by Aaron Crash
Steven wondered if they would be fighting Juice and his Sounders, or would it be Javier Jones? Or maybe they would go up against Carlo Bart Baxter and his army. Thirty-six wives. Damn.
He recalled how much of an asshole the Texarkana Prime had been.
Why had the Wayne twins married him? How did they fit into all this?
SIXTEEN
It took Chastity Wayne forty-five minutes to get a bead on Juice Juice. She was slipping. They’d docked the boat, grabbed their charm bracelets and some other supplies, then taken to the air.
The pig was near Odessa, at a bar off some crappy Texas highway. The place was called the Blowtorch Bar and Grill, and it was in the exact middle of where-in-the-fuck-am-I?
Chazzie’s source, Cactus Bill, had gone off on the history of the place. Some oil rig welder had gotten fired, so he took his frustrations out on various pieces of metal he collected in the great expanse of an empty field full of weeds and rattlesnakes and not much else. Folks came to watch him work, and they brought beer, and some genius figured if he supplied the beer, he could make some money. Heaven knows, a lot of bars had a far less interesting history than that.
The place had expanded, thanks to the welder, and it expanded out to include a whole field of pool tables, a dance floor, and a big bar that served greasy hamburgers and lots of hooch to the locals, the oil workers, and to anyone who wanted to drink to forget they were living in the one part of Texas God didn’t love. People drove in from Midland looking for a similar type of boozy amnesia.
Chazzie and Pru wanted to make it in before last call, which was officially 2 a.m., but in rural Texas, that all depended on the patrons and the management and if the local sheriff wanted to piss off a good portion of his or her constituents.
Hidden from the humans, Chazzie landed at the edges of the Blowtorch’s packed parking lot. Pru followed her to the ground. It was a little after 1 a.m. She and Pru still had plenty of time to find Juice Juice and weasel information out of him. The twins had the upper hand. Juice had failed to get Steven, and if he was working for Carlo Bart, the pig might be a little more willing to talk when it was Carlo Bart’s head wives who were asking the questions.
The Wayne twins were low on Animus. They could change that easily enough. They dropped bags from their arms, little bags that contained clothing, but not much. Wearing cowboy boots, tight jeans, and tighter blouses, they fluffed their hair, did some makeup, and then made their way through the parked trucks, their cleavage leading the way.
They’d need to find some good ol’ boy to give them a kiss, maybe a little more, and that would make the twins feel better after their flight in. It was five hundred miles from Corpus Christi. Texas was a big state, no way around that.
Inside the Blowtorch, the drums thumped, a bass pumped, a guitar thrummed, and a fiddle squealed. That was a live band in there, and of course there would be line dancing. The building itself was long and piecemeal; what couldn’t be hammered together was, of course, welded.
Chazzie and Pru clomped up the steps. People stood on the big broad porch out front. The neon sign painted their smoke and their faces a variety of Bud Light blue. The girls looked jealous. The boys tried not to stare and failed. Yes, those were the right reactions.
The one who looked the longest won. Check that off the list. That would be a blond guy with a little fuzz on his cheeks, young and full of lust. He had full-lashed eyes, and when Chazzie walked over to him, she found they were as green as money. She sidled up to him. His girlfriend might have been next to him, but that didn’t matter much.
“Excuse me, sweetie, my sister and I need a kiss. Could you possibly oblige us?” She leaned in close, let him smell her perfume, then eye-fucked the shit out of him. She was the dragon his mama warned him about. Her cleavage went all the way down to the depths of hell.
He smiled, and oh, those were dimples in his cheeks. Chazzie liked a dimple. And that boy could smirk like nobody’s business.
Chazzie went in to taste him. His kiss was a little smoky, a little too much beer, and a bit eager, but Chazzie felt the Animus from it. Pru waited her turn like the good girl she was.
Then Pru went in and kissed him. Chazzie looked on, watching his reaction. Sharing boys with Pru was easy and familiar. They could take turns on the guy, get him more and more excited, until he just had to pop. Sometimes making a guy’s dream come true was nice. And sometimes it wasn’t.
