  Copyright 2016 by Lacy Andersen

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The man yanked her through the backdoor of the club, ignoring her hisses and snapping fangs. Only a minute ago, he’d been flirting with her over a bloody margarita. She’d liked the easy way he smiled and the strong pulsing of the blood running through the vein on his neck. This wasn’t how she imagined the night would end.

  With a quick hand, the man snapped a metal collar around her neck, and stepped back as her fangs disappeared and the strength in her arms faded away.

  “I’ve got another one for you, Timur,” he called into the darkness of the alleyway. “A vampire.”

  She jerked back when out of the gloom, a moving truck inched forward. The truck’s fog lights lit up the small patch of wet cement in front of her and a pile of discarded Bacardi boxes. A giant man dressed in a thin t-shirt and cargo pants stepped out of the passenger seat and approached them. He bent down low to get a good look at her, his rank breath hot and heavy on her face.

  “She’ll make a good addition to our haul,” the giant said in a gravelly voice. “Throw her in the back with the others.”

  The drug they’d slipped into her drink began to cloud her head, like a heavy fog descending on a valley. Her friends had left her to hit up the new club down the block. No one knew she was missing. They’d never find her.

  “Don’t worry, pretty thing,” the giant said, stroking her face with his huge index finger. “We’ll take care of you. We take care of all the girls that work for us.”

  They threw her in the back of the truck, slamming the door behind her. As the truck began to sway down the alleyway, she peered into the darkness. Five sets of eyes stared back at her – reflecting the same fear boiling beneath her skin.

  Chapter One

  The fire breathing toad gave one last belch of acrid smoke before hopping into a mess of boxes in the storage room. I jumped in after the amphibian, careful not to squish it. The last thing we needed was for our storage room to go up in flames. Ancient parchment and wooden artifacts didn’t hold up well against fire. No matter how magical they were.

  “Do I have to remind you, Mr. Jones, that this is a museum? Not a zoo?” I said through clenched teeth.

  Mr. Jones held the empty toad cage and laughed, his bulging belly bouncing up and down. “My dear, this is a supernatural museum and that is a supernatural toad. He belongs here as much as anything.”

  Shaking my head, I kept silent. Mr. Jones had acquired the toad on his latest expedition to Egypt. Along with it, he’d found a staff that was enchanted to locate gold, the mummified head of an Egyptian magician, and a wooden flute that could send anyone into a coma with its lullabies. I didn’t mind dealing with his crazy and dangerous items, but animals were another thing altogether.

  “Watch it, he’s going for the magic books,” I yelled, spotting the tawny rough backside of the toad squeezing between two overflowing bookshelves.

  A wisp of black smoke trailed into the air. The toad was gearing up to let another belch loose. He’d nearly singed me earlier when I discovered the empty cage, on my way to grab another bag of souvenir plastic shrunken heads for our younger visitors.

  After my encounters last month with my brother Nicky and his demented Gorgon friend, Theo, I was a little fire-shy. My friend, Angel, had healed me well enough. But once in a while, I still woke up screaming from my nightmares, thinking I was on fire.

  The toad popped his head out from behind the bookcase and I snatched him up. Juggling his squishy little body like a hot potato, I shoved him into Mr. Jones’ cage and slammed the door shut. The toad croaked and stared at me with one beady eye, smoke leaking from his lips.

  “Take that,” I said, dowsing him with the remaining water from my coffee mug.

  The water hit him with a sizzle. His flame extinguished, the toad wiggled under a plastic rock and buried himself in the sand.

  “Well, that’s no fun,” Mr. Jones pouted. “It’ll take him at least a month to get his fire burning again.”

  I smiled in victory. No toad was going to burn down my Arcana Museum of Supernatural and Occult.

  Technically, I was only its curator and Mr. Jones was the owner. But, I had plans to change that. My tiny savings account was growing each month. Soon, I’d have enough saved to approach Mr. Jones with a proposal.

  If he allowed me to buy in and partner with him in running the museum, I’d take it to the next level. We’d create interactive displays. Draw more people off the streets. Have special exhibits once a month that cost extra. It was all outlined in my proposal. Now, I just needed to get up the courage to present it to him.

  “Listen, Mr. Jones…”

  He flew past me, depositing the toad’s cage haphazardly on a shelf, and plucked one of his Egyptian parcels off the floor. I followed him through the storeroom, putting the cage on more solid ground, and righting a tower of boxes he nearly sent tumbling to the floor.

  “Can’t talk now, dear.” He ran a hand over the thick gray beard that jutted from his chin. “We have a special visitor coming this week. Must get the museum ready. Bring our best displays out.”

