“We got Banshees to install the alarm system,” Paddy said, proudly.
I handed the tablet back to him. “To be honest, I’d be more than happy to give ye back your gold,” I admitted. “T’was an accident we ended up with it in the first place.”
Paddy looked skeptical. “Well then, pass ‘em along, and we’ll be on our way.”
I frowned, then glanced on either side of the hallway. Where before there had only been plush carpet and tasteful wallpaper, there were now a small army of leprechauns holding shealeighs and brass knuckles made out of gold. The Little People Mafia.
Not good.
“Tell them to go to Hell, Quinn!” Aria shouted from behind us, apparently awake enough to have heard at least the part of the conversation where her gold was going to get taken away.
“Yeah, tell him!” Sonia echoed.
Well, shit.
Paddy’s eyes narrowed as his mob took a collective step forward, brandishing their weapons. I glanced back to see Othello shaking Callie awake, demanding she make a Gateway in a hushed whisper.
I sighed and turned to Paddy and his army. “How fast can Little People run?” I asked. Then, without waiting for a response, I slammed the door in his face at took off towards the bedroom, praying we’d have enough time to escape.
Chapter 16 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
I wiped the sleep from my eyes, still slightly drunk, but finally snapped to the present with Othello pushing me, insisting I make a Gateway. The sound of Quinn slamming the door on a leprechaun brought me fully to my senses. “You want a Gateway, I’ll give you a goddamned Gateway,” I muttered. Only three things would make me feel better. More alcohol, sleep, or my fist grazing some unlucky bastard’s teeth.
I wasn’t sure which would be more satisfying, even though the rational side of me informed me it was sleep, water, and a fistful of vitamins.
But I’d settle for a fistful of Lucky Charms.
I flung my hand out and a Gateway erupted a few inches off the floor so as not to scorch the nice carpet. None of us were drunk enough to jump through without looking this time. I was also careful to control it better so as not to let errant sparks start a fire. We’d committed enough felonies tonight. I didn’t want to burn down a hotel.
Unless I had to.
The Gateway opened up to reveal a bizarre mass of gyrating flesh, fragrant smoke, black lights, velvet lounging couches, and the throbbing pulse of deep, steady bass.
No treble.
I shrugged at my party and stepped through, sensing them following me. I closed the Gateway and scanned our surroundings, somewhat taken aback. “I t’ink ye may be broken inside, Callie Penrose,” Quinn murmured. “Ye took us to a God-forsaken strip club, because, what? Ye didn’t t’ink we’d seen enough already?”
“It is Vegas,” I muttered defensively.
“Boobies!” Sonia blurted, only just now realizing that it wasn’t a dance club, and that their horizons had just been unexpectedly expanded with the addition of pay-to-see nudity.
“Good talent, though,” Othello said, smiling. “Real skill over there,” she said, pointing at a particular stripper hanging upside down on the pole, her breasts covered in glitter and reflecting the flashing lights like two perfect disco balls. “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses was blaring, and the surprisingly young crowd were going wild as they threw money at the cheetah-thong-wearing stripper.
“Is this what adults do when kids aren’t around?” Aria whispered in awe.
“Adulting is amazing,” Sonia agreed in a hungry whisper. We’d begun to attract some attention since we were just standing around ogling. Thankfully, our Gateway hadn’t attracted any attention, what with all the strobing lights and loud music. They probably thought we had just left an uber-VIP lap dance chamber.
One of the dancers walked up to us, entirely topless and perky—both physically and with her personality. “My name’s Lucky. How y’all doin’ tonight?” she asked in a syrupy Southern drawl. “Which one of y’all want a dance?”
Sonia raised a hand, but Othello slapped it down. “Thanks, Lucky,” Othello said, turning to smile at the dancer. “But we’re just looking for a place to sit down for now. We’ve had a wild night and need to take a breather. Maybe later?”
Lucky smiled with her luminescent white teeth and winked. “Y’all want to get Lucky later, you just let me know.” She eyed the rest of us, especially the Reds, who were openly admiring her toned body, still clutching their gold bars. “I do group specials,” she added with a purr, eyes locked on the hunks of precious metal. Then she spun, skipping away from us with a perfectly cute rear end, and glided down the stairs.