Chazzie took a minute to go to the window, which was made from rebar, glued together with precise seams. The roof above her might have been an airplane wing. Probably was a piece of an oil derrick or a pump. Both littered the countryside. Humans did enjoy their gasoline. Chazzie herself liked a fast car. Inside, people were dancing, and smoking, because bars should be a place where people could sin however they wanted.
Once Pru finished with the blond boy, he was dizzy, and his jeans weren’t going to ever fit right again. She kissed his cheek, gave him a squeeze, and then withdrew.
As Chazzie and Pru left him, his friends erupted. “Dammit, Mike, you are the luckiest son of a bitch in all West Texas.”
That girl probably wasn’t Mike’s girlfriend, and if she was, she wasn’t anymore. He shouldn’t mind, they’d given him enough material to spank the monkey to for many a night. And Carlo Bart wouldn’t know about a kiss. He would’ve known if anything more had happened.
Chazzie went inside with Pru trailing. At the far end, where the bar hit the wall, that was where Juice Juice was, sitting in an oversized chair and holding court. Around him stood men in leather coats, with bushy beards and long hair. Hell, some of them had wolf eyes, others had oversized teeth, and some were just too huge.
The normal patrons left them alone. Chazzie and Pru weren’t so lucky. Guys tried to buy them drinks, a few proposed marriage, and others got grabby. Pru shoved them back and Chazzie took point. The place was loud in all kinds of ways: music, human sweat, tons of booze, clouds of smoke—it was people on the loose, tearing it up.
Chazzie liked the energy. If she hadn’t been there on business that just might kill her, she might’ve given in to a few of the temptations. As it was, she led Pru to Juice. Getting to him was an intimidating proposition. At least two dozen of the Sounders were around their cult leader. And their women were somewhere, probably dancing.
Juice Juice got his two names from all the steroids he’d used; he sat on his makeshift throne in a wifebeater, every muscle flexed. The beer mug in his hand looked tiny, even though it was a full pint. He had long muttonchops and long hair hanging to his shoulders. A thick silver chain hung around his neck. Something about how it lay on his hairless chest didn’t look right. It looked familiar to Chazzie. Not a good sign.
Juice’s eyes were too small for his face and his nose too big. He wasn’t handsome. And yet, he didn’t give a fuck. That made him attractive, that and his bodybuilder frame. He exuded a charisma every man and woman felt.
Chazzie pushed her way through what had to be two werebears. Both were close to seven feet tall and as wide as a car.
Juice saw them coming. His face didn’t betray him. Those little piggy eyes remained piggy, and his mouth didn’t move.
His hulking retinue didn’t say a word.
Chazzie and Pru went up to him. “Hey, Juice.”
The Morphling cupped a hand to his ear and shook his head.
The music seemed to get louder.
“You wanna go outside to talk?” Pru yelled the question.
The Morphling nodded. He walked through his men and out a door in the side. That sure did look like an airplane door. He had to duck. The twins were herded through the hatch and down the steps. Behind them came the rest of the Sounders.
The back of the Blowtorch was a lot like the front. Trucks packed the place. A little metal shack was about fifty yards away. In front of it was a little space of dead yellow grass and a whole lotta dust. That was where Juice Juice stopped in his shitkickers and worn jeans. He gave them the eye. “What you
Wayne twins want?”
“Just to talk,” Chazzie said.
But the smell of these animals was getting to her. And there was a terrible fear in the air. She could feel that Juice wasn’t exactly comfortable with what was going on and neither were his Sounders. Another door in the metal wall of the Blowtorch opened, and a few women came down, only they weren’t human either. Not with how they looked and moved. Another ten Morphlings joined the fun.
The music inside was grating on Chazzie’s nerves. It was country dance music, a little too achy breaky heart for her. Her daddy had raised her right on a strict diet of Hank Williams, senior and junior.
“Talk?” Juice said. “You girls just love to talk. You talked to Carlo Bart or should’ve. Could he be flying in? I know Javier Jones is in town. Well, fuck me running, Odessa motherfucking Texas has become one popular spot. The me is the we. Am I right?”
“The me is the we!” the chant went up. There were thirty Sounders around Chazzie and Pru if there were two.
Chazzie felt a sticky sweat on her. And dammit, her heart was thumping like a rabbit warning his warren. There was going to be a fight, but why? Chazzie didn’t know. But before shit hit the fan, she needed some answers. Were the Sounders working for Carlo Bart? Where did Juice get that silver chain?