  I nodded. On the rare occasions Mr. Jones was in town, he would always entertain someone at the museum. He’d grown up among the rich and haughty of Arcana. His friends frequently visited, dripping in furs and diamonds.

  I wasn’t sure how a disorganized and down-to-Earth human like Mr. Jones kept such dazzling company. It could be due to his vast bank accounts – at least that’s what Angel and I suspected. How else could a sixty-year-old man afford to go gallivanting around the world, collecting rare objects for a museum that barely stayed afloat financially? He had to be loaded.

  Following my boss out of the storeroom, I froze. The museum lobby tilted and spun, sending me straight down to my knees. In a blink, the displays van
ished and in front of me was a dark street. I recognized the splitting headache and the taste of metal in my mouth. It was another vision – the clearest one yet.

  A young woman swayed toward me, glossy black pumps on her feet, and a leather jacket hanging off her shoulders. She dug in her purse, bright red nails disappearing in the black bag. I wasn’t sure how she stood on those heels. From the looks of her, she’d had one too many to drink that night. In another hour, she’d probably be draped over a toilet, regretting her life decisions.

  Behind a parked Chevy Cavalier with a dent in the side, appeared a man with a hood pulled over his head. He watched the young woman pass by, her attention still locked on the contents of her purse. The block around them was abandoned, and the busted streetlights left the road blanketed in darkness. I knew the moment he pulled the switchblade from his pocket, that girl was in danger.

  “Watch out!” I yelled.

  But, just like in all my visions, my voice went unheard.

  The hooded man grabbed a fistful of the woman’s hair and yanked her to the ground. Her screams were cut off by his hand closing over her mouth. He dug a knee into her stomach, pinning her to the concrete with his body weight.

  “What a yummy surprise,” the man cooed. He smiled, displaying three rows of sharpened teeth.

  I watched helplessly as he sunk his teeth into her neck like a shark, and began to devour her alive. There was so much blood and pain. My eyes couldn’t look away.

  Finally, the vision came to a sudden halt, and I found myself back in the museum lobby, my face melded to the tile floor.

  “Did you have another one?”

  Angel came rushing to my side. She helped me sit up and lean against the wall. The room still spun around me. At any second, I could eject the turkey sandwich I had for lunch all over the floor. Moving was out of the question.

  “Yes, just as bad as the last one.” I held a hand to my head. “No, wait. Scratch that. This one was worse.”

  She gave me a sympathetic smile and crouched down on her heels. “At least you’re saving lives.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  I’d had four visions since Nicky left town, each one getting steadily worse. It was as if a switch had been flipped inside my head. What used to happen once a year, was now happening once a week. At this rate, I’d be spending the rest of my life in bed, nursing magical hangovers.

  “Tell me, was it a theft or something worse?” Angel asked, studying my face. “Your last vision was that guy stealing from a bank. I almost wanted you to let him get away with it.”

  Angel had a little bit of that down with the man attitude. I blamed it on her hippy mother. She’d been big into the love and peace movements of the sixties. Drank too much and smoked everything she could find. It was a good decade for her.

  She was proud of the fact that she’d conceived Angel in a weed-fueled night at Woodstock. Didn’t even know the guy’s name. But she got Angel, and that was all that mattered to her.

  “No, this was way worse,” I moaned. “Like, murder worse. I saw a manticore chow down on some poor drunk lady. It was bloodier than a Tarantino film.”

  Angel grimaced. Manticores weren’t exactly common around here. They were one of the creatures forced to register with the Supernatural Investigations, or the SI as we liked to call them. As a typically man-eating species, the SI liked to keep a close eye on their lot.

  “I’d better call Gideon.” I used Angel to pull myself off the ground. “He’s going to want to report this one right away. I think it’ll happen tonight.”

  Angel straightened my royal blue sweater and swiped a hand on my rear, dusting off the particles from the floor. She was the kind of friend that didn’t mind pointing out a piece of food stuck in your teeth. It only made me love her more.

  “No need,” she said, studying my outfit. “Prince Charming is waiting for you at the front counter.”

  I bit my bottom lip as a rush of giddy nerves took over me. Gideon had spent most of the past few weeks out of town on official SI business, but he made a point of flying in as often as he could. Ever since we defeated Theo, he and I had a thing going. I wasn’t sure how serious it would become, but I liked the way he smelled and the way he kissed. You could build a relationship on that.

  “Go get him, chica,” Angel said with a smack of her lips.

  I finished brushing my clothes off and forced myself to walk calmly through the displays, although I wanted nothing more than to break out into a sprint. There he was, leaning casually against the counter and studying his phone, all five foot eleven of him. He’d had time to trade in his customary suit for a pair of worn denim jeans, and his favorite brown leather jacket with the popped collar.

