Feeding Frenzy (The Summoner Sisters Book 1)

by Allison Hurd

  “You’ve been showin’ the goods to every dude with eyes since you started walking again.”

  “Yes, between my job as a beer tub girl and trying to make up for your surly serial killer routine, I’ve had to play a little more docile than I generally would. But I was not ‘showing him the goods.’ He’s not my type.” I quickly quash the guilty memory of my brief encounter with the incubus. If only that came in a human model.

  She raises an eyebrow at me. “Whatever. Just…make sure he leaves and isn’t followed.”

  We turn out the lights in the room and watch as Dan gets in his car and eventually drives off. No other cars follow him out of the parking lot, or drive by at all for a good two minutes. It seems that he’s in the clear.

  “I can’t believe we got tailed,” I say when we’ve finished surveilling. “Especially by something as obvious as his ride.”

  “Tail, rides…maybe it was just karma’s way of getting us hooked up,” Lia jokes. “Speaking of tail, are titty bars even open this late?”

  “We don’t need more than one,” I tell her.

  “Oh?”

  “I know where she is.”

  CHAPTER 13

  “You mean the freakin’ thing just scooted next door?” Lia yells as we pack up the car.

  “Probably even has a little tunnel between the house and the strip joint,” I confirm.

  “God dammit! So, we just needed to walk like, ten feet, and we’d’ve had it?”

  “If my suspicions are correct, then yes.”

  “Didn’t the cops raid the nearby houses?”

  “Aha, but a strip club isn’t a house.”

  “Oh, come on. Surely they checked.”

  “And I’m just positive the cops wouldn’t have missed anything. Especially not a face-changing, gender-swapping Greek monster, intent on hiding its faithful baby mama.”

  “When you say it out loud like that, it forces me to consider that it is not protocol for the five-oh to check their witness’ feet, and then I can’t keep judging them.”

  “Oh, sorry. I meant it’s unaccountable of them. I’m a taxpayer and I demand answers.” I smile at her.

  “Really? A taxpayer now, are you?”

  “Well…like, sales tax, yeah. That counts.”

  We fly through the deserted streets of early morning Roanoke. We stop at Finnegan’s first to drop the GPS tracker off, and then go to the storage unit for the rest of our gear. Things are a little tight with Clyde, all three rows of seats and all of our earthly possessions in the car, but it won’t be long now. I’ve got a suspicion that if we don’t book it out of here tonight we may be in for a cozy stay with Detective Kline, which is very much not on my bucket list.

  Finally, we pull up in front of the house where we found all of the victims, and more specifically, the strip club next to it. I leave another charm to help hide our car from people unless they’re really determined to find it—I doubt it’ll work forever, but I’ll buy a few minutes any way I can. We get out and head to the front of the club. As expected, though the bouncer has probably bounced, the lights are still on, and music still emanates softly from inside “The Salt Lick”—a very rustic strip joint. The front door is locked, so we slip around to the side door.

  “Shit, there’s a guard here, too,” I whisper to Lia.

  “Leave the suits in the car for now, and follow my lead.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m not going any further than this without armor, and neither are you!” I might as well be talking to Clyde though, because Ophelia keeps drunkenly drifting forward anyways.

  “What are you doin’ here,” the guard asks us bluntly as we approach.

  “Um, someone told us to meet them here tonight,” I supply, when Lia just giggles.

  “Someone told you wrong. We’re closed.”

  “But…you don’t understand,” Lia slurs, walking unevenly up to him.

  “And what’s that?”

  “She said to meet her here.” Lia giggles again.

  “Yeah? She tell you to bring the gimp along, too?” The guard motions to me. So rude!

  “S’for her,” Lia says, falling into the guard.

  “Yeah, she said…she said I wouldn’t need both arms,” I say with a devilish smirk.

  “Girls, do you see what I do for a living? It ain’t gonna work on me. We’re closed.”

  “She’s gonna be mad,” Lia sing-songs. “Shouldn’t you at least ask? You wouldn’t want her to…stop, would you?”