“We do love to talk,” Chazzie said. “And we wanted to talk to you, Juice. Why, I see that you and the Sounders are as tight as ever. Carlo Bart sent us. You see, he wanted you to know he don’t have no hard feelings about the Drokharis situation. He’s a tough one all right.”
“The me is the we!” howled Juice, staring into their eyes like the insane thing he was.
And his Sounders answered him. “The me is the we!”
He led them in a chant. “The me is the we! The me is the we! The me is the we!”
“Oh, fuck this,” Chazzie breathed.
“No! Fuck you!” Juice snarled. And he grew even bigger, the muscles in his back expanding until all that weight forced him forward onto his hands, which hardened into hooves as did his back feet. Tusks erupted from his mouth, and his nose became a long, wet snout. He was becoming a massive boar, but that wasn’t all. His necklace streamed metal across his body, encasing him in armor, marked with dragon script.
Carlo Bart was a mighty fine jeweler when he wasn’t conquering Primacies and perfecting forbidden magic.
Around Juice Juice, the other Sounders were changing as well, into armored bears, armored wolves, and other wereboars, also covered in thick metal. More dragon script, runes of protection, flashed.
Chazzie and Pru were surrounded. But of course, they hadn’t come in empty-handed. Pru ripped through her clothes to become a bubblegum-pink dragon, fifteen feet long. She bashed back Sounders with her tail, smashing two werebears and a wolf into an old Dodge, pinning them there. Others had to duck the sweep of her wings. Her charm bracelet was able to grow to accommodate her change—thanks to Carlo Bart’s skill at enchanting items.
Prudence took to the air. Chazzie ripped out of her clothes to become a Homo Draconis, also very pink, smelling like candy. More important than her clothes was her own jingling bracelet. She triggered the magic.
The silver charms grew as guns and grenades fell to the ground. Chazzie plucked an M60E6 machine gun out of the air. Attached was one box of ammo. Three other boxes dangled around a thick metal chain. Chazzie caught them easily and slung the extra bullets over her shoulder. She flicked on the laser scope, and a red beam of light fell into the eye of a charging boar—not Juice, this one had black armor, not silver.
Floating down, Pru grabbed Chazzie under her arms and lifted her up as two werewolves careened into each other, trying to get to her. They’d done this trick a hundred times. One flew. One fired.
Hurray! Hurray! It was machine-gun time. Chazzie’s talon tightened on the customized trigger, large enough for her claws. And then she riddled a wereboar with a barrage of NATO ammo, 7.62 millimeters of sting.
The armor caught most of the blast, but Chazzie adjusted her aim and sent at least one bullet into the Morphling’s brain. She sucked in the Animus from the kill.
Then she switched targets, scattering the Sounders as they raced for cover. The gun rattled in her grip, sending death and destruction out in a barrage of smoke and fury.
She saw a thinner wolf, maybe a female, and she saw her laser hit an exposed bit of fur on her back leg. Chazzie cut that leg off in a thunder of bullets. She had to reload, but that was okay. She and Pru practiced their gunwork like most people binged Netflix. One box of ammo fell, and she affixed a new one.
Pru flapped her wings and then let out a spit of Inferno Exhalant. Chazzie thought that would roast at least a few of the Morphlings, but the runes on their armor flashed red. They were protected.
The trucks weren’t, though. Chazzie hit one of them with Inferno, and it went up in a fiery explosion. Unfortunately, the Morphlings’ armor protected them from the flying shrapnel.
Mostly. One werebear’s face was torn from his skull, and he slumped over.
Three werebears, working together, hurled a Jeep into Pru. Or did they have magical help? It was hard to tell. Smoke and fire swept through the parking lot. Pru’s wing was hurt, and she fell from the sky. Both she and Chazzie tumbled onto the bed of an F-150. Pru turned into her Homo Draconis body and plucked the M60E6 off the bed. She wanted a turn with the weapon, clearly, and a bit of revenge.
Chazzie stayed in her partial form and breathed out her ElectroArc Exhalant. The energy crackled into a werewolf coming for her. Those damn runes flashed, dissipating her attack. And the wolf kept coming.