  As I took in the sight of his scruffy beard and tussled brown hair, the memories of his last day in town crept into my head, making me blush. We’d spent a lazy Saturday in his hotel room, ordering room service and testing out the Jacuzzi bathtub. Champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries were the special of the day. I wished we were back in that hotel room so I could trail my fingers along the tattoos hidden beneath his t-shirt and jeans.

  “Hi, you.”

  He looked up from his phone and gave me a crooked grin. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. Sorry for dropping in without calling. I tried texting, but you didn’t reply.”

  I sighed. “Sorry. We had a toad emergency in the back. It’s taken up most of my morning.”

  His eyebrows pulled together in confusion, but he didn’t ask. Weird things like that were a part of my job. They happened a little too often around here.

  “Listen, before I forget, I had a vision,” I blurted out.

  As much as I wanted to fall into his arms and get lost in those hazel eyes, I had to save that woman. Just the idea of getting eaten alive made me shudder.

  “There’s a woman on Tenth Avenue that’s going to be attacked by a manticore tonight. You might want to get someone on that.”

  He nodded curtly and dialed the local SI on his phone. So far, my visions had been four for four. It was pretty much guaranteed that someone would become a manticore meal tonight, unless they stopped it.

  “Are you okay?” Gideon asked, after hanging up his phone. He cupped my chin and looked into my eyes. “That vision really took it out of you, didn’t it?”

  I nodded. If I looked as bad as I felt, then I imagined my face was pretty pale at that moment. Even my favorite red lipstick wouldn’t hide the draining effect of a major vision.

  “Have they contacted you yet?” he asked.

  I sighed and pulled away. For the past four weeks, he’s been asking me the same question. He was worried that the Harpy Quorum – the HQ – would get wind of my location and come flying in like hawks for the kill. But so far, nothing. Not even a blip on the radar.

  Maybe I was too little of a fish to fry. Or maybe they were biding their time. Either way, my head was about to burst with anticipation. At any moment, they could come swooping in and punish me for failing to kill my brother years ago. Harpy punishment wasn’t something to joke about, either. It usually involved slowly starving to death in isolation.

  “No news is good news, right?” I asked, hoping for a bit of encouragement. Anything to get the feeling that someone was watching me out of my head.

  Instead, his mouth twisted into a frown. “Maybe…”

  “This wait is killing me.” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling to keep the frustrated tears from coming. “It might be worse than what they have planned for me. I can’t sit around doing nothing, worrying that at any moment they’ll pop up and take me away.”

  He stepped closer. “I won’t let that happen.”

  “What if you can’t stop them?”

  “I will.”

  His gaze fell heavily on my face. Lowering my eyes to his, a familiar heat began to burn in my stomach. He slid his hand down my neck and leaned in, pressing his lips to mine. I melted into the kiss, wanting to grab the back of his jacket and pull him closer. But,
I resisted. That kind of kiss could wait until we were back in my apartment. Alone.

  “I have to go follow up on your tip,” he said, pulling away with a reluctant sigh. “But I’ll be at your place tonight.”

  I watched him leave, the back of his leather jacket disappearing through the sliding glass doors of the exit. Duty called. Nothing like dating a real life Superman. He could save the damsel and put away the bad guy. It was enough to make a girl swoon.

  The familiar feeling of a vision coming on strong gave me just enough warning to brace myself against the counter. I cried out as the museum disappeared, and in its place, a city street popped up. Darkness was beginning to ascend on the road, leaving just enough light for me to watch a girl with long blonde hair exit a building, and begin walking down the sidewalk.

  With a jolt, I realized the girl was me. I was wearing my favorite tan jacket with a sequined tank underneath, and had just finished closing up the museum. Out of nowhere, three people dressed in black descended on me, their majestic black wings unfurled.

  Two of them shoved a bag over my head, yanking my arms behind me and forcing me to my knees. I screamed and kicked, but they held tight. The third person sprinkled a blue powder over my head. In an instant, my body gave out, collapsing to the cement like a ragdoll.

  And just like that, the vision vanished, and I was back in the museum lobby with my hands clutching the countertop. My legs shook in terror as I ran a clammy hand over my forehead. This was what we’d been waiting for. This had been my nightmare for seven years.

  The harpies were coming for me. They wouldn’t stop. Not until I was dead.

  Chapter Two

  I was still reeling from my vision when I arrived at my apartment that evening. Thankfully, Gideon was waiting for me when I stepped off the stairs and into my hall.

  “What are you doing out here?” I hissed. “Mrs. O’Conner can sense when someone is loitering in the hall.”