by John Conroe
Chapter 21
Credit where credit is due. The new digs were several levels better than our old place. A five-bedroom, four-bathroom, newly constructed home set square in the middle of a four-acre spread just on the outskirts of town. A high brick wall surrounded the place and the automated gates were solid: no bars to see through. Even a pool for the kids and the family werebear-wolf to play in when they got up from their half-day nap.
“So you just walked into the old house and gathered up our stuff?” I asked an airborne Declan as he jumped off a furry Kodiak dive platform whose soggy head and shoulders rose another five feet out of the eight-foot-deep pool. His cannonball splashed water onto the hot cement patio, where it instantly evaporated.
“We waited till the stakeout team got called back to vamp headquarters, scanned for bugs and cameras, and then snagged our gear,” Stacia said, riding out the waves her boyfriend had just generated on a light blue float, eyes closed to the bright afternoon sun that was starting its descent to the west.
“And they didn’t leave any bugs behind?” I asked as our lanky warlock surfaced behind the giant furry lump that was my bear-wolf. ‘Sos was staring into the water, slamming his barrel-sized head down below the surface, bobbing for pool toys that probably belonged to the homeowners’ grandchildren. Ursine fishing instincts must be strong, I thought.
“Oh, lots. But as long as we knew they were there, we could defeat them. They did leave a Cabelas trail camera, too. Would have missed it, but Stacia sniffed it out. We deleted that one last,” Declan said.
“And they’re looking for an entirely different couple?” I asked, flipping each of the inch-and-a-half-thick T-bone steaks on the big, expensive built-in grill. The poolside sported a complete outdoor kitchen and we were fixing up a hell of a feed. The vampire half of our team was sleeping inside, safe from the surprisingly strong December sun.
“About that,” Declan said, looking at Stacia. She lifted her head and shaded her eyes to look my way.
“They were… for about an hour. Then they found a witness who described the two of us pretty thoroughly,” she said. “She was actually a tarot card reader who really has some talent.”
“There’s a Vegas psychic with real powers?” I asked.
“I know, right?” Declan asked before submerging and attempting to swim up under his were-girl. I could have told him that supernatural hearing will defeat most pranks every time. She simply kicked off Awasos’ back and shot into the shallow end just as he came up under her previous spot.
“Nice try, Aquaman,” she snorted. He splashed cold water on her, which earned him a deadly glare that he promptly ignored.
“I thought water was anathema to your powers?” I asked, noticing that Stacia’s feet were touching the top step of the pool stairs.
“It is. I can’t do shit in here. Still like swimming from time to time, though,” he said, making the mistake of watching me.
In one smooth move, the bikini-clad beauty shifted her weight onto the step, couched down, and jumped ten feet to tackle her boyfriend and plunge him underwater. That’s as far as her attack went, though, because werewolves have no body fat and very dense muscles and bones. They sink like stones, a fact that she would have immediately demonstrated if not for the furry wall that was ‘Sos. She grabbed handfuls of fur and pulled herself to the pool’s side. ‘Sos didn’t even notice her efforts, his mouth full of a hard plastic toy submarine he’d just plucked from the pool’s bottom.
Declan came back up sputtering but grinning. Kicking twice, he reached her side, jumping up and turning to sit poolside.
“So what are we gonna do about Dragan and Louanna?” he asked.
“We’re gonna hit them hard as soon as night falls. You sure you’ve got that stone hidden?” I asked him.
“It’s still getting hid. When it’s done, it will be directly under the bottom of this pool,” he said.
I had turned the shard of fossil over to him as soon as we’d gotten to the house. It was Stacia who identified the fossil as a metoposaur, a giant prehistoric amphibian that swam in the shallow sea that had covered this part of Nevada. We had forgotten she was studying zoology part-time at Columbia with a minor in paleontology. The kid had felt the power of the object, immediately insisting on burying it deep underground. Damnedest thing. He simply set the oddly shaped rock on the open dirt ground near the pool and it had sunk down like a B-grade movie explorer in quicksand.
“She hasn’t been there long, but I guarantee she’ll have spells, booby traps, and wards out the ass on that club,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ll clear them.”
“You are entirely too excited to raid this stripper palace,” Stacia noted with a slight growl in her voice.
“Yup, that’s me—craving undead lap dances,” he said, moving over to inspect my work at the grill. “Ummm, that’s smelling really good. Close to done?” he asked.
‘Sos whipped around, dropping another toy and focusing all his predatory attention on my offerings to the grill gods.
“Good going, warlock. Now you’ve got the pig bear’s attention,” Stacia said before jumping sideways to avoid the brown bulldozer that arrived at pool’s edge to heave his bulk out.
The resulting waves swamped the blond beauty harder than all of Declan’s efforts combined.
Eighteen hundred or so pounds of bear sloshed half the pool across the patio stones before stopping at my side. I saved the steaks by throwing him another of the slabs of still uncooked salmon that were part of the massive supplies the kids had picked up on their way to the house.
