[Original Novella] After Sunset - An Adult Urban Fantasy - Part 1

 A modern, adult fantasy

This is the first in a few part novella. It's completely original, but I just had no idea where to put something of this length, and in this genre.
Disclaimer: If the concepts of polyamory or male bisexuality worry you on a deep, existential level, this story may not be for you. There are adult themes, and scenes, but nothing more overt than the last mass-market fantasy paper back I read. Seriously, that shit got *dirty*.

I peeled my hands away from the steering wheel and waggled my fingers at the glaring red stop light, trying to will it to change to green and give me the right of way.

Hello. My name is Alexandra Hart. And I'm Dallas, Texas's guardian wizard.

Well, a junior one, at least.

I could harness the magic contained within the well of my body, the mystical energy that courses through the world around me, or the arcane energy stored within the orichalcum rings and necklaces covering my fingers and dangling from my neck.

I'd walked through the dark places of our world, shifted through time and space, fought werewolves, and single-handedly brought vampire organizations to their knees with just my magical prowess and keen intellect.

But, I still couldn't make a traffic signal switch to green. Not during the day, at least.

My shoulders sagged in disappointment.

So much for magic being useful.

I slumped in my driver seat and threw my head back against the headrest. “Dear Satan, I've been thinking,” I said aloud to the otherwise empty cab of my new Civic, eyes upturned to the ceiling, “I'll gladly give you my eternal soul and unending devotion if-”

The light changed green. Finally.

My eyes swiveled back forwards. “Never mind,” I said with a grin as I slammed on the gas and sped through the intersection. Sure, to the untrained eye, offering to sell my eternal soul seemed a bit much. But, I'd been sitting at that damn light forever. And you've likely never experienced the unique beauty that is Dallas rush hour traffic.

Besides, Satan isn't real. Well, Satan probably isn't real. It depends on which school of thought you prefer. Elementals, spirits, ghosts, and other oddities, though? You better believe they're real. In fact, my backseat was loaded up with a cardboard box of summoning items so I could teach Tiffany, our secretary, some of the finer details of elemental and daemonic invocation. I had everything one needed to summon a creature from a dimension once or twice removed from their own: incense, scented candles, wooden and stone figurines, old Star Wars action figures, polymer clay. And, of course, the absolutely necessary antique thermometers.

I hung a right at the next light, then cruised a little farther as I bopped along to London Calling by The Clash. Together, old Joe Strummer and I belted out the lyrics to “Brand New Cadillac” as I turned left onto Swiss Avenue, and, in the space of one ninety-degree angle, went from a world of wandering homeless and rundown buildings to another of manicured lawns, topiary shrubs, and million-dollar homes.

I drove a little farther down before I pulled into the driveway of Swiss House, the nominal headquarters of the Sentinels in Dallas, the front end of my Civic scraping out its announcement of my arrival on the spot where the concrete drive met the road. I winced a little as I drove up the driveway. My previous car, also a Civic, had been blown up by a car bomb a few months before. So, I was a little protective of this one.

I pulled up beside the large house and threw the car in park, killed the engine, and got out.

This was the place my boss Mina Harker and I worked. It was where we kept a lid on the simmering tensions of the supernatural community. We monitored the coming and going of the various supernatural shifting world, as they came and went from city to city, and licensed vampires of our local vampire house to murder their one human a month.

I'm sorry. Did I say murder? I meant Terminal Feeding. We all need to stay a little PC around here. After all, we all signed the Covenant eighty years before to make sure we played nice.

Of course, vampires didn't need to kill to survive. They just required blood. For them and their victim, though, feeding was an almost orgasmic experience. So much, that sometimes things got “out of hand.” But, if they could keep those urges in check, they were given a monthly token by the wizards that helped them with the most obvious aspect of their curse: no reflections, no pictures, and a decidedly corpse-like complexion. In exchange, we got their blood.

Essentially, they agreed to keep their murder-addiction toned down as a bargain for their safety. And we gave them a sacrificial lamb in exchange for ours, and the rest of humanity's. Whether it was a fair trade, or not, was up to others to argue. I was just here to enforce the rules.