  This makes the guard pause. “You wait right here.” He moves to head inside. Lia looks at me frantically, and I suddenly understand her plan. She kicks his knee out and I let him fall right into an uppercut, rendering him unconscious. Quickly, we grab his keys, headset and security badge and scamper inside, allowing the fire door to lock behind us.

  “Well done,” I say to Lia. “But maybe next time, fill me in on the plan before executing it, yeah?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How did you even know it’d work?”

  “I didn’t, really. But I could feel the toxin on the guard, so at least I knew he’d met our perp. I had about an eighty-five percent chance he was battin’ for one team over the other, so I took an educated guess.”

  “Coulda been bad…” I say, blushing as I think back to my own experience with incubus toxin.

  “Coulda. Wasn’t.” She smiles cheekily at me.

  I make a face at her, handing over the keys to the car. “Well, since I’m the ‘gimp’, and you’re apparently lady luck, how about you go get the stuff, and I’ll do a quick tour?”

  “Roger, roger.” She throws me a mock salute and saunters off to the front of the club.

  Inside, the club is all cement columns and gold lamé. It reeks of brass polish, cheap perfume, and dude. Getting my bearings, I find that the fire door is just behind stage right. I quickly peek into the front portion of the building—the house—and see that it’s empty. No audience, no dancers, no bartender even. But if the lights are still on, and the sound system is still going, then someone must be around.

  The fire door starts pounding, the muffled threats of the guard just reaching me.

  “Shh!” I say instinctively as I jump and brandish my knife at the sound. I take a deep breath and re-center myself back in the moment. The guard can’t get in through the fire door, and we’ve taken his keys and means of communicating with anyone else in the place, so he’s no threat to us. The worst that can happen is that he’ll run into Lia, and she’ll have to improvise. That doesn’t worry me too much. While I fear her getting taken from me by something supernatural, this guy’s just a guy, and she’s pretty good in a tight spot. I, on the other hand, am feeling less than confident all by my lonesome. I miss my armor and the use of both hands. I follow the eerie, bluish lights that are all that illuminate the backstage area to the space where the dancers must get ready with my steel knife in my good hand and an oaken practice knife in the left.

  Here, I see long mirrors lit from every direction by small yellow bulbs, and a pervasive dusting of glitter, sequins, and hairspray on the surrounding surfaces, but no signs of life. Same thing goes for the bathrooms right next to that. I continue down the slightly better-lit corridor containing the dancer’s lounge. To the right are a few private rooms for more intimate parties, I assume. I check the rooms. The first one is empty, containing only dirty highball glasses and vinyl surfaces. The next room I peek into contains a gentleman rapt with attention. He reaches outside of my vision for something, and I quickly close the door. Not the kind of action that interests me.

  In the third room, I hear low voices. Eventually the male voice stops. I stand at the ready, waiting for him to come out, but no one ever does. The female voice begins humming what sounds like a lullaby, but no other voice joins her. I remember what Lia said, about wanting to get the incubus somewhere to herself. There are two kinds of privacy: the kind where no one else is around, and the kind where everyone knows what you’re doing but they don’t ca
re. An abandoned house connected to a private showing room at a strip club? That’d be choice c—all of the above.

  “On to something?” Lia whispers in my ear.

  “Shit, Lia, I almost stabbed you,” I hiss back, trying to calm myself again.

  “You should be more observant. I’m lugging your armor and a quadruped.”

  “Your mother.”

  “I’m’a tell her you called her a goat. So. What’s in there?” she asks, focusing on the third door.

  “Well, there were two people. Either the dude is being quietly serenaded now, or he’s mysteriously gone,” I say darkly, stepping into my gear.

  “Most interesting.” She helps ease me into the jacket as best as I can manage with my arm all discombobulated. “Shall we have a look-see?”

  “I’ll cover.”

  She hands me Clyde’s leash and moves around me, keeping low as she turns the handle.

  “Who’s there?” a woman’s voice calls out as the door swings open. From my crouch, I can see a blonde woman in just a t shirt lounging on the booth-like couch area inside.

  “Think that’s Brittany,” I whisper to my sister.