I shook my head in disbelief as I motioned everyone to follow me to a circular couch with a round table before it. “You weren’t kidding about a breather. I feel like my brain needs a reboot.”
We sat down with different flavors of sighs—mine was tired, Othello and Quinn’s sounded comfortably at home, and the Reds’ were positively eager.
I glanced over at Lucky, who was eyeing our table suggestively, no one else around her for the moment, although eyes tracked her from different tables, looking forlorn that they didn’t have her attention thanks to our arrival.
Quinn spoke up. “Ye know, we should have asked for drinks—”
A sudden rainbow laser beam twice as wide as my waist interrupted her by blasting down from the ceiling of the strip club and slicing entirely through Lucky, surgically cutting her in half. Her startled expression will be stuck in my mind forever as what remained of her collapsed to either side of the new...
Rainbow slide.
One particularly gothic looking stripper rushed over to her friend’s dismembered body, ignoring the shimmering rainbow laser slide. After a few seconds, she stood, forearms covered in blood, and she was shaking.
“They killed Lucky!” she snarled in a feral tone, panting. Strippers from every corner of the room were suddenly sprinting over, as were a half-dozen beefy security members.
We all watched as dozens of tiny leprechauns brandishing gold knuckle-dusters or shillelaghs—basically canes with fist-sized mallets on the end—rode down the slide with horrible laughter. Basically, envision the gnarled staffs one always thought of when imagining a leprechaun. Then add blood, a few spikes, or a brass finish to the tip. That was the end intended for your face.
They swarmed the strip club like an army of those St. Patrick’s Day Troll toys, their fiery red hair enhanced by the blacklight decor. Their devious little eyes scanned the room, obviously in search of us.
Surprisingly, a squad of strippers were lined up at the base of the rainbow between us and the leprechauns, lips curled back, and fingers extended like claws. No, wait. They were claws! Upon closer inspection, I realized they weren’t just great at angry faces, they were all fucking shifters. This was noticeably obvious with each passing second as fur began to sprout over their skin and they burst into different flavors of shifter.
“Me name is Paddy McKnob!” A broader, bald-headed, ginger-bearded leprechaun demanded, “Give us back our gold, or taste the rainbow!” But the line of strippers had shifted laterally, making it difficult for the wee little man to see over their shoulders, so his glare instead fixated on a whole lot of bedazzled shifter vagina.
And that’s when shit got weird.
Chapter 17 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
I spent a large portion of my life fearing for my immortal soul. As a child growing up Catholic in Southie, Hell was as real a place as the drugstore around the corner. I’d never dwelled on what the Inferno would look like, but then I hadn’t really needed to; it’s sort of in the name, and besides, there are far more pictures and descriptions out there of a fiery underworld than of the pearly gates. Marketing 101. Of course, in none of those pictures were there demented, blacklight-illuminated leprechauns with flaming fluorescent hair battling shapeshifting strippers beneath glimmering lights.
Because no one is that creative.
Then ‘Crazy Bitch’ by Buckcherry came on.
“This is the soundtrack of my life,” Aria hooted, climbing up on top of the table in a low crouch, grinning from ear-to-ear at the growing tension in the room. I glanced back at her, cocking my head slightly. She wasn’t remotely concerned about the epic bar fight facing us. Was she really that crazy or was it the booze talking?
I let it go, rose to my feet, and danced away from the rest of the group, trying to put some distance between myself and the raucous fighting. Leprechauns, or the Little People, as Paddy had called themselves, were launching themselves at the were-strippers. I watched as the first stripper we’d seen dancing used the stripper pole to perform a series of Neo-style kicks, each sweep of her heels booting a squealing leprechaun across the room. As she landed, one industrious leprechaun snatched her by the ankle and yanked, drawing her down into a waiting crowd of pissed off Little People.