I left my ceremonial sword, think wizard's staff but stabby, in the trunk of my car and grabbed the box of foci and reagents from the back seat. I pushed the backdoor closed with my butt and approached Swiss House's kitchen. Rather than going through the intricate method of switching to astral sight and channeling just the right kind of magic from my amulets and rings to the wards Mina had placed there, I opted for a more direct method and just kicked the hell out of the metal plate at the bottom.

“Tiffany!” I threw my head back and wailed through the kitchen door. “Open up! I got toys to play with!”

It wasn't just about me being lazy, even if it seemed that way. The sun inhibits the flow of magic, and pretty much anything supernatural. I would have had to pour magic out from my jewelry, my fetishes, like a fire hose to do the simplest of things, even if it was just unlocking the wards. Tiffany, who was still inside the house, could use probably one-tenth of what I'd have to to do the same minute magical chore.

A few moments later, Tiffany called from the other side: “Hold your dang horses, Alex!” The tiniest bit of magic surged within the house just before she began fiddling with the locks.

I adjusted the box full of plastic Wookies, Ewoks, and Jedi Knights, hiking it higher up on my body, as she flung the door open.

“Oh my God! When can we start?” my tall, lithe, platinum-blonde-haired beauty of a secretary asked with an enthusiastic clapping of her hands.

“Sundown,” I said, a wide grin spreading on my face from one ear to the other as I pushed past her with my cardboard box and set it down on the kitchen's island counter. “Come on, you know that.”

Tiffany and I couldn't have looked more different, both from each other, and from what your average person would imagine a wizard to be.

Six years younger than me, and not even old enough to legally drink, Tiffany was tall and thin, with perfect hips, a great ass, and perky tits. She'd bleached and dyed her hair from its normal light brown to its current platinum, and it really went well with her overall sorority girl look, one which was only marred by two solid orichalcum rings on her left hand.

I, on the other hand, was shorter than her, and more solid, more toned. Mina, who happened to be Tiffany's one-hundred-sixteen-years-old great-great-Aunt, had me on a rigorous hand-to-hand training schedule. Add to that my jeans, combat boots, and Dead Kennedy's t-shirt to go with my pale skin and short, dark brown hair, not to mention the array of orichalcum necklaces and rings covering me, and you had a couple of women that could only become friends because they happened to work together.

“Oh, I know,” she said, a perfect pout forming on her cupid's bow of a mouth. “But, isn't there anything we can do before hand? To get ready?”

I checked the time on my phone. We still had a couple hours till sunset. And, before you ask, yes, wizards could use technology. Most of the older ones, like Tiffany's aunt Mina, just hated it.

“Take a shower?” I suggested. “Sit quietly in a room for a few hours? Go stand in the sun? Just go get your head clear, and get all the stray magical energies off you.”

She pouted again. “Meditation for two hours?” she asked, stressing the last two words like I'd suggested she cut off her hand or be celibate for the rest of her long, adult life.

I rolled my eyes. Tiffany hadn't exactly failed out of the Library, the formal boarding school for wizards, but, she hadn't exactly completed it all the way through, either. She didn't have the focus or rigor for evocation magic, things like flinging fireballs or lightning bolts, and effecting objects within her field of sight. And she couldn't still her mind, or train it, well enough to hold the mental images needed for thaumaturgy, the practice of using magic over great distances.

I knew it was a little bit of a sore spot for my boss Mina, one of the most powerful wizards currently walking the earth, so I figured I'd try to help Tiffany along. To give her a little extracurricular education. I mean, I was more than qualified to tutor her. In normal terms, she was at about a high school graduate level when it came to magic. Whereas, I was more like a PhD.

Hart. Dr. Alex Hart.

Too bad no one in the normal world was aware enough to accredit an extra-dimensional wizarding school. If I'd had a diploma, it wouldn't have been worth the paper it was printed on.

Before I had a chance to respond to her whine, though, my phone buzzed in my hand. It was a text message from one of my pseudo-boyfriends, Michael Taylor.

“Doing anything tonight? I'm going to be in your neck of the woods all evening, and I thought we could get dinner and drinks.”

