I wanted to light up the area with more magic, but Rachel was right about my having to keep it under wraps for now. I had a feeling that Jasmine sensed something was up with me, though, because she was eyeing me dubiously from her side of the room. Worse than that, Felicia was sniffing in my direction. She’d clearly caught wind of something. I sniffed back, picking up her scent. The werewolf in me was definitely alive, and she was intoxicating.
“Does this mean we get to play with her again?” asked The Admiral. “I always liked playing with her.”
“Will you please shut the hell up?”
“Who is he talking about?” Rachel said, one eyebrow raised.
I often forgot that Rachel was what I called ‘a cock whisperer.’ She could hear the conversations between me and The Admiral. As far as I knew, she could only do that with me. Then again, as far as I knew, I was the only person alive who could have conversations with his own manhood. Of course, this meant she’d also heard it when The Admiral made the comment about her chest being on fire.
One sigh later, I answered her.
“Felicia.”
She tilted her head.
“She’s a werewolf,” I pointed out. “I’m not in control of things at the moment, as you know.”
“I do,” she replied, “but let The Admiral know that if he so much as attempts to play around with Felicia, or anyone on the crew, I’ll personally evict the two neighbors that are dangling beneath him.”
“Ouch.”
Rachel knew I didn’t play around with anyone on the crew. Well, except her, but that was only because we’d come to an understanding. But it wouldn’t have mattered if Felicia was on the crew or not, I was one of those guys who was fiercely loyal. I didn’t cheat. Period.
“All right,” I growled at her, “enough with the threats. Regardless of whatever the fuck I’m going through, you know who I am.”
She blinked a few times as the flush of red faded from her face.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I nodded and then opened a broadcast on the connector.
“Jasmine, cast some energy shots at their guns,” I commanded. “I want those weapons on the ground fast.” Her hands started to glow. “Felicia, sniff out their leader. He’s a mage who has no weapons.”
“Technically,” corrected Rachel, “he is a weapon.”
A few moments later, little electrical shots flew from Jasmine’s fingers, smacking gun after gun. The wielder of each yelped and dropped their weapon. The rest of them spun and started unleashing hell at my mage.
Fortunately, Jasmine had been through many a firefight. She dived to the ground, staying clear of the gunfire. That gave me time to rush the little green fuckers.
I was usually the type of guy who would just shoot you and be done with it, but the torment infusing my psyche was on overdrive.
Thus, I grabbed the first goblin I could, picked him up by the neck with one hand, and punched him so ferociously with the other hand that I thought certain his head was going to pop off. I hit him so hard, in fact, that it killed him due to a snapped neck.
Normally this type of thing would have given me pause.
It didn’t.
What it did do was give me an idea.
I dropped the dead goblin backwards, grabbing him by his ankles, and then started swinging him around like he was a golf club. I clubbed him into goblin after goblin, yelling “fore!” after each crunching hit. Whether I was killing these guys or just knocking them unconscious, I couldn’t say, but there was definitely a fair amount of blood painting the walls.
The goblins I hadn’t struck yet turned tail and poured through a hidden zone. I knew this because they disappeared.
I launched their decimated pal in after them.
“Hidden zone,” I yelled out as I ran toward it. “Let’s go!”
Felicia slipped in before I did, making it clear she was hot on the trail of the weaponless-goblin.
My senses jolted at the close scent of her.
I got the feeling that The Admiral wanted to say something, but he wisely decided to keep it to himself for now. He didn’t want to tempt the wrath of Rachel, after all. Bottom line was that even if your downstairs neighbors are a couple of nuts, you can still find yourself pretty attached to them.
“Chuck,” I called out, “we’re going into a hidden zone. You, Griff, and Warren need to work with Paula to get things squared away out here.”
“Paula?” Chuck replied with a whimper. “Oh, come on, Chief. She’s a—”
“It’s not up for discussion, Chuck,” I spat back. “Just do your fucking job.”
“Uh…”
“Goddammit,” I groaned an instant later. “I’m sorry, Chuck. I didn’t mean that. There’s something going on with me right now that I can’t explain. Just please handle Paula.”
“You got it, Chief,” he replied. “I shouldn’t have bitched about it anyway.”
That was true, but he didn’t bitch about things any more than anyone else did, including me. Nobody liked dealing with Paula because she was a pain in the ass. But we had to deal with her, which meant everyone had to suck it up.
Jeez, even I wasn’t liking me at the moment.
We were barely twenty steps into the hidden zone when the air grew suddenly cold.
It felt seriously wrong.
I couldn’t place it, but…
“Felicia!” I screamed aloud as the reality of what was happening struck me. “Stop!”
Chapter 10
Felicia had hit a frozen mist.
This wasn’t like running into a block of ice, but rather like running into a million tiny razor-sharp ice fragments. It didn’t just cut you, its purpose was to shred you.
Fortunately for Felicia, the goblin had only built it to affect someone of his own stature. Therefore, the majority of the shards struck against her leather outfit and not her exposed head and neck. Her clothes got nicked up pretty badly, but those could be repaired. Unfortunately for Felicia, it did hit her exposed hands, lacerating them so badly that they turned into two pools of blood.
