Club Himeros (10 page)
Authors: G Doucette
She’d had roughly ten million false sightings of Mr. Mocha in the previous two months, so at first she dismissed the voice, and that the height and build and hair were all about right. But he was in a tank top—he’d just come from the gym based on his clothing—and the Tweety Bird tattoo was impossible to miss.
She nearly dropped the bottle in her hand.
“Hi,” she said, only not very loudly and from about twenty feet away. He looked up, though, and saw her standing there in the middle of the aisle, cradling a $100 bottle of Glenlivet and looking stunned and probably very ordinary. No black dress or heels, not even any makeup.
Their eyes met, but then he looked away. He either didn’t recognize her, or was pretending not to.
* * *
She bought the bottle. The man at the register seemed pretty concerned about her, because she was trying very hard to hold back tears as she ran her debit card through the machine, and the more he asked how she was doing the harder it was to hold it together. And she still had six blocks to walk to get home.
Outside, she got to the edge of the parking lot and started looking around for vacant alleys where she might have a good, long, private cry, when she heard him behind her.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
She turned. Mr. Mocha was leaning up against a car, looking awkward, like someone who wanted to look casual but couldn’t figure out exactly how to pull it off. It was the same awkward she had seen that night in the club, when he sat on the couch and couldn’t figure out what to do with his hands.
It was really him.
“Mocha?” she said.
“Burgundy.”
“It’s Lindy.”
He smiled. “Hank. That’s a nice bottle. Gift?”
“This? Oh, no, it’s… never mind, not important. How… how are you?”
“I’m good, I’m…” he trailed off just nodding his head up and down as if this completed the sentence adequately.
“You’re good, then.”
“Super.”
“Okay.”
They couldn’t seem to speak. There was five feet of air between them and it was as thick as concrete.
“So… I’ll be seeing you around, I guess?”
“Sure, yes,” she said. Her eyes were welling up again.
Say something
. “We could have coffee or—”
“Why did you leave?”
She blinked. “What? Why did
I
leave?”
“It’s just I woke up and you weren’t there, and that asshole at the door…”
“Oh my God.”
“…he wouldn’t tell me
anything
…”
“Oh God, I thought
you
left.”
“What? I woke up and you were…”
“…but no I woke up and
you
…”
Then they both laughed, which was fantastic, as Lindy was pretty sure she’d done none of that for two months. The wall of concrete air dissipated.
“I’ve been looking
everywhere
for you,” he said. “I took up jogging!”
“I started drinking your wine.”
“I’ve opened ten bank accounts in ten banks.”
“I have six gym memberships.”
“That’s expensive!”
“What do you care,” she said, “you have ten bank accounts.”
“True, but—”
“Oh shut up and kiss me already.”
He laughed, and stepped closer. His eyes were blue, like she had imagined, and she liked his face very much. She still wanted to cry, but not for the same reason.
“Yes ma’am,” he said.
So he did, and it was nearly worth the two-month wait.
It was the kind of kiss people didn’t give other people in public, the sort where the whole body is engaged and the only reasonable thing to do next is remove clothing. It was the sort of kiss people stopped to watch, as the other occupants of the liquor store parking lot were doing. Lindy could feel their eyes on her, and didn’t care a bit.
Look all you want
, she wanted to say,
but don’t stare.
Sapphire Blue
Has Mara lost control, or has it been taken from her?
Mara Cantor’s life is boring and uncomplicated, and she likes it that way. She has her internship at the museum—a job she shares with her roommate, Davis—and while it is low-paying and occasionally mind-numbing, it gives her all the free time she needs to finish her thesis. And that is just fine.
But when Argent Leeds, the internationally famous playboy and raconteur, visits Mara’s museum, he brings with him the most exciting archeological discovery in decades: the Pazuzu gemstones. Long assumed to be nothing more than a myth by most scholars, the gemstones are rumored to possess mystical powers.
Between Argent, his gemstones, and Davis, Mara’s boring life has suddenly gotten very complicated. Now she is caught up in a sexual adventure that is either the most exciting time of her life . . . or the most terrifying.
G Doucette is the pen name for novelist Gene Doucette. Gene is also an award-winning screenwriter, novelist, playwright, humorist, essayist, and columnist A graduate of Boston College, he lives in Cambridge, MA with his family.
His standalone novel
Fixer
and the books in his critically acclaimed
Immortal
series – which follows a sarcastic, alcoholic, 60,000 year old man named Adam – are his publisher’s top sellers, and have spent months at a time respectively on Amazon bestseller lists. The third installment in the
Immortal
series –
Immortal at the Edge of the World
– is available now.
Immortal
“I don’t know how old I am. My earliest memory is something along the lines of fire good, ice bad, so I think I predate written history, but I don’t know by how much. I like to brag that I’ve been there from the beginning, and while this may very well be true, I generally just say it to pick up girls.”
--Adam the Immortal
Surviving sixty thousand years takes cunning and more than a little luck. But in the twenty-first century, Adam confronts new dangers—someone has found out what he is, a demon is after him, and he has run out of places to hide. Worst of all, he has had entirely too much to drink.
Immortal is a first person confessional penned by a man who is immortal, but not invincible. In an artful blending of sci-fi, adventure, fantasy, and humor, IMMORTAL introduces us to a world with vampires, demons and other “magical” creatures, yet a world without actual magic.