“Who's that?” Tiffany asked, trying to peek over the top of my phone so she could look down at the screen.

“Hey!” I squawked and spun away from her. “None ya!”

My heart fluttered. “Neck and dinner in the same message?” I typed back, a slight smile gracing my lips. “Come on, you can do better than that.”

Mike had been one of my closest friends up through high school. I'd only see him during the summers once I'd started going to the Library, but he disappeared after graduation. He unexpectedly reappeared in my life a couple months ago, now with a nasty aversion to sunlight, a new set of fangs, and a group of angry vampires on his ass.

Mike, our shifter friend Sam, and I managed to subdue the leader of the aforementioned angry vampires and trade her to the titular head of Dallas's most powerful vampire house, Hector Ulster, in exchange for Mike's protection. Now, he worked security for House Ulster, putting the talents learned from his previous house to work for his new one.

Along the way to bagging that nasty vamp and saving our own skin, though, the three of us managed to rekindle a little three-way romance. I wasn't sure how Mike and Sam had been doing with each other in that department, but I knew I'd been managing just fine with the two of them. Except for the last week or so, of course. Frustratingly, both of my men had been out of pocket, and only exchanging text messages with me.

“Hahaha,” Mike sent back. “You in or out?”

My heart cranked it up a notch and went from fluttering to racing. My lips began to grin of their own accord.

“Vamp boyfriend, huh?” Tiffany asked over my shoulder, and I could virtually hear her eyes roll and her lips pout. “No summoning tonight, I guess.”

My grin withered away to a frown as a pang of guilt stabbed me in the gut. Like I said, I was kind of her tutor. But, dammit, we already spent so much time together as it was because of work. I had two boyfriends, and I never saw either of them. It wasn't fair!

But, no, I had made plans with Tiffany already. And, like my adopted father Jacob Hart, gods rest his soul, had always said: “Your word is your bond.” I sighed and turned off my phone's screen.

“I'm just messing with you,” Tiffany said in the exact anti-tone of her previous whine as she wrapped me in a big hug from behind. “Go hang out with Mike. I know you haven't seen either of your boys all week. We can do this anytime, right?”

“You serious?” I asked, astonishment and relief flooding my voice as she squeezed me.

“Of course I am!” She spun me around and put her hands on my shoulders. “He's got free time for once, and so do you.”

“I mean, I don't want to - I just - are you sure?” I sputtered out, the joy tying my tongue.

She brought her eyes down level with mine. “Go. Get. Laid.”

I broke out into a grin again and pulled her into a hug. “Thanks for letting me off the hook, Tiff.”

“No prob, Alex,” she said as she hugged me back. “Now, text him and go. I'll put this stuff up till your next night off.”

She didn't have to tell me twice.

Absolved of my promise, I was out the door in a flash.

---

The sun had been down for a few hours already when I got out of my Civic in front of the McMansion to which Mike had directed me. The mini-mansion was in Lakewood, my neighborhood in East Dallas, and was definitely a recent build. Probably one of those deals where some rich yuppie had purchased a little 1920s-era bungalow, then paid to have it torn down so they could have a five bedroom, three bath home just a few miles from downtown. That way, they could get all the comforts of the suburbs, but without the soul-crushing drudgery of actually having to live there.

There was one problem, though. I didn't think anyone lived here. I glanced in the living room windows as I approached the ridiculously large front door, and the interior just seemed off. Very little furniture decorated the rooms, and none of it matched the curtains, or the paint on the walls. Everything about the place screamed vacant, or like it was a show house.

Why Mike was here, instead of at his highrise apartment downtown, I had no idea. And all night? That was just bizarre.

But, hey, I hadn't seen my favorite vamp in over a week, so I was trying to not check the fangs on this gift horse.

Worries aside, I rang the doorbell. As I waited, I looked up and down the street. The neighborhood was changing, alright. The split on new versus old homes was about fifty-fifty. I normally stayed ensconced in my own little area of the hood, which happened to be protected by a historical designation. Here, though, there wasn't the same consideration. In fact, just across the street, was an example of the gentrification. Or, maybe I'd just call it, willful historical amnesia, since it wasn't the poor getting pushed out.