Before I could see how that situation resolved itself, a half dozen leprechauns saw us and began climbing the rails towards us, gold teeth gleaming in their snarling mouths. “This is your fault,” I said, turning to the Reds.
They glared up at me. “Is not,” they replied, in unison.
Before I could argue with them, the leprechauns struck. Fortunately, so did Callie. My mouth hung open as I watched the woman wade into the crowd of approaching Little People. Silver light flashed as leprechauns fell, screaming, rolling on the ground clutching various parts of their anatomy. She had acquired some gleaming daggers of her own and wielded them between the fingers of her closed fists like wolverine claws.
She cackled as she danced through the swarm like an angel of death.
“Impressive, right?” Othello said, nudging me.
I’d seriously underestimated her. “She’s like a ninja,” I whispered, awed.
“With tits,” Aria added.
“Big tits,” Sonia offered.
We all nodded. Then ducked, as a weretiger came flying at us from across the club, blown back by a glass-headed hammer that was smoking with rainbow-colored fog wielded by none other than Paddy McKnob. A fucking rainbow hammer? Christ! The weretiger slammed into the wall behind us, then onto the table we’d been occupying. Glass shattered. The weretiger didn’t move.
“Come on then,” Paddy roared, impressively loud for his size. “I’ll take ye all on!”
I glanced at my companions, minus Callie, who’d gone over the railing in pursuit of the leprechauns; apparently, they’d decided running was more conducive to their health. “Divide and conquer?” I asked.
The Reds grinned with razor sharp teeth. Othello shrugged and patted her briefcase. I flashed them a thumbs up, then leapt into the fray. It wasn’t your typical bar fight, and it might have been someone’s idea of Hell, but in the end it was still a brawl.
And I was a brawling kind of girl.
Chapter 18 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
I’d finally reached my limit.
All the alcohol.
All the strippers.
Dorian Gray’s mud-wrestling bar.
My failed Gateways.
Casino robbery.
The lollipop guild of leprechauns.
The Ninja Turtle thing.
I wasn’t entirely sure which one of these had broken the last straw, or if it even mattered. But I had leapt up from our table, using my magic to create twin blades to extend from between the knuckles of each of my fists. My Edward Scissorhands impersonation. Then I was diving into the chaos, shoving hairy strippers out of my way as I bobbed and weaved, targeting the Little People with a sudden release of my pent-up frustration. I was careful not to touch any of the strippers directly.
One, you had to pay for that kind of thing. Two, they weren’t my enemy. I slashed and stabbed hamstrings, thighs, biceps, forearms, and any other appendage that came into my whirlwind of pain—hoping to do as much damage as possible without actually murdering anyone. I used my knees freely since my targets were at perfect height for such tactics and it was harder to hamstring someone so low to the ground.
I was halfway through the chorus before I realized I was belting out ‘Crazy Bitch’ at the top of my lungs, laughing as I mowed down the Rainbow Riders. I slashed one forearm, making a grizzly old leprechaun drop his odd cane on his way down, and I quickly snatched it up.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one leprechaun crouch down and one of his pals race up his back like a ramp to throw himself at me. I swung the cane using the full strength of my hips and clocked him in the jaw, sending him flying into a fan on the ceiling, tearing it free. It crashed to the floor, taking out a few more leprechauns and I hooted. “Homerun!”
I swept my surroundings for any immediate threats and realized I had made it to the opposite side of the club, a clear path of groaning, whimpering leprechauns curled into different variations of fetal position on the floor, marking my warpath back to our original table and the Rainbow Slide.
I watched as two strippers picked up one of the leprechauns by an arm and a leg on either side and began swinging back and forth. On the count of three, they hurled him towards one of the stages where he struck the stripper pole, bending it slightly before he collapsed to the ground onto a pile of crumpled dollar bills gathered into a small pile.
The shifters were definitely winning, and I saw Quinn on one of the far stages taunting an opponent I couldn’t see. I gripped my newfound cane and made my way over to her, batting down any leprechauns that got too close.
