“He’s getting close, guys,” I warned my team. “I hope you’re ready for this.”
“Uhhh…” Sylvester said, finally, “none?”
“Ding, ding, ding!” I bellowed while clapping. “We have a winner!”
He smiled for a split second and then immediately shut it down. Some people were just too easy to fuck with. This probably wasn’t the best course of action when the person you were tormenting had your life in their hands, but I was never one to be intimidated by the criminal element.
“Look, Sly,” I pressed on, “I’m just saying that if you really want to be remembered as a guy who tried to do the same shit as every other baddie in the history of the city, go for it. But I’d wager that your legacy would be held in higher esteem in your shit-stained community if you shot for something fresh.”
He slowly began to smile as his head nodded.
“You’re trying to rile me up,” he stated. “I have to admit that it was well on its way to working, too. Sadly, you are dealing with a mind that is far superior to your own.”
“Right,” I said, nonplussed. “A mind that can’t think up anything better than taking over the city.” I snorted and turned to the closest set of vampires to me. “I can’t believe you’re actually following this pig fingerer. Honestly, was there a sale on evil overlords at Walmart or something?” I pointed at Sylvester. “He’s clearly from the Fucktard collection.”
“That’s it,” shrieked Sylvester. “Kill them now!”
Chapter 34
A set of hands reached for me and my fangs popped out, as did my claws. From the outside, I must have looked like Dracula and Wolverine’s love child. I dare not wonder who the mama was in that relationship.
I raked my claws across the nearest neck, which would have killed most things, but not a vampire. Well, not unless I’d done more than slice the guy’s flesh, anyway. It would have taken a much deeper cut. But it sufficed to have him clutch his throat and back away.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me around to find a fist flying in for the kill.
I ducked.
The sound of cracking knuckles against a soft nose perked me up, especially since it was followed by a resounding groan.
This gave me time to launch myself straight up. I brought my palm to connect with the underside of the chick’s chin who tried to punch me. Her neck snapped at the force of the blow. She tumbled to the ground.
But that just opened me up for another attack. Searing pain shot through my right bicep as a set of fangs sank deeply in. It hurt like crap, but just as I was about to tear that asshole away, I felt a fist hit the back of my head.
I wanted to call out to my team for help, but the chatter ringing out over the connector made it clear that they, too, had their hands full. A quick glance up their way showed fireballs, energy swirls, and ice barrages.
My initial thought was to get up there and help them out, but they had to deal with their fight and I had to deal with mine. Even if I had tried to get up there, I'd have died before making it halfway.
I decided to stay put and trust that they could handle themselves. They did just fine before I joined the Vegas PPD, so I had no reason to suspect that would change anytime soon.
It became clear pretty quickly that watching my crew's light show only sufficed to make me feel even more woozy.
But this was no time to keel over.
I had vampires to kill.
Digging deep, I pulled forth a round of energy and kicked backwards, sending my one attacker through the air. Then I jabbed my fingers into the eyes of the fucker biting my arm. He screamed and let go, hitting the ground at my feet. I jumped up and came straight down on his head, Bruce Lee style. Contrary to popular belief, crushing a vampire’s head is just as effective as putting a wooden spike through the heart.
There was no time to gloat over my handiwork, though. Another vampire cannoned into me from the side, driving me to the ground in the process. When we landed, I continued the roll and she flew off of me and struck the wall headfirst.
She died.
I didn’t have time to get back to my feet before another set of vamps were on me. It was all I could do to fend off their blows when I felt another one sink its fangs in my calf.
In case you hadn’t already guessed, I screamed.
I gotta tell ya, that shit hurt. Take the worst muscle cramp you’ve ever had, mix it with two long pointy teeth, and fill the holes with burning venom.
Not fun.
Unfortunately for that dude, it also launched another round of adrenaline through my system.
I brought my other leg over and kicked hard down on the guy’s head. He gurgled and there was a snapping sound. Not the neck this time, but rather the fucking thing’s teeth. They had broken off in my leg.
“Son of a cunt,” I growled as I reached up and knocked the heads together of the two vampires who were trying to punch my lights out. They stopped punching. I kept knocking. “Die, fuckers, die!” I hollered, paraphrasing the title of one of my new favorite poets from the nine levels.
They died.
“Are you guys okay?” I said through the connector as I dug the fangs out of my calf.
“We’re taking major damage here, Chief,” answered Felicia. “I’m going to have to get into werewolf mode.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Chuck warned. “They’ll all turn on you in an instant and you’ll die.”
And that’s exactly what would happen, which gave me the idea to force myself to go full wolf…assuming I could, anyway.
Rachel wouldn’t like it, but after all her fawning and swooning shit, I could deal with that. Besides, if I took the brunt of the damage, that would allow my team to survive this rout. Sometimes a chief’s gotta do what a chief’s gotta do.
“Stay in your human form, Felicia,” I commanded. “I’m going to go full wolf.”
“What?” Rachel blurted. “Don’t do that!”
