The Pride #2
Control the booze. Control the magic. Control Chicago.
Sam Cunningham just wants a quiet life with his lover, the cheetah-shifter Alistair Gatti. But that hope is dashed when a member of Mickey Sullivan’s gang dies inside the Gatti family’s speakeasy.
Sullivan wants Sam to work for him, deciphering long-forgotten hexes as part of his illegal hexworks operation. At the same time, a corrupt prohibition agent demands Sam and Alistair investigate the gang member’s murder. Caught between gangster and agent, they must walk a fine line just to stay alive.
Because the sinister forces behind the killing are still out there, and now they have Sam in their sights…
I remember reading Blind Tiger when my mom was in the hospital in 2021 and how much de-stressing the story gave me. It blends several of my faves: paranormal, historical(prohibition, 1920s, post-WW1 to be precise), romance, and loads of mayhem. I can't deny that I've been waiting on pins and needles ever since for another story from The Pride but I also know authors can only give us the stories when the characters are ready to tell them. So yes, it's been a bit of a wait but oh so worth every single painstakingly aching second of it😉.
Lion's Tail is one of the best follow-up stories I've read in a long time. Sam and Alistair are just as yummy as I remember. Alistair is a bit overprotective but never in a malicious way so despite a few times of wanting to smack him upside the back of the head and telling him to chill, I loved that he cared so much. Sam is finally finding his place, although at times it seems he is still not quite suited for the mayhem around him but then he says or does something and you realize that perhaps he isn't quite as out of his depth as you might think.
Sam's family plays a part in this entry and boy, talk about characters I wanted to . . . well let's be ladylike here and say they aren't exactly what I call "good stock" and leave it at that😉. Where as the found family that makes up the cast at the Pride speakeasy, they are "good stock" and have Sam and Alistair's back.
As to the mystery element of Lion's Tail? Well no spoilers here but it kept me guessing upto the reveal, not completely on the who but definitely the why and how. I got shivers just thinking about it as I type this, heebiejeebies but perfect for Halloweeny reading.
The Pride is a spinoff of the author's Hexworld series. Even though you need to read Blind Tiger before Lion's Tail you really wouldn't have to read Hexworld first. There are some hex-terminology that might smooth over a bit if you read Hexworld but by no means is it a necessity. I do highly recommend checking out Hexworld for it's brilliant storytelling and world-building but you wouldn't have to do so before Blind and Lion.
However you choose to read them, Jordan L Hawk is a master of paranormal mayhem, so you will definitely enjoy the world they've created.
1
May 1924
Alistair folded his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes as he stared up at the sky.
Rumrunners used every mode of transportation available to bring hooch down from Canada or up from Mexico…but an airplane? At night?
Airplanes were a bad idea to start with. Avian familiars could already fly; why did ordinary people need to be up there, too? Sure, it might make the mail faster in some cases, but if a letter was that damned urgent, you were better off hiring a falcon courier in the first place.
But here he was, freezing his tail off on an unseasonably cold night in May, in the middle of some farmer’s field north of Chicago, tending a line of fires to signal the airplane where to land in the otherwise dark countryside. Doris waited in the truck—engine running, of course, in case the prohees showed up.
Damn Camille. She’d been their old supplier, but then blown things by acting suspicious, like she was thinking about passing them some bad hooch. Plenty of speakeasies got by serving yack yack bourbon, but that wasn’t The Pride’s style. Alistair had killed enough men with his bare claws in France. Killing more of them with poisonous booze wouldn’t have sat right with him, even if Wanda would have tolerated it.
The silence was broken by the low growl of an engine overhead. Doris switched on the headlights, and he retreated to wait near the truck with Philip.
A few minutes later, the airplane set down, bumping merrily over the uneven ground until coasting to a stop. A middle-aged man flung open the door, grinning from ear to ear.
“Evening, folks!” he yelled as they jogged over. “Sure hope you ain’t the, what do you call ’em, prohees.”
“Not a chance.” Philip took the lead, walking to the man and extending his hand. “Philip Gatti. This is my brother Alistair and my sister Doris.”
The rumrunner did a double-take, since Doris with her bronze skin and Alistair with his olive complexion were clearly not related by blood to either the pale Philip or each other. But he didn’t comment. “Frankie Malone, at your service.”
