The Quarter Moon (Afterlife saga) (57 page)

“Do you have anything you would like to add to this
, my Keira girl?” Lucius asked me without taking his eyes off him. I went to step round him and his arm went ridged in my path. The look I gave Lucius must have been answer enough for what he was thinking because he let me pass him. I stood in front of Gastian and let my hate for what this man had put me through in the last three weeks build and build until I felt the familiar tingle in my fingertips.

“What
, Bitch?!” I heard the growl behind me from Lucius but it was quickly muffled by the groans of pain from Gastian. My answer to his question had been simple…I punched him hard enough to crack his head back and with it his nose, as now blood gushed from the break.

“BOO YA
, SISTER!” Pip cheered and I faced back round to see her jumping up and down like a mad woman, along with cheers from the audience, who I was shocked to see were on my side.

“He’s all yours
, Luc.” I said flexing my hurting knuckles but knowing the pain was soothed in the sight of my little revenge.

“Time to get paid
, Gastian.” Lucius said and in reply he screamed out,

“GIVE ME MY MONEY!” Then in the quickest move I have seen yet, Lucius was behind him with his head locked in
his arms. He didn’t even have time to struggle as Lucius simply snapped his neck and killed him in one effortless move. He let his body drop and said,

“Consider yourself paid
.”

The crowd cheered again as if
this was a bonus part of the evening and everyone stood up clapping until Lucius growled out his displeasure, putting a quick stop to the commotion. My mouth was hanging open and Pip jumped past me and stomped on his dead body saying,

“Yeah asshole, no one
messes with my friend Toots!” Then in true Pip fashion stuck her tongue out at him.

“You can deliver the
Veneno to my home in Munich, now give me her things.” Lucius ordered, snapping the auctioneer’s attention from the dead host lying on his floor. Meanwhile, I was trying to remember what the name meant, being sure I’d heard it sometime during the auction, but what was it?

“Of course
My Lord and the delivery will be on the house.” At this Lucius gave him a sarcastic smile and said,

“How generous of you, spending over a billion and getting the goods delivered
.” Pip laughed and then said,

“Yeah I know right, they could have at least thrown in a piece
of that Sultan’s Golden Cake for free but nope, nada, not even a free pen!” She made a ‘humpf’ sound and turned flicking her hair, hitting the auctioneer’s chest with cute curls. She walked over to me and hooked her arm in mine saying,

“Come on Toots, this party sucks cat balls and then blows them into the wind!” I looked over my shoulder to see my broken bag being passed to Lucius along with the Ouroboros book. I let Pip guide me past the gossiping crowd and we walked under one of the many arches.

“Pip, what’s a Veneno?” She burst out laughing and informed me through the giggles,

“It’s Lucius’
new baby, I just knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the Lambo.”

“What!?” She laughed again and said,

“Oh Toots, how I missed your funny ways.” My funny ways…this coming from Mrs Funny pants herself! But it was easy to admit that I had missed her so much and being away from everyone in my past life with Draven, had been getting harder by the day. Now though, it finally felt like I had found as least one half of that family, but would I be so lucky in finding the other?

We walked through the old building and as soon as we made it outside, a Limo was waiting for us. I looked around the small street before being quickly hustled inside the car by Pip. I was still wrestling with all my feathers when I asked,

“Where’s Lucius?” 

“Missing me already
, Keira girl?” Lucius said as he folded himself into the car and took the seat next to me. Pip fluffed up her hair and said,

“Nah, she missed me way more, she might have cried for you Mighty Master
Maximillion, but I got the bigger hug.” I had to laugh at his nickname.

“Oh
, you find that funny now do you?” Lucius said turning in his seat as the car started to pull away. He rested one bent leg on the other and ran a hand along the back of the seat to play with the feathers at my back.

“Nope, absolutely not
.”

“I see your lying skills are still as shit as ever
.” He said looking as though he was trying to hold back a grin.

“So where are we? And how did you find me and what happened to…
?”

“Oh here we go…” He said to himself looking up at the roof of the car.

“Alright my Keira, we are going to play a game.”

“OOO
H I love games!” Pip said bouncing in her seat and then she clapped her hands and said,

“Does it smell like cheese, but doesn’t come from an animal…oh wait but Adam is mostly like an animal…I mean he does this growly thing when I go down on…”

“LALALALA” I sang out like old times.

“I don’t even want to venture a guess this time
, squeak.” Lucius said dryly.

“I thought it was a guessing game and that you meant Adam’s toes…don’t you think it’
s weird how his left foot smells worse than the right one.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help it, I had to ask.

“I know right, total freak but I love em freaky!” She said before she slid off the seat to sit cross legged in front of a sleek counter to raid the minibar.