She screamed and I punched her right in the side of her head, knocking her out cold while dragging her away from the ice.
“Stay back,” I commanded Rachel via a direct connection before she and Jasmine made it through the zone. “I’ll tell you when it’s safe.”
“Got it,” she replied, thankfully not giving me any grief.
I then put my hands on Felicia’s arms and closed my eyes. Warmth flowed through me as a field of vibration began to build. I felt my energy draining, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me from doing what needed to be done. Even though heat pulsed in my veins, I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. It was like standing in the windswept Arctic with your pants on fire.
My head began to pound as I opened my eyes and watched Felicia’s hands mend. They hadn’t been ripped completely off or anything, but they were a bloody mess…until I was done with them anyway. The scene was mesmerizing. Little pieces of her flesh were grafting themselves together in a lattice of healing.
And this was happening because of me.
Once her hands were fully healed, I touched the side of her head where I’d punched her. I felt bad about having done that, but I couldn’t have let her go into shock and those hands had been incredibly messed up. Within a few seconds, the bruise was gone and her coloring was normal.
She began to stir.
“What happened?” she asked, blinking in confusion. Then she brought her hands up with a look of horror. “Oh…they’re fine.” Her confused look deepened. “I thought…” She trailed off.
“It’s safe now,” I said to Rachel.
She and Jasmine came in and found me helping Felicia off the ground.
“What happened?” asked Jasmine.
“Yes, Ian,” Rachel said in accusation. “What did happen?”
I gave her a stern look. Then I pointed straight ahead and said, “Frozen mist.”
&
nbsp; Rachel winced and dropped her head forward. Obviously she got that she was again being an asshole. She cursed to herself.
“You’re kidding,” hissed Jasmine, staring at the mist with wide eyes. “There’s a goblin mage with the ability to do that?”
“Wait a minute,” said Felicia. “I did run into that mist…right?”
“You were close,” I lied. “Just as you were about to hit it, I knocked you out of the way. You landed on the ground pretty hard and passed out.”
“Oh.” She swallowed and blinked a few times. “Uh…thanks, Chief.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I motioned toward the frozen mist and waited for Rachel and Jasmine to dismantle it. That process took them a little over a minute. I had the feeling I could have done it in half the time.
“Let’s not move too fast from here on out,” I remarked to my officers. “We don’t want to run into any more of Spanx’s spells, especially since we’re all clearly shocked to learn the level of skills he’s truly got.”
“Agreed,” said Rachel. “I’ll take point.”
We moved as a single unit, going from room to room on this side area of the hotel.
It was one of the sections that all hotels in Vegas set aside for supers. Actually, you could find these zones pretty much everywhere in the world.
Most of the time they were occupied, though.
This place was barren.
That made me worry.
I had Boomy out and ready, though he honestly felt kind of useless compared to the flamethrower fingers thing I was sporting earlier.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked via a direct connection.
“I’m teetering on the edge, babe,” I confessed. “The amount of power I’m feeling is ridiculous. I honestly believe that I could just have you all go back to the office and kick your feet up while I singlehandedly stop crime in Vegas. And I mean all the crime in Vegas.”
“Right,” she said, keeping her voice calm, which was helping me to relax. “Just remember that this is all very new to you, Ian. You have to take control of it before it takes control of you.”
“Feels like I’m already on the losing end of that equation, I’m afraid.”
And it did.
If you’ve ever had a taste of power, you know what I’m talking about. But now multiply that by every instance of power you’ve ever felt and you’ll start to understand the breadth of what I was experiencing.
Put it this way, intoxication was too tame a word for it.
But I wasn’t stupid. I knew how power worked. It starts small, teasing you. Then you get a little more. Then you want a lot more. The proverbial snowball starts rolling, growing bigger and bigger until it’s so large that you can’t imagine anything stopping you. You feel invincible. But when something does stop you—and it inevitably will—it’s excruciating.
“Hang in there,” Rachel said. “Once we get these guys taken care of, I’ll give you a crash course in managing your magic.”
“And what about my fangs and desire to mark everything in the area?” I challenged. “And let’s not forget my sudden penchant for name-calling, either.”
I grunted at the realization that I’d not unleashed a torrent of names at Spanx. My guess was that I was simply too wrapped up in magic to do so.
Wait.
Maybe that was the key to all of this? Balance?
It made sense, actually. When magic flowed, my fangs also stayed in.
This was good information, assuming I was right.
We walked past an opening, when I sensed something wrong again. It wasn’t a spell this time, though. It was as if a mass of tiny minds decided it was time to end me.
“Goblins,” yelled Felicia as she cannoned into Jasmine and Rachel, driving them to the ground.
I dived in the opposite direction and rolled up to fire Boomy into another shield.
They turned their guns at me and smiled in unison.
My eyes did the smoldering thing in response.
“That’s it, you little green motherfuckers,” I bellowed like a crazed hyena, “it’s blood time!”
Chapter 11
At the rate I was moving, I had the feeling that using my Haste skill would probably have felt slow in comparison.