“You own the distillery that produced this alcohol, correct?” Alistair asked, impatient for the preliminaries to be done with.
Malone grinned proudly. “Sure do. I gotta say, you Americans banning liquor has been a hell of a boon for us over the border. But I guess I don’t need to tell you that, seeing as you’re in the business yourself.”
He wasn’t wrong; the price of a barrel of beer had gone from seven dollars to fifty-five thanks to the Volstead Act. Men like Mickey Sullivan, whose gang controlled a big chunk of Chicago, were making a fortune.
Sullivan would rather they’d bought from him, given The Pride operated within his territory. But his supply consisted of booze made from wood alcohol, often enhanced with gasoline, and Alistair wasn’t about to touch the stuff. Given everyone in the Gatti family could turn into a big cat, Sullivan’s men left them alone.
For now, anyway.
Philip gave Malone his usual charming smile. “I don’t suppose you’d mind us using a hex to check your supply? No offense, but I’m sure you’ve heard the stories, and poisoning our customers is bad for business.”
Malone chuckled. “Not much repeat business to get from a corpse, eh? Go right ahead. I take pride in my product.”
That was a good sign. In Alistair’s mind, anyone balking at the use of a hex to detect impurities was either up to some shady business or thinking hard about it. As Malone and Doris began to unload the crates of bourbon, Philip produced a hex from his wallet. Choosing a random bottle, he held the hex over it and said, “Reveal to me the impure.”
If the booze was diluted with fusel oil or embalming fluid or some other impurity, it would glow yellow. The color of the liquid inside the bottles remained the same, however, which meant Malone was probably as good as his word.
“Told ya,” Malone said with another grin. “This here is pure old Canadian bourbon, good as it comes. Got a flask on my hip if you want to share a drink…?”
“No thank you,” Alistair said, before Philip could agree. “The longer we hang around here, the bigger the chance we’ll be spotted.”
“Good point.” Malone started back for his plane. “I’ll see you next week, then.”
“We could have at least had one drink,” Philip complained, as the airplane turned around and trundled off down the field, taking flight dangerously close to the tree line.
Alistair climbed into the truck. “We’re not here to make friends, Philip.”
Doris snorted from the driver’s seat. “You don’t make friends anywhere.”
“That’s not true,” Alistair said, even though it absolutely was. “Come on, let’s get this back to Chicago and under wraps. The sooner we’re off the road, the better.”
Sam fumed quietly ashe cleared the tables at The Pride speakeasy.
He’d come to work early, because he and Alistair were supposed to go apartment hunting in the afternoon. But when he’d arrived, it was to find Alistair in the process of leaving to meet with a new rumrunner, without a single indication he even remembered their appointment.
Maybe Sam should have said something. But he’d bitten his words back, put on a smile, and mumbled something about getting an early start on his shift. Leaving his hurt feelings to fester, just like always.
Though Alistair still technically had a room at The Pride, they’d been staying in the house that had belonged to Sam’s dead cousin, Eldon. It was convenient, spacious…and didn’t legally belong to either of them. At some point, his aunt and uncle were going to show up and throw him out. Better to clear out beforehand, so he didn’t have to face their recriminations.
Except Alistair didn’t seem to want that.
Sam pressed his lips into a thin line and reminded himself that he loved Alistair. Alistair loved him. They were taking things slow; Alistair’d had a bad experience with his first witch and they’d agreed to put off bonding until he was ready.
But they were meant to have an apartment together by now, something legitimate. Instead, they were squatting amidst a dead man’s things, just waiting for the day they’d be ordered to leave.
It was the uncertainty he hated. Sam wanted stability, and why shouldn’t he? An apartment with a lease in his name, a better job to pay for it—that wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?
Given Alistair’s absence, apparently it was.
He cleared the used silverware and plates from a table just as Zola, the hostess, swooped in with four new patrons. Weaving his way back across the room, he passed the waitress, Teresa, whose yellow-green eyes were the same as in her cougar form. She shot him a cheery wink, a tray laden with oysters on toast balanced on one hand. Her other arm was still in a sling from the bullet she’d recently taken while caught in the crossfire of a gangland war.