At the center of the book is Adam.
“I have been in quite a few tight situations in my long life. One of the first things I learned was if there is going to be a mob panic, don’t be standing between the mob and wherever it is they all want to go. The second thing I learned was, don’t try to run through fire.”
--Adam the Immortal
Adam is a sixty thousand year old man. (Approximately.) He doesn’t age or get sick, but is otherwise entirely capable of being killed. His survival has hinged on an innate ability to adapt, his wits, and a fairly large dollop of luck. He makes for an excellent guide through history . . . when he’s sober.
Immortal is a contemporary fantasy for non-fantasy readers and fantasy enthusiasts alike.
* * *
Hellenic Immortal
“Very occasionally, I will pop up in the historical record. Most of the time I’m not at all easy to spot, because most of the time I’m just a guy who does a thing and then disappears again into the background behind someone-or-other who’s busy doing something much more important. But there are a couple of rare occasions when I get a starring role.”
--Adam the Immortal
An oracle has predicted the sojourner’s end, which is a problem for Adam insofar as he has never encountered an oracular prediction that didn’t come true . . . and he is the sojourner. To survive, he’s going to have to figure out what a beautiful ex-government analyst, an eco-terrorist, a rogue FBI agent, and the world’s oldest religious cult all want with him, and fast.
And all he wanted when he came to Vegas was to forget about a girl. And maybe have a drink or two.
“I am probably not the best source when it comes to who invented what. For a long time I thought I invented the wheel.”
--Adam the Immortal
The second book in the Immortal series, Hellenic Immortal follows the continuing adventures of Adam, a sixty-thousand-year-old man with a wry sense of humor, a flair for storytelling, and a knack for staying alive. Hellenic Immortal is a clever blend of history, mythology, sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, mystery and romance. A little something, in other words, for every reader.
* * *
Immortal at the Edge of the World
“What I was currently doing with my time and money . . . didn’t really deserve anyone else’s attention. If I was feeling romantic about it, I’d call it a quest, but all I was really doing was trying to answer a question I’d been ignoring for a thousand years.”
In his very long life, Adam had encountered only one person who appeared to share his longevity: the mysterious red-haired woman. She appeared throughout history, usually from a distance, nearly always vanishing before he could speak to her.
In his last encounter, she actually did vanish—into thin air, right in front of him. The question was how did she do it? To answer, Adam will have to complete a quest he gave up on a thousand years earlier, for an object that may no longer exist.
If he can find it, he might be able to do what the red-haired woman did, and if he can do that, maybe he can find her again and ask her who she is . . . and why she seems to hate him.
“You are being watched. Move your loved ones to safety . . . trust nobody.”
But Adam isn’t the only one who wants the red-haired woman. There are other forces at work, and after a warning from one of the few men he trusts, Adam realizes how much danger everyone is in. To save his friends and finish his quest he may be forced to bankrupt himself, call in every favor he can, and ultimately trade the one thing he’d never been able to give up before: his life.
From the author of Immortal and Hellenic Immortal comes Immortal at the Edge of the World, the breathtaking conclusion to the best-selling trilogy. Will Adam survive?
Buy
Immortal at the Edge of the World
* * *
Fixer
What would you do if you could see into the future?
As a child, he dreamed of being a superhero. Most people never get to realize their childhood dreams, but Corrigan Bain has come close. He is a fixer. His job is to prevent accidents—to see the future and “fix” things before people get hurt. But the ability to see into the future, however limited, isn’t always so simple. Sometimes not everyone can be saved.
“Don’t let them know you can see them.”
Graduate students from a local university are dying, and former lover and FBI agent Maggie Trent is the only person who believes their deaths aren’t as accidental as they appear. But the truth can only be found in something from Corrigan Bain’s past, and he’s not interested in sharing that past, not even with Maggie.
To stop the deaths, Corrigan will have to face up to some old horrors, confront the possibility that he may be going mad, and find a way to stop a killer no one can see.
Corrigan Bain is going insane
. . . or is he?
Because there’s something in the future that doesn’t want to be seen. It isn’t human. It’s got a taste for mayhem. And it is very, very angry.
* * *
Surviving Hector (a short story)
“You can call me Hector. Nobody else does, and I only thought of it three seconds ago, so you will not find anything about me by knowing this. It’s better than
you with the gun,
however
.”
Before leaving work for the weekend, Anita’s boss gave her a file for safekeeping. Now the killer sitting in her bedroom wants the file, and is willing to kill Anita and her wounded, unconscious husband if he doesn’t get it. But if she hands it over, he might kill them anyway.
Alone, unarmed and dressed for bed, can Anita save her husband and herself? Can she survive Hector?
* * *
The Immortal Chronicles: Immortal and the Madman
is one of an ongoing series of short stories and novellas written by Adam, the immortal narrator of
Immortal
,
Hellenic Immortal
and
Immortal at the Edge of the World
.
The Immortal Chronicles: Immortal At Sea (volume 1)
Adam's adventures on the high seas have taken him from the Mediterranean to the Barbary Coast, and if there's one thing he learned, it's that maybe the sea is trying to tell him to stay on dry land.