“Okay, they’re as done as they’re gonna get. Let’s eat before he finishes off all that fish,” I said, slapping three steaks on my plate, two onto Stacia’s, and one on Declan’s.
There were a couple of tubs of store-made potato salad and cold beer on the high-end outdoor table set, and that was it. Easy to cook for high-metabolism types.
“So what’s our assault plan?” Declan asked again, diving into his steak with the same zeal he’d shown diving into the pool.
“We first need to get the civilians out,” Tanya said from the shadow of the rear sliding glass doorway.
I started to get up to go to her but she waved me back down with a quick glance at Awasos, who was making scary inroads in the mound of fish in front of him. “Eat while you can. The stomach with teeth is faster than you.”
“Any idea of how to get them out?” Declan asked. Stacia ignored Tanya, focusing on her food. They were never going to be real friends, but at least the verbal sniping had stopped.
“Actually, I woke up with all kinds of ideas. Let me roust the others and we’ll hash it out all at once,” my vampire said.
So we ate our food—in a hurry because ‘Sos finished first and came looking for ours next. The kid fought a delaying action by tossing a half-empty bucket of potato salad at the beast. That held him off for three minutes, then Declan gathered the bones of Stacia and my first steaks along with his own remains and placed them under the hungry Hoover. Their crunching, snapping reduction to crumbled splinters bought enough time for our second steaks, after which those bones also fed the monster. I made it through two-thirds of my third steak when he came for his due. I split the last third, took the boneless portion, and tossed the remainder into his gaping bear mouth.
Polite applause greeted my actions. “Nice team effort. Well fought. Special mention to Declan for his meritorious actions in the face of unrelenting gluttony,” Lydia said from the now-shadowed fire pit area. The little vamp was still yawning and had her legs curled under her. Next to her, Nika sat rigidly upright, eyes clear and bright, a small smile of excitement on her face. Of course, she already knew Tanya’s plans. Doc Singh, looking trim and dapper in a gray suit with a silver tie, was checking my vampire’s vitals while Arkady rummaged in another cooler for a bag of blood. That had to be getting old. In the Big Apple, he had people who sought out the position of dinner. On this trip, it was Red Cross MRE’s all the w
ay. And we’d just had Western steak.
“So what mayhem and disorder bubbled up in your Id while you were sleeping?” I asked Tanya.
“Thanks for asking. Here it is: we need to get all of the dancers, employees and guests out of the Painted Horse before we can assault it. How? Well what motivates women to dance for men?”
“Ah, money?” Lydia said.
“Exactly! Money and maybe a little attention. What motivates the men who go there?” Tanya asked.
“Tits, ass, and booze,” Declan guessed.
“Right again. So here it is.” And she laid it all out. There was extended silence when she finished.
“You think they’ll help us?” I asked.
“They’ve sworn oaths to protect the country from just this sort of thing. Of course they will help,” my vampire said.
“And you think the pot will be sweet enough to get everyone out?” Lydia asked.
“If these two do their jobs right,” she said with a nod at Declan and Stacia, “—then the pot will be like sugar water. Omega can easily handle all the communications needs. Right?” she asked the forty-six-inch television flatscreen mounted under the patio gazebo.
“Texting all cell phones within the Painted Pony at the same time will not be difficult. I cannot , however, keep the text from getting into the hands of the witch or her offspring,” Omega said.
“It won’t matter or actually, it’ll be better if they do see it. Their own suspicions and curiosity may reduce their interference with the guests and staff leaving. Ideally, they’ll come out too, but I don’t anticipate that,” our blue-eyed general said.
“Probably won’t get everyone,” Nika said.
“No plan survives contact. Murphy and his damned law. It’s the best we can do. We can’t take the chance of letting them have any more time. Look how hard it was for our dynamic duo to assault the paper mill,” Tanya said.
“In our defense, we were saddled with some rookies, and I didn’t have much in the way of exterior power to borrow,” Declan said.
“And this will be better?” Lydia asked.
He snorted. “She’s only been there a few days, while we all work as a well-honed team, and this is Vegas. If I can’t find enough power to blast their asses here I don’t deserve my black pointy hat.”
“Right, so let’s get to it,” my vampire said, a nasty grin on her beautiful face.
“As long as you direct from the back,” Doctor Singh said. “Doctor’s orders.”
Chapter 22
The kids were back in short order, a plastic grocery bag of cash in Stacia’s hands.
“There, now the pain is evenly spread across all the casinos,” Declan said as his werewolf handed the money over to Lydia.
“The big paved lot next to the Pony is now booked for a one-night event, city permits cleared courtesy of Stewart and company,” Nika said.
“Found local DJ with space in schedule for, how you say, geeg,” Arkady said.
“Getting old, Arkady. How you say buulll sheeeet?” Declan said.
The giant vampire warrior eyed the college kid half his size with glittering dark eyes. The kid looked calmly back. In a fight, Arkady was a killing machine, honed by centuries of practice and experience, powered by vampire muscles grown stronger with age. I’d still pick the kid for the win. Declan’s family had been breeding for him throughout almost all of Arkady’s long life and the kid’s long-dead German ancestor had bequeathed him all the knowledge of hundreds years of combat spell craft. And he breathed and sweated those spells like they were coded on his DNA. If Arkady was a main battle tank, Declan was a tactical nuke.