A piece of new, two story construction. Its ugly pine skeleton already reaching up to the darkened sky as it sprouted from the dirt brown construction lot around its concrete slab. The frame pushed to the edges of its small city lot, abutting its neighbor. There were probably trees there before, pecans and oaks, that had to be torn out to make room for this architectural atrocity.

Not that I was bitter or anything about the changes to my neighborhood. Never.

“Alex?” Mike's voice called from the other side of the oaken door.

“Yeah,” I called back. “Let me in.”

He unlocked the door and it smoothly swung open. There he stood. Michael Taylor. My vampire: tall, strong, handsome, cool, collected, great hair, full lips, high cheekbones, perfectly tailored charcoal slacks and maroon dress shirt to go with his equally expensive shoes. All topped with that rakish gleam in his pale blue eyes. He was everything my other boyfriend Sam wasn't, even if they had practically grown up together.

“Goddammit, Alex!” he yelped as I leaped on him and wrapped my arms and legs around his torso, barreling him back into the entryway of the house. He slammed shut the door with a flailing hand as, together, we went stumbling deeper inside. “It's good to see you, too!”

I leaned back as his strong, defined arms came up to support my back, and threw my own arms around his neck. I pulled his lips to mine and traced my tongue over his soft lips till he opened his mouth and invited me in. He moved a hand beneath my ass and crushed my chest to his with the other.

After a long, hot moment of heavy breathing and tongue entwining, we released our lip lock and grinned at each other.

“I missed you,” I panted, breathless.

“I missed you, too,” he said. “Want to get down now?”

“Do I have to?”

He slapped my ass, producing a squeal from me. “Gonna be hard to eat if you stay up there.”

“Fine,” I mock groaned. I unlocked my legs from behind his back and dropped to the marble tile. “What did you get, anyways?”

“Pietro's,” he purred, his big hands still on my hips as he loomed over me. “Lasagna with meat sauce, for two.”

My favorite! Pietro's was the oldest Italian restaurant in Dallas. It had been in their family since the 50s, and all the recipes belonged to Pietro's mother and father. They'd long since been put in the ground, but, damn, if their dishes didn't still taste wonderful.

“You do love me,” I replied as I got up on tip toes and pecked him on the lips, before turning and breaking his grasp to to make a beeline for the kitchen. “Did you get any wine?”

“I did,” he called as I breezed into the nearly bare, but well-finished, kitchen. Granite counter tops spread over everything and the cabinets were crafted from dark, expensive wood. Two plain white paper bags sat on the counter next to a bottle of Italian red, two wine glasses, and a server key.

“What's the deal with this place? Why's it so empty? And what the hell are you doing here?” I asked as I went straight for the food on the counter. With food in sight, and within smell, I realized how famished I was.

“Kind of an op-sec deal.”

I tore into the bag, the fragrance of garlic, oregano, and a hint of other secret spices assaulting my nose and whetting my appetite. “Op-sec? I speak wizard and a little Spanish. Clarify.”

“Security,” he replied as he grabbed the bottle of wine and began to open it with the server key. “House Ulster's deep into real estate, remember?”

“Yeah,” I said as I pulled food from the bag and laid it out on the counter, “I remember.”

They owned half, if not more, of the distinctive Dallas skyline. Reunion tower, the spinning ball thing with Wolfgang Puck at the top? Ulster owned it. Bank of America plaza, the formerly giant green building that dominated the city? Owned. Comerica Bank Tower? That one, too.

“Well,” Mike began, “they wanted to diversify the portfolio, so they started residential into the mix.”

“Okay,” I replied, confusion and concern entering my voice. “So, Ulster owns this place?”

He nodded as he popped the cork on the wine.

“Still not explaining why you're here.”

“Sorry, I was concentrating,” he replied as he poured two half-full glasses of wine for us. “There's been a rash of vandalism on newly built properties in the last few weeks. Minor stuff at first, but last night's was pretty serious.”