  “Brittany Reynolds?” Lia inquires, standing up and moving into the room. We hear a soft epithet and the girl suddenly bolts for the far side of the little room. Lia moves to intercept her, while the goat and I handily block the only other escape route.

  “Whoa, whoa!” I say to her. “Let’s everyone take a deep breath. We’re here to help.”

  “Like hell you are. I don’t want your help,” the girl spits.

  “Well, that’s nice. Are you Brittany Reynolds?”

  Silence.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I say, keeping my tone conversational. I notice her slightly rounded stomach. My worst fears are confirmed. “And baby Reynolds, junior, I take it?” Her hand protectively comes up to her stomach.

  “You have no freakin’ clue,” she snarls.

  “Oh, I don’t, do I? Maybe y’all should fill me in,” I reply, closing the door behind my charge. “Where’s your baby daddy? We’ll get it all sorted out.”

  Brittany screams.

  “Dammit!” Lia yells, rushing forward to silence her.

  I look nervously at the wall that must contain the secret door. For a long minute, I expect the incubus to burst through, while Lia gently tries to keep the spawn-bearing girl quiet.

  “What’s going on in there?” a shout comes through the door at my back.

  “Shit. Lia. We gotta skidaddle.”

  “Move,” my sister says, pushing Brittany towards the other wall.

  “Help!” Brittany yells before Lia silences her again. The door knob starts to turn. I grab the small bistro table awkwardly with one hand and jam it under the doorknob, hopefully slowing down anyone who might try to follow us.

  “Let’s go find him, then. See? We don’t want to hurt anyone,” Lia lies, encouraging the girl to open the secret hatch. Brittany hesitates.

  “We could always make this room a little scarier now,” I threaten, pulling out the revolver I’ve taken with me today. While I don’t think pointing a piece at a pregnant girl will go on my Wall of Fame, it’s effective. She looks nervously at the barrel of my gun and turns resolutely to a poster hung on the wall and pushes it, revealing a hidden doorway that becomes a pitch black tunnel.

  “So far so good,” I say in low tones. “Now, tell the guy at the door everything’s fine.”

  Brittany starts crying, so I wave my gun a little.

  “False alarm, Joe,” she says between silent sobs. “Must have had a bad dream.”

  “Okay, Britt, be safe,” Joe says as he walks away.

  “Good. Easy, now. Let’s not spook anyone,” I warn quietly as I gesture to her to proceed towards the hidden door.

  Lia leads, with Brittany between us. We switch on our very chic head lamps, and stop midway between the strip club and what must be the basement of the house next door.

  “We’re just gonna hang here a sec,” I say as I close the door to the club side of the tunnel, maneuvering around Clyde.

  “I knew it! You’re here to kill us! I won’t let you hurt him!” Brittany launches herself at Lia, wrestling for her gun. Lia is having a hard time keeping the barrel from pointing at anyone. I rush forward to trap the girl’s right arm, allowing Lia time to grab the other. I trade Lia the hand I’ve secured and leave it to the uninjured person to do the grappling.

  “Whoa, let’s calm the fuck down,” Lia says as she helps the girl stand back up. “No. We don’t want to kill you. Really, we’re not here to kill anyone.”

  “Like hell! He told me all about you. Said you were afraid of anything different and wouldn’t hesitate to put us down like animals.”

  “Well, clearly your info is wrong—haven’t put anyone down yet,” I say soothingly.

  “You have freakin’ guns! How thick do you think I am?”

  I decide not to answer that. “No guns, see? Putting them away now.”

  I re-holster my weapon and put my hands up in a display of my peaceful intentions.

  “See? Isn’t that a little nicer?”

  “I don’t understand, then. Why are you doing this?” Brittany cries.

  “You carrying its baby?” I ask.

  “It’s not a baby,” she says reflexively.

  “Fine, you carrying its cambion?”

  That seems to surprise her. “You know what he is?”

  “No,” I say sarcastically. “We’re carrying a goat around with us on a quest to find some random dude. Yes, we know you’ve run off with an incubus.”