Norman Rose, a regular at the speakeasy, lifted his glass in salute when he spotted Sam. Wanda Gatti, The Pride’s owner, let customers in through the steel door, shaking their hands as they entered. Her girlfriend, the robin familiar Holly Savine, drank champagne at the bar, served by Wanda’s witch Joel Hunt. Though Joel had an above-board business as a tailor, he occasionally covered the bar when Philip was out.
They all smiled when they met his eye, and Sam felt his bad mood dissolving. This strange collection of familiars and witches, criminals and artists, were his friends. When Eldon’s death had left him alone in Chicago, they’d stepped in to fill the gap, drawing him into the warmth of their odd little family. For the first time in his life, he had people he could turn to who wouldn’t let him down.
Breaking free of the crowd, Sam escaped through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Though a couple of electric fans valiantly strove to circulate air, the kitchen simmered in the heat from the stove and the humidity from the hot water in the sink.
Reinhold—the cook and Teresa’s witch—slid lobster canapés deftly onto a plate, while Sam emptied his tub into the sink. “Busy night, huh, Sam?” Reinhold asked. One side of his face was creased and distorted from a war wound; according to him, the surgeons had performed a miracle of restoration. “Have you taken your break yet?”
“Haven’t had a chance,” Sam said, brushing sweat off his brow.
“Why don’t you nip outside, get some air?”
The offer was tempting, but he instinctively balked at it. Back when he’d worked at the family pharmacy, Dad had frequently berated him for his laziness, reminding him no one but family would tolerate such slacking. “I’ll do a quick round of the dining room,” Sam hedged, hefting his tub again. “Collect anything that needs collecting.”
Reinhold rolled his eyes good-naturedly and turned back to the stove. A few seconds later, Sam was back out into the chaos. The Pride was bustling tonight, every table jammed with flappers and sheiks. Cocktails bloomed in every color magic could provide: royal purple, peacock blue, bloody red. Over the sound of jazz from the band, there could just be heard the pop of champagne corks, the raucous laughter of drunk women, and the boastful toasts of businessmen. Twisting figures packed the small dance floor, sending the scent of sweat to mingle with perfume, booze, and cigarette smoke.
All of the tables were occupied at the moment, so he threaded between them, snatching up empty glasses and clearing away bare plates as he went. A few of the regular customers greeted him, and he found himself smiling.
He was going to miss all of this when he got another job. If he got another job.
At the far end of the bar from the kitchen was the coat check and front door, where Wanda had taken over Doris’s duty tonight. Her yellow suit contrasted beautifully with her dark skin and matched her golden lion eyes.
As he rounded the last tables, she swung the heavy steel door open to let a new customer in. “Are you all right, Bobby?” she asked. “Maybe you need some coffee.”
The young man who entered seemed vaguely familiar, though Sam couldn’t immediately place him. Dark hair, medium build, with a pleasantly handsome face. His eyes, however, were glassy, and sweat sheened his pale skin.
“Help me,” he mumbled. “I don’t feel good.”
Wanda sniffed the air and frowned. “What’ve you been drinking?”
Bobby didn’t seem to hear her. Instead, he staggered inside, his gait unsteady, as though his knee joints didn’t work properly.
Sam hurried forward and caught him before he could careen into one of the other tables. Bobby clutched at him desperately, like a drowning man. “What was in that drink?” he slurred. “I think…I think he poisoned me. You got to help me!”
Sam cast a desperate glance at Wanda, who sighed and put a hand to Bobby’s shoulder. “Come on. You need to sleep it off.”
Bobby didn’t answer. He seemed to grow heavier on Sam’s shoulders as he went limp. Then, with a final gurgling sigh, he slid to the floor dead.
A group of cat-shifters run a speakeasy amidst the magic and violence of 1920s Chicago.
The Pride takes place in the same universe as the Hexworld books.
Monday's Mystical Magic
Monday's Memorial Moment
The Pride
Jordan L. Hawk is a trans author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave him a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When he isn’t writing, he brews his own beer and tries to keep the cats from destroying the house. His best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.
If you want to contact Jordan, just click on the links below or send an email.
B&N / SMASHWORDS / AUTHORGRAPH
EMAIL: jordanlhawk@gmail.com
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