“Alright, now that my second in command
’s feet are out of the conversation,
where they belong…”
He said this last part as a stern message to Pip, who just waved a hand behind her, whilst her other one was pulling out a bottle of champagne.

“…l
et’s get back to my game, it’s called the ‘I will only ask one question at a time’ game.” Pip snorted as she popped the cork.

“That’s pretty shit for a game
’s name Luc, can’t you call it something…’Question Flash Time’ or ‘Flash my answer, bitch’ or, or, or ‘Flashin’ my Bitch up’…you know, something catchy like that?” I tried to keep a straight face when Lucius groaned and let his head fall back like he was asking for patience from the powers above.

“And why again does it have to have the word ‘Flash’ in it
‘cause you know the last one really didn’t make sense.” I added thinking this was quite possibly one of the strangest conversations I had ever had and not one I would have put high on the probability list when just being saved from being bought…or is it just plain bought, as technically Lucius had just bought me…and oh God, did this mean he owned me?!

“See Squea
k, this is what your mouth does to people, it makes their faces look that confused.” Lucius said to Pip after looking at me but she just gave him the finger and said,

“Hey Toot’s! Whose side are you on anyway? You can never over
use the word Flash and it fits in with so many different scenarios.”

“Yes, like if you don’t stop talking I will gag you in a flash
.” Lucius said this time making her growl at him, which was one of the cutest things!

“Fine! But I am so not playing your stupid game now!” She said pouting. 

“Good ‘cause you’re disqualified. Now, where were we?” Lucius said turning back to me and I had to hold in my smile when I saw Pip push her nose up, making faces behind him.

“Do me a favour here sweetheart, try and concentrate on my voice and not on Miss Piggy over there…who
won’t
be disciplined by her husband if she carries on.” This got her to behave and act semi normal…well, as semi normal as Pip could do anyway. And if I knew Pip the way I did, this was one threat she would not be pushing as she just loved to be disciplined by her husband… more so than Christmas apparently.

“So what were we talking about?” I asked feeling totally lost in the craziness that Pip starred in.

“Ask your ‘one’ question at a time, love?” He said looking exasperated and like he was sick of dealing with children.

“You bought me!?
” I don’t know why but all earlier questions left me but this one. It was as if the realisation of how much he’d spent was seeping in and I was left feeling very emotionally vulnerable because of it.

“And?” Lucius said as if this was as everyday as reading the newspaper or better still, like sucking blood for a Vampire!

“And you paid one
Billion
dollars for me! I mean, that’s just ridiculous…do you even know what you could do with money like that…? All the people you could help, the islands you could buy? And as for paying you back…” At this he burst out laughing and then slid closer to me.

He pushed back some of the hair that had come lo
ose on my neck then gently peeled back my mask. He pushed it down until it hung around my neck and then he gripped my chin between his thumb and finger to turn me to look at him. My heart was pounding and his grin told me he could hear every beat. He leaned in as though he was going to kiss me and in an impossibly slow move his lips changed direction and reached my ear. There he took it into his mouth and gently bit on the lobe playfully before he let it go with a pop.

Then I heard some of the most profound words I had ever heard in my life…

“Worth every single penny
!”

Chapter 52

Ripping Off Loose Ends

The whole car journey must have taken all of fifteen minutes and all I had learnt in that time was that we were Antwerp, Belgium. Well
, this wasn’t strictly true, I did also see Pip sulk about not being involved with Lucius’ ‘One at a time question game’ but to be fair there was only so much you could learn in the five minutes I had left after their mini squabble.

So this was what I had learned
. It turns out that the Auction I featured in was run by a secret society called Lega Nera, which is Italian for the ‘Black League’. But when I started to ask more about this mysterious ‘Black League’, Lucius just raised an eyebrow at me and then tapped my nose twice in gentle chastisement for breaking his ‘one question at a time’ rule.

I must have wrinkled my nose because Lucius did it back to me before touching his nose to mine and Pip started laughing at me.

“Still doing that Tootie wrinkler?” Pip asked me after she had downed her third glass of champagne. I shot her my best ‘whatever’ face making her giggle.  

After this Lucius continued to tell me that due t
o the Lega Nera’s illegal status it held its auctions in different places all over the world. So, given its high secrecy, the vendors are only given a weeks’ notice in which country it is to be held and a few days until the actual venue’s address is released to the supernatural world’s rich list. No guessing needed to whom I knew was on that list!

This year the
Lega Nera’s auction was held in Handelsbeurs or better known to those like me that can’t speak Flemish, it was Antwerp’s old Stock Exchange building. According to Pip, who got quite excited at this point in our conversation, it was actually a reconstruction of the original building of 1531 which was burnt down as a result of the first fire in 1583. Then, after being rebuilt back to the original plans, came the second fire much later in 1858. By this time the old plans were no longer used, and was once again rebuilt, only this time in a late-Gothic Brabant style.