“It’s for the best,” I replied. “Get ready to hit these guys, please.”
I kicked out at an incoming vampire, hitting him in the jaw. It wouldn’t kill him, but it was effective in knocking him out for the time being.
Another one came in, but this time I didn’t strike; instead, I caught her hand and spun her around so her back was against my chest. She raked at me with her nails, but I put the pain aside and focused on getting into wolf form.
My mind brought up visions of being up in the hills in the middle of the night. There was a full moon in the sky and the smell of fear was in the air. I was envisioning a hunt. No…wait…that wasn’t it. Something else was going on. It was…
I immediately snapped out of it and found that I was dry humping the vampire I’d been holding onto.
“Get off me, you perv,” she yelped, and then brought her foot up behind her, connecting perfectly with my nads.
Clearly, I’d had that coming, but it wasn’t like I’d done it on purpose.
As I hit the ground, cradling my bruised berries, I couldn’t help but think that the werewolf power flowing through my veins wasn’t quite intended for what I thought it was.
Chapter 35
“Stop!” commanded Sylvester from his pulpit. “I believe I shall be the one who gives him the final blow.”
I winced and looked up at him. “No offense, pal,” I said through gritted teeth, “but I’m not into dudes.”
“What?” he replied as a few of the vampires around him chuckled. He glanced at them and then groaned. “You have the mind of a teenager, Officer Dex.”
“Thanks,” I replied as the pain in my nuts began to subside.
Being a fast healer was sometimes brutal because you tended to feel the pain of healing more severely than the pain of breaking. But since my balls were already aching like a bitch, the reversal wasn’t any worse than the original hit.
Regardless, I still had to put on a show. I needed Sylvester to get closer, thinking he was going to be delivering the ultimate knockout punch.
I breathed out and squinted up at him.
“Why’d you bite me in the first place, Sly?” I asked. “If your plan was just to kill me, why didn’t you just do that when my back was turned?”
“Because I wanted you to serve under me,” he answered. Then he pointed at me irritably. “I don’t mean that in a sexual way, either.”
“Didn’t think you did. Perv.”
“I’m not a…” He huffed and gave me a dirty look. “Anyway, it became instantly clear that my venom did not work on you. Thus, it was obvious that you needed to die.”
“Makes sense,” I panted, staying curled up in the fetal position. “I would’ve done the same thing.”
He appeared shocked by this.
“You would have?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have tried to subjugate a bunch of people in the first place, Sly,” I pointed out, “but if I had done that for whatever reason…say, I was born with an incredibly small penis or something…then, yeah.”
“Are you inferring that I have a small member?”
“Inferring?” I answered. “No, Sly. I wouldn’t do that. I’m the kind of guy who says it like it is, ya know?”
“Good, because…” He paused and tilted his head and growled. “That’s it. I’ve had about enough of you.”
He pulled back his fist and dived directly down to punch me on the side of the head.
Unfortunately for him, I moved.
Punching a person’s head can hurt your knuckles something fierce, but hitting concrete is quite a bit worse.
“Ahhh!” Sylvester squealed as he held his limp hand. “You weren’t supposed to move!”
“Oh?” I replied, feigning sorrow. “My bad, Sly. I should have just let you kill me so you wouldn’t hurt your hand, eh?”
That’s when his fangs came out.
Of course, so did mine.
“Ian,” Rachel yelled through the connector, “we’ve got djinn incoming.”
“What?” I croaked as Sylvester lunged for my throat. I batted him away. “Why are they here?”
“How the hell should I know?” she spat.
“Well, find the fuck out, Rachel!” I shot back.
I should have expected her response, but I didn’t.
It was, “Oooh.”
I jumped to my feet just as Sylvester got to his. He obviously knew he was out of his league because the look on his face was one of fear.
“You are an uber, right?” I asked as we circled each other. “I mean, you don’t really theem like one, but you’ve been giving powerth and thit to people, tho it’th made me wonder.”
“Of course I’m an uber.” He pointed at his fangs. “Venom.”
“That’th it?”
“Yes. Why are you lisping?”
“Oh,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I haven’t gotten uthed to thpeaking with my teeth out yet.”
He nodded understandingly. “Ah, yes. It takes awhile. The main thing is to control your tongue. You have to pull it back a little when you speak.”
“Yeah?” I moved my tongue a couple of times. “Thankth for the tip.”
“No problem.”
He lurched forward, but I snapped out a jab that caught him right in the nose. That type of hit would usually draw blood, but seeing that he was a vampire, not much happened aside from a whistling that sounded with each breath.
“The djinn are touching all of the vampires,” Rachel informed me.
“What, like, inappropriately?”
“No, you idiot,” she replied. I can’t believe I actually missed her calling me that. “I’m saying that they’re knocking them all out.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
Sylvester tried to lunge at me again.
I punched him again in response.
This time I connected with his eye. Now he was whistling and winking. It looked rather humorous, from my perspective, but his face held a visage of fury.
“Damn it!” he yelled at his minions. “Hold him so I can kill him.”