Any leprechaun that came too close simply ran away screaming upon seeing my face. I touched my cheek to realize that it was coated with a thin sheen of blood from all the leprechaun wounds I had inflicted. I knew I hadn’t taken any hits, but if it scared away any more attackers I was fine with it.
And to be honest, I felt like having another drink.
Going berserk was hard work. No wonder Vikings had been such hard drinkers.
Chapter 19 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
I dropped into a crouch beneath the outstretched paw of yet another weretiger, this one fighting on its hind legs. Theoretically, I could have grabbed hold and allowed the shifter’s human form to emerge, but I had bigger problems. Like a luck of pissed off leprechauns on my heels, trying to pound me into oblivion. That was the trick with bar fights: you had to be judicious with your punches. Provoking the drunk next to you into knocking out the woman talking shit behind your back was an artform. It required patience. Finesse. Which is why I let the leprechauns take the full brunt of the weretiger’s attention as I scuttled away like a crab.
It wasn’t nearly as graceful as what Callie was doing on her side of the club, but it had a remarkably similar effect: I was alive and unhurt, while my enemies suffered.
A win is a win.
I hopped up onto one of the stages to get a better vantage point and found a vast majority of the brawlers engaged in direct confrontations. A werepanda, pink thong stretched precariously across its fluffy ass, rolled around, dodging the descending shillelaghs. They cracked solidly into the tile floor, denting the surface. On the opposite side of the club, two leprechauns stood on the bar tossing back pints of frothing beer, guzzling it down until Othello—looking mildly amused— popped up from behind the bar itself and lit their trousers on fire with a Zippo. She ignited a cigarette off their squirming bodies, took a drag, and waved. Not far from there, two bouncers played a game of tug-o-war with a half dozen leprechauns, both sides trying to wrench free a length of velvet rope. I had no idea why.
At last, I spotted the leprechaun I’d been looking for.
“Paddy!” I yelled. I reached out to grab the stripper pole for balance, then yanked my hand back and shook any potential germs loose in a panicked, instinctive flailing motion. “Gross, gross, gross,” I muttered under my breath.
“MacKenna!” the leprechaun yelled, still wielding his rainbow hammer. He’d taken off his jacket and torn free his bowtie, his bushy beard licking at his chest like tongues of flame. He marched for
ward, sweeping his path free with the hammer. Several were-animals fled immediately, having seen what kind of damage the hammer could do.
I grinned in anticipation. It wasn’t like I had a deathwish or anything. And I’d recovered enough of my sobriety to realize there was every possibility that the bastard’s hammer might blow right past my defenses—even without magic, weapons were weapons. A hammer would hurt something fierce.
But I had a plan.
“Reds!” I yelled, scouring the crowd. I spotted Aria repeatedly punching one of the leprechauns in the face, his head tucked under one arm, his eyes dazed but still trained on her boob pressed against his face. He was grinning, half his teeth missing. Sonia, nearby, was fending off two strippers who seemed as interested in her gold bar as the leprechauns had been. Greedy bitches. Both redheads swiveled to look at me, then broke free of their respective engagements, grinning maniacally.
I danced back to the other side of the stage, forcing Paddy to come up after me. He sauntered up to the raised dais, only the top of his head visible. “Come down and fight me, woman!” he called up to me.
“No, ye come to me, ye wee bastard,” I replied.
I could hear Paddy muttering under his breath as he plopped the hammer down on the stage and tried to clamber up. He threw one leg over, trying to hoist himself using the hammer, and groaned. “D’ye need help?” I asked, hands perched on my hips.
“No, I’ve got it,” he said, through clenched teeth. “Just gimme a moment.”
I mimed checking my watch. The Reds hopped up behind me, on either side, while I waited. “You called?” Aria said.
“I need your gold,” I said.
The two weredragons drew back from me, hissing.
I rolled my eyes. “I promise I’ll give it back. And I always keep me promises.” I held out either hand, trusting them to hand the gold bars over without a fuss. They did. The bars were extremely heavy, and by the time I had them held properly, Paddy had managed to find his feet.
Last Call: A TempleVerse Anthology Book 1 (TempleVerse Anthologies) Page 7