Until Pru turned the M60E6 on it. Bullets found the Morphling’s eyes, and it went down. Lucky they were good shots.
Chazzie reached over and triggered Pru’s charm bracelet. More guns and grenades fell into the bed of the truck as the enchanted bracelets turned into an arsenal. Chazzie bent and retrieved a handful of grenades. She pulled the pins and started hurling those pineapples willy-nilly.
Cars and trucks went up in rapid succession, bam, bam, blammity, blam. More smoke and fumes choked them, but Chazzie and Pru were used to battlefields. Couldn’t very well play the games they played without getting their hands dirty.
Chazzie got her hands on two M4 carbines. Those two clips were not going to last long, but firing two guns at once was always fun. She saw a flash of silver. Juice was coming at them, a big metal boar with sharp tusks dripping spit. She opened the weapons up, a big dragon woman with assault rifles in both of her pink hands.
Bullets sparked off Juice’s armor.
He hurled himself up onto the rocking truck. He rammed a horn into Pru, knocking her back and opening her side. Chazzie emptied her guns into him, but that armor held. Time to get a little more up close and personal. She triggered her IonClaws, turning her right talons into a blowtorch.
She clawed into Juice, but wouldn’t you know it? That damn armor held against the ultimate Pugna ability. Juice turned and kicked Chazzie. She went flying off the truck. She hit the dirt and went rolling ass over teakettle. Yeah, it was time to run.
That armor was for real. Carlo Bart had made the charm bracelets for the twins. It seemed his gift giving had extended to a cult of Morphlings he’d hired to do his dirty work.
Chazzie sprang to her feet, running, faster, faster, until wings erupted from her back and she soared up. She smacked away Juice, hit him hard, and knocked his piggy ass off the truck and into a flaming whatever-kind-of-truck that would never move again.
A bear slashed into Chazzie’s leg with a paw the size of a catcher’s mitt. Fucking hurt. Still worse, she had to tear herself off those hooked claws. Better that than get grabbed for good.
Gunfire. Bullets filled the air. Some of the Sounders had grabbed guns.
“Magica Defensio,” Pru wheezed.
Good girl.
Chazzie didn’t feel the bullets hit her, thanks to Pru’s spell, and then Chazzie had her sister in her hands. Pru helped by tu
rning into a human. She was far less heavy, but damn, she was bleeding bad. Both were.
Chazzie pumped her wings, and they flew over the ramshackle welded nightmare the Blowtorch had become. The humans were wailing and crying and calling the police.
Their night of drinking, dancing, and flirting had turned into World War III.
Chazzie did the Magica Defensio spell to hide herself and her sister. They flew over the parking lot, retrieved their bags, and then sailed on out over the highway where sirens blared and police cruisers flashed red-blue lights.
Chazzie crash-landed onto an open space of dirt. Oil pumps worked around them, pumping, pumping, pumping, in squeaks, wheezes, and rhythmic thumping.
A Texan native, Chazzie was comforted by the familiar sound as she pressed on Pru’s wounds.
Moonlight showed an oil derrick and a metal structure in the distance.
“You wanna try a Cura, sis?” Pru asked with a wince.
“We never could get that kind of magic right,” Chazzie growled. Pru’s side was torn open. She needed a real doctor. Or a Dragonsoul who could cast a healing spell. Chazzie’s own gashes on her leg were hurting her, and how much blood was she losing? She felt dizzy. But that might’ve been from the adrenaline.
“Well,” Pru said weakly, her face so pale. “Looks like Juice was working for Carlo Bart after all. He wouldn’t have gone after us if he weren’t. And that necklace? It became armor. Maybe our Prime is flying in as we speak to kill us himself. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Don’t fret, sister. Juice might’ve just been talking shit. Or us showing up freaked his shit out. Could be, he attacked us because he’s afraid of what Carlo Bart is gonna do to him for messing up killing Steven. We don’t...” Oh, Chazzie wasn’t feeling well. She found herself human again, on the ground. There was a little yellow flower there. That wasn’t right. Wrong season. But there it was.
A song floated through her head. “Yellow Rose of Texas.”
She was losing it. “Prolly should call Steven.”