At first I couldn’t understand why this would be something to get Pip excited about until she explained
that the fire in 1858 was down to the first time the Society’s auction was held there. The story was that a performing elephant that was being sold went ‘ape shit’ (Pip’s words) and went charging through the crowd, knocking oil lamps as she went. Her name was Martha and Pip had actually bid to buy her. This was much to Adam’s extreme displeasure, so much so he outbid her with a plan to give her away to a zoo. That was of course until she had to be put down, due to her ‘wig out’ so that the humans wouldn’t discover what had been going on under their very Belgian noses!

I asked about the first time the fire happened and she said,

“Bugger if I know, I only cared about Martha.” I found I could only smile at her endearing statement for a brief love affair with a 15,000 lb elephant, which brought us to now.

We were
just pulling up outside Lucius’ private jet at Antwerp International Airport. As soon as I saw the sleek plane waiting on the tarmac it instantly plunged me back to that very first night when meeting Team Lucius.

Pip had been dressed in the tiniest pair of shorts and a
Thundercats T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, despite the cold weather. I even remembered her kick ass, black spiked cowboy boots that looked deadly! Even back then when she was part of the crew that kidnapped me, I still thought she was one of the coolest chicks I had ever laid my eyes on, and ever since that night, that thought had only zoomed right up to epic on the cool scale!

Even now
, when the car stopped and I watched as Pip decided to give up using the glass and instead just downed the rest of the champagne from the bottle. She caught me looking and with an expression that wondered how anyone could get through a bottle that big within fifteen minutes she said,

“What?! It comes with the Limo rental
.” I couldn’t help but laugh when she shrugged her shoulders and then reached into the cooler and grabbed the remaining two bottles. I saw Lucius shake his head, smiling as he opened the door. He reached in and took my hand in his to help me from the car, making me realise I still had on my shackles which now had a broken piece of chain on the insides. I stepped out and one look at the plane had me wondering if they had tools on board, ‘cause I didn’t fancy making these ‘bracelets’ a permanent Keira addition!

“I will get them off you once we take off
.” Lucius said pulling me from my DIY thoughts.

“How did you know?” At my question he nodded to my face and stated,

“Expressive eyes,” making me blush and in turn making him laugh.

“Oh
, but that right there offers so many possibilities.” He said nodding to my burning cheeks and at this flirty comment my blush went nuclear!

“PIPPER!” Adam shouted from the open plane door. It only needed one look to see that he was not the composed Adam that I was used to. His shirt was un-tucked on one side and his hair looked like he had spent six hours raking his fingers through it, making his usual smart appearance look unkempt. Well
, given the panicked shout out to his wife, it was easy to gather who he had been worried about.

Pip stuck her head out of the car and when she saw Adam her who
le entire soul lit up. She bounced from the limo and forgetting all about her bounty she threw the bottles of champagne behind her and ran at him. He jumped down all the steps in one move and then caught her as she jumped into his arms. This was all in seconds and to the sound of glass smashing on the tarmac. A spray of bubbles and pale liquid flew up and it was like adding a firework to their pure love reuniting.

I couldn’t help the goofy smile that erupted at watching Pip cover his face in little kisses making his usual black rimmed, square glasses go askew. But he quite obviously couldn’t care less as he held on to her with one strong arm under her rear so he could use the other hand to check that she was all in one piece.

“Did you miss me, pumkee?” Pip asked him before sucking in her pink lip ring, looking cute twisting a curl around her finger. You couldn’t miss the growl he gave her but the whispered,

“Fuck yeah
,” was easy to read on his lips. I laughed when I heard Lucius groan next to me as we walked up to them both.

“Get a grip man, it’s only been a few hours
.” He told Adam but I don’t think a man like Adam really gave a shit what anyone thought when it came to his wife…not even his Vampire sire Lucius. 

“Thank you for taking care of her in my place
My Lord, but I will not be doing that again.” Oh bless him but he looked like he had been trying not to pull his hair out for all that time.

“You know why you couldn’t come
, my second, not after what happened in 1858.” I looked to Pip but she just mouthed,

“I will tell you later
.” It didn’t take much but if I was to venture a guess it would have something to do with an elephant named Martha….although I never thought I would be associating a sentence like that with anyone I knew, let alone someone like Adam!

After feeling every inch of his wife (which from the meowing coming from her, she didn’t mind one bit) only then did he let himself take in the rest of the world, which mainly included me.

“Keira.” I smiled at him as he tried to straighten his glasses, even with Pip trying to bite the frames.

“Hey Adam
.” I said blushing and his grin was the only warning I got before he hooked an arm over my shoulder and pulled me into his free side for a hug, still holding onto his wife with his other arm.

“Good to see you again
, little bird.” Pip laughed when I groaned at the mention of ‘Little bird’.