  “You don’t need to say it like that,” she snaps. “He’s been wonderful. He makes me happy after I’ve been miserable for so long.”

  “Brittany, he kidnapped seven people. He killed Cody.”

  “But he didn’t know any better! Where he’s from, there is no death. Food, water, all that are treats, not the necessities they are here. Once I told him, he changed.” In the harsh light of our head lamps, Brittany looks like she herself could be of another world. She is strikingly pretty. Her blonde hair slowly cascades down to frame her face, and her hands absently stroke her stomach in a picture of maternal perfection. Her dimpled face is lost in tender thoughts.

  “He changed when I asked him to. He won’t kill again.”

  “Brittany, you have to know that’s not how that works. People are food to him. One day, he’ll forget and do it again,” Lia tries to reason with her.

  “No! Not if I’m with him!”

  “So what, you’re going to follow him around forever? He’s going to move on. Or he’ll get too hungry, too greedy. Even if he doesn’t kill, he’s kidnapping people. Your parents think you’re dead.”

  “I might as well be,” she says bitterly. “Everyone says I should just get over Brian. ‘It’s time to move on,’ and ‘he wouldn’t have wanted this for you,’ they say. Well, I finally have what I want, and everyone just wants to take it from me!”

  “Brian? Your high school guy?” I ask.

  She nods, casting bizarre shadows. “I promised myself I wouldn’t love another man. Well, I haven’t! I’ve found someone who can’t die, and who isn’t just a man. It’s the only way I could move on.”

  She’s calmer now, but very emotional—God save me from sentimental humans. Lia and I look at each other. It’s not really worth trying to correct her impression. Someone who views their partner’s lack of humanity as a plus clearly isn’t going to be convinced otherwise by a couple of strangers. Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

  “Okay.” I tell her. “We didn’t understand. Now that we do, we’ll help.”

  Lia is all but waving her arms at me to tell me “no.”

  “Really?” Brittany asks, bewildered.

  “Yeah, really. We save people from monsters for a living. If you say he’s not really a monster, and it’s that important that you two stay together, we’ll do everything we can to keep you together. But you�
��ll have to help us. See, your…err…lover isn’t really fond of us. You’ll have to help keep him around while we sort everything out. Look, see? Lia’s putting her gun away, too.” My sister fumes at me, resentfully doing as I say.

  “You still pulled it on me. You were gonna kill me just for loving someone you don’t like!”

  “I certainly wasn’t gonna kill you, I just needed you to move fast. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” I can tell she’s not quite ready to start peace talks with us yet. “Brittany. We’re the only people who can help protect the cambion. Everyone else will think it’s just another monster,” I say, hoping to tip the scales.

  Her hand goes protectively to her stomach again.

  “Okay. I’ll do it.” I seem to have said the magic words.

  “And keep him from feeding on us,” Lia adds, glaring daggers at me.

  “Ah, yeah. That’d be helpful, too.”

  The pregnant woman’s face clouds. “We just can’t risk being distracted,” I lie. “If we’re going to do this before anyone finds you, we have to keep our pants—heads on straight.”

  “Right. I guess that makes sense.”

  Having come to a tentative peace, we proceed through the tunnel and end shortly in the basement.

  Lia takes one step in and freezes.

  “Lia, you have to move forward, we can’t get by—” I stop short when I see what’s captured her attention. In the puddle of light in front of my sister, Maithe Dweubhal sits on a strange little rock. Ophelia stands as if turned to stone, petrified with fear or anger at the sight of her longest enemy. Cursing the clumsiness of life with a sling, I reach into my pocket for a cube of sugar.

  “Hello, Ophelia,” the faerie says. “It seems the mortal years have been kind to you.” Lia remains unresponsive. I try to angle past the two girls crowding the doorway.

  “Have you missed me?” the small, purple being asks mischievously.

  “Fuck you,” comes my sister’s terse reply. Dweubhal cackles. I see a window of opportunity between the two people in front of me and throw my small projectile. Sugar is a serious addiction for Celtic underlings. If I can get her to take the bait, maybe I can get close enough to trap her so that we can send her back under the hill once and for all.