“Oh yeah? This neighborhood's pretty intense about its old homes. Fire bombing or something?” I asked as I pulled out the plastic utensils and tossed them on the counter. “I didn't hear anything on the news.”

“Not quite a Molotov cocktail, but close. Somebody,” he said as he handed me my glass of wine, “tore down one of the building frames up the street. Literally tore it down, plank by plank, and destroyed the foundation. Ripped it from the ground.”

“Shit,” I said and took a sip of wine. It was good. Not great. But, still, it had a good balance and enough spice to punch through the Italian we were about to eat. “How in the hell did they manage that? I mean, you'd need a bulldozer, right?”

He nodded. “We only have one more construction site in the neighborhood, so I figured I'd stake it out.”

“And that would be why you're here for the evening, then? To monitor the spot across the street?”

“Got it in one,” he said as he took a drink of wine. “Knew I was dating you for more than just your looks.”

I made a shocked face and slapped him on the arm, before turning my attention to my deliciously patient lasagna.

Mike, though, apparently had other matters on his mind. He set his glass on the granite counter and slipped up behind me, his hands snaking around my waist and just below the hem of my t-shirt. He pressed himself against my back as he began to nuzzle my neck.

There's something thrilling about having a vampire tenderly kiss your carotid artery. It's like bungee jumping at night, going one-twenty down the highway, or walking a tight rope without a safety net. And, for whatever reason, taking risks has always been a stupid aphrodisiac for me.

“What about food?” I groaned, despite knowing the answer to my question, as I as I felt his lips graze over my skin. I could feel my nipples rising to attention as I pushed back into him, growling my arousal as thoughts of my meal were pushed from my mind by a different kind of hunger.

“I figured that could wait a little longer,” he purred in my ear as he slipped his hand further up my shirt, up and over my midriff, across my ribs. His excitement over everything was showing too as it pressed through his tailored slacks and into my back.

I reached back between us, brushed it over the front of his pants, traced the outline of his cock. I whimpered a little as his lips returned to my neck, as his teeth nipped at my skin.

“I can smell how excited you are,” he growled as he turned me around and pushed me against the counter top and covered my lips with his.

I bit his lip. He ran his tongue across mine. Our hands roamed one another's bodies, his slipping beneath my shirt to unsnap my bra, mine frantically unbuckling his slacks and beginning to unbutton his shirt.

He broke the kiss long enough to pull my shirt over my head, my orichalcum necklaces coming back down to rest against my bare skin. He pulled my bra off and tossed it away, the cool air tantalizing my already excited nips.

I pulled his lips back down to mine, biting them, sucking them, teasing them as I entwined my fingers in his dark hair.

His hand slipped down, unbuckled my belt, began to unbutton the button-fly of my jeans.

I ground myself into him, panting with want, with need. Something about this man, about this vampire, about my friend, always drove me into a lustful frenzy. It was insane, I knew, but I had no idea how I'd withstood it the first time we'd reconnected, the first time he'd shown up in town.

Together, Mike and I began to pull down my jeans. He was right, I was aroused. I was positively dripping with excitement, with need.

“Please,” I begged.

“Gladly,” he growled.

And, that, right then . . . was when the lights went out.

We kept going, though. Because, sometimes, the power just goes out for no reason whatsoever. We should have known better.

“Fuck,” Mike muttered, even as he continued to push my jeans down my hips and over my butt.

“Fuck?” I asked. “Did Ulster pay the goddamn electric bill?”

“Please don't mention my boss right now.”

“Well, did he? Or can vampires see in the dark?”

“We can, actually,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” I said, kissing him. “I had no idea.”

“Lots you don't know-” he began.

But, he was cut short, as a gust of wind seemed to come at the house from all sides, at once. The world seemed to shatter as plate glass exploded from the windows, sending crystalline, deathly sharp, shards windmilling through the air.

And, that, right then, was when I learned to not ignore the power unexpectedly going out.

Even if your boyfriend's hand was about to be down your pants.

If you're interested in more of something like this, here I am on Amazon. Sorry, I'd post that book, Carver, here, but I can't because of publishing agreements with Amazon.