But it was already too late.
The djinn had been funneling through the crowd and vampires were dropping like flies. Or was it dropping like bats? They didn’t really turn into bats or anything, but…well, never mind.
I took a step forward and faked a punch at Sylvester. Once he brought up his hands to block, I full-on soccer kicked him in his cajones.
He fell over and began to whimper.
“Doethn’t feel tho great, doeth it?” I taunted him and then I pulled my fangs back in. “I mean, I know you didn’t kick me in the danglers, but one of your subjects did, so turn around is fair play.”
One of the djinn started to reach for Sylvester.
“No,” I warned, pointing at her. “Don’t touch him. He’s an uber. It could kill you.”
It was Elaine.
Her face went red with anger, but she backed away.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay out of this?” I snapped at her. “We had everything under control.”
“On the contrary,” she argued. “When we walked in you were on the ground about to be killed, and the rest of your officers were already damn near overrun. You wouldn’t have lasted another minute had we not shown up to save your asses.”
She had me there. The fact was that I probably could have gone into a rage and started killing everyone with magical mayhem, but the majority of these vampires didn’t deserve that. Just like the sentry dude who had tried to help Elaine when he’d thought she’d hurt herself in a fall.
“Fair enough,” I acquiesced. “Still, what if your people had been hurt?”
She scanned the area. “A few of them were, in fact. But they all knew what they were getting into.”
“Can you cure them all, by chance?” Chuck asked Elaine as my crew walked over. He pointed at Sylvester, who was still busily clutching his marbles. “They were all poisoned by him.”
Elaine nodded and the djinn who were still standing closed their eyes and began whispering something I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t as bad as the wizard’s pygmy chants when they ran spells, but it was still odd sounding.
Like a bunch of zombies, all the vampires stood back up. Well, all of them except for Sylvester, of course.
After a few moments, Elaine and the rest of the djinn heaved and opened their eyes in shock. I grabbed her before she fell over, but many of her underlings hit the ground. Obviously, Sylvester’s poison ran deeper than just blood.
“Are you okay?” I asked, to which Elaine nodded as she blinked a few times. “I’m guessing you can’t cure them?”
She shook her head. Her face and coloring told me I was about to have fresh puke on my shoes. I turned her at the last second and she horked all over Sylvester.
“That’s disgusting,” he railed, but he still maintained his fetal position.
The doors kicked open a second later and in came Serena and Warren. They were both holding what looked like automatic weapons.
“Get down, Chief,” yelled Warren. “We’ve got this.”
“No!” yelled Chuck as my wizard and forensics expert began firing.
Griff launched himself at Chuck, knocking his partner to the ground as the rest of us, djinn included, all hit the deck.
“Stop!” I commanded through the connector at Serena. “Stop firing right now!”
She did.
But it was too late.
All of the vampires were down.
Chapter 36
“What have you done?” Chuck stammered, staring at the fallen bodies. “They’re your own people, Serena!”
Before she could respond, a few of the vampires began moving around.
“What happened?” said one of them.
“Where am I?” said another.
Within thirty seconds, they were all awake and looking around like a bunch of people who had just roused from a night of heavy drinking.
I tilted my head at my two gun-wielding agents. “Serena?”
She walked over and set dow
n the gun. Then she took out a small, pellet-sized projectile from her pocket, and handed it over to me. It looked kind of like a BB, but it was red instead of copper.
“When we got back to the shop,” she explained, “Warren and I immediately started working on the blood we’d taken from the werebear and the werewolf. Using Warren’s magic and my healing capabilities, we were able to synthesize an anti-venom.” She took a breath. “Then we brought in Turbo and got him working. Fortunately, he had already been developing these little pellets, so it was somewhat serendipitous that he had them ready to test just as we needed them.”
“Nice,” I said, smiling big. “So, everyone here is cured, then?”
“They should be,” she answered.
Chuck, clearly unable to contain himself, reached out and gave both Serena and Warren a big hug.
“Any permanent damage to your guys?” I asked Elaine. “It appears we have a cure, if so.”
“No, no,” she answered with a wave of her hand. “We were just mentally blocked by the vampires. A block like that feels like you’ve smacked your head against a brick wall. We’ll be fine.”
“Great.” I took a deep breath and put my hands on my hips. “Well, it looks like this little fiasco is over.”
And that’s when Sylvester did something I didn’t realize he was capable of.
He made some weird sign with his free hand—the other was holding his damaged junk.
A blue light surrounded him almost instantly.
Then he disappeared.
But not before grabbing my leg.
Meaning, I ended up going with him.
Chapter 37
My vision was blurred when I came to. I tried to shake it, but it took a lot of effort. When I went to rub my eyes, I found that I was tightly chained in the shape of an X.
“What the shit is going on?” I mumbled, each word resulting in a pounding sensation in my head. “Did you do this to me, Sly?”
In response, I felt the sting of a very hard slap across my cheek.
Curse of Fangs: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 6 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department) Page 12