I kicked, punched, snapped, and every other violent word you could imagine as I tore through these guys. They had no chance. It was as though demons had possessed me, bringing along their pissed-off attitudes as luggage.
Bullets were flying from tommy guns and should have struck me more than once, but I was just too damn quick. No, I don’t mean I was faster than a speeding bullet. I wasn’t wearing a cape or anything. What I mean is that I was dodging gun barrels, staying just off to the side of automatic gunfire. As I decimated the goblins ranks, the dodging got easier and easier.
And then Spanx decided to hit me with an energy pulse.
I hated those.
They hurt so damn bad that I often curled up in the fetal position and whimpered like a baby.
Not this time.
This time I growled and launched myself at him.
He shrieked as I got my hands on his neck.
“Ian, no!” yelled Rachel through the connector. “We need him to help us figure out what the hell is going on here.”
I snarled and lightly head-butted the goblin. His eyes rolled up into his head and all of his goons started yelling, “We give up!” Their guns hit the floor as my crew rushed in and magically cuffed them all.
“Griff,” I said through a broadcasted connection, “we have everything under control in here. How is it going out there?”
“I shall answer that by stating that Ms. Rose has arrived,” he replied in his posh voice. “She is not pleased.”
“Is she ever?” The question was rhetorical. “Well, just do the best you can.” I then patched in to base. “Lydia, I’m guessing you already have Portman on the way?”
“He should be there already, lover,” she answered. “Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone but the goblins, yes.”
“Ah.”
We disconnected and I turned to Felicia. I needed her to get out of the room. Now. Whatever was going on between her pheromones and my werewolfness was not going to fly. Until I got things sorted out, we had to be kept separated. It was abundantly clear from the look in her eyes that she felt the same way.
“Can you handle Portman and his crew, please?” I asked her.
She gave me a quick nod and split.
“Is there something going on, Chief?” Jasmine asked as she peered up at me from her position cuffing the goblins. “You seem…different.”
“Rough morning, is all,” Rachel interjected. “We had another fight because he’s a big idiot.”
We hadn’t had a fight, obviously, but Rachel’s claim would hopefully prove to distract Jasmine for a while.
“Ah,” she said, not looking all that convinced. “I see.”
“Felicia knows,” I said via direct connection to Rachel. “She has to.”
“Then you may have to bring her in on it,” Rachel said, keeping her head down. “Just swear her to secrecy.”
I nodded to myself, seeing that neither of them was looking at me.
“I also need to be kept away from Chuck,” I noted. “He’ll sense the vampire. Shit…fact is that Jasmine is suspicious, too.”
My adrenaline was through the roof. I hated keeping my team in the dark about things. It was hypocritical. Wasn’t I the one giving tons of shit to the Directors right now because they were withholding information from me?
But was that even the same thing?
The information they had could help us defeat ubers…maybe. But what did my sudden influx of powers buy my crew, aside from me being really damn strong? They’d understand why I was being snippy, sure, but that could be easily attested to a hangover or, as Rachel had suggested, a lover’s quarrel.
“I’m going to have to be distant until I figure this out, Rachel,” I
mumbled. “It’s either that or bring the team in on things.”
She didn’t respond. Then again, she didn’t need to. What would she have said?
“Ugh,” came the moaning voice of Spanx as he began to regain consciousness. “What happened?”
“You lost, you little taint ridge,” I said, glad to hear the pixie in me had surfaced. “Half of your goons are dead and the rest of them surrendered.”
“Wise guys,” he grunted. “Ain’t easy gettin’ good henchmen these days, pal.”
“Don’t care,” I hissed, grabbing him by his collar. “What I do care about is knowing who put you up to this.” I shook him. “Spill it before I drain your blood, you ugly little foreskin wrinkle.”
His eyes went wide with fear. Then his brow furrowed and he slapped my hands away.
“Foreskin wrinkle?” he huffed. “What the hell’d ya call me that for?”
“Just answer the question, Spunx,” I growled.
“The name’s Spanx, pal,” he growled back, “and I don’t know the guy’s name.”
Ah ha! So there was someone who had put Spanx up to this. I had a feeling that a bunch of goblins wouldn’t dare take it upon themselves to jump topside for the fun of it, and Spanx had to know that he couldn’t have possibly succeeded in taking over a casino.
“What did he look like?” I pressed.
“How the hell do I know?” he answered. “You all look the same to me. Chins, tits, balls, and asses. That’s all I see. Sometimes all on the same person!”
“Fine,” I said, trying a different angle, “where did you meet him?”
“In the shadows, copper,” Spanx answered as if it were a dumb question. “We was on the fourth level in the Badlands, like always, when this lady summons me up out of the blue.”
“Lady?” I said.
“Yeah. Some wizard dame. She set the connection. The guy with her was the one doing all the wheeling and dealing.” He tapped on his silver tooth for a moment. “Said we was all going to get paid some big coin if we did a run on this joint.”
“What about your magic?” I asked him.
He eyed me sideways. “What about it?”
Curse of Fangs: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department) Page 4