“First chan
ce I get I am getting out of this damn dress!” I complained making them all laugh… well, all except Lucius who chose that moment to lean in to my ear and say,

“That can be arranged quick
ly enough.” Then I felt his hands at my hips and he gripped the feathers there enough to get the message across. I swallowed hard and thankfully Pip was the one to save me. She jumped down from Adam and grabbed my hand to pull me inside the plane, saying,

“I like birdy Toots, so no tearing it off her yet…Hey
Tootie pie have you ever seen Sesame Street, ‘cause you know big bird was always my favourite!”

“Ha, ha Pip
.” I said as I followed her inside the plane.

It took me a moment to realise this wa
s the exact same plane that had taken me all the way to Germany the first time and I nearly laughed out loud at how different the circumstances were now. If anyone had told me all that time ago that I would be back on here, now thrilled to be with Lucius once again, then I would have not only called them nuts, I would have thrown a book of ‘How to perform a Lobotomy’ at their head!

Adam entered the plane next and asked the stewardess to tell the captain that we were ready to take off in five minutes. I let Pip drag me over to the middle of the plane. She plonked herself down in a seating area that was two cream leather sofa’s facing each other with a high polished table in between.
Now we sat facing each other I heard Lucius enter the plane asking about take-off. I looked over my shoulder and saw Lucius not only had my bag with him, but also he passed something on to Adam.

“Catch
, Birdy Tweet!” Pip shouted bringing my attention back round to find her throwing something at me. I caught the black shopping bag that had some gothic shop name on it I had never heard of. I gave her a ‘what is it look’ and she flicked her pointy nails to the bag and I had to giggle to myself when I saw how they were painted this time. It started as a story with a cute bunny chewing on some grass and then came a toxic waste can spilling on the same grass on the next finger. By the end of her nails it showed the cute bunny turn in to a Frankenstein demon bunny with blood dripping from a set of fangs. My only thought was what on earth the poor manicurists thought when Pip told her what she had in mind this week!?

I quit staring at her nails and opened the bag, taking out the sparkly tissue paper first. I lifted up a black t shirt that had a skull and cross bones on the front that said in bloody writing underneath,

‘I Party like a Pirate, so let me Play with your Captain’. I lowered the material to find her cheeky face nodding.

“Oh ARRRR it’s
GRRReat isn’t it, me matey?” I closed my eyes, bit my lip to stop from laughing and shook my head at hearing her corny pirate voice. I took a deep breath about to tell her that big bird was looking more appealing when she repeated excitingly,

“There’s more…look in the bag, look in the bag!” I don’t know what else I expected… maybe a hat, a plastic hook or Christ, I wouldn’t be surprised if a live Parrot flew out squawking ‘Pieces of eight, Pieces of eight’ wearing a wooden leg! What I wasn’t expecting was a pair of red and black striped
bloomers that had white embroidered words on the rear that said, ‘Spank me here to raise morale.’

“There’s a bedroom you can change in back there
.” I raised my eyebrows and scratched my head before saying,

“Eh…Yeah, no I can’t wear this
, honey.” On hearing this she pushed out her lips to pout and looked down at the floor. I was just letting her cute sulking face get to me enough to say fine, when she smiled and pulled out another bag from underneath the seat.

“I know, that’s why I got you this stuff as well
, you big pansy!” She grinned, passing me the bag and I got up to go change. I walked past her and patted her on head saying,

“My g
ood little Imp.” Her little growl made me chuckle. I walked to the back of the plane and heard Lucius shout behind me,

“Two minutes
, Keira Girl.” I smiled a secret smile at hearing his usual nickname for me and I didn’t want to admit it did funny fluttering things to my stomach. I just held up my arm over my head and gave him a thumbs up to indicate I heard him then I ran for the room.

It was amazing what they could fit into the space allocated for a bedroom
, as I dropped my bags onto the king sized bed. But not really having the time to nose around, which was what I really wanted to do, I decided to get on with it. I started to feel around my bodice for some sort of opening, a zip, clips, buttons, lock and key…but nothing! How on earth did they get me in this bloody thing in the first place…pour me into it, shoot me from a cannon… make the bloody thing around me when I was conked out?!

“Oh for
God’s sake, get off you stupid… stupid… stupid thing!” I said in frustration as I tried to get it from the skirt and pull it over my head.

“Can I be of assistance
, my dear?” Lucius said scaring me enough to fall backwards, landing on my bum. 

“
Oww!” I mumbled with my head under my skirt and a face full of feathers.

“Shut up, this isn’t funny
.” I said, still hidden under the feathered layers, to Lucius who was making no attempt to hide his laughter.

“Oh
, but I must disagree, from where I am stood I can assure you it is a very amusing sight.” I huffed and wrestled the feathers back from my face, blowing at some of the small loose ones that were trying to fall down my forehead.