“Da,” the giant said with a pointed-tooth smile.
The kid snorted and both of them turned back to the planning.
“Whew, what’s that stink? Oh yeah, testosterone,” Lydia said. “The event planning company I hired swears they can have the stage set up in under thirty minutes to get that time-based bonus payment.”
“Omega?” Tanya asked, calmly ignoring all the banter.
“I’ve identified all the individual cellular devices within the Painted Pony establishment and, of course, am monitoring any who leave and new ones that arrive. I am ready to broadcast the message upon your request,” our quantum AI said.
“Okay, let’s go raid a witch’s strip club,” my vampire said.
Three hours later found us watching as Arkady’s local DJ finished his hurried soundchecks, our little production having already gathered attention from both the strippers arriving to work and some of the Painted Pony’s clientele. The free booze giveaways from a local craft distillery trying to drum up attention hadn’t hurt a bit.
It also didn’t hurt that Stacia, Lydia, and Nika were crowding around the little check-in table that Declan was helping to man, along with a few other women and even a couple of men. The kid had a stack of forms and multicolored grease sticks that he had used to write competitors’ numbers on the bare legs and shoulders of the small group of contestants, but most of his attention was on the Painted Pony.
A few of the Pony’s arriving strippers had even approached the table, asking what was going on.
Lydia excitedly informed them of the impending dance competition and its taping for a reality show. She’d even pointed to Stewart’s film crew, who looked pretty legit, mostly because they were going to actually film the events of the night.
We had contacted Stewart through Omega, explained the potential situation with the powerful Yellowstone fire elemental, and asked for help. He agreed with both our analysis of the threat potential and most of our plan. The result was that much of our fake event was manned by his people.
Omega, who had been watching and analyzing the strip club since he had discovered Louanna and Dragan’s presence there, informed us that the club would probably reach maximum attendance by both dancers and clients sometime time between eleven-thirty p.m. and one a.m. On a good night, that translated to over two hundred dancers and up to a thousand clients, most of whom would consist of bachelor parties and groups of trade show attendees.
The world’s most powerful AI then sent out its cell phone message several times, notifying anyone and everyone of the cash prize competition that would happen in the parking lot adjacent to the Pony’s parking area.
It was only nine twenty-seven when our DJ started playing music and our fake contestants began to dance. Surprisingly, we already had a sprinkling of the club’s professionals competing as well. Actually, not all that surprising, as our stated cash prizes were thousands of dollars and we were giving all entrants a two-hundred dollar fee, in cash, in exchange for agreeing to be filmed.
Our dilemma had been how to empty a nightclub of strippers who had to dance for their living, along with their drunk clientele, who were there to see naked women. The answer we came up with was to pay the dancers more, offer them a chance for even greater monetary awards, provide an opportunity for television recognition, and offer free booze to their admirers. Along with lots of skin, of course.
We may have underestimated just how low morale had become in the Pony, as we quickly had a crowd of dancers and much of their fans at our little production. Several of the Pony’s managers had half-heartedly approached our staff, demanding to know how we got the permits to do this right next to their club. But their hearts weren’t really in it and I noticed none of the Pony’s middle management felt they needed to return to their own club.
I’m sure if any legitimate production company attempted such a stunt prior to the new management, there would have been hell to pay. But faced with real Hell right in their place of work, well, our little show became a welcome diversion.
Our biggest error in judgement came from putting Declan at the check-in table. Strippers flirt professionally. It increases their paychecks. Putting a young male in between them and some significant free money was bound to bring that out. The result was a very jealous blonde werewolf hovering near her boyfriend. The whole thing would go to hell if she th
rew somebody across the dance floor or, worse, burst out of her skin.
Tanya, who was coordinating with Stewart and Adine, recognized the issue very quickly and our young witch was relieved of duty by one of Oracle’s people. He wisely stood next to Stacia after that and watched her dance with some of the fake contestants.
At ten of ten, my phone buzzed. I noticed Declan, Arkady, and Tanya all looking at their own phones at the same time, the others not having any pockets in their booty shorts.
My text read: Internal cameras show only eleven dancers and twenty-three guests still in the Pony. Other staff is down to eight. Overhead thermal readings indicate two living bodies, one of which has an average body temperature of one hundred two degrees Fahrenheit, currently stationary in the Appaloosa Room with six much cooler forms surrounding them.
On a separate note, Yellowstone vulcanologists are monitoring a sudden deformation of the park’s surface, along with increased seismic and thermal activity. NASA’s MODIS satellite, which is commonly tasked with thermal measurements of the park’s caldera, just detected a sizable increase in temperature across the entire park. The Volcano Hazards team hasn’t yet analyzed the information, but I have. A thermal bloom is moving southwest across the park at five-point-six miles per hour.
